It would be funny, bloody hilarious in fact, to hear what are probably a bunch of youngsters lecturing about how those who dislike lab want an easier game. Except that the same bullshit excuse is probably circulating inside GGG for why players dislike lab.
* If you think this is easy, then give it a try and report back on how things go.
Come on, GGG isn't Cliché Gaming :)
And the argument wasn't that players actively 'want' easier lab (well maybe some do but we can agree those are fringe cases for the sake of argument), just that we would have less complaints if it was a pure formality. Devs do have an option to appease the masses but are thankfully keeping the finger off the red button for now. I can assure you challenge gamers like you are one in a hundred or less so the backlash would probably be severe if they made it harder so difficulty is a part of the whole story.
I think lab difficulty is in a pretty good spot, a good player can do it with a trash build, a bad player can do it with a good build and a bad player with a non functional build will have problems but there's nothing wrong with the game telling him to improve his build or playing.
* I'd try it but I would have to git better in D2 first. Don't laugh but I probably played the first Diablo more than D2.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.
I'm actually still playing POE nowadays, although not as often. I'm running a SSF hardcore templar summoner who will never ascend. I'll see how deep I can push him into the game.
Might be a small derail, but, you know what kind of challenges I like? The realistic mess-up challenges, situations where you might screw yourself over if you don't know what you're doing, I like to check if those are possible.
For example, once I tried a no death playthrough of Vandal Hearts with 4 hawk knights and 4 monks. It might happen, someone could go: 'wow, hawk knights are cool and monks have CLAWS gimme more!' The way class system works there, it means that setup locks you out of archers, bishops and mages, which are the main units later on and you swamped yourself with melees which just creates a pileup on a lot of maps. Yup, you effectively screwed yourself over which you'd realize soon enough and reload some earlier save but I wanted to see what would happen if you were stubborn as a pack of mules.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.
My thoughts on the "Difficulty" of the Labyrinth and "FUN".
(Note, I still play the game, 21 challenges this league)
When I was researching this game before I started playing, it *seemed* like they wanted it to have all these complex interactions between defenses and types of attacks and an almost limitless ability to create your character, building any way you liked. The freedom of the skilldrasil from any starting point, and choice of any skill gems and then adding whatever support gems you wanted to customize how you attacked... it all sounded so cool and FUN. Something I could sink my teeth into and enjoy theorycrafting and then executing.
I have strange character ideas from short stories I wrote that I like to re-create in games, using the same set of names for my characters, yet they usually don't fit most games' pre-set character types. Here, free to do as I like, I have created pseudo-versions of my characters (yet, there are still no glaives, and dual wielding (melee in general) is not a visceral or rewarding gameplay experience for me, but that's not the point of this thread.)
Up until the Labyrinth and the Ascendancy expansion, this all held true, and was fun, to a point. No matter how trivial the grinding of monsters became at some points (easy), the game itself was fun for me (inventory management with only 4 tabs is what usually kills my motivation to continue once I hit maps, when I'm avoiding thinking about the Labyrinth at all - nowadays, considering the Labyrinth as part of a character design automatically causes me to lose interest in the character from the start, so bleh).
The main reasons for my disliking the Labyrinth, as I've outlined in previous extended posts, is that the Labyrinth and its traps operate under a different set of rules and style of gameplay (that the interface is not well-suited for), compared to the rest of the game (aside from the Argus and Izaro boss fights that are classic PoE style encounters -minus traps in Izaro's room.) You can say "Nuh uh, it follows the same rules and plays just the same." all you like, but it rings false in my ears. It just doesn't hold up when considering the gameplay required to navigate the labyrinth. (That and the Devs even said they were trying to create totally different gameplay.) It was experimental content that failed in the eyes of many. They should not have put something so key to character development behind experimental content, IMO.
*** Simply put, most character stats are ignored in the Labyrinth, and the gameplay associated with the Labyrinth is built around challenges that some builds can trivialize and others must compensate for with painstakingly annoying point-click precision maneuvering and timing in a game using pathfinding to move to where you tell your character to go (Imagine point-click pac-man where he doesn't take the path you want him to take to get around a wall and you end up running into a ghost... yeah... that's what we have in the Labyrinth.) These are design flaws of the content, based on the content of the rest of the game, and the control scheme, IMO ***
It is not fun for my character build decisions to be ignored. It is not fun when my defenses do not defend me. I want life and life restoring flasks to always be beneficial to staying alive (flasks become less effective in keeping you alive in the Labyrinth the more HP you have, since traps do more % damage to more health and flasks do not scale) There's more than just that... just don't want to list them all AGAIN.
This is all outside the disconnecting issues and restarting the entire challenge on death/disconnect. And the Labyrinth sometimes *feels like* an act-long section of the game without waypoints. The lack of waypoints in an online game, where you restart the entire minigame on disconnect/death is a design flaw (it is not fun to waste my time), IMO, regardless of what they were trying to prevent or encourage by means of this decision.
The trap rules grant advantages to some types of builds and disadvantages to others, yet all have to pass through the same gauntlet as if it were an equal test. I contend that this is not a fun (or even challenging) test for all builds, and forcing all builds to go through it is not fun for them if the stats they focus on are ignored and they have to suffer through the trap gameplay.
This is different from, say... Atziri or Shaper that all characters do NOT have to deal with to advance their characters. You can buy their drops in trade leagues. You can build a character to fight them if there is a League-challenge involving them SSF. You cannot build a Labyrinth character to focus on just that to ascend all your characters.
Even if they make the rest of the Labyrinth more rewarding in the Silver Key chests and such, the only reward I care to get out of the Labyrinth are the Ascendancy Class points. You can get (most of the) loot anywhere else. It would be nice to make exploring more rewarding, but I don't think that is simply a Labyrinth issue. All maps would benefit from secret chambers and extra things to find. The main benefit to making the entire labyrinth more rewarding would be minimizing the feeling of it being a total waste of time when disconnecting mid-labyrinth - not a bad idea, but not fixing the labyrinth by any means.
For some people, the Labyrinth can totally feel like a sadistic kid's prank (As if they said, "What if they had to (insert worst case scenario)"... "yeah, let's make them do that!"..., and if you like being pranked, I think you're a little masochistic.)
The design flaws I see here are things that I think should be *fixed*, and I'd say that it's more than simply an opinion that "I don't like it" and the devs do. There are gameplay issues here (and conceptual issues) that I don't think should be ignored. If the current implementation of traps started appearing in more of the game than the Labyrinth and a couple maps, I'd be far less likely to keep playing. There's only so much one can ignore to enjoy the rest. (I recently bought Grim Dawn when it was on sale because it has an editor to make my own content, and a friend recently bought Elder Scrolls Online for the PS4, so I bought it, and have been playing that too - both more fun than PoE with the Labyrinth, right now)
Who knows, maybe 3.0 will fully make PoE into a one-hit-kill bullet-hell-shooter with trap minigames everywhere, where your build choices only matter against fodder, bosses are fought by shooting lasers from your ship and piloting around avoiding all the crazy screens of deadly particles, and completely disgust me.
To make the Labyrinth more FUN to me, and not a disappointing mini-game
I don't expect the 1st suggestion to be implemented, too much work, but so much more fun...
I do think the 3rd suggestion is the best solution to nearly all the issues people have with the current Labyrinth, keeps the lore in tact, and it's not giving the points out for free.
1st Suggestion:
Keep traps as a hazard, but not nearly as dangerous depending on character choices (skilltree, armor, evasion!, block, even curses. Make those choices have real impact on the traps. Currently, Regen helps, endurance charges help... flasks help... movement speed almost cheats the labyrinth.
If traps weren't so deadly, but just hazards that hurt if you don't watch your positioning...
Depending on those changes, trap density in the Labyrinth maps could be far less or even higher, but still impact battles. (The Labyrinth would keep the "flavor" of trap-influenced danger)
* Why not slow down traps with temporal chains or make them less dangerous with enfeeble?)
* On that note, increase the mob density. Add Mobs that have AI and abilities that interact with traps, such as "pull player toward me, into a trap" and "push into a trap" or "blackhole" effects to draw players into traps. Obviously can't do this with the current implementation.
* Some mobs could even activate traps on their own, like a slam attack that pushes the spikes up from a nearby spike trap.
* Maybe there are trap-building mobs, similar to the miners in act4 that dig up golems... but maybe they release roombas or spike pillars... maybe they only fix the "broken" traps that currently exist in the layouts.
* Maybe add mobs that re-activate traps that you can turn off by flipping switches (means killing them is part of navigating a trap area, otherwise the traps turn back on while you're in the middle of them!)
* Perhaps allow player attacks to freeze certain traps with ice attacks, or melt some with fire attacks, short circuit some with lightning attacks, break some with physical attacks, etc)
* Include methods to disarm areas of traps (like finding a lever behind a false wall - guarded by stronger monsters - possessed tri-essence with a talisman style monsters)
* Maybe let ice attacks freeze timed switches for doors to give yourself more time.
* Maybe add locked rooms that you need to full-clear of monsters to unlock and progress (like Daresso's dream pits).
THESE are "FUN" encounters with traps, in a labyrinth. They incorporate the monsters, they don't ignore build choices, they reward clever interactions with the environment. Under these conditions, I'd gladly see the Labyrinth randomized on each entry. (Could keep the Izaro mechanics the same for each day, so that sort of info could be shared and planned for.)
---
2nd Suggestion:
IF THE TRAPS ARE NOT CHANGED AS OUTLINED ABOVE
I'm a fan of my initial suggestion for those who don't like the Labyrinth trap gameplay at all, but to keep the Labyrinth related to attaining the Ascendancy Points, if I had a choice in the matter:
Find an alternative entrance to the Labyrinth - the escape tunnels for the builders, except they never escaped. This is 1 trapless labyrinth style map, with 3 locking boss chambers for the 3 Izaro battles (third battle might be ok to have the traps in his chamber - but shut them off when he dies already!). Waves of fodder mobs (the builders who didn't escape in these escape tunnels) are fought between these boss rooms to refill flasks. Argus could be fought during one of these waves. The only reward is Ascendancy Points - no drops either.
Too easy to just find the alternate entrance on your own? Ok, 3rd suggestion ahead:
---
3rd Suggestion:
A quest-line based on Forsaken Masters to obtain Ascendancy Points (no labyrinth uniques or enchants, or any other loot).
Haku for Marauders, Tora for Hunters, etc.
You might need to get them to rank 5 for the first quest to gain the first 2 ascendancy points, rank 6 for the next 2, rank 7 for 2 more, and rank 8 for access to the final 2 points.
Each quest linked to ascendancy points could be handled similarly to the "Daily Missions" on one-time maps that require a boss fight (this would be my 2nd suggestion Izaro battle - For instance: One of the red glowy guys you rescue for Haku might reveal the entrance, or Tora could help you track down the entrance by following nature, or Catarina notices a stray undead that crawled out of a hidden tunnel... or you get the idea. Doesn't have to be complicated). I wouldn't limit them to once a day, but one entry per map. (Prevents death-zerging and town portals for flasks) If there needs to be a longer quest chain than a daily mission, they could send you to rarely used zones (Like the dread thicket to kill a boss for an item that then is used to open the daily-mission-style labyrinth boss gauntlet)
Since Forsaken Master progress is shared in a league, yes, this would eventually make it easier to get the ascendancies for subsequent characters, similar to how finishing the trials are saved per league.
Rotating dailies to speed up this progress won't make it any faster than getting a character to merciless Sarn for their first 6 points through regular labyrinths, and then joining parties in maps to get their uber trials for final points. (People love to spout out 5-15minute completion times for their Labyrinth runs taking less than an hour per character to get all their ascendancy points.)
For only gaining Ascendancy Points, I think this is a pretty good alternative.
Labyrinth Runners would still go for the Ascendancy points AND Enchants AND profit AND racing ladders. AND they can run it all earlier in the leagues since masters take much more time to level.
As a side note, I only play SSF, always have, MIGHT trade if they fix trade (make it in-game, and not requiring both people to be on at the same time). So, for me, no daily rotations to speed up progression, and I doubt I'd get even one master to rank 8 by the end of a 3 month league. Just so ya know I'm not really fully benefiting from this suggestion for league play, but I still think it's better than what we have now.
Great post -- it sums up a lot of my own feelings about the labyrinth.
It would be funny, bloody hilarious in fact, to hear what are probably a bunch of youngsters lecturing about how those who dislike lab want an easier game. Except that the same bullshit excuse is probably circulating inside GGG for why players dislike lab.
* If you think this is easy, then give it a try and report back on how things go.
Come on, GGG isn't Cliché Gaming :)
And the argument wasn't that players actively 'want' easier lab (well maybe some do but we can agree those are fringe cases for the sake of argument), just that we would have less complaints if it was a pure formality. Devs do have an option to appease the masses but are thankfully keeping the finger off the red button for now. I can assure you challenge gamers like you are one in a hundred or less so the backlash would probably be severe if they made it harder so difficulty is a part of the whole story.
I think lab difficulty is in a pretty good spot, a good player can do it with a trash build, a bad player can do it with a good build and a bad player with a non functional build will have problems but there's nothing wrong with the game telling him to improve his build or playing.
* I'd try it but I would have to git better in D2 first. Don't laugh but I probably played the first Diablo more than D2.
Lab can be in any spot it wants. It's still boring and has no place in an arpg.
Most RPGs tailor missions to advance prestige classes to the class in which you're trying to specialize. So, a stealth mission for a stealth character, spells end up being useful for a spell slinging character, and so on.
The invariance of the experience across different character types is a key part of lab's inherent lack of charm. The lore attached to it comes across as a back-end justification for homogenizing the process of acquiring prestige class skills.
GGG saved money this way. But, the experience looks and feels less handcrafted and less relevant to my characters.
Now that prestige classes will finally leave lab in 4.0, will GGG get it right this time or will they find new ways to repeat old mistakes?
You ignore my own statements that your theory is not true for me yet you continue to push your ridiculous theory.
I ignore some of your statement on purpose because as I told you ( oh .. wait, did you ignore it ? lol ), I don't believe a single second that you do reach the "super good at the lab" level that I used.
It would be funny, bloody hilarious in fact, to hear what are probably a bunch of youngsters lecturing about how those who dislike lab want an easier game. Except that the same bullshit excuse is probably circulating inside GGG for why players dislike lab.
* If you think this is easy, then give it a try and report back on how things go.
And there the arrogant and condescending line about "youngsters" ... :/
Nobody said that the difficulty was the only thing that was triggered the rivers of tears in the forum.
Just that it was one of them.
Simply put, most character stats are ignored in the Labyrinth,
You do not need to over-exaggerate, that only weakens your argument by showing that you don't really know about this.
- evasion works against darts, as well as dodge and block
- armour works againt spikes ( and maybe dars )
- ES recharge rate does wonder in spike traps gauntlets
- Vall discipline definitely works in any situation
- regeneration obviously works in any situation ( still no traps that reduce it )
- elemental resistances work against elemental Uber traps
- block works agains uber bleeding traps.
- endurance charges works against physical traps, even degeneration if I'm not mistaking
- movespeed is obviously also helping.
The trap rules grant advantages to some types of builds and disadvantages to others, yet all have to pass through the same gauntlet as if it were an equal test.
This is true for the whole game, most situations are better handled with a certain type of builds.
It is even more true in the lab, but it definitely isn't a lab specific thing.
For example, once I tried a no death playthrough of Vandal Hearts with 4 hawk knights and 4 monks. It might happen, someone could go: 'wow, hawk knights are cool and monks have CLAWS gimme more!' The way class system works there, it means that setup locks you out of archers, bishops and mages, which are the main units later on and you swamped yourself with melees which just creates a pileup on a lot of maps. Yup, you effectively screwed yourself over which you'd realize soon enough and reload some earlier save but I wanted to see what would happen if you were stubborn as a pack of mules.
Tried a one man part FF1 a long time ago ..... that cave where you get stunned for 4 turns, and that most mobs can easily proc ... that was painful :((
Most RPGs tailor missions to advance prestige classes to the class in which you're trying to specialize. So, a stealth mission for a stealth character, spells end up being useful for a spell slinging character, and so on.
The invariance of the experience across different character types is a key part of lab's inherent lack of charm. The lore attached to it comes across as a back-end justification for homogenizing the process of acquiring prestige class skills.
That, however is a point that does make sense.
What about if the treasure rooms had doors leading to different chambers according to the ascendancy class that you take, with different writtings, atmosphere, and why not some missions to "finish ascending" ?
However, if you think that having players do "stealthy mission" or "finding herbs" mission for the pathfinder ( as an example ), as immersive as that would be, if you think that players will like it more ..... I think that you might be very wrong.
Players want power easily, they want to facetank the content as much as they can ( globally ), and having to think about something to do ( = stealthy mission ) without blowing up everything is exactly why there were many complaints, and why GGG eventually bended the knee and changed Vorici's missions.
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
Actually, we don't agree on this. I do not think that randomizing the Labyrinth (using the existing randomization algorithm) and using existing assets to balance its rewards around that new state would be a particularly Herculean task, and it would make the Labyrinth more fun overall, for a very large chunk of the gaming population. (It would make it less fun for the min-max reddit meta followers, a significantly smaller chunk if the number of vocal supporters for the Labyrinth in the forums is any indication, as well as those players who cynically use others' hatred for the content in order to make a profit. I am not particularly sympathetic to this group.)
You know what, I'd like to have as much faith in the playerbase as you do, but I hope you'll allow me to remain skeptical about the whole thing. I'd like to see them try it in some future 1 month league or beta, though.
I don't see how faith in the playerbase has anything to do whatsoever with improving the quality of your own game, let alone with making a massive improvement to its most-hated content.
Such an improvement would equally benefit players who enjoy the trap gameplay. Player behavior is molded by affordances, by relative profitability, and by relative power. Until the lab is randomized and balanced around encouraging and rewarding exploration, it will continue to resemble work more than play, a chore you do not engage because you enjoy it but because you want specific rewards which can be found at designated spots published daily on reddit.
I agree that it is not the Labyrinth's only problem, but it is the #1 problem by FAR, in my opinion.
It also happens to be one of the easier problems to fix, compared to the others. That, I believe, makes it an exceptional candidate for being bumped higher on the priority list of improvements which can be made to the game.
But just to know, 5~10 sec after entering the lab, you would say that you are "bored" already ?
I mean, you just came in, started hitting couple of monsters ( no trap in sight ) .... does that bore you ?
No. But the entire content is conceptually boring because the ideal path is fixed, and it is linear, and it de-emphasizes the journey.
It is this de-emphasis on the journey itself that makes the Labyrinth so boring for me and, I suspect, for so many others. Indeed, it is this de-emphasis on the journey itself that makes the Labyrinth feel like work.
So overall, unless very few quest items ( thaumetic sulphite ), PoE does not really reward you for exploring the content, imho.
Lab even less I guess ( appart from extra treasure keys, or intricate locker maybe ).
You do not explore for these, unless you are a chump. You go to reddit for the officially sanctioned cheat. Voila. The journey is written off completely.
But we've discussed this already, and I agree that having it more randomized, implying more of a labyrinthic feeling, would probably be better.
I do think that it would likely piss of even more players.
Perhaps not, if it is also re-balanced around that randomization, making it so much more fun to explore. Though, if your point is that some players who loathe the Labyrinth will be so biased that they will hate it no matter what, I must concede that point. Perhaps this is the "faith" that raics was referring to.
Honestly, I think even those players would come around eventually, though it might take just as long as it took for the venom to seep into their bones (how long has the Lab been in the game?) for it to seep back out.
It would be nice to make exploring more rewarding, but I don't think that is simply a Labyrinth issue. All maps would benefit from secret chambers and extra things to find. The main benefit to making the entire labyrinth more rewarding would be minimizing the feeling of it being a total waste of time when disconnecting mid-labyrinth - not a bad idea, but not fixing the labyrinth by any means.
The two are connected. If exploration is more rewarding, the content becomes less piñata-oriented, and disconnecting mid-Labyrinth becomes less painful. This is a work-vs.-play argument.
Look at it like this: If I have to do an unpleasant chore in order to get a desired reward, and halfway through the chore you come in and tell me I am doing it wrong and have to start over, I am not going to be happy.
But if I have to play a fun video game in order to get a desired reward, and halfway through someone rings my doorbell and interrupts me so I have to start over, I am not going to be as unhappy. I might feel a little annoyed, sure. But not nearly to the same extent.
Do you feel differently?
Wash your hands, Exile!
Last edited by gibbousmoon on Jun 26, 2017, 11:41:08 PM
You ignore my own statements that your theory is not true for me yet you continue to push your ridiculous theory.
I ignore some of your statement on purpose because as I told you ( oh .. wait, did you ignore it ? lol ), I don't believe a single second that you do reach the "super good at the lab" level that I used.
You ignored everyone else saying that your theory was false for them. You ignored my assertion that it would make zero difference if I completed lab in less than 10 minutes. I have completed lab in less than 15 minutes and it was still a piece of shit. You have ZERO evidence supporting your ridiculous theory. Yet you stubbornly stick to it because you're being totally illogical.
Our resident dung beetle says, "I love eating poop. Everyone should love eating poop. Since you don't listen to me, you can't understand that eating poop is nothing to complain about. I have to ignore all those people telling me that they are really good at eating poop and still complain about having to eat poop. That information has to be ignored because it doesn't agree with my idea. My idea has nothing to do with reality but it's my idea so it must be right. Any words uttered by anyone to the contrary is obviously because they have ignored information that I have blessed them with. The best way for this dung beetle to deal with people that say something contrary to my thinking is to ignore them and then accuse them of ignoring what I'm saying. Now just to show these bad people that say they don't like eating poop that eating poop can't be complained about if they're really good at eating poop that eating poop is good I will tell them they need to learn to eat and if they still keep complaining then it means that they are ignoring me and so then I have lol. Ya that's it and don't say I told people they need to learn to eat poop even though I told people they need to learn to eat poop because I never told people they need to learn to eat poop. There, I have finally made myself crystal clear now and if you can't follow my logic then you are just ignoring me."
Over 430 threads discussing labyrinth problems with over 1040 posters in support (thread # 1702621) Thank you all! GGG will implement a different method for ascension in PoE2. Retired!
It would be nice to make exploring more rewarding, but I don't think that is simply a Labyrinth issue. All maps would benefit from secret chambers and extra things to find. The main benefit to making the entire labyrinth more rewarding would be minimizing the feeling of it being a total waste of time when disconnecting mid-labyrinth - not a bad idea, but not fixing the labyrinth by any means.
The two are connected. If exploration is more rewarding, the content becomes less piñata-oriented, and disconnecting mid-Labyrinth becomes less painful. This is a work-vs.-play argument.
Look at it like this: If I have to do an unpleasant chore in order to get a desired reward, and halfway through the chore you come in and tell me I am doing it wrong and have to start over, I am not going to be happy.
But if I have to play a fun video game in order to get a desired reward, and halfway through someone rings my doorbell and interrupts me so I have to start over, I am not going to be as unhappy. I might feel a little annoyed, sure. But not nearly to the same extent.
Do you feel differently?
As I said, not a bad idea, reduces the disconnect=waste of time issue.
This doesn't fix my problem with Ascendancy Classes being in the Labyrinth and its associated gameplay. It gives me treasures that I could mostly get outside of the Labyrinth without dealing with traps and junk anyway. The only reason I'd ever step foot in the Labyrinth is the Ascendancy Classes. Loot is an afterthought. I don't even care about enchants due to the extreme lottery involved. So it's like giving people loot as a consolation prize... so for me, it's not a matter of the reward only being at the end of the content, it's that the only reward that matters is at the end of only this content. I'd rather the content be made more fun and less trivialized/struggled through, or an alternate method of gaining the ascendancy classes be added.
No. But the entire content is conceptually boring because the ideal path is fixed, and it is linear, and it de-emphasizes the journey.
how come isn't the whole storyline boring to you then ?
Because most of the areas are as linear as the lab instances, and many are even much more linear.
Perhaps not, if it is also re-balanced around that randomization, making it so much more fun to explore. Though, if your point is that some players who loathe the Labyrinth will be so biased that they will hate it no matter what, I must concede that point. Perhaps this is the "faith" that raics was referring to.
There is that too I think, but people just hating traps ( like Zaludoz for example ) would likely have about the same opinion after a deeper randomization of the lab, imho.
You ignored my assertion that it would make zero difference if I completed lab in less than 10 minutes.
No I didn't.
I told you that I believe it, and that you cannot actually be sure of that anyway since it hasn't happened, and you cannot be sure of what would have been your reaction if you had breeze through the content the very first time with absolutely 0 troubles.
And I expect you to ignore what I am saying one more time, maybe that can't be helped.
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
