A Procedurally Generated Campaign Is A Less Replay-able Campaign.

can the campaign be better? not if the experience is guided by layers of RNG slop.

what's a good encounter, what's a challenge in the context of your current power, what's meaningful combat? those aren't rhetorical questions, there's possibly a tiny array of outcomes where those things are true and real, so why muddy that with layers of RNG?

you could enter a campaign zone and come across some serendipitous arrangement of these layers, potentially have one of the most challenging and 'meaningful' encounters the game could possibly produce for you outside of a boss, and if you underestimated it, made a mistake and die... it's gone! any potentially 'great' encounter in the campaign is ephemeral, it doesn't really exist.

so what is the player thinking about when they enter the campaign, or a new zone? "where's the exit?" "find the main path and stay on it".

Dark Souls is a bespoke and therefore relatable experience, and there's something gratifying about that. if it was resultant of layers of procedural generation, and therefore each player had different encounters of varying difficulties it would've never gained the reverence and respect that it has today.

the multiple layers of RNG is robbing the player of a sense of mastery and generally stripping away what could otherwise legitimately feel meaningful. we're missing so many tricks to make the experience better and worthwhile.

in it's current state it can't reliably provide the player with anything that would justify giving a single care about anything therein.

if you're gonna make repeatable, prescriptive content it better be the best god damn content you've ever made, not this drawn out RNG slop.
honestly I find this campaign repulsive, especially at the start. I feel it siphoning the life force from my soul.
is that what we're shooting for?

this is why arpg campaigns are breezy because there's nothing to justify it being anything else, but isn't PoE2's campaign meant to be different, better?
the whole thing could feel like Last Epoch's or PoE1's campaign and I wouldn't complain, but I wouldn't be impressed either.

the Terracotta army is a bespoke encounter, and honestly one of the most memorable in the whole campaign (outside of bosses). the vast majority of the campaign should be like this... cool, bespoke, something you could potentially look forward to.

I like that honestly. Just a few days ago I ran thru Jiquani's Machinarium and I was like "hey, I never saw this layout before" and it was amazing. Even Terracota army encounter you are taking about have at least two different versions.

I think it's a interesting point. I'm not a fan of a campaign, but that's subjective. I did like PoE1's campaign, but I wasn't really into LE's or PoE2's campaign. I think that's mainly because I never found any of the characters or story beats or spoken lines particularly memorable. On the contrary, I found them really memorable in PoE1. I can still remember lines from the campaign there. I still get choked up when I enter act 9 and see Lady Dalia's remains. I like seeing that Anya and Peter are so joined at the hip, that they are literally a single clickable entity, lol. The PoE1 campaign makes me laugh, cry, and cheer, without using a particularly deep story, cut scenes, or story length.

I'm saying all this because I think these moments cannot be procedurally generated. They have to be bespoke. That being said, I don't think the bespoke elements of PoE2's campaign are hitting the mark, either. For a subjective example, how Tujen talks to the lady in A4 is so 4th wall breaking, I just roll my eyes. Like, if the story writers cannot take the campaign seriously or put any sense of genuine connection, why should I?

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ac429#4687 wrote:

I'm saying all this because I think these moments cannot be procedurally generated. They have to be bespoke. That being said, I don't think the bespoke elements of PoE2's campaign are hitting the mark, either

there's the 'Toxic Bloom' in act 3, a bespoke rare encounter that rewards a magic amulet... but it's tucked out of the way?

it's a guaranteed spawn, meaning the devs have full control over the difficulty and 'quality' of the encounter. so why isn't it front and centre, why is this encounter that likely received the most design time (as a non-boss encounter) in the area 'hidden'?

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ac429#4687 wrote:

I think it's a interesting point. I'm not a fan of a campaign, but that's subjective. I did like PoE1's campaign, but I wasn't really into LE's or PoE2's campaign. I think that's mainly because I never found any of the characters or story beats or spoken lines particularly memorable. On the contrary, I found them really memorable in PoE1. I can still remember lines from the campaign there. I still get choked up when I enter act 9 and see Lady Dalia's remains. I like seeing that Anya and Peter are so joined at the hip, that they are literally a single clickable entity, lol. The PoE1 campaign makes me laugh, cry, and cheer, without using a particularly deep story, cut scenes, or story length.

that stuff obviously has merit and is impactful for a first playthrough, which is when the developers intentions perfectly align with the players' - we want the experience they want us to have, and you can't have that experience multiple times.
but at least for me, what's important on repeat playthroughs is that it's fun and engaging enough to justify my attention. and this game just takes more attention and energy if for no other reason than the visual richness, there's more information to process. it's a game feel thing.

do we really want core player campaign mastery to be about pathing, about learning the layouts and getting out of their asap? that's honesty so lame, disrespectful even, for something that's required.
can anyone get excited for that?

I want it to be about the action.

obviously if the campaign was tighter, more curated and bespoke with some higher quality encounters the player can still trivialize it, but the same is true for the bosses and that didn't stop them from making some banging boss encounters.

This applies to mapping as well with your logic. Don't get me wrong, mapping is boring and campaign can be a slog because there's more travel than there is fighting enemies, but procedural generation has nothing to do with it unless you're competing for speedrun times.

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SoFaux#7759 wrote:

This applies to mapping as well with your logic. Don't get me wrong, mapping is boring and campaign can be a slog because there's more travel than there is fighting enemies, but procedural generation has nothing to do with it unless you're competing for speedrun times.

in maps you're free, you're doing what you want to do, chasing your own goals that you get to set.
that's the opposite of having to do something you don't want to do in perpetuity.

every single interview Chris/Jonathan has ever had with PoE players they're always asked about a campaign skip, and they always say something along the lines of 'we would rather make the campaign better so you enjoy/don't mind doing it'.

ok, but how are players gonna get excited about the random configuration of 'things' in their campaign areas?

they're not, they don't, they mostly ignore it, run past it as fast as they can.

'run our campaign for the 12th time and literally run through the campaign'

that shouldn't be the proposition.

procedural generation makes the campaign worse to replay because no one cares about awesome combat encounters that don't exist.

Yeah, honestly I think that the campaign would be way better if the maps were deliberate/handcrafted. It would allow for a much better tuned and curated experience.

Just let me skip the campaign I don't care how they generate it. It's pure cancer after thousand of hours in arpgs. The real game is the endgame.