Be honest: Is PoE 1 "dead?"

Nothing to do with PoE 2, I haven't touched it and I'm pretty sure it's still less popular than PoE 1.

But I'm asking about PoE 1 as a "filthy Standard player." I don't know why Standard is less popular when you get to keep all your stuff every League, and still get all the League mechanics eventually. It's literally the best of all worlds, and if you want to start over every X amount of time, nothing is stopping you from doing that. I know League mechanics are stronger in the actual League when they come out, but that doesn't seem like it should overpower the strength of being able to keep everything to me. (Even if some people prefer stronger League mechanics, it seems weird to me that it could be the MAJORITY opinion.)

So anyway... with that being said, I'm still pretty sure Standard is the less-popular game mode. Over here in Standard, trading is pretty miserable, and I don't just mean AFK'ers. I also just mean... well, lol, actually two contradictory things here:

1) Finding an item seems hard, as if the market is dried up. Like if I search for specific Timeless seeds, or any number of other specific criteria I might search for... even just good combinations of affixes. Often I get as low as zero results for Standard! And yet...

2) At the same time, somehow everything is hyper-giga expensive. The things I mention in #1 above, THOSE things are often Mirror priced. But even incredibly basic things, maybe tri-res boots with 90 life... why are these as high as 300+ Divines??? Yes, I understand that currency is stockpiling in Standard, since it doesn't reset. But #1 and #2 feel contradictory to me. How are currencies stockpiling, but not good items? Frankly, trading currencies is usually the most consistently smooth thing to do in Standard - although THAT tends to be because everyone is an automated bot, and they spend 24 hours a day flipping in their Hideout, accumulating infinite amounts of wealth compared to those that play legit. AND THE WORST THING ABOUT THAT is that the legit players don't even want to report them, because they are the only ones that provide consistent non-AFK trades. It's hilarious and sad at the same time. And I find myself trading with the same ~10 people over the course of months (including the actual human players, which I could count on one hand btw).




And so... having recently been flamed by a guy that criticized me by simply stating "20 chaos trade in the graveyard league is crazy" as he bought my 20c item... I want to ask, and be honest:

Does ANY of this exist in the Leagues too? Do the Leagues also feel dead? I'm not really asking about the first few weeks or so. But later on, when the fad-hoppers have been filtered out as they always are every League... who remains? A lot of people? A healthy economy? Easy searches for virtually whatever combination of affixes you want, for any slot, with non-AFK transactions most of the time?

Or does it end up resembling the Standard experience a bit?

This is a genuine question. Sometimes I poke my head in League trades just to see what items are posted, and if it seems like a healthy amount, but it's hard to get a good read. Some of the trickier items (like the aforementioned Timeless seeds) still show up scarce. But other times, some should-be basic affix combos on rares seem a bit more plentiful in League trades than Standard.

What are your HONEST thoughts on this? I'm curious to hear from League players.




Bonus question:
What would GGG have to do to make Standard more appealing to you?

I know a lot of League players actually do mostly play Leagues because of the populated economy. But to me that feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone just migrated over to Standard, then Standard would be the one with the populated economy, right? So if we logically pull that reasoning away, then the only reason I can see for playing League over Standard is for the strengthened version of the new League mechanic. (But even that kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, at the hands of GGG themselves, because it doesn't innately need to be that way, either.)

So I'm also largely asking here... What DOES keep you playing League instead of Standard? And whatever that reason might be, do we think it's an INNATE part of playing League that Standard can never have, or is it perhaps ARTIFICIALLY maintained in League, despite being possible in Standard, because perhaps GGG is using the League design to keep PoE alive by giving "pulses" of interest, rather than a free-flowing river that the players are in self-control over via Standard gameplay?




... Thinking out loud, but interested in the conversation!




Edit:
To give my own personal thoughts... I think, zooming out, PoE 2 just divided the playerbase needlessly. And, zooming in, I think having Leagues and Standard also does the same thing. To me, the ideal PoE is just Standard, and the new League content still just comes out as they do in... Leagues... but for Standard. Because there's no reason to have them separated, lol. (And, foreseeing the argument of enjoying an economy reset, I feel like everything someone likes about that can still exist in a united Standard if the game gets other tweaks that help reinforce "market tiers" like early game items/prices, mid game items/prices, late game items/prices, etc. In theory, all of that should still exist, perpetually, in Standard. If even Leagues eventually devolve away from that, then there's a core issue, and resetting is a lazy bandaid, right? (OMG EPIPHANY, is that what Leagues have always been?!? A lazy bandaid?!? I feel so slow on the draw right now...))

No

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Conversation

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No

I don't know what I expected.

POE 1 standard specifically is going to suffer the biggest damage going forward. It's been obvious since they announced they were splitting the games.

The reason I don't enjoy standard is because I don't play these types of games for infinite wealth/power grind.

A fresh league puts everybody on a somewhat equal footing and has a clear (granted - less and less nowadays) timeline. I can go in and either blast for 2 weeks, or take it slow and play for 1-2 months and then forget that character ever existed.

Being broke and having to progress and earn your gear is a big part of the charm as well. What is the point in creating a new character if you have infinite wealth and can gear it up to the teeth on hour 1?

I think I have logged in to standard once or twice. I know some HC players use standard to practice boss fights with similar gear. I’ve always played Ladder on D2, and Leagues in PoE. I don’t think they could do anything to make me want to play Standard. NL on D2 might have a place for PvP.

I’m usually a play once character all league person, obviously not when the league is a year long. I’ve never had much of a problem trading late in to the league. It might be bad now with the event splitting people on to different servers.

standard has always been slow, and the most active I've seen it was usually the short break between leagues.

As of right now, its essentially SSF for me. I did manage to sell a few things in the last few weeks, but it was so long since I last traded I had to stop a moment to remember how to do so.

Standard will never come close to the league experience. As much as I'm sick of leagues, I also played quite a few with at least 3 with 36 challenges or higher. If there's one thing I miss about league, it be having room to store items. Given the state of things it doesn't seem wise to invest in more tabs and I'm not all that fond of how things ended up compared to when I started.

But trading in league is active where even lower priced items can move where standard its more niche or higher demand items and to a much more limited customer base.

As for the current state, while I haven't played the last few leagues, based on the feedback I've read and seen its really a wait and see with low expectations.

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arandan#3174 wrote:

POE 1 standard specifically is going to suffer the biggest damage going forward. It's been obvious since they announced they were splitting the games.

The reason I don't enjoy standard is because I don't play these types of games for infinite wealth/power grind.

A fresh league puts everybody on a somewhat equal footing and has a clear (granted - less and less nowadays) timeline. I can go in and either blast for 2 weeks, or take it slow and play for 1-2 months and then forget that character ever existed.

Being broke and having to progress and earn your gear is a big part of the charm as well. What is the point in creating a new character if you have infinite wealth and can gear it up to the teeth on hour 1?

Thank you for the post! I have some replies to it.


"The reason I don't enjoy standard is because I don't play these types of games for infinite wealth/power grind."

Neither do I! I am somebody that very frequently comes and goes from the game. I think it's just like any other game; even if I play it for 6 months straight, it's nice to take a long break, play other games that I have interest in... and then, whenever I want, I can come back to the characters I've spent a lot of time on! I may even totally wipe them clean, and turn them into a totally different build, but I have the benefit of still having the character levels so I don't have to drudge through the campaign again.

I think the option to infinitely improve on your character throughout the years is nice, while obviously nobody has to do it, either. Same thing for infinite wealth! It can serve the purpose of letting you try out any build you want, but you also don't have to tap into it. You can do whatever you want, and you yourself are theoretically in control. You could start a new set of stash tabs to keep track of a new character's isolated progress if you wanted, even. The sky is the limit!


"A fresh league puts everybody on a somewhat equal footing and has a clear (granted - less and less nowadays) timeline. I can go in and either blast for 2 weeks, or take it slow and play for 1-2 months and then forget that character ever existed."

Inconsistent League durations sound unfortunate. I might even call it counter-productive. So that's too bad.

Although, I think what you just described can still be done with Standard, and is certainly not innate, nor exclusive, to League.


"Being broke and having to progress and earn your gear is a big part of the charm as well. What is the point in creating a new character if you have infinite wealth and can gear it up to the teeth on hour 1?"

Well, right, so to elaborate on my above point: You can still do this in Standard! Just because you have a stash tab full of currencies built up from past characters and past... months/years does not mean you're forced to use it! If what you seek is to start a new character from scratch, and build it up based on what you accumulate while playing that character alone, absolutely nothing is stopping you. This game is already a single player game with public trading, so what other players are doing [in your shared Standard league] don't even impact you.

So I dunno! I think, based on what you explained in your post, nothing naturally innate about a periodically-resetting League is keeping you playing it compared to Standard. If you look at what I've said, do you think you see where I'm coming from when I say that?

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Pestilence_PoE#6339 wrote:

I think I have logged in to standard once or twice. I know some HC players use standard to practice boss fights with similar gear. I’ve always played Ladder on D2, and Leagues in PoE. I don’t think they could do anything to make me want to play Standard. NL on D2 might have a place for PvP.

I’m usually a play once character all league person, obviously not when the league is a year long. I’ve never had much of a problem trading late in to the league. It might be bad now with the event splitting people on to different servers.

I agree, NL on D2 makes sense for PvP, and that's what I did in D2. But also, keep in mind Ladder has Ladder-exclusive items, and... well, the actual Ladder itself. Granted, PoE also has new "League" items in a way, but both have the same problem: They are both "artificial," and have no innate need to be in their League/Ladder game modes. They could just be in Standard/NL. The actual only reason they aren't is because the very identity of the League stuff is, "Hey, look over here! We're adding all this stuff to this game mode, and NOT the other, for no reason other than because we said so!"

Here, let me try to give an example of what I mean by this...

I thought this was going to be hard to come up with an example, but ACTUALLY there's an obvious and easy example right in front of my face:

Hardcore!!

The very identity of Hardcore is ACTUALLY something that CANNOT exist in other game modes. If you die, you're done with that character ['s ability to interact with all the other characters that have not died yet in this game mode]. By actual innate... nature of it, this CANNOT exist elsewhere. Nothing is artificial about it. It's not a self-fulfilling prophecy. Do you understand what I mean by this? I see it clearly in my head, but I'm not sure if I'm articulating it well enough.

Hardcore is a game mode that defines itself. It does not rely on reinforcement. It does not rely on outsourced muscle. It creates and maintains its own self, just by being exactly what it is. And it cannot exist elsewhere.

Compare that to... Leagues. We are left asking, "Well why not just add it to Standard?" And the answer is merely, "Just because." You know what I mean? "Cuz that's not how it is." It's not a good enough answer. Hardcore makes sense. We can write out a whole sentence about it. "Hardcore cannot exist in Softcore, because the premise of Hardcore is that nobody has died. Once you die, you cannot exist here, because you lost." But this kind of rock-solid statement cannot be said for why there's a difference between League and Standard.

... I feel like that's less clear of an explanation, but maybe multiple angles will get my message across better than one angle, lol.


"I’m usually a play once character all league person, obviously not when the league is a year long. I’ve never had much of a problem trading late in to the league. It might be bad now with the event splitting people on to different servers."

Well, maybe this means Leagues should last longer! Aaaand... this is where I will say, "Standard doesn't have that problem." Lol!

A valid point that I make, however. If a League is "so short that you only have time to fully invest in one character" (my words and not yours, but a liberty-taking translation by me), and only when a League lasts over a year do you start to dip into a second or third character... I feel like half the soul of an ARPG is to try out all sorts of characters! Obviously that's a tiny bit of a personal preference thing, but I dare argue that ALL people will inevitably eventually branch out beyond the first character anyway. And that's one of the biggest benefits of Standard!

But also, thank you for responding to my question about late-League activity. It sounds super appealing. But I just cannot participate in something that resets all my stuff. Or, at the very least... I suppose I could start a character in a League, and then just keep playing it in Standard, hoping to get most of my gearing done while in that League. But ultimately, that's just something that I might be inclined to try out, while not really taking away from my point about the needless split of Standard vs League...




Sorry I'm typing so much, guys. I tend to just open my mouth and let my brain come out.

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SeCKSEgai#6175 wrote:

standard has always been slow, and the most active I've seen it was usually the short break between leagues.

As of right now, its essentially SSF for me. I did manage to sell a few things in the last few weeks, but it was so long since I last traded I had to stop a moment to remember how to do so.

Standard will never come close to the league experience. As much as I'm sick of leagues, I also played quite a few with at least 3 with 36 challenges or higher. If there's one thing I miss about league, it be having room to store items. Given the state of things it doesn't seem wise to invest in more tabs and I'm not all that fond of how things ended up compared to when I started.

But trading in league is active where even lower priced items can move where standard its more niche or higher demand items and to a much more limited customer base.

As for the current state, while I haven't played the last few leagues, based on the feedback I've read and seen its really a wait and see with low expectations.

I dunno. I feel like WAY back in the day, Standard wasn't slow. I'm talking like... Dominus was the last boss, maybe even the Piety days. (RIP old Lunaris music, actually top 5 ARPG tracks.)


... Do you not get to keep your premium stash tabs for new Leagues? Do you have to buy new ones per League?? (Or am I misunderstanding that complaint?)

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ShadyC#1006 wrote:

... Do you not get to keep your premium stash tabs for new Leagues? Do you have to buy new ones per League?? (Or am I misunderstanding that complaint?)

The issue is the years of stuff that's already gone to standard -- when you buy a tab new, if you had a locked tab of the same type it just frees that tab, so if you want to keep said items you can't really dump them.

Granted I don't have that many things that were better legacy, but if I had gotten the unique tab when I was still more active, most of my space issues would have been solved --- its just hard to justify the purchase now

(basically I have a lot of uniques I dont really use taking up space, along with clusters and jewels and jewelry and legacy flasks)

"

ShadyC#1006 wrote:

"The reason I don't enjoy standard is because I don't play these types of games for infinite wealth/power grind."

Neither do I! I am somebody that very frequently comes and goes from the game. I think it's just like any other game; even if I play it for 6 months straight, it's nice to take a long break, play other games that I have interest in... and then, whenever I want, I can come back to the characters I've spent a lot of time on! I may even totally wipe them clean, and turn them into a totally different build, but I have the benefit of still having the character levels so I don't have to drudge through the campaign again.

I think the option to infinitely improve on your character throughout the years is nice, while obviously nobody has to do it, either. Same thing for infinite wealth! It can serve the purpose of letting you try out any build you want, but you also don't have to tap into it. You can do whatever you want, and you yourself are theoretically in control. You could start a new set of stash tabs to keep track of a new character's isolated progress if you wanted, even. The sky is the limit!

This line of thinking also used to be applied ad nauseum to self found before it got officially added to the game.
Sure it makes sense and you can put any kind of restrains on yourself, but it leads to an obvious question: why even play standard then if you're not going to make use of the resources available to you?

The only difference then is that you don't have to progress your atlas/ascendancies, but that's also part of progression that is actually nice to do again from time to time and a further appeal of periodic restarts (for me).

"

ShadyC#1006 wrote:

"Being broke and having to progress and earn your gear is a big part of the charm as well. What is the point in creating a new character if you have infinite wealth and can gear it up to the teeth on hour 1?"

Well, right, so to elaborate on my above point: You can still do this in Standard! Just because you have a stash tab full of currencies built up from past characters and past... months/years does not mean you're forced to use it! If what you seek is to start a new character from scratch, and build it up based on what you accumulate while playing that character alone, absolutely nothing is stopping you. This game is already a single player game with public trading, so what other players are doing [in your shared Standard league] don't even impact you.

So I dunno! I think, based on what you explained in your post, nothing naturally innate about a periodically-resetting League is keeping you playing it compared to Standard. If you look at what I've said, do you think you see where I'm coming from when I say that?

Yeah and I don't want to reiterate myself - but why would I play in standard then?
I'd rather just wait for a league that sparks my interest and jump into that.

Another thing that you haven't really addressed properly is a truly fresh start. A realm with minimal wipes is always going to favour players who put in the biggest amount of time, hence it doesn't really work for players who want to take a 6-12 month break from the game from time to time.

There is no competition to be had, you cannot compare yourself against your peers in real time, since some people will simply spawn godlike characters on day one, clear the whole game and saturate the market instantly.