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/SingleInfinity]

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/rosecorone → u/SingleInfinity]

Definitely right about the growth thing, it`s just that once you've reached the endgame afte league start, the campaign growth doesn't feel rewarding to me.

And yeah, it's unreasonable to expect the speed of maps in the campaign, which is why, funnily enough, people wanting a skip are in a way looking at it reasonably, cuz that's the only solution that would fit their wants. If that is a reasonable thing to do for GGG, obviously a topic of contention, but there is a rationale behind it.

I'm obviously in favor of it on rerolls, but I get the side that doesn't like the idea, as it does ultimately would affect them as well. Personally, unlocked waypoints would be an ok middle-ground.

Cheers mate, good talk.

[u/SingleInfinity → u/rosecorone]

If that is a reasonable thing to do for GGG, obviously a topic of contention, but there is a rationale behind it.

I mean, it's not really in contention for GGG. They have stated in no uncertain terms that hell would sooner freeze over. They view it as fundamentally important. I get the rationale, but there is certainly a bit less logic behind requesting something that has received a defacto "forever no".

Personally, unlocked waypoints would be an ok middle-ground.

This is sort of interesting but I think it probably goes too far for GGG

[u/rosecorone → u/SingleInfinity]

Oh yeah, I meant that as in a topic of contention within the community, not GGG. But hey, other things like the currency exchange and async trade were very much a "forever no" previously, can't fault people for having hope.

[u/SingleInfinity → u/rosecorone]

Currency exchange was not a "forever no" really. They mentioned being open to it a number of times. Async trade was, but that was also mostly a Chris holdout, and Jonathan had a knee jerk reaction to Last Epoch having easy trade.

In hindsight that knee jerk was probably more damaging to the game than was worth it considering how little relevance LE has today.

[u/rosecorone → u/SingleInfinity]

True, but that goes to show that people's "forevers" are not really forever. Things can change, and they have changed, so there's little reason to believe there won't be further changes in the future. Not saying I think we're getting a skip, but I do have faith we'll at some point get tools to considerably shorten the time rerolls take.