The Labyrinth Reduced *My* Retention

I play HC and consider myself to be every so slightly above average in terms of my skill with PoE. That said, I only got one character into maps this season, and haven't played in a few weeks because of the Labyrinth. I know that any character I play will, eventually, be forced into a tedious slog that I find so unengaging and tiresome that I can't bring myself to make new characters. On top of that, every time I set foot in there I am risking my character, which compounds how tedious it is because I don't feel remotely comfortable just rushing through it.

I won't pretend to have all kinds of potential solutions, but the only thing that I, personally, feel I could stomach that wouldn't reduce my time invested in a season to three weeks or less is just cutting the Labyrinth into thirds on your first runs of each difficulty. Normal characters do the first 1/3 of the Labyrinth, Curel does the second 1/3, and Merc does the final 1/3. Save the status of Izaro to the character for these first runs, but only the first, so you can do Normal, full length Lab runs for the leaderboards after the first. Each time you step into the Cruel Labyrinth until you clear it Izaro has the same buffs (or lack thereof) that he had when you beat him in your first clear of Normal.

I obviously don't know how the Labyrinth works under the hood, but I would imagine this sort of thing would take a fair bit of new code and balancing efforts. I also know that this post will likely get buried, but I love this game to death and the Labyrinth has killed the replayability of it for me because it's mandatory and so horribly tedious. I figured it would be worth ten minutes of my time for a quick bit of feedback that GGG might see and be able to roll into their overarching process.

TL;DR The Lab is tedious and I've stopped playing because I can't bear the thought of having to drag myself through it over and over.

Then dont ? lol

If 15 minutes to do three lab runs is tedious then you should consider finding a new genre to play.

It's not very hard if you run it when not tired or distracted, for a competent player it should not take long, and gives great rewards. It is different, yes, but Perandus mobs give me a lot more hardship than the Labirynth.

Again, I play HC so the prospect of rushing through it sounds like a deathtrap since, and I'll be honest, I'm not amazing at this game or running the Lab. So no, it doesn't take me 15 minutes to do 3 runs. It takes me 20-30 to do one. 20-30 minutes of tedium.

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The problems with the Lab have been stated many times over. Some find it too challenging. Others find it really easy. It comes down to the players and the playstyle.

The problem I have with it is that Normal is way too difficult for a reasonably equipped level appropriate HC character. Cruel is actually not so bad, and from the looks of things, Merciless will be considered easy if you get that far. That's totally backwards, and likely the cause of the different views about it. Players who are "completionist", who like finishing the content in the order presented are really put off the Lab because of its initial difficulty and length. Players who don't mind passing stuff by don't see the Lab as being "too long"... but they only see what's necessary to get to the end. With full clears, it's as long as an entire act... without waypoints.

So if you don't rush... it's way too long. If you do rush, you can't see why others would claim it to be too long. Different players. Different play styles.

Problem: We need all the players we can get. GGG needs funding from a variety of players... not just those that play a certain way.

The main problem with labyrinth is that if the game freezes or you lag during traps, you die. Traps ignore all your gear and passive tree choices and just kill you no matter what.

Traps are a frogger mini-game, and it sucks for HC players to be forced to play 1 life frogger. In HC each character should get 3 lives until permanent death, in the labyrinth. 3 lives total, for the lifespan of your character in labyrinth, not 3 lives per run.

3 lives is perfectly reasonable, and fits with the genre of old nintendo games that labyrinth traps seeks to imitate.

Welcome to my world. I usually do at least three characters per league, sometimes even more, this time around i stopped at 1 PHC character who didnt even ascend in the first place. When he died at 93 i wanted so much to reroll (had over 15 builds planned) but i could not bear to level up again, cause since i was not planning to ascend the game didnt have to offer something new for me. All that because AC are fucking locked behind the atrocity called labyrinth.

What some people cant understand is that even if its 15minutes per difficulty, when you cant focus because you find the content really tedious, you realise its not worth even the minimal time investment and risk, because in an unforgiving environment you need to stay focused all the time, when you cant do this you die and thats not a risk im willing to take.

On top of that the time investment for those who are not familiar (or straight up hate this kind of arcade gameplay) is way more than 15 minutes per difficulty, cause of trials and boredom and shit.

Last but not least, this game is a past time activity, a hobby, something you play to have fun, ofcourse im NOT willing to spend my time doing something i do not enjoy, not even for 1 minute. Fuck the labyrinth seriously, and fuck that decision to lock the classes behind it.

Whats is even more troubling is that, Chris in the recent podcast admitted that the labyrinth is not optional content (of course its not optional, whatever certain individuals believe) and that might mean that future content might be balanced around those classes. I really hope thats never the case.

Anyway check sig for more info on the matter.

Well at least you're not playing a game you don't enjoy. Guess that means it's time to troll the forums until you get bored of that too? /raiseshand

Oh well, hopefully GGG learns from it.

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

Then dont ? lol

If 15 minutes to do three lab runs is tedious then you should consider finding a new genre to play.

Considering number 1 position on the phc lab ladders (all 3 diffs) is approx 15 minutes total it's probably unreasonable to assume most players can do anything like that time. Fairly straightfoward lab today too.