What's the problem with the campaign? Everything in the game is repetitive!

I like the campaign but i'm a casual.

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

you could never have a campaign skip for the first character of a season anyway. it would be a weird dynamic because no matter how hard you try to balance it one way would be slightly faster than the other and the league start is essentially a race environment. a whole aspect of racing is that its the campaign, its knowing the method to it all.

I don't think this is a sound argument.

It's like saying you could never have an optional quest for a respec point in the Fetid Pool available to the first character in the league, because the league start is essentially a race environment and racers will always skip that quest because that's faster.

I mean yeah, they will. But so what? Nothing bad happens if all the people interested in treating the start of the league as a race skip that quest. Those players are already optimising all sorts of things and consistently making some choices over others. It doesn't mean you have to remove those choices. They're still there for all the rest of the people who aren't racers.

If you have an alternate leveling method, I agree, all the people who treat the game as a race will use it almost every time. But that's okay. You put options in the game intending them to be used, it's not a problem.

i dont think it is ok because the campaign by its nature will be a more complex thing with a lot more considerations, you have to go here and do this to unlock that and you can sip this bit of dialogue and not talk to that guy but you have to talk to this guy cause it wont autocomplete otherwise and you can skip this quest and take this waypoint then use that to come back and do that quest after X because that is a more optimal strat etc...

youd lose all that. these complexities are what makes the race interesting, gives more vectors for mastery behaviour, more ways to be 'a good player', a high knowledge base required. if you have a campaign skip that is just grind content like maps blasting down monsters theres just 1 vector of "i need the most effective aoe damage in the game" and then its just rng of who gets the bigger packs in the rng zones because everyone knows the answer to that 1 problem the game has posed them and weve deleted all this scope for people to learn 10 acts of how to play the quest game fast. youll just take a very complex set of strategy and game knowledge and reduce it down to virtually nothing.

no, its not ok, it is a problem.

"

caboom wrote:

2)there is nothing of value in the campaign.

Just because you don't find value doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

The value I find in it is to guide new players step by step according to what mechanics they will find upon reaching the maps, and in maps to find a guide to reach the bosses. Plus it helps present the mechanics in a fraction of what they can be to avoid overwhelming. And consequently, avoid a lucky drop that potentially breaks the flow of progress for that new player. Trivializing the steps, the actions and neglecting the future progress.
The acts serve more as a tutorial, a tutorial that, although for me it has no value, for someone new it does.

"

Waitubold wrote:

Except for bunch of fun. People are too obsessed with optimal progression.

Fun is relative, stop pushing your projections and subjectivity on others. But yes, I agree 100%, people are obsessed with the efficiency and optimal of progress instead of enjoy. If cannot enjoy then quit and go Last Epoch or Diablo 4.

What might be fun for me doesn't necessarily have to be fun for you, and there is no such thing as "objectively fun" in poe, the beauty of poe (post acts) is the variety and the ability to filter things that you like and the ones you don't like (this is not possible during acts).

"

Vennto wrote:

I am sick and tired of this campaign discussion.

- it is part of the natural character progression

Then someone reach delve, do trick for sulph for perma delve, basically skip acts for ascendancy to redo delve, yeah kinda natural progression.
Then someone reach heist, perma heist till bored, basically skip acts for ascendancy to redo heist, yeah kinda natural progression.
Then someone reach Sanctum, perma Sanctum, yeah kinda natural progression.
Then someone reach tft, buy act service, yeah kinda natural progression.

"

Vennto wrote:

- you have to start SOMEWHERE, and it cant be maps as they are itemized

Delve is not itemized, they have even given us events that directly appear in the mine as infinite delve, also, whenever you get to Epilogue, Kirac give you 1 map, I see the "it can't be because itemized" kinda absurd.

"

Vennto wrote:

- we're having more and more 4-month leagues, if you cant find the time to run the campaign for once in that period, I dont know what to tell you

The complaint comes from those who make more than 1 character per league and have been playing for years, it does not come from casuals who do not want to play the acts nor from those who do not have time, on the contrary, the complaint is more about "it's a waste of time" by the time you realize you did 8 characters in the league.

"

Vennto wrote:

- if you need 10 hours to complete the campaign, maybe take it as a challenge and start learning to do it faster. 5 hours is very reasonable for seasoned players, faster in team.

As my friend Waitubold says above in the quote, People are too obsessed with optimal progression. You are kinda the problem, just that you do not know it.

"

Mikrotherion wrote:

Perhaps if GGG made the campaign harder people would feel that it is more meaningful.

In yesterday's live, the director of Poe 2 stated that everything that does not add something intrinsically to the gaming experience does not have to be difficult, alluding to the QoL they are doing with Mark. In that sense, making the campaign more difficult would not add an enhanced act experience. The main characteristic of the campaign is not its difficulty, but its ability to provide players with a path through which they can reference themselves, give tools to new players and maintain a certain logic in the lore.

"

lagwin1980 wrote:

The whole argument about the champaign being boring and repetitive is stupid.

It takes at most a weekend to get to maps, less if you actual play a lot, most of the fun feeling game play for me comes from around level 40 to 80ish (or higher deepening on how your build is doing)

But yeah, if someone is playing this game and complains that doing something again and again is boring they should really question why they are playing...because you are playing a style of game that IS by definition repetitive.
And removing one of the only things that breaks up mapping means it is more repetitive and thus more boring.

do you believe some games have more replayability that others? serious question.

do you think some films are more rewatchable than others? if yes, what films have you rewatched a lot and what ones have you watched once, enjoyed but wouldnt want to watch again in the same way?


my answers would be yes, some games feel more replayable. games that are very story based i dont find that i want to replay them because i know the story. a game like tetris or geometry wars i find incredibly replayable.

why? tetris is more 'boring and repetitive' than a big story based game, why do i find myself able to replay tetris again and again and again and again and yet theres plenty of linear story campaign games i played once, rly enjoyed but dont want to play again?


why have i played the campaign of quake 1, 2 and 4 maybe once or twice each? thats maybe 60 hours play at most, and yet quake 3 that is just deathmatch killing in different maps, a far more repetitive and 'boring' activity it would seem, ive played that for probably 4000 hours? why?



things that are designed to be replayed a lot tend to be more simple and on the surface boring. card games, board games, very simple, very replayable, the least replayable games tend to be big, story and quest based narrative structure designs. when people design things to replayable we tend to see the designs become 'simple, boring, repetitive' because actually theres something in that which does actually feel less boring and repetitive to play again and again due to the way peoples brains function when they play them, what parts of their brain are consciously engaged and what parts go into more flowstate ways of working.

if you have a narrative and quests with objectives you are forcing a person to use more conscious thought and less slightly unconscious instinctual brain patterns, peoples brains get tired and irritated and bored when you make them consciously think too much. a lot of people play sports, games, exercise, meditation etc to enter states where they are not consciously thinking so much. a lot of sports people are not consciously thinking about what theyre doing a lot of the time, its an instinctual reflex thing and that has a therapeutic, mind freeing feeling for a lot of people.


its the same thing people get from sewing etc.



people who actually race the game and have played the campaign racing it and practice it, have done it maybe 1000+ times actually get so used to it they start to play it that way. i dont, a lot of people dont, i find it really jarring and horrible to play at this point.

Lol, playing Last Epoch's campaign made me realize how much I miss the POE campaign.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

i dont think it is ok because the campaign by its nature will be a more complex thing with a lot more considerations, you have to go here and do this to unlock that and you can sip this bit of dialogue and not talk to that guy but you have to talk to this guy cause it wont autocomplete otherwise and you can skip this quest and take this waypoint then use that to come back and do that quest after X because that is a more optimal strat etc...

youd lose all that. these complexities are what makes the race interesting

First of all, you don’t lose any of that. It’s not deletion of the campaign from the game. Nothing would be stopping you and any number of other players from racing through the campaign if that’s something you find interesting. Record your personal best. Improve it. Compare it. Share strategies. Enjoy! Seriously!

But Path of Exile is not a race. It’s just Path of Exile. People are just playing the game, they didn’t sign up to be involved in any race and have no obligation to find the same things interesting that you do.

I mean I really think you’re overselling the “very complex” nature of “how to play the quest game fast” in the first place, and the fact that the game largely gives up on “the quest game” afterward suggests it’s not actually some kind of vital foundational skill anyway. If GGG want optimising paths between NPCs to be part of the rest of the game, well, they’re welcome to add it. If not, the design itself is indicating that that kind of play is something it expects people to move on from.

Personally I’m not even strongly in favour of a “campaign skip”! I don’t think games that have that feature are markedly better for it and I think making the game interesting enough that people don’t want to skip it is a better approach. But I do strongly believe that treating everything as a competition is a limiting attitude, and I don’t think playing the campaign forever is vital enrichment people necessarily need in their lives. If the POE campaign is such a vital thing to experience we should teach it in schools. If not, it’s probably fine if people don’t.

You’ve spoken a number of times in advocacy of the social side of POE, so I am confident you will find ways to share your love of racing through the campaign with others. It just doesn’t have to be everyone.

"

grozar wrote:

Lol, playing Last Epoch's campaign made me realize how much I miss the POE campaign.

And playing LE made me realize how much I would pay to be able to skip it. Because you can skip it in LE on alts.

Personally I would rather sit at my job for 7h than play campaign again for 7h. I would gladly spend money I make in 7h of my job for campaign skip.

I will just point out that in d2 it took less than 20 minutes to get rushed through the campaign.

Other arpgs often let you give endgame items to new characters to level faster.

GGG just wants people to grind it out.

It is a choice.

They should at least bring up skills that don't feel good too use in the campaign. Lets say a new player starts marauder. You are going to use a really boring skill, with a boring support and be offered like 4 forms of cleave in act 1. Most people would write off the game at that point. The way we acquire new skills often discourages players from experimenting. Especially since early act support choices are less than optimal.

all i want is options.

allow ways to level and get all my passive points in different ways.

you like the campaign ... do it

someone wants to level through lower level maps ... do it

someone wants to level through endless delve ... do it

how is this a controversial take?

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

i dont think it is ok because the campaign by its nature will be a more complex thing with a lot more considerations, you have to go here and do this to unlock that and you can sip this bit of dialogue and not talk to that guy but you have to talk to this guy cause it wont autocomplete otherwise and you can skip this quest and take this waypoint then use that to come back and do that quest after X because that is a more optimal strat etc...

youd lose all that. these complexities are what makes the race interesting

First of all, you don’t lose any of that. It’s not deletion of the campaign from the game. Nothing would be stopping you and any number of other players from racing through the campaign if that’s something you find interesting. Record your personal best. Improve it. Compare it. Share strategies. Enjoy! Seriously!

no, poe has a ladder, these people are racing to be first on that ladder of xp, first to reach specific parts of endgame content to farm them for economic gain etc. its not about them writing down their best time and comparing it, stop pretending you dont understand just to be contrary and because you dont personally care about that side of the game.

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

You’ve spoken a number of times in advocacy of the social side of POE, so I am confident you will find ways to share your love of racing through the campaign with others. It just doesn’t have to be everyone.

i dont love racing, i never race like that, i hate the campaign, couldnt care less about the ladder and never use wealth making schemes that require first access to specific content. i am just able to see the game from other players point of view, understand what is important to them, why its important to them and factor that into how i think the game should be designed. i dont just argue from my own narrow, self interested point of view, i often post opinions that the game should be designed in ways that actually are detrimental to my own personal interests because i know its better for the overall playerbase.