Hello all,
It would be nice to have a new option when creating a character to essentially enable a “Live of the Land” option, in modern times the “Solo Self Found” label has been used, although LotL, or the way I interpret it is a bit different and goes a bit deeper. I’ve written extensively about this at my forum, however I’ll post some of the core definitions below:
One of the definitions I’ve found online describes LotR as:
Live off the Land is a purist play style in which a player only uses items his character finds themselves. No trading, twinking or muling is allowed.
Variants
Different players have different rules for this play style, and individual variance is to be expected.
The purest style of LotL, a ruleset that partially overlaps with ironman style, does not even allow a character to buy items from NPCs. They may only use items they actually find from monsters or objects.
I remember many years ago I was writing up the definition of what I think “Solo Self Found” meant and I was arguing that there are actually two types of SSF:
The first type of SSF is what I consider “Player-based SSF”, and the second type is “Character-based SSF”.
Player-based SSF revolves around the human being playing the game. Thus you are collecting items, and storing them in your own stash, and all of your characters can share that wealth. Almost as if all of your characters are living in the same world or are in the same family guild, and thus you - the human - are basically the guild bank. Your characters’ actions and lives impact each other and your future characters. Thus a “twinking” scenario is automatically created through this use of the shared stash.
Character-based SSF revolves around the individual character. Each character is isolated from each other and each live in their own instance of the world and its history. Thus “solo” is about the character itself. At a high level, this seems identical to the definition for “Live of the Land”. Since your characters are isolated, there is no possibility for twinking and trading. Thus only personal (not shared) stashes are used.
In modern times (probably for at least the last 10 years), when someone says “SSF”, they are usually referring to the “Player-based SSF” definition.
Part of what this mode would do is primarily to disable the shared stash feature of the game. Of course we could (and probably already are) ignore the shared stash feature, however it would be cool to have some sort of distinction for deciding to play the game without the shared stash. Now things like disabling the respec feature of the game would also be nice as well and would allow a more traditional (and I guess I can argue more hardcore) version of the game, as we know, older versions of Diablo II (for example pre 1.13 - and definitely the Blizzard North versions of the game, 1.00 - 1.10) and Diablo I didn’t have a respec feature, thus decisions mattered more and careful consideration needed to be made. This doesn’t need to necessarily be bundled with LotR so it would either need to be some other option, or perhaps the LotR + No Respec + Whatever other restrictions we think we want to add could be a different optional way to begin the character. This option would not be reversable (similar to selecting the Hardcore option upon character creation).