A complete lab rework ..... funmode

What they could do with lab/uber lab is have it just be a free special map you can run once a day with special set of mods GGG does each day or make it random and you get 8 or more portals instead of 6 because its so big to haul loot out. Keep bosses and increase the number of monsters in it. Lab will be just a gorefest of monsters. Remove all traps. Remove enchants at end. Remove Ascendency from it. Each players now gets 1 ascend point per 10 levels starting at 20 so ur done at lv 90. Enchants are just special rooms that spawn in lab with enchant keys to open them that are protected by mini bosses. Increase the lootsplosion at end. Here are a couple of examples of non random (GGG would pick the mods) labs that could spawn.

Highlord Cliffs.

IIQ - 100
IIR - 75
Packsize - 30

Area is 7 connected plateau maps each with its own boss and Izaro is the last.
Areas itemlevel and monsterlevel match party leaders level +1.
Area contains 3 guaranteed uniques.
Area contains 2 enchantment rooms and 4 silver key rooms.
Izaro is helped by 1 rogue exile per plateau u dint clear.
Area has 15% bonus xp.
Area has 7 guaranteed plateau map drops.
Area has tumbleweeds that might reveal rare monsters.
Area has winds constantly pushing characters in random directions.
Areas monsters move 50% faster.
Areas monsters deal 100% more dmg to characters close to cliffs.



Manor of Blight

IIQ - 75
IIR - 150
Packsize - 25

Area is a large manor with 6 sections.
Areas itemlevel and monsterlevel match party leaders level +2
Area is inhabited by undead.
Area contains 6 Rogue exile necromancers.
Area has extra chance for summoner uniques.
Area's final boss drops a 20/20 minion gem.
Area contains 1 enchantment room and 3 silver key rooms and 1 puzzle divination card room.

Area slowly drains your life as chaos damage.
Area slowly detonates dead.
Area has hands that slowly appear out of the ground and will stun you if u are not careful.
Izaro has 20% increased damage, life, and speed if u do not complete the puzzle.
Areas minions have 50% increased attack speed, movement speed, and damage.
Areas monsters cant have life leeched.



Limbotic Plane of Portals

IIQ - 50
IIR - 200
Packsize - 50

Area is a large islands complex.
Area contains many portals to different elemental themed areas.
Areas itemlevel and monsterlevel match party leaders level.
Area turns portal gems the player drops into random uniques of the current league and subtracts 1 of your portals to the area.
Area contains 1 rogue exile of each elemental type and 1 for chaos.
Area portals shift randomly including the players portal when that player leaves the map.
Area portals slowly spawn random monsters up to the maps limit. These monsters have -100 IIQ and IIR.
Area has extra chance to drop high level elemental skill gems.
Area has a 4 link corrupted The Three Dragons with 4 white sockets.
Areas final chest drops a LV 2 corrupted portal gem with a random cosmetic effect.
Area contains 4 enchantment rooms and 2 silver key rooms.

Area contains patches of all ground effects.
Area is struck randomly by lightning bolts, volcanic fissures, blizzards,and earthquakes within the corresponding ground effect. These affects can hurt players and monsters.
Izaro will deal 33% extra damage as a random elemental type that is shown as a color on his hands. This changes every 3 seconds.
Areas monsters all do bonus 50% damage of a ground effect they are in except izaro.
Areas monsters have +10% to all resists and max resists. This cant exceed 85%.

This might be too daunting so perhaps only a new lab map once a week or couple days?

Thoughts?


See now that would be fun.

"

Prebornfetus wrote:

Thoughts?

I like the laby how it is. It could be improved with some sort of allowance for 1 disconnect and perhaps something to choose between the enchantment you have and the new one it is trying to give you.

You'd take out everything that makes the lab unique and different among all the game content and make it just like maps with some insanely overpowered loot? Sounds boring. If you want to run maps, just run maps. Timewar made some decent suggestions for minor improvements, but the labyrinth isn't in need of any kind of big rework.

Mm, Lab has a lot of room for improvement (Like, a LOT), but the overall archetype of content it's quite a good thing.

I would like to be able to, for example, complete Uber Lab and then have the choice of a random Uber Tier Enchant, or being able to pick a specific Merciless tier Enchant. That way people that just want to run lab once off for the upgrade can also get a decent enchant, and the min-maxers can run it all day until they get the perfect enchant.

There should also be some form of checkpoint system, at least until GGG has significantly better servers. (I.e, restart from after the last Trial you cleared, but, you lose any Keys you've already collected).

"

Zephryl wrote:

There should also be some form of checkpoint system, at least until GGG has significantly better servers. (I.e, restart from after the last Trial you cleared, but, you lose any Keys you've already collected).

Even with perfect servers disconnections will still exist because in some areas the connections are just bad. A limited reconnection feature would be nice.

"

databeaver wrote:

"

Zephryl wrote:

There should also be some form of checkpoint system, at least until GGG has significantly better servers. (I.e, restart from after the last Trial you cleared, but, you lose any Keys you've already collected).

Even with perfect servers disconnections will still exist because in some areas the connections are just bad. A limited reconnection feature would be nice.

True enough, either way I think most people would agree that GGG's servers just aren't reliable enough for single-attempt content (Especially with how bad they are at the start of leagues).

What they needed to do was combine the trap system within the goal of killing monsters. Every area should have been a much smaller room but filled with an interesting unique monster with traps supporting the monster. The side rooms could have been filled with bonus treasures and stuff but also be guarded by more difficult encounters.

This would have forced gameplay that actual makes you think about your positioning in relation to trap and monsters involved.

The chests should be something desirable... not just a loot chest. Maybe in norm/cruel you have higher chances of getting alch/chaos to improve your gear while merc gives more fuse/jewel to socket them. I'm just throwing that out there.

Ditch the whole death/restart mechanic, that's what hardcore is all about. People don't want to explore your content if they fear a random disconnect or a zone not loading properly. They will just run through as fast as possible. This game has never had the greatest server stability that isn't needed for something like this.

I could go on and on but to be honest... it's all a waste. This is the labyrinth we recieved, and it's not going away. Get used to it.

"

Zephryl wrote:

True enough, either way I think most people would agree that GGG's servers just aren't reliable enough for single-attempt content (Especially with how bad they are at the start of leagues).

So far during Prophecy league I've had exactly one disconnect from the labyrinth. I think it looked like an instance crash, but it was a few days ago so I don't remember all the details anymore. I also ran through normal and cruel laby in the first few days of the league without issues. I guess it's possible that some builds put a higher strain on the servers and make them more prone to crash. A thing to look out for is inventory contents: if any loot you picked up since the last area transition is gone, then it was an instance crash on GGG's servers. If the loot is intact, then it was likely a connection problem and not under GGG's direct control.

"

e1337donkey wrote:

Ditch the whole death/restart mechanic, that's what hardcore is all about.

Personally, I like hardcore in small doses but not when hundreds of hours of effort is at stake. Labyrinth provides that for me and I would not want that taken away. In fact I would love a middle-ground mode where the same is applied to all areas in the game: die and lose the instance, with whatever masters, loot and other things that were there. No more throwing yourself at difficult bosses and whittling them down with infinite lives. Dying in a map would instantly close all remaining portals but as long as you stay alive you can haul out the usual amount of loot.

"

databeaver wrote:

So far during Prophecy league I've had exactly one disconnect from the labyrinth.

Same here.

Addressing the main topic.

1) NTY, I'd rather not have a shitty once a day map, especially if GGG is the one picking the mods. I also waste enough currency on rolling maps I'd rather not waste more on lab, so that is definitely not a solution for me picking mods either. Also from what I can see Uber lab is super profitable, why would I want to limit that to ONCE a day, it hard enough to make currency thanks to how shitty the RNG is in this game.

2) I like the idea of placing enchantment alters behind silver doors, but I'd keep the guaranteed one after Izzy.

3) I don't have an issue with ascendancy being locked behind lab. Most traps are little more than gimmicky jacked up degeneration. The lava floor? fire degen that turns on and off. Blade sentry/pillars? Moving physical degen. Poison darts? Poison+Tar. The spike traps? It's just a Bear Trap basically.

Make another version of the labyrinth that is 'unicursal' like a classic labyrinth (no deadends ever, and twisting). Branches would be okay if they always merged back into the main path (no f'ing dead ends, thats a 'maze', not a labyrinth in the true original definition of the word).

A map like a really long ledge that is wider and uses the lab trap mechanics as an obstacle course and allows mostly continuous movement in a forward+twisting direction would be a hell of a lot more enjoyable.