no way i am doing this campaign every season

Campaign areas are uninteresting, repetitive tile sets, and boring. It looks like they hired away D4 map designers.

people here: campain is superior, endgame sucks
people here also: i dont want to do campain, let me do endgame

"

GODOFWARSANCHEZ#4574 wrote:

"

Mouser#2899 wrote:

jump straight to the endgame.

How exactly would that hurt the game?

Do you want to jump to endgame?

Campaign is the most polished/better part of the game, endgame is horrific, try making it to level 100, or at the very least 99.

Campaign is great once, maybe twice. After that? Yes, I'd love the option to jump right into the endgame.

Does the endgame need work? Yes - but that's a separate issue.

"

xpose#1651 wrote:

Campaign isn't that long if you just play the storyline. literally takes like 10-15 hours max.

It is quite a bit longer on an attack build if you have no access to good weapons.

Skill progression is terrible in some cases, especially with hammers.

I've now completed 9 play through's of the available acts (I'm on holiday). I think they're amazing and more enjoyable than diablo 3+4, dungeon siege or lost ark. My first play through was an easy 8.5 experience, the only campaign I enjoyed more was BG3 and D2.The 6 acts instead of 3 repeated via cruel will improve the campaign experience.

Only once or twice did I feel that maps were too big, although allot of people seem to have that complaint. Perhaps an alternative leveling method is something they could consider. I didn't enjoy the alternative in D4, but perhaps GGG can think of a better implementation.

I think they should just make it less random, or have better indicators of where you are headed in the tilesets.

Problem is, you are clearing from one side to the other for 20 minutes, to discover it's not the side you want to be on anyway.

Even with checkpoints, it's still an awful lot of backtracking and clearing. When I am running through after my first playthrough, and I know exactly what I need to get, I should be rewarded with prior knowledge/ be able to go straight towards the thing I want, and only farm out the areas I want to.

It is way too random. In PoE1 the tilesets were randomized, but the main progression was always top right or bottom left, or indicated by a road heading towards it off of the main path. These things do not exist in POE2.

I got incredibly frustrated in The Valley Of Titans, because one of the ancient seals was IN THE MIDDLE of the map instead of on the sides. To me that's just dumb. There's 3 of them we have to get to, we have to clear this awful map with annoying enemies that are so strong for level 20, and on top of that, their locations are not static or always on the edges. It almost made me stop playing on my 2nd character.

Right after that, in The Rotten Apex, I wanted to go straight to the boss because I don't care about the HP/Mana potions from the mushrooms or the shop, but I legit ended up clearing the entire map by mistake. It took me 40 minutes, when I was trying hard to make sense of the map and find the boss. It's just too random.

"

GuiltyParty32#9913 wrote:

"

Kashou#2868 wrote:

With some tweaks to the maps it will be fine. Campaign is way shorter than it is in PoE1.

You think so? You can get PoE campaign down to about 10 hours for an average player but no chance in this. The level design in PoE2 is tight walkways and paths so you're forced to interact instead of running. On a league start build.

100% shorter.. I hated doing Leagues because of the campaign being so long in 1... here I've made all 6 classes and ran them through the campaign.. I think a huge part of it is the loot and crafting system in the game.. I enjoy slamming shit while leveling and finding good items worth using.. you couldn't do that in POE1.

"

QticaX#4168 wrote:

"

GuiltyParty32#9913 wrote:

"

Kashou#2868 wrote:

With some tweaks to the maps it will be fine. Campaign is way shorter than it is in PoE1.

You think so? You can get PoE campaign down to about 10 hours for an average player but no chance in this. The level design in PoE2 is tight walkways and paths so you're forced to interact instead of running. On a league start build.

100% shorter.. I hated doing Leagues because of the campaign being so long in 1... here I've made all 6 classes and ran them through the campaign.. I think a huge part of it is the loot and crafting system in the game.. I enjoy slamming shit while leveling and finding good items worth using.. you couldn't do that in POE1.

It's not shorter.

Definitively and objectively, it is longer. By a lot.

Part of the design philosophy in both games is that they do not want you to just get a character to endgame, then respec into different builds at endgame state.
A total campaign skip straight to endgame is of course effectively the same thing, but even easier, so they wouldn't want that either.

They want you to place each different build you play through the full progression process, experience it at every progression state, not just the endgame state.
So there definitely won't be an outright skip straight to endgame.
Frankly I'm on board with this, skipping a new build straight to endgame quite devalues the game. Better to play through it's progression.

Considering how long this campaign and progression seems like it's going to be though, time wise, what I would get behind is some sort of alternate, faster, progression path.
Like what I just learned yesterday Last Epoch does:
At certain points in the campaign there's a secondary exit from a map that goes to a dungeon that requires a key to get in. They key can be moved between characters, like any other item.
Completing that dungeon leads to an exit that connects to a later part of the campaign, shortly before the next dungeons entrance.
Going through these levels up your character in less time and zones, while bypassing campaign sections.

I wouldn't expect an identical system here, but something in that vein of a faster progression path, still not a skip, that only secondary characters will be able to get into, could be a great idea.