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

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The_Reporter wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

I don't doubt this one bit. However, it unfortunately can't really be considered very valid data. The problem is that when doing polling it can be extremely tricky to get accurate results unless more formalized methods are used. For example, I've asked about a half dozen the question. All responses indicated that they hated it. The details are though that actually one person asked me and he hated it. The "question" I asked the other five was really along the lines of, "Sorry I can't trade now, I'm in labyrinth and hate it.". Two responded with sympathy they didn't like it either and three didn't respond. The point being that this kind of information is classic anecdotal that is prone to subjective opinion interpretation.

I agree that it is.

However, it's still a better metric than the information GGG has.

How do you know how many people have emailed GGG saying they like or dislike the lab? How about how many people they've talked to personally when they go out on meetups and press tours? Stop pretending you have more information than GGG. You interact with hundreds of people. Maybe. They interact with thousands.

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The_Reporter wrote:

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mark1030 wrote:

How do you know how many people have emailed GGG saying they like or dislike the lab? How about how many people they've talked to personally when they go out on meetups and press tours? Stop pretending you have more information than GGG. You interact with hundreds of people. Maybe. They interact with thousands.

GGG might not even know how many people have emailed them about the labyrinth. They might have started tossing them into the bin or have a dedicated employee just to sort and toss away anything lab related.

Who knows?

That's the point. Not even THEY know.

Just to be clear - are you claiming that they do not know what they are doing with the emails they receive?

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The_Reporter wrote:

Not entirely.

I'm saying if the emails contain things they'd rather not hear about, or if they come from specific senders, they may be tossed.

well of course they may. Or they may not. We don't know that.

But they certainly do.

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The_Reporter wrote:

GGG might not even know how many people have emailed them about the labyrinth. They might have started tossing them into the bin or have a dedicated employee just to sort and toss away anything lab related.

I have no idea if GGG keeps track of numbers of e-mails on particular topics (or if any feedback on this forum ever reaches the devs through the moderators who are making sure that the non-supporter-pack-posters don't engage in personal attacks). But Chris did comment (39:58) back in his original post-ascendancy podcast (before GGG apparently put a moratorium on any discussion about the unpopularity of the lab) that:

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I get a lot of e-mails asking for new methods to get ascendancy points that bypass the labyrinth

They certainly have a lot of detailed statistics on how often people run the lab, how much time people spend in the lab, how many characters run the lab regularly, when people ascend, etc. etc. The fact that they haven't publically released any statistics since right after ascendancy (when they hoped, optimistically, that time spent in the lab would go up) does suggest that the statistics might not look good.

However...

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Who knows?

That's the point. Not even THEY know.

...those statistics do not tell them how many people like the lab and how many are only running it for the ascendancy points (and other ridiculously good rewards).

To repeat a point I've made before: When Blizzard finally recognized that the auction houses had really hurt D3 and removed them (a difficult issue for trading in PoE also...), Jay Wilson commented that they had no idea how many players liked the system or hated it, despite the fact that nearly every one of the game's players made use of the auction houses. GGG has got themselves in a similar situation by forcing people to play through the lab to get their ascendancy points.

I hope GGG come to their senses in 3.0, although it's all but certain that they won't.

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ShaUrley wrote:

I have no idea if GGG keeps track of numbers of e-mails on particular topics (or if any feedback on this forum ever reaches the devs through the moderators who are making sure that the non-supporter-pack-posters don't engage in personal attacks). But Chris did comment (39:58) back in his original post-ascendancy podcast (before GGG apparently put a moratorium on any discussion about the unpopularity of the lab) that:

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I get a lot of e-mails asking for new methods to get ascendancy points that bypass the labyrinth

They certainly have a lot of detailed statistics on how often people run the lab, how much time people spend in the lab, how many characters run the lab regularly, when people ascend, etc. etc. The fact that they haven't publicly released any statistics since right after ascendancy (when they hoped, optimistically, that time spent in the lab would go up) does suggest that the statistics might not look good.

I guess that I should have sent them an email that they should move the ascendancy points out of labyrinth?

I think your last sentence is a very important point. Regulator likes to point out that GGG did initially include some information on amount of labyrinth play and seemed to indicate that they would continue providing the same information in the future but that they never did.