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

Personally I don't mind Lab too much, I think what they did with the Izaro fights is awesome. But it definitely gets a bit monotonous running it 4 times per character.

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Spruce_Moose wrote:

Personally I don't mind Lab too much, I think what they did with the Izaro fights is awesome. But it definitely gets a bit monotonous running it 4 times per character.

Out of curiosity, if the ascendancy points where decoupled from the labyrinth would you mind that? Or you would still run it from time to time just to break the monotony of running maps/leveling? Or something else?

Anyone who enjoys or/and doesnt mind the lab feel free to give a direct answer to the question(s) asked above.

I only plan to run it one more time for last 2 points. I care not for enchantment farming, and I hate fighting Izaro. The actual traps are fine in lower doses. The lab itself is fine usually. The map trials just suck because of all the back tracking once you get to all the multi lever rooms that are usually just the same damn set of traps 4 times.

I prefer to be able to see whats going on and react accordingly, which is usually fine. Sometimes all the pieces of a room will be smashed together so that I have a very poor view of the traps behind walls and bars etc. When you only have a few inches to stand in for more than .2 seconds for an entire room the isometric view point of that area needs to be unobstructed preferably.

I'm currently just gonna hoard all the offerings I can fit in my stash until the rubberbanding/lag etc. calms down because I keep getting pulled back on to saw blades I had already ran past far too often.

Also kinda hoping for a day when its not too painful a layout/Izaro doesn't have charges.

If I change my playstyle almost entirely to cope with the bs in the lab one more time I might eventually be done with it. I never had much trouble with merc lab, so I'm hoping once the technical issues calm down I'll only have the asinine offering collecting to put up with if I desire my final points.

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Regulator wrote:

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Spruce_Moose wrote:

Personally I don't mind Lab too much, I think what they did with the Izaro fights is awesome. But it definitely gets a bit monotonous running it 4 times per character.

Out of curiosity, if the ascendancy points where decoupled from the labyrinth would you mind that? Or you would still run it from time to time just to break the monotony of running maps/leveling? Or something else?

Anyone who enjoys or/and doesnt mind the lab feel free to give a direct answer to the question(s) asked above.

In SC I would - and I did to get the helm enchant I wanted - in HC I wouldn't, too much risk and little reward.

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Casual_Ascent wrote:

I went in today.

A mess of walking in circles, dead ends, silver keys without doors to use them on. A waste of 2 hours or whatever it was. Certainly seemed like forever.

The push thing? I don't know what that's all about. Pushed it for a few tiles, stopped, then went to the end of the track to see what I'd be pushing it to. Just another dead end. Decided to leave it there and continue on, as it seemed like just more of the same puzzle boredom for nothing.

Sours the rest of the game for me in a big way knowing that I must do it.

[Removed by Support] You sayin that you wasted 2h on something most people do in 10 min and pros do in 2-3 ?

So people complain here about actually challenging stuff that isint just pres one button BS and cry they suck at the game ? Have you ever played Mario or Megaman ?

[Removed by Support]

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Turtledove wrote:

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dickhole_mcghee wrote:

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

You are going to have to explain the relevance of your wiki review request to this thread before I could possibly respond?

Is that a question? I said you made a false dilemma. I linked to wiki rather than explain it. Apt responses include:

Plz explain why you think that is a false dilemma.

or

I don't think I made a false dilemma, here's why...

or

Oh, you're right, let me restate it.

...

Page 128 and we've actually regressed; before I explained how semiformal debate works but now i'm explaining how conversation works.

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Regulator wrote:

...

...feel free to give a direct answer to the question(s) asked above.

Aha. Lol. Oh my.

Thread has went full off-topic i suggest mods to close it and forget about this disgrace...

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eragon1111 wrote:

Thread has went full off-topic i suggest mods to close it and forget about this disgrace...

I suggest mods do the same with the labyrinth, as it went full off-topic on the gameplay and then we might forget about that digrace...

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eragon1111 wrote:

Thread has went full off-topic i suggest mods to close it and forget about this disgrace...

Wait what part is off-topic?

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rictiln wrote:

5400 is not that much HP???? The amount of HP you can get with 200% increased life, 200 strength and an average of 100 life on every piece of gear is ~6000. By the way, good lucking getting that much life on the right side of tree.

One shot mechanics do not make for true difficulty, but just frustration. A well designed, difficult piece of content is deadly, but allows you to react to what is happening. One shot mechanics do not allow you to react.

The zone level is 75 and the trials are in white and yellow maps. This means that the lab should be able to be handled relatively easily by builds capable of doing the higher tier yellow maps. If this is not supposed to be the case, then put the trials in red maps and make the zone level of the lab 85.

This is a mandatory piece of content to unlock the full power of a build, and MUST be actually possible for any build that can push into red maps to be able to complete. Anything short of that is bad design.

5400 is what I would expect for that level of character and this level of gearing, but not what I would expect is enough to do content similar to level 80 bosses, which despite the zone being level 75, it very much can be more difficult of a fight then even level 80 bosses.

Its quite funny people complain about good luck getting that much life, the point of ranged builds is to take advantage of your "Superior" range\movement speed, ect to not get hit. But the more important part is being able to actually have the mitigation to avoid the 1 shot scenario so you can either leech back up or pot back up before you get hit again. In no way do you need 6k life or even armor to do the fight, these sorts of things allow for more room for mistakes but on the other hand it doesn't enable you to play carelessly in the map level lab either.

The content is well designed because the 1 shot scenarios so far described are ones that the players have choices or influence in determining the outcome. Thats actually part of the beauty of the design of the lab is the ability for you to make it harder or easier based on your build and knowledge of the mechanics. For example the 1 shot stuff, described happening a day or two ago mainly had to do with the "charge" mechanic that the second stage provides, they are at min frenzy charges, but I believe they act as all charges or more then just additional damage for him. If you fail to properly remove the charges before that stage fight ends then you make him harder and likely down right impossible to do for an evasion build that will likely eventually get hit and have no mitigation.

I don't know if it was you or someone else that complained about getting 1 shot, but if your doing something like the uber lab, you likely shouldn't be using 3 life flask and 2 quicksilver flask. Plan your flask\items for the encounter, don't just think slapping on your speed farming setup will work in content designed to be challenging. There simply is no reason why an evasion character would need more then 1 quicksilver flask, there is also no reason why any build, aside from like EA, even then I'd argue if you needed 3 you should do something about it. 3 life flask is excessive, no matter how you look at it. If you look at each of the fights as multi staged progression you know you only have to have enough flask charges to mitigate the damage of that phase alone, however you need to also have the RAW mitigation during the same fight so you don't get 1 shot. Being an evasion character and going into his LONG ANIMATION, WITH SOUND EFFECTS, WIDEUP ATTACK without any physical mitigation at all is suicide.


As for saying the content is impossible without being armor or having more life, I can personally tell you that is bullshit. You want to know how I survive the fight? Basalt flask and move out of the way (behind him or out of the big melee aoe in front of him) I've recently found that using a decoy totem is also very helpful, especially in the last room where you only want to be in certain parts of the room to attack him (as the rest have traps or another things to worry about)

As for this being mandatory, its not. It enhances builds, you already get most of the power from the non map based versions and while they did increase the difficulty of the game to offset the power creep, they made no indication (and I've seen nothing personally) that indicates you NEED the additional 2 points from the map lab to do any content in the game, including red maps.

Keep in mind before you make such statements in the future people have been doing red maps since 2.0 without these ascendancy classes (more importantly these additional 2 points), while the various buffs were done to mobs to somewhat offset the general power creep, the fact that you or anyone would think its "mandatory" to do the content is a bit silly.

If I had to guess the number of players that complete the endgame lab in hardcore before level 90 is going to be sub 15%, maybe less, if that is true and hardcore players can progress further into maps to get better gear before going back and getting the last 2 points, then the same can be true for SC players that might be struggling with the lab, but not really with maps.

The only real ascendancy class that is "neutered" by not having the additional points is scion IMO, but I firmly believe scion is a very weak class and her benefits for lots of builds simply don't warrant losing the "pure" benefits that the other classes provide. In the case of the scion its more a passive tree point saver that slightly increases your life or DPS, in the case of other classes, they either increase your DPS or survivability.

The other beuty of the lab is that if you don't have a build that can do the challenge of the boss fights you can find someone that does. People will gladly carry your character (at least in SC or SC league) thru the lab, in exchange for some currency and maybe the ability to horde the treasure keys for themselves.

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A large percent of the time GGG will over tune new bosses and make them way more difficult for the level that they are at. This is their stated philosophy. It's easier to later reduce difficulty than to try to increase difficulty later. They have explicitly stated this. That doesn't mean that they will eventually reduce the difficulty but there's a chance that they will.

True, they can always reduce the difficulty of the bosses, but its very difficult to increase the difficulty of the bosses due to the way that players test the mechanics of the fights, ect.

I'm ok with players giving feedback about the fight, buts its important to note the difference between the lab from day to day and mechanic to mechanic. Its not like your comparing 2 maps with slightly different mods, the lab day to day can be on completely different difficulty scales. One day it can feel like a level 80 map or "impossible" the next the interactions can be really easy for your build.

I recommend anyone looking to do the lab to always checkout the daily thread on reddit, it explains the layout and list the different "mechanics", but you will need to search up some more information about those.

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A mess of walking in circles, dead ends, silver keys without doors to use them on. A waste of 2 hours or whatever it was. Certainly seemed like forever.

The layouts are posted on reddit daily, there is no reason to go into the challenge blind if you don't have to. If you truly spent 2 hours in the lab, I actually don't know what to say.

Do you just randomly go into content without the slightest clue on how to complete the challenge in every game?

I feel like this is a prime example of where someone is unwilling to educate themselves on the challenge before attempting and is frustrated at the lab, when they should be frustrated at themselves for not seeking out information first. The lab is a set of various challenges that can or cannot change daily, there is no reason to "just learn it on the fly" that will only frustrate the problem further.

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I continued to do the trials and ran the lab after that post. Was a life based lvl75 Blade Vortex build and managed to finish all of them and Izaro without any deaths because I had good flasks and ok equipment. Then I respecced to my current low-life build. Haven't said much since then because I don't really care about it anymore as I'm done. Still don't like it and I assume there's many more who will just keep quiet after they have their points until they have to do it again.

Is this just the 3 ones or have you done the "endgame lab" version too?



I think it will take a lot more days and combinations of the endgame lab before we can determine if its "too difficult", just right or if some of the things need buffed and others need nerfed (overall adjustments, ect)

I'll continue to try and be open to feedback, but some people in this post basically threw in the towel in frustration, rather then actually disliking the content. A prime example is people complaining about the "1 shots" that style of "challenge" wouldn't go away in various alternatives to the lab that still require the same bosss fight, so complaing about those isn't really "ops goal" he wants no traps or a way to not deal with the DOT traps.

This is not just a general "i hate the lab thread", despite it starting that way, hopefully it doesn't devolve to that again.

Seek out help if you need it, plan for the challenge or your planning to fail. Not every single piece of content in this game (aka endgame lab) is designed to be "easily achievable" by all characters in playstyles, you might have to sacrifice something or adjust something to do it.

Please guys can we keep the low effort jabs at a min (or not at all) and focus on helping each other?