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

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KiadawP wrote:

Name me a modern game where you can go hours without checkpoints/save point in between.

MA Andromeda for instance, some main campaign fights are very long on higher difficulties and you have to do it all over again if you mess up, we aren't talking hours but I could probably do the lab in that time. It was an unexpected change from previous installments and kinda nostalgic, never realized I've even missed it.

Hmm, other modern games... maybe Survival mode in Street Fighter 5, you need it to unlock costume colors, it takes ages and there are obviously no checkpoints.

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raics wrote:

Sure, not saying it isn't possible they just painted it pretty. But what they did helps the little guy the most so they aren't contradicting themselves.

It would be naïve to suggest or believe that the largest Labyrinth changes were not due primarily to the flood of unceasing negative feedback, by a huge mix of players, both old and new.

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And yeah, I don't think anyone was saying the existing system with optional rewards and trinkets was working fine and their stats were likely showing it too. It would be nice if it drove us to explore the lab but it didn't, which I think most of us here agreed with, so they just scrapped the concept and made them less detourish.

That's one thing they did. The other, which I see pretty much no one here talking about, was randomize certain rewards. This gives a higher (relative) advantage to players who think using Reddit to cheat is BS and/or don't even know about poelab. That is important because non-randomized rewards published on reddit was a very important factor in the Labyrinth discouraging exploration.

If we consider "Labyrinth discourages and punishes exploration" to be a problem (applicable equally to new and old players, imo), the three most obvious solutions are as follows:

1. Render the issue moot, by heavily decreasing the amount which can be explored.
2. Individualize the experience more, in order to make players feel less punished for stepping off the beaten track and/or not exploiting reddit.
3. Make the content 100% optional.

GGG has applied #1 to the earlier labs, and #2 to all labs. #1 is the more obvious and dramatic change (thus everyone talks about it), but its substantive impact is arguably much smaller. #2 is an actual revision to content, as opposed to a band-aid solution of reducing the content, and as such deserves more attention.

I'm not saying their work is done (far from it), but any useful critical evaluation of the current state of things must acknowledge and consider the totality of their revisions so far, in order to guide their trajectory moving forward.

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raics wrote:

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Pyrokar wrote:

Are you saying that he suggestions in this thread aren't good enough to come through?

Assuming the comment was serious... no idea, we'll know it once something does.

The whole thing is hella sketchy, really, as far as I know GGG has never credited anyone for ideas except supporters for their uniques, and brother Laz I suppose. Which is a pretty smart thing to do if you think about it, because there would be no end to 'see, I suggested that way back in 2014, post 65, thread 453677' or 'oh yeah? I said the exact same thing on 10.2.2013 when talking down my parrot for arguing with the cat about oil prices'. I mean, sure, it was originally your idea, but it wasn't the one GGG saw and acted upon, so who to credit? Can't blame them for wanting no part in that mess.

Ah well, we say a lot of things in here so some of it is bound to match, there's probably no need to credit anyone in the first place.

Sorry. Took it the wrong way i guess.

Thanks for the CoC changes!

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gibbousmoon wrote:

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raics wrote:

Sure, not saying it isn't possible they just painted it pretty. But what they did helps the little guy the most so they aren't contradicting themselves.

It would be naïve to suggest or believe that the largest Labyrinth changes were not due primarily to the flood of unceasing negative feedback, by a huge mix of players, both old and new.

"

And yeah, I don't think anyone was saying the existing system with optional rewards and trinkets was working fine and their stats were likely showing it too. It would be nice if it drove us to explore the lab but it didn't, which I think most of us here agreed with, so they just scrapped the concept and made them less detourish.

That's one thing they did. The other, which I see pretty much no one here talking about, was randomize certain rewards. This gives a higher (relative) advantage to players who think using Reddit to cheat is BS and/or don't even know about poelab. That is important because non-randomized rewards published on reddit was a very important factor in the Labyrinth discouraging exploration.

If we consider "Labyrinth discourages and punishes exploration" to be a problem (applicable equally to new and old players, imo), the three most obvious solutions are as follows:

1. Render the issue moot, by heavily decreasing the amount which can be explored.
2. Individualize the experience more, in order to make players feel less punished for stepping off the beaten track and/or not exploiting reddit.
3. Make the content 100% optional.

GGG has applied #1 to the earlier labs, and #2 to all labs. #1 is the more obvious and dramatic change (thus everyone talks about it), but its substantive impact is arguably much smaller. #2 is an actual revision to content, as opposed to a band-aid solution of reducing the content, and as such deserves more attention.

I'm not saying their work is done (far from it), but any useful critical evaluation of the current state of things must acknowledge and consider the totality of their revisions so far, in order to guide their trajectory moving forward.

What about #3? Whats your opinion about it?

And since I'm interested in everyone's opinion about this.
Scenario one it takes time and costs money to do #3 mentioned above, scenario two no hustle at all to implement it.

Personally i support it in both scenarios. Scenario two is a win-win-win anyway (GGG-haters-lovers) so no much analysis on that.

Scenario one. I firmly believe in old content revision from time to time. For example, PvP had its chance but failed due to many imbalances and lack of dev experience on the matter and I don't believe its coming back as a main focus ever again. Forsaken masters where heavily tweaked some patches ago, to make it less frustrating and boring to level them up and do their dailies, but there is definitely still room for improvement. Pale council was recently reworked a bit and made chains more rewarding decreasing by a lot the "too-much-hustle-for-almost-nothing" factor. In some degree even the "new" acts 6-9 are actually revisioned content specifically targeting the boredom of redoing the same content for leveling purposes. And lab belongs in that category, besides being controversial since day one due to many reasons, its also something you do and redo for character progression (which is very similar to leveling). The recent changes are only a band-aid to help alleviate some of that boredom and definitely there is plenty of room for changes. Changes that only money can bring to GGG, and the biggest example is TD who bought a supporter pack for Harbinger besides being one of the front-runners in this campaign simply because he liked those changes (and i salute him for this cause if GGG cares he sent them a clear message).

Hoping for the best, but keeping a small basket at the same time.

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Regulator wrote:

What about #3? Whats your opinion about it?

Ambivalence.

Ideally, all of the issues would be sufficiently addressed so that the question is moot. Kitava2 is a horribly designed fight along the lines of Labyrinth when it first came out, but I don't think about fixing Kitava in terms of making him optional. I think in terms of making him realistically defeatable by all major build types, and fixing any other problems he has.

Now, some people think Kitava should be optional (i.e., don't lock maps behind him). But his defeat still awards 2 passive points, so even then he wouldn't be 100% optional.

In short, I believe in fixing broken content, not rendering it irrelevant. If GGG can't figure out how to fix the Labyrinth so that it becomes a fun part of the PoE experience rather than a chore, then yes, they should render it optional (and irrelevant to the lion's share of PoE players). But only as a last resort.

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Archwizard wrote:

<stuff from KiadawP and raics here>

The labs SHOULD get more longer and more difficult as you step up in tiers. Make each bonus harder to get. The rewards for running Eternal lab are also 942390483904830934893 times (approximately) as good as Normal lab, running Eternal should require much more time/effort.

You're writing as if there's only one appropriate way to offer prestige classes in a game, or at least in a game that's well designed and fun.

But, there are a variety of ways prestige classes are offered in RPGs / ARPGs / MMOs. And, you can't lump all games into the "well designed and fun" category or "the other" category based on whether prestige classes are offered to players in the way you seem to prefer.

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EnjoyTheJourney wrote:

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Archwizard wrote:

<stuff from KiadawP and raics here>

The labs SHOULD get more longer and more difficult as you step up in tiers. Make each bonus harder to get. The rewards for running Eternal lab are also 942390483904830934893 times (approximately) as good as Normal lab, running Eternal should require much more time/effort.

You're writing as if there's only one appropriate way to offer prestige classes in a game, or at least in a game that's well designed and fun.

But, there are a variety of ways prestige classes are offered in RPGs / ARPGs / MMOs. And, you can't lump all games into the "well designed and fun" category or "the other" category based on whether prestige classes are offered to players in the way you seem to prefer.

No, I wasn't. I was talking in the context of PoE and how they have Ascendancies set up only.

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Regulator wrote:

...Changes that only money can bring to GGG, and the biggest example is TD who bought a supporter pack for Harbinger besides being one of the front-runners in this campaign simply because he liked those changes (and i salute him for this cause if GGG cares he sent them a clear message).

Hoping for the best, but keeping a small basket at the same time.

Truth is that there's also a degree of self serving selfishness in getting the supporter pack. The currency stash tab and essence stash tabs are very nice QOL improvements. The div card and quad tabs are just so-so since I have more tabs than can be reasonably used anyway.

In another thread, Boem, had a suggestion that I think should be considered for addition to the OP of this thread. Here https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1989534#p14851128

I think that I may have seen this discussed previously? It is to simply reduce the number of labs from four to three. Allocating the points 3-3-2. Eliminating the normal or cruel labyrinth and the trials associated with it. The idea kind of goes along with the changes in 3.0 lab. That is less bad content makes for a better game over all. I mean it doesn't fix the bad content it just eliminates some of it thereby improving the game. It wouldn't be my favorite pick of the ideas in the OP but from the point of view of ease to implement it makes it very attractive. Maybe we could see something like this next release instead of or in addition to something else 2 years from now?

The easiest solution would be just to adjust the Damage done by Traps. There is no reason that a lvl 70 should die to spinning spiketraps that are offscreen in normal difficulty. Just set the traps to deal a certain amount of damage, so that characters can actually gear/tech for them. There is no reason that traps should deal a % of life at all difficulties. They should deal static damage to provide a gear check. Maybe at the highest difficulty they can deal % based damaged, as you should have all your ascendancy points you need at that stage.

This would be the best solution that I can think of and requires the least amount of work from the dev team. The can literally patch/hotfix this and I would be 100% satisfied.