Quitting PoE after years due to Labyrinth System

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Chris wrote:

Some Standard and Hardcore players (i.e. not those in the Perandus leagues) have a lot of characters that they want to Ascend. Running 18 Trials and 3 Labyrinths is a lot of work when you have several high-level characters from each previous challenge league.

We will be running a process tomorrow that will grant some Ascendancy points to existing Standard/Hardcore characters. Characters in Cruel will receive two points and characters in Merciless will receive four points.

You still need to run a Labyrinth to actually choose an Ascendancy class.

This means that if you run the Merciless Labyrinth, it'll be equivalent to running all three (due to the bonus four points). Note that this is a one-time process that we run, and only applies to existing permanent league characters.

Actually, one thing I want to point out is this feature is almost identical to the "trials" they added to Diablo 3; which have been met with nothing but anger and frustration as only the true hardcore players are embracing them. The core problem is GGG added a whole new "feature" to the game that is wholly disconnected to the core of what the game is about. PoE is about character building, item farming and killing lots and lots of stuff (as a high level "in a nutshell" overview).

For those of you who have played the latest patch of D3 and tried their new "trials" there's little difference. The majority of average gamers do NOT like them (there's been an exodus from D3 due to the trials as well). The very nature of these "trials" for both games require players to engage in a play style that conflicts with the very nature of "fun" for an ARPG.

Simply put, players want to kill things, find cool items and progress while having fun. They do not want to dodge traps and be forced into a potential 1+ hour mario style dodge navigation and puzzle solving in order to gain access to the new ascendancy features.

While the numbers spiked to an all time high with the release of this patch (because players were excited about the Ascendancy classes NOT the labyrinths to get to them), I'm confident the drop in players will be far greater than previous patches for the same reasons so many have posted in this subforum and the general discussion subforum.

But GGG will do what they want. Perhaps they'll retain enough players who are OK with this new forced style of play to access a new feature everyone will want access to. Who knows. All I know is the labyrinth system is garbage and should never have been added to the game in the first place. And that's coming from somebody who has played every major ARPG released since Diablo 1.

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Atzros wrote:

git gud

lmao ^



IMO, all the labyrinth needs to be a perfect feature in-game is more rewards behind the puzzles and traps. They're a bit unrewarding at the moment. Right now, the fights are good- a bit complicated and hard to learn, but good overall. The labyrinth is very quick to run. You should be spending no more than 20 minutes in any given labyrinth assuming you are properly geared.

The mechanics of the lab overall are very neat indeed. I don't like running the lab with my ranger because it's a bit of a glass cannon right now, but I'm leveling an Oro's flicker character to fix that problem. I look forward to running hundreds of labyrinths to get enchants for my armor :)

If you think the lab is boring, I'm not sure what you'd actually find exciting. Deadly traps, interesting boss fights, hidden areas, secret passages, and good rewards don't get your interest?

I like how all the white knights blindly decided that we (the people who dislike the labyrinth) dislike it because its hard, that is not even mentioned in the OP but the sheeple here continue singing the same song.

Its simple, labyrinth playstyle DOES NOT FIT POE as we know it until now and thats a fact. If you like (and thats fine, at least some people enjoy it) it does not mean that it fits the game, PERIOD. It is so alienating for some of us that is borderline rage-inducing how they even locked AC points behind it (as if the rewards already offered by the lab are not enough - though now that im thinking they probably are not enough cause if AC was unlocked then nobody would run lab, am i right "lovers"?).

So please stop using this "argument", its not even there.


EDIT: I forgot to quote this fine gentleman here (who might enjoy or not the labyrinth, but actually understands what we are trying to say.) Well done sir.

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Vortextreme wrote:

The arrogance of some of these posts is astounding. The simply fact is that this expansion is incongruous with the core game play of POE. It doesn't matter if you love the new stuff, the game has significant content many players don't want and cannot easily ignore. Doesn't matter how inferior you think these players are or how awesome you think you are. These customers have a valid complaint when the game they've been playing (probably for years and spent money on) is changing into some other game. I doubt these comments condescending to other players and rationalizing the changes are going to change anyone's mind.

@Mooginator

Its sad to see you upset and while I can understand that you might not fight it that enjoyable, how many times honestly are you going to have to run this, assuming you don't play in temp leagues (which it looks likely you dont)

For standard players this is basically a 1 and done thing, you can rerun it to enchant more items, you have various gears for twinks so doing it on new characters is easier, ect.

In terms of it not being fun, I don't agree, it is fun, even though it isn't just all slaying monsters for sick loot. In this case you are able to make items more powerful and yourself, by sacrificing the slaying part (kinda) for some small amount of time.

If you learn the mechanics of the fight, traps, layouts, ect the whole thing isn't that challenging, but if you want a generic hack and slash ARPG that doesn't change or evolve that much there are options out there.



In terms of this compared to anything in D3 its not at all applicable. D3 has set dungeons which are challenges that do force you to play a specific way and generally not fun, its not at all the same, anywhere from benefits to how you actually play.


As far as this not fitting the core game you are wrong, it really does, it fits the lore of the game and it fits the idea that you must complete the various challenges to ascend to a higher power.

Minor improvements can go a long way, so can minor investment of player's time to learn about it instead of expecting to roll face on keyboard and get the same results they have been getting. God forbid anything in this game actually be challenging.

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Vortextreme wrote:

The arrogance of some of these posts is astounding. The simply fact is that this expansion is incongruous with the core game play of POE. It doesn't matter if you love the new stuff, the game has significant content many players don't want and cannot easily ignore. Doesn't matter how inferior you think these players are or how awesome you think you are. These customers have a valid complaint when the game they've been playing (probably for years and spent money on) is changing into some other game. I doubt these comments condescending to other players and rationalizing the changes are going to change anyone's mind.

I hate Atziri & Uber Atziri. Let's remove those from the game!!

Sounds stupid, huh?

But that's what you're describing and this is what all of "Laby hate" threads are basically are.

Unfortunately I'm right there with you OP.

I can't bring myself to like the lab more than other game options I have. The quality of effort and execution is apparent but it's just not fun.

Unless they make it optional by allowing access to ascendancy classes and points somewhere much less tedious I don't think I'll be playing.

I'll continue to check up from time to time to see if they've addressed it though.

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HarukaTeno wrote:

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Vortextreme wrote:

The arrogance of some of these posts is astounding. The simply fact is that this expansion is incongruous with the core game play of POE. It doesn't matter if you love the new stuff, the game has significant content many players don't want and cannot easily ignore. Doesn't matter how inferior you think these players are or how awesome you think you are. These customers have a valid complaint when the game they've been playing (probably for years and spent money on) is changing into some other game. I doubt these comments condescending to other players and rationalizing the changes are going to change anyone's mind.

I hate Atziri & Uber Atziri. Let's remove those from the game!!

Sounds stupid, huh?

But that's what you're describing and this is what all of "Laby hate" threads are basically are.

Thats an answer my 8years old newphew would have given. If you cant understand the points made and the logic behind them dont try to answer with ignorant comments. We dont want the labyrinth removed, we want the highlight of the expansion not to be gated behind a silly arcade mini-game. They may even put more rewards after the whole labyrinth run and i couldnt care less, but the Ascendancy classes feel way to important (though optional in a way) and personal for the players to be implemented like this.

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Regulator wrote:

Thats an answer my 8years old newphew would have given. If you cant understand the points made and the logic behind them dont try to answer with ignorant comments. We dont want the labyrinth removed, we want the highlight of the expansion not to be gated behind a silly arcade mini-game. They may even put more rewards after the whole labyrinth run and i couldnt care less, but the Ascendancy classes feel way to important (though optional in a way) and personal for the players to be implemented like this.

They actually did add more rewards to it from the first shown alpha streams (btw)


Ascendancy classes are important, but so is proving you are capable of ascending to achieve that higher power. Do you think you should get it for free or whats your great idea that you think would fix this for players like yourself, which apparently can't do the same content the HC players do?


I'm all for getting feedback, but giving useless feedback is just that, crying like the other 18 threads just means 1 thing, you are too lazy to learn the mechanics or too lazy to run it a few times, even if it isn't fun for you. Leveling isn't fun for all people, this can be looked at like that, just leveling your ascendancy tree, sometimes games offer content that isn't fun but getting access to the power\item\ect that doing it provides means its worth it overall.

Some people don't like doing side quest to get the additional skill points, they still do it however because they want the skill points, while these are "more powerful" they collectively likely take the same amount of time per difficulty then a prepared lab run does.

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goetzjam wrote:

Ascendancy classes are important, but so is proving you are capable of ascending to achieve that higher power. Do you think you should get it for free or whats your great idea that you think would fix this for players like yourself, which apparently can't do the same content the HC players do?


I'm all for getting feedback, but giving useless feedback is just that, crying like the other 18 threads just means 1 thing, you are too lazy to learn the mechanics or too lazy to run it a few times, even if it isn't fun for you. Leveling isn't fun for all people, this can be looked at like that, just leveling your ascendancy tree, sometimes games offer content that isn't fun but getting access to the power\item\ect that doing it provides means its worth it overall.

Some people don't like doing side quest to get the additional skill points, they still do it however because they want the skill points, while these are "more powerful" they collectively likely take the same amount of time per difficulty then a prepared lab run does.

Still not getting it I see. How about if you had to win a few rounds on a TF2 style FPS to ascend? I could and I would enjoy it, but I could see that doesn't belong in an aRPG/POE.