Concerns from a lab lover

Ok so we just got hte new lab announcement. Im one of the people who loves the lab, I enjoy running it just for the sake of running it. Theres some issues here though that may well cause me to run it once for my points and then never again, I wont engage with the content beyond that just like the people who hate it. If the people who love the lab feel like this, maybe its something I should be posting and you should be paying attention to.



issue 1 "They all occur in lower maps"

from your news post. What does this mean exactly? Why not mid maps? Why not high maps? Are you telling me that I have to run white tier maps in order to find this stuff regularly forever? Tell me not, tell me you didnt just require me to mass farm white tier maps forever in order to have a constant supply of endgame labs for this never ending bullshit hat grind that I have to do with about 15 different hats at this point and still havent even hit a single useful mod on any of them?

So whats the deal? Shit tier maps I get no xp from, no challenge from, nothing, and you expect me to farm these for what? 100s of hours? Are you kidding me? This is forcing me to play content so shit and worthless that the tactic will be to just run through the maps killing nothing looking for trails. That is not fun, if you make that the game I will hate it and I will be asll over these forums telling you so.

DO NOT MAKE ME FARM WHITE MAPS WITH HIGH LEVEL CHARACTERS.

SERIOUSLY





issue 2 "the hat grind"


Its too grindy, and what chris said about a prophecy chain occasionally letting you have 2 enchants... thats not a perm fix for a fucked up mechanic ok, thats not in any way good enough. Go look at my account, how many hours I have played, go look at the patterns of play, how many hours per day etc. Im in the top 0.0001% of people who will ever play this game in terms of how big my appetite is for grinding. I grind to unhealthy and inhuman levels, and I am telling you that helment grind is so ridiculously punishing that Ive already given up, before Ive even got 1 single helm enchant I want across my 27 current characters (a few of whom share a hat thank god). Its so ridiculously demotivating that I have already given up in my head on ever chasing helm enchants.

This is from someone who loves lab, wtf does everyone who hates it think of this helm grind? Its ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. I havent even got 1 single enchant that was even remotely useful in all the times I ran it in perandus, and I was racing it some days. Its utterly ridiculous.




If these things are wrong when you release it, if its locked to shit tier maps we dont want to be forced to play and you dont change the helm grind to make it less repulsive theres going to be huge backlash not only from all those people who hate the lab but from people like me who are some of the few who posted that they love it.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

.....I grind to unhealthy and inhuman levels, and I am telling you that helment grind is so ridiculously punishing .....

lol, 190+ lab runs here. still haven't found bloody earthquake duration.

Fun level: 1/10

if Izaro had memory after death, like the MC in Re:zero or something, he'd be like omfg not dis mofo again.

They are either sadists or clueless.

I am sorry I wasted money supporting them.

Rng on rng to farm enchants with stupid rng.

Now there could be the possibility this first layer of rng will be in low maps.

Omg really ?

If only the lab was the only horrendously bad direction the game is going in. Unfortunately it isn't.

wont comment on 2 - because im not 'completioninst' and 'perfectionist' and i can live without this enchant on my head (and gloves/boots are easy) this does not concern me. it is a very powerful enchant but do i really NEED it? nope. so i do not care


the '1' however is easy

'shit tier white maps' are currently POINTLESS because of Dried Lake

people rush to act4 dried lake, farm it till 75+ wishing for Brittle Emperor to drop and then move on to 'real deal'

with this system in place there will be a choice - farm Dried Lake like a madman or farm Tier 1-6 maps. People already farm their assess in Museum (fragments) and for some powerful div cards - this just moves the 'incentives' into the maps again.

it ofc sucks for standard players with several 90+ characters and people that breeze trough the leagues in 2 days (to reach the same 90+ character) but they are minority and as such..


i like this change. the low tier maps are really 99% pointless currently and this makes them viable (and possibly profitable) alternative to Dried Lake

Enchants are not equal to crafting. You shouldn't expect to get what you are looking for. It's so weird how in one breath you complain about needing a challenge and also complain about not getting the most hyper effective helm enchant in order to make the game even easier.

Enchants can be so powerful strictly because they are so random. If they were more deterministic then they would have to be considerably weaker.

Before you rage, plz consider the thing known as "game balance".

And trade for the helm enchant you are looking for.

I completely agree with the OP and I'm in the same situation.

My lab runs are frequently under 5 mins and I've largely given up trying to get even a single specific helm enchant on one helm for one character. The grind is atrocious and there's 10+ helms I need to complete, I'm no where closer to any of them, and the next passive reset + meta rebalance is already upon us. All my boots and gloves are done, 1/25 or 1/13 is tolerable but 1/364 is fucking asinine.

Adding access scarcity to the mix gated by low tier map grind is going to make things brutally unfun, especially for standard players whose characters are all 90+ and outgear/outlevel low tier maps so badly.

Assuming the Lab is a level 75 zone (previously datamined lab enchants were ilvl 75) it would make sense if the trials were to be found up to and including T7 maps. It would be nice with some actual intel on this though, I agree.

As for the enchanting system, it seems to continue the trend set by Talisman league. Multiple layers of RNG leading to random results; for all intents and purposes an endless grind with almost no hope. No thanks. Bonus points for the Atziri reference.

I will do the Lab once to get my points, that's about it. A complete waste of developer effort and supporter money, as far as I'm concerned.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

This is from someone who loves lab, wtf does everyone who hates it think of this helm grind?

Ignore it.

I run Lab only for Ascendancy points, so far 3 times for my temp league characters and once per my Standard character. So I enchant gloves in Cruel and boots in Merc and that's all. Helmet enchantments doesn't exists for me.

And this endgame Lab can really mean end of PoE game for me. I will try it, but if it will as grindy as I expect, I think I will take a break from developing any new characters here, leveling was always boring and frustrating for me here, but it starts to be more than my patience can endure.

"

BearCares wrote:

Before you rage, plz consider the thing known as "game balance".

And trade for the helm enchant you are looking for.

How you can mention in one sentence "game balance" and in the other "trade"? lol :D