Is the root problem that the Labyrinth is "Optional"?

"

raics wrote:

You know, I remember this back in the day. You'd play some action rpg, say, some entry from might and magic series, and to upgrade your char's class you'd have a promotion quest. Some were trivial, some easy, some moderately annoying and some annoying as all seven hells so some members of your party would stay unapgraded long after the other members attained their advanced classes.

Now I ask all of you regardless of the side taken: Since when has it become a thing to badger a developer to change the quest you don't like to something you do?

Offline hard copy buy-from-a-store-shelf games were produced as finished products. No matter how much people didn't like certain features, the most they could do was give it a bad review or bad word of mouth (and before the internet, that meant only your group of friends, and possibly writing a letter to a gaming magazine and getting it published). The best we could hope for was a sequel doing it better, or other game developers learning from the mistakes of others.



This "changed" as soon as games were online and updated regularly. No longer were they static creations of a development team. Now things could change, even for offline PC and console games, since patches could be downloaded to change things.

Good games have changed things in response to player feedback - mostly "Quality of Life" stuff, since developers almost always think they know best, and they think players only want what benefits themselves, and not the game as a whole. Sometimes these changes are balance related, since some players are especially gifted in understanding the mechanics of a game better than the makers.

I've been a gamer for decades, and I've mostly lurked in forums, offering up my thoughts on rare occasions when I think a topic is important enough to voice them. In that time, I've watched as developers ignored valid ideas with pathetic excuses. (Edit: This topic of the Labyrinth is 100% worthy of discussion and change, in my opinion, so I've posted several times, not just once.)

For one example, and I could go into extreme detail:
FFXI, a subscription based MMO, had some really really stubborn developers, but even they conceded on some of the more disastrous decisions. (though, with FFXIV, they seem to be making even more nonsensical choices, but I never moved on to that game after their track record on FFXI, a game I wish I could still enjoy after 10 years playing, but they ruined it for me and those I played with.)

The mindset of players hasn't changed, just their options of feedback and developer response have expanded.

"

raics wrote:

Sure, that's one factor, but I'm wondering about the mindset. The game puts a challenge before you and you say 'I don't like it, give me something else'.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

I've gone from gaming where you would buy a device, like pong, and it would do one thing, to a console with cartridges and multiple games, to a computer with 5 1/4 floppy, where your choices were like maybe 5 games on the shelf at the local egghead store, to 3 1/2, to jaw dropping graphics from a 1x CD rom (Which I still have btw and remember the day where I saw 7th Guess on a monitor in CompUSA and was like "Holy shit, I need that"), to dvd-rom, to 28.8 baud dialup to 56k then 56k Flex, ISDN, then to online play with cable and dsl, and if you are really lucky, fiber.

Somewhere in there, about the time when online play started being viable, game devs would beta test products prior to selling them. People would sign up and get to play a game before release.

Then someone got the bright idea: "You know, people would pay for being in beta". So started selling closed beta slots with pre-sales.

Then since that was so successful, they started selling alpha slots.

Now they sell kick starters.

That said, the selling point of these things is to have a say and influence the direction of a game. Games today, especially this one, are in a constant state of development, and as such, why is it not ok to voice your opinion on the direction the game is moving in?

Wouldn't you as a dev welcome such feedback as opposed to people silently walking away from your game? I know I would.

I also know to let go of pet features I think are great but a large population of end users absolutely abhor.

"

I also know to let go of pet features I think are great but a large population of end users absolutely abhor.

The true question of interest is if the Labyrinth is such a feature.

I feel that if it was there would have been a marked decrease in amount of players after it was introduced. This would have been noticed by GGG.

"

Zaludoz wrote:

For one example, and I could go into extreme detail:
FFXI, a subscription based MMO, had some really really stubborn developers, but even they conceded on some of the more disastrous decisions. (though, with FFXIV, they seem to be making even more nonsensical choices, but I never moved on to that game after their track record on FFXI, a game I wish I could still enjoy after 10 years playing, but they ruined it for me and those I played with.)

Well, WoW and a bunch of other games got ruined because they listened to player feedback too much. Knowing where to draw the line isn't easy, it is in the nature of a player to want more for less effort so every little piece of feedback that goes there must be double and triple checked. Meaning that you have to make a crapload of sense to get their attention and these threads don't quite manage it.

It's hard to say how much devs actually expect to hear from us, the concept of giving feedback is fine but I wonder where would they start regarding it as meddling in the development process and how much of it is genuinely useful to them. Gotta ask yourself what do they even consider useful feedback and what is just taken as players trying to force their preferences on them.

Can't say I'm not guilty of it myself, sometimes it's clear even to me that what I'm saying here should never even get considered seriously, let alone implemented.

"

raics wrote:

"

Zaludoz wrote:

For one example, and I could go into extreme detail:
FFXI, a subscription based MMO, had some really really stubborn developers, but even they conceded on some of the more disastrous decisions. (though, with FFXIV, they seem to be making even more nonsensical choices, but I never moved on to that game after their track record on FFXI, a game I wish I could still enjoy after 10 years playing, but they ruined it for me and those I played with.)

Well, WoW and a bunch of other games got ruined because they listened to player feedback too much. Knowing where to draw the line isn't easy, it is in the nature of a player to want more for less effort so every little piece of feedback that goes there must be double and triple checked. Meaning that you have to make a crapload of sense to get their attention and these threads don't quite manage it.

I agree that there are plenty of stupid suggestions from players out there that can do more harm than good to a game. This usually boils down to "it's too hard; make it easy!", and I totally understand the backlash to that sort of suggestion. You get players of multiple ages and maturity levels making suggestions and giving feedback. I elaborated on the importance of feedback and suggestions in this post in the tally thread.

In regard to the Labyrinth, we've seen the whole spectrum of maturity and likely ages, and I think that's an important point. It's not just little kids who find the challenge too hard so they need to "git gud." (boy do I hate seeing that stupid argument thrown against labyrinth suggestions - I can run it just fine, and I still find plenty of problems with it!); it's also mature people who can properly express reasons that changing the Labyrinth in some way or providing an alternative that retains the current labyrinth, would be beneficial to the game.

Challenge is not always a bad thing. Challenge isn't always a good thing either. Does the challenge fit the game? That's a better question, and I think the Labyrinth fails in this department. Just because some people like both games (the core game of PoE and the labyrinth mini-game) doesn't mean it "fits" just fine. Even if the developers think its different gameplay fits their overall game, you then look at the rewards. What do you get out of it? Just more loot and experience? No... you get something unique from this mini-game that impacts the core game. If you could obtain the same rewards from the core game as the mini-game, just with different gameplay employed, and people could choose which one is more fun to them, no problems!

They are (paraphrasing) "concerned with a slippery slope where people want rewards without engaging with the content." ... Yeah, this is a pet project that they threw too much money into to see fail, by not having the entire game's population playing it. You must like it! It's too big to fail... that's what comes to mind here. This isn't a simple "wah wah it's too hard - give me points free!" issue that they'd be "caving" to. If they give an alternative method of gaining ascendancy and everyone chooses the alternative, would it hurt their feelings? Are they not satisfied with people farming Uberlab for Izaro's treasures and enchants that they also have to force every single player to experience the labyrinth at least 3 if not 4 times, while some hate every minute of it and make less and less characters per league or don't play at all anymore?

It's not a challenge that equally tests all builds being worthy of endgame. It's not equally testing all players' skill. There are ways to "cheat" the labyrinth that remove all build and skill diversity (should they choose to employ them). It's an arbitrary challenge that they think Ascendancy points should be behind, and many rational players disagree with that point.

I feel the less mature "wah wah too hard" posts make for easy targets for people to point at and try to discredit the whole concept of changing the Labyrinth, as if that's all it is. While I encourage all to give their feedback, regardless of what it is, I wish the discussions would focus on the important points instead.

"

They are (paraphrasing) "concerned with a slippery slope where people want rewards without engaging with the content." ... Yeah, this is a pet project that they threw too much money into to see fail, by not having the entire game's population playing it. You must like it! It's too big to fail... that's what comes to mind here. This isn't a simple "wah wah it's too hard - give me points free!" issue that they'd be "caving" to. If they give an alternative method of gaining ascendancy and everyone chooses the alternative, would it hurt their feelings? Are they not satisfied with people farming Uberlab for Izaro's treasures and enchants that they also have to force every single player to experience the labyrinth at least 3 if not 4 times, while some hate every minute of it and make less and less characters per league or don't play at all anymore?

That is what happens. Games are Art and nobody would ever tell and Artist something like "Uhm... I would prefer your sky a bit brighter otherwise I won't look at your picture anymore."

Games are made with a vision in mind and are played by players who like that vision and even though it is fine to voice feedback it is also totally fine for a developer to ignore it and that's what happened here. If people think after a year, or how long the lab exists now, that nobody read their arguments and took them into consideration they are very likely wrong. They propably know how players feel, but again as an Artist you always have to think about your vision and the Ascendancy is heavily linked with the Labyrinth right now, it is not possible lorewise to ascent otherwise they would have to write an entirely new story for it which is a shitton of work.

Because after they fixed most of the issues (and there are a few they could still fix, although they might have to do some lore concessions there as well), complaints about the lab are entirely based on opinions, not liking something doesn't make it bad. I don't like Onions and a shitton of people find onions totally awesome. And if you don't like the lab you are essentially left with two options, either deal with it or leave.

"

I feel that if it was there would have been a marked decrease in amount of players after it was introduced. This would have been noticed by GGG.

There player numbers are rising, but you could of course always argue that it would rise more without the lab, but that is pure speculation.

"

That said, the selling point of these things is to have a say and influence the direction of a game. Games today, especially this one, are in a constant state of development, and as such, why is it not ok to voice your opinion on the direction the game is moving in?

It is totally ok to voice your opinion, actually every developer loves to hear your opinion, good ones even if you are not happy with something. But this still gives them all the authority to just ignore your opinion as what it is, an opinion. Most early lab complaints raised actual issues, not finishable layouts, a really harsh normal izaro fight and having to do trials on every single character. Those are fixed and some like the unfinishable layouts should honestly never happened. But the question if traps belong into an ARPG is not an issue, that is an opinion. And if the Devs say that traps fit, this discussion is basically over, because the opinion that matters in this case is theirs.

"

Fruz wrote:

"

ewolow wrote:

[...]

I literally said what it was.
You were modifying SkyCore's words to try to make them fit your argument, where they just didn't.
That is fallacious, your sentence (fallaciously saying "you said so yourself") just has another meaning than the actual quote.

I even bolded the parts that mattered to make it more obvious.
You can read again if you don't get it.

"

Turtledove wrote:

Sorry, you're plain wrong. This is a game. We play games when we like the game. "I don't like it" is a very valid reason for not liking the labyrinth.

So now, "I don't like it" is an "argument" ?

You are missing the point here.

An no shit, many players don't like being pushed out of their comfort zone, such a pity, how dare you do that GGG ???

This is a game. It isn't comfort zone, that's plain ridiculous. Labyrinth is BORING, IRRITATING, and NOT FUN. It isn't about comfort zones?

"

This is a game. It isn't comfort zone, that's plain ridiculous. Labyrinth is BORING, IRRITATING, and NOT FUN. It isn't about comfort zones?

First of all it is boring, irritation, and not fun FOR YOU. Not for everyone. For example, while you put me on your list of people that believe the labyrinth needs to change (740 people supporting etc.), I do not believe it needs to change for any of those reasons.

Secondly, I just posted a speculation about 3.0 that gives a reason why the Labyrinth could very well be about testing players comfort zones.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1875185

For those who don't want to bother with the link it is a speculation about an increase in technical play (in the form of more complicated bosses and environmental interactions) in 3.0

"

CidAvadose wrote:

"

This is a game. It isn't comfort zone, that's plain ridiculous. Labyrinth is BORING, IRRITATING, and NOT FUN. It isn't about comfort zones?

First of all it is boring, irritation, and not fun FOR YOU. Not for everyone. For example, while you put me on your list of people that believe the labyrinth needs to change (740 people supporting etc.), I do not believe it needs to change for any of those reasons.

Secondly, I just posted a speculation about 3.0 that gives a reason why the Labyrinth could very well be about testing players comfort zones.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1875185

For those who don't want to bother with the link it is a speculation about an increase in technical play (in the form of more complicated bosses and environmental interactions) in 3.0

It should go without saying that I was giving my own personal opinion.

The assertion was that I didn't like labyrinth because it moved me out of my comfort zone. That is plain false and not true, at least in my case. I don't like it because it is boring, irritating and tedious game play. That doesn't have anything to do with the thread OP you pointed to. That doesn't have anything to do with why GGG added labyrinth. Maybe GGG implemented it in part to get people out of their comfort zone, I don't know? All I'm saying is that it is not the reason that I don't like the game play in the labyrinth. I'm saying I don't like it because I find the labyrinth game play boring, irritating, and not fun.

My mistake, I misunderstood you.

Everyone has parts of the game that they hate.