Story Skip, Or I Take My $$$$$ Elsewhere

General
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There is a difference between “You don’t know the game as well as the older players so you will likely fail” and “You’re not an older player, so not only will you have a harder time, we’ll even add some obstacles along the way to make sure you can’t compete”.
It’s based on the premise of equal conditions, which is fundamental to any competition.

What you’re saying is the same as saying that an amateur runner has no chance against the pros, so their track will also have hurdles to jump. And that it’s fine, becaus they can’t compete anyway.

Especially because an experienced player in the genre is likely to be able to be competitive anyway, if given equal conditions.
New player != noob.

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I mostly agree with you, but recently, I’ve been wondering what the difference is between running through random zones levelling (like D3’s adventure mode) versus running through the campaign levelling. You’re still killing mobs, the zones are (LE monos v campaign zones) mostly similar sizes, there aren’t any unskipable voice overs/cutscenes & there’s not many places where you’re clicking through text before you can move on (act 9 says hi though).

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So everyone should have to suffer for the 4 players who are ARPG experts, but it’s their first time playing LE, and they want to compete in the leader boards.

I’m sorry for calling your arguments cope. You are obviously trolling.

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That is of no meaning in competition, a competition is about personal results comparatively to others.

And a first-time player should play through the campaign anyway, so skipping it is not a argument to start with.

And for the follow-up we have the premise of the competition, hence when a Cycle starts off the most optimal way is to be taken to be competitive in any way, hence a alternative route for a first-playthrough of that Cycle would be detrimental if it’s superior in any way time-wise. Hence the statement upholds.

As for the second character in a Cycle? That’s fine. The first is non-negotiable for obvious reaons.

Mostly how it’s set up. There’s a few annoying things like backtracking or the unskippable buggy cutscenes which make it annoying.
But otherwise there wouldn’t be any.

They also do because it would provide a superior position on the market, and trade exists. So that’s not available.
They also have to because it would reduce the overall content available significantly, especially since the majority of resources of the game went into the campaign, hence that’s to be made good, otherwise all those resources would be a waste, wouldn’t they?
And also because of the competitive state, which is not only for beginners but especially for repeating players. Second, third, fourth Cycle… which position can you get this time? How fast can you do it that time? This is something which is rather widespread actually, not a miniscule amount of players. For years it was a primary aspect in PoE actually before the campaign has become a mess because of loads of mechanics being thrown in there. After fixing that it has never recovered though.

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What is there to wonder? The campaign is a walled in path that’s literally busy work that the endgame is locked behind.

There is a reason that no one likes replaying campaigns, even in a grind heavy genre.

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And the end-game is a walled-in path which is literally busywork only keeping you improving your numbers as the goals are severely lacking. You got exactly 2, which are Aberroth and Uberroth.

So don’t try to argue with that there, I know where you’re coming from, but it doesn’t uphold.

A campaign and a end-game can be equivalent if set up properly. The issue is just that the LE campaign rather much sucks for repeated playthroughs… which means the campaign needs to be fixed, not removed.

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You are rationalizing. The fact that many of us hate repeating the campaign but not the end game makes my point objectively true.

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But if both activities are similar in their “walled in-ness”, why do you hate one but love the other? Why does a person consider the campaign pointless busywork but not empowered monos?

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Subjectively true actually.
Since it’s based on subjective perception, that’s the definition of it.

So it’s about changing perception and doing the relevant things which achieve that.
If it would be a objective truth then it would be universally true, which is not the case. Grim Dawn for example has ‘no endgame’ but only the campaign area, but it’s the best received SP game of the genre. It outperformed LE vastly actually when it was fully released and the first DLC came out.
So something is done ‘right’ there despite it having no actual end-game area.

That means the moment-to-moment gameplay is sufficiently good in the campaign state of the game to warrant the engagement it has, which means that a campaign can absolutely have the relevant aspects to be as enjoyable as a product with an end-game.

We can talk about the actual issues existing.
One being that you build up power really slowly, LE is a very simplistic game early on and tends to cause you to be bored out.
Secondly, it offers no rewards during the campaign which will be relevant. You’re often over- or underleveled respectively to the content, but rarely right at the place where content expects you to be. Grim Dawn for example provides a near steady uphill battle unless you’re a very good player or experienced, which means you get challenged. Which LE’s campaign simply doesn’t do. And if it does it’s commonly through one-shots rather then being wittled down.
The next part is the mentioned issues with backtracking and unskipable cutscenes. Those exhaust people, you get bored. ‘I was already there’ ‘where is the darn thing’ and ‘why do I have to wait, I know this already’ are prevalent well known things happening. Those need to go.

One major aspect though is pacing of the areas, severely changing mob density and the need to find your way to the end. People wanna explode stuff and kill hordes of mobs, not run through a puzzle where you can get stuck on the way through.

There’s more of those existing as well, but the campaign itself is not objectively an issue, it’s the way the campaign is designed at several areas, and that’s what needs to change first and foremost.
This will already significantly improve the experience, and then we can still - if it’s not enough anyway or things simply cannot be fixed without excessive effort - to have a secondary mechanic available to allow a alternative.

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Did I say that? Or did I repeatedly say that if what you really want is a simple alternative leveling method that requires roughly the same time as the campaign, then I’m all for it?

If you have 2 or 3 or 10 ways to level up and they’re all roughly equivalent in terms of time, that’s absolutely fine. I’ve repeatedly said I’m all for it.

The problem is that most people asking for a campaign skip don’t want that. They just want to get to endgame faster. They want a power boost. Which is not the same thing.

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So what if people want to get to the end game faster?

If you worried that People will run out of Things to do faster…it doesn’t help if you force them to do something extra to add “time” if they do not enjoy.

Artificially lengthen the time does not help the game. What help is people have great time when they play the game, that they return again and again in future seasons.

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I’m not. I’m just worried that you will force people to skip stuff they want simply because you want a power boost.
Just like D3 did.

EDIT:
Let’s try to turn that around, in that case.
Let’s add an alternative to campaign. It’s dynamic, fun to play and it now takes 20h to get to monos.
Would you be happy with that? You’re not forced to do content you don’t like anymore. You “have the option” of skipping the campaign, it just takes much longer to get to monos. But that’s fine, right? It’s a campaign skip.

What you want is just a power skip. It’s hitting a button to create a character and you’re already level 50 with everything unlocked.

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I mean… what of it?

What’s the point of that discussion point in itself? It has no relevance.

Th campaign is drawn out definitely, I agree, it ‘overstays’ definitely, but that’s related to how it’s set up.

The core of that argumentation is that there is no reason to make something ‘faster’ as the premise of enjoyment is derived from the moment to moment experience. This happens because of several factors, pace of perceived progression, amount of rewards given, how hard it is to make that all happen.

But if you simply argue for ‘why not have it happen quicker?’ then the counter-argument is ‘why not just include a ‘I win’ button to click? That’s the fastest method to finishing’

The task of a game is not to get to the goal but to enjoy the process of getting towards it. This is universally true for all of them. It’s also for stories by the way, the excitement happens during experiencing it, it’s counter-productive to have a ‘There was a guy and he lived well, the end’ to shorten the story.
Shortening has to provide meaning behind it. Better pacing for example. And that is the crux of any problem. If the pacing is well designed then you can have something which is enjoyable for 1000 hours. If the pacing is not enjoyable it gets annoying after 2 hours.

Hence those types of discussion are always about ‘pacing’ and never about ‘finishing quicker’.

Umh… actually it does.
That’s why waiting timers for crafting exists. Or why time-gated content exists. Or filler content. Or long grinds of any kind.

They’re literally there to expand on the time needed to reach the finish line.

You’re 100% right though that those are not allowed to come at a significant (And that’s important to mention, this one word) amount of cost for enjoyment. A mild cost is not only acceptable but actually preferable in many situations. Enjoying something wildly for 5 minutes or enjoying something decently much for 5 hours makes a vast difference. A SP game has no need to draw it out extensively, a live-service game by design though has to, to keep revenue flowing. Which is why live-service games are often so badly received for a reason.

Only if there is reason to return.
If you experienced it ‘in full’ then nothing pulls you back.

The content in LE is prone to easily allowing someone to ‘experience it in full’ if you significantly try to remove the methods which are used to expand the timeframe spent. Those include itemization, walking distances (one of the worst ones though, hence why it feels so bad actually), stacked RNG leading to expanded time needed to be invested and so on.
To counter that EHG would need to have more ‘meaningful grinds’ rather then ‘timewasters’ as the currently do at times.

I can personally say: I definitely would be. I want enjoyment, not efficiency personally. Many wouldn’t be fine with it though :stuck_out_tongue:

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That is the whole point. A very small fringe of people would still do content if they enjoy it, but most players don’t like to feel like they’re wasting progress. That is the main reason why people are asking for the campaign skip in the first place.

So it makes no sense to tell players “You can still run it if you want to” if when placed in the same position they wouldn’t do the same.

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Borderlands 3, finally, added the ability to start at max level (72) with a bunch of green B.S. gear and a reasonable amount of cash and Eridium.
They are saying, basically, “We KNOW the story sucks, we KNOW the story is a 30-hour SLOG, and we are just doing our part to lower the suicide rate among players.”
EHG could do the same. They won’t, however. I think this is a classic case of giving birth to a f^cking wildebeest but thinking your little angle is a pageant winner.
I think they need to learn that their sh!t DOES, in fact, stink, and we just don’t want any more of it’s foul odor. FINISH THE F^CKING GAME!!!
I am the OP, and I basically walked away from this game after my post. Since then, the devs have announced that they are in financial trouble. I told them I wasn’t spending any more money on a game that makes me feel like it hates me, and… well…

Fix the game, devs.

1: Make equipped items look like their item card image. It’s been suggested that most of the equipped items look like poop to drive us to the $$$ shop. I am one of those that suggested that in the first place.
2: Story skip. I was talking to a streamer- not mentioning Aaron’s name- and said I wanted a story skip. Not Aaron (wink) said, “How can you skip a story that isn’t even finished?” Let’s break this down logically: If I am skipping a story, what does it matter if it’s 4 seconds long, a great story, a crap story, 550 hours long, or comes with an ice cream sundae… If I am skipping it, what does it matter if it’s finished or not? That argument is just stupid on the face of it.
3: Paid DLC? For a game that “isn’t finished” (see above) ??? You’ve GOT to be kidding me. The second I see paid DLC available is the second I uninstall this game from MULTIPLE Steam accounts. FINISH THE F^CKING GAME!!!
4: “Seasonal content”: FINISH THE F^CKING GAME!!!

I expect to be censored, banned, shunned, etc.
I could care less.
This game is about making money, and my fat wallet is locked until further notice.

P.S.: My wife and I just got into V Rising, so I spent $250 on 2 copies of the game and all DLC without even blinking. Fat wallet, EHG. F-A-T. Obe$e. $tuffed to the gill$. Overflowing. I can’t $pend it fa$t enough. $hame none of it is heading your way…

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I agree with all the stuff outside the Borderlands 3 comparison.

That game’s a single-player game and has tons of voicelines which are the issue. And the overall story itself is just… mediocre as a base setup.

LE though is a live-service game, has no voicelines and the core idea of the story is feasable to become a good thing if properly executed.
So the demand is to fix it up rather then to throw it into the gutter.

As for a story skip… do you imagine that EHG would provide a more enjoyable experience as a alternative when they’re already hurting to keep players playing for more then 40 hours the first time… and 20 hours the second? Talking about ARPG veterans here, which provide the brunt of the income long-term.
They can’t even get a single boss fixed in several Cycles! How do you expect them to make a even half-way balanced alternative to a campaign? And entirely removing it makes the game what… 10 hours long before you get into the RNG disaster they designed where you’re just in a endless slog with no return?

It’s just a mess as you say, the game stinks quite a bit indeed.

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You are missing my point. I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE STORY.
If this was the greatest story ever told, I DON’T CARE.
The endgame should be the grind, not leveling to endgame.
My bottom line: If I could skip the story, start a character that’s appropriately leveled with so-so gear, and just get to the fun stuff, I would have 2,000 hours in the game by now. I would also have $2,000 in the game by now.
They are f^cking up their own finances by sticking to retarded guns.
Here is my OTHER bottom line: I have moved on from this game.
I couldn’t care less, at this point, what happens.

{BEARDED ANUS: The amount of caring I have is hovering at Zer0, but is still above your !.Q.}

The devs have shown they don’t care for the players, and I’m not going to let them piss in my mouth anymore.
I have other games to play, I have money (and lots of it) to spend elsewhere.

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You don’t care, but can somehow could care less?

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79

It’s so little caring that the brain gets an integer overflow, even less and it would be caring a lot again :joy:

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Bearded Anus:

I bet you think you’re pretty f*cking intelligent.
I don’t.

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