Why the uber lab is a fuck-up

When the lab was introduced, I was part of the 'minority' (which seems to be a majority) who hated it - but I could tolerate it to some extent. You get your ascendancy points, you GTFO and don't have to ever do it again. The traps were unpleasant at first but completely doable with any build when you get some practice.

The Uber lab is on a whole new level. It's at the level at which I start thinking 'who the fuck thought this would be a good idea'?

- the trap fields there do NOT reward careful planning and smart play. There is simply no information to allow the player to analyze the pattern and plan a safe sequence of moves. There are many areas with no visible safe spot in sight where the trap gauntlet continues for well over the point of no vision. Worse, there are areas with seemingly safe spots which actually aren't because of some unseen trap which activates once you go there. From what I've seen, the best expected result for these trap fields is to have a well-maxed movement skill and/or quicksilver with haste aura and just yolo rush them. It usually works. It sometimes doesn't. This is frustrating and unpleasant in SC, in HC it's simply a no-go.

- with some traps now being next to impossible to pass through without taking damage, this creates a huge disproportion between different build types. Well-armoured life-based builds with good life regen are at the top. No armour, no life regen builds are at the bottom. I was running the Merc lab with life/es hybrids and CI builds, HC included, without any issue before. Now I don't want to even step in the lab in fucking softcore and I'm not going to even start HC. 'But the lab is optional' - yes, actually the entire game is optional and I'll soon choose the option to not play it. Gimping your character and knowing you haven't realized its full potential in a grinding and character building game is great, right?

- the uber lab is a paid instance. Combined with the various bugs and game crashes, this is on a whole new level of unpleasantness. I was getting instance crashes in the merc lab last league, it was the worst experience in Perandus league. When you get the same shit and know it costs you at least 5c (I don't know what's the price of offerings in other leagues), that's something else entirely.

- the style of play the lab is trying to force has nothing to do with what most PoE players want. People who want to jump and dodge their way through obstacle courses play platformer games - there are a ton of them. PoE is a long-term strategic character building and planning game with economic, grinding and time management elements. It's not fucking Mario. Period. If the lab was an optional side area which rewards you for running it but doesn't punish you for not running it, something like Atziri, it would be fine. But it isn't. It's forcibly shoved down our throats via ascendancy classes and there are challenges and prophecies for it in the new league.

So, I'm calling it: the lab in Perandus was a fuck-up, the lab in Prophecy is a giant fuck-up and will hurt the game hard. Everyone I play with and talk with about the game was grumbling about the lab last league, now we don't even want to speak about it.

running vaal pact no armor\eva with 1 flask, its ok.
just remember



PS the good thing that you need to complete trials only 1 time. for all other characters you need only offering.

No, just no...

You don't seem to get what "Uber" means

"

mezmery wrote:

running vaal pact no armor\eva with 1 flask, its ok.
just remember

That's my map farm setup. I like you took your time to check my character, perhaps you should take the time to think before you write too. Apart from that, I already said movement skills are good for the lab, that's actually one of my main points. Did you even read what I wrote?

Wait, you are copying the whirling blades dagger as some kind of an answer to all lab threads... nvm.

Lab would be a lot more enticing for me if...

1. More deterministic crafting. 3 choice. one being one you have.
2. Portals. I don't enchant anything simply because I cant trade, answer phone or wipe my baby's ass when in with lab.
3. Vision. No idea why trails look like black hole with 6K life. Do I need two Nycta's Lantern's and two Lori's Lanterns to see anything?
4. Monster level with you. No point in wasting 15 min+ in lab for no exp. Merc lvls till 70. Uber 70-80 (80's a 13 map exp wise)

Otherwise like others I just do it for ascendancy and GTFO

"

Bars wrote:

"

mezmery wrote:

running vaal pact no armor\eva with 1 flask, its ok.
just remember

That's my map farm setup. I like you took your time to check my character, perhaps you should take the time to think before you write too. Apart from that, I already said movement skills are good for the lab, that's actually one of my main points. Did you even read what I wrote?

Wait, you are copying the whirling blades dagger as some kind of an answer to all lab threads... nvm.

well, if you still have problems with it...
actually, since im playing MOM char and trap damage is %, i dont notice their damage at all, and im only careful at blade sentries.

"

mezmery wrote:

"

Bars wrote:

"

mezmery wrote:

running vaal pact no armor\eva with 1 flask, its ok.
just remember

That's my map farm setup. I like you took your time to check my character, perhaps you should take the time to think before you write too. Apart from that, I already said movement skills are good for the lab, that's actually one of my main points. Did you even read what I wrote?

Wait, you are copying the whirling blades dagger as some kind of an answer to all lab threads... nvm.

well, if you still have problems with it...
actually, since im playing MOM char and trap damage is %, i dont notice their damage at all, and im only careful at blade sentries.

You just addressed another main point I made: there is a huge disproportion in lab difficulty between builds. I'm starting to think you didn't read anything at all and are just trolling. Perhaps replying to you isn't wise.

"

Bars wrote:

- the uber lab is a paid instance. Combined with the various bugs and game crashes, this is on a whole new level of unpleasantness. I was getting instance crashes in the merc lab last league, it was the worst experience in Perandus league. When you get the same shit and know it costs you at least 5c (I don't know what's the price of offerings in other leagues), that's something else entirely.

This is really the biggest bullshit about endgame lab right here. On standard it's 3-4x more to buy an offering (15-20+c). I don't know what the fuck GGG is thinking or who they're trying to appeal to with a 1/350+ helmet enchant crapshoot combined with paid/scarce entry fee + one attempt only portal. Even if the game system was perfect and there were no crashes/dc's/ bugged levers/doors, it would still be complete masochism to grind a single helm enchant on one character for one build, let alone doing it for 10 characters (350*15c = 5250 chaos expected investment per specific helm enchant).

It's completely not worth it to even try because if you're playing standard and wearing expensive rares or alt arts or top roll uniques with 4 off colors there's an insufficient supply of comparable bases to trade for and enchant, so you enchant your largely irreplaceable item and override a potentially good merciless enchant with random endgame lab poop. And the offerings to the goddess are so fucking rare by the time you even find 350 to get the specific one you want we'll be on patch 9.5 and whatever build you were planning no longer exists. Fuck I don't even want to wipe an ideal merciless enchant off my gloves/boots to try to get the endgame version. Helms are complete insanity.

This is the kind of grind that makes me quit games.

And fuck everyone who says grinding endgame enchants is optional. This is a forced online only game with competitive pvp, a competitive economy, and item/craft quality balanced around trade. If there was a solo self found league or offline mode (with appropriately balanced drop/craft tables for solo play) yeah then it's optional but throw competition in and the only real option is to suffer through it and remain competitive or quit. I'm leaning toward quit.

Haven't tried it yet. I have one character at 80 and another at 87, but as someone who doesn't care for the lab concept or execution, it's quite serendipitous that neither character will benefit very much from points 7 and 8. When my level 80 char is above 85, I'll probably have a go at it then.

To me there's no point talking about how the uber lab is messed up as a unique entity - it just IS the lab. The last quarter of it. And it is a poor experience for all of the same reasons the first three quarters were and are. Apparently you have found some bonus reasons that I haven't experienced yet that are unique to part 4. I shall see in time.

"

innervation wrote:

Haven't tried it yet. I have one character at 80 and another at 87, but as someone who doesn't care for the lab concept or execution, it's quite serendipitous that neither character will benefit very much from points 7 and 8. When my level 80 char is above 85, I'll probably have a go at it then.

To me there's no point talking about how the uber lab is messed up as a unique entity - it just IS the lab. The last quarter of it. And it is a poor experience for all of the same reasons the first three quarters were and are. Apparently you have found some bonus reasons that I haven't experienced yet that are unique to part 4. I shall see in time.

The reasons are the exponential increase in trap difficulty and the uber lab being a paid instance.