Can the lab please be changed. Ideas!

Lab is one of the reasons I don't reroll that much anymore. Really hate it.
Izaro as a character is very well designed and his fight and mechanics are interesting, yet this fight is locked behind rubbish that is lab.

Reasons being:
Traps are badly designed, don't work well with the incredibly clunky poe controls - you generally just speedrun through them spamming pots or vaal discipline.
Mobs in lab exist only to restore your flask charges so you can facetank more traps. They're no real threat and it feels pointless to fight them.
Each zone in lab is the size of a map and yet there is zero incentive to clear the zone as mobs drop rubbish (no IIQ/IIR like maps)
The lab has all its rewards at the end, would be much better if we got to open a box after each Izaro fight if we leave all key mechanics intact.
Dying in the lab feels absolutely awful, because it was designed to be a 'taste of hardcore in softcore'. Sorry GGG when I picked softcore I picked it because I'm a scrub, I don't want a taste of hardcore. Don't make me restart my lab run just because I got DC on Izaro fight or the retarded pathing got me stuck in spikes.

Overall, my idea to improve the lab is to:
Make it mandatory to clear each zone in the lab (levers or somesuch like in the Vault map). Each of the 'key' areas that need to be reached can be defended by a miniboss like Argus. Wait, don't run away crying yet.
Reduce the lab to only have 4 zones. Yes. 4 zones. Would work like: Zone 1 -> P1 Izaro -> Zone 2 -> Optional Bonus Area (PUT TRAP ROULETTE HERE) -> P2 Izaro -> Zone 3 -> P3 Izaro.
After each Izaro fight you will have the option to open a single box, with an additional box if you left all of his difficulty mechanics up.
Remove traps from all zones of the lab except the optional trap roulette zone, for those masochists who get off on dying to those.
Let us roll Lab Offerings like maps to give us bonus IIQ/IIR

Further to this, I would suggest that all trials be changed.
Since there are no more traps in the lab, in place of each trial we can have a small fight which introduces the Izaro mechanics. These are never properly explained anywhere and are much more important to learn than stupid trap mechanics.

Well, I do believe lab should be "non harcore experience". Getting dc, or death should mean - start from last place where youve been. Like it is normally.

Most of players arent speedrunners or lab farmers, and just want to do ascendency. Maybe once, two times a week make a lab run to try get their enchant.

There is a reason we dont play on hardcore. Most of us are old, have jobs, some even kids. We just want to chill. Farm a bit, maybe do atziri... and thats it.

If someone wants to spam lab/play 24/h to be 100lvl in time we make 80'th lvl, thats none of my bussiness. Just let us lab eqperience less painfull.

It will propably be easier, when xbox port comes out, but comeone. Its like 1h coding max.

Just make it optional, dont hide character progression behind it. Maybe increase enchant count from 1 to 2 per run in exchange for lab lovers.

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fryderyknicze wrote:

Well, I do believe lab should be "non harcore experience". Getting dc, or death should mean - start from last place where youve been. Like it is normally.

Most of players arent speedrunners or lab farmers, and just want to do ascendency. Maybe once, two times a week make a lab run to try get their enchant.

There is a reason we dont play on hardcore. Most of us are old, have jobs, some even kids. We just want to chill. Farm a bit, maybe do atziri... and thats it.

If someone wants to spam lab/play 24/h to be 100lvl in time we make 80'th lvl, thats none of my bussiness. Just let us lab eqperience less painfull.

It will propably be easier, when xbox port comes out, but comeone. Its like 1h coding max.

I'm not so sure about the coding time. I'm a web developer myself and things that might sound simple could take you upwards of a week if it requires changing a lot of internals!

The dying and losing your progress is a major gripe of mine. Its very frustrating to have to restart the lab from the beginning after dying, especially considering how tedious the non-Izaro fight part of the lab is. I would be quite happy if they just removed this, but I'm trying to think of ways to make the lab more fun for everybody - so more people actually want to run it rather than just doing it 1x for ascendancy points.

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Zloberik wrote:

Just make it optional, dont hide character progression behind it. Maybe increase enchant count from 1 to 2 per run in exchange for lab lovers.

I suppose that makes sense. My gripe isn't with Ascendancy though, it's to do with the lab itself. It's pretty rubbish that such an important cornerstone of character design is locked behind content which is almost impossible for certain builds to do without help.

I am trying to propose some changes to the Lab so it is more accessible and enjoyable for the community as a whole. I would love to log onto PoE and have another option of something to do.

Traps would probably one shot you if you were allowed to dc/alt f4 and keep progress. I am a lot happier with the current balance. I agree that the monsters should be more dangerous and that there should be iir/iiq bonuses for different rooms. Maybe each room (not boss room) should get different random map mods that don't increase pack size.

There was a post in General Discussion at the end of January, where I posted these suggestions (made a few additions), IF I were to change the labyrinth (I've voiced my preferred solution many times, but these would make the actual Labyrinth more PoE-like, and less mini-game-like.)


1st Suggestion:
Keep traps as a hazard, but not nearly as dangerous depending on character choices (skilltree, armor, evasion!, block, even curses. Make those choices have real impact on the traps. Regen helps, endurance charges help... flasks help... movement speed almost cheats the labyrinth.

Depending on those changes, trap density in the Labyrinth maps could be far less, but still impact battles. (The Labyrinth would keep the "flavor" of trap-influenced danger)

* Why not slow down traps with temporal chains or make them less dangerous with enfeeble?)

* On that note, increase the mob density. Add Mobs that have AI and abilities that interact with traps, such as "tractor beams" and "push away" or "blackhole" effects.

* Some mobs could even activate traps on their own, like a slam attack that pushes the spikes up from a nearby spike trap.

* Maybe there are trap-building mobs, similar to the miners in act4 that dig up golems... but maybe they release roombas or spike pillars... maybe they only fix the "broken" traps that currently exist in the layouts.

* Maybe add mobs that re-activate traps that you can turn off by flipping switches (means killing them is part of navigating a trap area, otherwise the traps turn back on while you're in the middle of them!)

* Perhaps allow player attacks to freeze traps with ice attacks, or melt them with fire attacks, etc)

* Include methods to disarm areas of traps (like finding a lever behind a false wall - guarded by stronger monsters)

* Maybe let ice attacks freeze timed switches for doors.

* Maybe add locked rooms that you need to full-clear of monsters to unlock and progress.

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2nd Suggestion:
I'm a fan of my initial suggestion for those who don't like the Labyrinth trap gameplay at all, but to keep the Labyrinth related to attaining the Ascendancy Points, if I had a choice in the matter:

An alternative variation of the Labyrinth that is on 1 trapless map, with 3 locking boss chambers for the 3 Izaro battles (third battle might be ok to have the traps in his chamber - but shut them off when he dies already!). Waves of fodder mobs are fought between these boss rooms to refill flasks. The only reward is Ascendancy Points - no drops either.

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Spoiler

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DurianMcgregor wrote:

Traps would probably one shot you if you were allowed to dc/alt f4 and keep progress. I am a lot happier with the current balance. I agree that the monsters should be more dangerous and that there should be iir/iiq bonuses for different rooms. Maybe each room (not boss room) should get different random map mods that don't increase pack size.

I am suggesting that traps be removed from mandatory lab areas. There will only be one zone in the lab which will contain traps and it will be fully optional. Perhaps the damage could be tuned up since some people like traps (seriously, does anybody like this shit?), but balance isn't what I'm really trying to get at. I am giving some constructive feedback on how lab could be changed to make its appeal more universal.

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Zaludoz wrote:

dat wall of text

Those are some pretty neat suggestions! Not going to lie, but tying PoE mechanics into the whole trap gameplay could be the engaging element its lacking.

Your suggestions are huge though, and would require an enormous revamping of the lab systems. Maybe as a high scope proposal for labyrinth redesign it would be a good idea to look at long term, but I am trying to suggest something that sits within the boundaries of what they already have in place but changing it up a bit in order to make it more PoE.

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Doomstryver wrote:

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DurianMcgregor wrote:

Traps would probably one shot you if you were allowed to dc/alt f4 and keep progress. I am a lot happier with the current balance. I agree that the monsters should be more dangerous and that there should be iir/iiq bonuses for different rooms. Maybe each room (not boss room) should get different random map mods that don't increase pack size.

I am suggesting that traps be removed from mandatory lab areas. There will only be one zone in the lab which will contain traps and it will be fully optional. Perhaps the damage could be tuned up since some people like traps (seriously, does anybody like this shit?), but balance isn't what I'm really trying to get at. I am giving some constructive feedback on how lab could be changed to make its appeal more universal.

I understand what you meant, but be realistic. The traps are an integral part of the lab design and will not be removed or optional. What would you replace them with to keep it so that you can't 100% over level the lab? Make the boss do fixed % of life in his damage? Give the same treatment to the rest of the mobs?

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DurianMcgregor wrote:

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Doomstryver wrote:

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DurianMcgregor wrote:

Traps would probably one shot you if you were allowed to dc/alt f4 and keep progress. I am a lot happier with the current balance. I agree that the monsters should be more dangerous and that there should be iir/iiq bonuses for different rooms. Maybe each room (not boss room) should get different random map mods that don't increase pack size.

I am suggesting that traps be removed from mandatory lab areas. There will only be one zone in the lab which will contain traps and it will be fully optional. Perhaps the damage could be tuned up since some people like traps (seriously, does anybody like this shit?), but balance isn't what I'm really trying to get at. I am giving some constructive feedback on how lab could be changed to make its appeal more universal.

I understand what you meant, but be realistic. The traps are an integral part of the lab design and will not be removed or optional. What would you replace them with to keep it so that you can't 100% over level the lab? Make the boss do fixed % of life in his damage? Give the same treatment to the rest of the mobs?

Is there an issue in overleveling lab content? Last time I checked everything in PoE can be cheesed with a build/gear check.

And its not like traps can't be cheesed already. Extremely high regen characters, Occultists with Wicked Ward, extremely low health characters with high level potions (% damage is a bitch), Vaal Discipline and CI in general all greatly simplify trap gameplay to an almost non-engaging level. Meanwhile life builds with vaal pact, lowlife characters and high hp low regen characters get absolutely destroyed by traps.

I understand GGG spent a great deal of time on making these traps, but they are very badly designed and rather than providing some engaging gameplay it is as simple as stack movement speed + run as fast as possible or spam your movement skill. They just don't fit in an ARPG in their current incarnation.