A suggestion to make lab haters and lovers happy at the same time

Hello, during the last month i saw a lot of people raging about how they hate the labyrinth, while others like it, to balance this a bit my idea is: Make the first time you run the lab easier(until you kill izaro for the first time, so even if you fail you still got a second chance at the easy lab "first run" experience).

After you succesfully kill izaro in that difficulty, if you decide to run that lab again, it should be harder, maybe even harder that it is now, BUT you should be rewarded with better loot(+2 keys from izaro for example).

I hope this could give the users who don't enjoy a better gameplay experience, while making it even more interesting for people who actually want to run it for fun/loot.

To the end game labyrinth this may be done with adding X or Y item in addition to the goddess offering in the map device.

Edit, to make it clear the increased difficulty is an optional choice mostly intended for uber lab

There is one flaw man in your process of though and understanding and thus to your suggestion as well. You assume people dislike the labyrinth because its difficult, which is not the case, so said suggestion isnt solving any issues on that regard. It just makes it way more rewarding for those who already farm the lab, which while i dont have a problem with, it becomes kind of stupid to gather EVEN more rewards in one single plaace. Rewards that were put there in the first place (and augmented with the endgame lab) to make the whole ordeal feel more profitable and tricking the players into running it due to them being so extravagantly rewarded.

They could remove it from PoE and then make a new game, PoF (Path of Frogger). Where it's essentially a PoE clone except for all ground has randomly generated traps. That way if you love it, you get to play your frogger all day long. If you don't like frogger, you get to enjoy your PoE ARPG play instead. (You know, the type of game as to why you started playing PoE in the first place.)

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Regulator wrote:

There is one flaw man in your process of though and understanding and thus to your suggestion as well. You assume people dislike the labyrinth because its difficult, which is not the case, so said suggestion isnt solving any issues on that regard.

from what you are saying,to my understanding i can separate the users who dislike lab in 2 groups:
Group A:
Users who hates the lab because they have trouble completing it to get their points(because their build is not tanky enough, or they die to traps, they don't enjoy it, whatever reason, but they still will run it just to get their points).
This grup will benefy from my suggestion since it makes the process of getting their points easier so they don't get frustrated with it, making the experience simmilar to just another skillpoint quest in the game.

Group B:
These users just hate it because it simply exists, there is NO solution possible since they just hate it for being there and want it to be removed ignoring and not caring about others who actually like it, even if they don't even need to enter there and can completely ignore it after a 5 min run. You can recognise them by their non constructive or logical posts in the forum, for example make a new game full of traps, remove lab or something like that. These are just the toxic players that every game community has, these will cry and disrupt the forums no matter what you do and should be simply ignored.

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Regulator wrote:

It just makes it way more rewarding for those who already farm the lab, which while i dont have a problem with, it becomes kind of stupid to gather EVEN more rewards in one single plaace.

You forgot that part of my suggestion was increase the difficulty, since some builds can run completely afk through it and 1shot boss even in uber lab, this trivialization is what bores people and lowers player retention in the game.
This will make the encounters more exciting, making you actually stop and use your brain to dodge the traps and fight Izaro, this will give the people who enjoys the lab actually a challenge, while also increasing the average time needed to finish the lab, and to compensate this the rewards should be higher too, so the lab runners would maintain the same currency/hour ratios, also if difficulty is actually increased i don't see the problem about the reward being increased, it will give users who actually likes the risk/reward game something fun and profitable to do, since apart of this the only risk/reward instance we got is uber atziri, and is trivialized by some builds already.

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Siochan wrote:

They could remove it from PoE and then make a new game, PoF (Path of Frogger). Where it's essentially a PoE clone except for all ground has randomly generated traps. That way if you love it, you get to play your frogger all day long. If you don't like frogger, you get to enjoy your PoE ARPG play instead. (You know, the type of game as to why you started playing PoE in the first place.)

to me, you seem to belong to Group B

Hmm solid analysis but not quite on point i would think

Group A doesnt really hate it, they are frustrated that they get one shoted by izaro or they lack the movement/hp regen/ec on their build to simply trivilize it like other do, and indeed your suggestion will help to that, but have in mind that GGG already made similar changes to normal and cruel labyrinth and the complaints havent stopped. Meaning 2 possible things that either GGG's has no clue whatsoever of what balance is (which in my humble opinion is at least half-true), or that the group A alread can do the lab because its really easy (and at least up to merciless it is indeed much more easy that what i was used in alpha servers).

Now to Group B. Here you made a huge basic mistake and generalized things. Besides Siochan and few others ive seen posting who often go to extremes and ask for a complete removal of the lab, the rest hate it for other reasons but DO NOT want the specific content removed, i want to believe even said people might just use this as a figure of speech (maybe not). Thats not going to happen for many reasons that every average player/person can understand. The other players hate it because it is a forced "optional" content gating character progression and development tools behind mechanics and playstyle that are totally alienating and unfitting to APRG genre. Nobody would bat an eye if lab was like atziri while ascendancies where part of the core game and not put behind that atrocity.

So there are more than just 2 groups of players disliking the labyrinth. Personally i would divide it in 3 and a half (subgroup actually) :

Group A the same - Their issues are already addressed before the lab hit the live servers as well as in the following patches when izaro got super nerfed in at least 2 difficulties. So that part of your suggestion is rather redudant.

Group B those who hate it because it is a forced "optional" content gating character progression and development tools behind mechanics and playstyle that are totally alienating and unfitting to APRG genre - Your suggestion does nothing to solve this.

Group C those who absolutely want it removed. - No suggestion will solve this group's gripe, and i personally believe thats best for the game. Its at least in the same level of stupidity asking for specific content to be completely removed when there are people who already embraced it, as it is stupid to force said content to people who find it totally not right and unfitting for a game like poe.

The subgroup are those who find some specific parts of the labyrinth totally unfair and frustrating. Like the disconnection problem, that forces people to rerun the whole thing from the start, or the extreme random element of the enchants that in the long run is simply not worth the time spent etc.
This particular group has individuals who absolutely worship the labyrinth arcade playstyle as well as those who absolutely hate it. Basically people in this group can belong anywhere from the above mentioned ones.

Now on the second part of your suggestion aka "make it harder after doing it for one time". By this i guess you mean the "harder" part is a one time buff to difficulty. In that case its just a simple way to reward more people that already farm it (like i said before), no matter what you believe, its rather simple and plain that builds that already have an easy time there will still have a bit "harder" easy time there. The tactics for the aforementioned builds will remain the same, they will facetank everythin, while the average build/runner who enjoys to run it another ten times total for example for a better enchant chance will simply get the shaft. I wont even mention how unfair that would be for niche/themed builds who already have a hard time doing it/running if for currency/items/enchants
Now if you mean that getting harder is a state that applies to every following run after the first (x run 1 lvl of hard, x+1 run 2 lvl of hard, x+2 run 3lvl of hard, x+3 run 4lvl of hard) then the suggestion is rather unthought, since after a certain threshold it would be impossible for players to even get past the first area.


If you wonder, i belong in the group who things that the labyrinth has huge room for improvments, improvments that can make even the biggest haters try it. Im with GGG and their desire to make experimental content but i 100% disagree with them when said content is not completely optional as it should be due its its highly experimental, frustrating and alienating nature.

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Siochan wrote:

They could remove it from PoE and then make a new game, PoF (Path of Frogger). Where it's essentially a PoE clone except for all ground has randomly generated traps. That way if you love it, you get to play your frogger all day long. If you don't like frogger, you get to enjoy your PoE ARPG play instead. (You know, the type of game as to why you started playing PoE in the first place.)

the poe I started playing in the first place was drastically different from what is right now.

Can I ask then to remove fast pace bullshit from poe and call it path of arcade?

At the very least we have an equal right to do so.

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Regulator wrote:

Group A the same - Their issues are already addressed before the lab hit the live servers as well as in the following patches when izaro got super nerfed in at least 2 difficulties. So that part of your suggestion is rather redudant.

I think that it is true to merciless and previous difficulties, but since most of people try it when they first unlock the merc lab at around lvl 60 or so and (probaly) fail it, a wise player would just wait a couple levels and try it again, maybe some less experienced players don't think it this way and their first impression is that the lab is too hard and yet they feel forced to do it, to make the less experienced players avoid this situation i still think an easy first pass should be granted, to avoid the bad first impession, if they enjoy it, they are free to come back for a challenge.

Now Uber is a different story, considering that uber izaro can hit for 5k+, even 8 or 9 when buffed, i think most of the non "t1" builds can't consistently survive and these players are always in the russian roulette there, a first easier run would make a difference in my opinion, considering the amounts of uber lab services i have done in PSC there are many, many, users who can't run it by themselves just for the ascendancy points, i have rushed characters even 90+lvl, this means they just can't get enough defences in their build to get those 2 last ascendancy points, so they feel forced to pay a guy to carry them and that is a negative gameplay experience for them.

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Regulator wrote:

Group B those who hate it because it is a forced "optional" content gating character progression and development tools behind mechanics and playstyle that are totally alienating and unfitting to APRG genre - Your suggestion does nothing to solve this.

This can't be fixed by root, cause it would be the same as just adding the ascendancy nodes to the tree directly and all the Izaro theme would be lost.
but as i said giving these users a similar experience with skillpoint quests would be better than nothing.

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Regulator wrote:

Group C those who absolutely want it removed. - No suggestion will solve this group's gripe, and i personally believe thats best for the game. Its at least in the same level of stupidity asking for specific content to be completely removed when there are people who already embraced it, as it is stupid to force said content to people who find it totally not right and unfitting for a game like poe.

Totally agree this is my B group of users.

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Regulator wrote:

The subgroup are those who find some specific parts of the labyrinth totally unfair and frustrating. Like the disconnection problem, that forces people to rerun the whole thing from the start, or the extreme random element of the enchants that in the long run is simply not worth the time spent etc.
This particular group has individuals who absolutely worship the labyrinth arcade playstyle as well as those who absolutely hate it. Basically people in this group can belong anywhere from the above mentioned ones.

GGG thinks lab enchants are an end game goal, and truly i share that opinion, since enchants (in most cases i think) aren't "build enabling" mechanics and considering that if right enchant+the right base is rolled can be worth a good amount of exalts, it shouldn't be easy to get, if you want a powerful item, work and sweat for it, this game is all about it, in and out of labyrinth.
About disconnections, you can't really do much about it without breaking the whole theme of risk/reward, since people would just alt+f4 or something like that when they face a dangerous situation to avoid it and just rejoin to where they "cheated" and try it again, so this is more likely a global stability concern and to me it's out of this thread discussion.
This is why i didn't put them in any specific group.

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Regulator wrote:

Now on the second part of your suggestion aka "make it harder after doing it for one time". By this i guess you mean the "harder" part is a one time buff to difficulty. In that case its just a simple way to reward more people that already farm it (like i said before), no matter what you believe, its rather simple and plain that builds that already have an easy time there will still have a bit "harder" easy time there. The tactics for the aforementioned builds will remain the same, they will facetank everythin, while the average build/runner who enjoys to run it another ten times total for example for a better enchant chance will simply get the shaft. I wont even mention how unfair that would be for niche/themed builds who already have a hard time doing it/running if for currency/items/enchants
Now if you mean that getting harder is a state that applies to every following run after the first (x run 1 lvl of hard, x+1 run 2 lvl of hard, x+2 run 3lvl of hard, x+3 run 4lvl of hard) then the suggestion is rather unthought, since after a certain threshold it would be impossible for players to even get past the first area.

About the overall difficulty my idea is, first easy run for all lab tiers,to make group A happy, then unchanged difficulty up to merciless, since leveling characters will fix any build's problems including merc lab.
For uber lab i think to the previous options there should be an optional way to make the instance harder but also more rewarding for the users that want a real challenge.

This is a poor solution and just encourages more farming of a broken ascendancy system. You can gloss over a problem with lootsplosion but its still a problem. Ascendancy needs removal from lab at the very least. Its the only solution that doesnt involve blowing up the lab for good which they could do and I would be fine with it but others like it. Im cool with that. Just dont make us do it. My frogger skillz need to git gud and I dont wanna.

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Prebornfetus wrote:

and I dont wanna.

Literally all the whole I hate the lab boils down to is nothing but a childish "i dont wanna"


I don't want to learn the new content.
I don't want to learn how to beat the content.
I don't want to slow myself down from leveling who knows how many alt characters because I fail to actually make good builds.
I don't want to do anything where I can't just kill my way thru the challenge.
I don't want to.....


But either you do it because you want the AC points or in the uber lab case because of enchantment\loot or you are part of the group that doesn't play anymore because you call it fucking frogger.

Frogger is more hardcore then the lab is, if anything in frogger touches you, you die, if anything in the lab touches you, you get hurt but as long as you don't run with the traps you should be fine.

Wrong again. All the labyrinth hate boils down to labyrinth being boring, irritating, tedious and not fun.