NZGDC 2016 Developer Presentation: Labyrinth Design

Today I give it one final try. Just to see if it's still crap.

It is.

Gold door needs a gold key right at the start.

The solution? Quit POE and find something fun to do.

Get rid of that gold door gold key BS. It's lame.
Big fan of the labyrinth, probably my favorite part of the game. Not too sure if every mechanic is equally thought out. Enchantments are a bit too tedious to get or a bit limited in variations (but please also don't add more), not too sure about lab runs at lower difficulties, for ease and speed you tend to overlevel and come back to them.

Most people don;t know this but pretty much every labyrinth zone has one or more secret areas with darkshrines or caches, a cache quite easily drops some nice currency, I don;t tend to touch all the darkshrines, but even the bad ones often end up boosting the quantity of drops nicely.
Last edited by Ozgwald on Jan 25, 2017, 1:32:20 AM
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ChuckPC wrote:
You can say "skip Labyrinth" all you want but if you want to take your build to it obvious conclusion you HAVE to do it.

Um, yeah...
Where did I say that? All I'm saying is be aware of your surroundings.

Just a lowly standard player. May RNGesus be with you.
"
shogunngt wrote:
I love the lab and think it's a great addition to the game, along with the ascendancy classes/nodes. I'd MUCH rather run the lab than maps.

I get so sick of rolling and running maps. Always the same maps (only want the linear ones that can cleared with minimal effort,no intersections or side areas that need to be explored, and weak-sister bosses). And always the same mods - oops, this one doesn't have packsize, reroll; this one has tc or reflect, reroll, etc.

Then you spend all of five minutes flasking around killing trash mobs that any build lvl 60+ could with little effort, another 2 mins to pick up decent loot and do it again, and again, and again, and again. If I wanted that, I'd just play one of those awful clicker games that seem to be so popular now.

Lab's a great change to the above flash-and-dash garbage that everyone seems to think is the core of this game. Now you've got to think, react, and actually watch what's going on on the screen, not just spam your attack skill and/or flasks.

Yes, some builds have a tougher time than others in the lab, and yes, you can die to an unfortunate lag spike. I've died to both, many, many times - sometimes it's a double crit from Izaro that I didn't flask in time for, sometimes a string of traps that I didn't dodge well or got caught by a slow field or a pack of mobs that prevented me from moving out quickly enough.

But I keep going back, because to me, it's just way more enjoyable. And the current rewards seem right with the silver chests, hidden coffers, and treasure chests and enchantment if you manage to defeat the final Izaro. That way I don't feel I've lost too much in terms of drops as opposed to running 10 or so maps that the lab takes.

Maybe there's a way to help out those builds who seems to suffer most when running the lab, but please do not remove the lab or it's rewards.

And for heaven's sake, please don't just gift ascendancy points at level intervals as one poster suggested. Not saying those have to be earned from running lab like it is now, but please don't cave to the "Gimme Uber Nao" generation. Make 'em earn it, somehow.


Finally, someone who makes sense!
Global 1 is cancer.
By agreeing to these terms of use, you acknowledge that bugs are like cool and stuff
and that you will bow to the Mealworm king when he ascends the throne.
I dont get all the hate on lab, i guess its only cause people think its hard and scary and that people cant show their metabuild exploding all mobs within 1.5 screens in a second.

kinda unbalanced how much easier lab is as ES build though, maybe make it similar on lifebuilds. And add ALOT of monsters and ambushes while going through it!

"
Today I give it one final try. Just to see if it's still crap.

It is.

Gold door needs a gold key right at the start.

The solution? Quit POE and find something fun to do.

Get rid of that gold door gold key BS. It's lame.


You've stopped just short of the optimal solution--get rid of the fucking lab altogether. Nobody likes that shit. Timing-based movement in a point and click game with tiny safe areas is the most aids thing to happen to video games since QTEs.
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johhha wrote:
I dont get all the hate on lab, i guess its only cause people think its hard and scary and that people cant show their metabuild exploding all mobs within 1.5 screens in a second.

kinda unbalanced how much easier lab is as ES build though, maybe make it similar on lifebuilds. And add ALOT of monsters and ambushes while going through it!



Given the rampant bitching that used to exist about how ES builds had it much harder in the lab than life builds, this is pretty funny.
Support a free Hong Kong.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with
sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-Galileo Galilei
"
CarlosMarcos wrote:
You've stopped just short of the optimal solution--get rid of the fucking lab altogether. Nobody likes that shit. Timing-based movement in a point and click game with tiny safe areas is the most aids thing to happen to video games since QTEs.

I like the labyrinth.

And I like most of all that it is a bit of Hardcore for Standard.
Lab was a decent idea but, like a lot of things in PoE, is badly affected by de-sync.. aka LAG. In it's current form, the lab is simply an irritation.
--------------- THE MOOCH --------------
I'm sure Xbox release will introduce some tweaks to labyrinth for you guys.

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If the layout can be (and is probably expected to be) looked up online to bypass the 'challenge' of navigating it, then why not just display the correct route in the mini map?

And if you intend to make navigating the labyrinth a true challenge, why is each unique instance not completely randomized?

It seems that for people who hang out in reddit and other 3rd party websites, the main 'challenge' involved with navigating the lab is actually not a challenge at all.

Why is there no randomization?

If its possible to look up builds to bypass the challenge of creating it, then why not just streamline character progression into a set of big milestones that give you cumulative benefit of 20-30 points?

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