SET FREE THE ASCENDANCY POINTS (or rework the lab) [New ascension methods/lab rework ideas]

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dickhole_mcghee wrote:

Yes, when I have a spotty connection ( either on my end or ggg's) I hate the lab more than 10 hitlers

Congratulations. You win the prize for the most inappropriate comparison of the year.

So I added a few more. Pyrokar, I tried to summarize your post into list form. Please feel free to correct or criticize. Thank you.

Why it is extra frustrating to die during trap game play.

1. Least of not is the fact that PoE is an ARPG where the fun game play we all love is killing monsters not trap game play.

2. Building for trap game play is stupid in an ARPG where we want to build in order to kill monsters.

3. Lag will more likely kill when in traps.

4. When dying in the labyrinth, the whole boring tedious thing must be rerun.

5. Don't like trap game play anyway so already in a bad mood before dying. This is like the opposite of my free solitaire on my iPhone. When I win then they switch to a full screen advertisement for other apps, knowing that people in general will be in a better mood if they just won and are less likely to rage quit the solitaire game because of an ad if they just won.

6. We expect to die from monsters not traps. Perhaps in this same point is we're more used to dying from monsters? If GGG thinks we should die more then GGG should beef up monsters not add trap stuff.

7. I can't believe that GGG is actually adding the stupid push box crap to the game. I don't know how you can die from this yet but it is such a horrible idea I had to add it to the list anyway. :-(

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Pyrokar wrote:

Well mr. turtledove, since you wanted another high level perspective here it is...
I really hope GGG decides to scrap all this stupid nonesense and buff monsters' life values instead. Are the new-super-awesome-skill using monsters gonna be a hard enough challenge to die in? I seriously doubt it, but let's hope that i am wrong. The devs took a wrong turn by trying to challenge us with traps and i hope they reconsider.

Excellent post.

Somehow, I'd like to see combat that's not just gear-dependent but requires (or at least encourages) more intelligent play (positioning, use of the environment, different approaches to different threats, using the right skills,...). I'd also like to feel that when I die it was because --- excluding lag/disconnect --- I did something stupid or I didn't know enough to recognize a threat (hmmm..so that's how detonate dead boxes work after I clear out the corpses next to the box and blink onto a distant pile of corpses).

Of course this is really hard to achieve and there are all kinds of intrinsic conflicting factors (exiting game vs. one-hit kills; people like fast play which goes against strategic combat; incentives for rare, high-end gear vs. unbalancing game for best-equipped characters;...).

Now that may be what GGG was trying to achieve this with traps, but I play(ed?) PoE because I like the real-time combat and the long-term character development aspects of ARPGs. Traps go completely against that. I'd even be happier with monsters that did %life damage and had a ton of life than I am with traps, though even that still feels wrong to me in a game where your character's power should increase as you gain experience.

Anyway, I don't know to what extent GGG can make combat more interesting and challenging, but I absolutely agree that forcing labyrinth-type traps on us is not the way to do it.

Maybe add that it's frustrating to die when they deal %dmg and negate our choices? or is that implied in 2.?

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Turtledove wrote:

So I added a few more. Pyrokar, I tried to summarize your post into list form. Please feel free to correct or criticize. Thank you.

Why it is extra frustrating to die during trap game play.

1. Least of not is the fact that PoE is an ARPG where the fun game play we all love is killing monsters not trap game play.

2. Building for trap game play is stupid in an ARPG where we want to build in order to kill monsters.

3. Lag will more likely kill when in traps.

4. When dying in the labyrinth, the whole boring tedious thing must be rerun.

5. Don't like trap game play anyway so already in a bad mood before dying. This is like the opposite of my free solitaire on my iPhone. When I win then they switch to a full screen advertisement for other apps, knowing that people in general will be in a better mood if they just won and are less likely to rage quit the solitaire game because of an ad if they just won.

6. We expect to die from monsters not traps. Perhaps in this same point is we're more used to dying from monsters? If GGG thinks we should die more then GGG should beef up monsters not add trap stuff.

7. I can't believe that GGG is actually adding the stupid push box crap to the game. I don't know how you can die from this yet but it is such a horrible idea I had to add it to the list anyway. :-(

IMO as negative as trap gameplay might be to you, I feel personally like master missions fill a same role in perhaps not being fun. Thats why I typically avoid them if I can.

IMO you don't need to build for trap gameplay, because there really isn't a counter play for them, they are designed in such a way that building for them is counter-intuitive as almost no form of mitigation works against the more dangerous of the traps.

Lag will kill you in many circumstances, traps are no "different" in that aspect.

The whole thing is designed to be completed "in 1 sitting" as stated before it can be ran very quickly or longer if you want to take "full advantage" of what the lab has to offer. It "punishes" a mistake much harder then the rest of the game and I think its good in this game to have punishing mechanics.

You can expect to die from more then "monsters" themselves, after death effects on monsters have basically proven to be one of the more dangerous parts of this game, traps perform similarly in terms of providing a challenge.

The new addition to the map level lab? I doubt its something that will be changed, but I think its funny that people are going to complain about the only trap in the lab in which you can "disarm" by attacking it.

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SaiyanZ wrote:

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goetzjam wrote:

Lag will kill you in many circumstances, traps are no "different" in that aspect.

No, it's like 1000 times more easier to die to traps due to lag compared to the normal game with a good build. This is the prime reason I dislike it. When running past traps I feel like I have no control at all on what happens. If my internet shits on me I'm probably going to die no matter what especially in areas where different traps are stacked together. Whereas in the normal game my flasks, regen, defenses are up so a little lag doesn't do anything.

Plus the patch notes says that the endgame trials and lab are going to be more complex which means there's going to be much more shitty combinations of annoying traps.



That all said, regarding not having to rerun the trials again once you've done them once with a character. Questions:

1. Is this only enabled for the leagues or for Standard as well?
2. If for Standard, do we need to do all trials with a character after the patch or will our trials already be completed for new characters?
3. How does this apply to the endgame trials? Will they also be unlocked for every new character if we do all 6 of them once?

I can answer some of these questions for you:


1. The trial thing about not having to rerun will apply to all leagues, you still need to run it on 1 character per league (standard, sc temp league, ect) but all of the leagues in the realmn have access to this. Which means if you run it in standard one one character (not sure if this is retroactive) then its unlocked for all standard characters. However if you run it in standard, it doesn't count for the SC temp leauge, its 1 character per league is "required"

2. Kinda answered this up here, not sure if its retroactive since before this patch, but if you run all 3 trials "now" it will be unlocked for all future standard characters.

3. As far as I understand the endgame trials, they do follow the same principle as the others, meaning you only need to run the different onces once per league, but in order to "actually" do the endgame lab you need various pieces, which are tradeable.

So to answer your question shortly, it might not be retroactive, but it is just "required" once per league for all characters to unlock.


As far as easier to die, traps can really be broken up into segments and you can run them inbetween while monitoring your ping\connection, do you typically have issues with lag in the game and if so, where else do you experience the issues?


The endgame trails are just going to be longer and overall have more traps then the ones we've seen, they all have patterns that can be "learned" and planned around. Endgame trails are "optional" to a point, obviously if you want to last 2 points on your classes, you will have to do them all at least once, not sure if someone could TP you in at the end to "complete" or how exactly that aspect works.

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SaiyanZ wrote:

Thanks.

Regarding lag, I play on a wireless LTE connection from South Africa. The nearest server is in Europe which is 200ms away. So desync happens often if I move too fast or bump into something. I'm always monitoring my ping and there is desync even when at a stable 200ms. i.e. not an internet hiccup. Just desync because of predictive mode. Traps also get out of sync when this happens.


My plan is to throw some equipment on a high level character as soon as the game is up and just grind through all the trials in Standard. Then at least I will never have to go through them again. Just have to do the labs with new characters.

Wireless LTE connection, :O


As for the trials, if you have a friend that has a better connection then you, they can just TP you in for all 6 (times 3) trials and you click on the plaques.

I wouldn't wish the wireless style connection + connecting to a server so far away on anyone, you must really like this game to put yourself thru such pain.

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Pyrokar wrote:

Maybe add that it's frustrating to die when they deal %dmg and negate our choices? or is that implied in 2.?

Clarified 2 Please feel free to correct or criticize or suggest different ordering. Thank you.

Why it is extra frustrating to die during trap game play.

1. Least of not is the fact that PoE is an ARPG where the fun game play we all love is killing monsters not trap game play.

2. Building for trap game play is stupid in an ARPG where we want to build in order to kill monsters. For example, getting more life makes killing monsters easier whereas it makes some traps harder because damage is same and life flasks are less effective.

3. Lag will more likely kill when in traps.

4. When dying in the labyrinth, the whole boring tedious thing must be rerun.

5. Don't like trap game play anyway so already in a bad mood before dying. This is like the opposite of my free solitaire on my iPhone. When I win then they switch to a full screen advertisement for other apps, knowing that people in general will be in a better mood if they just won and are less likely to rage quit the solitaire game because of an ad if they just won.

6. We expect to die from monsters not traps. Perhaps in this same point is we're more used to dying from monsters? If GGG thinks we should die more then GGG should beef up monsters not add trap stuff.

7. I can't believe that GGG is actually adding the stupid push box crap to the game. I don't know how you can die from this yet but it is such a horrible idea I had to add it to the list anyway. :-(

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Char1983 wrote:

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dickhole_mcghee wrote:

Yes, when I have a spotty connection ( either on my end or ggg's) I hate the lab more than 10 hitlers

Congratulations. You win the prize for the most inappropriate comparison of the year.

Well, it's not more than 50 hitlers, if that's what you're thinking.

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Turtledove wrote:

I think it is a common theme for players to hate dying to traps worse than they hate dying to monsters. That is for a number of reasons. I think it might be useful for getting a high level view for the theme of this thread if we could investigate why this is in a bit more detail. If any others agree then let me start off by making a list in my approximate order of importance. I encourage others to comment, change, add, and present alternatives.

1. Least of not is the fact that PoE is an ARPG where the fun game play we all love is killing monsters not trap game play.

2. Building for trap game play is stupid in an ARPG where we want to build in order to kill monsters.

3. Don't like trap game play anyway so already in a bad mood before dying. This is like the opposite of my free solitaire on my iPhone. When I win then they switch to a full screen advertisement for other apps, knowing that people in general will be in a better mood if they just won and are less likely to rage quit the solitaire game because of an ad if they just won.

4. We expect to die from monsters not traps. Perhaps in this same point is we're more used to dying from monsters?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma