Community Question: Why are you playing Standard?

Cuz Standard was my first love, and it will be my last.

Also for the other reasons everyone else mentioned.

I really enjoy the first playthough to maps in a new league and Bloodlines was the first time I've had the time to knock it out in the first weekend, which was cool.

After that I just lose interest, probably new start fatigue (done em all more or less since Onslaught), and find myself playing more and more reg hc, solo styles. It's where my PoE heart is.

Mainly because I'm a pretty casual, exclusively self-found player who doesn't play consistently or carefully enough to get very far in the 4-month or hardcore leagues.

On top of that, I have to deal with the realities of playing a server-client game under emulation in Australia.

I have played two characters in Torment, one to L85 and the other to 70something. But pretty much over it...no good drops the whole two characters, and the challenges are a little silly for solo players like me. i only got the vendor recipe one, the identifiy unique challenge is impossible if playing self found, the 3 chars to L85 would be beyond boring (two charactrs has been hard enough), the encounters and torment spirit challenges are gated behind RNG (I don't think I've ever found a Divine shring since I started playing over a year ago!).

Back to Standard today and probably wont revisit Torment...will probably be last time I play leagues again too unless they come out with something that reinvents them.

I want continuity. I don't want my efforts to be wiped out every 3 months.
I want permanent characters, instead of temporary ones.
I don't want to start from zero every months, when I've already done all the hard work.
I don't want to spend time leveling 1-70, when I can spend that time playing maps.
I play long-term, I dont need new features every new league to keep me interested.
I play at my own pace, I do not ever want to play against a 3-month stopwatch.
Standard is stable. Always players there, always parties to be found and trades to be made. No complaints.

To enjoy fruits of my labor past two league I participated in.

I dont play enough to make 20/20 gems or a lvl 3 empower in a season so now I'm felling full power of a build by staying STD.

Plus torment is a fucking joke offers nothing for me.

I play Standard because:
- Playing HC is no fun due to all the random damage spikes/bugs/balance issues.
- Current and last scrubcore templeagues were crap (personal opinion).
- Decent 5Ls/rares/uniques sell for breadcrumbs due to the frelled up economy, so any exotic build that I make is easy to gear for (up to a point).
- Free lootz from the templeague addicts whenever a new one starts and they move over there.
- Every single templeague gimmick is imba at first and it takes a lot of teeth-gnashing on the forums until it gets fixed; I'd rather get it a few months later (and with a diminished effect) after all/most/some of the kinks have been ironed out.

I played in Ambush, it was very fun. I played Rampage, it was crazy. And then Torment, I got bored just from watching my friends play. Bad new contents, broken builds, high tier uniques's price drop low, assignments and exam etc... So I think I will stay in SD for a while, and wait for some good news (Act 4 actually)

1. Drop rates are shit. 1 month into Torment and all I've found is 3 shit uniques and 6 Chaos orbs. I'm not even finding rare necklaces for the chaos recipe and finding very very few Alchs to make my own rare necklaces. RNG has beat the shit out of me this league.

2. Temp league "hook" is very uninspiring. A ghost spawns on the other side of a big pile of mobs once in a while and disappears once I hit it three times. At least loot goblins hung around and made funny noises when I kicked the crap out of them.

3. Related to #1. Too poor to buy anything in Path Of Trade on Torment with my fabulous fortune of 6 Chaos.

4. I would prefer getting hit in the head with a hammer in lieu of leveling a character running through the same game three times just to start poor in a game to have a "fresh economy" that I can't buy anything in.

5. Levelling masters. Cause that is just so fun. Not.

6. On standard I have 18 characters with 18 builds that are geared that I can respec and start doing endgame stuff right away. Good MF gives me better drops too.

7. I'm not a temporary ladder bigot and am smart enough to realize my special snowflake torment toon will join my standard roster in two months and I also realize temp leagues are a giant hamster wheel. But feel free to dis standard players cause it makes you feel special.

8. On standard the vast majority of stuff is cheaper. The high end stuff is more expensive. I'll never have high end stuff so standard is better for gearing up a new build. Minus the Shavs and Mjolners, which I'll never have on temp leagues anyhow.

9. Less pressure to go and level,level,level, trade,trade,trade. Run a few maps with a guy, find something that's decent, give it to a different toon.

10. The new league uniques are crap. No desire to camp out the hamster wheel to get them. If one does tend to be be decent I'll buy it in 2 months when you rejoin me in Standard.

I only play regular hardcore. The reason that I don't want to play temporary leagues is:

-I want to play in a league where it never resets.
-I want to play for a long term in the same league.
-The league specific items used to be an incentive for me to play but not anymore.
-I hate starting fresh when I can just resort to my main league and have everything that I ever wanted.
-Hardcore is nice, peaceful, and quiet. You don't see a wall of text as much as standard or any other temporary leagues.

I don't understand why anyone would play temporary leagues knowing that it will reset and merge with main leagues. Would you still play temporary leagues if the mods and other features that came with Torment/Bloodlines became implemented to Standard/Hardcore on the same day that it was released?