Ascendandy trials are not fun

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Onds#6941 wrote:

Regarding the chaos trials, they are fast enough that i like the design. If you get bad modifiers and/or just bad luck, just do it again. For the last ascendancy, every win (for each of the 3 fragment types) is like a 33% progress save point.

Modifiers that are essentially guaranteed to brick certain trials if you get an unlucky spawn are just bad design.

The modifiers that make things dangerous are fine. Actually, all of the modifiers would be fine if Escort and Soul Core trials didn't exist. If you get an area denial mod and it decides to spawn on the core hand in or on the escort permanently then if you are not just totally ignoring the damage by being turbo over levelled and over geared, it is a bricked instance.

It being quicker than Sekhemas doesn't make it good. It should be changed.

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AverBeg7#1689 wrote:

So your friend clears half a room and you clear half a room instead.

No, you haven't read correctly what I wrote:

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Half#3531 wrote:

Do it with a friend and you have such creative ways to skip some parts. Not only that, many trials are just half the amount of "work" you have to do and it is also kinda more fun to struggle with friends together.

That "not only that" means the other things are other benefits in additional. You can tell your mate "wait at this gate" while you open it. This way your friend can finish the trial quickly and deactivate all traps for you (maybe also open a shorter way).

The loot will be shared in a fair way, if you friends can trust each other (I wouldn't call anyone "friend" if that is not the case).

Also, I know some trials where you can shorten the way by your own, for example if you have the jump attack skill or teleport skill. My blood mage got two secondary weapons that also gives strength to use the low level jump attack for such reason. You can jump above some kind of walls and above a specific width of abyss. But I also know at least one trial where you can shorten your way without any special skill.

Is it all perfect? Probably not. But for me it seems you where not creative enough to find those ways to skip some parts. I wouldn't say anything if all you want is "more such things", but you said "there is no [such] way", which is just not true. I don't mean it in a rude way, so please don't understand me in the wrong way.

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Half#3531 wrote:

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AverBeg7#1689 wrote:

So your friend clears half a room and you clear half a room instead.

No, you haven't read correctly what I wrote:

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Half#3531 wrote:

Do it with a friend and you have such creative ways to skip some parts. Not only that, many trials are just half the amount of "work" you have to do and it is also kinda more fun to struggle with friends together.

That "not only that" means the other things are other benefits in additional. You can tell your mate "wait at this gate" while you open it. This way your friend can finish the trial quickly and deactivate all traps for you (maybe also open a shorter way).

The loot will be shared in a fair way, if you friends can trust each other (I wouldn't call anyone "friend" if that is not the case).

Also, I know some trials where you can shorten the way by your own, for example if you have the jump attack skill or teleport skill. My blood mage got two secondary weapons that also gives strength to use the low level jump attack for such reason. You can jump above some kind of walls and above a specific width of abyss. But I also know at least one trial where you can shorten your way without any special skill.

Is it all perfect? Probably not. But for me it seems you where not creative enough to find those ways to skip some parts. I wouldn't say anything if all you want is "more such things", but you said "there is no [such] way", which is just not true. I don't mean it in a rude way, so please don't understand me in the wrong way.

You're still missing the point. It's cool you and your friend enjoy that, but it is not what I am talking about. I am talking about incorporating player decisions into what is essentially a puzzle, and that shouldn't require a +1. It should, by default, be the design. I am talking about levers being unfun and unnecessary, they legitimately do not need to exist in their current state, they add nothing apart from time and frustration. It is the opposite of world-building when the player is taken completely out of the game by the loss of control during the animation.

It's not worth it for me and my friends to farm Sekhemas together. It is most valuable solo. The rewards are mostly in the form of better relics from merchants and rewards from floor completions. These are not bolstered by being in a party. Maps are most valuable in a group, they already have quant and rarity, the main rewards are the monster drops, so the additional you gain from being in a party often ends up being a lot more loot for everyone involved. That simple. Nothing to do with how we divide loot amongst ourselves. We always share big items and otherwise run on short allocation.

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TheDecky#2021 wrote:

I have posted 3 of these now i think, but i keep coming up with reasons why they aren't fun. Hoping to get at least a few of the issues addressed.

The latest reason i have is forcing players to interact with a mechanic, that randomly assigns you a debuff, thus making the build, that you engineered to work a certain way, impossible to progress. So you then have to spam run either of the trials in hopes that you don't get that build breaking mechanic, or combination of build breaking mechanics. Its not a skill based reward its an RNG based reward which isn't fun.

Labs in POE 1 weren't fun but at least if you played well you could complete them and then move on with the parts of the game you enjoyed and even attempt other aspirational content later on, but with a build that is complete. So in that case if you failed it didn't feel so bad because you knew you could get better and overcome it, whereas the trials in POE 2 are RNG based.

I would be totally fine with this being a pinnacle boss scenario where you get some reward for completing it and its aspirational content, if it wasn't tied to literally getting your character's build to work properly.

The trials in my opinion are the worst part of the game, and without them or with them in some other form, i would literally love every part of the game. It is a masterpiece of a game by the way, and has ruined any other AARPG for me, lulz.

Anyway hope this is addressed at some point. otherwise keep on cooking you guys are killing it over there.

I would respectfully disagree with you regarding the ascendancy trial, especially on the Trial of Sekhemas.

I find that the Trial of Sekhemas to be fun. If the player spends time to learn about the trial, he/she will be able to easily complete the trial.

There are many content providers / media influencers on youtube and reddit providing lots of valuable info on how to beat the trial.

You are only limited by how much time and effort you wish to put into learning the info.

The trials are definitely difficult if a player goes in blind without any info. But once you successfully complete it, you will be able to do it again and again intuitively without much difficulty.

There are definitely rng elements in the trial. But you are also given choices to make at every turn. The choices you make will determine how beneficial or detrimental it will be for you. After a while, you will realise it's almost like playing chess. You will be making decisions that will determine whether you can complete or fail the trial.

I simply do not believe what you say because there are so many players able to complete the trials. And after completing the trials, many players have even proceeded further to do the trials again and again for the loot, for example the time lost jewels, etc. There are also players who do trials specifically to carry other players for a price.

Hence my personal opinion is that if you do not bother to learn the game, you will be at a disadvantage compared to other players. It would be better for you to learn the game instead of coming to the forum to ask GGG to remove the trial or change the trial, just because you cannot complete the trial.

I am not in favour of making the trial easier. I would prefer changing things like if the player fails the trial, the token is not used up and can be used again and again until the player completes the trial. The token only disappears if the player completes the trial. If the player fails the trial, the token is returned back to the player so that he/she can try again. At least for this case, GGG is giving the player the chance to learn the trial mechanics until the player gains success in completing the trial.

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stkmro#2432 wrote:

I find that the Trial of Sekhemas to be fun. If the player spends time to learn about the trial, he/she will be able to easily complete the trial.


The trials are definitely difficult if a player goes in blind without any info. But once you successfully complete it, you will be able to do it again and again intuitively without much difficulty.



I simply do not believe what you say because there are so many players able to complete the trials. And after completing the trials, many players have even proceeded further to do the trials again and again for the loot, for example the time lost jewels, etc. There are also players who do trials specifically to carry other players for a price.

Hence my personal opinion is that if you do not bother to learn the game, you will be at a disadvantage compared to other players. It would be better for you to learn the game instead of coming to the forum to ask GGG to remove the trial or change the trial, just because you cannot complete the trial.

I am not in favour of making the trial easier.

How about just making the trap rooms more dynamic and less of a full lever clear, and the bosses stop their attack/casts when dead like rares? In the Chaos trials, do we really need Escort and Soul Cores (that 100% brick every build that is not overgeared/overlevelled with any area denial mod)? Does it have to be a "skill issue"?

There is plenty of bad design in the trials. I personally don't have an issue with completion, it's just the process of it is tedious, some of it feels buggy like the boss casts after death, levers are a bad mechanic that take the player out of the game, you have to click almost every lever in every trap room, and obviously overlevelling and overgearing the area by a metric tonne should not be necessary to complete Soul Cores and Escorts with area denial in Chaos. The area denial mods should be outplayable in every type of trial.

Again, it's not an issue with clearing it. It's an issue with the terrible design choices that make the gameplay feel bad. Nobody wants to walk around slowly clicking every lever with 0 choices. Nobody wants to trivialize Chaos trials or reset every time they are forced into unplayable mods. It's simply not fun, and in my eyes these are simply design faults. Nothing to do with skill or knowledge.

Gauntlet is just bad. I think the trials would just be much better if that was gone. You'd have a lot more choices on the other rooms without the threat of gauntlet.

As for the Temple of Chaos. The bosses are just ridiculously imbalanced. The dragon is very easy, might actually fall sleep. Then There's the one-shot bird and the Chimera that pukes a mini boss.

But the real bad problem with the Temple of Chaos is that something about the tileset just makes it very laggy.

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KrazyIvanUS#9624 wrote:

Trials are not meant to be easy. This is the gate to end-game content that you either have to pay or pass. If you want easy content, there is always Diablo.

Now we've just gone back round to the same toxicity problem Poe1 had. Any criticism of of how unrewarding certain things where or some the horrible layers of rng, is met with "you just want everything handed to you go play diablo", all criticism is rejected and the playerbase is filtered down to rng masochists and nolifers. GGG will end up having to sustain two games on that one audience.

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AverBeg7#1689 wrote:

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Onds#6941 wrote:

Regarding the chaos trials, they are fast enough that i like the design. If you get bad modifiers and/or just bad luck, just do it again. For the last ascendancy, every win (for each of the 3 fragment types) is like a 33% progress save point.

Modifiers that are essentially guaranteed to brick certain trials if you get an unlucky spawn are just bad design.

The modifiers that make things dangerous are fine. Actually, all of the modifiers would be fine if Escort and Soul Core trials didn't exist. If you get an area denial mod and it decides to spawn on the core hand in or on the escort permanently then if you are not just totally ignoring the damage by being turbo over levelled and over geared, it is a bricked instance.

It being quicker than Sekhemas doesn't make it good. It should be changed.

I hear (read) you, but i honestly do not know which modifiers that would be. You always have 3 to choose from, and i do not remember ever getting 3 choices that would force a fail. Some are of course worse than others (impending doom f ex), but i can't come up with any that would cause you to fail an escort or soul core trial with certainty.

I don't have very strong feelings either way about the current trials. I think everyone who does has raised some very good, important issues, though.

What I'm more interested in is just the fact that there are multiple ways to go about ascendancy, and that they are (granted, POE1) league content. I'm hoping that in full release, at least for some seasons, that means we may get to ascend just be engaging in the league stuff. If they pull that off right, I think I would enjoy that very much!