The 6-8 hour mandatory tutorial

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reemsdaddy#4225 wrote:

Leveling up in a campaign and feeling gear and character progression is the quintessential ARPG experience.

Is it really though? More and more arpgs (that focus on replayability), perhaps even the majority from the last decade, offer alternate ways to raise future characters instead of repeating the story ad nauseum.

Regular RPGs, however, do not. Which is I think what you may be referring to. Because the focus of such games is playing a role within a story. ARPGs are different: the role is your build and the important part is the hack n slash action. The story is far less important and integral to the game loop.

I hate comparing to D3 and D4 because they are inferior games, but those campaigns are WAY more finessed than the PoE campaign...clearly a heck of a lot more money went into their development, and there's cutscenes and voice acting and a just a ton of "game". NPCS are far more developed. Engagement is much higher. Yet since 2013 they too made the decision to allow ways for new characters to skip the campaign in some way. And like it or not....those games remain popular and there are just as many (or more) decade+ veterans of D3. So it definitely hasn't effected replayability or popularity to be able to skip the campaign.

A good fix could be letting experienced players skip the campaign after beating an endgame boss on their account. You’d start around level 58 with basic gear and some labs done, then jump straight into maps. That way, veterans avoid the slow grind while new players still get the full story.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

I hate comparing to D3 and D4 because they are inferior games, but those campaigns are WAY more finessed than the PoE campaign...clearly a heck of a lot more money went into their development, and there's cutscenes and voice acting and a just a ton of "game". NPCS are far more developed. Engagement is much higher. Yet since 2013 they too made the decision to allow ways for new characters to skip the campaign in some way. And like it or not....those games remain popular and there are just as many (or more) decade+ veterans of D3. So it definitely hasn't effected replayability or popularity to be able to skip the campaign.

Again, I don't think this has anything to do with NPCs, stories, cutscenes or the "finesse" of the campaign. I don't think GGG being stubborn here is to force players to engage with NPCs and experience the story they've built. They are forcing players to play the campaign to experience their own character from 1-XX, because they see every part of the progression of your character as important.

That's because we'll never see a skip. Skipping a major part of the progression of a character in a game all about progression just isn't going to happen in a game where the developers offer fantastic character customization and specialization, unlike the other games you mentioned, where "all" builds are "prebuilds" or templates carefully designed by the developers.

That said, it does not exclude an alternative way of leveling. An alternative way of leveling with the same speed of progression could work fine, but I don't think it would take players long to ask for yet another way of leveling, when they realize that it's still more or less the same.

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A good fix could be letting experienced players skip the campaign after beating an endgame boss on their account. You’d start around level 58 with basic gear and some labs done, then jump straight into maps. That way, veterans avoid the slow grind while new players still get the full story.

So... Creating an even bigger gap between veterans and new/casual players every league?

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josaf#5445 wrote:

A good fix could be letting experienced players skip the campaign after beating an endgame boss on their account. You’d start around level 58 with basic gear and some labs done, then jump straight into maps. That way, veterans avoid the slow grind while new players still get the full story.

That would be the worst possible "fix" they could come up with. Hard pass.