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

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Shovelcut wrote:

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e1337donkey wrote:

Honestly, this can be said about the opposite.. can't tell you how many threads I went in where someone talked about the lab, and the next several posts were people replying with "Oh look.. another lab thread" "git gud" "lab is easy, l2p" "lab minorty at it again" and so forth. Even if the poster had legit reason to dislike it and/or had a good idea to improve it.

Yeah and the reason people said things like that was because instead of making 1 or 2 feedback threads they would make 5 or 6 each and stand back and basically say "look at all these laby threads, we've got a problem here". And a few of the anti-laby posters were literally copy/pasting replies into dozens of threads.

AND because a majority of the threads are really a l2p issue, pretty much all the legit concerns with the laby have been addressed. Traps were fixed for ES/hybrid builds and the main culprit for disconnects was fixed.

So yeah, git gud? :)

I said even if the poster had something legit to say about it. You just went right to the git gud part. That's what I was talking about. It's like nobody reads what is being said, they just reply and put something down.

Then you top it off with a smiley face. You realize you are acting exactly the same way you claim others are acting against the lab. It's why these threads don't go anywhere.

Chris mentioned shortening of the "Normal" Lab, which is a good thing. What should be done IMO:

50% shorter Normal lab, 30% shorter Cruel lab, remove golden doors from both, Merc Lab stays the same, Uber 30% longer.

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e1337donkey wrote:

I said even if the poster had something legit to say about it. You just went right to the git gud part. That's what I was talking about. It's like nobody reads what is being said, they just reply and put something down.

If it was a legit issue, there was little to no trolling done by either party. Look thru the list that Turtle is keeping.

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e1337donkey wrote:

Then you top it off with a smiley face. You realize you are acting exactly the same way you claim others are acting against the lab. It's why these threads don't go anywhere.

Oh really? Huh I don't remember making multiple useless threads while calling everyone who doesn't agree with them trolls or copy/pasting bullshit into multiple threads. Or making alts to bump every thread that agrees with my agenda...

Anyway, I was being playful with that last little comment. Meh.

You can check the conversation section in the link from my signature for that vocal minority thing.

I've had a few complaints about balance problems in early game, namely about melee being too strong. Considering the total downloads there and on other websites and if we assume that only a small number of them bothered to give feedback we could say the number is kinda significant but not really alarming. Also, they were mostly voiced poorly, without mentioning their previous experience with the game or the genre, so it's possible it was just a 'git gud' thing.

Then, a man comes by and makes an observation about the accuracy problems with guns in early game, I check it then and see it's legit and caused by another important fix which means it can't be taken care of easily. It isn't such a huge problem in itself, especially since it applies to enemies too, but it makes the melee concept sketchy because you're meant to get rid of melee enemies as soon as possible.

The point is I'd need a much larger amount of subjective feedback to recognize the issue as valid, but when objective feedback that I can check for myself gets involved that's another story. It's very similar to the issue with life+ES and lab, traps did too much damage to it, which was a legit complaint, fortunately GGG has full control over the game, unlike me, so they could fix the problem in other ways. Otherwise they would have to nerf the traps, or shorten the lab if the amount of disconnects during its course got too high for any reason because that's something they can't do much about.

So yeah, they would need a much higher amount of people screaming 'we don't like this and it doesn't fit the game or the genre'.

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Shovelcut wrote:

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The_Reporter wrote:

You haven't had any interesting ideas. I've had many.

For some reason I read that in a Trump voice. xD

That was indeed funny to imagine.

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FixLabPLSGGG wrote:

Looks like no changes to lab for what we want. They are actually adding in more trials. I said 3.0 or bust and it looks like a bust. My hats off to Regulator and the entire vocal minority but the report is in and we lost. Cya folks you wont see me posting in this or any of my alts. I have already given away all my stuff anonymously. Hope for POE2 now. Grim Dawn altaholic here I come. Bye all. I wish everyone the best...even the lab lovers.

Good luck and have fun mate, and thanks for supporting a just cause.

@raics

You might be right, some were outright rude, some didnt know what their problem with the lab was, some let their furstration direct their action etc, but no matter how it was put every single complain is a legit one, not every single one is helping GGG ofcourse identify the problem, but that doesnt mean is less true. A person saying "fuck you GGG and your lab" has obviously some issue with it, that unfortunately due to the nature of his feedback is hard to understand, the general feedback is still there though.

What about the popularity of similar feedback and "anti-lab" threads, though? Lets see GGG's history on similar controversial matters. Ive been here long enough to know the major threads since open beta.

Loot allocation : GGG's vision - free for all, they were adamant for quite some time about this, they claimed thats a core mechanic the game was based that made it more fun and engaging for their players. Player feedback was way less both in quality and quantity compared to what we have regarding lab. A single argument was present in every single one of those threads, i dont like it, i dont find it fun because others get the loot first. So after some time GGG finally decided give them a solution, and added alternatives. You see adding alternatives that are not mandatory helped a lot those few who disliked said system. On top of that there were people, the white knights of that era who like those present in this thread had the same agenda, the were proved smalled minded and wrong.


Desync : The biggest issue of a long forgotten time, mentioned literally everywhere. The similarities with the lab are in the popularity of the word and its connection with problematic issues. People said desync in a thread and everyone there knew what the problem was, still there were those white knights even back then saying enfuriating things like : "git gud" "buy new pc" "get a better connection, scrub" etc. They denied the existance of the problem, and GGG werent much different on the matter, to the point were the critisism took a funny turn claiming that desync was intented and added to the difficulty of the game, cause the various claims about the technology to fix and the time/money needed for it were not there were all crap. What finally happened was GGG adding an alternative that helped those who had serious issues solve them, and in the same time improved the predictive mode too, kind of "different ascension methods"-lockstep and "labyrinth rework ideas"-predictive.

SSF : It has been a request since the very start close to seven years back, though not a really popular one. It had though some big-ish threads when it started as a conversation until the white knights started posting crap there too, "you want to brag", "it will cost money and time", "ssf isnt what poe is about", "the devs dont want ssf, DEAL with it" etc. Though it was never really popular issue, a thread or two kept popping up through here and there. What GGG did very recently -for questionable reasons, since it is NOT at all a popular request- was add a ssf option so the "honour" system became a choice matter that can be easily checked. In short they added an alternative to the normal mods, so people can be sure they compete with others in a controlled evnironment.

MTX tabs sorting : A legit issue for some of us. 7 years later GGG finally took notice and realised they should improve it. What assholes were saying before? "just put your items wherever", "no need to waster resources for stupid things like that", "its easy, it takes only 5minutes to sort them" etc. No really popular issue, but you could see it popping up in the feedback forum once in a while. So GGG promised some reworks in the 3.0

Stairs (YES!) : All it took was a reddit thread with 20 people commenting on it. What it suggested? Put stairs in a1 town so people could save 2seconds. It was regarded as a joke. The only argument :save time, ofcourse 1 or 2 people being the white knights they are : "not needed", "git gud", "no need to spend resources on something so insignificant". What GGG did? Well with the remake of the story arc they found a nice timing to add this little feature, they were already going to change in some degree the towns so why not? would cost anything extra besides what they had in mind originally.

Trading : That was always a big one, with many arguing trade system needs improvment. GGG's stance was, we have to be careful because we dont want anything resembling an auction house ingame, and so xyz, said what about outside the game? GGG knows trading is problematic though even with their communities' suggestions and solutions, but they still cant improve it, cause they lack either the creativity or the willingness to do so. White knights are of course present on the trade threads too, "we dont need easier trading", "trading makes the game much easier", "trading should have smaller impact" - those comments on poe.xyz (poe.trade) when it first came to life, the same people nowdays say "thanks god there is poe.trade", "ggg doesnt need to improve trading" etc. GGG though tries to give solutions and recently revealed some thoughts about trading that they probably gonna introduce in china. Giving players alternatives and solutions, inspired by their community.

And here comes lab, since i was there from day one of alpha testing here how it was :
One playthrough : Ok i can dig it, 2nd one something here is very weird, i feel some sort of dejavu but also allienated, 3rd oh this is like contra, and some traps resemble those from prince of persia, all i need to do is jump and use quicksilvers, hmmm maybe i should report this and talk about it with others. Guild chat : guyz does anyone else have that feeling , especially if you played it for a bit, that the lab is like an arcade game? Giving some sort of meh feeling while playing? Dont get me wrong, the ascendancy classes are super awesome, but honestly are you going to play it after you get them? Responses : yes indeed, ascendancy classes are great, we'll just run it for the points, maybe get the enchant we want, but we dont think we are gonna spend much time there. Alpha feedback forum, i make some reports, but nothing extreme, say to GGG that the feeling of playing through it is very mediocre and tedious, not so much fun, and that it resembles arcade games, and that some people might indeed have problems with this design, not from a difficulty points of view but rather as content as a whole.

Day 1 of the Ascendancy release on live : Cadiro and perandus league are great 10% of the threads, ascendancy classes are great 20% of the threads, performance issues with perandus mobs 30% of the threads, what the fuck is this labyrinth/traps/gameplay bullshit idea/design/implmentation 40% of the threads.
3months after : labyrinth threads all over the place 6months later : the same
GGG tried to clam people down, "we are adding an endgame labyrinth news" which backlashed, "on top of that we are adding a shit-ton of loot and rewards and the endgame lab has 2 extra points" - people yeahh farming time and power creep time, lets forget about the issues we have with lab cause we are gonna be rich. Participation numbers beides the one-time lab experience for points ABYSSMAL (up to this date), the only stats GGG ever released that had lab numbers inside showed a pesky 6.0503%, VERY POPULAR!

Countless threads giving feedback some good/constructive some rageful and bad. GGG decides to change the trial system so people do it once per league. They know people find the whole thing tedious. They quelsh some fires with this change too.

Retarded comments from devs : "we are ok with having divisive content", "some people like the lab, some hate it its ok", "lab is definately the most controversial content we made, we arent sure how many people like it or hate it, but there are two sides for certain" "those who hate it are the vocal minority, the majority of the people are silent and like it!", -ofcourse those who hated it already left by that points but you dont care about that part of the community, less critism more echo chambers to feel good! "lab is different from atziri cause its not optional" -really? we didnt noticed, "we dont want to water the content down, we are ok with some people not liking it" - we dont ask to water down anything we ask for alternatives like you added with loot allocation, desync, trading, mtx tab sorting, even the fucking stairs that save time, do you know how much time adding alternatives to ascending would save?

Ofcourse the white knights were there from the beggining, more audacious and aggressive than ever before : "git gut scrub","lab is ez", "lab takes 5minutes", "if you are a scrub and bad player and cant do lab you are not worthy of the points", "buy a carry, pleb", "we like it, so your reasons make no sense and are totally not legit","you are not enough people", "deal with it, or leave", "points are optional","what the fuck are you talking about? lab is like the rest of poe","GGG wont change it, they dont want to water down their content", "GGG said this, and that, and thats how this are","GGG aint gonna hear a bunch of whiners, who cant even do the lab", "the lab is easy","the lab requires skill and knowledge", "the lab is easy even for new players", "what a noob, learn to play, i did uber lab yesterday with 2k hp and white only gear","you are a vocal minority get used to it, nothing will change","i find your reasons not legit, cause i dont agree with any of them, leave", "your suggestions and opinions are not feedback, dont litter the forums with your stupid suggestions and ideas" etc.

And before i take another page with my stupid feedback and narration, let me ask you this, what is really the difference between loot allocation, desync, trading, ssf, mtx tab, and stair issues with the issues we have with the lab? The majority of those mentioned above were and are still FAR MORE unpopular that the "anti-lab" threads that still pop up from time to time. We are asking for alternatives in a same manner that GGG adressed those past issues, we are not asking for removal, we are not asking for things that will make people's experience worse, we are not asking to water down the content they created with so much work, all the things they created we want them to remain intact, all we ask is for alternatives that dont affect the community in any negative way at all. And since they are already going to rework skill point quests, bandit quests etc, we are not asking for them to waste more money, they will create content anyways use some of that content as an alternative. Add ascendancy points after completing a set of trials, a reward before meeting with the big guy izaro and his playground, seems raather fitting aint it? Add ascendancy orb currency, droppable only from izaro, fitting and doesnt change anything regarding lab services and carries right?

You seriously cant think of any other way to work around lab and add alternatives GGG? Let people who enjoy the lab keep doing it, dont drive away those who dont like the design in a foundamental kind of way. And think about your silent majority, do you think they wouldnt like news of alternatives to ascend compared to what we haave now?

3.0 Fall of Oriath is the best chance you have to make magic happen, and except those white knight fanatics, alternatives are and will always be accepted with open arms by your community.

Thanks in advance

ROFL

- Comparing lab with desync.
Of course you'd do that.

- Taking stats out of their context is also something that you would do, but you had been doing that for a while already.

- Calling dev's comment "retarded", because you have not been antagonizing enough on the matter, right ?

All of this is obnoxious at best.

*sigh*

Also, by the way, as obvious as it is, if there is a fanatic there .....
You know, the old story of the pot calling the kettle black all over again.

People still screeching over 5 minutes of their time spent in a video game while posting on the forums 24/7, lul.

I cant wait to see the "omg getting gods blessings too tedious, y i have to do dis, pls make free" garbage just like what people are doing with the Labyrinth.

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Regulator wrote:

@raics

You might be right, some were outright rude, some didnt know what their problem with the lab was, some let their furstration direct their action etc, but no matter how it was put every single complain is a legit one, not every single one is helping GGG ofcourse identify the problem, but that doesnt mean is less true. A person saying "fuck you GGG and your lab" has obviously some issue with it, that unfortunately due to the nature of his feedback is hard to understand, the general feedback is still there though.

Well, a person that says "fuck you GGG and your lab" obviously has issues with himself, not the lab. What I wanted to point out with my post is that you need a crapload of posts saying 'I don't like this and it doesn't fit the game' to change it.

As I said, before, despite liking the content I agree that it doesn't fit the game and that it would had likely been a wiser and safer choice to do it another way. However, that ship is sailed, they have the system in place that does the job and pushing in an alternative at a similar quality level costs man-hours. I can't say in good conscience 'go ahead and do it' because I can't guarantee it would bring enough people back to cover the cost.

And you sometimes have to try things that don't fit the genre. A good example is Flatout, you don't normally get to play bowling or darts in driving games by catapulting the driver through the windshield, but they tried it and it worked gloriously, it's something you remember the game by.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyBzmT1dgnQ

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Loot allocation : GGG's vision - free for all, they were adamant for quite some time about this, they claimed thats a core mechanic the game was based that made it more fun and engaging for their players. Player feedback was way less both in quality and quantity compared to what we have regarding lab.

Not sure about that. PoEs playerbase was so much smaller back then, that it might have looked like less, but on a percentage base it might have been actually more and it was a far smaller change to make, because all they had to do is set the time for allocation to a ridicolous high number and you have permanent allocation.

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Desync : The biggest issue of a long forgotten time, mentioned literally everywhere. The similarities with the lab are in the popularity of the word and its connection with problematic issues. People said desync in a thread and everyone there knew what the problem was, still there were those white knights even back then saying enfuriating things like : "git gud" "buy new pc" "get a better connection, scrub" etc.

That isn't really what people said. It was more along the lines of you can navigate it and it is something that is really hard to fix so don't expect a solution over night. However in difference to the other issues it was clearly something GGG wanted to fix from the getgo, however they didn't want to make sacrifices to fix it and I think this was a good thing, overall the game runs much smoother now, even if you play without lockstep desync is so much better, so it was the right call.

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It has been a request since the very start close to seven years back, though not a really popular one. It had though some big-ish threads when it started as a conversation until the white knights started posting crap there too, "you want to brag", "it will cost money and time", "ssf isnt what poe is about", "the devs dont want ssf, DEAL with it" etc.

Well they the ones against SSF didn't want GGG to waste time on a new league, which would also split the community further. The way they added SSF is the a good one and I have hardly seen any complaints about it. Thing is most people wanting SSF leagues wanted them to come with an increased drop rate, which is what a lot of people were against because you would still not find the rare uniques your build needs unless you made the rate insane, having so specific uniques make balancing around SSF not possible, because you can go a whole league without even dropping very common uniques like Bones of Ullr.

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MTX tabs sorting : A legit issue for some of us. 7 years later GGG finally took notice and realised they should improve it. What assholes were saying before? "just put your items wherever", "no need to waster resources for stupid things like that", "its easy, it takes only 5minutes to sort them" etc. No really popular issue, but you could see it popping up in the feedback forum once in a while. So GGG promised some reworks in the 3.0

Again I have hardly seen complaints about that. There were some people that simply underestimated how many MTX some people own. If you have just one tab it is not an issue, but many people have quite a few more. But it is something they wanted to do for quite some time, same goes for CTRL click in guild stash (which may or may not happen with 3.0^^).

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Stairs (YES!) : All it took was a reddit thread with 20 people commenting on it. What it suggested? Put stairs in a1 town so people could save 2seconds. It was regarded as a joke. The only argument :save time, ofcourse 1 or 2 people being the white knights they are : "not needed", "git gud", "no need to spend resources on something so insignificant". What GGG did? Well with the remake of the story arc they found a nice timing to add this little feature, they were already going to change in some degree the towns so why not? would cost anything extra besides what they had in mind originally.

Well that is something that again found agreement with the lab. If there would have been a time to revisit the lab it would have been 3.0. Get rid of Trials and make normal shorter and more about learning the lab. I would have even removed the hardcoreness of the normal lab, so that people can die on Izaro and just try again to learn the encounter in a less frustrating way. Because the frustrating part about the lab is not that it is hard or anything, but that you have to do it again if you die on Izaro, the lab isn't what kills people but that you have to do it again when you die to Izaro is a bit frustrating.

And they did such things very often to fix even minor things when they revivisted a certain part of the game. And yes adding those stairs was unnecessary, but if they redesign it anyways it is a good option to change it.

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You seriously cant think of any other way to work around lab and add alternatives GGG? Let people who enjoy the lab keep doing it, dont drive away those who dont like the design in a foundamental kind of way. And think about your silent majority, do you think they wouldnt like news of alternatives to ascend compared to what we haave now?

Well GGG and other developers as well are like politicians in this regards. It is fancier to cut a ribbon on a new bridge than repairing and old bridge. So instead of making an alternative way to ascend they introduce the pantheon system. And I'm pretty sure they know what they are doing and they have one advantage over the politician, becuase the old bridge will collapse at some point. Things is they seem to have success with their approach. And I doubt this silent majority doesn't give a shit as long as they get new content. Alternatives are naturally bad for such a playerbase, because alternatives mean you are doing A or B, not both, so you want find reasons to do A and B, which doesn't work with most alternatives.

They also have another big issue and a risk if they make an alternative, nobody can be sure that those minority wouldn't dislike the presented alternative as well. So they might put time in for nothing. Considering the way some of the feedback and the other threads of some of those people they are basically against everything GGG has done lately, which makes it highly unlikely that the alternative is any different.