Diary of a Self-Found Player, Week 1 (long)

My total played time is around 1000 hours, and I still don't have any 5L or 6L.
I have never grouped, and I have never bought any item - I play 100% solo.

To say 5L and 6L are rare is an understatement.

Sitting waiting on a flight and that was a great read man. I had never heard of this self found business and personally in my style that's not really a way I think I would succeed at poe. But then again I don't make the best of decisions in this game anyway. Like the bringer of rain I corrupted successfully only to realize to my horror I'd not 4linked it. Congrats on that 6L!

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Tzaina wrote:

It´s NOT a self-found game!
Trading is a major part of what the game is all about.



So STOP BITCHING FOR CHRIS SAKE!

He's not bitching. Read the post.

Thanks for writing this up. It's an interesting perspective and well-written.

I came back to PoE at the launch of the new leagues because I'd recently built a computer that could run it smoothly (my previous PC had debilitating load times).

I made a character in the HC Beyond league and it has so far been a self-found adventure not necessarily by choice but rather due to my schedule in terms of playing. I tend to play one or two hours a night and consequently end up parking my witch in a zone that I enjoy farming and over-level so that I can zoom through an act in a relatively short time period.

I made this character one week ago and she just made it to cruel ledge last night. I'm enjoying the play thus far but am aware that my lack of trading (as a consequence of preferring to play as opposed to trade during the time I do have) slows my progress primarily in terms of obtaining gems I require.

My witch is level 43 in cruel ledge with the following gear:



I obtained the 4L just last night but don't have the gems to fully utilize it yet. Some of my gear could be upgraded rather easily but I've either not noticed (like that lame amulet) or not found something suitable.

So far it's been fun, but I recognize that at some point I may end up trading for something specific when the time seems right.

No particularly exciting drops, but enough to have kept me going this far.

Also: this is the first character I've ever had max resists on. That RNG.

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cymorilmyara wrote:

My total played time is around 1000 hours, and I still don't have any 5L or 6L.
I have never grouped, and I have never bought any item - I play 100% solo.

To say 5L and 6L are rare is an understatement.

Not to patronise but make sure to check shops each level up. I've had probably 6 5L's just from them alone.
Last 3mth league I found 7 5L's which is loads but goes to show the difference in being really lucky and being really unlucky.

OP: Sounds like you did just fine playing self-found. You got lucky with the 6l, but I'm sure you could have got at least a 5l, which would have been adequate. (Honestly, even a 4l is OK for a lot of builds, and 4l gloves/hat/boots are so abundant now that you never need to worry about obtaining them.) The only difference I see between this thread and Septile's is a difference in attitude (if anything, you were luckier than Septile and chose an easier build).

I think the problem is that different people have different ideas of 'viable'. For me (playing solo purely self-found), if I can finish Merciless in Standard and do a few maps, that's fine - it's already further than the majority of players get in this game (power-gamers are massively over-represented on the forum). By the time I hit the wall and need to seriously grind for gear, I'm probably bored with the character anyway and want to try something different. Not only can you do this self-found, you could do it with a deliberately quirky build (as long as it doesn't require a specific unique item). It'll be a bit slow perhaps, but it's about the journey, not the destination. You learn to deal with the challenges of suboptimal equipment (e.g. maybe you can't cap all your resists right now, and just need to be careful around fire damage or whatever) and sometimes have to make hard choices (such as when you need to use currency to sort out glaring deficiencies in gear, rather than to craft an 'endgame item') that traders don't really experience.

On the other hand, if you consider 'viable' to mean 'can deal with Uber Atziri and all possible combinations of map mods', obviously you're going to hit a wall with self-found. If these areas were balanced so that they were merely 'challenging' for self-found players, then traders would just blitz through them and PoE would become a boring gold-farming game for them. Self-found characters are always going to be weaker than characters who paid the gold price for most of their gear, so if you're used to trading, you'll notice the power progression is much slower than you're used to. That doesn't mean you as a player are 'losing' if you play self-found though, you're just playing a more difficult game.

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Serleth wrote:

"

Tzaina wrote:

It´s NOT a self-found game!
Trading is a major part of what the game is all about.



So STOP BITCHING FOR CHRIS SAKE!

He's not bitching. Read the post.

LoL Tzaina in all kinds of confusion. Read the post muppet!

Thank you for this thread. A week for playing 12h/day is something I dream of ;)

My personal point of view about state of self-found in PoE:
I always try to make my character 100% self found to around 65lvl (accumulate currency). Than I starting with the shop to get uniques I'd like to have for my build... otherwise I wouldn't get them at all and had to face gear-check wall around 70-72maps... than quit playing around lvl80. Not reaching endgame - this is for me: to clear all the content of the game. (off-top: Now it's difficult even with the trading)

Unique drops are set around league with trade. This is the main reason I would pay for having self found league with better currency and item drops and account bound items. I know, I know - some of readers would send me to D3... I also play and enjoy it for a different reason.

I hope some day self-founders would get more love from GGG. Also hope that the 1.2patch it's just the first step to make this game little bit more casual.

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gregory_portman wrote:

I hope some day self-founders would get more love from GGG. Also hope that the 1.2patch it's just the first step to make this game little bit more casual.

You seem like a decent guy with a morale compass but what?? We, us, self-founders, just got the best gift ever with the masters. Thats all the love I could hope for for now.

To complete my wishlist would be for rolling maps to be a little less expensive but then its one of the main currency sinks, so perhaps not!

My self found gear on rampage which im still using:



Replacing the helm and shield soon (bought upgrades but waiting for lvl 80 to make the switch).
However replacing that wand is gonna be tough.

So yeah self found is actually possible now.
Also 5 linked Infernal Mantle using vorici (was 5S), because it is near perfect.