Mandatory Campaign is a good thing

I feel like most of the problem with "I don't want to replay the campaign" is people telling themselves that "nothing matters until maps" when that's just a self phych-out... I know because I've done it to myself. But I figured out that I was doing it. "this shit is just a waste of my time" nothing matters until endgame...

Yeah nothing matters in endgame EITHER.

Its a game, a series of obstacles that you choose to surmount, its a journey of progression. Everything CAN matter if you focus on the "core loop" of finding items and figuring out ways to overcome challenges (and you don't play in such a way that all the challenges are Pre-removed such as leveling in trade gear, in a mode you've tirvialized many times alrerady).

If you don't self phych-out you'll figure out that the leveling gameplay the feeling of progression, is part of what makes you feel "god like" in maps. Without the contrast between lower power character this feeling of progression is heavily mitigated.

Just level in D4 if you want a great example of how boring it feels to always feel the SAME POWER. Never have any spikes (except when you drop that item that is specifically designed for your skill in D4's sad loot design).

There's also a reason why Blizzard designers felt the need to put 2x and 3x power spikes into their game in the form of single items that are meant for single skills (effectively just D3 set bonus'). They needed that massive spike to compensate for how dogshit the game feels up to then.


Quin is right, many game designers are right when they say "you think you do, but you really don't"

Another great "you think you do but you really don't" is Autoloot... talk about a great way to make your loot into a "blur" of weightless trash... POE has enough of a problem with ground loot (at least in Basic mode).

People who think its fun to trivialize and short cut are just players who have't made the mitake of putting in cheat codes and discovering "the why" of gaming. Gaming is not about reaching max level, its about everything that happens between level 1 and level 100.

In D&D max level is when you retire your characters or the DM makes them NPC's and you start new ones... Sure slaying Kobolds at level 1 can be painful but with it comes that fresh feeling of new possibilities and progress when a +1 sword might be really cool again instead of junk.


That said I embrace design changes to campaigns that allow multiple varied paths, or even randomness sprinkled in. Variety in the campaign will massively help the leveling process feel like less of a slog.

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alhazred70 wrote:

I feel like most of the problem with "I don't want to replay the campaign" is people telling themselves that "nothing matters until maps" when that's just a self phych-out...

Nothing matters in maps EITHER.

skill gems matter though. think most people hate it because ur build isn't complete and slow and well people wanna go fast and use the build that you're making.

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vio wrote:

i think it's to prevent people jumping quickly on the bandwagon of new op builds recommended by streamers.

as soon as some overpowered interaction of skills/items/mechanics is discovered, people wanna exploit. that asap, thats imho the motivation behind many of those "skip the campaign" requests.

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another motivation is to switch to another character class with the current build to get more powerful. it's a "decisions should matter" issue

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what would be the consequences of enabling players to skip the campaign? imho it's item price inflation because if more people are able to jump on a new build, demand for those items explodes and so do the prices.

results are more people complaining about items not being affordable, blaming fake sellers, market manipulators for it :) a classic symptom fighting.

Except that they want to skip the campaign, not skip to map level. Just mapping starting from level 1.

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satanttin wrote:

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alhazred70 wrote:

I feel like most of the problem with "I don't want to replay the campaign" is people telling themselves that "nothing matters until maps" when that's just a self phych-out...

Nothing matters in maps EITHER.

skill gems matter though. think most people hate it because ur build isn't complete and slow and well people wanna go fast and use the build that you're making.

"Without the contrast between lower power character this feeling of progression is heavily mitigated."


Take D4 as a perfect example of why you need progression. With almost no contrast between weaker and more powerful character as you level D4's "dyanmic scaling" has been called "dogshit" and "truely terrible game design" by some of the most well known streamers and content creators.

I don't think I've seen a credible review of D4 that didn't pan this feature for the obviously bad design that it is. Quin, Asmongold, Kripp, MrLlamaSC... no one likes it.

Why? Because it remove the sense of progression that allows your end game character to feel like a god. D4 only has a big chunky spike when you equip your "Pulverize does 3x damage" trash designed loot item.

Other examples in the opposite direction are players who don't even KNOW they're lowering their own enjoyment of the game: like lets say Grimrow who never seems to play a league for more than 2 weeks no matter how good he says it is or how much fun he says he's having. Or there's CuteDog who only ever keeps playing POE past a week or two because he makes a paycheck doing it.

Clear speeders by in large seem to do that same short lived arc; short circuiting massive swaths of the game; buying "leveling gear" to trivialize their way to maps as fast as possible, equip their entire build pre-bought, run maps for a few nights or hours and get bored and "see you next league" "dead league lel".

I'd have to guess the vast majority of clear speed players get about 3 leagues out of POE before they move on (if they're streamers they just get more and more jaded and unhappy), I feel like this because I've argued with so many of them over the years and PRECIOUS FEW OF THEM are around here or the reddit sub a year later.

Focusing on only the tiniest % of the game "because its the part that matters" is just a recipe for Faster burn out, and less enjoyment of what time you do play due to this illusion that 1% of the game matters and 99% of the game should be filtered out and/or trivialized.

that's just wrong though, because acts are like 2% of the actual playtime for most of the endgame players

If you need to play through the same slog of a campaign every time to make your character feel important, I suggest you try playing more interesting characters. They will be important *to you*, not some loosely woven string of "do this get that okay now do this next" tasks. They're fine for context and enriching the world -- every now and then, not every time. Once your players are skipskipskipping your campaign dialogue, all that writing and voice acting...time to add a campaign-adjacent way to level new characters.

But we have been calling for this with PoE for ten years now, so it's not like the existing ten act monstrosity was somehow the tipping point. Even were PoE award-winning level stuff in terms of narrative design, the whole point of an ARPG is to kill shit and get stronger. Story is the foundation of that experience, not the entirety.

At no point did I feel like my character was even remotely important in PoE's campaign -- he or she just happened to be sufficiently motivated to do the right thing now and then. And that's fine -- PoE was always more about being a struggling nobody washed up on a beach than some implicit hero protagonist. Thus the character's story isn't in the writing but the play itself. The writing is just plot -- things happening through which the character can grow. And in PoE, as in most ARPGs, that growth is conveyed by numbers, not words.

After all, how did people create their stories (read: memorable experiences) from Diablo 2? Through baal runs, low level pvp, trading, cow farming, runeword assembly...certainly not by following the Dark Wanderer across Sanctuary.

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j33bus wrote:

Except that they want to skip the campaign, not skip to map level. Just mapping starting from level 1.

then, for poe2 to be a success, ggg will probably have to remove maps and let the campaign scale to level 83.

or leave maps as a sidequest that starts at level 75.

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Lyutsifer665 wrote:

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lagwin1980 wrote:

is it a slog though?, my lazy ass can get to maps in a weekend and i am by no means speeding though it.

but do you really want to waste a weekend doing that every time you want to try a different build? if we had to do it once or twice per league fine, but some people want to try up to 10 builds. so they need to waste a weekend each time?

i'm starting to think that the campaign is there so ppl dont try too many builds in a league

The campaign is not the one , preventing people to try new builds . Trying to get a 6 link item needed for the build is the reason . Especially if they want to do 10 builds per league .

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iuiulitza wrote:

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Lyutsifer665 wrote:

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lagwin1980 wrote:

is it a slog though?, my lazy ass can get to maps in a weekend and i am by no means speeding though it.

but do you really want to waste a weekend doing that every time you want to try a different build? if we had to do it once or twice per league fine, but some people want to try up to 10 builds. so they need to waste a weekend each time?

i'm starting to think that the campaign is there so ppl dont try too many builds in a league

The campaign is not the one , preventing people to try new builds . Trying to get a 6 link item needed for the build is the reason . Especially if they want to do 10 builds per league .

you mean a 6 L chest? there are cheap corrupt ones for like 10c but if its a second or third etc build then players will have enough currency to buy proper 6L.
now i still have to equip new characters but i dont want to do the campaign again,so that is the reason that prevents me from playing a new character

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TheBagman wrote:

If you don't mind it, power to you. Some of us want an alternative (looking at you, Endless Ledge). Players should have a choice.

I'm not really disagreeing with you, but to balance this would probably be a nightmare. Just wait a few months, and we do actually have two choices. How long does it take for players to want 3? 4? 5? And how many choices should GGG spend time on developing and balancing? What about league mechanics in all of these choices? How to balance them, when certain players are running in a straight line, while others are playing in an "open" area?