SET FREE THE ASCENDANCY POINTS (or rework the lab) [New ascension methods/lab rework ideas]
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This post is more of a "big picture" of why the Labyrinth is an issue for some people (it may rehash a few overlapping concepts with previous posts, so sorry in advance). In some ways, I wish I didn't have to spell it out for some people, but the level of unwillingness to try to see the points behind some less-than-elaborated feedback is disheartening.
--- "ARPG" traps --- Determining whether or not all ARPGs should/do share the same definition shouldn't be the goal here. What has been expressed by other posters is an observation of what sort of game PoE is to them. Whether traps fit in all or some ARPGs is not entirely relevant to whether or not PoE should have them. This discussion is inclusive to PoE. Since the devs of this game think traps do fit into their vision of PoE: To what extent should traps exist in this game? and How should they interact with the already-established mechanics of the game? (it was stated by Chris in some interview or manifesto that I read, that he always wanted to have traps from the start, but without lock-step, knowing exactly where a player was standing, couldn't include them. They are making the game they want to play, so this game will include traps.) In other words, traps are here to stay as part of PoE. It's just how they work and interact with the way PoE plays, that can be discussed. --- Traps were successfully designed to drastically alter gameplay in Path of Exile. Let's examine what the core gameplay is like, and then see what it's like in the labyrinth. How do traps interact with the previously established gameplay and mechanics? --- PoE Gameplay (outside/pre- labyrinth) --- As others have stated, the core gameplay of Path of Exile is "kill monster, get experience and loot", that's what "playing the game" has entailed from the start. It is the activity that draws most people to play. You also get experience with which you build a passive tree with stats that allow you to go kill stronger monsters, get more experience, and more loot. The loot is gear that makes your character stronger and more defensive, so you can kill stronger monsters and withstand their attacks, so you can get their loot. This is not to say it's simplistic either. There are many ways to kill monsters and defend yourself. The combining of these things is what adds depth, and this moves into a different area, the mechanics of the game. Then there are quests in the story that require interaction with NPCs to initiate and then complete objectives (usually kill monster get its quest loot, or just find object/interact with object). That's the game boiled down to its basics. I'd say deviating from this gameplay formula is what causes a lot of uproar, in a broad sense, whenever you look at additions/changes to the game. --- --- Labyrinth Gameplay --- There are 2 methods of gameplay in the Labyrinth that I've observed: The first version of Labyrinth gameplay is: move slowly through the labyrinth, stop, spot traps, avoid getting hit by traps by timing your movements and finding safe spots to stand, and proceed safely through. Use movement skills to bypass traps if possible. Monsters are primarily there to refill flasks, rather than being the core gameplay of killing them for loot (with the exceptions of the lava floor traps with monster generators, where the monsters are part of the trap to keep you from progressing quickly to safe spots (they also refill your flasks to keep you alive) - it's still the trap that kills you there, and the push-cart traps with swarms of monsters attacking you which sounds like a moving variation of an Elreon mission.) The second version of Labyrinth gameplay...I am unsure of... if the super-speed ignore-traps gameplay that has emerged from the labyrinth completion-time-ladders was intended gameplay for the Labyrinth or not. Only the boss encounters (Argus/Izaro) are built on the same gameplay found in the rest of the game. ---
Spoiler
This is more of a side-note in this discussion, brought up recently in this thread, that if the Labyrinth isn't PoE "kill monster, get experience/loot" gameplay, then neither are the masters... to which I present: --- Masters gameplay --- A perfect example to bring up regarding new content and its added gameplay: Forsaken Masters. Are these gameplay elements in keeping with what people expect from Path of Exile? Let's take a look. * Elreon: Kill waves of monsters and/or monsters and shrine thingies and get loot. * Tora: Kill monsters around the map or in a den, and get loot. * Vagan: Kill vagan (and get loot), vagan and his minions (and get loot), or training dummies. * Catarina: Kill certain monsters (and escort NPCs to certain locations) (people don't seem to like these, so they've sped up the movement speed of the NPCs, also they've added loot to the killed monsters finally) * Zana: Find object or Find and kill enemies (and get loot) Most people are just happy to get a free map to kill more monsters and get more loot and experience. * Haku: Kill enemies, usually with a time limit to get in, grab the spirit, and get out (so you pass up most of the potential loot). (notice: the biggest problem I recall was most people saying how unfair the rockfalling-style environmental hazard was, since it seemed to bypass most defenses people built into their characters, though higher HP helped? I rarely do Haku missions unless I just leveled up, so this is remembering from way back at the introduction) Still my least favorite master missions, even trumping: * Vorici: Kill a certain monster and get potential loot (even on failure, if you kill an exile instead of letting them live for the objective, that was a loot pinata) (notice the objectives requiring one to not kill monsters are disliked, mainly because it goes against the entire design of most characters that work most efficiently in the game. You needed to build a single-target, very weak, skill into your setup to handle that one-off situation (either kill single target, or keep target alive/at low life), similar to labyrinth, building around, or struggling to work around their inclusive rule-sets divergent from the rest of the game. Where else in the game is it beneficial to NOT kill all the monsters around you as fast as possible? Reflect packs?) The one master that you'd think would want you to kill targets (the assassin), primarily wants you to leave targets alive on a lot of his missions... yeah. Probably the easiest to fail master because the game isn't built this way, the gameplay doesn't match. * Leo: PvP objectives. (kill players with certain classes, and avoid being killed by players) Notice how few people play PvP in PoE? It's not the gameplay that drew most people here. (a discussion for another topic that I don't care to take part in, as long as PvP never dictates changes in PvE) --- Do you find yourself saying "I like all of those differences in gameplay, especially Vorici, and even the labyrinth. It spices up the game!" As long as it's entirely optional and just to spice up the gameplay, I'm good with it too. More fun for everyone. Problem is, they've gone and put Ascedancy Classes behind the labyrinth gameplay, and those are not optional to character progression. --- Besides the gameplay, though, are the differences in the game mechanics that you build your character around. --- PoE "Mechanics" --- The more Life, Energy Shield, Armor, Evasion, Block, Resistances, etc, you have, the better. You build your passive tree toward these defenses. You strive to get the best gear with these defenses. You can also choose to create a "Glass Cannon", and though you'll probably lose plenty of xp in higher levels, you can still have fun with nearly any build.
Spoiler
Boss fights are now best fought with AoE attacks because of the addition of minions to nearly all encounters probably due to flask mechanics, rather than very strong single-target attacks to focus on killing the boss.
Over time, there has been a dis-tasteful movement toward many one-shot-kill attacks that you have to avoid, rather than tank, to counter both alt-f4 tactics (they want to kill players before they can log out), and the nigh-invulnerability of some over-powered combinations of certain builds. (they've said they balance boss encounters around alt-f4, so the bosses can be more dangerous - to which I am boggled, but that's not this discussion.) There are now many many many more things to avoid in certain boss fights, making them more comparable to space shooters, than ARPGs (the hydra guardian), but whatever, now you have to dart around the screen to avoid damage while you plink away at their HP from a safe distance, in addition to building defenses against the smaller hits (because that's all you can defend against). I do not think this is a smart move, as it moves farther and farther away from the core gameplay experience, and more toward movement speed for damage avoidance gameplay - taking much of the RP out of the ARPG). Waypoints save your progress. If you get disconnected, your game crashes, the server instance crashes, or you have to return to town with a town portal to sell a full inventory or trade with someone, you can pick up where you left off with minimal/no backtracking. --- --- Labyrinth "Mechanics" --- The Labyrinth deviates from the normal rules of the game on many important levels. It seems to me that they designed the traps intentionally to be equally deadly to everyone, regardless of level, gear, passives... well, everything except regen (maybe energy shield recharge starting speed) and movement speed. So, forget your passive tree, forget all that armor you're wearing, forget the defenses you've been tuning to perfection to fight monsters. That's all gone in there. Might as well be wearing nothing except movement speed boots and a belt with flasks. Also, since the traps do percent damage, it helps to have low max life, so your flasks can refill you to max faster or with less uses (unless you're going to be a regen-tank that can just stand on traps and regen faster than you bleed). Forget about leech-based recovery; that's useless in trap gauntlets without enemies around. Using the speed-run method is probably closest to the current gameplay most enjoy: ignore the traps, restore life with flasks and get out as fast as possible. Maybe this actually was the intended gameplay for the labyrinth after all! If you get disconnected, crash, the game server instance crashes, or you leave via town portal, it resets the labyrinth, and you start over from the beginning. Oh yeah, the boss fights are pretty much right in line with the rest of the game, so there's that. --- --- Conclusion --- They've said time and again, that they're making the game that they want to play. Well, now they've made two games, based the above evaluation, with two styles of gameplay, and two sets of rules. I personally have no problem with their two-games-in-one, but they shouldn't require playing one to make progress ("progress" has been discussed in a previous post) in the other. Not everything about the Labyrinth is bad. If it was not required to obtain Ascendancy Classes, I could see going in once in a while to attempt to get the treasures at the end, on a character built for it, that follows the labyrinth rules. I'd personally make the labyrinth itself optional for the ascendancy classes, instead of "watering down" the content and forcing people to play through that anyway. They could keep the labyrinth as optional content for people to take a break from the main game (while retaining all of its current rewards),(some people might say don't waste your dev time on mini-games like this, when the main game needs attention, but not me) The addition of an alternate method of ascending that uses the non-labyrinth gameplay would be instituted (I'd chose the one-map, three-room, three-phase Izaro fight that grants only ascendancy, and no other drops/rewards, reserving those for the trap-filled labyrinth). This way, the "vocal minority" of lab haters never have to enter that mini-game. The "silent minority" of lab lovers can run the labyrinth every day to place on the ladders. The rest of the community can run it for ascendancy on some characters, or choose the alternate route on others, choosing the gameplay they enjoy more, or choose whichever path suits their build better. If traps make it outside the labyrinth in any significant measure (they're already in at least two maps), they have to start following the rules by which the rest of the game plays or there will always be outcry against them. --- P.S.: If I have captured the reasoning behind some people's dissatisfaction with the Labyrinth, I hope this helps them articulate their position in a more constructive manner that can lead to GGG taking action. I know in a feedback and suggestions forum, people don't need to leave anything more than their feedback stating that they like or dislike something, since they're not game designers, and it's not their job to point out exactly why and their potential solutions, but every little bit helps keep healthy contributions to the topic coming. P.P.S.: I probably left out some key points in my head, as this took a while to write, and I bounced around sections as I thought of stuff. I probably kept in too much explanation where I could have trimmed it down too. But instead of proof-reading this thing another dozen times, I just thought I'd get the main ideas into the thread and worry about it later. | |
" Steam charts. Steam is not even half of the PoE population, but a global decrease woud have affected it too. And we would have seen a reaction from GGG. " And no, ARPG is too wide, even to use "conventional pseudo-isometric ARPG" About the oblded part, I don't think that anybody said that it was the case for all players. Anyway, one more time, I am just taking the wikipedia definition for this : " Let me give you one example of an action-adventure game : The legend of Zelda series. That is just an example, that is how wide Action Role Playing Game is. About those "3 conditions" : - The first is not as big of an issue anymore as most people would like to make it looks like on those forums, however technical issues are a valid complain ( I am refering to instance changing crahes, haven't had any recently though ... ). But even taking that into consideration, It wouldn't be good if GGG would limitate themselves too much due to potential technical issues imho. I'm glad that they are innovating and not just holding back because some players might have network troubles making it worse. - It does fit PoE, completely. Since lab now we have some boss fight more interesting, and some other just more dangerous. - Completely subjective, I find it fun. " Definitely, that is why I am just shooting down all those "it does not belong to arpg" nonsense / BS. Completely disagree with the "two games in one" part of the post though. SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
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People keep saying ascendancy points are mandatory. Thats is a false statement. I leveled a marauder to 88 without doing anything lab related the entire time. By then your build is esentially complete. By 90 your build should be done. No build should ever be based around a level higher than 90.
The content in the game is exactly the same as before ascendancy. Is ascendancy mandatory if you want to beat shaper? Maybe, ill give you guys that. Anything else it is not mandatory at all. 6 points can be gained by simply out leveling the content. So really what people are saying is those last 2 points are mandatory but rare to ever be able to gain unless you build specifically for lab. Those 2 points are entirely extra. Uber Lab didnt even exist when Ascendancy was released. That was an entirely new addition specifically for the more hardcore players who seeked out a more difficult challenge. Hence why Uber Lab is more difficult and is really the main focus of this lab hate. Any one can get those 6 points, and i mean any one. I dont care what build you are playing or how horribly trash it is, you can get those 6 points by yourself. So this is what it boils down to. Is Uber Lab optional or mandatory? I say it is optional. I got all the way to T16 maps on my 89 Berserker and have yet to do Uber Lab even though I have plenty of offerings to use from mapping. My character is no where near optimized and yet I was able to achieve this goal. Something any 1 else can replicate. (I have 0 movement skills. If i can casually walk through every trap or use a quicksilver to bypass some, then you can too) Is Lab different. Yes it is a polar opposite of the rest of the game for "most" people. Yet people still get record times in Uber Lab no problem comparable to running any high tier map or 2. Just because some people can do uber lab very quickly doesnt mean its great right? Uber Lab is not intended to be done for every one. You are not supposed to do it without finding a way to overcome the challenge and trivilize it. Is lab fun? Some find it fun, some dont. Thats a personal choice. I find the rewards fun. Since POE at its core is all about the loot, and that is the single aspect i enjoy. When has any one ever said "i love killing monsters over and over and over again mindlessly because that is what makes the game fun". Whether its the rest of poe or lab, that has not changed. No one in my mind enjoys killing trash over and over. They enjoy the reward of killing anything. As such lab is great, it is far more rewarding than any other content. So shouldnt lab be more fun than the rest of poe since it is more rewarding. Nonetheless i dont find lab needs changing. It is optional, not mandatory. Uber Lab specifically is not needed by any one. You can play all content in the game except maybe shaper without a single AC point. "The problem here is that people feel entitled to AC points because they exist. They exist so obtaining all of them must be an option by every one. If it is to difficult then it must be made easier for me. If i dont like it, it must change to how i want it. I dont care what GGG wanted or always intended, my enjoyment is what is important here." We know traps are not going anywhere. We know at most the damage to ES could change by a small %. We know now GGG always wanted traps in POE but lockstep didnt exist. Over time what we view poe as will change, and the game it was will be a distant memory. The game cant be made easier just because some people dont like something. With balance changes coming in the future specifically around AC there is even less of a reason to ever make them easier to obtain. You should never be able to get AC points by buying them, through a prophecy, by simply leveling up, or be completing an act. No new form of currency should ever exist for AC points. If alternative methods of AC points ever came to be, alternative ways of getting more passive points must also be added. It is only fair. Why should you be able to buy AC points and not passive points, what issues would that create. Finally complaining does nothing. Solutions must always be provided. Good ones that barely change existing mechanics but also can easily be implemented to resolve an issue. Notice I am not saying lab is a problem that needs to be fixed. It is not broken. Anyways this is hands down the best solution and the only solution I would ever vouch for. 1. New quest line is added in Act 3 upon completing all the trials in cruel and merciless. Any npc in Saryn gives this quest. Quest: Enter the Labyrinth and clear the area of all living entities. 2. A new book is added as a quest reward for completing this quest. It is rewarded in cruel and merciless difficulty. This is called "Izaro's Book of Knowledge". This book grants 1 AC point when used and can not be traded or stored in stash. (This is Book of Skill reworked) 3. You must complete the quest in cruel and merciless. Doing only merciless will not reward 2 books. This makes it possible to get all 8 AC points without uber lab. It forces you to do lab in cruel and merciless even if you have completed merciless lab on another character and are able to get the first 6 AC points by just doing merciless lab 1 time. This means you can outlevel merc lab if it is to hard and come back later. This makes you waste time completing less rewarding content to get those last 2 points while others can do Uber Lab and be rewarded significantly for the challenge. Finally i want to point out the way poe is now was never intended. Poe was supposed to be slower like lab, not the way it is now. GGG never expected attack spedd and cast speed to have as large as an impact as it has. Those 2 stats have completely changed poe. Poe is far faster than intended. Clearspeed is far faster than intended. Leveling speed is far faster than intended. You are simply seeing poe the way it was intended to be. Chroniccomplainerreviews.wordpress.com Your source for quality honest reviews to save you time and money! Last edited by Jgizle on Nov 17, 2016, 12:35:37 AM
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" Come on you know that it's not true anymore. They augmented the monster's life globally, even Chris said that they were taking the AC points into account when balancing the game now. SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
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" For a future update. Nothing in poe is currently balanced for AC. ASCENDANCY is pure POWER CREEP. Chroniccomplainerreviews.wordpress.com Your source for quality honest reviews to save you time and money! Last edited by Jgizle on Nov 17, 2016, 12:41:20 AM
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Yes and i beat atziri with cleave in hardcore when she came out. It was optional to use cleave as a skill but it was completely stupid. I only did it like this for the extra challenge and my recommendation is that no sane person should do the same.
I'm a forum warrior, i was born to post, raised to defend my league. Now my post has been removed, chained and exiled by mods who Ban. Ban is my brother; i do not fear it. I see it in the eyes of men and beasts that i troll. It will take me to play the actual game when i am ready and i am not ready. Last edited by Pyrokar on Nov 17, 2016, 12:38:39 AM
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" Very well done. It fully mirrors my thoughts on the lab. I think it should be in the OP for further clarification. Thank you Zaludoz. I'm a forum warrior, i was born to post, raised to defend my league. Now my post has been removed, chained and exiled by mods who Ban. Ban is my brother; i do not fear it. I see it in the eyes of men and beasts that i troll. It will take me to play the actual game when i am ready and i am not ready.
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" No, this is just silly. AC is more than just powercreep. And even for powercreep specs, the game is being balanced according to it, plain and simple. There is nothing to argue here, Chris said it himself, they do not consider the points optional, and the game difficulty includes AC points. It's like playing self found, it's more difficult, but doable. It's essentially the same thing with AC points. SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading. Last edited by Fruz on Nov 17, 2016, 12:45:42 AM
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@Zaludoz
Really well articulated. Great post, man. |
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Where has Chris ever said AC is not optional. As it stands it is entirely optional. Just like using the Atlas in Atlas of Worlds is entirely optional. Just like doing Uber Atziri & The Council is optional. Just like the Guardians and Shaper are optional. You do not require AC to level and progress. You do not require AC to do high tier maps. You do not require AC to make it through the story. You do not require AC for anything. AC at its essence is just free power creep. In the future the next act ( 3.0 ) will be balanced entirely around AC use. That does not mean however AC will be mandatory then. When Chris says the game will be balanced around AC in the future, he means the game will be balanced around how people are playing the game with those AC classes. That means introducing new traps, new monster types, and maybe new monster interactions. We already know they have plans for giving some existing enemy types new skills or interactions. That is really what they mean by balancing AC. They are not how ever going to give a blanket buff to enemy damage and life. It has already become apparent that is not an option. They cant just continuously buff enemy life and damage as a bandaid fix to the power creep problem. All they can do is introduce mechanics to slow us down. You do realize that the reason they cant provide such a buff is that an entire class of skills would literally become unviable over night. If they then buff the base damage of those skills that would become unviable they are just recreating the same issue again and again.
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