Skip/reduce the Story and leveling for alt Characters please!

[meesterg]

@brandon1

You have some good points, I too would like to see an alternative leveling path for alts (kind of like adventure mode from d3). Sounds like a nice summary of that would be:

• new alt leveling path would be in the ‘end of time’ (so we can’t get there till the alt is ~lvl 25)
• have this new leveling path open when we either finish the story or reach X level with a character
• limit char growth to ~lvl 55, at which point they then move over to monoliths
• allow us to get all the bonus skill points and idol slots
• xp and item drop rates could be drastically different in these leveling paths, without affecting the main storyline.

I wonder if they could call it something like mini-monoliths?

You did the work for them now lets hope they will do it hahaha.

[doombybbr]

Grim dawn did not let you skip levelling, but it did let you skip questlines for the passive points/bag slots to get to higher difficulties.

[Arcades]

I would love for there to be a scaled version of Arena for leveling characters (e.g. monsters scale to character level similar to the old MoF and do NOT get the stacking difficulty bonuses of wave progression that Ladder arena waves get).

They could rename the current arena the Champions Arena or something similar and then create a new portal called the Challengers Arena that has a cash price instead of a key price and it throws waves of monsters at you for quick leveling.

It could be made available to any account that has completed the Champions Arena on at least one character. It would NOT have its own Ladder or impact the current Ladder in any way. And, in order to push players back into the MoF system, it could be capped at 55, which would also prevent high level players from using it.

It would also have an ancillary benefit of helping new players adjust to the Arena format without the difficulty.

[Irrelevant]

I’m against it. Once you have neough crafting mats you run through the story line like sonic. The crafting system offers so much benefits to get faster and faster there is no more need to enhance this.
Sooner or later they might introduce a set wearable by all classes that offers a XP boost after you killed the final bos or reached level 100 or something. Right now you would miss a lot of passive points for not doing the quests and I think it would be a bad descission to make passive points available in other ways.

[darkdeal]

I would like this as well. I HATE going through the story for the 15th time.

For those saying it is bad, then just don’t flipping do it. That is why it should be an OPTION.

All these opposing arguments basically sound like “Hardcore should not be a part of the game because I like playing softcore”, as if having the option forces you to use it.

The only thing I would be against here is having alts automatically start at level 60 or whatever. It would be similar to the effect character editors have. Players wouldn’t have anything to work towards then and it would cause burnout much quicker.

[Heavy]

Just increased exp would not help with the process of going through the story. For me personally it don’t has to be neccessarily a way to level “fast” (but that would be a good side effect), just some other means of leveling and not going through the story over and over and over again.

If you like going through the story that’s fine. you still cna do it.

Some people just want alternatives means to level a new char.

We just need some way of unlocking the story rewards.

[MystaTea]

I hate myself for even bringing this up but this is a rare case where you can take a page from the D3 book. (I feel dirty even saying it)
When was the last time anyone leveled in story mode in D3? Right after they bought the game. After that they used Adventure mode.

@Heavy

Marvel Heroes also had a good alt system

You had to hit me in the nostalgias… Man I miss Marvel Heroes.

[meesterg]

@Irrelevant

I’m against it. Once you have neough crafting mats you run through the story line like sonic. The crafting system offers so much benefits to get faster and faster there is no more need to enhance this.
Sooner or later they might introduce a set wearable by all classes that offers a XP boost after you killed the final bos or reached level 100 or something. Right now you would miss a lot of passive points for not doing the quests and I think it would be a bad descission to make passive points available in other ways.

What is the point of this? I really dont get it. People keep saying if you do this or that you go really fast trough the story. If you want to go really fast trough the story it assumes you dont want to do it… otherwise you wouldnt do it really fast right? A lot of people rush trough the story with alts so they can finally do endgame with it again.

I really dont see the point of rushing trought the story. For me it is just wasting time until you are in endgame were the fun starts.

[Irrelevant]

It always depends HOW you want to do it and I have a lot of fun with a fast and effective build… so yeah I want to be through the story fast any time I play it.
Then agian I don’t get your point. You get passive points from it so it’s no waste of time because you get something realy important from playing it. I like the endgame most as well but I never was a fan of shortcuts. Why don’t we implement chars after you are through the story first that start all decked out in T7 gear of your choice on max level? Is this fast enough? I take a lot of information from each and every run I did through the storyline that made me better and faster so I have no idea why this experience should be skippable.

[darkdeal]

Because the story line is required linear gameplay that provides nothing new to a person that has already been through it. Just because you get to unlock some passives and idol slots doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an alternative way to do it after you have beaten the storymode once.

It would be easy to implement a “new game plus” option for alts that unlocks once you have beaten the storyline on the account. The NG+ would start the character in the End of Time and there should be a type of monolith that scales with the character level. Things that get unlocked during the story line instead unlock at certain level intervals approximate to where a character would get them in the story line.

Doing that would also allow the devs to implement other perks for hitting certain levels/content. An account wide EXP based on level 100 characters or per character level on the account (+0.1% exp boost per character level on the account? Only unlocked after having a level 100 character?). Equipment sets that can be equipped at level 1 that provide exp boosts. Could be account bound and a reward for hitting level 100 even.

There are a lot of options other than just forcing people to keep playing the same story line over and over again. It will just get worse the longer the story line gets too. Want to talk about burnout, that will do it.

Other games have done similar things, but even if it hadn’t been done before, that is no reason to not innovate. Innovation is what makes people interested, not just copying another game that people already have.

[Llama8]

@darkdeal

and there should be a type of monolith that scales with the character level.

I believe it’s called the Arena (though there’s less loot).

[darkdeal]

That doesn’t work now. You have to have an Arena Key and that is gated behind the MoF with level/storyline restriction.

[Irrelevant]

Soooo… the devs should implement a different game mode for people who are to lazy to run through the story line. This may be some idea for the future but not for the release that would be in 2022 with another game mode added if you take a look at the stuff they want to implement for release that isn’t in the game.

I think it’s kind of sad… the game isn’t fully released yet and the people already want shortcuts. Another thing: Noone is forcing anyone to do anything. I’m pretty sure there is noone with a whip behind your back whipping a player to only play story line after story line.

At the release I’ll play one toon untill I want to play something different and that’s maybe 100-200h later. After all this time running a second story line won’t hurt at all.

[darkdeal]

Where are you getting “lazy” from? I have a character of EVERY SINGLE CLASS. People don’t like playing the same flipping story over and over. It’s like watching the same movie every day, or reading the same book every week. It gets BORING!

Also, it isn’t “running a second storyline”. It is the exact same storyline. All the quests are the same, all the goals are the same. All the zones are the same.

I quit PoE because I didn’t want to run characters through the storyline anymore. After about 30 times doing it, its too much to ask anymore. It’s hours of the same tedious repetitive junk. The extra league mechanic isn’t worth it anymore.

[Heavy]

@Irrelevant

for people who are to lazy

@Irrelevant

I think it’s kind of sad… the game isn’t fully released yet and the people already want shortcuts.

I personally don’t even want something as a “shortcut”, i mean i wouldn’t mind some means of leveling possible future chars faster for some opportunity costs(unlocking it via a milestone on a high lvl char or something similar).

But anything alternative than just running the story over and over and over again makes the long-term motivation a “little bit less”.

I do have thousands of hours across all kind of similar games. And i still did go through alot of games boring and repetitive stuff like story etc.

Just some semi-random generated dungeons that scale with level and give decent exp would be sufficient for me already, i would just need some way of unlocking the story rewards, for any kind of costs.

All of this has nothing to do with being “lazy”

[Llama8]

Personally I’m with Darkdeal on this one. There’s only so much running through the exact same storyline I can cope with (and I’ve got an ungodly amount of Sentinels that I’ve run through the story).

[Vidya]

@Irrelevant

This may be some idea for the future but not for the release that would be in 2022 with another game mode added

I think it’s a good idea to consider for the game before it’s fully released because there are gonna be seasons. That means players are practically going to be expected to restart and replay stuff every 3 (?) or so months at least and players’ll likely really appreciate not having to run story for the nth time.

[Heavy]

Now when speaking about seasonal content i also would not HAVE TO HAVE instant access to any kind of the here suggested stuff. First character on each season could always be the baseline story experience, until you reach that certain milestone.

That way people that like ot play alot of different characters each season would have at least some goal with the first char.

[darkdeal]

I agree with this. Seasons should be like starting a new character on a fresh account. It is better that way for racing purposes.

All of these things should probably be separated by game mode as well. SSF should not get bonuses from Trade characters and so on.

[LastBrat]

This is exactly the reason why the games got rid of the ‘replay the same story content but on a slightly harder difficulty’ since games like D2, which lacked procedurally generated content that added variation, and instead relied on this forced repetition to prolong the play-time. Fortunately games have evolved since then, and designers implement other tricks (POE redesigned their 3x story repetition into 10 acts, GD solved this with merits and D3 did away with that altogether).

For those who want to keep replaying and enjoying the story mode again and again - nothing is holding you back, by all means, replay the story as often as you want, with each alt if you choose to.
For the rest of us, who get bored with mindless repetition, I’m glad the design has moved on since D2 times.