Standard vs league difference

[ToXiN]

Hi everyone!

I'm fairly new to the game (playing for about a month now) and I was wondering what happens after the Harbinger league ends.
Ofc a new one will start with new content (right?) and the current league will migrate into standard?

I'm not sure what's the difference between standard and leagues. Leagues contain content that is not available in standard (currently Harbingers)?
If so, previous league contents are avaiable in standard (like breaches and stuff)?

Thanks for the answers! :)

[Provin915]

When the Harbinger league ends, your characters and stash will go to either Standard or Hardcore and most of the time the unique league content will be migrated as well. GGG usually host 2 weeks of races or events after a temporary league has ended.

You're correct about the league-specific content. They are temporary, whereas Standard or Hardcore is permanent.

[robot]

You really want to play the temporary leagues. They're more interesting. Once the league is over the characters and items will go to their "parent league".
The old league-specific content is sometimes available as map mods, divination cards, or simply remains in the game to an extent. That is game-wide, nothing is really limited to Standard or Hardcore, they contain nothing extra. They're plain. And since whatever you gather in temporary leagues remains on your account, I suggest to play that.
You can read more on the wiki if you want, it's a must-have companion in this game.

[ToXiN]

I played Harbinger league so far.

If I understood correctly, leagues act as a "beta game" and when it's over, it get's implemented in standard.

So in standard, every content is available, but only after the specific league ended.

[Seba]

Leagues mean a fresh start for everyone and at the same time they add new stuff to the game. They are temporary and the big advantage these have is that we all start the same from point zero.

Standard is the base game (with some things added from old leagues I think) but it doesn't reset. So it has a convoluted economy absolutely flooded of currency and items. Trading and gearing up a character becomes trivial because there is everything you could need and but the same time most players don't need anything at this point (it's been running since the beginning of the game so many players have tabs and tabs full of exalted orbs and things like that).

Advice: stay away from Standard. Leagues are simply more dynamic, there's more player interaction and it pushes you to creating new characters and trying out new stuff from scrap which adds a whole new level of challenge.

[5M0k1N]

leagues normally have a new mechanic (like harbingers now) that later may be implemented into standard but to a way lesser degree. like instead of seeing harbingers everywhere like you do now, youll only find em once in a while
once those leagues end your characters in that league go to standard or hardcore (if you were in the temp hardcore league)

im not sure why so many people advice so strongly against standard though. sure theres more people in the leagues (once theyre new at least) and the market is fresh and all that but eh its not that much different to be honest. esp if you normally play by yourself, and if you play SSF, well then its almost exactly the same lul

[Grumpy]

Originally posted by 5M0k1N:

im not sure why so many people advice so strongly against standard though. sure theres more people in the leagues (once theyre new at least) and the market is fresh and all that but eh its not that much different to be honest. esp if you normally play by yourself, and if you play SSF, well then its almost exactly the same lul

I understand the point with the SSF, but not with the playing by yourself. If you play solo but not SSF then you still take advantage of a fresh economy with more players.

Also ppl advising the league mechanics because they enrich the standard game completly independent from the fact if you are playing solo, group, SSF or whatever. Harbinger is for example a nice income of currency without the need to do much. Legacy, last league, was like PoE on LSD and so on.

And even when OP just want to play 1 character till the end of time, its still advisable to start in the league to take advantage of the mechanics.
The only situation which come to my mind where standard could be useful, when you need a particular legacy unique item or want a special 100ex rare item.

[5M0k1N]

yea i get that obviously. just saying that people seem to disregard standard as if it was crap for some reason

[jamesc70]

Since there is only a month left on Harbinger, and I just restarted, I'm playing Standard until the next league.

It's a good place to simply play around, and since I have 100's of exalts and 1,000's of other currencies from many other leagues, it allows you to try out all kinds of things, and do things you'd never do in a non-standard league; like Vaal'ing expensive uniques or trying a 4 Searing Bond Totem build.

For all the Standard haters, there sure are a LOT of people playing Standard.