Who else is not going to play PoE anymore because of the lab?

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Aim_Deep wrote:

GGG really needs to have a sit down with community about lab. No more hosting "design this unique" threads. We have enough unique (some grossly OP this patch BTW). Content needs work from lab to maps to end game with community input.

Honestly I would have liked to present Lab as a separate thing from Ascendancy Points all together (I know this has been said before in Feedback Forum too). The Merciless Malachai kill was an interesting thought, since the majority of people get their +1 Quest in the Mines and then it's off to Dried Lake.

For other existing content like Uniques, definitely needs to refine instead of continue to add so many every patch instead of taking a look at current ones. For new garbage uniques or leveling stuff okay, you have "data" that tells you some people "like" these types of Uniques. Please be transparent and show me the data that reflects this so I can understand. Most of these rot in the 1 Alch tab or get vendored in the 5-for-1 Prophecy without hesitation for me.

Then ofc the talk about the OP stuff. Just an example and I'll just say this now, whoever approved Reach of the Council for release in its current form was high as fuck. Not like, one bowl high, but that dude smoked the whole bag, and then went back for seconds. In one move, you basically invalidated Harbinger crafting entirely. Apparently the math came out to be you need a 400+ pDPS Harbinger to be on par with Reach, after factoring in GMP penalities. So is it even worth investing into crafting one? Oh, and it's harder now to get 400+ pDPS. Remember that time GGG took away hybrid crafting on benches? Hue.

Really the lab just needs work. I believe in build it and they will come, if you build it right. Like need portals so you can trade and don't feel under lockdown. I know everyone can do lab in 5 min whats the big deal, right? Thats a lie is the big deal. Most people do take longer and maybe want to clear it for all the goodies. One death after 30 min in place you couldnt "pause" with a portal is a real drag. Similarly, One DC can waste 20 min of your life. Like making traps hit EHP styles same/similar damage. Need level appropriate EXP for killing things so it's at least as good as a -8 player lvl map so clearing is worth it. You should be able to roll a lab like a map. Enchants lol. there is nothing in this game with a worse power vs time needed to get it. Odds way too high way to random.... Anyway there are dozens of ideas i've seen by community to improve it.

Kaoms will, Voidheart. Cospris, Reach all totally riduclous.

perma 20% LPS is not hard with Kaoms wills and already OP Juggernaut. Run RF with staff or anything else.

Voidheart Poison and bleed in a ring lol?

Cospris I'll never wear another life chest 80% of the time. It's as ubiquitous as Shavs for LL.

sigh

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Aim_Deep wrote:

... I believe in build it and they will come, if you build it right. ...

Just like PvP, huh? From what I hear, it's actually not that bad of content. It's just that people don't come here to play a PvP game, just like people don't come here to play a frogger/puzzle game. That's the main idiocy behind the lab and forcing it into one's core character development who wants to play an ARPG.

Revert the lab nerf and fix Exp. or tell us what you are doing. I made a char just for labs and now I won't even use him. I'd much rather run mf build and sell the stuff I get. But this isn't looking too good for Poe

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Siochan wrote:

Just like PvP, huh? From what I hear, it's actually not that bad of content. It's just that people don't come here to play a PvP game.

Well, PvP is genuinely bad, after ascendancy it's worse than ever and there's no realistic way of fixing it short of making another game, it would take a crapload of developer time just to make it barely usable and I can't blame them for giving up on it, not enough people are interested in the first place.

Also, besides the balance issues it's also a matter of outlook, the way I see it. In PoE your goal in PvP is to make a build that can take on anything the opposition can muster and then roflstomp it until you get bored, it's something that spills over from its loot-centric core. In a game with good PvP your goal is to improve your own reactions and tactics, you win by outplaying your opponent and that's the feeling people play for, a good PvP will give you a chance even if the opponent as a stronger char.
As an example, I played some PvP in another game a while ago, the game had a class that's fairly broken and there were of course players that exploited it. However, more than half of my matches with users of that class have been honest, people just weren't using the broken stuff, because what's the point if you do? If I had to draw one up, PvP here is something like betting on horse racing, and a good PvP is running the race yourself.

Anyway, the lab does somewhat detracts from the usual formula, you kill monsters and gather loot in order to kill monsters more easily and lab has some parts that won't get any easier if your char is stronger and that lack of the sense of progression is probably what bothers a lot of people. You have a loot game with a part where loot doesn't matter much. But it isn't nearly as bad as PvP, in there you don't kill monsters, your char doesn't advance and you don't gather loot, that's the main reason PvP population is small by default, you need a very specific mindset to enjoy PvP in here.

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raics wrote:

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Siochan wrote:

Just like PvP, huh? From what I hear, it's actually not that bad of content. It's just that people don't come here to play a PvP game.

Well, PvP is genuinely bad, after ascendancy it's worse than ever and there's no realistic way of fixing it short of making another game, it would take a crapload of developer time just to make it barely usable and I can't blame them for giving up on it, not enough people are interested in the first place.

Also, besides the balance issues it's also a matter of outlook, the way I see it. In PoE your goal in PvP is to make a build that can take on anything the opposition can muster and then roflstomp it until you get bored, it's something that spills over from its loot-centric core. In a game with good PvP your goal is to improve your own reactions and tactics, you win by outplaying your opponent and that's the feeling people play for, a good PvP will give you a chance even if the opponent as a stronger char.
As an example, I played some PvP in another game a while ago, the game had a class that's fairly broken and there were of course players that exploited it. However, more than half of my matches with users of that class have been honest, people just weren't using the broken stuff, because what's the point if you do? If I had to draw one up, PvP here is something like betting on horse racing, and a good PvP is running the race yourself.

Wrong, pvp is in an horrible state at the moment but all the core problems has been identified and listed by the community for the devs to fix them. it's mostly values changes that can be done without affecting the pve part of the game. The devs just don't want to do it so it's getting worse and worse every patch.

Also about what's a "good" pvp game is, that's just your opinion. PoE PvP is not about skills (well a bit but it's not the core part of it), it's about building a character and see how it goes against others. A bit like those robots fight that you can see.
The most interesting part is the theorycrafting when you think about how taking done your opponent while surving yourself and trust me, it's way more difficult and rewarding than following a cheesy build about how to kill Ubers with a stack of mines.

Anyway back to the subject, I love the lab. I just wish you could do the 5 keys run every day ^^ Stashing offering waiting for this.

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IceDeal wrote:

Wrong, pvp is in an horrible state at the moment but all the core problems has been identified and listed by the community for the devs to fix them. it's mostly values changes that can be done without affecting the pve part of the game. The devs just don't want to do it so it's getting worse and worse every patch.

Sure, it's kinda obvious what's wrong but it takes a lot of effort to tweak everything just right. Scaling is probably the biggest problem, PoE has a few orders of magnitude between a strong, well optimized setup and an average one, sometimes using similar skills or items so doing just numeric skill balancing won't cut it. Also, rock-paper-scissors game in PoE is way too strong, 'immune', 'can't', 'ignored', all those are a nightmare for PvP balancing.

And you're right about PvP, there are a few types of PvP players out there, what I meant was 'popular' rather than strictly 'good'.
1. Skill players that appreciate an even playing field more than anything, you can typically find them playing pro mod or arena shooters where everyone has the same loadout or everything is carefully matched like in fighting games.
2. Setup players that like the idea of being able to absolutely dominate the opponent with a right choice of tools, this is probably MTG territory, or any game that has a very high degree of customizability. In games like that, luck factor is used to give the mismatched player a chance.
3. A mix of the two, where you can have an advantage over the opponent but that doesn't mean he can't beat you if he plays his cards right.

Based on popularity of games belonging to the third group we could probably assume it is by far the largest one and first two are a minority. Now, we can probably agree that PoE firmly belongs to the second group, however, games in that group are exceedingly hard to balance properly, you basically need to cover all possible interactions to assure there aren't any broken ones. Considering that PoE has a high numeric variance next to an extremely high amount of game element interactions and virtually no luck factor to depend on, it would take an immense amount of effort.

I suppose they could push in some bandaids, like lowering all stat caps and nerfing some of the more broken combos but that would make PvP usable at best and it would be far from good. What I'm trying to say is that it wouldn't be good enough to attract or keep any amount of users that would be worth it, regardless if they invested a lot of time or just a bit.

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Lab is pretty neat, but a bit long. Love uber trials though, very good balance of risk/reward/time atm, nice bonus when mapping :)