Game + option
" Well no, it doesn't take me a few hours. It takes me like 11-12 hours on leaguestart to get through it with no gear. And yes ofc I did that? There is a leveling guide out there with hollow palm volcanic fissure of snaking for every class. You just path to a cluster jewel socket and then stack dex and stuff. I don't know how else to level in this game, so I'm gonna blindly follow the guide. I also hate rolling magma, its way too clunky to use so I'm never touching that or any other gimmicks like brand skills. I'm not a speedrunner, nor will I use the "best leveling skills". I'm just gonna follow some random guide and still take 5-6 hours. And this is me, other people it takes them days/a whole week to get through the campaign. This is why we need a campaign skip after your first char reaches maps. Not everyone will just go "ok I'll do the meta strats,learn speedrunning and zone layouts and do it all again". They'll be too bored and burned out by the campaign and just quit the league after 1 build is done. That's your average player. |
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" I think the people who take a week to clear the campaign only take a week because they're playing less than an hour per day. 12 hours is a little... long. Are you just standing around in towns or something? |
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" No, I'm just doing the campaign while doing stuff like einhar's first mission in act 2,alva's mission later,tutorial heist blueprint etc. because its free rewards and it just feels nice to complete those things. Towns take ages to load because of all the people with their mtx rainbow suits on, and every act takes me about an hour. If I'm in act 2 in under an hour that's the most optimal leaguestart I could ever have. I'm rushing as much as possible, but I just zone out and get so bored because I've done this campaign way way too many times. |
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I'm pretty slow at speed running too, but I find that the most useful measure in-game is to compare my character level against area level. I want to be 4 levels under the area level (unless I play hardcore). If the difference is less than that, then I need to rush forward and skip as much as possible. If it's more than 4 levels then I need to kill more, but without deviating from straight path to wherever I'm going.
It works well as a reminder to keep pushing forward and puts you in an area where XP should be very close to optimal. I find it a bit tricky to decipher the campaign speed run times that people list in general. There's significant difference between a minimal campaign run that gets you to maps and one that completes all side quests including labs and initial NPC content. Let each player choose which version of PoE to play:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-post/24770192 |
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My 10 year old beat his first campaign in under 12 hours in tota league.
He played molten strike champion with tempestuous steel into rakiatas when he could equip it. |
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" Yeah I have no clue how people do it in 4 hours. Probably skipping half the stuff, but to me that isn't a campaign run. I don't want to be lvl63 when I get to maps, that would feel horrible. I'm always 68-70 by the time I kill A10 Kitava. I'm always 4-5 levels above every zone, skipping multiple zones would just feel bad. And forget about skipping skill point quests or lab, I always do every lab at the appropriate level to get my ascendancy points because they help. Like if people need to rush and skip everything just to be a lvl60 unascended character at the start of maps, there is a problem with the campaign. Players shouldn't be forced to be professional speedrunners. For me a 10-hour campaign is fast, usually it takes me 11-13 hours in a new league though. |
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" The irony here just knocked me out of my chair. |
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" Since this isn’t your first league and you’ve been around for quite a while, there’s definitely room for improvement. Taking 12+ hours for the campaign is an extremely slow pace. There are plenty of guides that can help, and simply replaying the campaign gives you natural practice that will make you faster. You can see this in the average player as well. Most people finish the campaign in under 8 hours, mainly because they run through it multiple times per league while leveling their alts. " I don’t really know what to tell you, because the game gives you a huge range of leveling options, and the community has produced plenty of league-starter and leveling guides. You chose to ignore all of that and picked one of the worst possible options, only to realize that the campaign still takes far too long for your liking. The thing with Hollow Palm is that you want to stack DEX to gain damage, since you can’t use a weapon. If you take a quick look at the passive tree, you’ll see that the Templar starts in a STR/INT section. You barely have any nearby nodes that provide meaningful damage without pathing all the way south, and your Ascendancy class gives you no real support for this setup. It should be fairly obvious that leveling with Hollow Palm as a Templar is a bad idea, considering how little damage scaling you can actually get. Sure, you have things like Astramentis and a few DEX nodes, but it isn’t nearly enough to make the build worthwhile, and the lack of damage slows you down once you hit a certain point. That’s why people who start as Templar usually play something caster-related or anything that is actually supported by the starting position and Ascendancy. Hollow Palm—let alone Volcanic Fissure—isn’t the pick here. It’s much more suited for Berserker without Hollow Palm, since that class gets tons of damage support, or Slayer with Hollow Palm because you start in the DEX area and the class gives strong benefits. Someone who’s been around for years should at least know the basics and not struggle this much with leveling. " Most players aren’t speedrunners, because they don’t min-max their gameplay with the goal of going faster or achieving better personal times. I think the term “speedrunner” is being misused here. There are essentially two types of players: those who simply know how to run the campaign quickly with whatever skill they choose after preparing their leveling setup for alts, and those who genuinely speedrun on a fresh character with no leveling gear at all. Those true speedrunners will still outpace you by a huge margin even while you’re using alt gear, and they do it without much effort. There’s a clear difference between being fast as an average or advanced-average player and actively pushing for high-end speedrun times. Most players fall into the former category, not the latter. " If we look strictly at playtime, it would be both unfortunate and unrealistic for someone to need an entire week’s worth of hours just to finish the campaign. Even someone who barely has time to play, the typical dad gamer with only about 2 hours a day, would still finish the campaign on a fresh character by day 3 or 4. That already puts them well below the 12 hour mark. The game is already extremely generous with leveling, since it is easy to finish the campaign quickly, so there is no real need for a campaign skip pass, especially as early as you are suggesting. Having alternative ways to level that would take approximately 2 to 5 hours after some preparation, just like it would take to drag an alt through the campaign, would be a much better approach. " The average player becomes familiar with layouts and mechanics after a couple of leagues and naturally gets faster at running the campaign. Most players also pick solid league starters, many of which are already well optimized for leveling, allowing them to breeze through the campaign. Others are experienced enough to choose almost any skill they enjoy and still finish the campaign quickly. In the current version of the game, it is genuinely difficult to be slow if you understand the basics. The average player becomes familiar with layouts and mechanics after a couple of leagues and naturally moves faster through the campaign. Most players also choose league starters that are well suited for leveling, letting them progress efficiently, while others can pick almost any skill they enjoy and still finish the campaign quickly. In the current version of the game, it is genuinely hard to fall behind if you understand the basics. It’s important to note that how you feel about the game does not reflect every player. What you describe is a reflection of your own experience and personal opinion. Looking at it objectively, based on your approach and how you engage with the game, you are just below the average player in terms of efficiency and progression. This largely comes down to your willingness to learn and optimize as you play, which explains why some parts feel slower or more challenging for you, and why certain issues you encounter do not affect most players. Windows 11, 9950X3D, RTX 4090, 96GB DDR5, 14,100 MB/s SSD, 15,360x2160p @240Hz Ultra 4K Gaming & Workspace Powerhouse
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Nah we need a skip or alternate leveling with boosted exp rates(2x,3x,5x,10x etc.)
Like if I could just do endless heist or sanctum or delve for a few hours and get to maps with all my skill points I'd be happy. Then just go and do the uber lab and gain all 8 ascendancy points from that 1 run, you can already gain all 8 points in PoE 2 by buying a high-level sekhema carry so the technology is clearly there. Sorry but I refuse to look at spreadsheets or learn randomly generated layouts. I am not a speedrunner, and I will not be one. The only layout in this game I learned is Vaal City, because I hate that zone. And I only ever learned one layout of it, so I have to keep making new instances until it generates with the one I know. Sometimes it takes me 20+ instances. That's just ridiculous lol |
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"We absolutely do not need that. "??? |
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