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

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raics wrote:

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Zalhan2 wrote:

If its optional content sure. But imagine you went to Ben and Jerry's and were told you have to order bacon with your ice cream and when asked why you're told "Everyone likes bacon".

You say you just want ice cream and are forced listen to the virtues of bacon which is not the point.

Whether the Lab is world breaking great content, it's not Arpg content.

To put it simply if I want to order fucking bacon I will order bacon. If I want ice cream I will order that.

Depends if the elements are considered an essential part of the product. You can't customize your 'happy meal', you either get the whole shebang or nothing and you can't buy a car without seats because you want to use custom ones or like to drive crouching. We pretty much agreed here that ascendancy points are an essential part of this product and the lab, for better or wore, comes with them.

And it's not as if we're completely without options. Even though you can't order a car without the seats you might be able to pick the color of upholstery, similarly, you can choose to do lab at level or overlevel it, prepare for it or not, get someone to carry you or not, use poelab or not, do it on a hard day or wait for an easy one.

Which is why GGG felt the lab was so vital it has been a part of the game since beta and maps just got released last year.

Oh wait I took off my alternate facts hat and realized the Lab got added just recently and is the added content.

Oh wait people were loving this game long before they added the Lab and rebalanced the game assuming you ran them at the appropriate levels (as GGG has stated time and time again).

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EnjoyTheJourney wrote:

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raics wrote:

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Zaludoz wrote:

It's been amazing to me, to see so many posts by people who can't seem to understand (and argue vehemently against) the concept that opinions can be different, and still be correct for the individuals who hold them, and that maybe, just maybe, in this case, a game can cater to those with suggestions for reasonable changes, without sacrificing its integrity.

Mind you, the usual counterposts (except the most obnoxious ones) do acknowledge the difference in opinions. The matter we don't agree on is: does the player or not have a right to insist on pushing his opinion on the devs if he doesn't have the absolute majority support, or is it going beyond the scope of feedback and suggestions?

You can take a look at GGG's rules for forum posts and let us know if you see a violation of some kind. I don't see one, but perhaps you might.

I see the (actual) key issues another way.

One issue is that GGG promoted the game as being part of a certain game genre and requested money from those who like that kind of game. Some percentage of players feel that "lab + ascendancies" moved outside the genre, after GGG having first received a lot of money. That doesn't do much to build trust in those who feel that way.

An early "Dev Manifesto" that incorporated elements thought to be in the genre, or an open statement about how we "intend to push the boundaries of what an ARPG currently is" would undoubtedly have been appreciated by many. Some would probably have supported anyways if GGG had been more transparent about their plans for the game, others would have probably have not supported the game.

I would not have supported POE if I had known they'd gate core character progression behind a platform mini-game, especially if knew back then that they'd have bad netcode. I'm certain that I'm a long way away from being alone in that view.

Second, the public statement by Chris of GGG that a "vocal minority" disliked lab was not only dismissive, but probably very much off base. The reality is that GGG is unlikely to have any reliable metrics about whether players like or dislike lab. The only hard data they are likely to have concerns whether or not people complete lab and whether or not they start lab, don't finish, and then never log on again (perhaps not even this, that's pretty fine-grained). It's a good thing that the conversation has continued on for over a year, at this point, and that it shows no sign of ending. It's probably a good thing for GGG, most of all.

Its like he made all this money off the D2 crowd then made the frogger game he knew less people would buy but did it AFTER he got our money.

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Zalhan2 wrote:

Which is why GGG felt the lab was so vital it has been a part of the game since beta and maps just got released last year.

Oh wait I took off my alternate facts hat and realized the Lab got added just recently and is the added content.

Oh wait people were loving this game long before they added the Lab and rebalanced the game assuming you ran them at the appropriate levels (as GGG has stated time and time again).

Think of it as your favorite son growing up, marrying off and acquiring his own set of bad habits which are usually different from yours. Sure, he was just fine as a kid, you even liked him better then but nobody can stay cute&cuddly forever, the show must go on and his wife and new friends like him better this way. In this particular case, the prodigal son is still wearing diapers under his clothes but nobody's perfect, eh?

Eeenyway, we all agreed ascendancy points are an essential part of the game now, lab is inseparably tied to them so lab is an essential part of the game too. That's how basic logic works since ancient Greece.

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raics wrote:

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Zalhan2 wrote:

Which is why GGG felt the lab was so vital it has been a part of the game since beta and maps just got released last year.

Oh wait I took off my alternate facts hat and realized the Lab got added just recently and is the added content.

Oh wait people were loving this game long before they added the Lab and rebalanced the game assuming you ran them at the appropriate levels (as GGG has stated time and time again).

Think of it as your favorite son growing up, marrying off and acquiring his own set of bad habits which are usually different from yours. Sure, he was just fine as a kid, you even liked him better then but nobody can stay cute&cuddly forever, the show must go on and his wife and new friends like him better this way. In this particular case, the prodigal son is still wearing diapers under his clothes but nobody's perfect, eh?

Eeenyway, we all agreed ascendancy points are an essential part of the game now, lab is inseparably tied to them so lab is an essential part of the game too. That's how basic logic works since ancient Greece.

You can't control your sweet child growing old and becoming mentally ill as he matures. It doesn't mean you have to turn your game into a schizophrenic mess to emulate that.

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Zalhan2 wrote:

You can't control your sweet child growing old and becoming mentally ill as he matures.

Fortunately, you aren't around to watch it, nobody sane would even want to.

That's why I'd leave if PoE fully goes to the dogs, you can't really do anything about it and I'd take no pleasure from watching it. And going back just doesn't happen, I'd be delusional to hope for that.

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raics wrote:

Think of it as your favorite son growing up, marrying off and acquiring his own set of bad habits which are usually different from yours. Sure, he was just fine as a kid, you even liked him better then but nobody can stay cute&cuddly forever, the show must go on and his wife and new friends like him better this way. In this particular case, the prodigal son is still wearing diapers under his clothes but nobody's perfect, eh?

Eeenyway, we all agreed ascendancy points are an essential part of the game now, lab is inseparably tied to them so lab is an essential part of the game too. That's how basic logic works since ancient Greece.

The son example is fundamentally faulty unfortunately even if it sounds like a good one. By comparing the two directly is like claiming the game gained conscience and self-awareness and after going to open beta the choices and new content are of its own creativity.

No. The same people that brought into this world the "child" are the same people that told the child to which school to go and it went, the same people that told the teenager what kind of music to listen to and he did, the same people that told the adult now which woman to marry and he did.

There is a reason the restaurant and the dung beetle examples/comparisons sticked around for so long and people used them over and over again. Even wk used them to try to prove their point without result though.

If GGG are the owners and chefs of Path of Exile sea food only restaurant then the Ascendancy Points are one of the restaurant's best dishes notoriously tasty and beautiful full of unearthly aromas. But there is a catch, to order and eat the AP dish the owners added Lab - a dish made of cooked elephant meat - that every customer has to eat in front of the chefs in order to be even able to eat the AP one. Sure some people have a taste for the exotic meat course, but what they cant realize is that this used to be a sea food only restaurant and still is (for marketing reasons or whatever i guess). Furthermore the mandatoriness of the Lab course in order to enjoy most other dishes makes it that your are full by that time and cant eat anymore.

So some customers saw that change and stopped altogether going to the restaurant. Then some others refused to be forcefully denied the joy of sea food and the best dishes in their favorite establishment and decided to keep going but refusing to eat the meat course so keenly fed to them, instead they tried with suggestions and examples to make the chefs understand that what they are doing with this meat course is illogical. Unfortunately GGG establishment already had bought billions of tons of elephant meat and they said they couldn't let all this money and meat go to waste, so they decided to invest a bit more in this Lab dish and sided it with a humongous cheetah meat burger and called it Uber, and to make it even more appealing (a meat course in a sea food restaurant) they gave presents to anyone who ordered at least 2-3 ubers.

So the establishment still remains a sea food restaurant (at least at name) but now new customers are arriving all over the world in bulk (you see that's how good of a name has this Path of Exile restaurant has made across the world - before the lab dish was even considered to be served). Some of them are coming specifically for the meat course, others put their standards aside and eat the meat course twice or thrice per year, and some still refuse to it eat and therefore losing out on the best dishes the establishment has to offer. The latter ones often due to the illogical nature of this situation call the chefs and owners often to their table to complain and ask for the reasoning behind this and still suggest ways this can be worked around, to to avail unfortunately (at least for now)

So GGG decided to renovate Path of Exile sea food restaurant a bit to solve an issue with their menus. You see - something i didn't mention before - is that the courses served were always in a set, in the start it was 2 dishes repeated 4 times in ascending order of quantity and taste and then it was the desert. Then it was 3 dishes repeated 3 times again in the same order and afterwards the desert. A bit later they made a another dish and the menu got richer again, but the same repetition applied. The meat course was added in the same fashion to accompany the sea food only menu.

So we come to today.

GGG decided that they don't want the courses to be repeated so they decided to make 10 different sea food dishes to be served one after another and then they give the desert. But again there is an illogical contrast in their new menus. Not only the elephant meat dish and the uber remained mostly unchanged but those courses follow the old way the courses were served, meaning there are four meat dishes to be repeated. That obviously means that GGG invested TOO much in buying elephant meat but also they don't know what to do with it. Its alienating nature and illogical forced serving in a sea food establishment coupled with its repetitive nature in an era the owners want to escape from repetition, sooner or later will make more customers call the chefs on their tables and ask for an explanation, a reason as to WHY? WHY? GGG?



And i agree with you raics, :'ve said it since the very beginning and introduction of Lab that ascendancy points are truly a core part of the game, even before the content was re-balanced with them in mind. What still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth is that "inseparable connection" to something that can be so easily re-modified and remedified as very well shown by the 20+ suggestions in this thread even keeping that "inseparable connection" and lore intact. And the fact that lab will still have to be re-visited following the old system of act repetition while the rest of the game is changing should make more people realize that something is wrong. A contradiction of this level just doesn't feel right, why change the rest of the game but not this very divisive content? Why keep forcing players to go through something that clearly they noticed causes so many discord and problems for the players? The fact that they are making even those small changes shows they know people dislike the lab and try to make it "easier". But that is not what we are asking.

We have a very simple request, let us enjoy the game that for so many years we have been enjoying, don't force alienating content, nothing will change for those enjoying said content, but so much will change for those who don't. So what is the explanation GGG? Is it a matter of stubbornness? Is it a matter of over-investment in a bad choice? Is there a binding contract that forces you too to keep it unchanged? What? Why? Do you believe that those changes will provide more fun to the experience and keep people more engaged while running the lab or will they run it more often? Cause the same people farming lab (and getting stupid-rich in the process) will keep farming it, while the rest will still avoid it besides the one time for their points or even completely. While i appreciate any lab change, those mentioned in the manifesto are hardly considered changes at all. Do you believe a shorter introduction to something so badly made or widely hated would enthrall more people into running them more often? Or you just want xbox users to have a bit smoother starting experience with it? I wonder if the console players will make similar complaints, and what your reaction would be then.

And some wishful thinking : Remove normal and cruel labs. Merciless stays but awards no ascendancy points, there for the loot, enchants and races. Uber remains as is, rewards and ascendancy points -wise. Racing rewards are distributed between the two labs, and now the second place gets one too. Add rewards per best time per base class (7 classes) and not only for best time overall. Add ascendancy in the leveling process either by doing the trials (1 ascendancy point per 2 or 3 depending how many will be there for a total of 6) or by set levels 30-40-50-60-70-80. 3.0 can be so much more regarding lab, but i guess that's too late now.

Regards, a progressively disappointed loyal veteran.

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Tanakeah wrote:

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Mythabril wrote:

Five hundred pages. Five hundred pages of futility.

How does it feel investing all this time and achieving absolutely nothing?

In terms of getting GGG to take a look at the lab and what not? They're actually changing it and while it may not be removed, it's still more than just GGG 'doing nothing' (as you say)

Yet nothing indicates that this thread has had any kind of impact on GGG's decision, at all.
There have been many thread compaining about the lab, those were probably enough on their own.

GGG has been seeing the same bunch of people saying the same thing all over again for 500 pages, I don't think that it has influence them a great deal, at least not the way you might think it did.
But we cannot be sure of that, of course.

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EnjoyTheJourney wrote:

You can take a look at GGG's rules for forum posts and let us know if you see a violation of some kind. I don't see one, but perhaps you might.

What about the respect to GGG (so many insulting messages, to GGG) and to the people that are in charge of getting actual feedback from the forum (that would need to go through all that crap) or keeping it civil by moderating people going too far ?
What about them ? what about respecting them ??

I guess you do not care, especially when you throw some pathetic lines like :

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EnjoyTheJourney wrote:

I raise a glass to you, would-be forum bully who probably lives in their parents' basement.

Nothing more than taunt, troll and paranoia, a nice concentrate of it.

If there is somebody off base here, that is you.
You have literally no data, nothing anything remotely close to a consistent set of data.
GGG do.

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raics wrote:

I've probably said enough on the whole vocal minority thing. In a nutshell, devs still got the numbers, not us, and if they don't seem worried, why would I be?

Just so.

The current state of the game is a fair more different thing ( not speaking about lab at all ) than what it was at the start, it's a much bigger deal than the lab for many.
People that actually backed the game knew from the start that the game was as its beginning, and was subject to change.
Of course there will always be capricious reactions for people that think that everything should catter to their own expectations, that's inevitable I guess.

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Regulator wrote:

There is a reason the restaurant and the dung beetle examples/comparisons sticked around for so long and people used them over and over again. Even wk used them to try to prove their point without result though.

Just to make some things clear :
"people" here = a group of people that can basically be counted with the fingers of the hands.
"result" here = the lab is still here, we got an uber version, and it's here to stay.

No point discussing another silly and completely out of touch analogy from you.
The lab is arpg, it's actually more like the beginning of PoE as it's not brainless&faceroll like most of the game is nowadays, and gives the original feeling of "hardcorness" more.
And your analogy does not matter anyway, the lab is here to stay :).

PS : "Stubbornness" as you use is is a word that describes perfectly what you are doing, much more than what GGG does.

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Fruz wrote:

Yet nothing indicates that this thread has had any kind of impact on GGG's decision, at all.
There have been many thread compaining about the lab, those were probably enough on their own.

The way I understand it, we have less trials because we won't be able to access those areas anymore in acts 5-10 and making the first lab a player encounters a bit shorter makes a lot of sense, they didn't really need player feedback for that.

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Regulator wrote:

The son example is fundamentally faulty unfortunately even if it sounds like a good one. By comparing the two directly is like claiming the game gained conscience and self-awareness and after going to open beta the choices and new content are of its own creativity.

No. The same people that brought into this world the "child" are the same people that told the child to which school to go and it went, the same people that told the teenager what kind of music to listen to and he did, the same people that told the adult now which woman to marry and he did.

The child example wasn't meant to be accurate, the point was that it's easy to keep the child on track if you got one or two dominant figures in its life, but if it has a bunch of them and it's also an object of public scrutiny it's anyone's guess how the whole thing will turn out. It's questionable how much control GGG still has over the game but it's certain it's nowhere near the level they had in alpha or closed beta. We saw ourselves that their hands are often tied and there are things they would like to do but aren't in the position to no matter how much we whine about it.

So ascendancy points and the lab along with them ended up in the game as a result of a wild night out, a high stakes bet or a classic moment or weakness and I don't think removal of either is a realistic option at this point. As for the tweaks and alternatives, they cost money and aren't exactly marketable. It's pretty much what they said about reworking old skills, they claim that creating something new brings back more players than redesigns. I don't fully agree with that but they sound fairly sure of it so it ultimately isn't important what I think, I'm just thinking it and they might know.

Now we're just debating on whether or not debating on the Lab is okay or not. How much more of this Inception crap must be bear before this thread gets locked?

Manifesto literally confirms the state of the Lab for at least the next 6 months, probably the next year. I mean, it was a long shot before, but now it would take a blind man not to see how pointless it is to continue this thread.

The choice has been made, discussion becomes speculation and while that's all good on forums, of course, it doesn't warrant a petition or a neon sign banner that it has currently. Half of the self proclaimed "good suggestions" found in previous pages aren't even valid anymore due to recently released manifesto. So pat yourselves on the back for your efforts and how much of a difference you made and see you next year.

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Xavathos wrote:

Now we're just debating on whether or not debating on the Lab is okay or not. How much more of this Inception crap must be bear before this thread gets locked?

Manifesto literally confirms the state of the Lab for at least the next 6 months, probably the next year. I mean, it was a long shot before, but now it would take a blind man not to see how pointless it is to continue this thread.

The choice has been made, discussion becomes speculation and while that's all good on forums, of course, it doesn't warrant a petition or a neon sign banner that it has currently. Half of the self proclaimed "good suggestions" found in previous pages aren't even valid anymore due to recently released manifesto. So pat yourselves on the back for your efforts and how much of a difference you made and see you next year.

I love that the Lab-Lovers most common defense is that GGG doesn't give a shit about your comments so just play content you loathe because it won't change.

you do realize that's no defense of shitty content right?