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

I meant by that that they would not change the game too much from what they want to do, from what they have been doing from the start, and that they would still be satisfied with the content they produce (, you troll ) !

Maps are not fun you are mistaken. You play the exact same maps, with the exact same monsters and boss, with the exact same layout and clear it exactly the same every time. Its repetitive undynamically changing content that is unrewarding and through doing this process you have trained yourself mentally to enjoy it.

As a psychology graduate I look at things from a psychological standpoint. If you cant take yourself out of the picture and look at something for what it is, then your viewpoint is clouded.

Everything abou lab is superior to maps. Whether the fun is at start or finish, the fun is there. The difference is lab is more rewarding on top, while maps are not. The difference is lab changes every day, maps do not. The difference is boss difficulty can be scaled by your actions in lab, not possible in maps. The difference is drops are based on map level on maps, not in lab. The difference is maps can be cheesed with OP vaal skills and 6 portals to abuse flask usage, not in Lab.

Seems the only people who hate lab are softcore scrubs who dont evr want to learn the games mechanics and how to combat them. The only harcore complainers are players with lack of game knowledge to counter the issues presented for their build in lab.

Lab is great, compared to maps it is amazing. There are less than 200 people in the forums saying lab is bad, or they quit cause lab sucks. I do not see a change to lab or how ac points are gained, ever. I do enjoy these discussions though.

Besides lab is unfun, (for you personally) traps are not fair (could use some tuning), and lab shouldn't be forced ( to get ac points) there are no real valid reasons in this thread for why lab is unfun or is broken and needs balancing or fixing.

All suggestions stem from those 3 points. All that tells me is that players who dislike challenges that actually test their character will not like Lab. In tjat case I ask why you play this game at all. ARPG's are all about the loot, and having challenging content to test the gear you have. If there is no challenging content to match the progress you have made then the game has no point or goal. If you don't have fun collecting and obtaining lots of loot you should not be playing an arpg. Lab is the epitomy of what it means to be an arpg, granted maybe minus the traps which might make it feel more like a dungeon crawler.

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Fruz wrote:

I meant by that that they would not change the game too much from what they want to do, from what they have been doing from the start, and that they would still be satisfied with the content they produce (, you troll ) !

That too. (Why am I a troll? :P )

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Jgizle wrote:

Maps are not fun you are mistaken.

If you say so.

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thedestroyerofkids wrote:

I find this part to be very indicative of true problem with the game. Rewards are so scarce that even for those playing a few hours a day its not enough to experience any sort of real progress.

By my gaming schedule I am a casual player. I can only do an hour a night some days, and then 2 or more other days. Some days I don't even get to log in. Yet I achieved "progress". 29 challenges completed in Prophecy, a level 91 character in standard. And that was only since Fall of 2015. Your argument is broken by my very existence.

Jgizle is the king of irony.

Need to vent. Lab is still irritating as all hell.

So I got back to PoE recently since 2.2, having fun, totally impressed with Essences and Prophecies, enjoying my build, respecting the shit out of GGG, all that good stuff. Still only in Cruel, looking forward to hitting maps..etc.

Until I hit the Normal Lab... HOLY FUCK it is a frustrating mess. Completely out of tune with the rest of the game. Not talking about the fights, Izaro was a cakewalk. (I made sure I'm ridiculously overleveled.) The damn Lab itself. The navigation, the stupid traps. The LENGTH with no checkpoint.

I'm far from hardcore or anything, but I have a few hundred hours of playtime, I know about poelab.com etc. Let's say I'm a semi-casual "enthusiast". :) I just wonder how the hell the game retains any new players after they hit the Lab??

**AT LEAST PUT A WAYPOINT SOMEWHERE.**

I think most of the Ascendancy re-works are Gated behind either Wealth or Level. The only one that seemed good was the Gladitorial Arena where you fought waves of enemies and Exiles then 1 phase of Izaro and rinse and repeat until you kill 3rd phase Izaro.

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Ascendancy Points could also (labyrinth stays as is) be bought from Cadiro with coins 1k normal - 2k cruel - 4k merciless

First you would have to luck out and find Cadiro and then luck out and hopefully he has Ascendancy Points for sale which would make the points hard to get and you would randomly find him but not have the coins and you just lost out on Ascendancy Points. Gating it behind wealth and RNG.

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VI) New currency : Ascendancy Orb (i dont remember details on this one so ill suggest), rarity same as divines can drop only in 70+ maps, izaro has 100% chance to drop 1 (max) in mercilless only. It can work as 1 ascendancy point respec too. Labyrinthh stays as it is now.

So again Gating the Ascendancy Points by making them cost currency and only able to find them at 70+ maps and have the drop chance of a Divine which is a lucky drop. Currency cost because they would probably be Trade-able so they would gain a price from High level players and probably cost a few Chaos at least and you have to be mapping in 70+ level maps.

Now Ascension Method (VII) is a really cool one you get to fight in a Gladiator type arena and gain Ascendancy Points after killing 3rd phase Izaro personally the only one I wouldn't mind having.

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VIII)Account wide one time labyrinth completion after which other character gets ascendancy points as they complete entire acts.

Now this is very close to giving away Ascendancy Points, but it requires 1 Character to complete all of the Labyrinths and then Characters from there on out just have to complete Entire Acts for the points. It sounds nice, But then your getting rid of the Labyrinth after about a few weeks of the League being released. Then whats the whole point of the Labyrinth which is only to get Enchants without getting Ascendancy Points. Then you might as well just give us the Enchants Alter as Crafting bench and not even Have Labyrinth anymore and it would solve the whole problem of doing the Labyrinth. Thus making the game boring.

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IX)A prophecy chain - The Enlightened I, II, III. Completing the chain grants you 2 ascendancy points.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, it seems like you can just do labyrinth as normal and gain ascendancy points or wait until level 75 to maybe get "The Enlightened" Prophecy chain which you aren't always going to get when you seek Prophecies. Kind of redundant if you just do the Labyrinth and not be gated until level 75 to do get your Prophecies.

Ascension method (X) is weird also cause you either get a point from finding a full set of Divination cards to unlock an Ascendancy Point or do the Labyrinth again not making any sense. Also who wants to farm for those cards that aren't guaranteed to drop or better yet cost a lot of Chaos to buy just one card. Again just Gating the Content further.

As for Ascension method (XI) it's worthless cause some people won't be able either A: be able to do the event thus causing people not to be able to get a point or making it cost money to have someone do the event with you and gating the Content behind Wealth. I'm sure it's like master missions in where the Mission's reset each day and you can only complete it once to gain a point after that it's only worth it to the people that want to make currency on it and get paid to complete it for noobs.


Labyrinth Re-Works:

Method 1) It makes the Labyrinth even more Tedious which is what you and other people don't want it removes risk but doesn't change reward making labyrinth even less desirable.

Method 2) Again making Labyrinth longer and even more boring with adding more puzzles and Gold Doors which people hate it. Gold doors Technically add 3 more rooms to the whole Labyrinth cause you have to run through the gold door room to find the room for the gold key 1 room, then you have to run through the Gold key room to find the key and make it back to the Gold door room 2 rooms, then you have to run back through the gold door room and make it to the next room making a total of 3 rooms added to your whole labyrinth run and making it really boring and extremely Tedious. Second of all adding more puzzles, that's adding more time spent trying to complete a puzzle then actually running through traps to get to the next Aspirants trial.

Method 3) Sounds really good but gates people who don't have much currency to disable traps and having to either farm for currency to disable traps but not guaranteeing that you even finish the lab thus having to farm for even more currency to disable traps again, further gating poor people from safely running through lab.

Method 4) would be really cool but how does the portal system work is it like a Waypoint system or what. Does it only work in the first Aspirants Trial or all of them. forfeiting reward for a Checkpoint that still lets you get Ascendancy Points, but then running it's only really worth it to people who want to profit off of doing Lab Rushes which could be fun and increase player Interaction which is needed more in the game.

Method 5) doesn't show the photo and I can't get to the photo so idk.

Method 6) is my favorite cause it allows you to destroy the traps as your running through the Lab sort of like Uber lab where you can destroy the Totem things and keeping the whole lab experience the same.

All in all these are good ideas but they seem for the most part like your adding to the Labyrinths run time and making it worse or your gating people behind currency or level, or your getting rid of doing the labyrinth all together. To me the Labyrinth is a great piece of the game, once you make it act 4 usually for me. I will finish the "An Indomitable Spirit" I usually am strong enough to do the labyrinth aside from merc lab which I usually grind till level 70+ to do it or pay someone to rush me through it. The labyrinth is a part of the game that allows people to gain Ascendancy points through heavy risk and Strong reward. You either do the Labyrinth and gain your 2 Ascendancy Points or you don't do lab and don't get the Points or the Enchantments. The first Lab in Normal is great because once you finish it you Ascend and get to then choose a Subclass of the class your in and gain really strong passive properties that make your character stronger and it required you to finish the lab and do the trials, sure GGG made it to where you only have to finish the trials once on each difficulty in each act so you don't have to do them again but you still need to finish the Lab to gain the points and the Enchants.

Appreciate the feedback fat2slow, just have in mind that EVERY suggestion (except the very first one) mentioned ALSO keeps the ascendancy option inside the lab. So literally there is no change to the current system, only addition of more options to ascend, and yes many seem (and actually ARE) more punishing than the lab but thats indended in order to keep those happy with the current system happy plus to not make lab obsolete by indroducing much easier ways to ascend.

Also keep in mind that besides Ascendancy points the merci and uber lab offer way to many rewards in the form of loot for their difficulty level so even if some of the suggestions that make getting AP easier were to be implemented there would still be many reasons to run (and jump) in the platform format aka labyrinth.

This thread is about alternatives, more options for those who literally cant stand the arcade playstyle, wont run it as currently is or straight up hate the whole thing and the way its implemented. For all the rest who actually like it or got used doing it and they dont mind it now, things remain EXACTLY the same. Some suggestions even inventivize people to run it (orb farming for example or divination card farming) so in general not only the additional options have no negative whatsoever but they will have positive effect for the lab and the game in general (less toxicity and divisive content).

7 months later this guy still crying, ROFL.