The 6-8 hour mandatory tutorial

PoE is about progression, and people want to skip more than half of the levels? I think GGG wants you to make decisions all the way from level 1 to level 100. All of these decisions make you invested in you character, and changing these decisions will come at a price, be that gold, orbs of regret or orbs of unmaking.

GGG also want the market/economy to matter. They also want "being good/knowledgeable" to be rewarding, and we all know that staying ahead of the economy is worth your time in orbs. So rewarding players that make good decisions along the way, as well as being good/knowledgeable is probably a good thing.

Most players playing PoE1 are not playing (much) D4 for a reason.

I can see them introducing an alternative for leveling down the line, when PoE2 steals even more attention. But I never see them introducing a skip.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

PoE is about progression, and people want to skip more than half of the levels?

Did someone actually say they wanted to skip leveling entirely? *Ed: Okay I see that in the OP (start at lvl 58).....I think that's a mistake.

I think this is ONE THING that D3 did absolutely right. They recognized that the "story" of the game is not something people want to do hundreds or thousands of times. So they added an interesting way to level up secondary characters that only unlocks after you completed the story once. Best of both worlds: everyone does the story and it remains important, but then there's freedom.

PoE could EASILY offer many different ways of doing this, while retaining the decision-making, leveling, and gearing that you get from the campaign. Even directly copying the whole bounty / free exploration thing that D3 has would work. Maps would still start at a "base" difficulty of ilvl 68, but there would be flexibility in how you get to 68.


I get that the story took investment and effort on GGG's part, and they don't want people bypassing that. But this game is now 12 years old: the ratio of completely brand new players to veterans is probably not all that high. I think they would get players playing a heck of a lot longer if the campaign wasn't forced on every new character iteration, FOREVER. I actually LIKE leveling secondary characters through the campaign....and I still get burnt out and completely quit because I just don't want to do it anymore, without a few months' break. They'd likely get ME playing longer if I didn't have to, but I most certainly don't want to lose the leveling part of the game, because I think its probably top 3 most fun time I have with the game.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

...everyone does the story and it remains important, but then there's freedom.

PoE could EASILY offer many different ways of doing this, while retaining the decision-making, leveling, and gearing that you get from the campaign. Even directly copying the whole bounty / free exploration thing that D3 has would work. Maps would still start at a "base" difficulty of ilvl 68, but there would be flexibility in how you get to 68.

Sure, as long as it doesn't offer any advantages in terms of speed, time or rewards, I don't really see a problem with alternative ways of leveling as an option after leveling one character to X.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

Sure, as long as it doesn't offer any advantages in terms of speed, time or rewards, I don't really see a problem with alternative ways of leveling as an option after leveling one character to X.

Why would it be a problem for it to offer advantages? Assuming those advantages aren't crazy huge it already makes sense that you'd get more loot and progress faster on a second/third/fourth run-through.

You aren't about to be farming endgame items in the leveling process....no matter what the rewards may be. iLvL takes care of that.

Monster density would ofc be somewhat normalized, which would take care of most of the balance right there. And then consider what "loot" you get from early league mechanics in the campaign already: the breach in Act 2 gives you nothing. The legion encounter in Act 1 gives you basically nothing. Early delving gives you basically nothing. The limiters are already in place.

The tradeoff is that leveling outside of the campaign is going to be naturally harder unless you already happen to have the gear that coincidentally will likely drop at possibly greater rates.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

Why would it be a problem for it to offer advantages?

Because in a game "all about" efficiency, power and min/maxing, it would no longer be an "alternative" way of leveling or an "option", it would be something you'd be stupid not to do/utilize, no matter if it's a tiny amount of benefits.

I could turn it around; would it be a problem if it was longer/less rewarding than the campaign?

Honestly they should just unlock endless Delve for alt characters after beating A10 Kitava in a new league. Make depths up to monster level 68 or so free, adjust the rewards in those zones and sprinkle passive point and quest rewards throughout different nodes. After that it costs Sulphite again and people can smoothly transition into maps.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

Because in a game "all about" efficiency, power and min/maxing, it would no longer be an "alternative" way of leveling or an "option", it would be something you'd be stupid not to do/utilize, no matter if it's a tiny amount of benefits.

I could turn it around; would it be a problem if it was longer/less rewarding than the campaign?

I disagree with that premise, and no....it wouldn't be a problem if it was less rewarding or longer. You aren't min/maxing or caring really at all about power in the campaign or leveling. You make more in a single juiced map than the entirety of your leveling experience.

The point of varying the leveling has everything to do with enjoyment of the process. The fact that speed running through the campaign is a thing is somewhat proof of that.....no one is specifically TARGETING wealth, power, or min/maxing in the leveling process except for how fast it can be completed. Because there is very little there to gain except time.

But speed becomes less relevant when enjoyment and additional choices come into play. This can be seen with farming methods in the endgame: not every single player does the SAME farming....regardless of which one happens to be the MOST profitable or the MOST efficient.

Yes...there will still be players that find the quickest, shortest path. No matter what is introduced. But profit doesn't factor into the leveling process at all.


And remember, these would be relatively SMALL differences. We aren't talking one method being twice as fast as another. Or one method dropping 100% more currency than another. That simply wouldn't happen, even if they introduced it tomorrow with the existing mechanics and no balancing. I'm not saying it wouldn't require balancing, I'm only saying that certain methods of leveling having advantages over another is negligible in the grand scheme of the game.....because leveling is NOT where wealth and power comes from.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

I disagree with that premise, and no....it wouldn't be a problem if it was less rewarding or longer.

Good, then make it so. The goal here, as people have been very clear on, is for GGG to offer an alternative, not an upgrade nor a skip. So they should of course make it as similar as possible in terms of speed, progression and rewards.

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You aren't min/maxing or caring really at all about power in the campaign or leveling. You make more in a single juiced map than the entirety of your leveling experience.

This is true, and from a practical point of view, I do of course agree. From a psychological point of view - when you're making the choice, I somewhat disagree.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

This is true, and from a practical point of view, I do of course agree. From a psychological point of view - when you're making the choice, I somewhat disagree.

I think the vast vast majority of players are going to choose what they like over what is optimal. They already do. Even when it ACTUALLY matters: in the endgame. When it doesn't matter during leveling? Even more likely.

It is an exceptionally small crowd that cares about efficiency over everything.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

I think the vast vast majority of players are going to choose what they like over what is optimal. They already do. Even when it ACTUALLY matters: in the endgame. When it doesn't matter during leveling? Even more likely.

It is an exceptionally small crowd that cares about efficiency over everything.

You're probably right. I still think it matters, though, when it's only supposed to be an alternative/option.