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

Some of my friends playing PoE and i made observation about all this "I hate lab" thing.

Lab is easy for more experienced/wealthy players. They know how to build chars (can equip them better), know how to run fast. Its just techical thing for them for 10-15-20 min. And they go to forum and start all this bla bla bla get skill, buy carry.

For new players lab can be very stressful, frustrating experience. And this is not their fault for most part - before maps almost all content is, so to say, fool-proof (newbie-proof) or something. Lab is completly different. Forced taste of HC.

May be it will be better to place it somewhere in mid tier maps? I don't know.

Personally I can do it pretty good (almost oneshot Izaro), but all concept of lab still annoy me to no end. Something is wrong with it in overall PoE picture.

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le_souriceau wrote:

Some of my friends playing PoE and i made observation about all this "I hate lab" thing.

Lab is easy for more experienced/wealthy players. They know how to build chars (can equip them better), know how to run fast. Its just techical thing for them for 10-15-20 min. And they go to forum and start all this bla bla bla get skill, buy carry.

For new players lab can be very stressful, frustrating experience. And this is not their fault for most part - before maps almost all content is, so to say, fool-proof (newbie-proof) or something. Lab is completly different. Forced taste of HC.

May be it will be better to place it somewhere in mid tier maps? I don't know.

Personally I can do it pretty good (almost oneshot Izaro), but all concept of lab still annoy me to no end. Something is wrong with it in overall PoE picture.

While i can see why you say that i cant agree 100%. Yes newer people are more likely to see it as hard, but the same applies for poe in general. Lab is easy in general (experience has nothing to do cause its neither a skill-check* neither a gear check*, nor a build check*, and furthermore its a platformer so any experience in the ARPG department is irrelevant), its also tedious an annoying in general, yes izaro is overtuned for his levels but that is basically it. Lab is simply frustrating and unfitting for an ARPG as mandatory content. Im as experienced as it can get when it comes to RPG, ARPG, turn-based RPG, tactial RPG and whatever you can think of. The lab simply is not something that as it is fits PoE. If you look around you will see both experienced and new players bashing it, both supporters and free users criticizing it, both poor and wealthy (in-game) players hating it. Its simply something that only due to the ego of the developers hasn't been changed/reworked and probably wont ever. (though it fits the console route and playstyle they have been following since a long time)

*Not a skill check - use movement skills + quicksilver and full ms you negated traps, very skill much wow
*Not a gear check - you have 100 armour 3.5k life and i have 20k armour and 9k life how fair that 5/6 of the traps ignore it, much fair such wow
*Not a build check - whats to check? see above, it even IGNORES CHARACTER CHOICES IN A FUCKING ARPG! amazing!

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Toshis8 wrote:

A wild idea. What if players who like doing labyrinth or dont mind doing it could choose to either ascend themselves or fuse that ascendancy knowledge (at the ascendancy altar) into some sort of blank book, gem or any other type of magical device and sell it to those who dont like doing labyrinth or dont want to do it for whatever reasons there might be (similarly like NPC's have skill books). Rewards for doing labyrinth would not only be enchants but also ascendancy knowledge which could be passed to another players.

possibilities:

1. Blank book, gem or any other type of magical device could come as a rare drop from death of Izaro. rarity would determine how many of those you want in the market.

2. blank items could be sold by NPC's for like 20 chaos orbs (for example) to set minimum base value.


So, tl;dr players selling ascendancy knowledge to another players, what do you think?

Thats from another thread which fits the op (i forgot to do so a while ago but work>poe), while similar to ascendancy orb's role (which is a tradable item) this one is way more different and unique. Really enthralling that people can still come up with new ideas for a rework.

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le_souriceau wrote:

Some of my friends playing PoE and i made observation about all this "I hate lab" thing.

Lab is easy for more experienced/wealthy players. They know how to build chars (can equip them better), know how to run fast. Its just techical thing for them for 10-15-20 min. And they go to forum and start all this bla bla bla get skill, buy carry.

For new players lab can be very stressful, frustrating experience. And this is not their fault for most part - before maps almost all content is, so to say, fool-proof (newbie-proof) or something. Lab is completly different. Forced taste of HC.

May be it will be better to place it somewhere in mid tier maps? I don't know.

Personally I can do it pretty good (almost oneshot Izaro), but all concept of lab still annoy me to no end. Something is wrong with it in overall PoE picture.

If you feel like it is a challenge you personally can't do until later, then wait, many people do.

"

*Not a skill check - use movement skills + quicksilver and full ms you negated traps, very skill much wow
*Not a gear check - you have 100 armour 3.5k life and i have 20k armour and 9k life how fair that 5/6 of the traps ignore it, much fair such wow
*Not a build check - whats to check? see above, it even IGNORES CHARACTER CHOICES IN A FUCKING ARPG! amazing!

Except knowing when and how to manage movement skills and quicksilvers is what enables you to overcome the traps. Imagine that by not standing or running with something that does damage over time the longer you touch it, the less a chance you have at taking damage.


I don't think its 5\6 traps that ignore armor. In fact the traps that ignore armor are the ones that aren't considered hits, so meat tenderizors, saw blades, lava and I think one more but my memory isn't working that well this late at night.


It doesn't ignore choices, some of the traps are equally as unforgiving to builds, which was suppose to make it better balanced.

"

Really enthralling that people can still come up with new ideas for a rework.

Yes please continue to massive list of shit ideas, instead of fleshing out things that might actually happen, because its far better to just list every dumb idea that might pop into ones head, instead of considering the consequences of the change.

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Regulator wrote:

*Not a skill check - use movement skills + quicksilver and full ms you negated traps, very skill much wow
*Not a gear check - you have 100 armour 3.5k life and i have 20k armour and 9k life how fair that 5/6 of the traps ignore it, much fair such wow
*Not a build check - whats to check? see above, it even IGNORES CHARACTER CHOICES IN A FUCKING ARPG! amazing!

Wow, you just tried to build an argument on things that are much more true outside of the lab, GOOD JOB.


And no, it does not ignores character choices at all, different builds can have different ways of handling Izaro's fight, different builds are better against specific types of traps, etc ...

"

le_souriceau wrote:

Personally I can do it pretty good (almost oneshot Izaro), but all concept of lab still annoy me to no end. Something is wrong with it in overall PoE picture.

I am kind of in the same boat. I don't find the lab very difficult at all, its just not enjoyable. It doesn't lend itself to the core mechanics of this game. Movement skills being so strong tend to trivialize the traps. Most of the time its just better to brute force your way through rather then take it slow and decipher each trap gauntlet as a puzzle.

Izaro is the kind of thing the lab needed more of, combining interesting enemies with traps. Not traps by themselves. The lab is essentially a different game then PoE. If that game is to succeed, its need the same polish as the rest of the game. It doesn't have that, they designed an area of the game and didn't really flesh out how builds could react to it.

It doesn't help the enchant system doesn't give me enough incentive to come back to the lab, if at least that were fixed, I would consider trekking through it more. As it stands, its a 1 and done for me. I feel the lab has potential to be much better.

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e1337donkey wrote:

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le_souriceau wrote:

Personally I can do it pretty good (almost oneshot Izaro), but all concept of lab still annoy me to no end. Something is wrong with it in overall PoE picture.

I am kind of in the same boat. I don't find the lab very difficult at all, its just not enjoyable. It doesn't lend itself to the core mechanics of this game. Movement skills being so strong tend to trivialize the traps. Most of the time its just better to brute force your way through rather then take it slow and decipher each trap gauntlet as a puzzle.

Izaro is the kind of thing the lab needed more of, combining interesting enemies with traps. Not traps by themselves. The lab is essentially a different game then PoE. If that game is to succeed, its need the same polish as the rest of the game. It doesn't have that, they designed an area of the game and didn't really flesh out how builds could react to it.

It doesn't help the enchant system doesn't give me enough incentive to come back to the lab, if at least that were fixed, I would consider trekking through it more. As it stands, its a 1 and done for me. I feel the lab has potential to be much better.

Because going slow means you spend more time thinking, when a lot of the trap setups are designed to punish people that panic. I would say the uber trials do a better job at providing a challenge in terms of pure traps and not just allowing you to run at full blast.


They didn't flesh out how builds can react to it, do you want to explain this better?


Plenty of people think the lab provides enough rewards to go back to it. However, its not like it gives the best XP, so that cuts out on the amount of people that would want to do it as well. Before we got the uber lab people did farm merciless for enchants, I feel like merciless is mainly useless in that most people won't go back to it after getting their points, but I mean why would they if they have uber lab available.


You also need to consider that if enchants are easier to get or if the lab had better rewards then it does now, that the enchants might become more saturated and worth less as a result. I'm sure the lab could be improved in some ways as well, but I don't think its a large concern for a number of reasons, the largest being is that after completing the lab people have little reason to do it again on that character, except uber lab and in some cases merciless (to get gloves or boot enchants) The other reason is that its such a small amount of content that people play, so its less logical to make improvements to an area that sees one of the smallest amount of total playtime.

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goetzjam wrote:

I'm sure the lab could be improved in some ways as well, but I don't think its a large concern for a number of reasons, the largest being is that after completing the lab people have little reason to do it again on that character, except uber lab and in some cases merciless (to get gloves or boot enchants)

Just throwing it out unchewed, but what if we got a number of respec points per lab run? Let's say 1 for normal, 2 for cruel, 3 for merci and 5 for uber, we can farm regrets anyway but it's kinda slow in SSF, it isn't a straight advantage, you can't monetize it so there's no added trade value per run and some are crying for easier respec, lab would just be the best way to do it and very SSF-friendly.

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The_Reporter wrote:

@raics: Economeh

Sure, regrets would drop in value because only those that don't want to run the lab would use them but people complain they're too expensive anyway and they're relatively insignificant to the economy as a whole, they aren't used as currency or for crafting. They're kind of a blind alley as far as economy is concerned and those can be snipped off with no consequence.

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goetzjam wrote:

Because going slow means you spend more time thinking, when a lot of the trap setups are designed to punish people that panic. I would say the uber trials do a better job at providing a challenge in terms of pure traps and not just allowing you to run at full blast.

They didn't flesh out how builds can react to it, do you want to explain this better?

Plenty of people think the lab provides enough rewards to go back to it. However, its not like it gives the best XP, so that cuts out on the amount of people that would want to do it as well. Before we got the uber lab people did farm merciless for enchants, I feel like merciless is mainly useless in that most people won't go back to it after getting their points, but I mean why would they if they have uber lab available.

You also need to consider that if enchants are easier to get or if the lab had better rewards then it does now, that the enchants might become more saturated and worth less as a result.

Even the uber, I run it the same way.. I barely notice those new traps doing anything. Most of my friends do it like that.. and even speed runners get tons of movement speed to just run through it all. Most of the time when I see people die from the lab traps, they are panicing and running back and forth. Desperatly trying to find a safe spot, but they would have done just fine continuing forward.

Nearly every build now has a movement skill in it. Most of those bypass the majority of traps. They did patch up the Life vs ES vs Hybrid damage part. This is because the lab is divided between trap gaunlets, trash enemies and Izaro. Only Izaro requires your build to function, obviously the trash is for refilling flasks, and the traps are easily bypassed. If the lab had more encounters like Izaro where you had to kill enemies while traps assisted them, then your build would matter more.

The side rooms of the lab are a joke, the silver keys are practically no different then opening a chest outside the lab. Yes the uber lab treasure keys offer a ton of items and what not. But I was mainly refering to enchants, and more so the head slot enchant. This enchant is way too much of a grind to farm and in some cases can't even be traded for. After doing over 150 runs, I tried to get an enchant but I never recieved a single enchant that helped any skill in the build I ran it with.

I was able to farm glove and boot enchants, albeit it took several tries but it was doable with Twice Enchanted. The head slot just takes it way too far. And it will only get worse the more skills that are added into the game. I'm not asking to get it for free, but there has to be a better way to farm for this.