Story Grind

Hey Team!

I would like to start this with a few points.
1) I REALLY love the story you guys have been developing, and I enjoy playing it occasionally.
2) I Think your leveling balance, gear requirements, and power spikes are very well balanced. I always feel powerful, while maintaining a level of threat from the enemies with specific modifiers. (Mana drain is just as saddening as in PoE1)
3) I have invested 250 hours of gameplay, and don't plan on stopping any time soon. I think your PoE series is the top tier for ARPG Games.

The Story, Though REALLY enticing, is too much. not only do we have to grind out the story for EVERY CHARACTER, but we have to do it TWICE for each character. this process is tedium at it's finest.

you have made a new game... so please please PLEASE, use this as a chance to improve on the failings of PoE1. Again, don't get me wrong, PoE is amazing! I know Blizzard *spits on floor* probably has some kind of patent on the "Adventure Mode" kind of system, but we need something that achieves the same goal.

I have completed the story, "Cruel included" 16 times, and I am bored of it. We should not have to keep doing this every season. this kind of repetition is an obstacle to the players, rather than a feature, and deters many from making a new character.

OBVIOUSLY: if people want to play the story, let them toggle it on in character creation. having the option is nice.

MY SUGGESTION:
Honestly, forcing everyone to complete the story each season? WONDERFUL. forcing them to do it every character every season? Ew.

We need a mode that drops you into the game, as you get your ascendancy books, Stat boosts, and other Effects from quests in your guild hideout from the Hooded One.



Please take this to heart, as I think it will greatly improve the QoL of this game.

POE1 exists for like what 12 years? Never have they ever since the dawn of time removed the campaign or added a campaign skip option.

Same will apply for POE2, thats it. Gotta have to accept it and move on.

New league starts = everyone starts at the exact same spot and progress trough the story -> endgame. Thats how it is.

I and many other players have accepted this years ago and learned to ignore that fact. My suggestion is enjoy the game as it is, if not well I guess there are other things to try out there.

Cya in game :)

Won't have to play same acts twice when the other acts are released. But yes, the campaign takes awhile. It'll get to the point where you'll be able to do it in under 4 hours no prob if you know what you are doing.

correct,

I assumed I would get a bunch of "But that's how it's always been" conservative mindsets, rather than an actual debate on reasoning.

again, I do enjoy the game as it is, this is just a suggestion to their team, on the feedback forum. I still think personally that it would be a wonderful QoL upgrade for players, and entice people to continue on the league after they get bored of their first character.

I personally think that Quality of life for players should be one of the top mindsets of a developer, and not implementing it because "it would be too easy" is just a method of gatekeeping to their casual player base. like I said in my original post, let the people who WANT to grind story over and over be allowed to do it.

Simply have a batch of leveling maps, that scale with your character level up to 65, that can only be found in tiered maps. Not only would this sort out the issue of obnoxious story grinding that is no longer rewarding, but you can actually encourage the players to go back to their old character to grind out these maps, or encourage trade on them for people who don't want them. Also, you could mod these areas to INCREASE low level difficulty if you wanted to challenge yourself.

Its a simple and elegant fix that would not effect players that want to smash their face off a wall on a repeated story, as well as encourage the players that are intimidated, or simply bored by the constantly repeating story with no real rewards for it.

Again, yes, I like this game, i will continue to play and enjoy it as it is, I just think it would be a great business decision for them to help prevent intimidation of restarting every season, and cure the boredom of the players that do. This is not a "Complaints" forum, but a "FEEDBACK" forum. here is my feedback, not my complaint.

The only thing ill say is that the campaign and mapping are extremely similar experiences imo. You just walk around in "maps" killing things but the difference is its a linear movement.

I guess it would be possible to implement but if there were ever "leveling" maps then they could be a drop you would get from mapping, you would have to build up a large enough stockpile to throw in your device to hopefully get 65 or whatever. Also you would have to think about how the passive points and resistance loss would happen? just at certain levels? it would feel bad if in the middle of a map you hit level 30 and all the sudden have 0% ele resists because they took 30% away.

would you just be given an "extra" passive point when you hit a certain level instead of having to go through a map and kill a specific boss for the loot? and the extra res you can get from the quest items?

it just seems like alot of work for a relatively similar experience to just running the campaign

The Hooded One would offer you quests such as, "Complete a level 2+ Map," (Which would only be available once you are level 2), "Kill a Boss," or, "Kill a Rare Monster." This quest would give you the Ice Witch's Wolf Head, that gives you 10% Cold resistance. These quests would give you the Skill Points, Passives,

The Resistance drop would happen not when you hit level 30, but in level 30+ Maps.

I think looking at them as the same experience is a very narrow view, and I'm sure a large quantity of players would like the change up. You wouldn't have to go back and forth for quests, slowing down your leveling. you wouldn't have to wait for animations and NPC Dialogue to continue your leveling. all in all, you could at least shave a few hours off of the process.

its really simple actually, very little work for them in the long run, and just because YOU prefer something like story requirement, doesn't mean it is something other people prefer. Having all of the options for your community is just good game development.

The res drop is global not just when you enter a map its baseline on your character so you cant make it just "when you enter 30+ maps"

Sure you could make those quests for skills and stuff but you would have to level block them first so people arent getting 5 skill points in their first map because they killed a rare, a map, and a boss in their first map while leveling up twice.

There is not nearly enough "backtracking" and NPC dialogue to equate to hours of gameplay, maybe 20 minutes max. you have portals back to town and if you go back in the portal your right back where you were.

And i would avoid using arguments like your last point because they can just be turned around on you. why should they have to change the game because YOU dont like the campaign, there are a large quantity of players that dont care about having to do the campaign.

And sorry but it is a lot of work for the devs to implement and entirely new leveling system there is no way around that being a shit load of coding and balancing

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Malgeo318#2320 wrote:

The res drop is global not just when you enter a map its baseline on your character so you cant make it just "when you enter 30+ maps"

Sure you could make those quests for skills and stuff but you would have to level block them first so people arent getting 5 skill points in their first map because they killed a rare, a map, and a boss in their first map while leveling up twice.

There is not nearly enough "backtracking" and NPC dialogue to equate to hours of gameplay, maybe 20 minutes max. you have portals back to town and if you go back in the portal your right back where you were.

And i would avoid using arguments like your last point because they can just be turned around on you. why should they have to change the game because YOU dont like the campaign, there are a large quantity of players that dont care about having to do the campaign.

And sorry but it is a lot of work for the devs to implement and entirely new leveling system there is no way around that being a shit load of coding and balancing

I can concede to the last point, where you said its a lot of work for them. i don't work in game dev, so I am genuinely unsure of the amount of work, comparatively to say, releasing a new class, and rebalancing the structure of the game for this upcoming 0.2 patch.

As for the rest

I for the res drop, i mean you get a global res drop when you enter a map of a certain level, or it happens when you reach a level equivalent of the story area it happens in.

The quests are offered as you level, not just all given to you at once. i apologize if that was unclear, i interpreted it as elementary.

I would say a solid consistent level grind will be much faster than the campaign for factors above just story line and back tracking, such as monster density increases, map mod experience gain%, and the additional Rare/Magic mobs. i had only given a couple of examples, and i should have said "ETC" for you.

and personally, i feel that have it palatable for EVERYONE, not just the one side, is not able to be returned to me. it is an obstacle for some, and I feel GIVING THE CHOICE, is not the same as changing it to my way.

I feel like we just fundamentally disagree on that last part, and that is okay. i understand the puritan "This is path of exile, don't change it" mind set, but you will still have your story grind, even if i get my leveling mode. this change would in no way effect the players that like doing it this way, and cater to another demographic as well, expanding their player base, and allowing a longer run time on season hoppers.

Gotcha, i do think we just disagree fundamentally.

I just know that the campaign and leveling is MAYBE 1-5% of a characters total play time and putting a shit load of dev time into making that 1-3% of total playtime would be a waste of resources.

Take your crap d4 mentality out of here. The story is the game.