Do players play POE after leagues end?

I have a few (low level) characters in hardcore, haven't been in HC in forever. Been playing the standard temp leagues cause I'm guaranteed to rip myself to something stupid at some point. Honestly after the temp leagues are over I normally take a break until next league, unless they do like a 1 month in between. I have a ton of cool stuff in Standard but I don't feel like respeccing my old characters every time a league ends.

"

Kythers wrote:

My typical experience in standard is something like this:

log on an old character
skill tree is reset
NOTHING WORKS
stash is 75% remove only tabs full of random stuff
close poe and wait for new temp league

I don't mean to be offensive, but I cannot stop thinking saying that means you don't know how to play POE. It feels like you had your build copied from someone else, otherwise you should be able to "re-setup" your character easily after a reset.


Personally, I play POE for "making builds", not "grinding builds".
Therefore grinding stuff from scratch is completely meaningless to me. I have a lot of fun in using my stuff to make new builds. But having to grind a month or two before able to do that again? Not interesting for me. I know that many people do enjoy the grinding process though. That's life, different people will always have different taste.

If you don't find yourself having fun during "no league" periods, just log off! Having 10 league players and 10 permleague players is always better than having JUST 10 permleague players.

On a side note, up til now only the Invasion and Beyond was fun for me. Sadly those two mods never made it into the core game.

"

shoshinsha wrote:

"

Kythers wrote:

My typical experience in standard is something like this:

log on an old character
skill tree is reset
NOTHING WORKS
stash is 75% remove only tabs full of random stuff
close poe and wait for new temp league

I don't mean to be offensive, but I cannot stop thinking saying that means you don't know how to play POE. It feels like you had your build copied from someone else, otherwise you should be able to "re-setup" your character easily after a reset.

You are definitely being offensive. I'm in the same boat as the poster you quoted and I don't follow any build guides at all. Because of how I create my characters (doing too little damage, grab damage, getting hit too low, grab hp) it makes it very hard to respec them with confidence when they're sitting there with 98 unassigned skill points. Sure I can kinda get them working like how they used to but it's just not the same.

It's a bit off-putting (not to mention the literally 70+ remove-only tabs) because I enjoy messing around on my high level characters in Standard after they rip from Hardcore (or challenge leagues).

-

Anyway yeah, most hardcore players play the HC challenge league and then take a large break between them. Personally I still play vanilla HC a little bit during that period, but for the most part the game tends to feel very stale at league's end and I end up waiting for the next patch to bring back some interest to the game.

"

CindyCorselle wrote:

I cannot really put a finger to it, but if your player base only plays your game for 4 months (example) then lay off the game for the next few months

Well one solution would be to, let's say, end leagues on a Wednesday and then start the new one on the following Saturday or Sunday. Basically have very little downtime inbetween leagues.

I do.. Admittedly less but I still play.

I only play HC and standard

I play normal hardcore only. I never touch standard.I might do temporary leagues if there is reward similar to the Sanguine and Cerulean set.

Another quote of Kythers since it pretty much sums it up.

"

Kythers wrote:

My typical experience in standard is something like this:

log on an old character
skill tree is reset
nothing works
stash is 75% remove only tabs full of random stuff
close poe and wait for new temp league

When a league ends, or an HC character rips, sometimes it was a character I really liked. So I keep it with the intention of playing it some more. Sometimes I really do play it just for the variety.

But after passive reset the character I liked is pretty much wiped out. If I had been recently playing it, then I could probably put it back together. But it's usually been a while since I played it and have no idea what the build was or why I liked it. The characters usually become test characters to test some game mechanic. I assign passive points to test something, even if it would make a crappy build.

When I see all the remove only tabs I just shudder. During Awakening beta I made an effort to start cleaning my HC stash. I think I took it from around 180 down to 130-140 remove only tabs. It's just a big mess. I don't even want to look at it.

Standard stash is even worse. I managed to clean almost all the remove only tabs, but the regular tabs are completely packed. I'm lucky to find a place to put a ring. With all the stories I hear about how messed up the standard economy is, and how nothing sells, it totally demotivates me to sell stuff. Which in turn demotivates me to play Standard at all.

Hardcore league is so deserted, GGG should simply merge all of hardcore into a single, unified league. Unlike Standard, Hardcore is not a dumpster league where OP items pile up ad nauseum. HC is all about long-term survival, temp leagues clash with that fundamental concept. Instead of making Tempest a separate temp league, GGG should have unleashed Tempest as a seasonal curse that envelops the entire Hardcore realm. That way, all HC players could take on the challenge together, with both new and veteran characters alike.

PoE is my favourite game when there's a League. Otherwise, I take a sabbatical.