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

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

I know the devs were going for a "Rogue-like" theme here, but their audience never asked for that and clearly doesn't want it. There's a fine balance between making the game you want to make and making one your players want to play.

Yes. There is a fine line. To be fair, GGG has stated many times that they are making first and foremost a game THEY like to play. Your argument here holds no water unfortunately. The design decisions they have made have always been about making a game then enjoy...and they're happy if others enjoy it as well...but they know not everyone else will.

Going down this path of reasoning won't win you any points in this debate.

P.S. I'm neither for or against the lab. It's kinda meh to me...but i don't mind it as much as some of you. Just pointing out that you're assumption that GGG is making a game for that the players want is an incorrect one.

"

Prisus wrote:

"

Albinosaurus wrote:

I know the devs were going for a "Rogue-like" theme here, but their audience never asked for that and clearly doesn't want it. There's a fine balance between making the game you want to make and making one your players want to play.

Yes. There is a fine line. To be fair, GGG has stated many times that they are making first and foremost a game THEY like to play. Your argument here holds no water unfortunately. The design decisions they have made have always been about making a game then enjoy...and they're happy if others enjoy it as well...but they know not everyone else will.

Going down this path of reasoning won't win you any points in this debate.

P.S. I'm neither for or against the lab. It's kinda meh to me...but i don't mind it as much as some of you. Just pointing out that you're assumption that GGG is making a game for that the players want is an incorrect one.

Go watch any interviews with Chris and it's clear that you're wrong here. They do understand that if they don't produce a game that people want to play, they can't afford to keep producing anything. The problem is that they have trouble identifying what that is.

"

A few whinny people don't want the rougelike experience and will stop at nothing to bump the topic, that doesn't mean a large or significant portion of players don't or aren't ok with it.

It doesn't mean they are either. Will you never let go of that fallacious bullshit? This is why you have no credibility with most of us here. Your only tactics are personal attacks and bad logic.

Not that you possess the capacity to understand why Steam charts are valid indicators of the general playerbase, but you might be interested to know that only 1 month into this league has the player base down to almost the lowest point that it was at the end of last league. I'm not claiming that all of that is due to Labs, but GGG have definitely fallen short this time around.

Maybe Lab was more interesting when it was brand new, but it has worn out its welcome. Prophecies were an interesting idea with bad implementation. People are still suffering burnout because of having three difficulties to chew through and no alternate leveling options. Crafting RNG is still abysmal, and people are tired of not having proper in-game trade tools. The attitude that this game is somehow a competition fatigues people with the constant community hostility. The difficulty design trying to counter the meta alienates non-meta builds--it's especially egregious to newer players. Feeling forced to take a minimum number of life/es nodes effectively restricts the passive tree in an unfun way. Anti-social gameplay elements make the game feel like a single player game with trade tacked on.

The list goes on, and many of these have been issues for a long time that were never addressed.

Also, obligatory "no u" to ensure the quality of my posts matches yours. Want to keep the playing field even and all that.

"

goetzjam wrote:

The lab doesn't take 45 min because people have proven it doesn't take 45 min. You honestly can't sit here and tell me that anyone in this thread should take 45 min to do the lab. If so record a run and show me it takes you that long, I know you won't because you can't make a legit attempt at doing so, without making yourself look like a fool or exploring every single square inch of the lab.

If someone plays labyrinth over and over you will learn all the trap behaviors etc.. If one only goes into the labyrinth to ascend their character then when they come up to a trap they need to stop and study the pattern, assuming their build can't just bulldoze through. Plus the few times I've done the labyrinth it was just after 5:00 pm. The Master daily missions and labyrinth are reset at 5:00 pm in my time zone. This meant a daily layout for the labyrinth would not be available. Looking at the old map it appeared to me likely that I would need to do a few runs using the daily layout anyway before I could learn to fully and accurately interpret the good clues that seem to be in the daily layout anyway. Also, I suspect that most people never visit the forums or reddit and so don't even know about the daily layout. For these reasons people running enchants or races can easily get below 20 minutes. However, that does not mean that it is reasonable to expect people that only go into the labyrinth for ascendancy runs could be expected to do it much faster than 45 minutes. That's my experience and looking at the normal and cruel labyrinth ladders it seems to support that. I do notice that over the past month or two the median does seem to have improved by 5 minutes or so. That could be due to a lower percentage of ascendancy runs or people slowly improving as they ascend more characters? The reason I think it best to look at the normal and cruel times is that there are fewer enchant and racing runs with a higher percentage of ascendancy runs on the normal and cruel ladders.

"

Turtledove wrote:

"

goetzjam wrote:

The lab doesn't take 45 min because people have proven it doesn't take 45 min. You honestly can't sit here and tell me that anyone in this thread should take 45 min to do the lab. If so record a run and show me it takes you that long, I know you won't because you can't make a legit attempt at doing so, without making yourself look like a fool or exploring every single square inch of the lab.

If someone plays labyrinth over and over you will learn all the trap behaviors etc.. If one only goes into the labyrinth to ascend their character then when they come up to a trap they need to stop and study the pattern, assuming their build can't just bulldoze through. Plus the few times I've done the labyrinth it was just after 5:00 pm. The Master daily missions and labyrinth are reset at 5:00 pm in my time zone. This meant a daily layout for the labyrinth would not be available. Looking at the old map it appeared to me likely that I would need to do a few runs using the daily layout anyway before I could learn to fully and accurately interpret the good clues that seem to be in the daily layout anyway. Also, I suspect that most people never visit the forums or reddit and so don't even know about the daily layout. For these reasons people running enchants or races can easily get below 20 minutes. However, that does not mean that it is reasonable to expect people that only go into the labyrinth for ascendancy runs could be expected to do it much faster than 45 minutes. That's my experience and looking at the normal and cruel labyrinth ladders it seems to support that. I do notice that over the past month or two the median does seem to have improved by 5 minutes or so. That could be due to a lower percentage of ascendancy runs or people slowly improving as they ascend more characters? The reason I think it best to look at the normal and cruel times is that there are fewer enchant and racing runs with a higher percentage of ascendancy runs on the normal and cruel ladders.

The trials are designed to show you how the traps work, they are literally there so you know how to interact with the traps. You must complete these before you can do the lab.

If the resets are at 5pm your time and you aren't confortable running the lab without knowing the layouts then plan around that. Typically if you navigate the zone to the top right you will eventually get to where you need to go. Golden doors always have the room to get the key to the left of it.

Like I said before, if people don't know about the content they should learn. You don't rush into a map without knowing what a map boss is or does do you? At least you shouldn't and expect to live thru the challenge.

Google poe lab or labyrinth poe and you will see it as first\second result. Again the information in this game isn't shoved down your throat.


Can you say that it takes you 45 min to do the lab now?

"

Casual_Ascent wrote:

[Removed by Support], you need to try eating some poop.

If you don't like the poop and eat it too slowly, keep eating poop until you get faster at eating it. You'll truly love poop eventually. I promise.

I know that you've been 4 years of eating only steak and potatoes, but for only 15 minutes at a time, each day eat some poop. It's only 15 minutes of your day. Don't be lazy and eat the poop.

What? It takes you 45 minutes to eat some poop? Well, eat poop for a couple hours for a few weeks and before you know it, it will take less than 20 minutes to eat poop and you'll begin to enjoy it too!

Not gonna lie, this cracked me up.

+1

"

goetzjam wrote:

You realize there are 4 zones in which you are completely safe in?

The 3 zones right before the boss, which has access to stash and the very last zone which has access to sash and the extras. People can literally afk in various parts of the lab and be safe, so to say it takes longer because some people have done just that is funny as shit.

Lets not also forget that some players won't seek out knowledge on how to complete the lab, so naturally they will take longer or some people want to explore everything. I wish it was rewarding to do so, but even the uber lab sometimes isn't worth going all over the place.

The lab doesn't take 45 min because people have proven it doesn't take 45 min. You honestly can't sit here and tell me that anyone in this thread should take 45 min to do the lab. If so record a run and show me it takes you that long, I know you won't because you can't make a legit attempt at doing so, without making yourself look like a fool or exploring every single square inch of the lab.

Again you are interpreting things like you want. You presented the ladder as proof, it shows that some people need 45min+ and now you say these people had no knowledge. Please present some proof that these players had no knowledge, otherwise your whole argumentation is just bad. And just because some people dont need 45 minutes doesnt mean everyone needs less then 45 minutes. Please stop using your videos as proof, because those are made by people who play poe all day...

So yes, you still can't prove that Chris meant initial runs. There are enough people who still need 40+ minutes to finish the lab, if you like it or not.

"

goetzjam wrote:

This largely has nothing to do specifically with the topic at hand, so I'm going to spoiler it so you can see the response but people viewing this thread for what it is won't need to see it.

GGG lost track of that balance when they caved to constant complains from a casual playerbase that wants to make the game easier and easier. Similarly your very topic is in line with the same line of thought, especially with stuff like "behind malachai" as if that would somehow be more challenging.

You make it seem like the lab isn't worth doing if AC wasn't behind it, I'd argue that is partly correct, but its THE reward that people do to get the points. Its like saying that boss specific uniques shouldn't be gated behind bosses or that people would kill voll in dried lake if he didn't drop the div card, no people wouldn't care to do those challenges if the reward for doing so wasn't tied to them anymore.

They are nerfing CoC or at least changing it in such a way to be less powerful, Chris confirmed changes. EQ shouldn't be touched at all, every single melee skill needs to be brought up to that level of good before EQ needs touched because even EQ is mediocre when compared to spells or other abilities. GGG tried the whole just nerf the top melee skill with cyclone after 2.1, you know where that left us. They aren't going to make the same mistake with EQ.


GGG does not care about the original beginning players anymore then they care about another group of players, this is simply a fact. They aren't even designing temp leagues to be similar to the ones we used to have, but having less invasive and more optional content in temp leagues. Not trying to be a smartass here, but I don't see any of the recent fancy supporter tags next to your name, so I'm assuming you haven't supported them in a while financially, so why would they possibly make content changes for people that no longer give them money?

It had something to do with the thread and your argumentation. You say that there is no rewarding experience if you put AC points behind Malachai, becuase content can be facerolled. But that's because the story content is just to easy (except merc malachai). If they would make the story content challanging, then AC points behind Malachai could feel very rewarding and the good thing is, players could achieve them with the classic playstyle.

And my suggestion isn't meant to make things easier. Just different. I already said that those rooms, that are filled with monsters, could have random map mods (like reflec) and therefore the player had to plan ahead. This would consume time and make the alternative lab very dangerous, but it would be perfectly in line with the classic gameplay.

"

goetzjam wrote:

Thats because this is the largest thread in number and views, honestly I rather people abandon this shithole of a thread and actually hop over to yours, as it is not only a good start of a solution but the one that is most likely to happen.

Yeah, that's where we think alike I guess. Flaming doesn't contribute much to a topic and this thread is full of that. If you would delete all flame posts, this thread would have 20 pages at max, lol.

"

goetzjam wrote:

People get all butthurt about finishing the storyline, who really fucking cares its an ARPG game that has endgame content you have access to without completing the last boss in the last act. GGG is allowed to keep that content harder because not everyone has to do it.

People that say the statement that the lab is a failure because the only reason why people do it is for the reward is just funny as shit to me. You mean you wouldn't do content if it didn't have a reward in an ARPG game.

LOL

I do content that is fun to me. For example: Atziri is extremely good content. It's in line with the classic PoE gameplay, but it's super hard. I never did Atziri and I will probably never kill her. I just dont have the time and patience to level and gear up my characters to a point so that I would stand a chance against her. And I would also need some tries first and for that a standard charatcer would be best. But since I dont play standard, Atziri will be out of question. BUT it's optional! And if I ever seek a bigger challange in PoE, it's there and I bet killing her is alot of fun. Lab on the other side will never be fun for me, no matter what kind of reward they would put behind the Lab.

A game is supposed to be fun and if you add content that will probably not be liked by many, you should try to make it 100% optional (like Atziri).

"

goetzjam wrote:

It is a fun experience for those that know how to play it, for those that look past their own selfish view of what the game "should be". You aren't the designers of the game, stop acting like it and either enjoy the game or don't.

And there you are wrong. Like I said: many here (including me) finished the lab multiple times now, all alone. Some of those runs were also pretty smooth and I managed 25 minutes once (a good time for me). But do you think I enjoyed it? No, because I dont play PoE to predict and dodge traps, which ignore the majority of my build defining stats/skills.

"

goetzjam wrote:

Get GGG to post that those 45 min ones are not people that just afk in a zone and I'll accept some people are really slow.

I think anyone that views themselves as capable of playing this game through to the endgame maps should be able to do the labs in a reasonable amount of time.

Like I said: There are m any factors that influence speed:

- Character build
- Map layout
- Internet connection
- League (hardcore vs. standard)
- Player skill/knowledge

I once bought a rush and that took 30 minutes. The leader wasn't really slow. But the layout was just extremely unlucky. Now guess how long it will take for people who are not playing lab ever day and only do it occasionaly for the AC points.

"

goetzjam wrote:

You said you like to explore the content and all of that, take your time or what have you, if you know that the lab needs to be done in 1 run without dropping connection you don't do these things. I don't think that even if they had a less trap like lab that it wouldn't need to be completed all at once either.

I'm still not sure what you want to tell me with that. Are yous uggesting I should avoid the Lab or what?

"

goetzjam wrote:

The 6c for uber lab is the same price you would have to do if you did it yourself, given that the offering goes for that much really on its own. People will do rushes just for the "free piece" essentially, so it cost you nothing to do.

So 9c, which isn't that much. You can't tell me that players can't comeup with that, even the smaller currency you find when leveling will provide more then enough for the lab runs and enough to have you buy a few pieces of cheap gear.

Depends on your build. Like I said: You are not the avarage. I bet you have many exalts or hudnreds of chaos in your inventory. I bought a death harp (the upgraded version) yesterday for 25c (was 5linked) and now I'm at 2C down again. I only play 1-2 hours a day, so it's also hard to sell stuff (people can't contant me when I'm not online, lol). So making currency is not so easy for me. And I think other working people have the same problem.

"

Casual_Ascent wrote:

[Removed by Support], you need to try eating some poop.

If you don't like the poop and eat it too slowly, keep eating poop until you get faster at eating it. You'll truly love poop eventually. I promise.

I know that you've been 4 years of eating only steak and potatoes, but for only 15 minutes at a time, each day eat some poop. It's only 15 minutes of your day. Don't be lazy and eat the poop.

What? It takes you 45 minutes to eat some poop? Well, eat poop for a couple hours for a few weeks and before you know it, it will take less than 20 minutes to eat poop and you'll begin to enjoy it too!

laughed so hard. :P

Ace, this game is his job, so he thinks everyone has the same amount of time to play it--or that they even want to--as much as he does. He doesn't listen. He has no capacity for empathy, so he can't understand why others disagree with him so much. The things he says, and says he does, would lead me to think he's possibly autistic (and not in the put-down way), and he's a blinded by fanboyism to the point that logic no longer applies. You would have an easier time getting through a brick wall with a broken toothbrush handle than getting through to him.

Honestly, there's not much point in trying to engage him on an intellectual level. I don't know if people just find it fun to go back and forth with him, but I rarely see anything constructive from his posts, and I have seen many threads get derailed by his nonsense. He's not alone in this, but he's there probably more than most.

I suppose it does keep topics bumped, but that's about the only good thing that comes of it.