Tackling the limitations of PoE: Part One - The "Labyrinth"

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鬼殺し wrote:

You kept your end of the bargain, so I'm keeping mine.

Man that was awesome to read. I see a few things that are technically very unlikely but the overall sentiment that the Labyrinth isn't really worthy of being called a Labyrinth right now is dead-on.

I think Izaro would be very impressed.

As an afterthought -- I'm especially on-board with disabling traps somehow. After all:

"Beast and fiend had fallen and bled,
To the Ezomyte's sword, swift and true.
Trap and trial had risen and succumbed,
To the Eternal's wits, quick and shrewd."

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鬼殺し wrote:

Update: don't expect anything for 3.0.

If that's even vaguely surprising, you're underestimating the scope of Fall of Oriath. But you're all smart cookies. I'm sure you grasp that the Labyrinth isn't something easily 'fixed'.

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sofocle10000 wrote:

Traps & monsters

I never understood their stance that monsters should be separated from traps, when they could have had them intertwined so you pay attention at the enemies, and the traps in preparation for the epic fight versus Izaro. Not to mention the missed opportunities regarding the tactical advantages that a complex trap gauntlet would give you versus a difficult enemy.

I do understand that they are constraint by the basic AI that the game uses, but there are improvements that could be taken to give a better experience to players even in this regard.

One solution would be to have some of the difficult enemies great to fight in trap gauntlets - Exiles + multi essence mobs, for example - that when taking sustained trap damage they should try and find a spot where they're not going to get damaged by traps, and also keep their focus on getting you killed.

Another would be to also find a way to make traps do percentage damage to monsters (if they don't do so already) so you'll have normal ones surviving 5 hits from a spike trap, magic ones 8 hits, rare/unique ones 10 and adjust those values to seconds for movable traps. If necessary even tune down or up the aggressivity of the monsters that you encounter in the trap areas.

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The_Reporter wrote:

Well, thanks for the try. Guess it's truly the end.

RIP PoE

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Fruz wrote:

Definitely much higher feedback level than most of the other lab related threads, if not all.

My 2 cents about it :

- All for improvig visibility in the lab, altho I am suspecting that in some ( if not most ) places where the visibility is low, it's intended by GGG. That said, uber sentinels add an unnecessary layer of effects that lower visibility further more.

- About master switches to disable traps :
o Well, I would rather have them disable some of the traps, not all, make an easier path but still have some places with traps, but much easier.
o I think that the point of traps is that it cannot be completely overleveled, so if monsters would be garding such master switches, they would need to not be trivialized easily by overleveling, ideally.
o Such switches access would of course be difficult ( somewhat hidden, unknown location ), and somewhat time consuming

- About destructible traps : as I said in another thread : really no point imho.
Allow a player to just spend time doing some tedious action ( or just repeated boring action ) to remove the danger goes completely against the point of the lab. There still need to be danger in the lab, that cannot just be trivialized and bruteforced easily.

- Traps + Monsters : there are such places already in the lab, but people likely just skip them because they don't deem the rewards being enough. Hell, even burning grounds with tons of skeletons are traps + monsters.
The monster's AI is probably way too low to put monsters everywhere with traps, they would just die all the time before the player even reaches them .... unless you put flying ennemies for ground traps for example.
But you are aware of the problem already.

- Scripted encounter : seems nice, pair it with traps so that it's harder to trivialize by overleveling it then.

- Random layout for getting the ascendancy points : all for that, need to find a lore justification then.


- About carries : Need to have everybody standing in the arena so that it can start : I'm all for that too , and need additional monsters if running in a party, to pose a threat to all members.


Something else I would like to see : something to reduce the "cheezing potential" of the traps gauntlets.
Some regen + movement speed reduction would work, applied by spike traps for example.

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e1337donkey wrote:

Spoiler

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sofocle10000 wrote:

Traps & monsters

I never understood their stance that monsters should be separated from traps, when they could have had them intertwined so you pay attention at the enemies, and the traps in preparation for the epic fight versus Izaro. Not to mention the missed opportunities regarding the tactical advantages that a complex trap gauntlet would give you versus a difficult enemy.

I do understand that they are constraint by the basic AI that the game uses, but there are improvements that could be taken to give a better experience to players even in this regard.

One solution would be to have some of the difficult enemies great to fight in trap gauntlets - Exiles + multi essence mobs, for example - that when taking sustained trap damage they should try and find a spot where they're not going to get damaged by traps, and also keep their focus on getting you killed.
Another would be to also find a way to make traps do percentage damage to monsters (if they don't do so already) so you'll have normal ones surviving 5 hits from a spike trap, magic ones 8 hits, rare/unique ones 10 and adjust those values to seconds for movable traps. If necessary even tune down or up the aggressivity of the monsters that you encounter in the trap areas.

This is what I've have been talking about for awhile. This is probably the biggest missed potential in the lab. The combination of traps and monster.

Even on day 1 of the lab, I just didn't enjoy it. I kept on invisioning a room with Brutus and those Poison Slowing Darts shooting out. Getting hit by one means brutus can easily get right up to you destroy you. Or a room where the entire outside has those spike traps, only the middle is safe. But the enemies in the middle can knock you back. Stuff like that could have the made the lab amazing.

It is just a little too easy to bypass the traps with various movement skills, flasks, certain mechanics. You brought up a lot of great points but this one thing would have made the lab far greater in my opinion.

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鬼殺し wrote:

The game will hardly end with 3.0. A proper Labyrinth overhaul is far from unlikely imo. It's a SOLID foundation. Very solid.

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sofocle10000 wrote:

Thank you, fruz.

I got a great idea regarding destructible traps that might change your mind.

We all know Oba's Cursed Trove main challenging aspect - Area Becomes Fatal After Some Time - so why not make the destroyable traps a time challenge that makes you clear your path in a sensible amount of time or forfeit that area and try your way via an alternate one?

It would spike things up, and might be an worthy enhancement.