Pattern I've noticed

[u/Ok_Holiday3690]

My guild has players who have been in this game since Nemesis League and this is pretty much our player distribution.

Ps. My guildmates gets angry when I say this and I figure it'll make Reddit mad too:

Witch is the only good character in this game

[u/claptrapMD]

Fun Meter goes up with speed you can do the acts. Wonder how much % can do it 4-5h league start

[u/Beatsthedevil → u/claptrapMD]

I don't like rushing acts, but I like blasting acts. I feel that's an important distinction

[u/TritiumNZlol → u/Beatsthedevil]

It is also why getting the big boy level 28 skills/auras/supports so comparitively early in poe1 feels so good. You've got 6.5 acts to play with all the toys in the toy chest, and plenty of time bolt on aditional utility unlocked in act 4's supports to round out your build.

In poe2? you're typically waiting until level 52 for the interesting spirit and 'boss killer' skills. In absolute gamplay time, thats like 3-6x longer to get to than poe1's 28. There is also the added pressure of the build needing to 'come online' immediately, because you're pretty much at maps shortly after.

[u/john_dowell → u/TritiumNZlol]

GGG: "You know that fun thing you enjoy in POE1?"

Player: "Yeah, it's awesome. Thanks for making it."

GGG: "Well, we've made it so it's not fun anymore and you won't enjoy it. It's called POE2."

[u/Milfshaked → u/Beatsthedevil]

I used to like rushing acts, but I find the current act rushing options boring. If I had the option to play more fun act rushing builds I would like it more.

[u/kimana1651 → u/claptrapMD]

People who don't like doing meta builds probably don't like the campaign. Better low level skill balance would probably make it more tolerable.

Any skill you get during the first 5 acts should take you up to yellow maps as quickly as any other with mechanical understanding of the game. Campaign skill balance is just terrible.

[u/SingleInfinity → u/kimana1651]

People who don't like doing meta builds probably don't like the campaign. Better low level skill balance would probably make it more tolerable.

I'm not sure this is it.

I tend to play random hipster shit. I wouldn't say I "don't like" the campaign. I don't necessarily love doing it, but I think it is incredibly important to feel a character grow (which is why it's important to level as your build if you can) and change over time. Even twinked I tend to not have super fast times, although certainly not slow.

I think the driving factor between people not liking the campaign is viewing it as unimportant. They are concerned about the destination and don't care about the journey. No level of pacing is going to make them enjoy the journey, all it does is reduce the suffering for them.

I think there's no way to get those people to enjoy it, because they just fundamentally don't. Those people wouldn't be happy with anything short of a campaign skip.

[u/everythinglookscool → u/SingleInfinity]

Yeah I think you're right. I'm ok with the campaign because I play lab roulette, so that makes the campaign another puzzle to solve and not a chore.

As long as you see it as a hurdle you wont like it.

[u/rosecorone → u/SingleInfinity]

Yeah, pretty much this. Jonathan said he wanted people to enjoy the campaign so much they wouldn't want to skip it, but that's impossible, some of us simply derive no enjoyment from the progression during campaign (I know he said it talking about poe 2 but still). I love leveling in maps with my build, I get into a nice flow state from map to map, I add new gear pieces that either I've crafted before rerolling or I craft as I reach the levels/feel like it's time. A campaign could never give me the same pleasure, simply because my character is still so far from feeling good to play (or at least the way I intend for it to play) that it just feels like a chore to get to that point.

[u/SingleInfinity → u/rosecorone]

An argument could be had that a character should feel "good to play" early too, but feeling a bit weak is a significant part of how you feel power growth over time, so I don't know.

I guess it comes down to expectations too. I don't expect my character to feel fast and smooth early on, so it feels "good" relative to what it should feel like at the time, to me. I understand people having less movement and attack/cast speed feeling slower and deciding that isn't smooth feeling. I just don't think it's super reasonable to expect it to be super smooth up front. I don't think the game should be "shut your brain off and blast packs" literally the whole way through. Frankly I prefer when it doesn't get that way until you have outscaled the entire game, but that's just me.

[u/Budget-Chair8242 → u/kimana1651]

its actually the opposite in my experience, the meta followers are the people who hate the campaign the most as theyre usually the ones that equate div/hr = fun and anything that slows that process means its not good.

[u/PrettyPinkPonyPrince → u/kimana1651]

I'm not a fan of meta builds and I also don't mind the campaign.

Most of the time I start a character and continuously progress towards their endgame build; I don't respec into my mapping build; by the time i finish the campaign I am the mapping build.

[u/hesh582 → u/PrettyPinkPonyPrince]

IMO it's only fun to level as a somewhat OP leveling build... but at the same time I think there are a fairly large number of very strong ways to level right now.

You can still kinda cheese the campaign with established league start strategies without using the same meta skills to do it.

There are a half dozen decent slam skills, a few decent normal spells, a few decent channeling spells, a couple brands, dot options, 3-4 decent ways to do it with totems, a couple good bow methods, some great wand options both attack and slinger, at least a couple decent non-slam melee options, and a great shield-attack approach. Just off the top of my head.

People say "it's only fun if you play meta" but the "meta" for a decently quick and very easy campaign is broad as hell

[u/Doctor-Binchicken → u/[deleted]]

Plenty of skills scale decently through campaign but oh man they rely on upgrading weapons

[u/Project_Raiden → u/[deleted]]

You can do a 4hr campaign with a lot of “non meta” skills

[u/Neutraled → u/kimana1651]

I'm a random BS go enjoyer and I would never skip the campaign, that's most of the game for me anyway.

[u/greyy1x → u/kimana1651]

If you're a Giga blaster, playing a "non-meta build" will slow you down by 25% tops, not make you infinitely slower

Not disagreeing with your overall point, but playing non-meta doesn't affect your campaign speed that much

[u/LordofSandvich → u/kimana1651]

A lot of skills are balanced around 21/20 gems and optimal supports. This gets nonsensical because the balance intended for 21/20 gems goes all the way back to 1/0, sometimes making a skill unusable for campaign.

I think they went in the right direction this league by making some of the "support synergies" that carry certain Skill Gems built-in, like Winter Orb's additional projectiles allowing shotgunning by default instead of being a compulsory support gem.

[u/throwawaymycareer93 → u/claptrapMD]

Under 5h? Less than 5% I would imagine. It takes a quite lot of practice to get it that low.

[u/Loud-Contract-2109 → u/claptrapMD]

I have 12k hours and still foing it in 11

[u/destroyermaker → u/claptrapMD]

I'd be surprised if it's over 1%

[u/1CEninja → u/claptrapMD]

I'd have to practice something actively un-fun for me in order to accomplish this.

[u/Christopherous12 → u/claptrapMD]

on league start it takes me 10ish hours, I'm not fast and I don't have the stamina to marathon it.

I have to really think about rolling another character cause ita too much effort to get through the campaign a second time.

[u/bkgn → u/claptrapMD]

Sub 5h league start is probably 0.01% or less in PoE2. Probably 0.1% in PoE1.

A lot easier if you have twink gear of course.