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

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raics wrote:

Right, none, there's no single or multistage encounter I can think of that would be equivalent to trials + traps + triple linked boss fight. They could allow themselves to have a less challenging boss fight that any decent build can do because other parts of the package make up for it.

It's very hard to argue that the Normal labyrinth is more challenging than killing the Shaper...

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Erasculio wrote:

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raics wrote:

Right, none, there's no single or multistage encounter I can think of that would be equivalent to trials + traps + triple linked boss fight. They could allow themselves to have a less challenging boss fight that any decent build can do because other parts of the package make up for it.

It's very hard to argue that the Normal labyrinth is more challenging than killing the Shaper...

Uber lab is much easier than Shaper as well...

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raics wrote:

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Erasculio wrote:

The real question is, which encounters? What is already in the game that is comparable in difficulty to doing each of the four labyrinths?

Right, none, there's no single or multistage encounter I can think of that would be equivalent to trials + traps + triple linked boss fight. They could allow themselves to have a less challenging boss fight that any decent build can do because other parts of the package make up for it.

Well, precise equivalence is not a realistic goal. But the most approximately equivalent encounter is Malachai, since it requires the killing of three mini-bosses before you can even get to him. Some of those mini-bosses in Merciless can be challenging, too, if you have a poorly made and/or equipped character.

There is no Labyrinth or trap gauntlets, granted, but I think most of us agree that that part of the game is not that hard, and in fact trivial with a bit of practice. It fits quite squarely into your "annoyance" category. Personally, I'd rather content be locked behind RNG than behind annoyance. (Yes, some people find having to wait for content--RNG--to be annoying, but like you I consider actively annoying content to be distinct in nature. And much, much worse.)

Now, Malachai is a bad solution, for the reasons I stated above, but if the final boss of Act V has a similar structure, requiring the killing of smaller bosses to get to him, it could be approximately equivalent in challenge to the Labyrinth. More importantly, it could feature the kind of gameplay all of us love: Killing monsters and looting.

The Main Issues and some solutions:

* Disconnects causing start-over. (and massive wastes of time)
1 solution: a labyrinth alternative doesn't require zone changes, or allows multiple attempts/portals. This is the problem I encountered. This would make it more tolerable.

Alternative solution in the current labyrinth: If there could be waypoints AFTER each Izaro battle, that saved his end-of-battle state until your next battle with him, disconnects would always bring you back to a point before the battle began, thus even if your flasks are re-filled (and if this is just an adjustment to the current Labyrinth with the current zone-changing series of maps), you still have to navigate from the waypoint, through the labyrinth, back to the boss each time you fight him (and his HP/etc would all be saved from the last time you entered that battle, not when you left it, until that stage has been defeated), so you can't just chip away at the boss by death-zerging. All waypoints would be reset after LEAVING the Labyrinth through the final exit portal, since this would include a waypoint after the 3rd battle as well, so a person can still get their rewards in the treasure room, even after a disconnect when leaving the 3rd Izaro battle - possibly the worst-feeling disconnect location)



* Traps ignoring character choices. Traps being the focus of gameplay, rather than killing monsters. Essentially, making trap gameplay different than the rest of the game.

(Regen, (and due to %-based damaging traps) HP that approximately matches the highest tier of flask that can insta-heal you (sometimes lower life is BETTER? Yes, that's the case in the Labyrinth), (Energy Shield characters could benefit from faster shield recharge start-delay reduction) and movement speed... are really all that matters in there, until boss fights, which are the only remnants of the original game's gameplay in the labyrinth that take the rest of the character's build into consideration like normal. (in effect, the boss fights follow the rules, and the rest of the labyrinth ignores or changes them)

1 solution: keep traps as a hazard, but not nearly as dangerous depending on character choices (skilltree, armor, evasion, block, even curses - why not slow down traps with temporal chains or make them less dangerous with enfeeble?) Depending on those changes, their density in the Labyrinth maps would be far less, but still impact battles. On that note, increase the mob density. Add Mobs (not zombies) that have AI and abilities that interact with traps, such as "tractor beams" and "push away" or "blackhole" effects. Some mobs could even activate traps on their own, like a slam attack that pushes the spikes up from a nearby spike trap.

Perhaps allow player attacks to freeze traps with ice attacks, or melt them with fire attacks, etc)
Include methods to disarm areas of traps (like finding a lever behind a false wall)


I'm a fan of my initial suggestion, if I had a choice in the matter:
An alternative variation of the Labyrinth that is on 1 map, with 3 boss chambers for 3 Izaro battles. Waves of fodder mobs are fought between these boss rooms to refill flasks. The only reward is Ascendancy Points.

This solution isn't perfect, but it would be a good placeholder alternative.

I'd like to see the alterations to traps and waypoints above, so the existing labyrinth is more fun too, eventually.

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Erasculio wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

This is so biased, it's like you're not even trying ...

Hit a nerve, did I?

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Fruz wrote:

What if I tell you that :
- new ways of ascending ( that would not be trivial, that would actually be challenging and not "overlevable" too much like the lab, and would also take a minimum amount of time ) would (most likely) require significant dev time, that some people would rather have elsewhere as there is still a lot of work to be done in PoE

Give the ascendancy points as a reward for something already in the game. For example, give the Uber points for killing the Shaper. It would require minimal effort by GGG and frankly would be better than creating something new just for that (based on how "great" the labyrinth is).

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Fruz wrote:

- If new ways are implemented, ( same conditions than up there), I believe ( and I think that I am not the only one ) that appart for a small amount of people that do not actually think that the lab is anythhing difficult, the others are not being of good faith and their dislike of the lab comes from the fact that it isn't actually trivial and faceroll = those people would likely still complain or leave if new ways of ascending as I described would be implemented.

So? I'm sure you'll be around to tell people to stop whining, so no harm there.

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Fruz wrote:

- The problem might not be anything as big as you ( and other people here, obviously ) seem to think it is, and GGG probably does not care if they don't think it's worth spending extra time for this.

Or the problem might be considerably bigger than you think, and GGG may be working on changing it as we speak. Saying "might" is rather irrelevant in this discussion.

You don't really have any strong argument against the proposed change.

What I really want to know is, to which of the 3 categories I mentioned do you belong to?

Oh wow, you really did not understand anything that I sad at the end ( or you are just trolling ).
I just gave 2 more categories because you do not seem capable of actually thinking over it yourself ou completely missed them, good job lol.
Wasting dev timem = no problem to you ? That is very selfish I see.
Also is the obvious truth that GGG hasn't done anything yet because it isn't game breaking something that you are not capable of understanding either ?

Or the other option that I can see there ..... trolling of course.

Oh and giving the point of killing shaper is .... a mind-blowing idea lol !
It's so terrible for obvious reasons it's amazing lol.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

Honestly, I think some side content in Act V might be best.

Might be.
But if it's trivial and cannot just be trivialized by overleveling it, people will still bitch about it ( maybe a bit less, who knows ).
And I would rather have some content that gives me immersion by giving me an actual fitting objective, a quest or something like this, not something that they would have conveniently put there because well .... some people QQed about it (I still definitely think that it won't happen, we will see).

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Zaludoz wrote:

Alternative solution in the current labyrinth: If there could be waypoints AFTER each Izaro battle, that saved his end-of-battle state until your next battle with him, disconnects would always bring you back to a point before the battle began, thus even if your flasks are re-filled (and if this is just an adjustment to the current Labyrinth with the current zone-changing series of maps), you still have to navigate from the waypoint, through the labyrinth, back to the boss each time you fight him (and his HP/etc would all be saved from the last time you entered that battle, not when you left it, until that stage has been defeated), so you can't just chip away at the boss by death-zerging.

You can, especially if his HP would be saved, you can chicken out and rush through 2 or 3 areas to keep the zerging, which is exactly why there is no waypoint in there.
Simulate the disconnection, and then zerg it like the rest of the game = not happening.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

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Erasculio wrote:

The real question is, which encounters? What is already in the game that is comparable in difficulty to doing each of the four labyrinths?

That's the rub, isn't it.

Comparable in difficulty? Probably Malachai. But everyone kills Malachai anyhow in Normal and Cruel, so I kind of agree with goetz and others who insist that getting the points for killing Malachai is a bad idea. My reason for agreeing is that if you get the points for something you already do anyhow, it becomes a "non-event." Pretty sure that's what raics was getting at as well.

Merciless Malachai might be useful somehow, but then again once Act V is out, people are going to have to kill him, to get at the (presumable) Act V rewards. So he runs into the same issue.

Honestly, I think some side content in Act V might be best. Or even the final boss (make him non-trivial to run, as Malachai is now, requiring a lot of running around and fighting lots of monsters--because that's why we love to play this game!). They should throw both the AC points and the enchantments in there, since the uber-Lab is already insanely rewarding (quality gems, MAPS, currency, Lab-only uniques...). And enchantments are also very important. Of course the Lab itself should remain an alternative Ascendancy/enchantment method.

It's really hard for us to speculate on this point until Act V is out, though.

If the goal is to make it painful to get the points, then how about forcing the player to hit the "1" key 1000 times in 30 seconds.

If the goal is fun make it part of normal non shitty progression.

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The_Reporter wrote:

Gold door needs gold key.
Jump around. Find gold key.
Backtrack, re-find gold door.

Such crap.

That is a joy compared to the stupid lever puzzle crap I ran into in the uber trials.

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Backtrack, re-find gold door.

Why do you need to "re-find" it you just move back to it. Not to mention that except for the outside areas the gold door and the key area are right next to each other.

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Give the ascendancy points as a reward for something already in the game. For example, give the Uber points for killing the Shaper. It would require minimal effort by GGG and frankly would be better than creating something new just for that (based on how "great" the labyrinth is).

That is a cool idea. How about putting the first 2 points behind Atziri, the next 2 behind Uber Atziri, the next 2 behind Vaal Temple map and the last 2 behind shaper, I guess that would work well.

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* Traps ignoring character choices. Traps being the focus of gameplay, rather than killing monsters. Essentially, making trap gameplay different than the rest of the game.

I kinda want to see your definition of "focus". The Lab is just a normal area with a few traps added. Trials have a focus on traps, and I wouldn't mind the removal of at least the non-uber ones, because they are completly worthless and mostly a waste of time because they don't reward you with anything.

And those traps ignore as many choices as certain damage types do. Of you got armor... sadly all elemental damage ignores it. The best defense everywhere in the game is movement and it works just as well in the lab. And like for most other things in the game there is also defenses for the traps, you just need to get those and if you don't that is a choice. Of course it is a novelty that Life and ES do not matter, but again why should those stats be treated any different than armor or evasion.

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* Disconnects causing start-over. (and massive wastes of time)
1 solution: a labyrinth alternative doesn't require zone changes, or allows multiple attempts/portals. This is the problem I encountered. This would make it more tolerable.

Something people need to differ here is a client crash and when the instance crashes. You notice the difference in groups often and that instances are instantly close (or sometimes just crash over and over, but normally they close if that happens). If the instance crashes your lab progress is lost regardless of any changes you could make to the game. Even if you could enter the labyrinth and leave it whenever you want if the instances crashes it is gone. If they would be able to detect crashing instances they could maybe help with that, but multiple portals wouldn't help if it crashes the instance.

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Right, none, there's no single or multistage encounter I can think of that would be equivalent to trials + traps + triple linked boss fight. They could allow themselves to have a less challenging boss fight that any decent build can do because other parts of the package make up for it.

Right now you could link points to some hard content, like Uber Atziri or Shaper, which would take less time, but are a lot harder content and less accessible as well. However I doubt that this is a good solution because almost everybody would get their points from uber lab, because they might not even be able to defeat those two bosses.

However their are easy addition. Like a suggested before the easiest way for an alternative would be an arena gauntlet that just swarms you with enemies. It should be a bit harder than Izaro on the fighting part, but would be only fighting. And if you survive you get your points. Of you couldn't ascend early with that, because it is only fighting it would be odd if you can just overlevel it, but it could be another endgame part, with one arena in merc where you can fight in, and if you offer white/yellow/red maps you get access to harder difficulties (and the map you offer would decide which enemies you fight) and the other points.

And of course their are options that are harder to implement, like Rhoa racing :P