freaking lab leaking into the game under the guise of boss rework!

One of the biggest draws for this game has been its vast skill tree, gem / support gem setup. To be able to complete control over any ability you use, what supports you want to use, where you want to start on the skill tree. Using this knowledge combined with the constant release of powerful uniques, and now the ascendancies.. you can craft some interesting characters.

Every single area and challenge in this game exists with a player vs monster mentality. Except the lab, this is why it falls short. You want to make characters that you can push further and further into maps. Doing maps, atziri, core malachai, etc. You shouldn't be put at a huge disadvantage because your build didn't include a high ammount of life regen. It should be fair to everyone entering, that you can put your build to the test and use the skills you've earned to get past it.

Side note... Diablo 1 , 2, 3 (Which I only played for a month) Never had traps even remotely close to the lab. An arrow flying through a door when you open. A giant wall of fire appearing on the ground when you open a chest. Those are traps yes, but not on the scale the lab has them.

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Turtledove wrote:

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diablofdb wrote:

ok ok ok... lab = POE almost unplayable, for real?

care to explain? why the labyrinth makes POE unplayable o.0 I'm just flabberghastled by what you've just said.

Trap gameplay is boring, irritating, tedious and and not fun to play, at least for me. When I play a game I do it for fun. If it is not fun then it is unplayable to me. I've continued playing PoE off and on since labyrinth came out because I feel I have a lot invested into the game and I hope that GGG will eventually "fix" it. Prior to Ascendancy release all of my gaming time was PoE. Now it is more like about half of my gaming time. I have been mostly avoiding going into labyrinth and trials when I play PoE. I also create far fewer new characters than I used to.

well again, "boring, irritating, tedious" those parts are very important in video games. I'll use diablo 1 again as an example. When you died in diablo 1 all of your loot and equipement was droping on the floor, it was a very very very horrible experience x.x, loot filter didn't exist you had to hoover your mouse over the item to highlight them and find them in the corpses and bodies of slains monster.

ok so that mechanics imply two things, trying to get your stuff back by killing the monsters without having your weapon = tedious and trying to find your items on the ground with your cursor = boring and irritating.

Which make the whole thing about dying a very bad experience, and the whole game was very stressful because you didn't want to die AT ALL. Which in the end made the game a very very good game and a very awesome experience.

So here we go with the labyrinth, yeah I'm scared when I go in there with my hardcore characters, I'm scared I killed so many of them in traps or during the last Izaro fight OMG! and yeah the whole experienc is tedious, but hey at the end I got those amazing ascendancy power and enchant and explosion of loot! OMG I'm so proud I've overcome that challenge and progressed = a very good experience ultimately.

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diablofdb wrote:

well again, "boring, irritating, tedious" those parts are very important in video games.

I'm sincerely happy that you enjoy the labyrinth content. In general it is true that challenges are key to a good game. However, to me what makes the game something you want to do or not want to do is the gameplay. Bad gameplay means bad game, not something that I will spend my gaming time on. Challenges in the game are completely irrelevant if the gameplay is bad. Good gameplay means the game has potential and might be a good game. The non-labyrinth gameplay is where PoE excels. Good gameplay means challenges are a good thing and important. Here PoE also excels.

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The_Reporter wrote:

You're projecting.

It's great and wonderful that you've had this wonderful experience with it all. You're missing the part where other humans are not you.

no I'm not projecting, actually I agree with him. I agree with the part that the lab is frustating and tedious and all.

I just see the big picture in the end which you guys should think about before complaining about every aspect of the game you dislike.

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diablofdb wrote:

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Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

I just think the premise of the thread is frankly quite stupid. Traps were definitely a roadblock to navigating the lab. This just has lab elements outlining a boss arena. I don't really see what is wrong with that.

I can understand the lab haters disliking the navigation of the lab (can be uncomfortable gameplay), Enchant system (quite shit RNG, really), rewards (solved with Uber Lab so no more complaints from me). Now seeing lab elements makes people cry? Get the hell outta here.

I'm going to add something very important on what you've said

"uncomfortable gameplay" that is something very important to every single video game. Being spanked, smacked, hurt, having to start over, being frustated. This is a very important part of every video game, as, it ask us to master certain skills to overcome certain challenges and difficulties.

If we remove some unpopular mechanics such as, the death xp penality, there would be no negative point into dying. People would just go on and on.. and die a thousand time and finish the game without actually mastering it.

So here's the thing with the trap, it's a different and new sort of challenge. It's fresh to POE and something that has a lustful amount of potential for future challeng. And those things are the reasons we still play POE. I know how much it can be frustating to die to traps, but if you remove progressively every frustation of the game, from the minor mechanics to the biggest issues, we will end facerolling it without any fear or stress.

And without any fear or stress, I can tell you people will get bored very quickly, no matter what they say now about traps.

I kind of get what you are trying to say here, and I partially agree, but I think it's important to make a distinction between

A) "challenging for the sake of being challenging" and
B) "challenging for the sake of being fun."

Want some examples of A? Create needless complexity in your game, and don't accompany it with depth. Allow monsters to one-shot you from off-screen. Make all unique items unidentifiable so that players have to work out what they do from trial and error. Hide damage values for certain skills, so that players have to guess. Hide the specific odds of rolling socketed/linked items, so that players have to guess. Lower the walk/run speed of all players by a global 75%. <-- Obviously, GGG does some of these, but not all of them.

Here are some more, from the player's end. Disable your loot filter. Turn your keyboard upside down and play like that. Play the game without using any rings. Use your cat as your mousepad. Turn the gamma on your screen down and/or open your curtains on a sunny day while playing.

Want some examples of B? Introduce new monster mechanics that a player must understand in order not to die. Make the passive tree deeper (not just more complex, mind you, but actually deeper). Create specific combinations of player/monster strengths and weaknesses that discourage single-skill spamming. <-- GGG has done all of these, and more. So they DO know about creating fun challenges.

Here are some more examples of B, from the player's end. Play on hardcore. Play self-found. Play a non-meta melee build. Play an offbeat build. Craft a character around a little-used build-enabling unique. <-- There are many more.

As for the Labyrinth, and Trials:
If you aren't cheating/cheesing traps, then the gameplay involves a lot of *waiting.* No one should be surprised that fans of action games are not fans of standing around and waiting. I'd say that fits pretty solidly in category A, not category B.

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e1337donkey wrote:

You guys complaining about the lab don't even know why the lab sucks to begin with. The lab has these trap gauntlets that have you duck and weave through them. You don't engage them with your skill gems, you don't build for them with your passive skill tree, and your items don't mean very much against these traps. The core game itself doesn't mesh with lab.

This boss however is different, because the fire trap is supporting the boss in the room. Your engaging an enemy with your skills, skill tree build, items. While also dealing with a switch/trap mechanic. This is the kind of fight the lab should have had more of.

+1, but -1 for still in the end supporting lab traps, so you end up at a net 0

Just fyi

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The_Reporter wrote:

I've never complained about anything else.

I made a few posts complaining about the death penalty. I don't believe that I've complained about that since they cut it down from 15% to 7.5% and I don't remember complaining about anything else?