Diablo 4 announces that there will be a campaign skip ... its time for POE to do the same

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DarthSki44 wrote:

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RuneLuthien wrote:

has most of my fun from POB

Average PoE enjoyer lol.

The meme of watching a PoE build video with absolutely zero gameplay, and just spreadsheets, PoB, and crafting simulations. The comments all being "this is great!"

It's admittedly charming to a degree, like a huge inside joke everyone is in on, but at a 30,000ft level, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement for the game.

Like Rule 10 on Reddit, as you try to understand some meta crafted abomination, and you understand little to none of how OP did it.

Or discussions on scaling and damage calculations/ conversions. PoE PhD indeed.

I've never followed a " build guide " so I wouldn't know. I've studied reddit questions. Studied the new skill gems released for that season. & some other answers for how to build around a item. Yet yes for the first 3 years of playing POB was & is more fun than just grinding maps.

Story was more fun than maps. The game slows down around BA runs when you realize you're just spamming 1 button for endless hours & that skills that kill mobs before your skill hits, ruins the party experience. So parties just boil down to what party member outshines the rest, while it's a follow the op dps zoomer simulator. Keep pace do nothing. Watch one guy hog all the action. Maps are just a extension of the BA farm run party experience, so maps are meh essentially.

Thus learning how to POB on your own without following a guide ever, enjoying the skill trees, not mirroring anyones YT build either, & just finding answers to reddit question. Is yes more fun. & so is starting at lvl 1 with some party members per league.

Those who withstand grinding past BA runs usually to then get to maps are either 1) Aren't party fans 2) Haven't played other mmo's enough since D2 3) Are loot hoarders who haven't pvped with other mmo's either.

So ye " Average " poe'er enjoyers is simply anyone who isn't a extreme nerd for hoarding items. Proven by the fact that one of the top most played skills is RF a autobomber skill that requires zero buttons. Smh.

POE is a business model that pretends as if 90% of D2 players didn't go play WoW afterwards. Then you'll have fans say go play D4, yet D4 plays as if it's Diablo Immortal meets some Korean Mobile phone game.

When I really want Diablo 2 meets, Rakion , meets Ragnarok Online, meets Lost Ark's 3vs3 Arena pvp.

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DoubleU wrote:

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Mikrotherion wrote:

This shows that the Acts/ early maps are still too easy.

If a scrub like me can get to maps in 12ish hours, yeah, they aren't so hard.

The argument was never that acts are "hard". Why do people always say that when someone says something is boring AF and they'd like options?

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ZenJelly wrote:

So. Many. Cry. Babies. PoE has never been about making things easy from the start. That should not change. You want to play one of the other arpg that do that, then by all means go do it. Yet here you ALL are playing regardless of your complaints and veiled threats of leaving.

so are you saying the campaign is too hard for you? because if so that's a your lack of skill issue. the campaign isn't hard at all and no one is asking for "easier" just different.

going through the campaign over and over does not make the game harder so leveling differently (via delve or heist or maps) would not change anything. it would be just different.

It's a novel idea, on paper. Diablo IV is a more casual-oriented game where QoL features such as campaign skip and an auction house are accepted as the “norm.”

Imagine Path of Exile with an auction house– sure, it would remove some of the 'tedium' that exists with the current trading system, but would it actually make it a better, more engaging game?

That's the divide here.

Auction house? WTF lol

Just throwing stuff out there now and hoping it sticks?

Why skip the campaign when you can just skip the whole game? Eh? EHHH?

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Exhumer1 wrote:

Imagine Path of Exile with an auction house

1. Not even vaguely relevant to this thread
2. How long are you Exiles going to keep pretending the existing trade system is anything but a poor substitute for the real trading system GGG meant to implement? It was so bad players had to create their own and then, because it was STILL better than what GGG did (or rather didn't) do, the best GGG could do was copy that system.

I mean, come on. The current system is atrocious. A haven for scammers, rip-off artists and wannabe day-traders. It has no regard for language barriers. It can't tell a bot from a real person. It is 100% geared towards victim blaming when someone IS taken advantage of, which is fine and dandy and lol u shulda payd attention until it happens to you and then oh BOY does the song change.

And then there's the fact that in order for any trade to work, two things need to happen: firstly, you need to devote 100% of your in-game attention to that trade and secondly, so does the person selling. In a world where you're literally killing gods and cosplaying as a planeswalker, somehow there isn't some way of handwaving a better trade system so that both players can get on with *playing* the game? And on top of all that there's the game's *hilariously* antiquated 'limited portal' system. So let's say you want to buy X item. You contact said person selling. They're in a Map, and don't want to waste any of their precious portals to conduct that trade.

Gosh, that's *so* 'engaging', isn't it?

But y'know, an auction house would be so much worse, right? A system that lets you play the ARPG and not be forced to fuck about in GGG's little economic antfarm.

...Like I said, why worry about skipping the campaign when you can just skip the whole game -- and what is the game right now if not a weird and generally unhealthy mix of ARPG on speed and Eve-level trade complexity without Eve-level trading systems to provide at least a modicum of user comfort and security?

There are certain things GGG seriously need to consider if PoE 4.0 is to remain relevant. This thread is about one of them. You've actually brought up another, so good work there.

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Exhumer1 wrote:

It's a novel idea, on paper. Diablo IV is a more casual-oriented game where QoL features such as campaign skip and an auction house are accepted as the “norm.”

Imagine Path of Exile with an auction house– sure, it would remove some of the 'tedium' that exists with the current trading system, but would it actually make it a better, more engaging game?

That's the divide here.

How is needing to contact 10 or more people just to complete one trade "engaging"? Or, in your world, does "engaging" actually mean "frustrating"?

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superbomb1967 wrote:

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DoubleU wrote:

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Mikrotherion wrote:

This shows that the Acts/ early maps are still too easy.

If a scrub like me can get to maps in 12ish hours, yeah, they aren't so hard.

The argument was never that acts are "hard".

Indeed. My argument was that acts are obviously not hard enough if people think it's so boring playing them.

I can't be bothered to dig it up, but when asked for a return of the old endless game mode, CW stated that people watching streamers just skipping the first zones led to "content entitlement", i.e. people who are not making a living from playing games wanted to do the same.
Well, it's still the same. People want to skip the campaign. But why stop there, why not also skip white maps and just start with the red ones?

My point is, the average player is IMO not meant to do endgame content and Übers, at least not after a few days of playing, but rather close to the end of a league.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Why skip the campaign when you can just skip the whole game? Eh? EHHH?

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Exhumer1 wrote:

Imagine Path of Exile with an auction house

1. Not even vaguely relevant to this thread
2. How long are you Exiles going to keep pretending the existing trade system is anything but a poor substitute for the real trading system GGG meant to implement? It was so bad players had to create their own and then, because it was STILL better than what GGG did (or rather didn't) do, the best GGG could do was copy that system.

I mean, come on. The current system is atrocious. A haven for scammers, rip-off artists and wannabe day-traders. It has no regard for language barriers. It can't tell a bot from a real person. It is 100% geared towards victim blaming when someone IS taken advantage of, which is fine and dandy and lol u shulda payd attention until it happens to you and then oh BOY does the song change.

And then there's the fact that in order for any trade to work, two things need to happen: firstly, you need to devote 100% of your in-game attention to that trade and secondly, so does the person selling. In a world where you're literally killing gods and cosplaying as a planeswalker, somehow there isn't some way of handwaving a better trade system so that both players can get on with *playing* the game? And on top of all that there's the game's *hilariously* antiquated 'limited portal' system. So let's say you want to buy X item. You contact said person selling. They're in a Map, and don't want to waste any of their precious portals to conduct that trade.

Gosh, that's *so* 'engaging', isn't it?

But y'know, an auction house would be so much worse, right? A system that lets you play the ARPG and not be forced to fuck about in GGG's little economic antfarm.

...Like I said, why worry about skipping the campaign when you can just skip the whole game -- and what is the game right now if not a weird and generally unhealthy mix of ARPG on speed and Eve-level trade complexity without Eve-level trading systems to provide at least a modicum of user comfort and security?

There are certain things GGG seriously need to consider if PoE 4.0 is to remain relevant. This thread is about one of them. You've actually brought up another, so good work there.

Spoiler

Y'all wanna know when I'm actually a little pissed off? Count the asterisks.

Oh, and just as a fun addition, guess how many times I felt the need to use any sort of trading during my 50 or so hours playing Diablo IV beta? FUCKING ZERO because unlike certain other games, Diablo IV doesn't seem balanced around expecting people to trade during the campaign. After the debacle that was the D3 RMAH and DIV's staunch commitment to being very-fucking-not-D3, shit, I wonder why.

When it comes to what constitutes normal and sane game design, GGGaslighting is *fucking terrifying*.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

Indeed. My argument was that acts are obviously not hard enough if people think it's so boring playing them.

Man, I hate using an old friend as an example, but dude, 'hard' and 'interesting' are not synonymous, nor are 'easy' and 'boring'. I can think of plenty of games that have been both hard and boring, this one most definitely included. OTOH once you are willing to make PoE 'easy' by taking the necessary steps (itself an exercise in tedium), it's *still* boring but for a different reason.

Instead of 'hard' perhaps we can say 'challenging' since that implies it's not just difficult but also alluring, but even then I don't see much correlation.

The acts' problem isn't that they're too easy or too hard. It's not even that they're boring or poorly made. It's that anything you are forced to do over and again will become a chore. Anything. Especially when you're doing it largely to get to what comes after -- it's like rewatching a few seasons of a tv show to get to the good stuff over and over. Once or twice now and then, okay. But before long, you can probably just skip to the good stuff, especially if you're using it as 'background noise', which apparently PoE is supposed to be ('something you can do while watching TV' -- probably the least enticing game endorsement I have ever heard).

And that's coming from someone who really did play the campaign, in all its iterations, many times. Read all the dialogue too. All the lore bits. Forcing people to experience something good to great so many times they come to resent it is really doing that work a disservice.

Now 'campaign skip' is not really the right term for it, any more than you'll see many actual auctions in an in-game auction house (since it typically functions more like amazon than ebay). Wolcen does not have a campaign skip -- it forces you to finish the campaign *once* before unlocking its alternate mode (itself a major part of the final chapter/act, kinda). Warhammer 40k Inquisitor doesn't have a campaign skip -- it just has alternate, non-story missions you can use to level your character instead of following the campaign path. Hell, Diablo 3 didn't even have a campaign skip -- you unlocked Adventure Mode (which isn't a campaign skip but a campaign-adjacent mode excising all the shitty writing and plot beats). The ONLY reason someone would use the term 'campaign skip' with PoE is because right now, the only viable and conceivable alternative way of playing PoE is Mapping, which is after the campaign.

A true 'campaign skip' would be unlocking the Atlas after playing the campaign (logical and within narrative scope) but then allowing new characters to level up on a level-appropriate version of the Atlas.

So essentially, 'campaign skip' doesn't mean 'player skipping the campaign'; it means skipping out on the campaign to level new characters in a different way.

And as I said much earlier in this thread, that's standard ARPG design now. The joy for a lot of people with an ARPG isn't in the story or the campaign, but in leveling new builds and play styles in an minimalist environment free from the clunkiness of campaign.

And no ARPG in history has been lesser for including this option.

Anyone who says they enjoy this game's 10 act campaign slog so much that they'd do it over and over again with dozens of new characters rather than use a bespoke, non-story mode designed to facilitate challenging but interesting character leveling and build experimentation is fucking lying to themselves. And again, I say that as a huge fan of the campaign.

League mutators might inject a little life to each run but only for a few runs. Before long, they just become another spice in the old, already overspiced stew.

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roundishcap wrote:

I think POE players and devs are too enamored with the race at league resets to ever let players skip or boost each other.

I know that five ways are a thing, but real d2 and d3 boosting takes like 15 minutes to get to endgame levels.

POE2 is going to answer where the direction of this game is going. I except to be disappointed with the reveal at exilecon (if there is one) because the stuff coming out of GGG since poe2 was announced has been truly mid, mediocre, forced, tiring, unfun game changes to keep people logged in.

Letting people progress to endgame faster without practicing in a racing group for days on end is just not on their agenda.

This is sadly true, the developers and the top four players are so proud of the boring, frustrating and painful mechanics that seem to have come out of a game from the 2000s. Just as fun is to make 200 whispers to be able to change a chaos for your alterations, than to spend the first three days of play running a character again and again in the same boring campaign that nobody is interested in and in which we run skiping everything... Seriously, this game has a lot of good things, but the bad ones are precisely what the developers are proud of, they're not fun, they're stupid, open your eyes.