How do you guys get 40/40 in a few weeks?

"

Jixa87 wrote:

Few tips, the people who get 40/40 in the first week typically work in a team as a guild which makes progression significantly faster cause multiple people can focus on different challenges and work with each other to help.

Build choice is vital for progression, if you choose a build that can't farm t17s early then you'll be significantly slower than everyone else who chooses a build that can clear ubers early.

Atlas choice is vital for progression, if you have a bad atlas you're not going to get optimal currency. It's about as important in combination with the build you choose. This is often overlooked as many players will just pick an atlas and stick with it not realising it's the reason they're not getting currency.

100% agree.. I'm noticing a few things this league that I never put together before... (not sure why it clicked this league, but)....

Didn't give much advice because I don't think I'm really in a position to teach something I can't do my self. Though, since I believe we are probably very similar in ability, I can give some advice on some thing that I know I would need to improve if I wanted to improve to the level you are talking about.

So basically you are able to do what you want, just doing it faster is a challenge.

I think you have mentioned the main thing, preparation. Along with acquired knowledge. You don't necessarily need to know everything to be able to achieve this in two week, but it all adds up. A lot of these players will either know the game extremely well from playing a large number of leagues, or know their build back to front because they play it constantly, or a combination. They will know a range of other things as well. For example, I know a lot about the game, but this is only my second league in trade league. I understand trading in general pretty well, largely from playing other games, but I don't have it optimized. I don't have live searches preset for my build, I don't have all the third party tools and platforms set up to interact with, I don't have a great knowledge of what items are valuable to sell on what day of the league and so on. This is not necessary to know. I'm sure many people have achieved this on SSF. It's one example of many things that can be optimized. No player knows everything about the game, but there are so many aspects that come together to do this at speed. You don't need to be good at all of them, a bit like your build it self. If you are not completely across how the trading market works, you might be able to pick up the lost time by being very good at crafting your own items, as an example.

Saving time is probably the biggest thing. I spend a huge amount of time during the league tinkering with and learning my build. I will be min/maxing my build or tabbing out to learn mechanics while playing, be it online or POB or just sitting in town. This would certainly be more time than I spend actually in combat. This league I did a fair bit of preparation and practice, it made a big improvement, but was a long way from knowing the build, back to front. I played a non-meta build, which I put together myself and had never played before. The practice made me confident it would work pretty well. It exceeded what I expected it to achieve. If I played it again I would probably be twice as fast though, because of the knowledge I was learning along the way.

It's not all preparation, that is a big part, but some players will be very good at adapting as they play. You may get bad currency early on, or you may drop something you weren't expecting and need to know how to use it to it's full potential. This is less relevant in trade league where things even themselves out a bit, but is still important. Some things are out of your control. This league a big part of my strategy for levelling on day one was to use intimidating cry for movement speed. It was bugged. Over the course of the league, this is not huge event, I think it actually got fixed on the first day, but I spent time trying to figure out if it was working, posting on bug forum etc. No drama, but things will come up from time to time that are unexpected. Knowing how to adapt to those unexpected events, good or bad, will help with overall speed.

Interacting with the league mechanic. From what I've seen, in general early on, a lot of people will avoid this, because it is an un known quantity. Some people will have a very good idea of how it will work before the league. An example from this league is the enchants. Some people going into the league already have planned out what the optimal enchant for their build was. So knowing whether or not it is going to be beneficial to interact with the league mechanics, and just generally know how it works, so you save time instead of learning as you go. I enjoyed this league mechanic, but if I was trying to speed run the achievements it would of been much faster for me to be running content that I've learned in the past.

Some other general thing that slow me down. Picking up too much loot. Basically any time that is not being in combat, like spending a minute vendoring gear between maps, instead of loading them instantly and running them back to back. Not knowing which fragments are the best combination and most economically useful. There are times when it is good to slow down and make good decisions about which path to take, there are other times where this is just a waste of time. Dying. Doing content that is too difficult for the build. Wasting currency. Inefficient trading. Not having an optimised or planned out atlas. Not knowing aspects of endgame, such as what t17 mods do. Improvement on bossing. Knowing the most efficient XP farming methods. Getting stuck in gameplay or too focused on killing mobs that aren't rewarding. Stash and inventory space organization.

I think the main thing is still to have fun though. If you are making the game a chore by forcing things, like having to farm xp instead of enjoying the league, it will probably be worse in the long run, unless the thing you really enjoy is optimizing all these things or racing. What you are trying to achieve is not unrealistic, you probably need to do some analysis after you finish up this league and think what are the things that slowed you down the most. Like did your build hit a big wall at some point. Did you get sidetracked on something, did you not plan something. Is there something in particular you need to learn before next time. You will have a better knowledge of this than anyone else. Once you identify those things, it should be much easier to improve how fast you can do them.

Usually I start wrapping up the challenges after I finish the mapping grinds (eg. complete 2000 maps/10000 IIQ maps/5000 map mods, etc).

By the time I complete the "10000 maps challenge", usually I can clear all content and I have enough maps/scarabs/currency to respec the atlas in any shape needed for conditionals, cross contaminations, etc.

Ton of great information here, and I've started to re-evaulate how I want to play next league. I know things are going to change a ton before next leaguestart and I always tell myself that and dont plan ahead till right before the launch, then for whatever reason I dont prep enough before and just play it by ear.. I'm not a good enough player to do that I've realized this league, I need to go into next league 100% sure on a plan, even have a backup build in case my first build isn't working (Same Archtype, so not a reroll, just respec into something different).

Going to re-read through all these again and then take more notes.. Thank you every that has contributed here, its helped a LOT...

THANK YOU!

^You can easily reach 40/40 this weekend. You only need to complete ~100 maps, let your atlas runners do their thing, and use like 15-20 div worth of currency for the 2 crafting challenges. Good luck!

"

I always tell myself that and dont plan ahead till right before the launch, then for whatever reason I dont prep enough before and just play it by ear..

There is just so much to learn, there is 10 year of information and there will be all the information being added in. It is not possible to learn everything. When practicing just focus on some of the main areas you can improve. I did a ton of practice this league, pretty much the first time ever for about 2 weeks before the league. First week I practice speed running campaign, which is one of the things I'm pretty slow at. Mainly act 1-3 about 30 times and the full campaign about 10 times. Which at my speed is a fair bit. Then patch notes came out and a lot of that went out the window and a lot of that time was trying to learn the incoming information. It's possible to do too much as well though. You can get burnt out, and actually I haven't played as much this league as last league, because it becomes too much.

I'm in a thread with a very new player during this lead up, who the day after the patch notes is trying to learn the entire game before league launch. Great enthusiasm, but just has no Idea how big the thing is. Your goal is much more realistic, but it still may take leagues to achieve. The goal post shift as well, new things get added, the challenges I assume are relatively about the same each league in difficulty, but you will have to do more than you are doing now, because the game gets extended. Realistically, are you going to be doing this many more times. I've heard someone suggest they might not actually do another league before the launch of POE2. Only speculation, but I could see that happening. If you have decided you will stay on POE anyway and continue doing all the leagues fair enough, but I would think there is a good chance you might be playing the new game. Learned knowledge will still be useful, and you might stay or come back to POE, but it's just something to think about if you are very focused on doing this, other things might come up.

Sometimes you need to slow down to learn things as well. I was playing SSF HC leagues a few years back, but didn't learn all the mechanics because you end up in a loop of character building, mainly I didn't know the bosses at all. I then played standard ruthless (not the fastest way to learn endgame), and skipped a couple of leagues so I could learn these mechanics. You seem to already know this stuff, but there might be some other things, like stopping the league once you get your achievement to start practicing. This is not always that fun, the practice I did was useful, a lot of it was fun, but also be careful not to miss too many experiences because you are driven to reach an arbitrary goal. If it's not fun repeating campaign for you or what ever you are learning, try and find another way to learn it.

"

I dont prep enough before and just play it by ear.. I'm not a good enough player to do that I've realized this league

Just be realistic. There are a lot of players in the community looking at other players and wanting to achieve the same result. In some case, some of the differences come because they are comparing with someone that has tens of thousands of hours more experience. In other cases they may have less real world commitments, and can be more focused, or may be earning a source of income through playing the game so can treat it as a profession, or have means that allows them to not need to do that. Another very good point someone made, is that unless you are playing SSF, people may be using a whole range methods that allow them to go faster than you doing it on your own. Grouping is a big one, that has become a bit overpowered in recent leagues from what I've seen. Not a huge issue, but I think SSF levelling was basically on par with group trade a few years back. In recent leagues I don't think this is the case, with 5 ways and some advanced trading options that are being used currently. Some people are also hooked in to communities, able to get up to date information on relevant information before it is the main stream knowledge through one way or another. It's good that there is many ways to play the game, though it not always a completely level playing field if you are treating it as a competition, unless you see all these other aspects as being part of the competition.

There are also people playing the game, on their first character, who have no idea how basic mechanics works, but have more high end items in some cases than everything accumulated in my whole time playing the game. They haven't found that themselves, they've gotten it through some other means. No problem, that's part of modes that aren't SSF. It's only a problem if you are judging your experience based on theirs. Your playing the game completely differently if you are doing it solo. Different league flags allow for grouping different sets of players which helps with progression competition if that is something you are interested in. However, particularly in SC trade, where it's no holds barred, you might be in some ways handicapped against someone you are using as a measuring stick. It may not be because they are better at the game, they could be using methods you aren't. A big part of why I don't take notice of these achievements is because a lot of people are getting them by being carried. Voidstones for example, many people just 'buy' them, particularly the second 2. It's much more efficient if you can start using voidstones before you can even handle those bosses. Just start getting increased t17 drops as soon as you hit t16 maps. Some people want to do that as a shortcut. There's nothing saying they shouldn't, but they will be faster at getting these achievements, than they would be if they didn't get these. There's also people that don't use any of this. Maybe there is someone out there that doesn't use POB, because they think it is a shortcut. I stopped using log out marcro a few years back, I think the game is much more enjoyable without it, but in some cases it would be much more efficient to use this. Omens have probably made it less important in SC, but in HC, it's a still probably the best defense in the game and an advantage to use. It's a valid part of the game, I just think it is more enjoyable not to use it. You will be slower in some cases if you don't use recourses that are available that make things easier or more efficient. When I played ruthless first time, I farmed out the atlas solo. Most people playing efficiently are sharing map completion and safehouse spawns. This is way faster. It's part of the game, you would need to play SSF if you wanted to compete with people who aren't doing this. It's not a competitive game, other than if you are in a trade economy, which also has cooperative aspect. Even if it is possible to play the game competitively, like some players do with racing, unless you have agreed up racing terms, you might be running a different race than the people you think you are competing with. Sometimes, I am trying to get first to 100 on a certain build. Actually I am the only person on that build and racing against no one. Or, one other guy is doing the build and they are not racing at all, they are just naturally going faster than me. How much time you are playing the game over those weeks is also a bit factor. If you are playing say 8 hours a day your going to likely be faster than most people playing a few hours most days. You will also be probably behind someone who is loosing sleep to play the league over that fortnight. Doesn't mean that is the best thing to emulate. Even in game time is not particularly accurate, as some people afk to do other things while they play, and others are very focused on being completely efficient while logged in.

Obviously, there are a lot of people that are very good at the game, who are able to do these achievements very fast and those are the ones you are talking about trying to emulate. Just keep in mind, everyone you see doing this will not always be doing it themselves under the same condition as you. Trying to improve your own speed is a pretty good attitude I think. It certainly can be helpful to learn of others that are doing something very well, just make sure the information you are picking up is relevant to what you are trying to achieve. I learned some tricks from watching speed runs leading up to this league, but there's only so far I can improve before gains start to become demising. Saving a few hours was pretty doable, but it starts to become harder to save the next hour, or half an hour, or five minutes. So at that point, if being a speed runner is not my goal, it might be more beneficial to look at other areas. Saving one hour one time on campaign each league might not be as useful as saving 10 seconds every time you run a map.