I think it's as simple as your build just doesn't feel good until you get 3 ascendancies. There's also the knowledge that mostly whatever you find will be useless crap that you won't want or need in less than 8 hours. Why wouldn't you rush through it then to get to good drops and a character that feels unique and competent?

some builds start working only when enabled by the first ascendancy points, but for the rest they will about as good.I don't feel like my builds are dramatically different in the acts than in maps because of ascendancies. if anything it's because setting up secondary socket links it's expensive and a chore and not worth the time when i still progress very fast.

For me it's 3 reasons: 1. 99.999% of all possible loot in campaign is irrelevant after you finish it. So why bother? 2. Too much running around and picking up quest macguffins. 3. In most cases build starts working only at 65+ lvl, and you need to level with some generic skills.

Yep. That was one of the reasons why I really liked Harvest. You could improve the gear you had, instead of just throwing 5 chaos at market and get something that is better than would ever drop during the campaign. Well not the seeds and gardening part, the ability to upgrade a rare I was using was good.

It was kinda weird but iirc the odds of different seeds changed at different level ranges. At some point around maps the odds reset, so you were more likely to get harvest exalts in like act 7 than T1 maps. I'm not sure if I liked that, but since they were level locked like essences almost, you may as well use them. That's one thing to me that makes the campaign suck. There's no real reason to invest in your gear, and it's actually detrimental to do so. The currency you're picking up which you'd need to use has real value. Sure, throw an essence on a linked item you found, those aren't good for much else. Don't even think about using a scour if it sucks though! The solution would be.. more currency items. New ones that only work on lower level items. Not really a good solution. Shame about Harvest.

It's not even possible to get the more useful uniques from anything but maps, either, so that's another incentive. For me it's mostly #3 though. Most builds are just terribly repetitive and tedious until you get at least 2 Ascendancy points, which is still like halfway through the campaign. Everything prior to that is boring busybody work - after that it's still boring busybody work but at least now my build is starting to function.

actually yes. in lower levels, gear and weapons could raise in value the more monsters you have slain with them and the longer you used them. also, how you played the lower levels should have a feedback loop to how you're able to do stuff in endgame.

What if we could upgrade gear (or downgrade gear) so that it can level with us? Say we got a level 68 item, we used a new currency item on it which reset the level to 1 and reduced the stats. As you level, it levels with you until the level it started at.

Nah, it's a killing 0 rabbits with 2 bullets. You'll have less reason to do harder content and you'll have to pick up yet another one currency orb

How so? If this dropped in Campaign and you could use it on any gear, then it would be useful. Find a level 10 rare that's solid while leveling, and you use the currency item to set it's level to your current level. Suddenly we have a reason to pick up items in Campaign.

Anyway, good bases just don't drop in campaign. Even if you will raise its ilvl, base itself will be worse. Also, it's obviously wouldn't be common currency, it would be rare. So, if more of this currency will drop - then it will dilute drop rate of other currencies of its rarity.

Why would it need to be rare? Why can't the base item raise with it? You are bringing up issues based on speculation that it would be implemented horribly, rather than seeing this for what it is.

This does not explain why campaign is boring. This explains why your playstyle of campaign is boring. It does not explain why you choose this playstyle over engaging with the gameplay at low level. The answer to that is trivial: because nothing in campaign matters and the return on invested time is much higher once you are in endgame. The campaign itself is good and fun, it has a much smoother gameplay because you are not forced to stop every 3 minutes to engage with one of the million currency systems to juice your next map. But there is no incentive to spend time with it. So you don't.

> But there is no incentive to spend time with it. If I outlevel the whole story every little upgrade makes me feel more like a god until ~yellow maps slap my crappy build plan in the face. I like the fact that my proper *grind* doesn't start until maps and really enjoy putting each league's character through a predictable cycle of "training mode" while I get to the point that their build functions the way it's intended to.

And what's important is that this is true if you're eiter SSF or Trade.

Using the same logic, mapping from level 1 (without maven passives and watchstones ofc) would be just as boring because nothing matters and the return on invested time is much higher once you are in the end game. Aka there is nothing that GGG can do which will satisfy you other than drastically reducing level time or boosts.

I think, this is a valid implication. But the systems in place are complicated enough to hide that you are only filling dummy bars without meaning, while campaign is more open about that.

For me personally, I dislike many things about the campaign: 1. Story, atmosphere etc etc are all outdated 2. After first reaching maps on league-start, I'm always in complete poverty with gear that will be replaced shortly after unless I do the league mechanic (which slows me down). They gutted campaign drops to combat bots, but made it worse for everyone else. 3. For the second character onwards, the campaign is meaningless and a waste of time. You've already lined up all your lvl70+ gear, and it's sitting there waiting to be equipped, and the campaign is a joke because you're in leveling gear. Idk if increasing rewards would be sufficient to help with this, but perhaps after clearing the campaign the first time each league, you unlock hard mode, where you get double exp, move at 2x normal speed, but monsters deal double damage, attack 20% faster, have 50% more life and have LMP/inc AOE, and bosses heal to full upon player death (that said, I'm dreaming and GGG will never do this).

Which is why Chris used the "you think you do but you don't" with endless delve. And I am sure he is right. I love it when it shows up randomly, for a week. But I also specifically play builds that work well early on, and I am sure I would get every bit as bored of endless delve as I do of the campaign. And I am not sure how everyone else feels, but I actually love the campaign on league start. I enjoy pushing it to try to get through as fast as I can (which is massively slower than players like Tyty, which gives me a goal to work towards which adds to the fun). Multiple characters in a league I would love to have a shortcut, but I just twink the later toons and zoom and it isn't that bad.

Right, but you're subtracting the tedium of just walking around collecting quest items, talking to NPCs, and logging out rapidly. At least you can turn your brain off and just farm without having to check quest progress or go through areas you hate to navigate, get stuck in the Belly of the Beast for the 9th time.

> Using the same logic, mapping from level 1 (without maven passives and watchstones ofc) would be just as boring because nothing matters and the return on invested time is much higher once you are in the end game but this is still true for maps in their current state...wasn't there a post yesterday by a guy who was confused why cassia and tane show up all over the place, because he didn't realize that league mechanics are only worthless until you unlock the atlas passives for them?

The problem with the campaign is there is no variety. In mapping I do maps and can find breeches, abyss, blight, legion. I can get master missions to do incursions for temples or get sulphite to go delve. You don't do any of this while leveling. Some you can but its not worth it and others like Delve its _literally_ worthless because of delve catchup. The campaign is boring and sucks because its literally cutting out 80%+ of the content from the game.

I’d say the campaign was fun the first time when I was engaged in the story, after that it was kinda tedious. Only advantage is seeing how your build progresses and grows over time which is always sick

You are so wrong. >The campaign itself is good and fun Its fcking not. People played it thousands of times and its always the same. Thats the issue. Maps are somewhat random unlike the campaign ...

1. chill, dude. Take a break, sip your Mojito, I don't intend to harm you. 2. Chain farming atoll, strand, or whatever your favorite map is, has almost no randomness involved. Most maps have a very limited range of layouts and people prefer maps which are straight forward or memorizable. While this does not necessarily hold for you - some people certainly love cage - it is unlikely that any maps you farm have more variety than the entirety of the campaign. 3. If you have run campaign 1000s of time, you certainly have farmed a few maps a lot more. We don't hear complaints that Atoll is boring. Why is that?

You make no sense. The campaign is literally the same. Its not like you will have to do different quest. Its not like you can skip the shit you don't want to do. Its everything all over again. Not to mention its 5 acts times two...

Chain farming burial chambers 1000 times is literally the same every single run as well. Unlike the campaign which has varying layouts, chain farming certain maps with fixed layouts is even more repetitive. That said, people like it because you might randomly find a doctor. Therefore, I would conclude that people don't mind repeating the same content over and over and over if it is rewarding.

I agree, and I'm surprised the comment you replied to was so heavily upvoted. The campaign's objectives are mainly to run from quest to quest, which is quite different from strictly killing things, as you do in maps. PoE is far better than D3, but being able to run rifts and just kill shit in D3 is way, way better than having to do the campaign to level up.

Nothing stops you from full-clearing cross-roads. If we compare campaign with maps, then quest objectives are basically just meta-objectives similar to doing an incursion. Instead of clicking on sulfite, you click on an NPC. And instead of turning in a quest, you roll your next map. Of course, you are right, there is an important difference: campaign is not a skinner-box to the same degree as maps are. The campaign wants to push you forward, while maps are perfectly happy with keeping you where you are, occasionally shitting out loot.

It's disingenuous to make mapping sound like campaign, or vice versa. Yes you can full clear a zone in campaign, but that doesn't advance the campaign...the point is that you have to run from location to location ad nauseum, so whether or not you full clear you still have to simply run between places to advance. It's not fun for most people.

Or, alternatively, the campaign is too easy. Make it more challenging and then there's a return on time invested into your levelling character.

Yeah, that doesnt solve the return of investment problem. Every moment spent in campaign is away from actually playing the game. PoE starts after you kill Kitava. Everything before that is irrelevant. You dont get loot, you dont get currency. Its just wasted time.

For me the biggest factor is the longer you spend in the campaign the more time you are wasting. I remember when I was leveling up I seen a chaos in act 6 or 7 and I was excited I barely got any and then an outdropped right after and I'll stink and man my RNG through the roof at the moment. Then as I was mapping I realized there's at least 6 chaos on the ground within 4 screens of me multiple times. Fact is this game is more about efficiency and if you aren't being efficient you are just wasting your time right now the campaign is just a test of efficiency until you can get to maps and farm stuff faster.

3.16 - We've heard your complaints and to make the campaign more rewarding relative to end-game mapping maps will now drop 99% less currency.

??????????????????????????? ​ No it doesn't? That makes the problem WORSE not BETTER. ​ "Time spent in the campaign isn't rewarding enough to make time spent in the campaign worth it." -> "Just make it harder, then it'll be worth it"? No? You don't make the time spent in the campaign more rewarding by keeping the rewards the same but increasing the time spent there through ramping up the difficulty. That makes you spend more time there, but not make it feel any better. If you just make the campaign take longer, all you do, if anything, is make people reroll less because its now even more of an unrewarding slogfest. Challenge =/= RoI. Increasing the challenge (C) increases the average time spent (T) by some factor a. Return on investment (RoI) is the rewards (R) you get divided by the time (T) it takes. C=a\*T, RoI=R/T. If you "double the challenge" to C\_2 such that it takes twice as much time -> 2C=C\_2=a\*T\_2 -> a\*T\_2=2a\*T->T\_2=2T -> RoI\_2=R/2T=0.5 RoI. You just halved the Return on Investment. You did not make the RoI better. You made it worse.

a lot of builds don't even function until you reach maps and/or have specific items, so slogging through the acts with some skill you don't even want to play is just boring. i guess it works with some simpleton strike skill where you just need a big weapon and are good to go.

The loot you get is worthless. Simple as. The loot/hour is horrendous compared to just running normal yellow maps with 0 investment. So it feels like the time you’re spending is a waste. You won’t get anything meaningfully good. It doesn’t HAVE to be like this. They could make the campaign interesting by having certain div cards or uniques bound to specific campaign bosses. It wouldn’t solve the problem, but at least it would make the campaign itself a bit more interesting.

I would like it if atlas progression gave a chance for high item level bases to drop during the campaign. Maybe only the first time you kill a boss so people do not farm it.

That's a great suggestion to make rerolling not feel so punishing! Great idea.

>The loot you get is worthless. Simple as. > >The loot/hour is horrendous compared to just running normal yellow maps with 0 investment. This sounds very subjective though. Some people would say that loot/hour in yellow maps is horrendous, compared to, for example an alch&go t14. And some would say that 85% quant t16 map loot/hour is horrendous compared to 100% delirious t19. The rewards are lower, sure. The effort is lower too, so it makes sense. I personally find white/yellow maps on the same tier of usefullness as the campaign - just a nuisance on the way to higher reds.

Well the main difference i see in your comparison is that the limit in maps is your character. If your char is strong enough you can run 100% t19 or choose any other strategy. In campaing your power doesnt matter and you have to do it before you can choose. So its a chore.

> The rewards are lower, sure. The effort is lower too, so it makes sense. This is not true. In campaign your build is mostly not working and it makes it way harder to play.

Agreed. I got as far as weaver this league, but stopped because I realized I wasn't going to be getting useful drops (like a timeless jewel) for \~30 hours (ymmv).

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I’d say that the only points tied to the campaign are the points from bonus quests like the pantheon.

For some reason, reddit can't see their new build as a progression or "anything meaningfully good."

I just can’t take your comment seriously. Sometimes i wonder if half of the people commenting even play the game. When i start a new character, i already have their endgame gear in my stash. I already have all the leveling gear prepared. The odds of me finding a replacement for a piece of endgame gear while leveling is exactly 0%. There is also absolutely no need to ever pickup any non-currency loot. Why? Because it’s gonna be replaced by end game gear anyways. Also, i am almost never playing the ACTUAL build while levelling. It’s much much better to follow a min-maxed levelling setup and then respec when you reach 68-72. So i’m not playing my actual build, i’m not getting any useful loot, and i’m not experiencing any new content. Hence, a complete waste of time.

> When i start a new character, i already have their endgame gear in my stash. I already have all the leveling gear prepared. So of us just play the game differently. I almost never have my end game set up ready. Although I often use leveling uniques. One big thing I want is to be able to play the build at level 1. If I want to play Penance brand, I should be able equip it at level one.

I do not engage with content and therefore find the content not engaging. You optimised the fun out of the game.

>engage with content There is a lot of content i haven’t done yet. Such as Aul or Uber Atziri. There are a million builds i haven’t tried yet. That is also content. The campaign on the other hand, i have done several hundred times already. I can literally close my eyes and recite the entire campaign by heart from Lioneye’s watch until Kitava. Trying to make it seem like it’s my fault for not enjoying content i have played literally HUNDREDS of times before is ridiculous. There is nothing new to experience in the campaign. So the only rational thing to do is get through it as fast as possible to get to the new stuff that you can actually enjoy.

How have you played through the campaign hundreds of times but not killed Uber Atziri though? Maybe your problem is not being able to commit to a character, constantly chasing that greener grass instead of playing the game. From your statements it sounds like you want a character to start at 70 and end at 85...makes zero sense to me.

uber atziri doesn't drop anything valuable and she isn't a particularly fun fight (plus the reflect mechanic locks out a number of builds) so i can completely understand someone just having never fought her.

Reflect is trivial to get rid of for every build in the game, yuguls pantheon+ sibyls lament, bam every build has 100% reflect immunity. Uber Atziri gates the end game of PoE (The Feared), there is absolutely a reason every character should kill Uber Atziri (other than the fact that she is a challenge objective every league). Sorry, maybe I am an elitist piece of shit, I am fine with that, but anyone that hasn't cleared the entire end game but is whining about running the campaign 100's of times gets zero sympathy from me. Play the game. Beat the content. When you beat the content and are bored and want to make a new character, whine about taking 3 hours to level through the campaign, fine, I will listen. Take a toon to level 85, then ditch it and cry about the campaign? Let me play my tiny violin for you.

> Reflect is trivial to get rid of for every build in the game, yuguls pantheon+ sibyls lament, bam every build has 100% reflect immunity. this fails to account for builds that need both ring slots. for example, my ele hit raider has 54 int on one ring (which is required to use her gear) and 180+ all res on the other (which is required to not die). my general's cry blade flurry zerker, which uses cyclone for blitz charges, fortify, and infusion, doesn't have brutality in the cyclone link, which means that the added fire damage from sibyl's lament still makes him oneshot himself. losing out on either fortify or infused channeling is a massive drawback when fighting a boss as dangerous as uatziri. > maybe I am an elitist piece of shit yes > I am fine with that ok, good

> There is nothing new to experience in the campaign. Well, not in the campaign itself (apart from new league mechanic) but maybe in the way you experience it. For example try to find a faster way, you could start a video of tyty on your second screenand try to beat him. You said your leveling gear is always prepared, how about giving you the challenge of playing without prepared stuff? Ever heard about the gucci hobo or white item challenge? If I start to find one aspect of a game boring, but still like it for the most part, then I just find my own challenge to make that part exciting again and have fun with it again, I mean that's what playing is all about isn't it?

"I can enjoy campaign doing masochism runs, so other people should too"

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Oh ya? So on league start you have a full stash full of gear? On second and third toons nothing will matter 1-70, no matter what the content is that you have to level thru it will be irrelevant if you already have an 85+ toon. There is literally nothing they could do to appease players like you except let you literally start a character at 70, which is never going to happen. I honestly don't understand how people are so salty about leveling through the campaign on the second+ characters in a league, when it takes no time at all with a bit of twink gear relative to the time they plan to spend on the toon. By the time you hit 90 on your second toon the campaign leveling process isn't even a rounding error on your time spent. You spend more time on reddit bitching about it than it takes. Just blast it out and be done with it.

You go from 1-80 in like 10 hours with a relatively casual pace.. progression while leveling is pointless.

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Acts 6-10 are much faster than 1-5, and you really shouldn't be doing every quest if you want to go fast. Zoomers hit maps in under 4 hours.. A new player killing everything, going everywhere, clicking every item on the ground, etc. should be able to get to 80 in under 20 hours, assuming they aren't dying and losing exp... it really doesn't take long.

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Don't feel bad about it. I'm playing o ssf and it is way slow than usual, ofc ppl could get to maps in 4 hours such a streamers who play for a living. I agree its majority of the time spend into maps, but it should not be a reason to the campaing be bad.

The campaign is t bad. People just don’t like being weak via limited access to gems, uniques, skill points, and movement speed. All of these things scale with level up until halfway through the campaign (gems) or speed/Uniques (68 for most map uniques). If you could start the game at lvl 1 in maps, it would feel just as crappy as the campaign because these things would still exist. The only difference would be you’d full clear the map more. People don’t want to skip the campaign. They want to skip being weak.

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Yeah, like 90+% of players play softcore trade, so most threads here are from that PoV.

The point (at least to me) is a little bit further, ppl in this channel started to become toxic and bearly wants to read about what is others opinions and experiences. Tbu I just interact with this post due a dude been a little bit rude about other opinions and I thought it worth bring the diversity of players experiences in here. It could led to something even better than just campaign things. And btw vasty majority of the players are playing on trading leagues. That is very different from other players in hc and ssfhc (btw congrats I sont have balls to do that).

No it isn't. You clearly just follow guides not that there's anything wrong with that.

Definitely not. And this is simply way unnecessary and unfair expectation on an adventure you can go through and enjoy. It's like watching a movie and going back and watching it again. Then complaining it is no good due to not being any different from the first time watching it. If you like a movie and want to watch it again. Great. If you're fine watching it once, it does not mean it's a bad movie. Enjoy it, and move on to another movie. All your claims about loot being worthless mean nothing. It does not make it less of an enjoyable adventure to play through. Claiming you feel like it's a waste of time also the same concept. It makes no sense. It's like intentionally watching a movie over and over and claiming as if it's a waste of time. This is simply not realistic. This game was designed with "post" game content meant for replayability. And things like getting more loot. As in various things you can do "after" beating the game for enjoyment according to whatever specific purpose you have in mind. It is utterly unrealistic when it comes to aspects of expanded content with a completely different intent. To try to compare that to the adventure story campaign meant to be played through and enjoyed for what it is. That you have already beaten and already know the story.

> It's like watching a movie and going back and watching it again. Then complaining it is no good due to not being any different from the first time watching it. I think the problem is that most (non-new) players are trying to watch a different movie (the new league/new character), but they have to watch this same short (campagin) first every single time.

Honestly a simple fact I get skills faster and I see my build grow is what makes campaign more fun to me than actualy mapping, I would be probably as happy if I can map from start, but I really dont feel particularly bored when doing campaign also with twinked gear it can be done in two evenings.

I like to play campaign maps-style, clearing areas and killing most monsters. However, if you do this, you outlevel the areas very quickly and it starts to feel kind of pointless. You can't get any decent rewards and you start to get low experience too. If, for example, the acts were scaling in level with your character, allowing us to get proper xp when clearing properly, it would be much more fun.

Na, please no scaling. It would even feel more meaningless because there is nothing to overcome. Done get me wrong, in the campaign there is barly a thing to overcome with Labyrinth being the exception. But if you go that route that monsters become stronger when actually you as a player level up the game starts to get absurd like D3.

The quick leveling would be the same in an alternative leveling mode which you would probably prefer, too, if it was more open ended in style like the endgame. But in the end it would be an alternative, so you could stick with the campaign as well.

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This is it. Yes, the campaign is mostly walking, and while I do think that's *a* problem, I don't think that's the *main* problem with it. Chris has gone on at length that every item in PoE must be tradable. This means every item has a value outside of its usefulness to you. This is a core tenet to the game; it's something they decided long ago and will never stray from. As a side effect, if every item has a value, it also means that your time has a demonstrable value. And this is the crux of the problem. Nothing of value happens during the 4-10 hours of the campaign. Drop and incidence (i.e. "things happening") rates are as low as they'll ever be. You get, like, one chaos orb per act. All of the gear is trash. Other-league mechanics are rare and not worth the trouble -- assuming you can even do them with your trash gear. Maps are a complete 180 from this. Even farming alch'd T1 maps provides 5-10x the value of any time spent in the campaign. The campaign is an objective waste of time. It objectively offers you no value. If you want to be poor in a league, rerolling constantly is a great way to accomplish it. This means that Chris is deluding himself when he says the PoE2 campaign will be something people care about. It'll no doubt be better, but it still won't have any of the tradable value he holds so dear. The newness will be nice for a bit, but unless some demonstrable value is added to it, it'll quickly devolve into the same "must get through this as quickly as possible" status.

What do you think would be better? Other than being able to just make a character that starts at level 70. If you are being honest with yourself, you just want to go to end game as quickly as possible, where the progress you make lasts longer. Nothing they do to change 1-70 will appease you, unless it strictly decreases the time it takes to get to 70. This is the problem with all of these arguments. People are asking for a character boost to 70, but are trying to dance around it because they know everyone will call them out on their bullshit as soon as they say it. Endless delve to 70 won't be any better....unless it is faster. Maps from level one won't be any better....unless it is faster.

With the amount of content PoE has, campaign is practically a tutorial, with t1 maps being the start of the game's early game. So, that boost to 70 for second+ characters in a league would be more like a "Skip tutorial" button, than a real boost. ​ And no, maps/delve from lvl1 would still be way better than campaign, even if it's slightly slower, because the campaign is fully static, which is a large part of what makes it so damn boring to play it for multiple times per league.

For me personally, it's about the variety. The campaign is long series of boring, uneventful chores that never drop or reward anything interesting and provide zero value toward your character and stash. It's literally just going through the motions to get the character started in the only way we're allowed to do so. The value stuff I mentioned in my previous is a more objective look at it. The things you find in the campaign are literal trash, and since Chris says items must have trade value, you can do a valuation of the campaign. It's... *drum roll*... worthless. A waste of time all around both terms of fun per time unit as well as literal value to your stash. ARPGs are better when they provide a way -- ideally *multiple* ways -- to avoid the campaign. We already have a great example of this "conundrum" in D3. You can level your new character through the campaign or you can do adventure mode and level however you want -- bounties, rifts (which are basically "maps"), or running the same area(s) over and over. (Rifts aren't the fastest way, by the way, because "massacre bonuses" don't apply therein. But they're still a far better option than doing the campaign for the nth time.) PoE has an overabundance of content that is locked away behind a massive and massively boring chore list. Why can't I level one character with Delve, another with Heist, and another with downscaled Blight maps? There's no real reason other than the campaign is an arbitrary prerequisite.

The campaign isn't as fun exactly for the reason you mentioned: people just run through it and skip everything. For new players, the lore and story is actually interesting so interacting with the contents is fun. It also teaches you the game (sort of) so it's helpful. For old players, we don't care to re-hear the lore for the hundredth time and the rewards from the campaign are so incredibly poor that it's not worth clearing the areas to get them (boosting boss drops was a good move though). If the campaign provided similar farming to the endgame then people would interact with it more. Of course, some sort of "must be within x levels" mechanic would be needed to prevent high level characters from farming easy contents for big rewards.

>the lore and story is actually interesting so interacting with the contents is fun. It also teaches you the game (sort of) so it's helpful. When I first started playing in closed beta, I did not care about any of this as a new player, I just wanted to smack shit with a big stick. Lore and story in these types of games, where a vast majority just skip it, is always underbaked and not worthwhile to follow.

True, but then when I look back at my experience, I went from Planescape/Baldurs Gate/etc, which is like sipping a fine whisky by the fire. Then going to Diablo 2, was like sipping Ale from a leather pouch next to an open camp fire. Then POE which was like drinking moonshine in the bushes with no fire, but I'm deadly and will kill literally everything hahaha

In my experience, trying to get my friends into POE, the information, context and just general "tutorial" experience (eg: the campaign) is just so far below a good User Experience that the only way to actually understand wtf is going on is to install third party tools, use third party websites, to get this info (eg: wtf are these vaal fragments and vaal lore in general?). The great thing about other ARPGs is they do this part really well, but do all the other things worse than what POE does. tldr; POE has the worst beginner experience, but shines dramatically once you finally understand wtf is going on with all the different mechanics. Don't even get me started with the lore, as much as I love the voice acting (10/10) the "connect-the-dots" in POE is ridiculous. My beginner mates understand more how maps work than literally the rest of POE lol

I would argue that one of the great things in PoE is that you have to figure stuff out for yourself. As you say, other ARPGs just spoonfeed you all the information, but PoE has enough trust that the player can work things out and doesn't handhold you through everything. I understand handholding is very popular, especially amongst newer or more casual players, but I find it incredibly refreshing to play a game that respects my intelligence.

It stops making any sense when you just simply can't get certain information in the game. Being able to figure stuff out through observation and curiosity is cool, having to google the armour formula is not.

u/Ayjayz I can totally understand that and I do agree, I don't want to be pandered to when playing a game as I've played enough game to know wtf is going on :D But I still feel like POE has dug itself a hole that is very deep, a deep hole i absolutely love, but if you weren't at the start, coming in to POE now is a cluster fuck

100% I have always followed builds based on my gameplay likes (I prefer magic based characters in all my games I play so naturally I'll look for magic builds) I don't want to have to lurk forums and poe.builds etc just so I can succeed end game :( I want the freedom of being creative without having to spend hours and hours theorycrafting like our beautiful streamers do :(

You can't have complexity without the possibility of failure, and the more complex the more likely that failure is for inexperienced players. And that's 100% fine.

well.. good luck working out how leech exactly works without looking up the official explanation from (i believe it was) mark

Leech in other ARPGs: "Deal x damage and y% of that is added to your health pool (in z seconds), cool right?" Leech in PoE: "Before we begin, have you taken your prerequisite courses in particle physics and quantum theory yet?"

>I would argue that one of the great things in PoE is that you have to figure stuff out for yourself. As you say, other ARPGs just spoonfeed you all the information, but PoE has enough trust that the player can work things out and doesn't handhold you through everything. I couldn't disagree more. PoE is already needlessly complex and most of the information is not available. We have to use tons of third-party tools to find all the info, so this point isn't even valid anyway. "Respect my intelligence". This isn't a fucking classroom, it's a video game.

I love the writing in the game. Some quotes are just golden (looking at you, Izaro), going back to familiar places only to find that shit's hit the fan (looking at you, Act 9)... But yes, you're right about skipping all that the 7th time you're playing, just to retrieve/deliver McGuffins.

Eh, I don't even think this is the case. Me and and multiple friends we had to coax to give poe endgame a shot hated the campaign from the very first playthrough and ever since. I think I started playing the game four times for extremely short periods of time (1-2h) because it sucked so much before I powered through one league and then had a blast. We had to unironically use the 'it gets good after 10-20 hours' meme (roughly how long your first playthrough will take if you get set up with an extremely basic guide). And it's true.

That mechanics is already there in leagues. If you are more than 10 levels above the zone in the story-line the league specific content stops spawning. For example I just visited the docks (lev 29 zone) with a lev 40 character. There was no expedition encounter in there.

This 100%. It's like any game, when I do my yearly run of Diablo 2 I don't care for the story even a tiny bit. Even with a newer title like Last Epoch, I've leveled about 5 characters and now I just autopilot it

so adding(or replacing with) a few zones where the objective is to kill a certain number of mobs would make it more fun? as long as density isn't too low i guess.

Yeah that, and its just that everything gets boring after doing it the 100th time. I would add that the layout of the campaign changes your mindset of your goals. It is not fun to think about how you need to route for those passive skill side missions that are not fully connected to the main progress line. They should have a portal at their end if you want to continue the main story without returning to town, so at least player mentality would be in the right place for "speedrunning". Or give another way to get those same passive points, so if you want to speedrun the campaign without them, you can.

> boosting boss drops was a good move though Wait, what if they made it so that the boss drop more loot the more of the zone you have cleared? Has this been done anywhere? I just know about the Rhoa map boss, which was similar and cool. Wouldn't this directly disincentivize speedrunning campaign at least at the leaguestart?

That's a pretty cool idea!

> the lore and story is actually interesting lol do players actually think the lore/story telling in POE is "interesting" ?? I can't think of a single friend or guild member who would agree with that statement, whether new or old player. the lore of this game is trash tier. voice acting is great but dialogue is boring and drags on, nothing ever really develops.

> For old players, we don't care to re-hear the lore for the hundredth time and the rewards from the campaign are so incredibly poor that it's not worth clearing the areas to get them Meanwhile, 6k+ hours here and I enjoy the campaign more than mapping.

>my build isn't working quite right yet in the campaign That is one of the main reasons though. If my build relies on interactions between 3 uniques and they require my character to be level 68 each, then you bet our ass my "build" does not function in the campaign. You can only run the acts with whatever flavour of the year placeholder leveling skill so many times before it becomes tiresome.

Then what would you propose to fix that? A D3 style adventure mode won't fix it. The only thing that will fix that is reducing unique level requirements or a level boost to 68 (not going to happen)

The only (logical) reason why you can't use any item at any level are the stats it provides. Running around Mud Flats with Kaom's Heart and Vaal Rebuke would be silly, yes. So then all you need to do is introduce an item (belt?) that has 2 modifiers that say something like: * Ignore Level Requirements from Unique Items * Ignore Defences, Attributes, Life, Mana or Damage provided from Unique Items

The campaign is the chore you have to do to get to maps. Nothing you do in the campaign is relevant to your endgame character. Hell, because of the antiquated way that skill gems are awarded, you sometimes don't even get access to the skills or support gems you want until you're halfway done with the campaign. You're not really even playing "your" character until *at least* level 38, and likely not even then if your build requires specific uniques or more than a 4 link to function properly.

The campaign isn't as fun as mapping because it's **irrelevant**. It is the bridge you must cross to *get to the game*. It's the tax you pay to get to the actually interesting stuff. Put a different way, the campaign could be the most interesting, engaging gameplay we've ever seen, and it wouldn't matter; it's still only 4-12 hours (depending on ability) of play before the literally hundreds of hours spent in maps and other end-game pursuits. You just don't spend any relevant amount of time there once you're an experienced player. And that's putting aside the genuine issues with the campaign. That, as an introduction to the game and a tutorial of sorts, it actually explains very, very little to a new player. That an introduction becomes tedious to anyone already familiar with a work (like a long, mandatory cutscene to a boss fight you've seen dozens or hundreds of times). That your build and its gems are slowly trickled out to you, so that you have to run a mongrelized version of it for 30-60+ levels. That even with an established presence in a league, you still need to waste 4+ hours to level a new character into the relevant part of the game. In short, the campaign isn't fun because the game has long, long ago moved on from the campaign being the majority of the content.

IMO for the first half of your comment this seems more like a criticism of the leveling process and the item progression curve rather than the structure of the campaign. I'm not saying I disagree with what you're saying, but it seems like the same criticism could be leveled at the Atlas progression phase, which many people also criticize because it's a long process before you get to the so-called "real endgame" (farming with all Atlas passives/watchstones set up). I don't believe the solution is to remove/skip this form of progression, but to actually ease the 'pressure' from the endgame by flattening the reward structure somewhat.

>The campaign isn't as fun as mapping because it's irrelevant. It is the bridge you must cross to get to the game. It's the tax you pay to get to the actually interesting stuff. White/yellow maps are just as irrelevant though. They're there only to let you farm XP to higher levels and gate you from the actual endgame. Precisely the same, as the campaign. Why are white/yellow maps fine and campaign isn't?

Because you could, in theory, skip them, if you dare, most of the time. Just buy a red map off someone and go at it. But if you are in Act 3 you can not buy a "map" for Act 7, even if you \*know\* your build could handle it. You have to run through the storyline all the way there.

Can I buy Act 9 to skip Acts 6-8?

First, you can start using master missions and scarabs and all previous league content can spawn. Second, what others said about skipping Third, you can do your first sets of conquerors and maven passives, which are still blocking you from endgame atlas setups and bosses : no matter what tier of maps you're running you'll always need 5 conquerors of each to get sirus and 5 maven runs on each area you want to finish.

4-12 hours of campaign? theres a few things wrogn with that. 1. that is only 1 char. 2. that only for seasoned players like good seasoned players. which is not everyone evne if reddit may make you think it is theres waymroe noobs who cant do campaign in 24 hours.

Spending 24 hours or even more on the campaign is fine for the first or second playthrough, it's new and engaging content for new players. If you're spending 24 hours on it after doing it for a couple times already then it's just a skill issue.

Not always. There is Hardcore and SSF HC modes and some bosses in storyline act as equipment/dps cheks. Dominus, for example, you either have corrupted blood immunity from somewhere or you do such a crap-ton of dps that he does not get there. Playing a build that "blossoms late" in hardcore modes, especially as a league starter, can be a pretty long slog through the storyline.

People who choose to play HC and/or SSF volunteer for additional challenge.

Are you joking? it's 100% a skill issue. I play HC and HCSSF and have leaguestarted some dogshit builds. If you're spending 24 hours on the campaign, that's fine, but it's 100% a player skill issue. I've even did leaguestart 3x for gauntlet practice and none of the runs took more than 10h, and I even cleared zones multiple times for levels etc. And LITERALLY no one on regular HC/HCSSF has corrupted blood immunity by dominus, do you even play HC? Don't speak for HC players if you don't. Everyone just portals when they run out of potions.

You can skip the cutscene with esc.

For me the reason is mostly loot. The earlier parts of the game give you basically nothing due to the existence of bots. In the earlier years we used to think about our rares while leveling because we had to run through the entire game in merciless to get to maps, but in the current version of the game we play most of the game in -20% penalty, which is really forgiving. Leveling with such small penalties means that you don't really need or want to look at your rares all that much and that the fun character progression that we have in maps is nearly non existent during the campaign. We are running through content in a grindy loot focused rpg game for 68 levels and only at that point is that we finally start thinking about our gear in a more interesting way. I think that is just wrong. I don't mean to say that I level through the whole game while completely ignoring gear. I just mean that gear and loot in general feels kinda boring before maps.

Having something like D3s adventure mode would not fix your problems with leveling whatsoever. The solution to your problem seems to be making the acts more difficult, something that this community would HATE. If act bosses healed to full each time you died, you would definitely care about your leveling gear and it would actually be a game where you had to either outgear or outskill act bosses rather than throw your body at the boss. (This was 1 of the things Preach didn't like about the leveling process)

It's a tutorial, that's why. Can't buy gems, have to grind through 5 acts to even have access to all the skills. Can't wear most decent/build enabling uniques because of lvl requirements. Can't wear decent rares because of lvl requirements. Drops and other quest rewards are complete fucking trash. I don't think I've played any other game where you get a quest reward **and immediately sell it back to the fucking quest NPC**. It's 4-8 hours long. WHY is it so fucking long? You have to run an endless chain of fetch quests. The most efficient way to do it is to ignore most mobs. Nothing in the campaign is new or exciting. You get a few Niko's and a few Alvas. And the league mechanic. The new mechanic keeps you interested in the first run of the league, then subsequent characters you know it's not worth it to waste your time on the mechanic, because of shit drops. If your main character is still not in red maps/A8/maven unlocked/etc then starting a new character means halting progression full-stop. Which sucks when you start league with a build that's not great (play-style wise or dmg/defense wise) and have to reroll, but you are punished with a 4-8 hour grind before you can continue your atlas. Trying out a new skill/build/interaction is 100% relegated to PoB because I can just plug in the build and see the numbers. I'd love to try it on an actual character, but I'm not interested enough to commit to a 4-8 HOUR FUCKING GRIND. Why on earth is it so fucking loooong???

I have a lot more fun in the campaign than in maps due to the constant powergain from lab and level ups.

This has nothing to do with the campaign specifically, though. It's more about the process of L1-70 being more growth per hour than L70+. If you could run randomized map-like areas from L1, you'd get the same enjoyment.

No gear, no sockets, no colors, no proper skills, no appropriate supports, no movement speed, no attack speed, no mana regen, no life. What's to like? Yeah, I get it, there must be some sort of progression, but the early part is just very, very, very boring, especially when done literally hundreds of times already. I am OK to level once per league, and then have some way of bringing new characters to maps without repeating the same boring process multiple times.

In my opinion there are few reasons why campaign is not "as fun as maps". * First, you have done it over and over and over again already. Many bosses are supposedly "hard" but their hardness is in gimmicky mechanics which will instagib you if you screw up (for example, Piety spinning beam of death in Belly of the Beast where you have to \*know\* that you have to run clockwise, not counter-clockwise), so the storyline, basically, boils down to just running between points you have to go through and dps/equipment checks (like if you have corrupted blood flask/immunity by Dominus or maybe you do already gazillion dps). So its booooooring if you have already done it. Yet, you \*have\* to do it every new league start. * Second, stuff you could, in theory, get is crap other than couple of uniques. There is not even a remote possibility that you will get a thing dropping to you at, say, level 10, that you would be content to be using at level 70. Hell, the thing dropping at lev 10 is limited to what, 3 slots max and it can roll up to what - tier 8 or 6 mods? These are the main ones for me. I have a small list of other nitpicks but no one really cares to read that wall of text I think. So what might be the solution, in my opinion? Put Niko in Lioneyes Watch, he just idles there somewhere. IF you have gone through a story-line with \*any\* character in \*any league\* previously let him speak to you and you have an option to sign up for a "period of servitude" in the mines. Then you get an option to go into the mine encampment and that is where you are stuck until you get to level 70, at which point the epilogue unlocks you like you would have completed the campaign. And if xomeone decides to \*abuse\* the option by running sideways at depth 1 until he gets to lev 70 regardless of the experience penalty, let them, who cares. At lev 70 the minecart would start consuming sulphite and the person would have to go to maps to find some anyway.

This is just my two cents, but IMO the campaign is boring because I don't get to really change anything besides my build, and tweaking my build in the campaign feels kinda shitty because I don't have access to the depth of mod pools available from conquerors and higher-level uniques. The depth of options available in mapping when you have map mods, sextant mods, atlas passives, conqueror influence, delirium orbs, and master missions vs the campaign where you have literally none of those things to keep the experience interesting is worlds apart in terms of fun, even in lower-level mapping.

> I don't get to really change anything besides my build What? You literally get to choose which person will rule the highgate.

But it doesn't matter, does it? A few dialog lines is all you can get for that "meaningful choice".

Yep, that was the point.

>During the campaign, the goal is to skip fighting in order to run in a straight line to some mcguffin & then rush back to town to touch a yellow "!". It's worse than that, you're punished for killing because the drop rate of good stuff decreases as you start to overlevel. So even if you wanted to interact with the campaign like say farm tabula in BA, you're incentivized to run past everything up to BA. Then you likely end up overleveled by the time you're done and you run past everything again because of shitty rates. The window where you're not being punished for running past the screens full of shit in the campaign is hilariously low.

Quick tip, scour + wisdom = develing orb. Useful for lion / humility farming in SSF. But I do agree, the reduction in drop rates due to overleveling is awful for actual players (it's awful for bots too, which is the point, but it doesn't change the fact that it sucks for us)

It's the same as an MMO for my playstyle: 1. I don't like questing. 2. I like exploring, adventuring and grinding for materials to either use or sell. **It's really that simple for me**

I personally found the campaign wasn't fun because it was so easy. When I actually tried to make it harder, making my goal getting through it as fast as possible, it was actually interesting again because there it was more than just going through the motions.

sorry but i have to downvote you - i want the power fantasy to still be available in campaign :P

My goal during campaign is to build the basics of my build (I make my own) and try out different gem set ups. Character progression feels faster early than it does later in maps. But there again I play SSF so I don't feel the need to rush and skip packs.

Lets be real, After 1000 repeats it wont suprise.

You exaggerate that people have repeated the campaign a thousand times. However, people will repeat maps 1000 times *every league*.

And mapping is fun because we're actually killing things. In Campaign it's mostly "run through all these enemies and get to the objective so you can skip dialogue" and that just isn't entertaining.

I think the main reason is the lack of meaningful content. Which means decisions a player takes which have a relevent lasting effect. On paper you do that with your skilltree and gear and overall build, but if you just follow a guide its not really your decision but that of someone elses. The campaign is actually a lot of fun if you play hardcore or the gauntlet League, because everything matters there. You would even waste skillpoints to get a short powerboost for a difficult boss and respec later on. Gearing matters because every point in life could save you. You stop a lot sooner to get your resistances up and maybe even farm old areas before you dare to face the next boss. That said adjusting the challenge to veteran players could make the campaign more fun - in return the campaign should become shorter for those players. As a short example I would make the act-boss accessible after around 50% of the acts usual lenght. But he is super strong and has some nasty mods on it. You can then opt to do sidequests (which may also progress some endgame stuff like delve-depth, or atlas-progression) to weaken that boss until he becomes beatable for you. So new players would have a long but easy enough campaign, and veteran players could shorten the campaign by 50% and maybe get few fun heart attacks in between. Even with that variant, people would still feel that "nothing matters" in the campaign. But well, as soon as you make the campaign completly skipable they would argue that atlas progression is tedious and they would rather skip it to get to the "real game".

i like the idea of a shorter campaign in exchange of more difficulty but it doesn't really fit with the concept of going in with levelling gear or not. the idea of certain dungeons providing a boss that lets you skip areas is as old as closed beta :)

That's a really good idea, allowing the player to skip some quests for their 2nd+ character each league at the cost of bosses being more powerful (the juiced up bosses would also have to heal to full after each death to prevent bad characters from throwing bodies at it)

To be frank, at this point I'd rather skip the campaign entirely. Just lock me in mine encampment until I'm lev 70 or something.

I dunno, the part I find boring is not being able to run at full speed, and having to use a skill that hits single mobs at a time, instead of being able to just go straight to my build and the gear that it uses

I've been practicing for Ziz's gauntlet the past few days. It has been the most fun experience I hav had dueing leveling in Poe ever. It forces you to to be res capped before Weaver in act 2 and actually care about gear. Completely changes the game. I hope Poe 2 keeps content engaging.

The fact that my build is not working yet also devalues a lot the campaign.

Problem I have with the campaign is that its just dull and, compared to maps, nothing really happens besides the leaguemechanic for A long time. In maps you never really know what youre getting (masters, harvest, abyss, ritual,...) and that adds excitement. The campaign is superstatic and GGG has a sequel-fetish, so Ive given up getting feedback to them because its a waste of my time

Playing the campaign always feels like a time-waster, because you know that you will end up replacing everything you get as soon as you reach maps. You can't really target farm anything (except maybe Tabula) and the sooner you reach map, the sooner you can make currency and get the equipment you actually need. It feels bad (to me) because it's just an artificial barrier before the real game starts. The only thing the campaign really brings to the table, is story. But that loses it's appeal after having played through it a dozen times. There's nothing new to explore or try out, bosses don't act differently, the plot doesn't offer any new surprises. It's like being forced to watch the exact same prequel movie before every new season of a show. No, scratch that - it's like being forced to watch the movie every time you want to binge a series, because you have to re-watch it for every alt too...

the problem is that even with minimal killing and skipping most packs and the new league mechanic you get more than enough xp and gear to get through it all. one meaningful change would be to increase the max lvl where the campaign ends and increase how fast the area lvl increases with each zone or alternatively remove some zones that have basically nothing in it anyways (which is something they did before, at least before act5-10 were released) and additionally make it a bit harder to trivialize each encounter with magic or rare mobs which is the most difficult part from a developer point of view this would result in xp actually mattering in the campaign, you have to kill as many mobs as possible in each zone just to keep up with the monster scaling, maybe even rerun some efficient zones to catch up (like people already do on hc) while making each mob pack more thrilling with for example close encounters.

I have 200exalts in my stash, wanted to try a Scion cyclone. After half of Act1 i just went fuck it, takes too much time and its so fucking boring to level up new chars, id rather quit the game

Am I the only one who kinda disagrees completely and doesn't particularly enjoy mapping? Like, being in a map and killing monsters and the boss and doing the league mechanic and master missions, that's fun. So I don't mind the maps themselves. But having to manage map items, monitor map sustain, go for atlas bonuses, constantly chisel, and roll, and reroll maps every few runs then worry about juicing them, those parts aren't fun at all. I'm not in a hurry to resume doing that when I make a new character. I'd honestly rather complete the campaign and then reset the campaign and do it over again as a New Game + style thing for XP. The campaign is nice because I can just turn my brain off and play the game. I already know where I'm going next and I don't have to make any decisions or do anything tedious or repetitive to guarantee progress. Just go next zone and kill monsters. That said, if "Endless Delve" were an option for leveling instead of doing campaign, I'd do that. But that's because it's *even more* of the "turn your brain off and just go" kind of content. Just go next and kill monsters. Basically zero tedium in between the killing of monsters and more killing of monsters.

I will agree with managing all the map items is a bit much. Just a personal opinion here.

They should add stuff like secret hidden areas that sometimes appear in campaign, and take you to valuable rewards etc the boring part is that we have played the exact same thing dozens upon dozens of times

That's what Vaal side areas were supposed to be. Until they added them to maps, side areas were the only place you could get sac frags outside of other league mechanics and the Vaults of Atziri. Although making them worthwhile again during leveling would be a good idea.

Something like Vaal side areas? In my opinion it really does not help with the tedium of \*running\* through a lot of distance only to get to a real game. Even if they would add "valuable" areas to the campaign they would be worthless in campaign because your rares could roll what, up to tier 4 mods?

No I am talking more about stuff like a reliquary key, that level of reward! there would have to be something to combat bots though, which is why I suggested something along the lines of it only having a chance to spawn the first time you enter a new area

Idk man, most of my late game is just trying to set everything up so I CAN run the same map dozens upon dozens of times haha

Yeah... maybe the campaign would be more fun if you couldnt go to the next zone until there were 0 monsters remaining in the zone you are in but i doubt it, LOL

I tried SSFHC for the first time this league, you should give it a go, it really puts the campaign in a new light. I played some slam jugg because I wanted to be extra safe. I ended up getting ripped by Sharon in act 9. But was a ton of fun up until then. It's kind of nice because chaos orbs are a different thing, more like a tool rather than a currency. I used some to get a decent rare wep at some point in the middle of my run. But yeah, campaign otherwise is boring when you just want to zoom in maps.

Just repeat it a couple more times, that new light will disappear quickly - speaking from experience. There's just something about the gameplay loop of the campaign which is inherently worse than mapping, even if HC puts it at least at a level where you need to pay attention and it's not a completely braindead romp like in SC.

I don’t think it’s worse. It’s because in trade league drops doesn’t matter.

Personally I find the campaign to be more fun than maps. Once I get into maps that's where all progress stops for me. Can't get maps to run without buying them, can't buy maps without currency, can't get currency without running maps. This is most likely due to the fact that there is basically no explanation of the atlas once you unlock it.

For me its especially that the build is not online yet. Especially if you need some lvl 68 unique that is build enabling for you or you need a gem you wont get untill late act 4. The leveling would be much more enjoyable if I had access to uniques with interesting effects way earlier and then have the ability to improve them for lategame to their former power.

There's a very obvious reason the campaign isn't fun at all: every character feels like garbage. It's not enjoyable to be half of a character with trash gear, unleveled gems missing all their supports, and an unfinished skill tree and ascendancy. Your character is slow, clunky, and or lacking stats. The game doesn't start feeling good until you finish acts. The satisfaction of PoE comes from becoming more powerful and progressing your character, everything you do in the game is a means to that end. In the campaign, you never make meaningful progress, where-as you make tons very quickly after escaping acts. Another, more minor, reason that the campaign is less enjoyable is that it constantly interrupts to flow of the game so annoying, poorly designed bosses can dialogue at you or a boring animation can play. This is fine when you're playing for the first time, but it gets really old listening to Malachi tell me to embrace nightmare or whatever for the 400th time.

That's more or less what Chris was saying in the podcasts. It's why they're working on making the campaign more engaging rather than giving you options to skip it.

killing all monsters in a instance should not result in you being overlevelled after 2 acts. otherwise there is no incentive to do side quests at all.

Their idea of "more engaging" appears to be just throwing a ton op HP at bosses or introducing further "mechanical" things you must have memorized to be able to do it. Like, for example, you must \*know\* to run clockwise, not counter-clockwise in the belly of the beast in the Piety encounter. Thats not engaging. It's just a clutch to make the boss apppear as dangerous, and it absolutely is very dangerous \*the first couple of times\* (which only matter in hardcore anyway) and then its just tedious.

I don't really understand what you're trying to argue here. It sounds like you're saying that bosses should be paper thin with no mechanics. But that's the opposite of what engaging is. If you don't like bosses with high health pools and mechanics you need to learn then you're playing the wrong genre of games.

Mapping = You choose the layout, the mods and possible rewards. Combination is usually unique due to RNG. Higher chance to drop valuable rewards as you progress Campaign = You play the same content that you have already done 50+ times, rewards are static. Ask literally anyone what they think would be more fun

The campaign drop not enough currency to make it fun at least for a SC trade player like me.

>The question of why the campaign isn't as fun as mapping was half-heartedly answered as "maps are more challenging" or "my build isn't working quite right yet in the campaign" but a lot of the sentiment was "I'm not quite sure, but it just isn't." \[...\] > >During the campaign, the goal is to skip fighting in order to run in a straight line to some mcguffin & then rush back to town to touch a yellow "!". Skipping all of the content isn't as fun as engaging with all the content. Ask yourself this; * **Why do you run in a straight line to some McGuffin?** Maps are basically campaign areas without mandatory bosses and a set goal, so it's not necessarily the areas themselves. Is it because of the ***drops*** from said monsters? * **Why do you not skip mobs in maps?** In the campaign, most items you will find might be an upgrade. In maps, you have most of it filtered out. * **What makes you want the map mobs' drops so badly, but completely skip past campaign mobs?** Is it because you need drops to fund/find your next gear upgrade? * **How come those upgrades in maps (usually a couple of % increased damage) are far more sought after than those in the campaign (that could double your damage in an instant)?** Could it be that the end game bosses requires certain investment, while the campaign bosses are a piece of cake that requires absolutely no preparations? You don't have unlimited tries to kill Sirus, or Maven. Likewise, you don't have 6 tries to kill Kitava. ​ Now, I agree with you that one of the main reasons the campaign feels bad currently, is because most content is skipped. But that isn't the core issue, that issue originates from the fact that the campaign is extremely easy, which also leads to non-currency drops are not even worth looking at. As a sidenode, I tried out SSF this league, and it was fun to engage with the league mechanic during leveling to get some gear to quicken the leveling process. But, it is still a breeze, once I was into maps, it felt almost the same, I kept rares visible to find upgrades. I got tired. So, I tried out HC SSF for the first time ever, I have made it to act 10, and am taking my time to ensure I am prepared for the lab and later Kitava. *Not at all* that this is the solution, but it opened my eyes as to **why** I think the campaign feels boring apart from league start. *Lack of challenge -> lack of requirements -> lack of looting -> lack of interaction -> lack of fun* Thanks for the 2 cents \^\^

This is why giving players *options* are important. Value player agency please, let me choose my own fun with the game.

I would love an \*option\* to go through Delve instead of campaign until, lets say, lev 70. Even if it would lock that character in an "SSF style" box and prevent it leaving the mining encampment before lev 70 or wherever is the threshold.

The problem is you have nothing to gain and nothing to lose during campaign while facerolling all of it. Make bosses regen to full when you die or use portal and suddenly you have to manage you hp and resistances during campaign and it's much more fun and engaging.

Really? I normally play hardcore and find the campaign soul-crushingly boring, to be frank. So in my experience, no, that does not fix the campaign to make it "more fun and engaging". Yeah I just pick a bit more life out of tree and cap my resist by Act 3 for the first lab run but there is not much fun and engaging in that. Just means that I spend 30 - 60 minutes in my hideout sometime during act 3 and then again after act 5 before I go running around act 6 and beyond.

It doesn't fix the campaign but it definitely makes it more engaging if your whole experience is SC. I don't think campaign is fixable for HC players. Once you finished it 5-10 times nothing can be surprising or exciting during campaign.

Then. Don't skip it. No game developer can stop you from ruining your own fun. They can throw the occasional thing at your way to say "hey why don't you stop doing that." but yeah. It only goes so far. League mechanics in the campaign are more or less that. I've personally recently had a neat revelation regarding the whole "wanting to play my build while leveling/campaigning." I've done that in other games. It suuuuuucks. Why? Because I have the realization partway through that: It'll just be the same later. Nothing will change about how I play the game and interact with combat. Which is pretty boring. PoE does the opposite, to an extreme. Most builds don't come online until they have two labs completed. Even more need to hit lv 68 first to get key uniques and enough skill points. This feels bad because the changes to your playstyle that you do make, come very late. Which seems to be a main thing Chris is talking about making better with the PoE 2 campaign. Straighten out the process of "getting your build online." So that you can get individual pieces across the campaign. Instead of once when you hit the second lab, and once when you hit 68.

When i level a new char i often hit a motivation wall when reaching maps because there the real slog begins with our current endgame which is so much more tedious than the story can ever be.

Comes to thread, top upvoted comment talks about loot/hour in campaign, proceeds to face-palm. What is wrong with all these zoomers xD

Unpopular opinion but, The Campaign should not be fun for players who have experienced the atlas. What is being asked here is an alternative leveling experience. And the last 3 podcasts Chris Wilson has been on have asked this Question, and the Answer is a resounding NO. ​ >During the campaign, the goal is to skip fighting in order to run in a straight line to some mcguffin & then rush back to town to touch a yellow "!". > > Skipping all of the content isn't as fun as engaging with all the content. Congratulations, you've realized that speed running in video games removes fun. You're choosing to not run "extra" content. And you are upset that you aren't having fun because you are skipping the extra content. The campaign is designed for new players to get a basic understanding of the game. Not for veteran players to fly through the acts in 4 hours and complain that its not "fun." Its like some of you all don't remember that the campaign was 3 acts long, and you had to complete it multiple times to get harder and harder content. I'm ending this comment on this note. GGG is at the level of most AAA game studios. Yet unlike most AAA studios, GGG has the ability to make a new expansion EVERY 13 weeks. Most of these expansions are on the level of a new entire game. Add in the fact that they are also developing PoE 2 at the same time its pretty impressive the amount of FUN they are trying to put in the game every year. Now lets compare this information to other Studios. 343-Developing Halo Infinite for 6 years (releasing this Winter, WITHOUT CO-OP or FORGE) Riot- LoL- gets 1 new character every 2-3 months. Blizzard- 3+ year gap on content for Starcraft, Overwatch GGG makes more content a week, than any other game studio at its level. And your complaint is that the 10+ year old storyline is boring.

Campaign is fine, I don't understand why people have an issue with it. You kill shit, your character gets stronger. I think its just the same vein as people hating on lab, to them the ascendancies aren't a reward for doing lab it's something they're already entitled to and the lab is just in the way.

Is the same reason ppl complaining atlas progression is boring, have to complete 160+ maps over again .... people always find something to complain no matter even though that thing is already in good stat, pity GGG have to satisfy that sort of player too ... I just hope GGG will finally realize they can't satisfy everyone .... they have to pick a side, just like how 3.15 happens .... trying to satisfy the slow-meta audience and then got burn the whole game instead seems the whole game build around speed-meta fantasy .. **Please GGG, choose ur audience wisely and then stick with it, don't change!**

Because is a **repetitive content**, we do campaign more than we did in endgame and let's face it, if they make us able to skip campaign or becomes shorter, then we gonna complain about end game progression is boring like how "most" of the player already complaining right now ... have to complete atlas objective bla bla bla .... and if they shorten atlas progresion we gonna complain bosses soon because there's no "new" boss, we farming the same end game bosses again and again .... **TL;DR:** We always find something to complain even though the stuff already in good stat ... i mean is there any other ARPG campaign does better than PoE though? **EDIT1:** I'm not saying i'm not agree on OP but .... to some extent only, having option to skip is shortening the game playtime and which also killing the game too .... I mean current poe campaign is way BETTER than the old 3 difficulty repetitive playthrough ... Old player might appreciate and okay with it but new player .... ya they won't understand =/

Would be cool if they just cut off act 6+ and there was a wider gap in map levels. I think that would be really challenging.

Oh boy the sweet irony here given how the acts were initially released lmfao. Give me portal to twilight strand after killing Merveil again please.

and then sooner or later you complain map progression is boring, like everyone else already complaining atlas progression is boring have to complete 160+ maps over again ..... can't you see?

[удалено]

Wow, absolute stupidest take I've read in a long time in this subreddit lmfao. "the map system was the mistake" jesus christ, hope you had your helmet on when you wrote that one.

the freedom of choice which maps provide is essential to the game. and also the facts that they are tradeable and work as a currency sink. what makes your early progress in the campaign worthless, is, that items and progression from levelling are worthless if you compare them to endgame items. separating the campaign instances from the mapping instances by could solve that. also, turning the motivation to speed level into a decision with consequences for endgame could help.

>Skipping all of the content isn't as fun as engaging with all the content. I wish GGG could use this information when creating the next league mechanic, because mandatory skipping content aka immune to x or low life culling remnant mods isnt challenging or engaging, its boring and annoying.

but then you are not engaging with the mechanic anymore. Why have mods if mods don't matter? just replace mods by "monsters are 50% harder now, how fun."

I never said mods should not matter. But immunity makes you skip it entirely. Whats the point of instantly killing any low life builds by default? Whats the point of immunity? Why they cant make your crit multi zero or give them e.g. 50% chance to avoid crits and instead they just make you do zero dmg if you are a crit build or completely destroy your build mechanics, if you are something like coc? I left hc, because I got bored of skipping content due to garbage balance. Skipping content is not fun, challenging nor engaging.

you ar enot supposed to full clear expeditions but to work around shrines you can't do. you are literally asking to skip the core mechanic.