Campaign is dog$&!^

I've come around on this a bit. I enjoy the campaign and levelling more now than I have in the past.

I still think it is too long for new players to complete repeatedly with most the league and new content being gated behind completing the campaign.

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If you have trouble blasting through the campaign in 4 hours, you are the person the campaign is for.

I don't agree with this even if there is some truth in it. Learning to do the campaign in 4hours is not easy. Most people don't want to do this. If they could do it in 4 hours, they probably wouldn't have this opinion, but most people can't actually do that. Including myself, I cant do it in 4 hours, and i've done Uber, lvl 100, hc/ruthless experience, game knowlege etc.

Speeprunning/raccing is a great part of the game, but within reason. I think it's great that there is a high skill level that allows this, but I also think the difference between players who have optimized this process and regular players is too large. Especially with the end game getting increasingly more expansive. Players who are better at the game in all aspects should be rewarded, but there is plenty of room for doing this without such a huge gap. Can't speak for speed runners, but I think they would agree that making the campaign 2 hours quicker for players at the low end is not going to impact the skill level at the top end, if it is done correctly.

Act 1 is currently one of the hardest sections in the game. I think it is one of the longest acts to run speed wise? I also think this might be partially because of difficulty increase that was done a few years back and never completed on all the acts. I'm fine with it being harder rather than easier. This doesn't effect good players at all though. They will largely speed through it. It might however be adding a 1.5x time multiplier for intermediate players or people freestyling builds. The campaign itself is not difficult, but it is lengthy.

I'm happy with where it is at currently, but some people who are slow at the campaign, and me at times in the past, don't want to live in the campaign to occasionally encounter maps when they get through it. Get better or live in the campaign, is not valid advice. Permanent league would be an option for these players in other games, but in POE a lot of content never makes in to the permanent league, so they will miss out on it. There would be a huge amount of players that play leagues and never experience the bulk of the content.

The campaign is essential for leagues, but It's just too long unless you are very good at it.

I don't know what the right value is, I'd be interested to see a distribution of the time it takes players to complete campaign. If experienced players take about 4 hours, I think that is very reasonable amount of investment give or take to get to mapping on league start. It should not get exponentially longer from there though. Average players taking 8 hours, maybe that is fine, but I think you'll find the average is much more than this. I think this should be achievable while having some knowledge of the game, like a few campaign play throughs, but not needing a completely optimised set up and game knowledge. That should be the difference between under 4 hours and 8 hours. I think you'll find the gap is a lot larger than this, and thus less experienced players are more likely to be frustrated with the campaign length, because it is an exponentially longer experience for them on league start or when wanting to level a new character.

If you dont know how to beat campain in 5-6 hours you can watch how Zizaran or Phox do this in one of many build guides they make usually just before new league start. Just do what they do and thats all. Its not that hard.

After these many years of campaign running, they could definitely allow players to skip it somehow.

I myself have nothing against campaign, sometimes I even like it. But it definitely wouldn't be that bad to have an alternative of skipping it. Especially, if you level multiple characters per league.

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y3lw0rC#4020 wrote:

After these many years of campaign running, they could definitely allow players to skip it somehow.

I myself have nothing against campaign, sometimes I even like it. But it definitely wouldn't be that bad to have an alternative of skipping it. Especially, if you level multiple characters per league.

The furthest I'd ever see GGG going, and also the furthest I'd ever want them to go, is to make waypoint unlock progression be shared among different characters in the same league. I think that's a perfectly fair way to accelerate progression for people who have already cleared the campaign at least once; it shaves at least an hour off of your clear time but it doesn't allow players to skip the various bosses designed to gatekeep progression.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate#2605 wrote:

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y3lw0rC#4020 wrote:

After these many years of campaign running, they could definitely allow players to skip it somehow.

I myself have nothing against campaign, sometimes I even like it. But it definitely wouldn't be that bad to have an alternative of skipping it. Especially, if you level multiple characters per league.

The furthest I'd ever see GGG going, and also the furthest I'd ever want them to go, is to make waypoint unlock progression be shared among different characters in the same league. I think that's a perfectly fair way to accelerate progression for people who have already cleared the campaign at least once; it shaves at least an hour off of your clear time but it doesn't allow players to skip the various bosses designed to gatekeep progression.

Have all of the waypoints/areas unlocked so that u could level in level appropriate areas of ur choice without needing to go somewhere, open something, fetch something and whatnot. Once you reach level 65 or something, map device is available for use. Or maybe you would only need to kill the last boss when you consider yourself ready to get 2 passive points + the use of map device idk.

But yeah, the gist of it is having shared WP's. I don't mind killing a boss or a few along the way (although to me killing only last one sounds more appealing :D).

Truly a welcome feature in my humble opinion.

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y3lw0rC#4020 wrote:

Have all of the waypoints/areas unlocked so that u could level in level appropriate areas of ur choice without needing to go somewhere, open something, fetch something and whatnot. Once you reach level 65 or something, map device is available for use. Or maybe you would only need to kill the last boss when you consider yourself ready to get 2 passive points + the use of map device idk.

But yeah, the gist of it is having shared WP's. I don't mind killing a boss or a few along the way (although to me killing only last one sounds more appealing :D).

Truly a welcome feature in my humble opinion.

Absolutely not. You're talking about letting players skip quests, which I'm completely against. The various bosses throughout the campaign are designed to be roadblocks to test character progression; if you can't pass the test, you don't get past the test.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate#2605 wrote:

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y3lw0rC#4020 wrote:

Have all of the waypoints/areas unlocked so that u could level in level appropriate areas of ur choice without needing to go somewhere, open something, fetch something and whatnot. Once you reach level 65 or something, map device is available for use. Or maybe you would only need to kill the last boss when you consider yourself ready to get 2 passive points + the use of map device idk.

But yeah, the gist of it is having shared WP's. I don't mind killing a boss or a few along the way (although to me killing only last one sounds more appealing :D).

Truly a welcome feature in my humble opinion.

Absolutely not. You're talking about letting players skip quests, which I'm completely against. The various bosses throughout the campaign are designed to be roadblocks to test character progression; if you can't pass the test, you don't get past the test.

Well, absolutely not in your view but absolutely yes in mine. Doing some quests for passives or respec points and killing act boss when ready (without previous quest requirements) to have next act and all wp's open for you is more than enough. I'm sorry, I see no sense in doing same "passing" quests over and over if we have a skip or partial skip campaign, it makes no sense then.

You kill the boss, you pass the test of the act, what's the problem :D ?

Well, we have different points of view.