The constant calls for Act skips are indicative of core game vision problems.

For some reason Jonathan and the others decided the solution to the problem in POE1 of the acts being the tutorial was to make the acts 5x longer and more tedious to complete. This is one of many times I just sit there astonished and wonder, "Did these guys even build POE1?" I wonder, "Did they just replace the whole team, designers included?" I get it that Chris left but you guys are making some decisions that make it seem like you have NEVER built an ARPG before ... but you have. I don't get it.

In POE1 the campaign could be done in about 12 hours by an average normie like me. Racers could do it in 4 hours but then they have the game memorized, yes the whole game. Chris was resolute that the acts were here to stay and we were OK with that. It was an annoyance but a small one and it gave you time to get to know your build before you took it into maps. If you had never used Cobra Lash before and that was your build, it was a good warmup.

When creating POE2 they had the idea of making the acts LONGER and HARDER because ... actually I am drawing a blank here. I guess their idea was, "The ENTIRE player base are a bunch of idiots for calling it a tutorial, they should love it as the main game." Uh no. All that resulted in is all the Diablo 4 players, your new target customer since you told all POE1 players to pound sand, to ask for a Diablo like feature, namely a campaign skip. They reacted to your, "Awesome hard campaign " by saying "Yeah, we played it 20 times already, its annoying, stop it.

Again, its like I am not talking to a company that spent 10 years making the best ARPG on the market.

Were innovative ideas like breaking up the story into smaller short stories and weaving them into the atlas not discussed? You could have borrowed from Delve for the depth of the map and borrowed from Warframe to deliver acts in digestible chunks. Get to a certain level in the atlas then act 4 triggers? No? Oh I forgot the Atlas has no direction, no goal except to subject the player to a continuously escalating grind. Its almost like you are prepping players for a "Speed up the game MTX" but TenCent wouldn't do that .... oh ... wow ... that is their main business model. Lets hope that isn't the actual plan because if it is you will have erased 10y of good reputation.

At some point you will have to face the fact that your "Vision" requires some glasses. Of course that is only if you aren't targeting building a game to farm the 1% whales like the rest of TenCent does. It also assumes that you actually care about retaining a loyal customer base and are not trying to capture a new hypothetical customer base while telling the current customer base to pound sand. It also assumes anyone in the office actually plays POE because I am not sure they play either 1 or 2.

At some point you might take a step back and decide this has gone off the rails and if that happens I hope there is a heart to heart meeting where someone says "OK, lets write down everything we learned in 10y of POE1 and see how to make it in POE2." Lessons like, "Delve depth was a major barometer by which players measured builds, what if we combine the atlas and delve end game play style, what does that look like?" Another lesson, "Players loved being able to start on one side of the map and build a witch that used molten strike or a marauder that casts spells, why are we restricting things so much?" Other lessons like, "People wanted to play scion because of her central start point but her ascendancy was weak, maybe we start everyone right in the middle and let them pick their own path."

Maybe you address POE1 problems like, "Why don't we break up the campaign into smaller pieces and allow the user to find them in the endgame and give out significant rewards for the completion of the short stories." Another problem could be, "How do we set up skills so that combos are attractive and the progression to god mode is a gradual one, not simply copying someone else's level 20 build."

The current path you are on will lead to ... well basically the retention you have now. That is not good. You have alienated 90% of your POE1 player base that only cares about 3.26 now and are competing for Diablo 4 style players and losing that competition to other games.

As I've said historically in other threads (aimed at the devs):

Your intention as the developer will not always get to survive contact with the player. Sometimes what the players want and what you intend don't align. Sometimes compromise is possible, but sometimes it's not. Recognizing when to compromise, and when to concede to the player, are how development of the game improves. Insisting your intention as the developer is the ideal state of the game gets you a game only the developers want to exist.

I'd say the constant calls for Act Skips are indicative of the way forums tend to get filled with posts from the people who don't currently like something.

If they made campaign shorter, the forums would get full of people complaining about the endgame being too different of the campaign or something.

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I'd say the constant calls for Act Skips are indicative of the way forums tend to get filled with posts from the people who don't currently like something.

Wouldn't it be wild if it was a feedback forum or something? And if feedback could be negative?

What a take.

I think it's important to note getting to maps within hours in PoE1 wasn't always a thing and isn't exactly good. It actually points to potential flaws in the game's design and itemization.

They leaned into the quick Act progression because league mechanics were all they offered and the drastic difference in item power made players skip them anyways. Yes, doing the same quests and bosses every character is boring but so far they've failed to deliver on claiming the act quests would be dynamic and the item power difference is comparatively higher.

We didn't do 50+ million DPS when maps came out why the hell are we doing it in PoE2?

They're so fixated on building an obvious patchwork end-game onto an unrefined core game that it's going to come out bad no matter what. Between level progression, item progression, leagues and quest rewards the Acts should not feel much different than mapping.