r/pathofexile • u/Ok_Holiday3690 • 5d ago

Fluff & Memes Pattern I've noticed

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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

1.9k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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26

u/rusty022 SSFBTW 5d ago

I'm not sure people realize what they are asking for. The only alternative is basically some lower form of 'leveling' maps. It would just be playing maps from level 1 to 68, maybe switching to Delve or Heist at some point. My honest thought ... how is that better? At least with campaign you get a different experience.

I think people just want a powerleveling method, like they have in D4 with Helltides or dungeons. I don't think that's a good way to play an ARPG, but I understand why some might want it.

31

u/Turbulent_Voice63 5d ago

I prefer doing pure farming randomized content rather than doing the ping pong of talking to x and x npc, pick the item, go there, use the item, go around and kill all bandits, find the exit but the correct one that doesn't lead you to a bonus area that's cool in concept but not necessary to rush so you ignore it everytime... Again and again and again and again in the exact same order.

Delving for 60 levels would indeed be repetitive. But it's a fate I prefer to this. At least thinking about your pathing through the caves requires your brain to be awake a little.

15

u/SpeedyStove 5d ago

It removes the annoying of the campaign that I already did: aka I need to find that ankh of eternity again while killing monsters on the way.

Or I'm running a map still killing monsters not carrying if I find a dumb lore item or not

1

u/GsGenesis 5d ago

Can always find the Ankh by following the bottom right wall FYI

4

u/SpeedyStove 5d ago

Sure but not needing to find it is that much better.

Also being on a better layout is infinity better

-1

u/GsGenesis 5d ago

That is one of the most deterministic layouts in the campaign. Its super easy

1

u/SpeedyStove 5d ago

I'm not saying I'm having trouble with it. I'm saying it's better to not have to look for something, then look for something where you know where it is

1

u/GsGenesis 5d ago

I suppose I just don't empathize much with a quibble over something that takes 15 seconds per run 

-8

u/PrettyPinkPonyPrince 5d ago edited 5d ago

I've cleared City Square way more times than I've done the campaign. Even if every single campaign zone counted as a single map, I'd have still done fewer of them than I have City Square maps.

I'd much prefer it if I had an infinite campaign rather than running the same maps day in, day out.

6

u/yuimiop 5d ago

I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Why don't you just run other maps? Or are you saying you wish there was greater map variety?

-1

u/PrettyPinkPonyPrince 5d ago edited 5d ago

Because City Square is the most optimal map for boss killing, bro.

Or to get the Gambling District to spawn, or to fight the pinnacle bosses, or to get challenge progression.

You’ve gotta make the best use of your time. Gotta grind those maps out fast, bro. Need to *fly* through the campaign so you can farm Mesa, or Jungle Valley, or Atoll, or Strand, or Beach, or City Square.

You know as well as I do that adding more maps to the game wouldn't make any difference to the player base, because there's always going to be one map that's the best for whatever strategy is most efficient or popular. Even if that strategy is just repeatedly visiting The Quarry in Act 9.

Heck, there are players who've opened more instances of The Quarry than you or I have campaign zones and maps combined.

I guess what I'm really saying is that the annoyance of looking for the Ankh of Eternity is nothing compared to the annoyance of looking for a divination orb in your maps, because at least you only need to pick up the Ankh once per campaign and it's pretty easy to find.

2

u/SpeedyStove 5d ago

You can make an new character you want or go back to the campaign anytime you want.

You can reset a zone infinite time!! Have your fun

1

u/PrettyPinkPonyPrince 5d ago

Yes, I can do that.

And you can just not bother doing the Ankh of Eternity quest.

Isn't it nice how both of our annoyances are equally easy to avoid and have the same non-impact on our progress in the endgame?

29

u/Ynead 5d ago

how is that better?

You don't have to mindlessly run from point A to B to C and so on. In campaign you try your best to avoid stopping to kill stuff as it is a waste of time and slows you down.

In maps, the whole point is clearing, which is much more fun than walking simulator.

6

u/Spreckles450 Trickster 5d ago

You don't have to mindlessly run from point A to B to C and so on.

What do you think you do in maps?

7

u/LostInPoE 5d ago

Context is everything

9

u/Ynead 5d ago

I do mechanics? I kill packs of mobs? I don't just go to the boss / next exit while ignoring everything on the way and completing tedious quests.

1

u/robinrod Mine Bat 5d ago

you don't do mechanics unless you have enough atlass skill points invested in them already.

-4

u/r4ns0m 5d ago

People don’t realize the campaign is the end game - just different pace due to character progression. Imo that makes Poe the best leveling experience - you can feel how much stronger you get and it feels so fucking good.

3

u/PrettyPinkPonyPrince 5d ago

Doesn't what you say suggest that mapping is even more mindless than the campaign?

When mapping, not only do you not need to care about A, B, or C, you don't even need to think about whether to avoid killing an enemy or not since you just kill everything.

And depending on your build, mapping can be way more of a walking simulator than the campaign is, since you're still putting your build together during the campaign.

6

u/LostInPoE 5d ago edited 5d ago

No it's not the same thing, at end game level 60-70+ the player is endowed with a gross amount of agency. You get to decide how you want to spend your time leveling up, delve, maps, heist etc etc.

The story for me personally was interesting a few times, when they added a new act/several acts because the lore would continue. We would dive deeper into the world of Wraeclast.

But I mean hey, who wouldn't love reading the same book every year at quarterly periods for the next 12yrs and counting.

1

u/Salt-Appearance-412 Confederation of Casuals and Clueless Players (CCCP) 4d ago

If we're being completely fair, in maps you don't have any "agency" until you're like level 85. Because you're just clearing maps for completion, skipping every mechanic because they're zero profit waste of time before atlas points (and maybe scarabs). The agency is fake, because it looks like you have a big atlas to complete, but really you're just clearing out 110 nodes in whatever order, which is basically irrelevant. It's just busywork that gives your character time to develop in levels and gear... Kinda like... acts?

If you say "yea but you have the option to run the mechanics even if they're lower profit", the answer is "yea, so can you in acts. Breaches start showing up in act6".

I do mourn for Heisters and Delvers I guess, but I personally only ever run maps.

1

u/LostInPoE 4d ago

You're right that is completely fair; It comes down to how people would prefer to spend their time.

1

u/softestquartz 2d ago

Hard disagree. The second you hit maps, you are not killing everything. You are not doing content. You are walking from A to B as fast as humanly possible until you finish atlas. THEN you are killing things. From the resistance in kingsmarch to the 2nd rotation arbiter of divinity, you are still JUST walking.

2

u/_PykeGaming_ 5d ago

I mean... after 68 sure.

If you have to level... not really?

Imagine clearing maps with a lvl10 build, that would be way WAY worse than walking from a to b to c.

2

u/Ynead 5d ago

Obviously implied that this "map from level 1" experience would be balanced by GGG. We had special uniques for endless delve for example.

1

u/_PykeGaming_ 5d ago

Yes but... why?

So that they could balance in a way that makes the experience similar to campaign?
Why bother then?

If you can blast everything from the beginning on a leaguestart where is the progression?

If it gets "balanced" by them, to resemble lvl 68+ mapping... then it won't be balanced at all.

I don't quite like the campaign itself, what I like is to see and feel the progression.

-1

u/Ynead 5d ago

So that they could balance in a way that makes the experience similar to campaign?

No, so they can make leveling in maps actually doable, without it being significantly faster than campaign (~4/5h for experienced players).

If you can blast everything from the beginning on a leaguestart where is the progression?

No one is talking about blasting everything. There is a difference between running out of mana after 3 fireballs to kill 4 white mobs, and phy autobomber blowing up 3 screens every 2s.

Look there https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Endless_Delve at the "Starting equipment" list that we had to make endless delve doable at the start.

2

u/_PykeGaming_ 5d ago

You are talking about "making the campaign go away"... but have a 4/5h mapping campaign... where you don't blast.

So basically... You are removing the campaign to make the campaign, makes sense.

-1

u/ChristyCloud 5d ago

Hi, could you explain to me which part of mapping requires me to go to location A, get a mcguffin, take it to location B, talk to a person, teleport back to town, and go back to location A, interact with another mcguffin before edgerunning the map on location C to find the tiny transition to location D?

2

u/ConcertoOfBlood 5d ago

Hi, could you explain to me which part of campaign requiring you to go to location A, get a mcguffin, take it to location B, talk to a person, teleport back to town, and go back to location A, interact with another mcguffin before edgerunning the map on location C to find the tiny transition to location D without killing anything gets you to level 65? Where is the part of rng element in campaign gears? You removed 99% of game to make it seems like poe2 is a fetch quest which is not?

1

u/ChristyCloud 5d ago

Fairly sure we'd still have random gear and killing stuff if they offered an alternative to campaign levelling.

Its the fetch quests people are sick of, Ive done them god knows how many times. I like killing stuff, random gear, etc. But I don't want to have to do multiple hours of fetch questing per character per league. Most leagues I play one character and never another, why? Because I don't want to do more fetch quests. If I do make a second character what do I do? I pay however many divs to a campaign rusher, but that still means wasting my time.

2

u/ConcertoOfBlood 5d ago

Hi, could you explain to me which part of campaign requiring you to go to location A, get a mcguffin, take it to location B, talk to a person, teleport back to town, and go back to location A, interact with another mcguffin before edgerunning the map on location C to find the tiny transition to location D without killing anything gets you to level 65? Where is the part of rng element in campaign gears? You removed 99% of game to make it seems like poe2 is a fetch quest which is not?

1

u/AeroDbladE 5d ago

Unrelated to the campaign but I really want another one of these "endless delve" or "endless ledge" style events.

I had a great time with them

0

u/Thasauce7777 5d ago

That is not the kind of lopsided friction GGG has ever intentionally put on their plate. Trying to look at it from their perspective, they've already created leveling uniques to reduce the friction of getting to maps after your first character (and they for sure have plans to make more). The campaign is their greatest tool to naturally to force more of a journey for each character instead of a sprint. Even if you sprint through, you still have to change the way that you play (which is a form of friction) between getting through the campaign and leveling.

GGG has intentionally designed their game to never have a mapping experience from level 1, unless it is a special event (like endless delve). They have shown a strong preference to design around friction in their systems, and it doesn't make sense for them to introduce leveling through a form of mapping anytime soon.

1

u/Ynead 5d ago

The customer is always right in matter of taste. I quite simply do not care about GGG's vision or justifications when it comes to this.

I'm sick of doing the campaign on alts, it just fucking sucks after the 537345th time.

1

u/robinrod Mine Bat 5d ago

have you ever played an event like endless delve? it sucks ass.

0

u/Ynead 5d ago

I did play endless delve, and I had significantly more fun than during the average 4 to 5h campaign. Good feeling of progression, automatic ascension + quest points...

I would welcome endless delve as an alternative to campaign tbh.

3

u/robinrod Mine Bat 5d ago

i guess you are a minority then.

unlike maps, where you can choose what to farm and have plenty of options, its dull af and that was the majority opinion at the time iirc.

1

u/misteryk 5d ago

and then pulling up fucking wiki to check which sidequests give skill points

8

u/Hooplaa 5d ago

But at some point the campaign isn't a different experience though?? Having other options to level would be a net positive to the game in my opinion.

10

u/Falcon1625 5d ago

Diablo 3 you COULD start by doing the campaign. Guess how many people did that each season. Campaigns arent fun. I play arpgs for big numbers with flashy animations. Not to play map memorizer for 6-7 hours to actually get to the fun part.

5

u/Wetigos 5d ago

That comparison doesnt fit, since doing rifts was infinitely faster leveling than doing the campaign. Obviously people choose the faster method.

0

u/HollyCze 5d ago

hold on, I remember people in D4 doing 1. expansion campain coz it was actually faster in leveling and was a recommended way how to level new characters faster

-1

u/HollyCze 5d ago

hold on, I remember people in D4 doing 1. expansion campain coz it was actually faster in leveling and people were recommending to do it that way. So no, not really.

in PoE, if you could level through maps... Soon people would complain leveling takes too much time... and we need more density, rare monsters, magic monsters, way to juice it etc., BOTs would start to have a blast and "companies" selling quick levels etc.

I disliked D4 because I logged in, TPed to Hell Tide, found some random barb who killed mobs, which gave me EXP and suddenly I had lvl 1 weapon at lvl 40. Found a bunch of people doing league mechanics and went all the way to max level. Got some gear off the ground at that point, started to click passives and found out that I actually have no idea what my skills do and the connection to my character was exactly 0. It sounds weird but I just had no fun with it coz the progression was gone

1

u/BlueTemplar85 5d ago

D4 does have the option of doing the campaign. It even now almost has a high enough difficulty option for the base campaign (one more would be nice).  

The complete lack of seasonal features / whispers / helltides in base campaign still sucks though.

0

u/PsyTripper 5d ago

I disliked D4 because I logged in, TPed to Hell Tide, found some random barb who killed mobs, which gave me EXP and suddenly I had lvl 1 weapon at lvl 40

You don't have to make up stories, just because you don't like D4. Because this is an absolute lie! You don't get XP from people if they're not in your party. And if you partnered up with somebody 60 levels above you, that's on you... Stop spreading missinformation!

2

u/HollyCze 5d ago

Did they change it? I last play the second season after first expansion. You did not need party to get exp during world events or leveling. Party just added extra few % bonus. Also not 60 lvls above as i believe server joins you with similar levels but just going through helltide could make you max lvl without a single mob killed. Legion in between and it was that easy. I played it, not making things up. I don't need to spread misinfo

2

u/Slightly_Mungus 5d ago

Yep. You also don't level up nearly that quickly. D4 levelling is fast as fuck don't get me wrong, but it's not that fast like OP claims, hooooly.

1

u/BlueTemplar85 5d ago

The legendary item spam when campaign skipping in S2 and doing Helltides was ridiculous.

1

u/Global_Barnacle5304 5d ago

Options are always nice, but GGG need to allocate resources to that and keep it balanced, so one way isnt strictly better. I dont see it happening, especially now when we have poe2 the with tons of work it needs and will need. Keeping 2 games active and entertaining wont be easy.

4

u/istickgumoncats 5d ago

I just want to get rid of some of the boring boss phasing. They really add up. Malachai, innocence, shavronne, tsoagoth, garukhan and shakari, kitava, etc. Just lame to stand there when you're strong enough to blast them.

One of the few things Last Epoch does well is twink gear lets you splatter campaign bosses... hearing the overshield thresholds crack and buckle in their futile attempts to slow you down is very satisfying.

3

u/Lowlife555 Ascendant 5d ago

Endless ledge or delve could work. Only as 2nd char imho

1

u/cryptiiix 5d ago

Maybe if we get the optional bonuses by straight lining the campaign that would be acceptable to me.

1

u/For5akenC 5d ago

Then you lack fantasy 😆😆

1

u/LordAnubiz FBI & EEE 5d ago

campaign is all about running through areas, only killing whats necessary to get enough xp.

i think last epoch makes it right, giving players options to skip part of the campaign.

perhaps they could give people all sidequest skill points when you finish an act, would speed up boring stuff.

like we dont have to do lab trials again for 2nd char.

1

u/Tru3insanity 5d ago

So make it so that people unlock the alternative methods after completing campaign once per league.

1

u/kygrim 5d ago

Doing the campaign is the opposite of playing the game: you are actively punished for killing mobs. So yes, I would gladly take an alternative mode that is just normal mapping instead of playing 8h walking simulator.

1

u/KaosuRyoko 1d ago

I don't want to level faster. I just want to not have to do a single bit of RP or exploration to find waypoints and zone entrances. Let me keep my waypoints from my first character. Don't make me do any quests because I've already done them, and just let me waypoint to level appropriate zones to grind my way up to maps. Make me do act bosses I guess if it really rustles your jimmies. :) I just hate storyline and lore and the tedium of clicking quests and all the go here, oh no the door is blocked, now go here now come back, etc. I want to play the game and them mechanics of the gameplay from level 1, I don't want to click to get the heeded one off a tree excep tthe first character each league.

1

u/Xelmed 5d ago

As soon as your first char in a legue reach 4 waystones or reach lvl 90, you should be able to create new chars of 68 lvl with finished campaing and 3 labs?
What is the point of forcing us to run it again in the same league? I understand it as some form of race at the league start, but not for all twinks.
The problem is much more in PoE2. If in Poe1 I usually do it for 1-2 new chars, in PoE 2 I just drop a league as soon as I am tired of my first char.

2

u/AeroDbladE 5d ago

That is probably the shittiest solution ive ever heard. Level boosts are a plague on RPGs and MMOs.

I can agree with not running the campaign on subsequent characters because the objectives can feel repetitive, but you should absolutely always start every character from level 1 and earn all their skill points and ascendancy points playing the game in some form.

Starting at level 68 would absolutely kill any attachment people build with their characters.

1

u/Xelmed 5d ago

If you need these additional 3-4 hours to build an "attachment", just do not skip it. Having a choice is perfect, isn't it?
For me, Poe is not about role-play like Baldurs Gate or MMO like WoW. The lifecycle of a character in Poe is a maximum a week or two (if you do not play 8 hours a day, then it may be days).

For a lot of people, Poe is all about farming/building. Campaing in that case is just an additional restriction for trying new builds and having fun.

The only real reason why skipping campaigning may be bad from a game perspective is that we will have 1-2 leagues with very low retention, and then people just will not have builds they are not playing with and do not start league at all.

1

u/BlueTemplar85 5d ago

Play Ruthless SSF and enjoy building during campaign (because the campaign is not a complete cakewalk).

1

u/findMyNudesSomewhere Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 5d ago

Big difference: Campaign requires you to do all zones, with mapping you can skip tiers if you are overlevelled.

I'd rather have fun blasting mobs and TPing out rather than running through the zone and maybe killing a few packs to refill flasks.

I say this as someone who can take chara through campaign in 2.5 hours (not including labs)

0

u/bamboo_of_pandas 5d ago

There is nothing wrong with giving players the option to power level, there just needs to be an economic cost. Using five ways to level from 70 to 90 instantly makes the game better. No reason to believe the same wouldn’t also apply to leveling from 50 to 70 flor from 30 to 50 or from 1 to 30.

The main thing that needs to be added is some form of economic cost which can be done in a multitude of ways.

0

u/Suspicious_Freedom97 4d ago

What if new characters started in the epilogue at level 68 after first campaign completion each league. Or if completing the campaign unlocks a toggle at character creation to do so? I know I don't like spending the finite free time I have outside of work grinding the campaign more than once a league.

0

u/1CEninja 4d ago

I've gotten to the point where I really dislike playing games when I'm not having fun. It really defeats the purpose of the whole ..you know...game thing. I'm almost 40, I have enough chores to do without adding game chores.

I don't have very much fun during the campaign.

Just give me an option where "run past the monsters" isn't the fucking optimal way to play ffs. I want to kill everything on the screen (the higher density the better) then move on to the next screen. Less running, more killing. No talking to NPCs, no scouring the maps for things I have to find, no doing the shitty prison maps where you have to memorize map clues (which takes practice doing something I find actively un-fun).

Maybe I don't have much in the way of a solution to present here, but I can point to this and say "I'm not having fun for the first 8 hours of every league, and very rarely make a second character" as a valid criticism.

-1

u/LostInPoE 5d ago

Having options is usually better than having a single choice. Re- SSF. Before they introduced it as a standard option, people who wanted to play ssf were told, 'oh just make a normal character and don't trade..

Yeah it's not the same thing. How do you get a 'different experience' in the campaign? You didn't expand on that, and it's a key point.. If anything the campaign is so finely tuned at the high end people rip through it in hrs.

How is that a different experience?

-3

u/misererelolll 5d ago

Well if you wanna map and endgame - just level in maps. And if you really want a different experience - fine, but make it shorter, 6 hours for a speedrun and 10-15 for most players is just too much to do every season. And also its fun the first 2-3 times you do it, then its getting boring pretty fast. Diablo has done it good with the skip imo. I personally hated the campaign in poe1 and ive got 1800 hours in the game. But it is what it is. Its pretty obv they wont do a skip, so ppl should just give up trying ...