Developer Q&A - Answers Part 2

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Chris wrote:

Have you given serious thought to providing people who don't like Labyrinth-style content options to play the rest of the game without going through the content they do not enjoy? Is there some reason it's not being done? Is there any chance it might happen in the future?

This is discussed occasionally but there are no plans to change it in 3.0.0. We're worried about the slippery slope of players wanting the rewards from a system without engaging in that system (although we do understand that Ascendancy classes have been so successful that they are no longer considered rewards but instead intrinsic parts of your character). I am sure we will continue to discuss this and related topics.

My main issue with the labyrinth atm is probably regarding the uber lab and the fact regeneration bypasses the potential difficulty (almost) entirely. Another reason to use ES instead or in addition to life.

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Chris wrote:

Jonathan and I do not drink coffee.

Heresy...

Cheers for the answers! Would love more, but I totally get if you're too busy. :)

I played far less in the old days of "trade" specifically because trade was far too inconvenient, and my gear progression basically hit a wall early.

Your own results of Perandus league proved it - more availability of items meant players progressed further into content, and, most importantly, PLAYED LONGER. Having easier access to gear didn't mean players left sooner, it meant they stayed longer.

While I agree the most fun comes from incremental gear upgrades, gear progression, making trade inconvenient makes that progression no fun, and as a result, NOT wanting to play longer (ie, old days of much lower player numbers).

[/quote]My main issue with the labyrinth atm is probably regarding the uber lab and the fact regeneration bypasses the potential difficulty (almost) entirely. Another reason to use ES instead or in addition to life.[/quote]

This guy and durability, LUL

I really appreciate the time you take to answer community questions. At the least it is an interesting read.

Regarding some of the points made.

1. Labyrinth - for me, it is a minor inconvenience and a necessary evil. The rewards offered are, for the most part, mandatory. However, once you have completed it 4 times for a character, you are done with it if you want to be. To my thinking, the helmet enchants are the biggest issue with it. Seriously, far too many possibilities. There needs to be a way to narrow the list somewhat.

2. Durability - It can already be something of a chore to get the gear you want. Especially if you are min/maxing. To have it degrade and possibly brick. Just no.

3. Trade - I strenuously disagree with the premise that trade is a crisis and trade improvements would exacerbate it. Relying on 3rd party sites to pick up the slack for inadequate in game mechanisms is a crisis. There are far too many threads both here in the forums and Reddit where this is illustrated. I do agree that an auction house is not the answer, but, something needs to be done. Even if it is as basic as adding poe.trade like functionality in game. I would prefer something more than that personally, but, I'll take what I can get and this would be a good first step. As well, the issues others have raised with regards to AFK, price fixing, DND, and so on need to be addressed in some manner.

Thanks again for the continued community interaction.

no durability pls

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Coal48 wrote:

Why do you think my view is limited?

what else could be the negotiation of the fact that trading is a significant factor, and thus indeed important also for the success of an ARPG called?

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Coal48 wrote:

I would have to go so far explaining what makes a action rpg good in my opinion.

sometimes a rather 'hard' work, but in this case definitively better than making such a simgle negative answer statement.

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Coal48 wrote:

2) you lost me completely, I have no idea what you're saying.

just some examples on what different aspects a single-player option has influences.

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Coal48 wrote:

What I'm asking to GGG is rather a "league" like standard and harcore, a league were the game is balance around singleplayer only.

Now - what if like SSF is NOW, without any changes on droprates, is what GGG thinks to be the way their game should be played solo?! Hard stuff indeed; but maybe (ewxpectable from a lot of things they said over time) all "QoL" and easifyings we have now, are just changes/additions they dont wanted in the first place?

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Coal48 wrote:

3) I'm not crying about anything, just bored and giving my 2 cents

thats one reasons, why this part of my reply was not directly addressed to you. I didn't fully understood your mind, but I "know" a lot of people that do 'cry'...

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Coal48 wrote:

don't have much to do

then, why just dont play a bit more slowly? ;)

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Coal48 wrote:

I can see you think very lowly of me, those "^^" eyes at the beginning of your post already showed that

Your statements were very vague, so I maybe suspected more than good - its really not about you but just against that 'unstoppable' topic of "we want better drops" in all possible shades of a "justification". (maybe my "eyes" were a bit missplaced there, couldnt even say what they should have said)

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bornochis wrote:

Any plans on adding a MTX for character swaping? Like i want to play a Chieftain but with Ranger model, can this be possible?

On the subject of base character aesthetics, I imagine that options akin to what we see in Torchlight 2 would not be unwelcome. More voice work would be needed in most cases, of course (of the classes, only the Scion has gender defined by backstory; all the others could be male or female).

As for the debate on trading... I for one never bothered with it. The ingame trade chat is, last I checked, a mess; and having to use some third-party site is a sure sign that something is amiss in that department. So... 'OSP for life', as they say.

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Astealoth wrote:

Ascendancy classes should not be tied to the labyrinth. This content is really unfun and uninteresting. Locking core progression in there is asinine at best. I am extremely disappointed that this is not being addressed. I would rather see ascendancy class progress integrated into the core game than new acts or anything else. The current setup with the labyrinth would be like making it so you could only earn XP for a certain range in vaal side areas. Frankly I think even that would be better since that content is comparatively much more interesting.

There is no slippery slope to worry about here, how often do you plan to hide skill tree nodes in horrible side content? Asking GGG to not do that and to rectify the one time it was done in the past is not a slippery slope to fall down, but a mountain of stubbornness you've asked us to climb.

That's your opinion. Others like labyrinth. And it only takes ~an hour to get all ascendancy points. You can't do that?

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Hilldrake wrote:

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MarkoszHU wrote:

"Have you given serious thought to providing people who don't like Labyrinth-style content options to play the rest of the game without going through the content they do not enjoy? Is there some reason it's not being done? Is there any chance it might happen in the future?"


It SHOULDN'T! No pain, no gain.
Seriously, why people nowadays expect to be rewarded without doing actual work?

The problem is not the fact that you HAVE to work, the problem is that the Work is COMPLETELY boring and REALLY, REAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY time-consuming. You need to do the labyrinth for EVERY character you do, in EVERY League, on THREE DIFFICULTIES (i know this is changing). Right now, Labyrinth farming is cool, and stuff, but you should not gate a mandatory mechanic like ascendancy behind it.

The reward on labyrinth is its Chests at the end of the Lab. Ascendancies should be something apart from it. Maybe they should add a system that when you do the Labyrinth ONCE with a specific character, let's say the Witch for example, every new Witch you make have all the points you got on the previous one. So the player thinks into making 2 Witch Builds, he needs to do the Labyrinth and Uber Labyrinth with the first one, so the second Witch he makes will get the points afterwards. This applies to every class, so if he decides to make a Templar, his second templar will gain the points, but he'll still need to do the lab with his first templar. I know this doesn't solve the problem much, but it REALLY decreases the stress for doing the Labyrinth for every freaking character.

what? time consuming? lab run for me, slow runner, takes ~10-15 mins at most. That's 1 hour to get all points compared to many of hours grinding to get character to level 90. It's nothing.