Make labyrinth optional or give portals to do it

Dear GGG,

every single league I have to write this post when I get frustrated with the lab. So here it goes again.

Problem:

- Just one try, if there's a client crash or you die for a silly reason (lag spike or such) it's VERY frustrating. This time I lost an offering to a simple crash before I could enter the last zone to get the ascendancy.

Potential solutions:

- Giving ascendancies as you progress with your maps.
- Giving players at least 3 portals (if someone carries you, you can simply enter the run again and complete it).

Why do you guys have to push a feature on players when everything else is designed to be optional? :( You can ignore Vaal, Delve, Incursions and even Betrayal. Everyone focuses on what their char does best.

Thank you for reading (if anyone from GGG does).

A long time ago, I used to feel this way, and absolutely hated lab and everything about it.

I still don't enjoy it per se, but somewhere along the line I did get better, and now the 3 main labs have gotten to be incredibly easy. I just do them as soon as my characters reach certain breakpoints in strength and they're barely a hassle at all.

Sure, things out of your control like disconnects can be irritating, but the labs are so easy that it's not that much time wasted to just redo them. You can put off doing any lab until right before A10 Kitava if you're really a new player and can't do them easily, and by that point all 3 would be a breeze. Not that they're all that hard anyway...

I do get why you feel this way, as I said, I used to almost want to quit the game back when had a potato computer and was less skilled at the game- however a new PC and learning game mechanics and how to build turned my opinion completely around.

GGG made the first two labs super short. Because of power creep, the game has made Izaro pretty easy, especially if you don't let him get buffed.

Here's a the cheat I use. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1607249

Note: I hate using cheats but hate the crappy lab content even worse and so I use the cheat instead of trying to learn what would otherwise be a fun boss fight.

The Labyrinth is not fun content, in my opinion. The OP makes some good suggestions.

Over 420 threads discussing labyrinth problems with over 1020 posters in support

I'm sorry OP, but this thread makes zero sense.

Here's how you know that your logic is flawed:
You say that it's mandatory due to the power difference that ascendancy passives give you, while simultaneously saying that it's too punishing and you should get multiple attempts, get those passives for free, etc. Shouldn't something that rewarding be gated behind (slightly) more challenging content?

Moreover, the lab IS OPTIONAL. Is it ideal to skip it? Of course not. But it's not a requirement to beat the main story or access the endgame... I know people who have gotten to lvl 100 without ascending, just as a personal challenge to themselves.

So far the most punishing thing about the lab are client crashes. And therein lies the problem - why making something you only get a single attempt at if you know your game is a buggy mess?

In my opinion, the lab is iconic and to make the content any easier than it has become would take something great away from the game.

The disparity in comments shows just how divided people are about the lab. Gonna write a short response to the comments that disagree with the idea.

You can get to level 100 even if you get disconnected, got LOTS of tries for that and all the time in the world. So if I play an hour a day, I might not get level 100, but I will definetly feel a sense of progress. This is what we could call "healthy optional content", I guess.

Now let's take lab again. I invest at least 10 minutes into something I really don't enjoy just to get disconnected and have to try again and again and again. You lag just a bit? Fail. You DC? Fail. They could either solve those two problems or accept that they exist and give us a temporary way around.

It might not make sense to you, but there are many people complaining for a reason. You really can't expect people to be happy about having just one chance at something, for them to fail for no good reason and then expect them to happily repeat the content. If anyone was around for invasion league, that's what it feels like.

I'd really rather people not say the post makes no sense. No problem with having opinions, just try not to say others are wrong simply because you don't feel that way.

Edit: thank you Turtledove for sharing the post about lab, it's exactly what I'm trying to say here.

"

ainuayan wrote:

(...)
- Giving ascendancies as you progress with your maps.
- Giving players at least 3 portals (if someone carries you, you can simply enter the run again and complete it).
(...)

I totally agree with you. Even just 1 portal would be ok.

Once I got disconnected after (succesful) 3rd encounter with Izaro and before I could pick up my ascendany points as a reward. That was so frustrating.

The whole Lab as such is ok... for a Tombraider-like game. In Tombraider at least there are checkpoints to save your progress, from time to time.

They could offer two options... one for the ambitious players, as it is, no portals, failure = failure. Another one with some portals. They could even call it chicken-mode and add a chicken-tag to my characters for using that option. I wouldn't mind that all. I just want the ascendancy points, that's all :)

Hell yeah. The "chicken mode" would be cool ahaha. Not sure if they could really pull it off. I guess they'd have to develop two types of instances somehow and it would be weird. But I think anyone who's frustrated with lab would agree to even having less drops or whatever it takes for a "I just want the points, man" mode.

The bottom line problem is that the labyrinth content is not fun in the opinion of many. If it was fun content then I wouldn't mind so much on a disconnect. What makes it frustrating is that it is crappy content and then to have to do it all over again is just frustrating.

If it is fun content for you then great for you. It is just different enough that many that find PoE overall a very fun game do not like the crap trap content. Wait for the floor to cool, run here flip a lever. Wait for the floor to cool, run back. etc. etc. It is shit content, IMHO.