I really hate lab

I've found that the traps are easier solo than in a party. I think I've died to traps once this league in uberlab and it was in a party. Other players using skills and visual effects obscured the traps so I didn't see the one that killed me. So even in a party, I either wait for somebody else to get through them before I try or I go ahead of them. When people say traps are easier with a party I have to disagree.

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Farfan wrote:

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Willemoesium wrote:

... It really amazes everytime, just how bad the lab is....

is it the lab or you?
dying to the second trap?
hmm

First of all, not all builds are made for the lab. A life based vaal pact char running through a long series of trapps can run out of flask charges and die. Lab has very little to do with skill actually. I once made a jugger with 11 end charges and 20% life regen, who could just stand in traps without taking damage.

Second, i never claimed to be good at the lab. I just rushed through it, without putting much thought to what i did. The reason being that i really hate being there, and it felt like something i just had to be done with.

Third, when i say lab is bad, i dont mean its hard, i mean its poorly made, and completely out of genre with the rest of the game. Its like making a game of tetris, and deciding that every 5th play should be forced in chess game, that you had to win to progress to more tetris, for no other reason than to piss of the ones playing your game. Lab is so fucked up and out of place.

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Willemoesium wrote:

First of all, not all builds are made for the lab. A life based vaal pact char running through a long series of trapps can run out of flask charges and die. Lab has very little to do with skill actually.

Flasks are basically here for mistakes, when you screw up, and it has everything to do with skill.

It isn't out of genre at tall, that's just a pitiful excuse to try to justify one's own lack of skill/ability.

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Fruz wrote:

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Willemoesium wrote:

First of all, not all builds are made for the lab. A life based vaal pact char running through a long series of trapps can run out of flask charges and die. Lab has very little to do with skill actually.

Flasks are basically here for mistakes, when you screw up, and it has everything to do with skill.

It isn't out of genre at tall, that's just a pitiful excuse to try to justify one's own lack of skill/ability.

I've heard this assertion many times that traps are not out of ARPG genre. It is obvious to me and others that it is. I accept you (and others) at your word that it is not to you. I think we have to accept that we are both right and that it is an opinion. Trying to delve a bit deeper to try and understand where this occurs, for me it occurs when the focus moves from "kill monsters get loot" to "go thru trap gauntlet". When my focus switches then my feelings and perspective seem to change. Feelings switch from "fun and excitement" to "yuch, this is boring and irritating".

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Fruz wrote:

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Willemoesium wrote:

First of all, not all builds are made for the lab. A life based vaal pact char running through a long series of trapps can run out of flask charges and die. Lab has very little to do with skill actually.

Flasks are basically here for mistakes, when you screw up, and it has everything to do with skill.

I could agree with this reasoning, if traps could reasonably be negotiated on the first try. But when you have traps stretching way off screen and no way to tell when it is safe to start running through them or what you will need to do later on, that argument falls apart. Making "mistakes" becomes more or less inevitable at that point.

you have trials to learn the traps

sure, you most likely ran past them bruteforcing them with flasks and whatnot but trials are sufficient to teach all trap types to players

if one is unsure - he can always repeat said trials.

sure, some trap layouts are new (and i think GGG added at least 2 new with 2.6 - never seen them before and i ran lab A LOT) or complex but the building blocks are the same

and if you try youll see that you should have no problems whatsoever clearing any and all trap layouts with normal movement speed and no movement skills. on the first try.

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sidtherat wrote:

you have trials to learn the traps

sure, you most likely ran past them bruteforcing them with flasks and whatnot but trials are sufficient to teach all trap types to players

if one is unsure - he can always repeat said trials.

sure, some trap layouts are new (and i think GGG added at least 2 new with 2.6 - never seen them before and i ran lab A LOT) or complex but the building blocks are the same

and if you try youll see that you should have no problems whatsoever clearing any and all trap layouts with normal movement speed and no movement skills. on the first try.

This is not the problem at all. I play games to have a good time, and i do have a good time when i play PoE. But when i enter the lab, i begin to hate every second of it, and after just a few menutes in there, i completely lose the desire to play the game, and often quit for several hours afterwards.

So my fustration after dying in the lab, is not that it is too hard for me to overcome it, but the fact that i have been in that miserable shithole for a few minutes without getting what i wanted out of it, made me quit for the day. Content that gives players that feeling is bad content, and i know im not alone in feeling this way. In fact, everyone i know who play PoE, shares this hate for the lab with me.

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sidtherat wrote:

you have trials to learn the traps

sure, you most likely ran past them bruteforcing them with flasks and whatnot but trials are sufficient to teach all trap types to players

if one is unsure - he can always repeat said trials.

sure, some trap layouts are new (and i think GGG added at least 2 new with 2.6 - never seen them before and i ran lab A LOT) or complex but the building blocks are the same

and if you try youll see that you should have no problems whatsoever clearing any and all trap layouts with normal movement speed and no movement skills. on the first try.

Knowing the behaviour of individual traps is not enough to know in advance how to go through an unknown series of them perfectly.

Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of movement puzzle in my action games. I loved the Prince of Persia series, and those often had much more severe punishments than PoE if you messed up. But it wasn't a problem in those games, because in every single instance, you could stand at the beginning of a series of traps, and see the whole layout along with the safe spot at the end. You were working with complete information, so if you screwed things up, you had no-one but yourself to blame. PoE, on the other hand, presents you with incomplete information and still punishes you when you get the answer wrong. That's why it feels so frustrating.

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Turtledove wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

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Willemoesium wrote:

First of all, not all builds are made for the lab. A life based vaal pact char running through a long series of trapps can run out of flask charges and die. Lab has very little to do with skill actually.

Flasks are basically here for mistakes, when you screw up, and it has everything to do with skill.

It isn't out of genre at tall, that's just a pitiful excuse to try to justify one's own lack of skill/ability.

I've heard this assertion many times that traps are not out of ARPG genre. It is obvious to me and others that it is. I accept you (and others) at your word that it is not to you. I think we have to accept that we are both right and that it is an opinion. Trying to delve a bit deeper to try and understand where this occurs, for me it occurs when the focus moves from "kill monsters get loot" to "go thru trap gauntlet". When my focus switches then my feelings and perspective seem to change. Feelings switch from "fun and excitement" to "yuch, this is boring and irritating".

It is not really just an opinion ( I guess I could agree that it is to some extent ), Arpg is a wide concept, and traps are not a foreign element to it.

But it does not matter, what matters is PoE as a whole, I could not care less in what genre people put it in, it's of absolutely no relevance to me, PoE is PoE, and that's all that matters.

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suszterpatt wrote:

I could agree with this reasoning, if traps could reasonably be negotiated on the first try. But when you have traps stretching way off screen and no way to tell when it is safe to start running through them or what you will need to do later on, that argument falls apart. Making "mistakes" becomes more or less inevitable at that point.

No it isn't, it also tests your reactivity, and your thinking in a dangerous situation ( the visibility should be improved imho though ).
If you panic and make a mistake, that remains a mistake.

You have the information, just not at the very beginning.
And most of the time, you can stop to look at it.

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Willemoesium wrote:

So my fustration after dying in the lab, is not that it is too hard for me to overcome it, but the fact that i have been in that miserable shithole for a few minutes without getting what i wanted out of it

It is, if it wasn't too hard you would not have died, if it wasn't to hard you would not be pulled so much outside of your comfort zone, and you go through it quickly, and you would be done with it without troubles.
But we know that it's not what is happening.
The content isn't bad, you might be.
You could say that you don't like it though, that is another thing.
But saying straigth "the content is bad" is pretty childish imho, especially when you have absolutely no arguments.

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sidtherat wrote:

you have trials to learn the traps

sure, you most likely ran past them bruteforcing them with flasks and whatnot but trials are sufficient to teach all trap types to players

if one is unsure - he can always repeat said trials.

sure, some trap layouts are new (and i think GGG added at least 2 new with 2.6 - never seen them before and i ran lab A LOT) or complex but the building blocks are the same

and if you try youll see that you should have no problems whatsoever clearing any and all trap layouts with normal movement speed and no movement skills. on the first try.

The trials exist to show that they gave up on designing trap layouts for the actual Labyrinth. The trials (at least the ones in the acts) usually present some navigation puzzle to solve with emphasis on patience but the Labyrinth squeezes together clusters of traps in smaller spaces with only the expectation that you will survive them rather than solve them.