Fans who say that Path of Exile leveling feels tedious and repetitive are calling upon the fantasy game’s developer, Grinding Gear games, to spice up the process of reaching endgame maps. During their soul-searching, one solution in particular appears to have leapt out – the Diablo 3 Adventure mode, an alternate campaign option in the Blizzard RPG game that allows players to level quickly without having to follow the base story progression.
Following a trend of recent frustrations about the game that have seen some of its long-time fans voicing concerns about how its mechanical complexity can, at times, feel as much like a burden as a benefit. “I’m not bored of PoE itself,” explains Reddit user Commercial_Bread_ on the game’s subreddit, “It’s probably the only ARPG with the complex character building that satisfies me. On the other hand, that exact same complexity frustrates me. Everything is just so bloated and you can’t easily try new things without big investments.”
They discuss the fact that swapping out skills, while ostensibly as simple as changing your slotted gems, often in reality requires changing out your build altogether, buying all-new gear, or just re-rolling your character from scratch. Many players responded to his post echoing the sentiment, and one particular point which was raised highlights the tedium of bringing another character up to the endgame by working through the campaign again. RockBottomCreature remarks that “the average player takes eight hours” to get to the stage to do endgame maps, and that they “want to do the acts once per league and then never again.”
In response, several players bring up one of Diablo 3’s best features – Adventure mode. Adventure mode was recently made available to all players from the beginning of the game with Diablo 3 season 27 but previously only required completing the campaign once on your account to unlock it permanently. It allows players to eschew the campaign altogether, instead letting players level by undertaking randomly-generated bounties across the world of Diablo 3. It’s a very fun alternative option that alleviates the mundanity of going through the full mission progression on multiple characters with every new season.
RockBottomCreature remarks that “People have been begging and pleading for years to make the leveling less tedious. GGG simply refuses to have it despite it being 100% doable. I don’t mind making a new character if I could simply power-level them to maps in a reasonable amount of time.” Adventure mode is certainly far from the only option – the comments suggest the likes of infinite delve or endless ledge as alternative possibilities – but it would certainly make for a good option.
Personally, as someone who doesn’t get to play the game quite as much as I’d like, having to slog through the story stuff is certainly a deterrent to coming back for each season. I enjoyed the main progression the first couple of times I went through it, but now it feels too much like I’m playing the same game for the umpteenth time and the new mechanics added in each season don’t always do enough to alleviate that feeling and drive me through. An option for Adventure mode would certainly make me more inclined to dive in.
Fans will be hoping that the next season addresses their frustrations with the PoE Lake of Kalandra update and the Path of Exile Archnemesis system. Players have also recently been expressing their annoyance with the all-or-nothing swings caused by the Archnemesis system and the resulting ‘loot goblins’ that have highlighted issues with the Path of Exile magic find system. If you’re looking for something else to try in the meantime, check out the best games like Diablo on PC for plenty more options to satiate that loot lust.