Open Letter to Chris Wilson (on making the labyrinth more inclusive)

Hi Chris,

I'd like to address something you said in your May 22nd interview. I'm sending this to you personally, but I'm posting it in the feedback forum ("Open Letter to Chris Wilson") as well so that others can comment on and, if necessary, disagree with it and give their reasons why. I've never done this before, and I'll probably never do it again, but it's important enough to me to do it now.

In the interview you said, "I understand a lot of the community don't like the Labyrinth" and "Many people are happy to go through it. Many people really hate it." So you understand that it is unpopular with a significant* minority of the community, but do you understand why?

(*What is signicant? I'd say any number greater than 10% is cause for concern, particularly when a change is hated so strongly as to drive people to leave the game entirely. Do you think the number is higher than 10%?)

This comment (at around the 40-minute mark) in particular jumped out at me as indicative that you perhaps do not fully understand the reasons for opposition to the Labyrinth: "It's great to have an action RPG where there's some areas where you have to be careful... I understand that it doesn't go with the clear speed meta that we have at the moment. This is a slower-paced content maybe for a slower-paced Path of Exile."

And that's the first problem. The Labyrinth is NOT a slower-paced Path of Exile. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Its entire design is wrapped around clearing it as quickly as possible, for reasons I will get into below.

Your team has made unpopular decisions in the past, but have any been this unpopular in both scope and depth of dislike? If not, why not? This is anecdotal evidence of which you are probably already aware, but never before have I seen so many threads or posts announcing a player's departure due to an unpopular addition to the game. Some of them do not stay away (I didn't), but that's irrelevant; the depth of dislike is there, and it is real. Why? Why is this happening now?

I cannot list every reason I have read; there are far too many. But I can point to the three primary specific reasons most likely to be agreed upon by those opposing the Labyrinth as it is right now:


1. Traps. Well, duh. More specifically, traps combined with PoE's control scheme. Many have posted that they do not like Mario, Frogger, etc. But I don't think this dislike for those genres is the true issue at hand. Can you imagine playing Frogger with a mouse? How about adding a point-and-click interface with limited precision? And let's make it even more interesting by adding a bit of periodic network latency to your Frogger game. Finally, let's only give you one life to get through all the levels. Can you imagine such a game? Thanks to the Labyrinth, you don't have to. I love Frogger, and I love Mario, and yet I hate the Labyrinth. I'm positive that I am not alone. Furthermore, the complaints in this area are rarely about difficulty and more often about frustrating tedium, so making the traps more forgiving would not solve the problem.

This particular gameplay is also less than ideal for those in high-ping (>100ms) situations. (I live in Japan, and thus regularly deal with traps jumping around and/or not being accurately located.) Now, I realize we are in the minority, but I think you can understand that disenfranchising us after so many years of staunch support for your game nonetheless stings quite a bit. Traps also very nearly break the Labyrinth for high-ping players in Hardcore (I play both SC and HC), which is disheartening for those preferring that style of play.


2. Reason 2 is a bit more complicated to explain, but no less important. It is perhaps the most important reason, and has to do with "back-loading" rewards. Every single Labyrinth-specific reward comes at the very end of the run. This phenomenon is doubly noticeable when mistakes/deaths require the player to re-run the Labyrinth again from the very beginning. Both of these factors explain why your statement about the Labyrinth encouraging a "slower-paced Path of Exile" is, well, not consistent with reality. Sorry. Speed is king, during Labyrinth runs no less so than while clearing maps.

Furthermore, because the Labyrinth's design incentivizes getting through it as fast as possible, many players don't feel rewarded WHILE playing the Labyrinth. And slower, careful players feel even less rewarded. This is what sets it apart from every other controversial change or addition GGG has added to Path of Exile. (With perhaps the exception of Haku missions. :P) I believe it is a large reason for the comparatively intense dislike the Labyrinth is receiving as well.


3. Finally, people are especially resentful of tasks they consider unfun when they feel they are being forced to do them. This is human nature. You say, "The games that I've enjoyed most in the past are the bit where there's the things that I fear, or don't want to do, but there's a reason to do them." That's awesome for you. Many of your fans feel differently. They go through the Labyrinth despite hating it (further skewing your participation numbers), because they feel they have to, and not because it is fun. That is going to intensify people's dislike, and is probably why some of the opposition seems so vocal to you. See, 100% optional unfun content would simply be ignored, and not inspire nearly as much vitriole.


OK, so those aren't the only reasons, but they appear to be the most widely agreed upon ones. As you can see, the reasons are a lot more complex than people simply not wanting to "leave their comfort zone." Yet I have tried to be far more specific than "it's just not fun," because, once we understand the reasons for the opposition, it becomes a LOT easier to propose solutions, particularly (and this is important) solutions that are acceptable to Labyrinth fans.

First of all, I'm going to take it as a given that the Labyrinth is here to stay, complete with enchantments and Ascendancy points. To do otherwise would likely both demoralize the GGG team and anger those for whom Labyrinth gameplay is fun. The good news is, we don't have to!

Let's address Reason 1 and Reason 3 first. Of the various proposed solutions to Labyrinth hatred, the one which appears to have inspired the least opposition from Labyrinth fans is to allow players to bypass the traps, in exchange for a slower route through the Labyrinth. They could optionally disable traps via puzzles which are set up to slow down your progress through the lab (slower than running the traps, anyhow). A similar solution would make all mazes navigable without going through the traps at all, but via slower routes. This would require a lab-generation algorithm redesign. Either solution requires additional work for GGG, but it doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount. Furthermore, it would actually give you the slower-paced Path of Exile you talked about!

Reason 2 is a bit trickier to address, because it deals with deeper issues of pacing and design. I have no specific advice for you here, but I am confident that various tweaks to the Labyrinth's reward structure could help with this problem a LOT. (More loot boxes instead of darkshrines? An ability to use extra treasure keys earlier in the lab? I don't know. I'm confident you guys can come up with something.)

I hope you are willing to consider tweaking your content in order to make the game appealing once more to your entire community, rather than just a portion of it. Because that is the game that Path of Exile used to be, despite any warts, controversial bits, etc. And it is not what the game is now.

Thank you for reading this letter. I've never sent you a personal message in the 3+ years I enjoyed the game, and perhaps I should have, just to thank you for finally filling the gap which was left behind when my favorite game (D2) became inactive. You've helped to create something amazing in Path of Exile. Also, please understand that I am posting this in public as well not to be aggressive but rather to accumulate genuine feedback, especially from Labyrinth fans.

Sincerely,
Gibbousmoon

2 has been adressed today. Just saying. Let's see how bribery goes.

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NeroNoah wrote:

2 has been adressed today. Just saying. Let's see how bribery goes.

It has? Can you explain more?

As a laby lover, these are suggestions that I'd be happy with seeing implemented. I see no reason why there shouldn't be more choices for players to get through it.

As someone who plays on predictive mode (by choice) I can't imagine what a player would go through with a somewhat shitty ping, I'm averaging ~30ms and I get some major trap desyncing happening. Having an optional way around that issue may help some of the laby haters.

For those that feel it's a different genre, requiring them to complete puzzles doesn't seem like it's going to help them though.

But you can't please everyone all of the time, for some it may just be time to move on. :)

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gibbousmoon wrote:

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NeroNoah wrote:

2 has been adressed today. Just saying. Let's see how bribery goes.

It has? Can you explain more?

Check the latest announcement. ;)

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Shovelcut wrote:

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gibbousmoon wrote:

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NeroNoah wrote:

2 has been adressed today. Just saying. Let's see how bribery goes.

It has? Can you explain more?

Check the latest announcement. ;)

Sorry, but could you please quote parts(s) of that post that have some relation to issue #2? I can't see anything like that in there.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

This comment (at around the 40-minute mark) in particular jumped out at me as indicative that you perhaps do not fully understand the reasons for opposition to the Labyrinth: "It's great to have an action RPG where there's some areas where you have to be careful... I understand that it doesn't go with the clear speed meta that we have at the moment. This is a slower-paced content maybe for a slower-paced Path of Exile."

And that's the first problem. The Labyrinth is NOT a slower-paced Path of Exile. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Its entire design is wrapped around clearing it as quickly as possible, for reasons I will get into below.

Chris was talking about content pacing. You are talking about incentives. There's a difference.

The labyrinth is incentivized to go quickly, but the content (esp. traps) aren't as fast paced as the rest of the game.

You switched Chris's words around to make it sound like he didn't understand the labyrinth's criticism, but what you actually demonstrated is that you didn't understand what he said. Which I think may have been one of the points he was trying to elucidate- it is difficult to appreciate the labyrinth while players remain locked into a speed-oriented mode of thinking. The incentives are working too well. Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses. If there was a reward for every 10 gardens you visited, the reward may incentive you into a behavior of tagging each garden with a punch card as quickly as you possibly can. When you get to the end to cash in your reward it's a horrible grind if you never stopped to smell the roses. When you say the labyrinth is too fast, this is essentially what you are doing. And this is why Chris says it will take a slower paced Path of Exile. You are stuck inside the incentive and you can't find your way out to smell the roses. You have visited 100 gardens, but you never saw a flower.

hard to see the "flowers" in the lab when it is covered in soo much RNG shit.
I try too get past landfills fast too.

I like the concept of labyrinth, but they still come with issues that I hate them.


1. The issue with traps is they are only good for lockstep. The worst is when you are joining a public team and your ping is >100ms, when desync happens, it WILL RE-sync you back ONTO A TRAP. So if you are making only a single mistake, you just took a trap damage, b4 you get a chance to heal. The server "hey, lets re-sync you right now, onto a trap, so you take twice/triple the damage b4 you can even heal" = you char will Rekt.

IMO, I WOULD rather get desync to a safe place b4 the trap & re-run the trap again than get desync on top a trap.

2. labyrinth reset when you crash/ISP disconnect. Well this wouldnt be a problem if you do speed run rushing to Izaro 3 within 5mins. But if you are a guy who truly enjoy labyrinth and do every single thing in labyrinth, a single laby run could take 15mints to 30mins. A crash reset it blow away everything you have done. It is risky to run a slow laby run, because you are more likely to get rekt by issues above. for a guy who likes Laby, it will turn into hate them because of this. It is punishing to do long laby run.

I have no idea why they want to design laby to be sooo vulnerable to crash/ISP disconnect. It is already very easy for server to tell if the player has died or not. Infact it is already there, when you died, you get this message "YourCharNameHere has been slain" <-- this is where the server can reset the player's laby. Do this here.

the counter argument for this is GGG couldnt tell if it is a genuine crash or Alt-F4 abuse. Well, Lock the in-game Alt-F4 key stroke & slap a fix 3 seconds log out timer. I have no idea why they refuse to fix the Alt-F4 directly, but instead they design the game around to punish players who have isp/crash issue.

Other issues
Trap Damage = It is base on % of your HP. That means if you are build tanky, you will get punish more. IMO, the Trap damage should do a flat damage.

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silumit wrote:

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Shovelcut wrote:

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gibbousmoon wrote:

It has? Can you explain more?

Check the latest announcement. ;)

Sorry, but could you please quote parts(s) of that post that have some relation to issue #2? I can't see anything like that in there.

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Bex_GGG wrote:

We have also improved the rewards at the end of side content in the Labyrinth, to make those areas more enticing.

Does this not relate to number 2?

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

If there was a reward for every 10 gardens you visited, the reward may incentive you into a behavior of tagging each garden with a punch card as quickly as you possibly can. When you get to the end to cash in your reward it's a horrible grind if you never stopped to smell the roses.

Such flowery language, yet I'm failing to see what the roses are in this metaphor.