PoE Campaign and the Future

(Forewarning: This is long and my first? post on the forums. Unsure if it belongs here on in Suggestions/Feedback)

- The topic of Path of Exile’s campaign has been covered many times and will undoubtedly be covered many more times. I personally dislike having to do it every time I make a new character and I know plenty of other people share the same dislike. I also know that plenty of people enjoy the campaign and know I have even enjoyed it immensely in the past. It is a good campaign in terms of introducing mechanics in a staggered way and introducing people to lore. I would like to focus on why it is that a story I have enjoyed in the past is such an annoyance to me today. Not because I just want to bag on GGG, but because PoE 2 is being produced and with it a new campaign. As such I think it is important for everyone to think about what they do and don’t enjoy about the current campaign so that the campaign in production can be enjoyable to as many people as possible.

- Firstly I think it is important to split up the arguments against the current campaign into two broad camps. Camp A being composed of those that dislike progression and camp B being composed of those that prefer sandbox to theme park. To expand on camp A I am referring to people that dislike having to change their gear every few minutes or who want to play their favored skill but are unable to due to level requirements. Camp A is the people who dislike the leveling process as a whole and as such dislike the campaign where that process happens to take place. Sadly I don’t think there’s many feasible ways to appease this camp with the tools GGG is willing to use. There are a couple ideas I have that could help alleviate this camp’s frustration by a bit, which can be found tacked on to the bottom of the post under “less cohesive thoughts”. But overall I will be focusing on camp B.

- For camp B I am referring to those that dislike that the campaign is static. Every time it is played it is practically identical. You wake up on the beach with the exact same skill gem, you kill hillock, then enter Lion Eye and choose from the exact same 4 skills gems, go through The Coast and then Tidal Isle to kill Hailrake, ect. The process is always the same, it is a Theme Park except you can’t even choose the order you experience the rides in. Then compare this to the start of maps. You start with 4 tier 1 maps and get to choose between them as you see fit. By the time you’ve finished a couple you’ve likely gotten a tier 2 map and can choose to complete more tier 1s or move to tier 2 for additional challenges. This entire time you are making choices and to me that makes the process much more enjoyable. In the entire campaign I don’t think you ever end up with more than 3 choices at a time and even then the choices last a very brief time before you have to circle back and complete the other options. Luckily I think this first gripe is already being dealt with. From the sound of things, PoE 2’s campaign will involve multiple exclusive decisions so that each play through will involve some choice in what zones you complete rather than merely offering you a choice in what order you complete the zones in. I want to encourage this as much as possible so that each playthrough feels unique and enjoyable rather than stagnant and repetitive as the current campaign feels to me.

- The second thing that comes to mind as the difference between campaign and maps is that maps involve more distractions. In the campaign much of the content from previous leagues is simply removed and inaccessible. From a tutorial perspective this makes sense. By slowly introducing new mechanics rather than dropping them all on new players right away, there are less things to be overwhelmed by in an already fairly overwhelming game. From a returning player perspective however, this means the campaign is always going to be lacking compared to maps. In maps you run into a league content every 10 maps or less whereas in campaign you’re lucky to find a generic vaal side zone or strongbox and the majority of the more interesting stuff is simply impossible to spawn. This makes me think there should be some difference between the campaign that new players experience and the campaign returning players' experience. A newgame+ option if you will. I think people that have already completed the campaign should be able to use newgame+ where league content can spawn as early as The Shore and as such give players new interesting things to do without forcing new players to be bombarded to a bunch of new mechanics before they have gotten the basics down.

- For full clarity, I do play Ruthless so my take on how often side content appears in the campaign may be slightly off. Though I do remember it still being fairly rare outside of the four master’s contents.

- The final issue I can think of is that in maps there are simply more than just, well, maps. Once you get a contract you can go do those, same with delve and other content. There are things that can pull you entirely out of the map progression and into a different system to enjoy for a while. And while technically this is possible in the campaign, there is a fairly big difference. And that is what awaits you when you return. Since maps are modular, if you duck out of maps and go level/gear up in a delve you can simply up the difficulty of maps by increasing the rarity or tier of the maps you are running. In the campaign you will always return to the same exact portion of the campaign even if you have out geared or out-leveled the zone via side content. The only way I can think of resolving this is simply by making less of the campaign mandatory. Right now the bulk of the work players put in during the campaign is mandatory quests and much of what remains that isn’t “mandatory” gives skill points meaning it is still effectively mandatory. (btw please let me see what “side quests” give skill points in-game without having to use 3rd party tools. I have the memory of a goldfish. Even if all you do is make their border gold instead of blue.) Having more of the campaign be side quests that do not give skill points would let players that jump to side content and out level their current zone skip through the parts of the campaign they have out leveled or out geared while skill giving players that want to exclusively play the campaign the resources they need to enjoy a smooth leveling progression.

- My goal with all of this is to open up a discussion about what people would like to see in the new campaign and get people thinking about what it is they really think is missing from maps/campaigns that are present in the other. I personally feel like maps and campaigns are two fundamentally different games and it is often frustrating to have to play one game in order to get to the other. This is my goal of finding healthy ways of addressing that annoyance in a way that doesn’t compromise the game for those that do enjoy the campaign experience. Making campaigns enjoyable to mappers without killing what makes it a campaign. That being said, this entire post so far is very heavily biased towards the “maps better” mindset so I would like to hear from people that genuinely enjoy campaigns more than maps (for non-progression related reasons preferably) to make sure that the ideas I envision don’t threaten or remove your enjoyment.

Less cohesive thoughts below

- One thing I think could alleviate a lot of the progression issues people in camp A may experience is having negative gem levels exclusive to newgame+. What I mean by this is that currently, for example, Ball Lightning requires level 28 to use. Meaning anyone that wants to play a ball lightning build simply cannot play until they reach level 28. By introducing negative skill levels you could create a version of ball lightning that is toned down to the damage and aoe of other level 1 skills and then add it to the drop pool of earlier zones and let people play the skill gem earlier. I do believe there are some skills that simply shouldn’t be available until later, namely reserve skills, but many others I think could be available earlier if their numbers where simply toned down.

- Building upon negative skill gems, I personally am a roguelike player. I enjoy sandbox and enjoy being handed a pile of junk and being told to build a bridge to get to my destination. That being said I would love a newgame+ option where I spawn on beach with negative gem levels enabled and the first zombie drops a random skill gem of my class’s color(s) instead of a preset gem. Then when I open the chest I get a random support gem that is capable of supporting my skill gem. I know there is currently a database somewhere that shows what skill gems each support gem can support since this info is revealed to me on hover. Finding a way to flip this table so each skill gem knows all support gems that can legally be slotted on it should be enough to make the above possible. And I will clarify that the support gem just needs to be capable of supporting the skill, it doesn't need to be good.

- As a side tangent off of the random support gem idea, in Ruthless I think the 3rd uncut gemstone should be an uncut support gemstone which is a currency item. This item is right clicked and then left clicked on a skill gem to create a random support gem that can support it. This means you enter maps with 2 skill gems of your choice and a random, likely subpar, support gem that can support one of those skills. Since it is achieved in act 10 I also think it’s late enough to prevent muling behavior.

Didn't read but man I hate campaign. PoE has the best endgame out of all games I played, map system is genius (thanks, Chris!) but campaign is only good for first several times, then it becomes torture.

I started playing Ruthless (and there is no way back, thanks, Chris!), I played 15 hours and just arrived to act 8, wtf. I already deleted my character out of frustration and then restored it through support (thanks, Chris!), but maan, and I want to play many characters ...

Just give me maps, I am losing my braincells with all these campaign linearities. I want to do maps from level 1.

"

Mmmoooz wrote:

PoE has the best endgame out of all games I played, map system is genius (thanks, Chris!) but campaign is only good for first several times, then it becomes torture.

This sorta gets into the main thing I wanted to talk about. Why is it that the campaign is only good the first few times but maps get replayed all the time? For me one issue is that it's so linear and the same each time. So my solution was a "newgame+" where people that have already completed the campaign can start a new game with all the league content that shows up in maps capable of showing up as early as the coast. That mixed with PoE 2 campaign's idea of players choosing a different path each campaign I think would help make each run unique and interesting instead of just braindead head bashing.

I read you post and want to say that I don't agree with "maps are simply more than just maps". I don't care about league mechanics, they are just "more content", some are nice, but it is not what PoE is about. PoE is about maps in its pure form.

Maps are perfect, they are ultimate endgame, you are free to define HOW and WHY you play them. And because the are itemized they are best thing I ever saw in gaming (EVER!!1). PoE endgame is far from the best (it is a mess), but basic map system is perfect.

And campaign is campaign, it is not bad by itself, but replaying it a lot is as stupid as it sounds.

So, the answer is simple: maps. Just maps.


There are many possible solutions, there was a lot of such threads (and this is the reason people ignore them). Your sounds reasonable, sadly GGG has strong vision about this and seems like there is no hope.

OP your ideas are horrendous.

Your ball lightening example for one.

Maybe you would enjoy D4?

Even WoW doesn't allow you to access all it's skills at once.

x

you can already skip parts of the campaign if you did side content and are overlevelled. just ask someone to provide you the waypoints. takes less than an hour to bring your char to maps.

people used to do that to multibox the gameplay and abuse party boni. which led to ggg changing how party boni worked for the worse (f. e. bestiary).

Thank you for a thorough and thought through post. You make good points and have some ideas. I like the NG+ option, that might be a compromise of sorts. The pipeline may be trickier (than currently) for GGG, tho, and I do see why they would prefer a "one size fits all" approach. The game is incredibly complex as it is, and adding another layer on top is probably not something they want.

However, I'd like to point out something, maybe as a rare argument in these parts for those that are not part of the top 0.1% to 1%. I'm not sure what these numbers are on PC, but I'm sure the steam lot has something. But on Playstation, only 4.4% have gotten the achievement for completing the campaign. Less than 1 in 20 people.

Come on, campaign is just a string of few dozen maps to complete.
Do you want to get rid of it and level in level-scaled maps?
Fine, you'll grind 1000 crimson temples and complain that this is even more mind-numbing than campaign. Because it is. And you won't even get apothecary drops cos these are restricted to red tiers.