When Chris says that lab haters are a minority, how right is he?

I may be a "minority" but my vehement hatred for the labyrinth more than makes up for that.

I love those darksrines. I've been farming the heck out of ones that make the mobs drop currency or uniques.

I seriously don't understand why people would play a game they hate. I have a mental image of some kid playing POE with tears streaming down his face, crying "why oh god why!??!?!?"

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Nizreb915 wrote:

I love those darksrines. I've been farming the heck out of ones that make the mobs drop currency or uniques.

I seriously don't understand why people would play a game they hate. I have a mental image of some kid playing POE with tears streaming down his face, crying "why oh god why!??!?!?"

Its not the game we hate most of us really love PoE, its the freaking Lab we hate.

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rictiln wrote:

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Aikeen86 wrote:

Erm you can do that? A lot of Players offer to carry others through the lab for currency? So why not take one of those offers?

Why should the solution to the horrid experience of the lab be to pay some other player for a carry?

The lab experience isn't horrid. Some people just crumple up in a petulant little ball of misery when they can't succeed at the first try in a video game, and the Labyrinth gives that to people in spades. They died, and it clearly wasn't fair. It's just bad design, right?

In reality, the Labyrinth is well crafted and fitting in itself. It adds an additional layer to the game's combat -- it adds another factor to player decision-making other than just "maximum clear speed." It establishes a niche for specialized players to create specialized characters that do one thing very well, much like Atziri. Overall, it adds an additional segment to the player narrative, a step in the journey of each difficulty that puts the player and their character to a great test and trial, but rewards several entirely unique rewards when they overcome it (the Ascendancy class points and enchantments).


But it's different, and it's hard in a new way, and the best enchantments are hard to get.. so people get sad, and they throw fits, and they blame the game for bad design or not being fun. They find other voices and repeat their nonsense, and when GGG rightly does not acquiesce to their indolent demands, they manufacture outrage.

Try the Labyrinth again. Consider from the start that it's a part of the game, and you need to defeat it, not ignore it, to succeed. Don't expect what once worked to continue to work -- the game must change from time to time, after all. Adapt or leave.

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Tykero wrote:

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rictiln wrote:

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Aikeen86 wrote:

Erm you can do that? A lot of Players offer to carry others through the lab for currency? So why not take one of those offers?

Why should the solution to the horrid experience of the lab be to pay some other player for a carry?

The lab experience isn't horrid. Some people just crumple up in a petulant little ball of misery when they can't succeed at the first try in a video game, and the Labyrinth gives that to people in spades. They died, and it clearly wasn't fair. It's just bad design, right?

In reality, the Labyrinth is well crafted and fitting in itself. It adds an additional layer to the game's combat -- it adds another factor to player decision-making other than just "maximum clear speed." It establishes a niche for specialized players to create specialized characters that do one thing very well, much like Atziri. Overall, it adds an additional segment to the player narrative, a step in the journey of each difficulty that puts the player and their character to a great test and trial, but rewards several entirely unique rewards when they overcome it (the Ascendancy class points and enchantments).


But it's different, and it's hard in a new way, and the best enchantments are hard to get.. so people get sad, and they throw fits, and they blame the game for bad design or not being fun. They find other voices and repeat their nonsense, and when GGG rightly does not acquiesce to their indolent demands, they manufacture outrage.

Try the Labyrinth again. Consider from the start that it's a part of the game, and you need to defeat it, not ignore it, to succeed. Don't expect what once worked to continue to work -- the game must change from time to time, after all. Adapt or leave.

What gives you the right to decide whats fun for me? The lab has never been fun for me. It's tedious and a horrible experience each time I had to do it. The final one is the worst, because it limits builds, unless you are geared to the point that the rest of the game becomes trivial (at which point, there is no point in continuing that character), that can complete it successfully while being mandatory due to locking ascendancy points behind completing it. It is a bad enough experience that it sours the feel rest of the game, which is fun. Difficulty is fine, but it needs to be done in a way that feels good. The lab simply doesn't satisfy that requirement.

If I was inclined to do so, it is absolutely trivial to make a build that can clear the final lab without effort while getting every single key. But what if I don't want to play that kind of build? And what about every other build I would want to play?

The difference between Atziri and lab is that one is entirely optional, and one is not. One is something you make a character to farm efficiently, and one you need to do on every character. One is enjoyable to do, and one is not...

What is really telling is all those supporter tags under your name. You've spent 1,000s of dollars on this game. Clearly you like parts of it enough to do so, and that's fine. But having done so also clearly makes you unable to accept any criticism of your precious baby. After all, a game you've spent that much on can't be anything but absolutely perfect, right?

I'm done with the game until GGG admits that the lab sucks and fixes it.

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rictiln wrote:

I'm done with the game until GGG admits that the lab sucks and fixes it.

You know that's not going to happen right? lol

Chris already said that he is fine with people disliking the lab.

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rictiln wrote:

The final one is the worst, because it limits builds

What exactly is the problem with it? Haven't gotten to trying it yet so you'll forgive me for not knowing what's so different about it.

Honestly, I was surprised we're getting two extra points, Scion did feel a bit unfinished with six to spend but the other classes made sense so I wrote it off as shoddy design at the time. Anyway, Chris did give off an impression that the final lab is an endgame alternative similar to Atziri and fairly optional. Indeed, for some of my builds I had nothing special to spend those points on, with this amount of power creep you'd be hard pressed to convince me your build will be trash without them.

It's very similar to planning your build with 107 points instead of 122 because pushing for level 100 is tedious and requires a fast and safe build. It would be kinda silly to ask them to make those final l5 passive points available for everyone regardless of build and playstyle.

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rictiln wrote:

What gives you the right to decide whats fun for me? The lab has never been fun for me. It's tedious and a horrible experience each time I had to do it. The final one is the worst, because it limits builds, unless you are geared to the point that the rest of the game becomes trivial (at which point, there is no point in continuing that character), that can complete it successfully while being mandatory due to locking ascendancy points behind completing it. It is a bad enough experience that it sours the feel rest of the game, which is fun. Difficulty is fine, but it needs to be done in a way that feels good. The lab simply doesn't satisfy that requirement.

If I was inclined to do so, it is absolutely trivial to make a build that can clear the final lab without effort while getting every single key. But what if I don't want to play that kind of build? And what about every other build I would want to play?

The difference between Atziri and lab is that one is entirely optional, and one is not. One is something you make a character to farm efficiently, and one you need to do on every character. One is enjoyable to do, and one is not...

What is really telling is all those supporter tags under your name. You've spent 1,000s of dollars on this game. Clearly you like parts of it enough to do so, and that's fine. But having done so also clearly makes you unable to accept any criticism of your precious baby. After all, a game you've spent that much on can't be anything but absolutely perfect, right?

I'm done with the game until GGG admits that the lab sucks and fixes it.

There's nothing in the lab that invalidates builds aside from those that rely on Vaal Skills. It's always doable if you have anything approaching a functional build for the rest of the game. I'm sorry that you're not having fun in the labyrinth, but you should probably examine why that might be -- because the labyrinth itself is not terribly different from the rest of the game, it just has some different hazards.

We can debate about whether or not the labyrinth is optional... personally I think the fourth Labyrinth is about a mandatory as a level 100 character. Besides, Normal and Cruel labyrinth aren't much more difficult than Act 4 of their respective difficulties, and Merciless labyrinth is only slightly harder than a 68 map. Their challenge is not out of line with the rest of the game, especially considering what they represent.

I'm not sure what nebulous quality you feel like the labyrinth is missing, but I think you'll be waiting a long time for GGG to "admit the lab sucks." Further, I have given GGG a decent amount of money because I make a pretty comfortable living, they produce a game that I greatly enjoy, and I feel like they deserve it. If the game was suddenly taken in a direction I did not like, or GGG as a company ceased to operate with the incredible integrity I admire them for, would I not be among the first to be unhappy with such a development? I am no blind fanboy, I'm aware that Path of Exile and Grinding Gear Games are not perfect. On the other hand, I'm quite cognizant of the vague, subjective complaints that always accompany new additions to video games, especially those that hold the key to content players feel entitled to. The labyrinth is the enemy keeping players from their power fantasy points, and every time it defeats them, their animosity grows.

The labyrinth is not tedious -- it takes about as long as a map does to complete -- it just demands something different. You're apparently committed to hating it, and that's unfortunate, but you'll be better served by actually playing something else. Voice your (constructive) complaints, and if the lab is such a dealbreaker, stop playing. That will get GGGs attention. If I'm wrong, and a significant enough portion of the playerbase stops playing, they'll make changes to win them back.

Its very different than rest of the game.

Hey Aim WTB xyz for 10c.
Can you wait 10 min in lab?
Sorry got it somewhere else.
Awe.:(

No or low exp compared to maps.

Same layout all day long. (some ppl look at that as a plus tho)

Time not worth reward on enchants IMO since they are not game making and odds astronomical anyway for something applicable. Time is well spent mapping which pays for itself and then some with good rares, exp and currency.

Basically I only go there for ascendancy and I do plenty of grinding elsewhere from crypt maps at low level for justicars to uber farms.

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laycast wrote:

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rictiln wrote:

I'm done with the game until GGG admits that the lab sucks and fixes it.

You know that's not going to happen right? lol

Chris already said that he is fine with people disliking the lab.

He's going to change his mind when he starts looking at how quickly players are dropping out of this league. Based on steam charts recording the amount of players playing over the last week, 30% of those that played at the start of 2.3 are already gone (26k down to 18k). Previous leagues took closer to a month or longer to lose 30% of players. This is only on Steam of course, but there is no reason to think this isn't representative of the non-Steam players as well.