My wallet will talk

"

unranked wrote:

To think that I have to run the Labyrinth again, encountering that very badly implemented, yet still cool idea, called the Lab, I'd just rather close the game.

Instead, you could pay any random lab runner his 2 chaos fee and let you rush this thing in less than 5 minutes.

You don´t even need to enter the boss rooms, it´s a very safe and fast method to get it done.

I was salty about Lab, too, until I realized how much of a no-brainer a lab run is. All you need to do is run behind the guy, let him do all 3 Izaro fights (NO risk for your character at all),
et voila : you got your Ascendancy points.

Absolutely fine to stay in the game as it is ...

:)

"

Turtledove wrote:

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I_NO wrote:

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pajingtonn wrote:

Lab is 30 minutes... did full lab run(normal-cruel-merciless)on three characters...=1,5h*3=4,5hours. I spend more time just checking trade chat sometimes...

30? Lmao more like 5-10 mins once you memorize it you breeze through it unless your ES of course.

You are once again getting obnoxious just because someone doesn't like to play the way you think everyone should play. People talking about speed clearing have a fine style of playing the game. However, I don't understand how you can be so arrogant to think that your play style is the "correct" way to play the game. The correct play style is whatever is fun for that person. There is not correct play style for everyone?

She does the Lab, she enjoys herself. In my book, this is a correct way. Or am I missing something here?

How about you go on a golf field, and start kicking the balls, complaining that the game is stupid, and when somebody tells you that is not the proper way of enjoying a golf game, tell them that they can't tell you how to enjoy golf.
Sorry if I exaggerated, buy this is how it looks to me. I'm not saying you should be speed running it, but if there are people who know how to do it, and can do it, it seems that maybe, just maybe, it is not the Lab that is made wrong. Let that sink for a minute.

I'm not invalidating your feedback, because I think we need it from every possible side, but I'm asking you to not go into you can't tell me what to do, I will do what I want route. Because you can do what you want - but don't expect everything to change to fit your needs.

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Grumlum wrote:

"

unranked wrote:

To think that I have to run the Labyrinth again, encountering that very badly implemented, yet still cool idea, called the Lab, I'd just rather close the game.

Instead, you could pay any random lab runner his 2 chaos fee and let you rush this thing in less than 5 minutes.

You don´t even need to enter the boss rooms, it´s a very safe and fast method to get it done.

I was salty about Lab, too, until I realized how much of a no-brainer a lab run is. All you need to do is run behind the guy, let him do all 3 Izaro fights (NO risk for your character at all),
et voila : you got your Ascendancy points.

Absolutely fine to stay in the game as it is ...

:)

I will never understand how this became a valid argument. Paying someone with top-level gear to play the game for you doesn't make the game balanced. That's asinine.

I have played many, many MMORPGs over the years, F2P and P2P, subscription and non, running the full quality spectrum. I have never seen a single soul contracting themselves to run low-level content before playing PoE. Do you know why? Because in other games, content is fucking doable at the level it is set at.

This game is balanced like ass. I've said it many times before: It is not the designers job to defeat the player. And yet often times, that is exactly how this game is designed.

"

AkuTenshiiZero wrote:

"

Grumlum wrote:

"

unranked wrote:

To think that I have to run the Labyrinth again, encountering that very badly implemented, yet still cool idea, called the Lab, I'd just rather close the game.

Instead, you could pay any random lab runner his 2 chaos fee and let you rush this thing in less than 5 minutes.

You don´t even need to enter the boss rooms, it´s a very safe and fast method to get it done.

I was salty about Lab, too, until I realized how much of a no-brainer a lab run is. All you need to do is run behind the guy, let him do all 3 Izaro fights (NO risk for your character at all),
et voila : you got your Ascendancy points.

Absolutely fine to stay in the game as it is ...

:)

I will never understand how this became a valid argument. Paying someone with top-level gear to play the game for you doesn't make the game balanced. That's asinine.

I have played many, many MMORPGs over the years, F2P and P2P, subscription and non, running the full quality spectrum. I have never seen a single soul contracting themselves to run low-level content before playing PoE. Do you know why? Because in other games, content is fucking doable at the level it is set at.

This game is balanced like ass. I've said it many times before: It is not the designers job to defeat the player. And yet often times, that is exactly how this game is designed.

You don't need to be over-level and over-geared to do Lab. You need to, however, know what you are doing.

"

Perq wrote:

You don't need to be over-level and over-geared to do Lab. You need to, however, know what you are doing.

And I would, in theory, be inclined to agree. Traps do %HP damage, so gear is irrelevant. Mobs are indeed of the level advertised. The labyrinth itself actually IS a skill check, and even if you pay someone to help you then you will still need to navigate said traps yourself.

But then there's Izaro. He is wildly out of scale with the zone, something that gets exponentially worse with increasing difficulty due to the apparent hyperbolic power scale mob levels follow. Mechanically, he's easy as fuck. But his sheer bloated stats make it impossible to kill him at zone level. A zone that, I remind you, has mobs that are so easy they are effectively walking flask charges.

There is no justifying the sheer power difference between Izaro and his zone. He is the latest in a series of bad jokes, yet another oneshot machine.

Well, normal lab takes 20/25 minutes, you still don't have all the movement speed/skill setup to do it very quickly.

Cruel and normal are doable in 15/20 minutes as a first run in an average day without any previous layout knowledge, but with some experience.

When you get to look for enchants obviously it becomes way faster, but to get your ascendancies i think is hard to be faster than my estimates.

"

AkuTenshiiZero wrote:

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Perq wrote:

You don't need to be over-level and over-geared to do Lab. You need to, however, know what you are doing.

And I would, in theory, be inclined to agree. Traps do %HP damage, so gear is irrelevant. Mobs are indeed of the level advertised. The labyrinth itself actually IS a skill check, and even if you pay someone to help you then you will still need to navigate said traps yourself.

But then there's Izaro. He is wildly out of scale with the zone, something that gets exponentially worse with increasing difficulty due to the apparent hyperbolic power scale mob levels follow. Mechanically, he's easy as fuck. But his sheer bloated stats make it impossible to kill him at zone level. A zone that, I remind you, has mobs that are so easy they are effectively walking flask charges.

There is no justifying the sheer power difference between Izaro and his zone. He is the latest in a series of bad jokes, yet another oneshot machine.

I did the Normal/Cruel Lab before the (big) Izaro nerf. It was justified, he was overtuned back then. Especially for Normal, when new players fight him. But now? No, not really.

Something that way too many people overlook, are his mechanics. Some of them makes him unkillable, or make him one-shot anything. My lvl 91 Raider can still be one shot, if Izaro gets enough buffs.

If anything, I think GGG did a very poor job in showing to new players how these mechanics work. It is impossible to figure it out on your own, after you die, too, because game doesn't give you any feedback, other than Izaro saying that you failed. :P

And this is nothing new - game still lacks proper explanation of basic rules PoE plays by. The most basic being wordings, skill tags and monsters affixes mechanics. I would say some work should be done in that direction.

I used to see the lab the same way... as an obstacle standing between me and the many builds I might make...

But now I'm pretty fine with the lab. Had some fun moments in there.

I have 4 characters in the 80's (I think 1 is 78 actually), having done some lab runs solo, and others in groups. Some even jumped in with a group of guildy's getting a rush from another guild mate.

But The lab is more content, and it's not very optional, which does make me wonder if its about time to loose a difficulty already.

"

DragonsProphecy wrote:

But The lab is more content, and it's not very optional, which does make me wonder if its about time to loose a difficulty already.

I have long been an advocate for a Casual mode. Right now we have Hardcore, and then we have Standard which translates to "Hardcore where you don't have to Alt-F4." Keep Standard, and introduce a Casual mode that significantly reduces the damage scaling on mobs. Games have had difficulty settings since the 8-bit era, and yet somehow GGG seems to think that everyone plays PoE for the same frustrating "hardcore" experience (As evidenced by the labyrinth). If I wanted the Hardcore experience, I'd have clicked Hardcore when I made my damn character.

As I've said many times in the past: I play this game because I like to see what I can do with the versatile gem/tree system. But the current difficulty of the game has eliminated so many builds. I end up getting to merciless and hit a brick wall where I simply cannot proceed anymore, all because I wanted to try something that wasn't on the forums. You shouldn't feel forced to take every single HP/ES node you can reach.

I'm with you. I won't spend more on the game or try to get more of my friends into the game because I don't believe in the game as much as I used to. I would not like to have a conversation explaining the lab to a new player or somebody coming back. I hate the lab.

I will go through merciless lab once more for my last character of the league (I would usually level more but nah, I'll suffer one last time and that's it.). It has 90% of it's life reserved, pure es gear. It sucks doing the lab with it. But more than that, the lab isn't fun at all. I like the Izaro fight, even with buffs that make him more dangerous. I'd be for making him even more dangerous in some mode.
Fighting bosses is a part of POE I enjoy that has been in the game as long as I've played.

Next league if nothing is changed, I might still play, but not ES based until merc lab is done. And probably no more than one character. Also open to finding other games to play.
Today I even went to the gym for an extra training session because I was just about to do the labyrinth and realized it would suck so bad I would rather do something entirely different.

I have 3 or 4 ascended characters so it's not something new and overwhelmingly difficult for me.
Doing lab doesn't get better IMO though, it gets more and more tedious. It's not fun at all.
I have no desire what so ever to "get good" at running lab. I might as well get good at virtua tennis then. Or guitar hero. I don't like those games but I should just get good at them, right.