What is the Ultimate Goal of a Self Found Player?

My ultimate goal in the game is to think of a concept that interests me and to plan out each and every detail of how I'm going to execute that plan, using all the resources at my disposal, in order to end up with as effective and exotic an end game character as possible. I am not self found.

So to reiterate I want to:

1. Think of any concept that's appealing, free of restriction. Bonus points if it is exotic in some way and has unexpected features. For example let's say I wanted to make a molten shell character who curses himself with punishment in order to proc the explosion. In order to make such a build workable you'd have to buy items. And even then it'd be a challenge to find the correct items for damage and survivability. This is the sort of build that a self found player would have to give up on without even trying, as the gear and gems needed for it are far too specific.

2. Next thing I want to do is plan out timings for character development so that gear, passives, content all line up so that my character is effective for as much in-game time as possible.

3. And the last goal for any build is to end up with a powerful character that is true to my original concept and also effective vs end game content, trivializing it to as great of extent as possible.


Before a self found player starts a character I don't see how they can come up with anything other than a leveling gem as their concept. Such as "flame totem" or "cleave". I also don't see how you can plan any timings for gear, and by extension, your passives either because of obvious reasons. Therefore after picking a leveling gem as your character concept (I'm rolling my eyes here), your only task is to experience RNG in lieu of any planning or calculations.

Finally, there is the end game. Which is what kind of provoked my hand in making this topic in the first place. I have seen a few threads recently that go something like this, "Hi I'm self found, I'm level 70 and all my gear combined is worth 3 chaos orbs. Looking for tips on how to beat end game!"

I've had to stop myself several times from making rude comments. So instead, I decided to just ask straight up what is the ultimate goal, for example, of a self found player. Because maybe if I understood better I wouldn't be filled with such a quiet rage whenever I see a self founder asking for help.

thank you for understanding

I think the main goal is not to have an ultimate goal. At least, if you're doing it right.

To see how far you can get and what you can achieve only using whatever items that happen to drop for you I would assume.

I always thought it was some kind of metaphysical thing.

Simple. I want to attain all of my goals on my own. There is a deep level of satisfaction that comes from finding or crafting all of your own gear and truly growing a character entirely on your own effort. It makes each build changing unique you finally get to be so much more exciting than if I just spent 1 chaos trading for it. I don't want to rush past the feeling of personal achievement.

In the context of being exiled on Wraeclast, it also has a neat, thematic feel, like you're really exiled mostly on your own and have to make do with what you get and force it to work for you.

Think of it as a very different form of Hardcore play.

That said, eventually I will enter the trading end of the game, but not until the character I am working on is very high end to the point defeating RNG is no longer feasible.

This perspective comes from only having played a summoner so far, so it may not work as well with other builds. I only had two months to learn the game before Torment ended and went in blind intentionally avoiding guides, but my character grew so much because of my efforts alone. From using most of my orbs of regret to fix my self created passive tree blunders to using most of my chaos orbs for rerolling rare gear until it gave strong stats, to getting myself up to 76 maps and clearing easily, I feel like I learned the game far better learning the hard way and progressing the hard way.

Diablo 3 gave me a bad feeling about trading too much, so I don't plan to do it until my other options are thoroughly explored.

The self found player is often going to make new characters based on what they have been finding. My current plans involve building out different elemental builds to work with my caster oriented collected gear, and then I'll probably try out a bit of melee and bow stuff. It all depends what I want to do based upon what gear I have found. I don't find any satisfaction making a build on bought items because it's more exciting to let the builds come to you based upon what you find. Perhaps leaving your new character builds to the whims of RNG is distasteful to you, but for someone like me, with years of experience playing games where the loot is everything and having to work to get that item you want was the norm, it's perfectly acceptable to me.

I don't understand why people enjoy different things than I do, so I'm going to make a passive aggressive post about your playstyle :)

A self-found player with goals like yours would plan it for their 10th or 15th character. They wouldn't start planning it until they had the bulk of the gear needed in hand.

You don't just start a character and plan on it being awesome. You play a character that will improve your chances with the next.

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Avereth12 wrote:

Simple. I want to attain all of my goals on my own. There is a deep level of satisfaction that comes from finding or crafting all of your own gear and truly growing a character entirely on your own effort. It makes each build changing unique you finally get to be so much more exciting than if I just spent 1 chaos trading for it. I don't want to rush past the feeling of personal achievement.

Same here. In the 1-month league I bought a reaper's pursuit, and some nice gloves and a very decent armour, and with that the whole game changed. From early cruel to end of cruel (where I ripped) I had an amazing killspeed, a simply awesome runspeed, and about 100% IIR, so the drops weren't shabby either.

But as much fun as that was, compared to my (mostly) ssf chars in standard, it felt shallow and lame, as if I cheesed my char to 'winning'. It was like a lukewarm burger at mcdirt compared to a big steak with lots of fresh salad. I felt like a used car salesman who just tricked a customer into buying an overpriced piece of trash, and celebrates by going to a hooker and do coke.

It was so much less than the brain wrecking decisions and compromises you have make when playing ssf, where you never have easy solutions to anything.

And I felt really intimidated, and irritated, by seeing how routinely and professionally and de-personalized people do their trading and set up their shops now. In the trading section here in the forum you barely see a thread which isn't 'bumped by procurement' and every one of them has the same 'polite' text: "Welcome to my shop! (Last Updated Sunday, March 29, 2015 3:14 AM), Please message me here or ingame if something catches your eye. My IGN is..." Ugh. So, stuff trading. It's just aweful.