I really hate lab

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ewolow wrote:

How many players do you think clear uber lab in 5 minutes? 50%? 30%? 10%? 5%? 1%?

If that number is lower than 30%, why should the game cater to such a low demographic?

The end game ( all of it ) does cater to such a low demographic, that's how it has always been, from the very start.

Every part of the game favors some builds over others, lab is not different, you need to accept that.
And you can run the lab with VP character too, lab is accessible to any solid endgame builds, seriously.
I guess vaal gem based builds suffer, but maybe GGG never intended those to farm with those gems alone (or almost) to start with.

PS : you see a problem, but maybe GGG sees none, as many other players.

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Fruz wrote:

I guess vaal gem based builds suffer, but maybe GGG never intended those to farm with those gems alone (or almost) to start with.

technical and stability issues, nothing personal

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_Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

Oh I'm not saying I don't use poelab. I definitely do. But once you recognize the patterns and mentally prepare it's quite easy. I see Domain Crossing for example I know that I must run through the Orchard-ish tileset and that I must be prepared to speed through car wash traps and Poison darts. On poelab map there are two exits stacked on top of each other? Okay now I have an idea of how far I gotta run.

The layout a couple of days ago that was Secret Passage + 6 total rooms of travel with the 7th room as a freebie, I got home from work at 5:30 and squeezed in 19 runs before the reset at 8:00. That's about 8 minutes a run.

About balancing content around %, that is a good way too look at it but the devs in this game do not give a shit. Less than 1% of the population who map will reach 100 but the devs do all they can to hold them back. It's just their twisted way of thinking.

I know people who cannot do Atziri normal after 5 years, no one is screaming for balance around that. Just like Atziri, Lab has its own cadence that once you learn it is np.

I just learned about poelab 2 days ago. I've been playing since 2012. Every lab I did was blind using just the map keystones.

In my opinion, if playing efficiently requires use of outside resources for it to not be a frustrating experience, there is definitely a problem.

Being 48 yrs old, I've quite literally been playing video games since they were invented. One thing I learned in my experience that it is a mistake is to cater to your hardcore gamers. They are the ones that get bored and leave the league in 2 weeks. They are the ones that play a game to death and then never touch it again.

I guess my point is this: I started playing this game 2 months before Kripp did. I'm still here contributing to supporter packs. He is not.

I don't need to hit 100 in the league, but it would be nice to be able to have the time to do it and it not be beyond reach of someone that only has a few hours a day to play.

I played Anarchy Online for over a decade and still to date have not seen some of the content. I just didn't have the time.

That said, I've also played D1-D2/LOD and got to do pretty much everything. I have a problem that some people want to turn this game from an arpg to an mmorpg and focus on leveling and time to progression along with having the hardcore "elite" aristocracy like they have in WoW.

If it turns into that, I'm out. I'm done.

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ewolow wrote:

One thing I learned in my experience that it is a mistake is to cater to your hardcore gamers. They are the ones that get bored and leave the league in 2 weeks. They are the ones that play a game to death and then never touch it again.

PoE would not be here without hardcore gamer.
Poe has all been designed for hardcore gamer to start with, it has always been like this, this is what PoE is.

You can still play it if you are very casual, but better adjust your expectations.
(Not, I'm not to the point were I would consider myself a hardcore gamer, but I'm invested enough in PoE, and I am not expecting to hit 100 and I will likely never beat shaper. But lab is no problem.)

And as said just before, the game is way less hardcore than what it used to be already, lab included.

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Fruz wrote:

The end game ( all of it ) does cater to such a low demographic, that's how it has always been, from the very start.

I've been playing games literally since "Pong". No, it hasn't always been like that. I expect a low percent to have more currency, I expect them to have better items and more items, but gating end game to a specific few is something that came around with the advent of World of Warcraft and similar mmorpgs.

This is not an mmorpg, at least not yet. Arpgs are not intended to have elite aristocratic end game content. Maybe this is something GGG intends, but considering people with jobs and less time to play are more likely to contribute than people that can play 14 hours a day, I'd say, anecdotally, that sounds like a tactical error.

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Fruz wrote:

Every part of the game favors some builds over others, lab is not different, you need to accept that.
And you can run the lab with VP character too, lab is accessible to any solid endgame builds, seriously.
I guess vaal gem based builds suffer, but maybe GGG never intended those to farm with those gems alone (or almost) to start with.

Why do I need to accept that? Why do I not get the opportunity to try and change that to work for everyone? I don't think you've given a good enough argument as to why it shouldn't change. In fact, you made yet another case in which it's partly broken.

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Fruz wrote:

PS : you see a problem, but maybe GGG sees none, as many other players.

GGG may not see a problem, but only if they ignore the dozens of posts, hundreds of players, and reddit posts regarding how much that particular mechanic in the game is disliked in it's current state.

Chris recently stated that he realizes that ascension is no longer regarded as a reward, but rather an intrinsic part of everyone's build.

That recognition is at least a start.

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Fruz wrote:

PoE would not be here without hardcore gamer.

Yeah? I started 2 months before Kripp. I'm still here, I'm still contributing. Where is he?

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Fruz wrote:

Poe has all been designed for hardcore gamer to start with, it has always been like this, this is what PoE is.

You can still play it if you are very casual, but better adjust your expectations.
(Not, I'm not to the point were I would consider myself a hardcore gamer, but I'm invested enough in PoE, and I am not expecting to hit 100 and I will likely never beat shaper. But lab is no problem.)

Arpgs by their very nature have always been casual. ALWAYS. The very design of POE proves it's casual.

It's solo playable, you can pick up at any point, do a few runs, leave. Nothing more casual than that.

What the discussions around lab seem to be turning into are debates between hardcore and casual players.

This is not world of warcraft. POE is not an mmorpg and shouldn't adopt the elite level content gating of world of warcraft.

And you are not the only one that has invested heavily in this game.

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ewolow wrote:

I've been playing games literally since "Pong". No, it hasn't always been like that.

Irrelevant, PoE has always been like this from the start, it has always been a game that was meant to provide a hardcore experience.

You do not decide what arpg are intended to have or not, and you seem salty about people accessing more than you because they dedicate more of their time into the game ....
At this point, all you can do is just deal with it honestly.


If you made all of the content offer exactly the same seem to everybuild, you essentially completely remove all kind of build diversity and interest into the different areas of the game, it would be atrocious.

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ewolow wrote:

Chris recently stated that he realizes that ascension is no longer regarded as a reward, but rather an intrinsic part of everyone's build.

That recognition is at least a start.

They likely new that from the very moment they started designing it, even before the decided to couple of with a labyrinth.
Do you think that it changes anything ? Because it really doesn't imho.

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ewelow wrote:

It's solo playable, you can pick up at any point, do a few runs, leave. Nothing more casual than that.

Same for most mmos, same for .......... wait, any game that has a solo mode.
Can you stop with such fallacious argument please ?

There already is part of the content that only <1% of the playerbase every see, it alwas is like this and it has always been like this from the very start, how hard is that to understand ??
And lab isn't one of those things, by the way.

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Fruz wrote:

Irrelevant, PoE has always been like this from the start, it has always been a game that was meant to provide a hardcore experience.

According to whom? What metric, what standard? All we have here is your say so. Did you ever play D2/LOD? (Which is the model and metric for this game) I cannot imagine anyone calling d2 play to level 100 "Hardcore".

Shadowbane, lineage 2. THAT is hardcore. IMO. Getting to max level in L2 was perhaps the most brutal leveling I've ever seen. I didn't play any final fantasy but I heard that has a pretty hardcore grind too.

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Fruz wrote:

You do not decide what arpg are intended to have or not, and you seem salty about people accessing more than you because they dedicate more of their time into the game ....
At this point, all you can do is just deal with it honestly.

Why do I not get a say in the game? Who are you to say who's opinion is more valuable than anyone elses? Your opinion is noted, but that's what it is: Opinion.

And no, I can voice my opposition just like anyone else. If I don't like how the game goes I will vote with my wallet.

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Fruz wrote:

If you made all of the content offer exactly the same seem to everybuild, you essentially completely remove all kind of build diversity and interest into the different areas of the game, it would be atrocious.

This is why there is variance and mods to maps/zones. It's one thing to have counters and benefits to clearing an area, that's a completely different thing than having *required* content gated to only specific builds. From what I read, this is most certainly not an intention of Chris and the dev team.

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Fruz wrote:

They likely new that from the very moment they started designing it, even before the decided to couple of with a labyrinth.
Do you think that it changes anything ? Because it really doesn't imho.

Maybe, but it's also recognition that the implementation has perhaps had unintended consequences.

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mezmery wrote:

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ewolow wrote:

Lab can take 45 minutes to an hour, and that's if you don't die, look for chests/keys and Argus.

uberlab run takes between 4.5 min and 15 min(2 silver chest, intricate+curious)
git gud

Insertion with a bit of reality, the median on the endgame labyrinth ladder right now is 17 minutes 33 seconds.