What if the notion of "legacy" didn't exist for standard leagues?

This would largely be a disaster, and I think GGG knows it. In the usual interactions where new players ask how leagues work and where they should play, you'd have existing players explain that all the good loot drops in Standard and everyone should play there because it gives you the best chances at a more powerful character. It's good that once a legacy-fying patch comes around, that the item is effectively out of reach. This prevents it from being simply taken away from the people who worked for it and would complain that they've been nerfed, but it keeps the problem from affecting all future Standard players.

@Avu: If most Standard players are like you, then my premise regarding the Standard demographic is correct.

Worth pointing out that one of the reasons Standard players desire permanence and stability is that many don't play often/much, so instead of one major patch per x hours of playtime, they face five or more patches per x hours... the rate of change/updates feels much more rapid and can be overwhelming.

@Uvne: Given the popular and repeated proclivity of most PoE players to abandon all the gear on their suddenly-Standard characters to start over from scratch, I feel you are exaggerating. Some people would behave the way you describe, but not enough to shake the foundations of PoE's league structure. Plus, how about if temp league item + Divine Orb + currently in Standard = Standard version of item?

I honestly like standard the way it is now with legacy items while everything else updates even though I don't own that many of them and all except mjolner were bought long after they went legacy. It's nice having something to chase while you slowly build your character. The only reason I play temp leagues at all is to collect the league only uniques and to exploit the new economy to make money to funnel to standard.

@Charan

Gotta tell you, I think you're dead-wrong. There are way too many elements of PoE that are almost entirely of no use to league players, yet they are kept in the game and things are often balanced around them. Legacy uniques (such as Kaom's heart) which Chris once said that they like to have these sorts of things because it makes the game interesting for "long time players", or eternal orbs, or even mirrors. A mirror in a temp league might affect about 10 players over the entire league, and not really in a significant way because there's nothing worth mirroring. Eternal orbs are really only useful if you've got about a hundred of them (AKA Standard only). Even the forsaken masters, I mean it's more of a long-term grind IMO, anyone who would want to re-level them repeatedly must have already had a frontal lobotomy. Adding new t1 mods above Tyrannical, Emperor's, and Glyphic? They allow for a MAX of 8% more increased phys dmg than previous max, and should cost in the ballpark of 5k eternals to land. Pretty obvious that wasn't added for temp leagues. Just my opinion though.

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Nuro wrote:

They can't update the entire item database to change all non-legacies to legacies for the same reason that they cannot prevent legacy items in the first place. If they had the capacity to (reasonably) do this then there would be no legacies assuming a purely technical standpoint of them existing.

It also makes no sense to unnerf something that is overpowered solely due to it being Standard league. Overpowered items limit build diversity if you want to utilize effective builds. Doing this would have a net negative impact on the game.

/thread.

And lol Charan , seriously... A significant part of players does play standard, last count was 30 % ( can be 25 or 35 %, whatever .. ). On top of that, I guess that those players ( that does include me ) have significant bigger stash number compared to racers and temporaly league players for obvious reason.
So you are basically wrong about the "ideal" GGG player...

+1!

Didn't read all the posts, just reacting to the OP's suggestion.

I'm a big Standard lover (permanency is my thing) and a Legacy hater (keeping items officially recognized as unbalanced in the game?).

But if for whatever reason they cannot get rid of legacies in Standard, at least make them huntable by everybody. Would add a thrill to Standard. Now they're just for the rich, creating an isolated elite, which is especially destructive for PvP and to a lesser extend, group-play.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Standard-as-Legacy, with the idea of items never being rebalanced as they are on the temporary leagues, might appeal to those who crave permanence and stability but then you'd have to wonder what else should remain untouched. Skill values? The Skilldrasil nodes? Suddenly your legacy league is looking less like a legacy item paradise and a bit more like a derelict amusement park.

wouldn't call it that.

actually, to be able to freeze the version of the tree at the moment you create your character with the option to further spend points on it until you delete your character would probably have kept many players in standard leagues.

example being my brother who can't be bothered to play again because he would have to (research and) reassign all the points everytime he actually has some free time in his busy life again.

it's kind of inconsistent to leave overpowered items in the game but correct op tree versions.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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geradon wrote:

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Standard-as-Legacy, with the idea of items never being rebalanced as they are on the temporary leagues, might appeal to those who crave permanence and stability but then you'd have to wonder what else should remain untouched. Skill values? The Skilldrasil nodes? Suddenly your legacy league is looking less like a legacy item paradise and a bit more like a derelict amusement park.

wouldn't call it that.

actually, to be able to freeze the version of the tree at the moment you create your character with the option to further spend points on it until you delete your character would probably have kept many players in standard leagues.

example being my brother who can't be bothered to play again because he would have to (research and) reassign all the points everytime he actually has some free time in his busy life again.

it's kind of inconsistent to leave overpowered items in the game but correct op tree versions.

Don't disagree. It is.

But you're being myopic. That bit in bold. Utterly myopic.

I don't blame you. I wish I could agree with you, because it's a nice idea.

But it'd be disastrous for PoE.

Which is why it didn't happen.

We're wasting time again.

play game --> have fun --> dont care how others enjoy itttTx-x=....... error

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

But you're being myopic. ... it'd be disastrous for PoE.

i rather think it's the way it should have been implemented in the first place and the reasons it wasn't are pure technical. (the same reasons ggg always needed to make a headstand to post a new tree version in advance)

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

We're wasting time again.

that's what i'm here for. mostly.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Hang on, getting a bit dizzy from the spin.....

I love you guys, but I've been through the best and the worst of what it's like to be a PoE player desperately trying to keep up with the changes.

When you realise that the permanence of Standard characters is inevitably affected, and I'd say even neutralised, by the various changes brought on by this patch or that.

I would agree that the changes to the skills and skill tree can make maintaining a particular character difficult or impossible. The items themselves are only a third of the stability equation. When GGG has the lockstep desync solution completely worked out, I would really like to see them look at how they can maintain the same skill tree for a character in a permanent league. A character would have the choice of opting in to the new skill tree (and get a passive point reset), or they could stay with their current tree.

If they stayed with their current tree, the items and skill gems they had equipped at the time of the reset would also maintain the same stat interactions. If the bugs in such a process could be worked out, I think it would really add a sense of commitment and choice for permanent league players.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

But when I invoked the ideal player concept, I did so not based on realistic demographics (the same misinterpretation as Scrotes made) but on a perfect target, the 100% compatibility match for what I think you guys want PoE to be. I'm not even sure if such a player exists...

But I maintain that ideal player does not play Standard.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the PoE team have a variety of playing styles amongst themselves and that this ends up adding a certain flavour to the way the game is changed over time.