Uninstalled the game due to no changes to labyrinth

I haven't played the game at all due to the labyrinth, since the first week of Prophecy. It killed any sort of interest in building characters, and was only made worse with having an RNG gated fourth labyrinth with even more stupid traps. I left the game installed in the hopes that GGG would come to their senses and get rid of this terrible content - or at least make it truly optional - in 2.4. With the announcement of 2.4 and the new league and no mention whatsoever of the labyrinth no longer gating ascendancy points, I am finally uninstalling the game. The labyrinth experience has been bad enough to take PoE from being one of the best games I've ever played to one of the worst...

It's quite telling that the labyrinth - by far the worst content ever considered, let alone released, by GGG - was initially released along with two of the best things to happen for the game. Those things being the ascendancy classes, which gave new and interesting options to builds and made the different classes stand out from each other, and Perandus which enabled the average player to actually try multiple builds using the most interesting, but previously very expensive, uniques. I played Perandus for many more builds than previous leagues, and in retrospect it is entirely due to the new options from ascendancy points and the availability of the uniques needed to make the more interesting builds that they enabled work. I never enjoyed the labyrinth. It is tedious and boring.

And the lab wasn't even finished at the start of Perandus! The final one hadn't been completed, and it took GGG weeks to get their leaderboards implemented. It was clearly a very calculated move introducing labyrinth when it was introduced. GGG must have realized that most people would not enjoy it, and decided to package it with ascendancy classes and Perandus in the hopes that it would force players to tolerate it - they even admitted on one of the podcasts that ascendancy was originally not tied to the labyrinth. I can say that it worked on me and probably others for a time, but the tedious nature of the labyrinth eventually overcame the hype of both the league and ascendancies.

The bulk of lab is trap gauntlets. Tedious, boring sections that ignore most of your character choices, with only movement speed and life regen mattering. Each successive lab has longer, more tedious trap gauntlets, and they can extend multiple screens so that you cannot plan in advance. This is not the gameplay I wanted in PoE. Izaro was a decently interesting boss (minus the traps in the third phase which can be even more restrictive to the fighting area than Malachai), but trap gauntlets are terrible.

On the topic of Izaro, he is overtuned and imbalanced for non-armour or direct physical mitigation (endurance charges, fortify, etc.) builds. He is not the only imbalanced boss (ie. Daresso) required to progress through the game, but unlike others, you can't portal in and out and each attempt is a 15 minute run through tedious boring trap gauntlets to try again. GGG needs to be more consistent with area levels. Area level of X should mean that the difficulty is comparable to other level X content. Add 15 to whatever area level the lab is and people run it when they can do other content of that level... not good balance or design.

With Prophecy and the uber lab, GGG doubled down on trying to get players to tolerate it. It is completely transparent that the insane loot that was handed out like candy was to bribe players. So was forcing players to do lab runs for certain prophecies - one of which gave access to the Pale Council and let you farm that OP bow. But uber lab takes everything with labyrinth and makes it worse. A new trap that is even more tedious. Longer trap gauntlets. Gated behind RNG trials that have trap gauntlets worse than the actual lab. An Izaro that is more clearly overtuned if you aren't a Juggernaut or bladefall poison miner.

Labyrinth hasn't been the only problem with the game, but it was bad enough to destroy the rest of the game even while the other problems could be tolerated to an extent. There is no excuse for all the performance problems the game has had. Certain toxic community members that viciously attack everyone on the forums and should have been permanently banned a long time ago, but GGG keeps letting them stick around (seeing that many of them have a long list of supporter tags makes it clear why). The focus on the economy over gameplay hurts the game for the average player. Deliberately over-nerfing strong skills to force meta shifts means there are always some skills that end up being pointless to play with. When will summoners get quality of life improvements? Creating leagues that GGG has no intention of putting into the main game speaks for itself - wasn't that the point of leagues? I never played in standard but standard players must be getting tired of not seeing league mechanics introduced. At least they can get Prophecy. Relying on hype for new leagues and content instead of making the game more attractive to play for longer periods of time. Unethical microtransactions with the lottery boxes. "Everything you know about end game will change" means... more maps and map modifiers. And the list goes on...

One leaves; Another takes your place.

Big deal.

so many labs treads... that's why I think we should merge all these threads into one single thread... and put it into a new section [Removed by Support]

I hold out hope that GGG will do something about the Lab. Will I quit fully? NO. It is one of the best games for a f2p model. With so many people complaining about it ( me included) they may at release of the new expansion give an alternative way of getting the ASC points.

And please those that love the Lab don't say git gud or some such nonsense. I am good but the fact is to me the Lab is just boring, not hard to do. I do not want the Lab to leave for the simple fact there are many who do enjoy it.


I say Give GGG a chance to improve how we get those extra points. They worked so hard in giving us free content and I for one will support them in their effort in bring to us great content.

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One leaves; Another takes your place.

Big deal.

If people were actually coming to replace ones who leave, then it really wouldn't be a big deal.

The trouble is, all who were ever coming have come already. Now there's only leavers

WTF are you doing here? Doomsayings are my business! GTFO or I spank your butt. ^^

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One leaves; Another takes your place.

Big deal.

If people were actually coming to replace ones who leave, then it really wouldn't be a big deal.

The trouble is, all who were ever coming have come already. Now there's only leavers

Says the guy who joined 10 days ago.

ok

Goodbye then. Rest of us will keep enjoying the game.

I am not going to discount your complaints because the Lab definitely appeals to a certain type of gamer. A gamer that likely is not the same one who does most of PoE's content.

However, you could just NOT do the lab. Yes, you have to do it to get some Ascendancy points but the lab is pretty painless to just have to do 3 times. Uber lab points are not required for any build to function. You can still crush all content without them.