Development Manifesto: Changes to the Labyrinth

I also think that the Lab has some issues. Especially in harder difficulties it serves more the top-tier/meta players. What really shows that there is something wrong with the lab are party-offerings like:
-"Merc Lab carry 3c"
-"Uber lab - your offering, my loot"
etc.
For me this shows, that people are even willing to pay someone just to get their ascendency points. I think (and hope) that GGG had not that in mind when they designed the Lab.

A few ideas that - in my opinion - would ease the tension around the labs.

1. Make all the labs easier, shorter, especially in the harder difficulties.
Or just remove the hardcore aspect - like as with maps, you can have 6 portals, you can die 6 times.

2. Leave all the labs as they are, but the first 2 labs should reward ascendency points (like 4-4) and the last 2 should give the ability to enchant.
This way people who dislike the lab could get their passives early and can shop their helms/boots later without the lab. Hardcore/meta/uber-lab-liking players can get the enchants and make some profit for their efforts. (If then enchanted item prices rise, more people will do harder labs - the market it will get even, but will still reward those who do the hard labs)

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

Huh? I swear there were like 10 times more pages so what happened? Why delete so many posts??

Not in this thread there were not.

"

dinobin wrote:

I also think that the Lab has some issues. Especially in harder difficulties it serves more the top-tier/meta players. What really shows that there is something wrong with the lab are party-offerings like:
-"Merc Lab carry 3c"
-"Uber lab - your offering, my loot"
etc.
For me this shows, that people are even willing to pay someone just to get their ascendency points. I think (and hope) that GGG had not that in mind when they designed the Lab.

A few ideas that - in my opinion - would ease the tension around the labs.

1. Make all the labs easier, shorter, especially in the harder difficulties.
Or just remove the hardcore aspect - like as with maps, you can have 6 portals, you can die 6 times.

2. Leave all the labs as they are, but the first 2 labs should reward ascendency points (like 4-4) and the last 2 should give the ability to enchant.
This way people who dislike the lab could get their passives early and can shop their helms/boots later without the lab. Hardcore/meta/uber-lab-liking players can get the enchants and make some profit for their efforts. (If then enchanted item prices rise, more people will do harder labs - the market it will get even, but will still reward those who do the hard labs)

People are willing to pay others to do/get a shitload of stuff for them in the game. Should Shaper be made easier to get to since people are willing to pay for Shaper kills/loot? What about challenges, those get bought all the time. People pay to get speed-run through the game until they hit maps, should they be allowed to just instant-create level 65 characters?

Point here is you seem to be engaging in some faulty logic.

Right, my bad, I forgot to click on the link. Never mind me.

"

Devonor wrote:

"

Nicksiren wrote:

Disappointing to hear. Repeating the lab 4 times is incredibly boring when you've already played 30+ characters considering it's forced content. This is a bad decision.

Yes, it really is a bad decision. The community is also on its way of becoming split in 2 ( feels like ). This also creates more hostile community towards each other ( it's already hostile and toxic enough imo by far ). Why not come up with a solution that both parts can live with and try to unite us ggg? Seriously !!!

I have stopped spending dollars on this game, I know I am not the only one lol. It's a reason for this. As long as ggg do stupid unnecessary decisions and slowly destroy this game I am not spending money, simple.
I have been hoping that ggg would grow to become a big company. Big as in one of the biggest game companies in the world, its great developers in ggg, what a shame. I believe this company could make many good games just like Blizzard for example. The lab, for example, could be an own game, it's a great concept if it was just that another game.

I think "the haters" are in majority, probably like 70/30 ish but realistically more like 80/20. Most players don't bother reading or/and voice their opinions in the forums, twitter etc and just plays the game and when it becomes shit they just leave. My impression of what the players i have been talking to think about the lab and wants for the game.

You've stopped, others have started, you can trust that GGG knows exactly what's going on financially if they know any one thing.

People have been decrying certain decisions GGG has made for at least 5 years now. They've been talking about the split community and the destruction of the game. There's a hilarious "OMG THE SKY IS FALLING" thread around here somewhere.

But the real reason to respond to this is:

Is there a source for your numbers on the breakdown of the attitude towards the lab in the playerbase besides your ass? This is exactly the type of damned nonsense people need to stop.

Its not the lab I dislike.
I do dislike trap gameplay - and GGG gating build development behind it.
So, not much excited about this...

"

Archwizard wrote:

People are willing to pay others to do/get a shitload of stuff for them in the game. Should Shaper be made easier to get to since people are willing to pay for Shaper kills/loot? What about challenges, those get bought all the time. People pay to get speed-run through the game until they hit maps, should they be allowed to just instant-create level 65 characters?

Point here is you seem to be engaging in some faulty logic.

I think you missed my point, and were therefore a bit exaggerating.

I'm not talking about "lazy people wanna save some time", I'm talking about ascendency points.
If people want to pay someone just to get a chance at the enchanting machine or to get some loot, I don't care. If people spend some chaos, for some QoL, it's their business.
But what I don't get is why non-meta or suboptimal builds should spend currency to reach their peak performance through ascendency passives if they are not capable to handle the Lab, which - I suppose you can agree on - has a "unique" mechanic.
So as I see it, Shaper kills, challanges, etc are not the same, because they are not build enabling.

That's why I proposed that it would be a solution to have the first 2 Labruns wield the ascendency points, and the last 2 could give the enchants, which are not that mandatory (and which can be traded).

The labs are the cancer of this game.

"

Archwizard wrote:

Third, have you ever even looked at poe.trade for prices of certain enchants? They can be very lucrative and there are many people that run the lab just to farm them.

So, separate AP from the Lab.
If somebody wants to earn money by selling enchants, allow him to get those lucrative trades.
If somebody does not like the Lab, he does not run it.
Problem solved.

"

Archwizard wrote:

"

Devonor wrote:

"

Nicksiren wrote:

Disappointing to hear. Repeating the lab 4 times is incredibly boring when you've already played 30+ characters considering it's forced content. This is a bad decision.

Yes, it really is a bad decision. The community is also on its way of becoming split in 2 ( feels like ). This also creates more hostile community towards each other ( it's already hostile and toxic enough imo by far ). Why not come up with a solution that both parts can live with and try to unite us ggg? Seriously !!!

I have stopped spending dollars on this game, I know I am not the only one lol. It's a reason for this. As long as ggg do stupid unnecessary decisions and slowly destroy this game I am not spending money, simple.
I have been hoping that ggg would grow to become a big company. Big as in one of the biggest game companies in the world, its great developers in ggg, what a shame. I believe this company could make many good games just like Blizzard for example. The lab, for example, could be an own game, it's a great concept if it was just that another game.

I think "the haters" are in majority, probably like 70/30 ish but realistically more like 80/20. Most players don't bother reading or/and voice their opinions in the forums, twitter etc and just plays the game and when it becomes shit they just leave. My impression of what the players i have been talking to think about the lab and wants for the game.

You've stopped, others have started, you can trust that GGG knows exactly what's going on financially if they know any one thing.

People have been decrying certain decisions GGG has made for at least 5 years now. They've been talking about the split community and the destruction of the game. There's a hilarious "OMG THE SKY IS FALLING" thread around here somewhere.

But the real reason to respond to this is:

Is there a source for your numbers on the breakdown of the attitude towards the lab in the playerbase besides your ass? This is exactly the type of damned nonsense people need to stop.

Arcwizard

What i try to communicate to ggg and the community is that in my experience in this game people i talk to don't like the lab, it's really that simple. i don't like it, they don't like it, it's not rocket science. Our conversation is just another example of the split community that has been materialized because of the lab (thank you btw for making a good example of this issue). I simply just want the ascendancy points to be removed of being gated behind something that is not an arpg experience/gameplay. I just want ggg to find a way so everyone can be happy including you that like the lab. What's wrong with that, seriously . And no i don't write down every statistic of people's opinions i encounter of people being positive or negative towards the lab, it's more of a feedback to me from others i talk to and i don't troll anyone when i say the lab is not wanted by the people behind me ( most of them hundreds of people, almost all of them have already moved on to other games ) . I simply just want poe to reach goat status (my love to the game) of an arpg game because imo it's the best arpg ever by far atm of being just that ( an incredible achievement ), lab is a speedbump to that sadly. Poe imo is just so ridiculously good game despite its flaws and devs lack of touch for the arpg genre. Lack of skills to balance the game also btw. If the ascendancy points is still gonna be gated behind another game ( the lab ) no matter what happens, its still gonna be a good game, goat arpg well no ... a good game yes. Another game in the future being a better arpg yes no doubt.
Don't get me wrong but i am rooting for poe and ggg and want the best for them and its damn awesome such a small company have been able to make such a good game as they have, ggg can if they want to fix this problem. I dunno who in ggg that made the lab and it doesn't really matter but there is no doubt its a problem, if it wasn't we wouldn't even have the discussion at all but here we are talking about it. Honestly gggs lab is about the same speedbump to the arpg genre that d3 had with its lack of build/stat diversity , in other ways but same level of arpg genre killing.

The lab is objectively not a success when it's so many people that don't like it or even hate it. ggg knows this, you know this, i know this and every poe player knows this. I am not even going to mention the speed meta the ascendancy points and enchants with the atlas expansion have created to the game. The lab is a failure and this is something ggg devs will grow from and become better in the future hopefully. The lab in a vacuum technically is not bad its just doesn't fit poe and arpgs. It's not fun for true pure arpgfans and imo the most important thing in a game is to have fun, we go to work and want to come home and sit in front of our pcs and enjoy our freetime and here we are being tortured and bored to death by the lab and its build diversity-destroying design. The labs rewards is just so extremely important for making many different characters/builds but because of its lack of true arpg experience and fun its just killing it instead for too many players. The lab is creating a problem that shouldn't even be a problem but the devs was too ambitious with this one i am sorry. I give them credit for being ambitious but not everything works out.

Have a nice day/night everyone :)