The 6-8 hour mandatory tutorial

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reemsdaddy#4225 wrote:

Leveling up in a campaign and feeling gear and character progression is the quintessential ARPG experience.

Is it really though? More and more arpgs (that focus on replayability), perhaps even the majority from the last decade, offer alternate ways to raise future characters instead of repeating the story ad nauseum.

Regular RPGs, however, do not. Which is I think what you may be referring to. Because the focus of such games is playing a role within a story. ARPGs are different: the role is your build and the important part is the hack n slash action. The story is far less important and integral to the game loop.

I hate comparing to D3 and D4 because they are inferior games, but those campaigns are WAY more finessed than the PoE campaign...clearly a heck of a lot more money went into their development, and there's cutscenes and voice acting and a just a ton of "game". NPCS are far more developed. Engagement is much higher. Yet since 2013 they too made the decision to allow ways for new characters to skip the campaign in some way. And like it or not....those games remain popular and there are just as many (or more) decade+ veterans of D3. So it definitely hasn't effected replayability or popularity to be able to skip the campaign.

A good fix could be letting experienced players skip the campaign after beating an endgame boss on their account. You’d start around level 58 with basic gear and some labs done, then jump straight into maps. That way, veterans avoid the slow grind while new players still get the full story.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

I hate comparing to D3 and D4 because they are inferior games, but those campaigns are WAY more finessed than the PoE campaign...clearly a heck of a lot more money went into their development, and there's cutscenes and voice acting and a just a ton of "game". NPCS are far more developed. Engagement is much higher. Yet since 2013 they too made the decision to allow ways for new characters to skip the campaign in some way. And like it or not....those games remain popular and there are just as many (or more) decade+ veterans of D3. So it definitely hasn't effected replayability or popularity to be able to skip the campaign.

Again, I don't think this has anything to do with NPCs, stories, cutscenes or the "finesse" of the campaign. I don't think GGG being stubborn here is to force players to engage with NPCs and experience the story they've built. They are forcing players to play the campaign to experience their own character from 1-XX, because they see every part of the progression of your character as important.

That's because we'll never see a skip. Skipping a major part of the progression of a character in a game all about progression just isn't going to happen in a game where the developers offer fantastic character customization and specialization, unlike the other games you mentioned, where "all" builds are "prebuilds" or templates carefully designed by the developers.

That said, it does not exclude an alternative way of leveling. An alternative way of leveling with the same speed of progression could work fine, but I don't think it would take players long to ask for yet another way of leveling, when they realize that it's still more or less the same.

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A good fix could be letting experienced players skip the campaign after beating an endgame boss on their account. You’d start around level 58 with basic gear and some labs done, then jump straight into maps. That way, veterans avoid the slow grind while new players still get the full story.

So... Creating an even bigger gap between veterans and new/casual players every league?

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josaf#5445 wrote:

A good fix could be letting experienced players skip the campaign after beating an endgame boss on their account. You’d start around level 58 with basic gear and some labs done, then jump straight into maps. That way, veterans avoid the slow grind while new players still get the full story.

That would be the worst possible "fix" they could come up with. Hard pass.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

Again, I don't think this has anything to do with NPCs, stories, cutscenes or the "finesse" of the campaign. I don't think GGG being stubborn here is to force players to engage with NPCs and experience the story they've built. They are forcing players to play the campaign to experience their own character from 1-XX, because they see every part of the progression of your character as important.

And I'll repeat: I have never been in favor of a skip. The other games I mentioned ALSO don't have a "skip". It's an alternative to keep the leveling process interesting for DUPLICATE characters.

I can't say it clearer than this: a full SKIP is a terrible and impossible idea. In this thread I've never stated otherwise.

But all your arguments about "progression from 1-xx" and the like are.....not unique to playing through the campaign 1000 times. Besides quest rewards limiting gem choice (which, lets be honest, are irrelevant on secondary characters), the CAMPAIGN has nothing within it that uniquely makes you feel "progression" that any other leveling method wouldn't duplicate.

And then the comment about "players asking for more ways later" when the existing modes start to feel the same....so what? They shouldn't do anything because there is likely the potential for players to ask for more later? Look at Faustus: players have been asking for instant trade since 2013, they FINALLY introduced it in 2024 and almost immediately the forums were flooded with "why can't faustus do xyz? Why is the cost high? More banks! Etc.". But does that mean the introduction of Faustus was bad or a mistake? No.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

The other games I mentioned ALSO don't have a "skip". It's an alternative to keep the leveling process interesting for DUPLICATE characters.

Oh, you just used the word "skip", so I assumed. Haven't played any of those games for a very long time, so I have no idea.

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They shouldn't do anything because there is likely the potential for players to ask for more later?

No, but putting in a lot of hours for something that isn't really needed, just for people to ask for even more, because the changes didn't really do what they thought they'd do, seems like a rather bad idea and a waste of both time and resources.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

No, but putting in a lot of hours for something that isn't really needed, just for people to ask for even more, because the changes didn't really do what they thought they'd do, seems like a rather bad idea and a waste of both time and resources.

This could be said about ANY change and ANY new mechanic that GGG has ever created in the entire history of the game. They can't possibly know if their efforts will be well received or necessary, and many HAVEN'T been received well, or required extensive EXTRA time to re-create it because the initial idea didn't work. That is the nature of all new "ideas": its mostly a gamble

BUT

There is evidence that replayability in PoE is suffering. The steep rolloff of players after the first few weeks of a new league, the constant threads saying leveling secondary characters burns them out, and statistics from other games makes it pretty compelling that it WOULD BE worthwhile, even if only a small percentage of players end up creating an extra character per league because of it. I do, however, think it would be a LARGE percentage of players that take advantage of it....at least for a while.

But, like any new change, how can they know until they try? It could potentially be the best thing for the game ever, changing the very meaning of "retention" for PoE.

Plus...they could easily do an AI search of their entire feedback forum to get the "Top 5 most mentioned topics" and I'd bet leveling secondary characters and redoing the campaign would be pretty damn high on that list. That doesn't necesarily make it "correct", but it would definitely point to "impactful". And any concerns can be written off by observing success of other arpgs that do offer multiple ways to level additional characters.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

And any concerns can be written off by observing success of other arpgs that do offer multiple ways to level additional characters.

And do we have any numbers from those games? Do we have any indication that those games don't have a "drop off" a few weeks into every league? Hell, have any of those games been this successful for more than a decade? If we're going to to talk numbers, we have to bring the numbers. Comparable numbers.

And of course it would be impactful, just as every other topic that would be on that AI list of yours: Auction House, no death penalty, difficulty slider, easy/casual mode, no ground/on-death effects, more currency drops... But is that impact positive in the long run? Who the hell knows.

I just think that once the complainers see that it would still take them 5-6 hours of killing monster before hitting maps, that "alternative" wasn't so interesting after all, making it a waste.

But hey, add it, take time from important tasks (and PoE2) to add the mechanic. Do I think it would hurt the game? Not really. Do I think we'd have to live with 29476 more complaints on the forum because it wasn't made exactly how every player wanted it? Absolutely. That AI list would be busy.

This is the first league where I made it through the full campaign. My interest/desire in completing the campaign usually dies out around ACT 5/6.

I finally completed it this league for the first time.

I NEVER WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!

It is a SLOG. So many anti-fun mechanics in the game.

The people making decisions at GGG forgot what fun in a video game is.

The campaign for new and casual players is 20-30 hours of anti-fun slog.

Once I finally got to MAPS for the first time it's like someone turned on the fun finally.

I CANNOT see myself doing the full campaign EVER again.

Who wants to force themselves to play 20-30 hours of something that is ZERO fun to finally reach the fun part of the game. I finally did it and I NEVER WANT TO DO IT AGAIN.

How many times will people comeback on this topic? This is not going to happen.

Anyways, doing sub 5 hour fresh start league campaigns is not hard, around 30 min per act, its all about you wanting to learn to do things "fast". ie. focus on sockets and forget stats, also give it a try to gamble weapons if using attacks, slap everything with the cheap currency you get, just run and only stop to kill blue packs, nobody needs skill to do that. IN the other hand, new toons after the first require 20 min preparation for the twinked gear and tree progression then you can do the whole campaign in 2 hours or so.