How I learned to love the labyrinth and why this shows that we need something else entirely

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Aim_Deep wrote:

You only love it because they bribed us to play it with loot explosion at the end. Boss in uninteresting so are traps.

Come on, now. You just described the whole game. People run bosses for drops. Is it really challenging for those guys who can run Atziri and uber Atziri in a couple minutes? They aren't doing for the challenge. They are doing it for the drops. Even Dom runs are like that. When you have a character strong enough to do runs on something, it's no longer challenging or interesting and you're only doing it for the drops.

They completely wrote off evasion as an attribute when they made the traps, and marginalized ES to the point where they had to change it. Their basic premise was "defenses shouldn't help".

That was contrary to their entire design philosophy in the past, where "defenses are mandatory" was the theme.

That will piss people off.

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Zephryl wrote:

A lot of loot, Endgame Challenge in Uber Lab, Pale Court being gated behind a Lab Clear...

I honestly get the feeling they're trying to artificially inflate numbers to support the Lab.

Exactly that, the desirability of the lab and the number of lab runs was as low as possible and then they decided lets put 100x the rewards so every single one gets rich when doing engame lab and gets 3+keys. Lets also make 3 challenges specific to lab only, and part of some others requiring a lab run also (fucking unbearable whispers and unbreathing queen). Add to that the high lvl enchantments plus the extra two ascendancies and there you have it, a carrot SO BIG that even avid haters of the lab are seduced into running it.

The number of eligible lab runs for the lab ladder in all leagues combined is around 6k since the prophecy was added. From this number less than 1000 (less than 800 to be more punctual) people are doing it in Hardcore environment (both prophecy and perm). Now from all those (6k) around 30-40% are doing it only for the ascendancy points. Lab is clearly flawed, putting more rewards for doing it doesnt make it better. It does make some people like the thread starter feel better for their spent time, but it does not make it more fun. The experience is still shit.

Ofcourse they are trying to inflate the numbers, in perandus league they were comberable (and much worse percentage wise) with pvp seasons numbers. They want to stand by their experiment even if it is failed. Its natural since its their creation and they spent way too much money and time.

People play games because they find them fun,interesting and enganging, at least that the reason they get hooked with PoE in the first place. Labyrinth only offers a shiton of rewards, no-where in the whole game so many rewards are gathered in one place, NOWHERE. The moment a build trivilizes that shit of content and it is popular enough people start doing it for the rewards and by repeating it countless times for the rewards becomes like a rewarding chore for them. Like the journey is a complete shit but Ithaca is a utopia, only that the interesting and engaging part of Homer's masterpieces is the journey and not the end. You lost the purpose of gaming when you start doing it for the rewards only and the game has lost its flavour if that is the only thing that can provide after some time, it simply becomes a job after that point, its good to have one but not on your free time.

Just for some to see how insane the rewards gathered in the labyrinth are : Ascendancy points, enchantments, lab only uniques, jewels for racing, and treasure keys which then can reward with : quality gems, currency, maps, high level items, divination cards, more uniques, extra pieces of offerings, and other loot.

The lab could work... it was just made (like all of GGG's additions) too punishing for the majority of players. IF they choose to fix it, they'll do so. But not in the middle of the league. I hold off final judgement until September.

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Regulator wrote:

You lost the purpose of gaming when you start doing it for the rewards only and the game has lost its flavour if that is the only thing that can provide after some time, it simply becomes a job after that point, its good to have one but not on your free time.

This whole game is designed as a grind for rewards - gear, XP, higher maps, etc... Besides theorycrafting your build, that's all you do. Grind for rewards.

What you seem to not understand, is that PoE is also a competitive game, be it on the ladder or in the economy. Some people play this game just to get (virtually) rich, or to be first to reach 100 or whatever that looks like a "job" to you.

Uber Lab is a feature for endgame players. You dont have to like it, or do it. Endgame players enjoy grinding the lab, casual players enjoy lots of cheap quality gems on the market. Everybody wins.

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mark1030 wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

You only love it because they bribed us to play it with loot explosion at the end. Boss in uninteresting so are traps.

Come on, now. You just described the whole game. People run bosses for drops. Is it really challenging for those guys who can run Atziri and uber Atziri in a couple minutes? They aren't doing for the challenge. They are doing it for the drops. Even Dom runs are like that. When you have a character strong enough to do runs on something, it's no longer challenging or interesting and you're only doing it for the drops.

I dont grind like that. Basically I just level try uber once or twice win or lose then on to next build. Never farmed really not even dom or docks. For me at least its about build see if it can do content then onto something else. Main reason I'm so interested in a greater rifts system so I can keep going and see how far I can take good builds. Give me no exp or loot in rift, dont care. I'll be there 99% of time if its interesting bosses with crazy immunizes and stuff.

Dont care about achievements/challenges either. Any I get is by accident. easy ones like full clear act2 these areas or whatever i didnt even do last ladder.

Just making builds, and killing hard mobs and bosses is all I like. ANd trading OFC...which gives me freedom to play how I wanna play and not grind. I became an expert at buying low selling a little higher in D3 and ply my trade here the day they went SFL.

Meh, labyrinth is no fun if you trivialize it. Learning to counter all Izaro's mechanics and to navigate the whole labyrinth quickly is where the fun is.

Perhaps without traps and without deaths.
I'd wager that a build designed specifically for uber labs is extremely effective at staying alive in it.
I've been one shot and two shotted three times thus far by izaro on my 10k (well 9.7k or something like that) ES WI witch.

I also have to slug through traps much slower than most because I can't whirling blades.

It just sucks the fun out of it when you have traps that slow you down, bosses that can randomly gib you when you greatly overgear it (lets face it, that phys damage is too high for anything but those ridiculous high endurance charge builds) and you have to start from scratch (and lose your offering) on death.

Why is it that I can't portal out and sell stuff when I want like virtually 99.99999% of the content I do? Why is it that I only get one portal instead of 6 like in maps? Why is it that most of the traps seem to serve only to make the experience longer (Where death comes from impatience typically)? Why is it that I don't have any checkpoints at all?

Perhaps another issue I have with the izaro fights is that you have to wait for the traps/shrines to activate (they come out 1 by 1 for some reason) and the fact that I can't use vaal discipline on the fights (seriously GGG, this is the one thing that makes ES reasonably tanky) because it resets my vaal souls when I go in (Why? What point does this serve? Why do we segregate/punish builds that use vaal souls?).

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

If the best way to deal with the traps is to invalidate or circumvent the challenge they present then that to me represents a failure in design imho. It's one thing to overcome a challenge, it's another to circumvent it to a large enough degree that it no longer represents that same challenge.

I can't help but read this and think they need to buff traps so they retain their challenge across all builds.

Which is basically the core aspect of the game. You do the same with other content. Run a build that facerolls everything. Measure of performance is clear time.
Traps have the same problem. Either they are completely redundant or they make certain builds completely invalid. The problem with the latter is that it's the same design for everyone wheras with maps I can choose which ones to run. Well technically you can skip the lab, but that doesn't make its problems any less worse.