Im sure everyone is excited to play Rolling Magma again in 3.28

So glad there still is only going to be one skill worth playing unless you want to waste your time in campaign. GGG really needs to do something about the skill balance its not even close to how good rolling magma is compared to other gems

A lot of aspiring melee templars will be rolling (no pun intended) with rolling magma to eventually come to painful realizations when switching to melee templar.

My opinion would be the other skills should come up to this level rather than rolling magma getting nerfed. I think they went a bit overboard with making the early acts tougher, from a range of changes.

Probably also should be less about needing to combine multiple gem effects in an optimal fashion, until about act3. ie. shooting rolling magma through a flame wall that makes it stronger.

My opinion is the early acts should be quite easy then get progressively harder, not the other way around. Doesn't make much sense for me that the game gets increasingly easier in the campaign.

In the other game, it is even more of an imbalance from my experience. The first act is full of constraints, then they start removing these, while adding increased skill availability and loot dropping. Suddenly the game becomes much faster in the second act.

Players find the optimal options to get around this, but it should not be necessary early on in the game. Most things should be pretty easy to progress at the same pace, then when the game begins to get harder (not easier as it currently does), having a more optimised build should become more important.

I like the campaign and think it is a necessary part of the game, but, I think it does not need to be made more difficult, and should infact be shorter in duration to run. As a very rough example I think the time for speed run of the best players could come down a bit to about 1h30m for the 10 acts, but for the regular player, that runs leagues most the time, but doesn't always use optimal strategies, practice etc, it needs to come way down. It should be fairly easy to complete in 5hrs, for even players who aren't particularly skilled or knowledgeable, if they're going to be doing it every season.

I think the campaign itself in structure and loot is fine, so to achieve this, probably what is needed is a buff to skills damage at the lower end and some nerfing to mobs HP. I also might be imagining this, but it seems to me that some of the pathing and maze like tile sets have been made more difficult to navigate. This is a thing that is less of a problem for skilled players, because they recognize the patterns, but can add a lot of time backtracking for the average player. Difficulty wise in terms mobs chance to kill players is fine. The game is balanced well enough in that regard in my opinion, providing some challenge, but not too punishing.

If players are feeling they need a certain levelling build or particular skill for the campaign, until they switch to the build they intend to play, I think that is a bit over the top. There is a place for needing to switch builds, depending what the player is doing, but as is being suggested in this thread, if it really is optimal for a melee player to be levelling as a caster for efficiency, the design probably needs improvement.

In other games where there is not a vast endgame to interact with or league resets, having a time consuming campaign would be necessary to make the game playable, but for a lot of players in POE, it becomes a bit of a hurdle for them being able to interact with the other content. I quite like the campaign myself and find it to be an important part of the game and character building process. I'm also in favor of the game being difficult so that it challenges players and builds. I just don't think it needs to do that immediately at the start of the game, where if a meta combination is not being used it could add double to the play time, every time it is done.

I think there is always going to be room for the most skillful players to excel using their knowledge and ability above the rest. However I think in POE, often the design causes the gap to be too wide, punishing players that are struggling, without challenge players who are elite at the game. Degen build up on bossing would be an example of this. Unnecessarily complex tile sets in the campaign would be another. Randomness is great, but but there is a limit. Some of the pathing in act1 that leads to nowhere, is probably not necessary. I don't know all the tricks, but I think some of the indicators that helped with this pathing have also been removed. ie caverns of anger. Latter on this seems to not be a problem. I think the pathing through the latter acts becomes highly linear. Having variation on maps is great for replay-ability, but why has the game become easier to navigate in the second 5 acts than the first 5? Likely because it was added in later, which is fine, but in general they should be making the later acts the harder ones, not easier. In overall difficulty, this is sort of balanced, maybe, but in time duration, I don't think it is.

Act1 is longer than act5. Adding asynchronous trade only at act6, another factor. A constraint early on, then game gets and option that makes it easier. I fail to see that as an improvement. Just have it available from the start? The gold cost is a constraint, and the non asyncronous is available, but it's a functionality that makes things easier, in a later part of the game. Respeculation was another one, which I think got improved to immediately available, and is much better. If it's going to be in the game, then have it available, which it now is. There is actually one example which goes a bit far in the other direction in my opinion, and that is gold repec cost. I understand why this is done, so that players don't have full respec-ability for minimal cost later on, but this one is a bit weird, that the player gets more power, and is negatively impacted, even if there could be a thematic argument made.

I don't know if it was ever reverted, but my memory of what happened was some leagues ago, they intended on making the entire game harder. Which was fine. Then they didn't have time to do it all at once, and for some reason, started from act 1/2, rather than act 10 working backwards. Then at some point decided to not go through with the whole thing, after doing the first few act. This was when they unintentionally made some mobs in maps, like goats, super powerful, because they were linked to the changed mobs in the campaign. Not sure of league, probably was about 4 years ago. Well I may be wrong and it got reverted, but I feel like the early acts got more difficult relative to the rest of the game, also in combination to some movement skill changes and other nerfs along the way. I know there was meta builds for speed before that as well and the game may well even be faster for some people now, but I feel like it was not a very good principle, starting with making the early acts more difficult before the later game. Even if it did get rebalanced at some point.

Anyway a bit off topic, my apologies, but I think it relates to having one or a handful of meta skills optimal for leveling, as it become more necessary to use these when difficulty is increased. I think the buffs they gave to melee a few leagues back was helpful, but combined with things like scarcity of whetstones, and removal of melee totems, sometimes it feels like one step forward and one back. On the other hand, I don't think needing to use offensive warcry, for example, should be a big part of act1. Let the player cruise through the first 2 acts, then start adding these other aspects on as needed when the difficulty is increasing. Not, if you don't use this particular combination you have half damage. That is fine for the later campaign and into maps, but shouldn't be a part of act1 in my opinion. Keep the difficulty, but minimize some of the time sinks in campaign for the average player.

I know they have and are continuing to add some aspects to the campaign to make it easier and interesting, which is mostly good, but probably needs to be a bit more drastic. Keepers was the easiest for leveling that I remember, which I think was an enjoyable aspect of the league, and about what it should be as a base line I think. Phrecia 2.0 was the opposite, I know it was an event and had added gauntlet type aspects, but it showed how much of a difference running the campaign can be going between the two. I think they should be aiming at having the campaign experience about as easy as it was in Keepers, where fast player are able to skip over content optimally, but other players find it easy to progress as well, while interacting with things. Mercs was a bit the same, because they were so powerful, so it is heading in the right direct there. My memory of settlers and necropolis where that they were less reward during the campaign and a bit of a time sink until later on. Most of my feedback relates to the base game though, without having league mechanics intertwined. I think regarding this thread, increasing the damage on the lower level of a lot of skills would be a good idea. Whilst leaving skills that are or have been powerful recently, like rolling magma, P.conc, Seismic trap, etc at where they are/where for fast leveling.

Rolling Magma needs to quieten down, it is way too noisy! Which puts me off using it.