OT Gaming Values

With the recent MTBI personality test thread created (of which I still need to stop being lazy and find a GOOD D&D alignment test to throw at people), and so many INTJ (or close) personalities here, I was curious.

How does Off Topic play Path of Exile? Does Off Topic lone-wolf it and play solo? Are they extreme and play solo self-found? Do they play hardcore or softcore?

I think it would be just as insightful as the personality test, if results showed that similar personalities played the game the same way.

As the OP, I'll start off by saying I play exclusively HC leagues (I do have SC characters, but they are kept around after death for their names until I recycle them) and play solo.

I do not level or map with others, but I do not go to the extreme of playing SSF, since I enjoy the flexibility of trading too much (SSF prevents you from trying uniques unless they drop by chance, for instance)!

What about the rest of you? Certainly I could pick through each public profile and see which league you have the most characters in, but that's no fun (and more work), and doesn't give you the chance to explain your reasoning either.

Started off SC SSF, then went through a period in which I mostly tried to brute force the game by playing SC with trading, as this is the fastest way to learn and master PoE and there's a lot to learn out there, then transitioned to mostly HC with occasional and brief stints in SC to update knowledge. Played HC SSF in the last few months or so, on and off.

I have just a few living characters in actual HC leagues as I typically grow bored around level 85 to 90 and start doing stupid shit or just not paying attention and die.

What this says about me is mostly that I'm pretty detached, I don't mind dying and my interest retention and tolerance to grinding aren't the highest up there.

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Bars wrote:

I have just a few living characters in actual HC leagues as I typically grow bored around level 85 to 90 and start doing stupid shit or just not paying attention and die.

That happens to be the reason behind most of my character deaths as well. Running - max res maps 'cause "fuck it", drinking and/or eating while playing, etc.

I usually try to get to 90, where my builds are "finished" on the trees I plan. When I get there my brain turns off because the character is "done".

I definitely do not mind dying and losing a character I have invested in (so long as it's because of my own errors in judgment or ignorance on a game mechanic), and the adrenaline rush that comes to me during close encounters makes the risk of death worth it.

SC doesn't have the same appeal, unfortunately.

I've always played SC. I've wanted to play HC but I have to slow down my gameplay considerably. I almost always play solo, but I'm often on Discord with one of my friends who also plays PoE.

My main interested used to be, by far, the economic aspect of the game. I loved making a shit ton of currency in the first couple days, buy up items that are going to go up in price and sell them some time later. I'd buy up some Ethereal div cards, chaos spam the Vaal Regalia and sell it for a couple ex profit (usually). I also spent a good bit of time racing, so I could get to maps the same day as the league started. I hardly try to get rich anymore, though. I used to give or corrupt most of it at the end of a league anyway. This league I think I bought an Item Quantity gem at 4ex and sold it at 12ex a few weeks later, and that's all. I mostly use my currency to buy enough alts/regals/scours to roll gear for myself, now.

I'm getting more and more interested in theorycrafting builds. I wanted to try some dual curse Vaal Cyclone, poison/bleed, Uul-Netol's Embrace + Cospri's will and Blasphemy shenanigans but never got around to it.

Always league-specific softcore.

I very much dislike the "permanent" leagues. They don't fit with my interpretation of ARPGs as a modern continuation of roguelikes. I like stories that end, and I like characters that eventually die. Also, I don't like "missable" items in games, and legacy items are exactly that.

I would love to play hardcore if I could attribute my deaths 100% to my own error. Every time I dip my toes in HC, I die due to crash or lag a meaningful percentage of the time and it's just too disheartening.

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I used to do general chat (and moderate it) and play in public parties all the time.

Then they added perma-allocation and every public party switched to that, so I stopped participating in public parties. The instancing of the loot made it feel way too impersonal -- like I wasn't really playing with other people, but instead with people-like automatons.

Then moderation ended and I was sick of general chat, so I switched to guild chat/guild play.

Then I got too busy with other things and took a long break from the game, so I'm solo now. I probably will get back into a guild for 3.0, though I'm not sure how much time I want to invest in it.

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Regarding character choice/per-character play, I like well-themed characters. If I can just swap the main skill or the ascendancy choice without completely breaking the concept, then it's not a strong enough concept to interest me. I'd rather delete a character and start something new than try to "make it work" by massively adjusting the concept after finding out it doesn't work at higher levels.

This also means that I don't want to "respec into" the character. I want all my characters to come online starting from level 1, and I'll take it for however long it goes.

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GooberM wrote:

I'm getting more and more interested in theorycrafting builds. I wanted to try some dual curse Vaal Cyclone, poison/bleed, Uul-Netol's Embrace + Cospri's will and Blasphemy shenanigans but never got around to it.

That's the main reason I do not just go straight to HC SSF. Some of the unique items released are so inaccessible to SSF that all of my theory crafting around something interesting (or dumb - I definitely make suboptimal dumb builds if they sound fun) could be for naught because the unique doesn't drop or is out of my reach (breach/prophecy stuff as an example).

You mentioned your crazy Uul-Netol's Embrace build. Something I've been wanting to try for some time now is a Touhou-inspired bullet hell totemancer. Sire of Shards + Frozen Trail x2 + Rain of Splinters Frost Bolt totems for a total of 11 projectiles launched per cast.

Maybe even add in two Snakepit rings to bring that up to a hilarious 13. Not exactly to be optimal, just for the lulz.

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pneuma wrote:

Always league-specific softcore.

I very much dislike the "permanent" leagues. They don't fit with my interpretation of ARPGs as a modern continuation of roguelikes. I like stories that end, and I like characters that eventually die. Also, I don't like "missable" items in games, and legacy items are exactly that.

I would love to play hardcore if I could attribute my deaths 100% to my own error. Every time I dip my toes in HC, I die due to crash or lag a meaningful percentage of the time and it's just too disheartening.

I forgot to mention it, but I too stick to temporary leagues. I dislike the gimmick of "these unique items are only accessible to _ League!" and early on started playing them to grab the league-specific uniques I was interested in for my regular HC characters.

Eventually, it grew into never touching regular HC at all and just playing leagues so I didn't miss the mechanics rather than the items.

It's too bad you can't play HC without issues cropping up. I know I've lost a few HC guild mates to SC because they just didn't like how many issues came with not having a dependable connection.

Temp league SC, solo play, though I do cooperate with others for challenges, daily quests etc.

I used to play Standard back at the start and some HC temp leagues past 2-3 years, but now I just login, grab some shit to dress myself up and beat some shit out of mobs while watching streams/serials, listening to podcasts, chatting etc etc. I still love to experiment so often I also create and play wierd builds that comes to my mind.

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SarahAustin wrote:

I thought we dont have any values. Guess i was wrong.

I'll bite with that loaded comment.

Perhaps values was the wrong way to put it. Would "OT Gaming Preferences" have been better? Still, isn't our preferred method of playing the game due to what we value? This thread was inspired by the personality test thread, after all.

I want to see if there is any correlation between the results of one and the gaming preferences of OT visitors.

Please share how you prefer to play, Sarah! I'm interested in seeing how all of the OT regulars actually spend time in game.