Labyrinth,the worst content ever made in POE?

So, I've now been fully ascended.

I originally attempted the Labyrinth in Normal on the first day, and I had a really bad time. Spent some three hours in there, crashing several times and finally gave up after Izaro oneshot me in phase 2. Didn't enjoy it at all. Felt frustrating, like I was lacking necessary information to proceed. Yeah I went in blind, I never read up on things before-hand because that ruins the experience for me.

Kept levelling instead, and had a great time because Perandus is fun. Great fun, even. I hit 67 and decided to give it a go again. Cruised through the Normal version, it was very easy. Did the Cruel version right after it and that hurt considerably more but still fairly simple. No deaths. Added a few more levels, entered Merciless version at 71 and finished on the first attempt. Not too hard either, except Izaro does a lot of damage sometimes. I'm playing Earthquake/Berserker btw, self-found. Terrible gear so far, but DPS is decent.

My feeling after all this was completed was one of relief; finally I can forget about this. That is, until I want to make a new character... Still, didn't enjoy my three Labyrinths at all, it was merely a chore that needed to be done.

The Awakening already made leveling a pain, I thought. I've never liked Act 4, especially the latter half of it (except Daresso's path which is awesome). I consider the Belly and Harvest to be the worst zones in PoE, and I hate the boss fights. It's not that they're hard (they're not really), it's that there's so much constraints on me. I can barely move, I feel cramped and trapped by the surroundings more often than not. Interestingly, a lot of this is happening in the Labyrinth too.

So, where we're at now, for each character I want to level up, I need to slog through both act 4 and the Labyrinth, not once, but THREE times. Considering how they've slimlined acts 1 and 2, and made act 3 much easier than it was, leveling feels like 20% act 1-3 and 80% act 4 + Labyrinth.

It just feels like they're expanding on a bad trend, and it makes leveling so much more like a chore than the fun it used to be. This worries me. Suddenly it doesn't feel very appealing to roll a new character, something I used to love doing, over and over again.

On to the actual topic: Yes, I think the Labyrinth is the worst piece of content we've had yet. If it wasn't for the ascendancy points being gated behind Izaro, I would've brushed it off as an experiment and a "thing not for me". But I cannot, alas. The biggest problem I have, except that it's simply not fun, is that you cannot TP in and out of the zone, and the whole "reset on failure" thing that GGG seems hyped about - allowing softcore players to experience the thrills of hardcore! Wow! I'm so grateful! No, I'm not.

To sum it all up: good intentions, hopefully, terrible execution, unfortunately. Back to the drawing board, please.

@ceri

Overall a good explanation on your reasonings why it isn't necessarily fun for you. But you have to understand people get different enjoyment levels out of different things, especially in a game like PoE. I feel like there isn't an issue for you to run it 3 times per character, if thats all you have to do, but its not, you also have to redo the trails in each difficulty on each character, to me thats where the unfun part comes because its simply annoying past the first time.

Overleveling the content allows for people to cruise thru it. Honestly if people want to be able to do it at the appropriate level to the zone I guess changes should be made so thats possible, but stuff like being able to TP out really doesn't fit the theme of the design, its a labyrinth after all being able to just magically go out and fill pots up isn't logical, what about just TP someone in at the last boss to rush them, this isn't meant to be another cheesy thing where less skilled players just pay someone else to do the dirty work for them. Not only that ascending is about getting more power after proving your worth, its not proving "shit" if you just TP out whenever you run out of flask is it?

As a hardcore player its actually quite funny that the complains here seem almost exclusively from softcore players, wouldn't the characters that literally only live once and can die in the lab be complaining about the difficulty not ones that can die and just reset and give it another go?


I doubt they ever allow for the ability to TP in\out without resetting the lab as it doesn't fit the design they are going for. More importantly it allows for "abuse" that just allows less skilled players to gain the additional powers from ascending that they should have earned themselves. People were like these classes are OP, well ok but you have to get it first, GL. If 1\2 the people here spent 15 min trying to learn the mechanics of the traps and the fights they likely could cruise thru it.

Uninstalled. Lame.

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goetzjam wrote:

If 1\2 the people here spent 15 min trying to learn the mechanics of the traps and the fights they likely could cruise thru it.

Haven't died once to izaro yet. the fight is a non-issue. I die to things like you click on a spot, and becuase that pixel isn't really on the navmesh, even though it's on the floor, your character will run around the corner from where you clicked because the game thinks that's where you wanted to go. First couple of trips through was server crashes, since then all my deaths have been to traps doubling up on me, damaging me when they weren't visually touching me, once to darts, my fault, and the aforementioned 'wild run after intended precision click'.

The game engine obviously doesn't support precise movement, so why make that the gate now?

I don't have the high ev to just whirl blades through traps and pot up on the other side like the speed runners do. That's not how i play anyway. In fact, why am i here in the back? You should be the one on brain detail! That's it. We're switching!

+1 to OP.

I hate any and all games that rely on click precision, reaction times and reflexes with a burning passion. Never would I have dreamed in my nightmares to find the platformer plague in my favourite ARPG of the last several years.

Im sure GGG is waiting and gathering info and numbers, after the coming weekend im sure we will get some response.

Personally hope that they remove AC points from the labyrinth, add even more rewards for the runners and those who enjoy the lab and keep everything else the same. Its a win-win situation no matter the angle you see it.

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Regulator wrote:

Im sure GGG is waiting and gathering info and numbers, after the coming weekend im sure we will get some response.

Personally hope that they remove AC points from the labyrinth,

I wouldn't bet on it. That would cause them to lose face bigtime, especially since the white knight crusade has been pimping so hard for them.

"

add even more rewards for the runners and those who enjoy the lab and keep everything else the same. Its a win-win situation no matter the angle you see it.

It's not win-win. it's win for everyone but those whose ego is wrapped up in being "hardcore" somehow. I don't understand the mentality, even though I'm a geek from the 80s, before geek culture was even a thing. Maybe I didn't play enough Vampire: The Masquerade back in the day, or Magic: The Gathering. It's creepy how invested those folks get.

They did tone down the act 4 difficulty after enough negative feedback piled up so I doubt the labyrinth will stay completely unchanged.

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D623932883 wrote:

The labyrinth is perfect content. And I will explain why:
- it is not solely gear dependent, therefore it challenges worse and better geared players the same way (day before yesterday I payed with my ranger 4300 life and a friend lvl 100 ranger with all slots mirror gear 7500 life and he wondered why he is dying and I am not).
- gear still plays a role
- it offers more potential rewards if you stay longer and do extras
- it offers always changing layout, therefore you need to memorize zones as well as the setup and layout of different kind of traps and learn how to deal with them the safest/fastest, not just brainless content
- the enchantment rewards wont get boring for quite some time and allow less capitalized players to get something of value without relying on trading
- the boss fight is the best boss fight in PoE so far. Very well thought out. Very well balanced between melee/ranged, not favoring ranged as all/most other boss fights. Got some nice mechanics to learn.


Really great work with the lab GGG. Sry for all them who cant appreciate this master piece of work. PoE seriously needs more of this quality's content.

People need to realize fun is entirely subjective, just like music. Let me use that as an analogy here: I personally HATE country music; all of it. A lot of you, I'm sure, love it. What if the new content was, to you, like listening to whatever genre of music you hate on repeat all day? Well to me, Lab is like going to a Garth Brooks concert... you couldn't pay me enough and they made me do it to get mandatory rewards (shut up toss-pots, in this game, it really is mandatory).

1) I want the challenge to gear dependent which is why, ya know, I have been upgrading my gear for two years?

2) The real rewards are the enchants/Ascendancy points, and staying longer has big down sides:
-----a) waste of time that could be doing maps to level or find gear

-----b) can D/C (I DC about 1/3 of my Lab runs)

-----c) waste of time instead of running a new lab to get another shot at the abysmally small chance for the right helm enchant.

-----d) if you happen to die to one of the way overtuned traps, you are kicked out so there's risk/reward to consider.

3) Gear plays a roll in all the wrong ways. It doesn't reduce the stupid trap damage, and in my gear I can clear the most brutal RIP-tastic 78 maps but Izario one shots me; this is especially true because of the lag which makes me unable to fight him fairly. This is bad design.

4) The enchant reward was boring before I started... there's something like 327 possible helm enchants... I don't wanna run the Lab a single time, let alone 300+ times to get the one I want.

5) The boss fight is, WITHOUT QUESTION, the worst boss fight in PoE. If I wanted to play HC I would make a hardcore character. I actually hate all boss fights in this game (not worth the risk and stupid mechanics) but this one takes the cake because you lose progress in addition to the XP when you die, and have to run the whole shitty Lab all over.

If I wanted to fight challenging, unique bosses with unique mechanics I'd go play Final Fantasy.

I don't mind the boss fight to be honest, but the absolutely not fun at all road to fight him is by far the worst experience i've had in more than 3 years playing PoE.
I even gathered a team to play this league and my friends (all new to the game) were loving the game until we went to the labyrinth. They all quit and now i am playing by myself again just because i love the game and the new classes are really cool. It is a shame that every time i see a trap i feel like alt f4 is the best choice.