Open letters to GGG - A Remedy for the Community Divide

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WhisperSlade#0532 wrote:

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Soulsniper1313#7576 wrote:

The campaign is already too long and still has 2 full acts to be added. The calls for "campaign skips" which should just be an alternate leveling path that opens up after you complete the campaign the first time each season are only increasing.

They've said that act 6 will be the shortest act, and once it is added the interludes will be removed. So don't expect it to become much longer, and to be approximately the same level upon reaching maps. Not that I would mind increasing the campaign length, because it's currently the most fun aspect of the game.

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Soulsniper1313#7576 wrote:

No matter how good the campaign is, once you have done it so many times it is no longer good and enjoyable. Having the option to level up just killing monsters in the level scaling zone or "cow level" to take a break from talking to 1000 NPC's, clicking water levers, and moving the caravan to get off to talk to get back on to move to blow a horn to get back off again stuff....

You're describing clicking a on few things every few areas. When you map, do you not have to return to your hideout and open up the map device, choose a node, craft your batches of Waystones and Tablets?

There are few things more repetitious than the current experience of running maps. You spend over 95% of your league time in the endgame, and I will never understand the plea for giving up the other 5%, for the sake of "reducing repetition."

Campaign puts everyone on equal footing, and is an important part of character progression. It's essentially a stream-lined map system, with portaling to your hideout for Waystone/tablet crafting and node selection in the map device being replaced by clicking on an NPC in town.

Yes I have heard act 6 will be the shortest and interludes removed when act 5 is added. That does not change the fact it is already longer than the entire POE1 campaign and will be getting even longer.

I am glad you enjoy the campaign. That is great news. I did as well, the first few times I did it. Now it is extremely tedious to me and would prefer an alternate leveling path that opens up after first full campaign completion of each league. This way the equal footing is 100% the same on league start which is the only time it can be even considered equal. The 12 hour a day blasters will still be done before I log in 99% of the time. So the idea of equal goes away very fast depending on each player. That also being said, I have not even logged in since January and am already dreading having to redo the campaign again to try the new .5 stuff.

I am describing clicking on things. I am also describing things that are extremely annoying and tedious when you have done them a dozen times already. You find the campaign the most fun. Great. I find just killing the monsters and leveling up and getting stronger the most fun. The forced redo of the campaign on every single character breaks that for me. If an alternate leveling path would open up with either level scaling maps or some sort of "cow level" then that would let players who think like me have more enjoyment out of the game and make more characters. Where as players like you can keep redoing the campaign if that is the option you want to take.

Level scaling content already exists in game. Just make a reusable "waystone" that you can keep opening up and the mobs just scale with you to have fun playing. No tablets or any of that until you unlock the full atlas that the appropriate level same as you would by doing the campaign. The campaign character rewards (resist, skill points, flask, etc.) all get rewarded to the player at specific level intervals so everyone is on equal footing. In essence you just dont have to move the caravan around 50 times, talk to 1000 NPC's, do the dumb fetch quests etc. And again since I am sure someone has forgot what I said above by now and wants to twist it.... No one (serious) is asking for free lvl 60 characters. Just an alternate way to level up after one full completion of the campaign each league. This puts everyone on equal footing and none of the league start stuff is changed. It promotes players making more characters without being discouraged by having to re run the campaign yet again. Those who do want to can run it as many times as they want. No one is saying removing the campaign.

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InvisiblePosture#7553 wrote:

Just wanted to throw in that for me it is rather 70% of my time in campaign and maybe 30% in endgame, since endgame is nearly dead on arrival and offers no joy to me. The only time I really like a character I go into sekhema trials and level there/make currency rather than running maps :,D

But I am also against skipping campaign.

Are you against an alternate leveling path that only opens after you have fully completed the campaign once per league? Meaning everyone has to do it once and everyone starts on equal footing. With this option you can keep running the campaign to your hearts content. Those who dont can level a different way so they can enjoy new characters without the part they dont like. If you are against this, please explain why and also please avoid the "because I said so" and "no I dont like it" style responses. Please actually explain why this would not be a win win for both sides of this discussion.

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Soulsniper1313#7576 wrote:

Are you against an alternate leveling path that only opens after you have fully completed the campaign once per league? Meaning everyone has to do it once and everyone starts on equal footing. With this option you can keep running the campaign to your hearts content. Those who dont can level a different way so they can enjoy new characters without the part they dont like. If you are against this, please explain why and also please avoid the "because I said so" and "no I dont like it" style responses. Please actually explain why this would not be a win win for both sides of this discussion.

I'm not the guy but I have some thoughts against:

They still have to do regular league. And balance SSF. And balance HC. And do challenge/event leagues. They are regularly failing to meet their deadline goals as it is between PoE 1 and 2. 2 won't even release with all classes/weapons.

The better way is more spaced out meatier leagues. Things that can change up the gameplay in an interesting way.

The RPG from ARPG gets removed. It's endgame PoE 1 all over again. Find the fastest map. Run it for currency. Keep going until dead or equal to streamer.



Damn guys, can't we just play the league with regular campaign and then come back in a while if we get bored? Do we need more than a couple characters a league anyway? There's so many games.

it is perfectly fine, if a game allows you to reach a win condition. You won, be happy, see you next season, or roll a new character.

not everything has to be eternal suffering under the illusion of progress while relative difficulty remains the same for 100h no matter which murder level the game pretends you have reached.

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comnom#5629 wrote:

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Soulsniper1313#7576 wrote:

Are you against an alternate leveling path that only opens after you have fully completed the campaign once per league? Meaning everyone has to do it once and everyone starts on equal footing. With this option you can keep running the campaign to your hearts content. Those who dont can level a different way so they can enjoy new characters without the part they dont like. If you are against this, please explain why and also please avoid the "because I said so" and "no I dont like it" style responses. Please actually explain why this would not be a win win for both sides of this discussion.

I'm not the guy but I have some thoughts against:

They still have to do regular league. And balance SSF. And balance HC. And do challenge/event leagues. They are regularly failing to meet their deadline goals as it is between PoE 1 and 2. 2 won't even release with all classes/weapons.

The better way is more spaced out meatier leagues. Things that can change up the gameplay in an interesting way.

The RPG from ARPG gets removed. It's endgame PoE 1 all over again. Find the fastest map. Run it for currency. Keep going until dead or equal to streamer.



Damn guys, can't we just play the league with regular campaign and then come back in a while if we get bored? Do we need more than a couple characters a league anyway? There's so many games.

What does balance have to do with an alternate leveling path after campaign completion? That is happening either way. This is not making any sense as to why you would be against it.

Now leagues, topic switch, got it. Yes they are showing they cant keep them both going at a pace people want. The reaction some have had to .5 is showing that. Now we still need to wait for the notes and all that good stuff but on paper, they had a year to do endgame rework and to be honest, it looks the same. They added new bosses, that's cool. New uniques, 99% will probably be meh but the new unique upgrade could be interesting. No new class. No new weapons. No new skills outside this new ward mechanic which honestly just looks like ultimate ability style where you cant spam them but could be wrong unless ward regen is crazy fast. All in all, if this took that long I am not sure both games can be maintained. I hate to be that guy but POE1 needs to go maintenance and full force needs to be applied to POE2. I mean it sounds like they are rushing 1.0 release and it will be missing tons of stuff. That is not a good look.

Topic switch again. Cool. POE1 endgame all over again to run the fastest maps and run it for currency. Well POE players are known to min max everything. Why would POE2 be any different? Players (vast majority) are going to get as much power and wealth they can. Making it slower will not stop that, it will only make it more funneled into the same builds even more.

Now switching back to campaign. Locked in. Your end comment is complaining people want to play more than one character a league? That people want to play more than you?

That's where you landed on being against alternate leveling path after campaign completion?

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Soulsniper1313#7576 wrote:

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I've read your response.
We may not agree, but I can see you are sincere and good-natured. So thanks for the conversation about it.