SET FREE THE ASCENDANCY POINTS (or rework the lab) [New ascension methods/lab rework ideas]

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Shovelcut wrote:

It would bother me and even though I really enjoy running the laby there would be no purpose for me to ever enter it again should the points be moved out of it. Item enchantments aren't something I really care about so there would be no incentive for me to run the areas for it.

IMO the laby is one of the best additions to the game that has been released since I started playing (midway through SoTV), removing the points from it would negate it's reason for even existing. It serves a purpose, to ascend. Ascension isn't something that should be given away or gotten easily. As a bonus, it breaks the monotony of the leveling process by adding something completely different.

The epitome of hypocrisy and contradiction.

So by your sayings you dont enjoy the lab for what it is or have fun with the playstyle it offers and you only do it out of necessity to get the Ascendancy points. So you want that carrot at the end of the stick, because the countless of rewards already there are not enough to appease your appetite for fun?

Are you playing the game for entertainment or for job? Cause from your sayings its 100% the latter and thats pitiful.

If you find the labyrinth FUN there is seriously NO DOWNSIDE to making alternative ways to ascend or even completely remove the AP from there. If you find the labyrinth FUN you will run it even if you dont want the enchaments just because you like the playstyle.

Shall i call the ambulance again mate?

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Regulator wrote:

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Shovelcut wrote:

It would bother me and even though I really enjoy running the laby there would be no purpose for me to ever enter it again should the points be moved out of it. Item enchantments aren't something I really care about so there would be no incentive for me to run the areas for it.

IMO the laby is one of the best additions to the game that has been released since I started playing (midway through SoTV), removing the points from it would negate it's reason for even existing. It serves a purpose, to ascend. Ascension isn't something that should be given away or gotten easily. As a bonus, it breaks the monotony of the leveling process by adding something completely different.

The epitome of hypocrisy and contradiction.

So by your sayings you dont enjoy the lab for what it is or have fun with the playstyle it offers and you only do it out of necessity to get the Ascendancy points. So you want that carrot at the end of the stick, because the countless of rewards already there are not enough to appease your appetite for fun?

Are you playing the game for entertainment or for job? Cause from your sayings its 100% the latter and thats pitiful.

If you find the labyrinth FUN there is seriously NO DOWNSIDE to making alternative ways to ascend or even completely remove the AP from there.

I absolutely enjoy the laby for what it is, which is a push towards ascension and a break from the monotony of the leveling process.

What other rewards are there? Most of the builds I enjoy playing do not benefit from a vast majority of the enchants hence there is no incentive for me to run for the enchants.

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Regulator wrote:

If you find the labyrinth FUN you will run it even if you dont want the enchaments just because you like the playstyle.

So now you're going to dictate what I find fun and what I should be doing? That is douchebaggery at it's finest right there.

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Regulator wrote:

Shall i call the ambulance again mate?

If you feel you need one go ahead.

Edit: And for the record, I don't find the play style in the laby any different than in the rest of the game. You're still manually dodging shit to avoid dying, it's no different in the laby.

What this thread should be focusing on is, what is more feasible, removing AC from Lab and binding them somewhere else OR removing Traps\Puzzles from Lab but keep AC bind at it.

In my eyes the latter seemes to be more feasible than the former.

In general, i agree with what - Regulator - says. But we have to acknowledge the fact that removing AC from the Lab might not be possible anymore, because GGG when conceiving the Lore for Ascendancy, created the Lab as the means to acquire the AC points.

On that regard & putting aside any good intentions, i believe GGG made a bad implementation of the Ascendancy content & now players are divided at an alarmingly increasing rate.

One thing i will be adamant about is that the Lab\Ascendancy content can't stay the way it is now. One way or another it needs to change and i sincerely hope they think something in the near future.

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But we have to acknowledge the fact that removing AC from the Lab might not be possible anymore, because GGG when conceiving the Lore for Ascendancy, created the Lab as the means to acquire the AC points.

Lore can always be reinterpreted or expanded. My guess is that the main obstacle at this point is more psychological: GGG will find it very hard to backtrack, or even admit to themselves the extent of the problem. (It's quite possible that the "vocal minority" are actually the ones who support requiring the Lab for ascendency points --- last I checked, I saw 268/158/727 players on the N/C/M HC prophecy daily Labyrinth ladders, which doesn't strike me as a lot, even if there are more massively overleveled players in the N/C Lab.)

Perhaps GGG made a mistake in introducing traps, the Lab, and ascendency points all in one fell swoop, and they should've gauged the reaction to the Lab first. As it is, whatever GGG does now, they are going to leave one group or other of really upset players (or soon-to-be former players).

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What this thread should be focusing on is, what is more feasible, removing AC from Lab and binding them somewhere else OR removing Traps\Puzzles from Lab but keep AC bind at it.

In my eyes the latter seemes to be more feasible than the former.

In general, i agree with what - Regulator - says. But we have to acknowledge the fact that removing AC from the Lab might not be possible anymore, because GGG when conceiving the Lore for Ascendancy, created the Lab as the means to acquire the AC points.

On that regard & putting aside any good intentions, i believe GGG made a bad implementation of the Ascendancy content & now players are divided at an alarmingly increasing rate.

One thing i will be adamant about is that the Lab\Ascendancy content can't stay the way it is now. One way or another it needs to change and i sincerely hope they think something in the near future.

Underlined mine : There are suggestions tickling both in the opening post, for every taste, i dont mind any of them to be honest but as the title suggests i prefer one :). Welcome aboard, feel free to make any suggestion for either approach.

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ShaUrley wrote:

Lore can always be reinterpreted or expanded. My guess is that the main obstacle at this point is more psychological: GGG will find it very hard to backtrack, or even admit to themselves the extent of the problem. (It's quite possible that the "vocal minority" are actually the ones who support requiring the Lab for ascendency points --- last I checked, I saw 268/158/727 players on the N/C/M HC prophecy daily Labyrinth ladders, which doesn't strike me as a lot, even if there are more massively overleveled players in the N/C Lab.)

Perhaps GGG made a mistake in introducing traps, the Lab, and ascendency points all in one fell swoop, and they should've gauged the reaction to the Lab first. As it is, whatever GGG does now, they are going to leave one group or other of really upset players (or soon-to-be former players).

HC prophecy is painfuly empty for less than 10days into the league. I couldnt agree more with your second paragraph, nice catch and way of thinking actually. As for the "soon-to-be-former-players", steam charts already showed a 30% drop (12k players) on the launch, and declining since then. Lab attedance the same.

Regarding the lore, the big expense for game development is first programming and second is the graphic art. Way down on the scale is voice recording, comparatively peanuts to programming and graphic art. This makes lore the least of the concerns in trying to evaluate the costs to the various potential alternatives discussed in the OP.

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Turtledove wrote:

Regarding the lore, the big expense for game development is first programming and second is the graphic art. Way down on the scale is voice recording, comparatively peanuts to programming and graphic art. This makes lore the least of the concerns in trying to evaluate the costs to the various potential alternatives discussed in the OP.

Dude, as i said before, we have Mjolner, so lore means absolutely nothing in this game. There is no reason GGG should be afraid to "tweak" the lore if they aren't afraid to change the gameplay.

Also, if you don't pretend you have insider info on GGG and how they work, how can you dismiss all the creative ideas that people with imagination came up with? You have absolutely no hope.

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goetzjam wrote:

Everything in the game doesn't need alternative methods. Your talking about selfish or selfless ones, but from my point of view anyone requesting a change to allow AC points outside the lab is selfish, so it depends on which side of the argument you are on, either we "be selfless and support the cause" or we are selfish. What a shitty statement to make, basically "guilting" people into feeling bad that you dont enjoy the content and want shit handed too you on a fucking platter.

1. No one asks to get the AC points on a "fucking platter". We WANT a challange to get these points, but we just don't want to do the arcade part, because it's an entire different game that has not much to do with PoE.

2. He is not entirely wrong about the "selfish" thing. Saying that you want the AC points to stay in the labyrinth and that you don't want to have any alternative ways to get them (for people who hate the labyrinth) is kinda selfish. The ones who want to get the AC points in a different or at least alternative way don't ask to remove the labyrinth (most of them at least). They try to please both sides.

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goetzjam wrote:

I told you this before, but you either have me ignored (quite funny if you do) or you refuse to acknowledge the point that if AC was rewarded outside of the lab then the normal, cruel and merciless lab (with merciless being somewhat affected) are basically a completely pointless piece of content in the game. GGG would be better off if AC point were offered outside the lab, to just remove them from the lab altogether and get ride of normal and cruel lab, seeing as there is basically no reward to doing those if really any of the alternatives mentioned in your post were to be implemented, which is EXACTLY why I think your continuation of supporting ideas that have AC anywhere BUT exclusively to the lab is an utter failure to recognize the issue from the other person's point of view and only have your "selfish" desires show.

1. The lab has the new craftable mods for gloves/shoes, which are really strong and it offers tons of treasures at the end of the lab. ZiggyD himself already said that the treasure at the end of the lab can be extremely rewarding and there are people who can finish the lab in under 10 minutes. So if you are good with the arcade stuff, then the lab is an extremely efficient way to get tons of loot, specially if you know the lab layout and where to find the treasure keys.

2. If MUCH less people play the lab anymore when there is an alternative way to get the AC points, then this would be a good sign that the lab is not as much liked as some here may have thought. If you like the playstyle, you still can play it to get your AC points, the crafting mods and the treasures and all the others who dont like it go for the alternative.

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Shovelcut wrote:

Now, if the traps were all throughout wraeclast I'd fully back up your 'it's a different genre' argument but that simply isn't the case. You're looking at a minimum maximum of 3 hours (not including the end-game laby because it's not required) per character for something that is definitely worth the hassle whether you find it boring or not.

And that's from someone who plays Standard League... No offense, but if you play the lab in HC, it's something entire different. I wouldn't care about it if I would play Standard too. I mean, would I care if I die to traps in Standard? Nope. But in HC, even traps from norm labyrinth can kill you within 3 seconds, even if you are lvl 60+. And this is the problem: GGG forces me to do the arcade part and if I suck at arcade, I don't have access to the AC points (because my HC character would probably die in there), which are essential for character customization. Even if you buy a lab run and you dont have to do the key-maps, there are still tons of traps along the main way. I play PoE for some years now (played it even before it were released on Steam) and all the new content was always based on PvE. Harder enemies, stronger mods for Enemies, more Bosses, more Maps filled with Monsters etc. It was always about building a character and use it to fight enemies. AC Lab has no focus on that anymore. Like many said, it's an entire different game. Aside from the boss fight, the enemies in the lab are just "there" but not challanging. So the lab is built around the traps and they are supposed to kill you very quickly, complete independent from your character built! You have 10k+ Armor? Fuck that! You have just as much Evasion? Fuck that! 6k Life? Fuck that! It doesn't really matter WHAT you play. If merc lab had no monsters and no boss fight, you could even do it with a level 1 character (or low level, so that you can use some mobility skills), because traps dont care at all about your built or defensive stats. The only thing that helps a little bit is a very high life regeneration per second. But the Witch, Shadow and Ranger do not have much of those nodes close to them.

people will - no matter what - avoid any sort of challenge if possible. if it is impossible - they'll try to change the rules with 'petitions', 'feedback' or straight 'whining'

current lab is challenging and provides good, valuable rewards (points + level appropriate loot in large quantities) [yes, speedrunning it is also challenging - try to beat current top racers and not die in the process]


replacing it with something that can be chain-gorged is removing any challenge. 'map filled with monsters' is just free xp. there is no challenge to that. right-click to victory and dps-for-the-win. suggesting that is just hypocrisy. people disliking the lab need to man up and do it.

ill remind you what GGG said: 'some people do not like the lab, and im fine with that' (paraphrase, original can be found in State of Exile, Prophecy episode)

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You have 10k+ Armor? Fuck that! You have just as much Evasion? Fuck that! 6k Life? Fuck that! It doesn't really matter WHAT you play

ill just say that this shows that you know little about the traps and what works and what doesnt. all items you listed are false. build matters, gear matters, skills you use matter. but the best anti-trap defence is.. not getting hit by them. so the most important part of the lab is YOUR skill. if you suck at it (As youve said) - get better. it wont take you more than 20 minutes to understand the WHOOOOOLE 20 or so trap gauntlets in the lab. once you know it there is NO EXCUSE to getting hit by them. 'git gud'