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

Steam posts numbers but since its a tiny site no one buys games on its ignored by ProLab posters.

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morbo wrote:

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But it's already bean established that it's dead easy just by paying a couple chaos orbs. How about if the alternative way were exceptionally MORE difficult and without the big load of loot at the end?

If people choose that way rather than the lab way, it wouldn't invalidate the lab. It would show that people WANT difficult over the easy, annoying cheese through the lab.

Yeah, that's what I said several times. Alternatives are ok, but they must be more "inconvenient" (lenghty, grindy, expensive, etc..) than the Lab, to the point that most people would still choose to run through Lab.

But the main problem is how to find an alternative that would please most those who don't like the Lab. Solving this is less straightforward for GGG, than previous "community issues" (eg. loot allocation).

It might take a while before GGG does anything.

They could just let me pay some one 5c and completely ignore it :).

PS. I am kidding that is a horrible idea :).

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diablofdb wrote:

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That's good. I think it's cool that there is a minority who enjoys the lab. I'd never want GGG to do anything to take it away from them.

PLUS, if they keep it as the only way to get the enchants, then there's always going to be a reason for the minority to continue using it.

I think it's a minority who hate the lab :3

At least it doesn't divide the community, I mean creating factions made congress work so much better than in the 70's.

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morbo wrote:

Dual Core Mala as an alternative is a joke, obviously. Uber Lab is much easier to do than Core, not to mention much more accessible (two Core maps looted in ~1.3 years of not really casual gameplay, lol). I think that Uber Lab is prob. somewhere on par with normal Atziri, difficulty-wise.

Any alternative would probably have to be accessible only after you complete whole Merc, as a trade-off. Anyone who is ok with the Lab, gets to grab the points much sooner, which is an advantage while levelling.

You do not need them till high end maps. I think level 80 is the ideal time to get them. Maybe after you get and complete X red maps solo.

I know this idea will get a lot of hate, because of recent threads hating on this exact subject, but I thought I'd throw it out for the sake of brainstorming:

What do you guys think of gating an alternative Ascendancy method behind RNG?

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gibbousmoon wrote:

I know this idea will get a lot of hate, because of recent threads hating on this exact subject, but I thought I'd throw it out for the sake of brainstorming:

What do you guys think of gating an alternative Ascendancy method behind RNG?

Do you mean like finding one in a random barrel as one can a MoK? The insta-win barrel!

Sounds like fun :D

That would be the crudest form of it, yeah. :D

A slightly more elegant solution would be a randomly spawning dungeon (like the Uber Trials) with Izaro inside somewhere.

The biggest disadvantage I can see to this idea is that such RNG pisses off a lot of people, and I don't happen to be among those who think it's a good thing (or even OK) to antagonize your players. On the other hand, they DO still have the Labyrinth as an option, so perhaps it wouldn't create as much ill feeling as I fear.

The biggest advantage I can see to this idea is that it would permit GGG to tweak its difficulty relative to the Labyrinth quite precisely. That's something that's going to be both important and difficult for any alternative Ascension method, as lab-lovers and lab-haters alike seem to agree.

Also, it still gives them a chance to tweak the Labyrinth and make it more fun for a broader swathe of players, should they choose to do so. That would just be a separate project.

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The only potential problem I see, is that players will 'sell' their instances which will in turn tick off the lab run salesmen.

Yeah, selling of instances. Good point.

Also, handling instances in the case of a party of players.

That's two things that will have to be considered and/or worked around.