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

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NeroNoah wrote:

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

I would be saying that if the points were a higher level reward. And personally I'm against making the lab itself any easier.

If the points are a low level reward, why would you care then? They are powerful and you care, or they are weak and you don't.

Their power and how valuable they are varies with where the character is in its development. The more higher level rewards a character has the less those low level points matter but if you're a character with fewer higher level rewards those points make more of an impact. Just because they are low level rewards that are designed to help the player get higher level rewards doesn't mean they have to matter once you get higher level rewards and that doesn't mean they didn't matter while you were getting those higher level rewards.

I dislike the labyrinth because the game play is boring to me. I never died in the labyrinth. It is not about it being to hard or easy, just boring. It is boring and tedious instead of fun.

Here's a description of my labyrinth experience.

My First Run of the Labyrinth
I ran around the labyrinth for about 15 minutes. After my inventory was full and I had run around in big circles a few times I thought, "This is like Mario or Prince of Persia not PoE. I hate Mario and Prince and Persia! This is so boring and uninteresting, I'm not spending anymore effort trying to figure out what to do. Whatever it is that I'm actually supposed to be doing will be more of this same boring traps nonsense that I've been dealing with for the past 15 minutes. I've apparently killed all the monsters so there is no more fun stuff only those boring traps. There is no end in sight so I'm just quitting."

Can I Ignore the Labyrinth?
I thought maybe I can just ignore the labyrinth. I researched Ascendancy Points and read through a few "canned" build descriptions that had been updated for Ascendancy. My conclusion, I had to do the labyrinth or find another game to play. I had played PoE almost everyday for almost two years. PoE is a fantastic game that is in general lots of fun. I don't want to find another game to play, I'm going to have to do the labyrinth.

My Second Run of the Labyrinth
I ran around the labyrinth for about 15 minutes. After I'd run around in a few big circles, I thought, "This game is even worse than Mario and Prince of Persia. At least in those crappy games it is clear how to make progress. This tedious boring nonsense is not worth it. It isn't even interesting enough for me to want to figure out where I'm supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do! It definitely is not fun. I'm going to have to find a different game to play."

What was the most fun part of my labyrinth experience
The most fun part of my labyrinth experience was taking my character back through the PoE content to find and do the six trials. The trials themselves weren't really fun to me but I didn't mind them because they were short and over with quickly. Edit: going back to do the trials is no longer necessary. My understanding is that GGG "bestowed" all high level characters with ascendancy, meaning you can skip the trials and go straight to the Merciless labyrinth and on completion use your six ascendancy points.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Your flawed argument is that Ascension is not optional. It is. You can get to any endgame content, Core maps, Utziri, etc, without Ascending.

Cruel Malachai is not optional; he blocks your further progress. Merciless Malachai is optional; he doesn't.

Both Ascendancy classes and trade are optional. Both are also optimal. The best answer is to choose both. But the real question I'm asking is: if you could only choose one, which is more powerful?

I'm asking it rhetorically. Trade is. (In part because there is no theoretical situation wherein you or anyone else has infinite time.)

No, Ascendancy wins because it is optional if you're playing optimal and you have an infinite amount of time you can still accomplish anything in the game. Anuhart has proven this as well as many other people who solo self found all the way into red tier maps (which has been done, it's just that it typically can't happen in a temporary league).

Trading just merely decreases the amount of time it takes to take a character to a certain power level. Ascendancies are massive power increases that double or triple the effectiveness of your character. And no, Ascendancies are not optional; that's like saying AoE is optional in this game. Trading is totally optional. Neither AoE or Ascendancies are not, especially with the oncoming changes or additions to the game that will occur to counteract player power creep.


I don't even know why I'm arguing with someone who doesn't even actually play this game.

Well, since I do indeed play this game much, much less than you do, I would expect you'd accept the following challenge: any league start, let's race. The conditions are that you cannot trade (honor system, I guess), while I can trade but cannot Ascend (much easier to verify). Highest level wins. SC or HC, makes no difference.

Just let me know via PM 24 hours prior, and allow at least a week of race time.

I have every confidence that the Labyrinth is more "optional" than trading.

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Pyrokar wrote:

The labyrinth favours glasscannon builds. Sid has no idea what he is talking about. Just ignore him.

No it just favors people who can pay attention and move a mouse correctly.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Well, since I do indeed play this game much, much less than you do, I would expect you'd accept the following challenge: any league start, let's race. The conditions are that you cannot trade (honor system, I guess), while I can trade but cannot Ascend (much easier to verify). Highest level wins. SC or HC, makes no difference.

Just let me know via PM 24 hours prior, and allow at least a week of race time.

I have every confidence that the Labyrinth is more "optional" than trading.

See, this is how I know you've lost your argument. When you result to having to challenge people on a forum, you just made the case that you're actually awful.


Do realize that the last league I was in the top 50 rankings within the first week completely solo self found. I didn't trade at all until I needed to upgrade my bow which wasn't until I had hit like 80 and that was the only piece of gear that I traded for. Everything else was totally on my own. And the Bow was only when I had already given up on pushing any further into the league.

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allbusiness wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Well, since I do indeed play this game much, much less than you do, I would expect you'd accept the following challenge: any league start, let's race. The conditions are that you cannot trade (honor system, I guess), while I can trade but cannot Ascend (much easier to verify). Highest level wins. SC or HC, makes no difference.

Just let me know via PM 24 hours prior, and allow at least a week of race time.

I have every confidence that the Labyrinth is more "optional" than trading.

See, this is how I know you've lost your argument. When you result to having to challenge people on a forum, you just made the case that you're actually awful.


Do realize that the last league I was in the top 50 rankings within the first week completely solo self found. I didn't trade at all until I needed to upgrade my bow which wasn't until I had hit like 80 and that was the only piece of gear that I traded for. Everything else was totally on my own. And the Bow was only when I had already given up on pushing any further into the league.

Shouldn't be too hard to do that challange then?

Also it is likely very different for certain builds. My Assassin Sparker utilizing Spark, Volls and 7 power charges gets his DPS doubled by his 4 ascendancy points (the next to actually do nothing at all, so I dont really care). My Trapper gets almost nothing from them. But then again the Sparker was made having the ascendancy in mind, while the trapper is just my old character reacreated and he worked fine last league and he does now.

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I thought maybe I can just ignore the labyrinth. I researched Ascendancy Points and read through a few "canned" build descriptions that had been updated for Ascendancy. My conclusion, I had to do the labyrinth or find another game to play. I had played PoE almost everyday for almost two years. PoE is a fantastic game that is in general lots of fun. I don't want to find another game to play, I'm going to have to do the labyrinth.

Well the best guess here is just to look up the layout. If you google just "labyrinth today march 20 pathofexile" you find todays (or yesterdays, depending on the timezone) labyrinth. With this layout avaible traversing the labyrinth is really easy and there aren't many traps you actually have to cross. Today I think there are 4 trap segments you actually have to cross, but there was a layout two days ago or so that even only required 3 segments to be crossed and one of it was just a bit of burning ground you have to walk over (ideally when it is not hot :P). So if you really just want to get over with the labyrinth use a lvl1 LW look at the trap setup and just jump over it, there are only a few that don't make that possible.

Before there are any missunderstandings. I don't count single poison darts or some random sawblades you can just walk around as traps. It is actually harder to get hit by them then to not get hit by them. The Trap gauntlets usually consist of at least 2 types of traps mixed together with only very few safe spots. Even some of the traps protecting golden keys are hard to count since you actually just have to walk over them, it doesn't really matter if they hit you.

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Emphasy wrote:

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I thought maybe I can just ignore the labyrinth. I researched Ascendancy Points and read through a few "canned" build descriptions that had been updated for Ascendancy. My conclusion, I had to do the labyrinth or find another game to play. I had played PoE almost everyday for almost two years. PoE is a fantastic game that is in general lots of fun. I don't want to find another game to play, I'm going to have to do the labyrinth.

Well the best guess here is just to look up the layout. If you google just "labyrinth today march 20 pathofexile" you find todays (or yesterdays, depending on the timezone) labyrinth. With this layout avaible traversing the labyrinth is really easy and there aren't many traps you actually have to cross. Today I think there are 4 trap segments you actually have to cross, but there was a layout two days ago or so that even only required 3 segments to be crossed and one of it was just a bit of burning ground you have to walk over (ideally when it is not hot :P). So if you really just want to get over with the labyrinth use a lvl1 LW look at the trap setup and just jump over it, there are only a few that don't make that possible.

Before there are any missunderstandings. I don't count single poison darts or some random sawblades you can just walk around as traps. It is actually harder to get hit by them then to not get hit by them. The Trap gauntlets usually consist of at least 2 types of traps mixed together with only very few safe spots. Even some of the traps protecting golden keys are hard to count since you actually just have to walk over them, it doesn't really matter if they hit you.

Thanks for the suggestion, I don't know if that option was even available when I was trying to run the labyrinth, at least I didn't know about it. Perhaps it would have been different at that point in time but now looking up "today's layout" on the internet seems pretty lame to me. The very fact that "today's layout" has to be posted and referenced by people wanting to run through the labyrinth seems to indicate that there is a major flaw in the labyrinth design. Wouldn't you agree? To me that seems similar to using alt-F4 to avoid dying. Not that I have any problem with other people using alt-F4 or looking up "today's layout" for the labyrinth. I'm a firm believer in the position that as long as a player is having fun then he's playing the game correctly. I really do appreciate your thoughtful suggestions though!

Perhaps I'll give more thought to your suggestion when/if I'm ready to start playing PoE again. (I'm playing XCOM2 right now. I hope that maybe in six months or a year, after I tire of XCOM2 that GGG will have "fixed" things by then? If not, I'll reconsider your suggestion. Of course, if GGG has turned PoE into another Tomb Raider or something by then, I won't be interested in the least. So, problem solved permanently.)

Regards

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

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NeroNoah wrote:

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

I would be saying that if the points were a higher level reward. And personally I'm against making the lab itself any easier.

If the points are a low level reward, why would you care then? They are powerful and you care, or they are weak and you don't.

Their power and how valuable they are varies with where the character is in its development. The more higher level rewards a character has the less those low level points matter but if you're a character with fewer higher level rewards those points make more of an impact. Just because they are low level rewards that are designed to help the player get higher level rewards doesn't mean they have to matter once you get higher level rewards and that doesn't mean they didn't matter while you were getting those higher level rewards.

I disagree. I think they are powerful at any level after using some of them. But it's subjective (except things like Permafortify, those are objectively powerful at any level), so meh.

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Turtledove wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion, I don't know if that option was even available when I was trying to run the labyrinth, at least I didn't know about it. Perhaps it would have been different at that point in time but now looking up "today's layout" on the internet seems pretty lame to me. The very fact that "today's layout" has to be posted and referenced by people wanting to run through the labyrinth seems to indicate that there is a major flaw in the labyrinth design. Wouldn't you agree?

I don't know, without those tools I find my way easily. I think that's because I have played too much Metroid, :P. The today's layout is mostly for farming, and someone has to figure it out first. Also, it's as bad of a design as having to use a wiki to learn mechanics. I don't think it's a major flaw in design, actually is easier to figure out compared to mechanics.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

This will fall on a deaf ears I am afraid. People will just come and claim how they are not mandatory at all, how you can play the game the same way and beat it without them(even though doing so ignores almost the entirety of the so called "expansion") and how only the chosen ones can acquire them. So keep preaching.

Are you serious? If you can't pass a labyrinth with predictable traps and kill a predictable boss then you don't deserve them anyway.