Hi, I just want to give some feedback based on my experience. I think’s it’s important to know my background first.
40 years old, have wife, kids, and a job. Nowadays I only have 1 or 2 hours to play daily, that’s why I currently consider myself a causal player. But I’m a hardcore ARPG fan, played most of them since the first Diablo (played Diablo II for hundreds of hours when it first launched over 20 years ago).
What I thnk Last Epoch did really good:
Skill trees. I think this is where Last Epoch really shines. Each skill having it’s own skill tree was a great idea. The passive skill trees also works great.
Campaign length. I think it has a really good lentgh even though I have not finished it (more on that below)
What I think Last Epoch did ok:
Itemization. Nothing new here, but offers what we expect in this type of games.
What I think Last Epoch did poorly:
Balance. Even though I play almost every ARPG that launches, I don’t have that much time to play each one, so I’m not kind of person that grinds for hundreds of hours (or even dozens of hours…). So having the ability to have fun on a first play through is really important.
My fisrt character is a Mage/Sorcerer. I tried every spell/skill as they got unlock and started to build my charcarter around what I found worked better or was more fun. I ended up making my character focus on Lighting damage, using Desintegrate as my primary skill. At level 50 this skill was doing around 10k per second of damage + automatically casting upgraded Lighting Blast. Every enemy would die in a second or two, even thougher ones would not last more than a few seconds.
I also focused on Ward because it seemed really good, I could just tank 95% of any attack, including bosses.
It was actually boring at times, the game felt too easy. Up to the last boss, which was a brick wall to my build. I could actually beat the first phase, but the second phase which is faster and more deadly, was impossible (because my main attack requires standing still to channel desintagrate).
The problem here was the difficult spike. If the game started to get difficult, I would have changed my build as I was progressing. But out of nowhere it was like easy - easy - easy - easy - impossible.
Second problem: how respeccing works. Respeccing skills should work like respeccing passives, only cost gold and keep points, because every time I want to respec, my skills get 1/3 of the skills points they had before and I have to grind previous content to level up the new skills to see if the new build is good or not. Every skill I want to change requires more grinding, just to get the skill to the correct level.
Grinding should be optional and fun (endgame content for example), not mandatory through the campaign just to try different skill combinations.
That’s it, overall it is a very good game, but poor balancing and required grinding for respeccing makes it hard to truly enjoy it.
Good feedback, I agree with pretty much everything.
Just FYI, Majasa is one of the rare bosses that I find a lot easier for melee characters than range (kinda fair I suppose, as many many other bosses are easier for range). Because when I am melee, the second phase is a joke, I am happy with her coming close, but with range she is too fast and hits hard.
I killed her many times, always straight after the campaign, I never do monos first, and sorcerer is the only class with which I have had problems in this fight.
The campaign bosses aren’t really the “last boss” … Because after the main story quests end, you are still playing the campaign as you start monoliths (aka endgame). Monoliths are still driving the narrative forward if you think about it.
Respeccing is INCREDIBLY fast and easy when you are at endgame. I can delete all 5 of my skills and level them back up to level 20 in 5minutes time, at endgame. LE has an incredibly fast an easy respec system, you just haven’t got that far yet…
Also, you chose the laserbeam build with ward, obviously that’s going to get boring eventually… Stand still, shoot laserbeam. Seems kind of obvious no?
Absolutely not.
The monoliths are driving the narrative sideways, not forward: they are offering alternative storylines, completely different from the one we were trying to follow in our original timeline, and not bringing anything to the main story.
But apart from that, yes I agree, Majasa is not the last boss of the game, only the last of the campaign.
The monolith bosses are a more important part of the gameplay loop than her (and many are far more dangerous than her, too).
I have not reached the endgame, so backtracking on previous maps, with no objective, just grinding to upgrade skills again and again isn’t fun. When you consider that I have 1 hour to play, spending half that time grinding just for upgrading skills again, seems like a waste of time.
And about the build I “chose”. As I said, I never read any guide or anything, I just played and kept using what was fun at the time. Upgrading the skill was kind of fun, unlocking new abilities for it, etc. Felling powerfull is fun, at least for some time… If you look at any build, you eventually just keep pressing the same buttons to use the same skills, I see no difference.
What I mean is: regardless of what skills/build you end up using, it should be fun, at least during the campaign. The main problem was the difficult spike and respeccing during this time (as I have described on my original post). I know that on ARPGs, endgame content is almost considered a different game, where you are doing different things for different objectives. Unfortunately, I wont have time for that. I just wanted to have fun playing the campaign a couple times with different characters classes and that’s it - which in the current state, the game cannot deviler.
I understand the appeal for easy and fast respec, but please do understand that for some other players, there is meaning in the necessity to spend a little bit of time to respec. When you can instantly respec at will, there is no difference between your character and all other characters of the same class. Having to devote some time to respeccing makes the character your specific character, distinct from all others.
I disagree, I think the monoliths are part of the narrative because you obtain the Last Epoch and use it’s power to explore other timelines, that doesn’t erase the timeline you came from. But this isn’t the right thread for that discussion anyway. I’ll leave it at that.
I don’t think you can realistically expect the build “Stand still and shoot laser beam” to be as comparably fun as, for example, a build that has you turn into a giant werebear who rampages, jumps, slams, and summons lightning all around him to decimate his foes with claws imbued with lightning and a literal storm surrounding him… There’s boring builds in every game, and that’s okay… But you can’t expect every build to be equally fun and not boring…
Im new to the game as well and agree for the most part of what u said. Im starting Monoliths now and Im kind of lost - its seems after beating that Snake it goes all over the place as far as the story. Im hoping once I get into Monoliths the story clears it up a little ?? Also if u are tired of lightning try a Glacier build - Im running that on my sorc and its very good even though I cant find some of the items I need just yet …
No, since we’re missing 3 full chapters of the main story still. The game is not finished and that’s disturbing given it’s claiming to be a ‘1.0’ where you hence can expect the main story to be ‘done’.
The story is meant to be composed of 12 chapters. Only 9 have been written so far.
So yes, it ends abruptly after Majasa (the snake lady).
This is mostly semantic I suppose, but the monoliths are (at the moment), not part of the story. Yes, you reach them thanks to the Epoch, but each monolith is a different, independent story, set in the same universe and re-using some of the famous characters of this world (Yulia, Grael, Heorot, The Traveller…), but without any narrative link with the campaign’s story (or with each other).
It may change in the future, when the missing chapters appear, I don’t know.
Ahh ok thanks for clarifying it - I felt I was missing something so when I rolled a Sorc I took my time paying attention to the story but when I got to monoliths it was just the same…
Perhaps the solution is to allow faster respec during the campaign and keep the current system for endgame. There are a lot of players that are only intereseted in playing the campaign and allowing fast or instant respec would make the experience better.
And just a reminder that this discussion is not about build quality. Maybe standing still and shooting a laser beam is as fun for some people as a werebear jumping and summoning lightning. The point of this post was the difficult spike (game went from very easy to impossible in an instant - which translates to poor balancing).
I agree with respec frustration. Some talents make huge changes to the way the build will work, and if you don’t have the points to spend them, the build won’t work. So you can’t use your build until you have the points for it, but you can’t have the points for it until you level up the skills, which requires you to use a build. It’s insanity. For the builds that a few points is all that matters for the build to come alive, a few minutes of endgame time is all it takes to max the skills again. So it’s only several minutes delay… might as well just have it available at the respec vender for everyone. It’s frustrating when game designers frequently say “It’s what players want, but it’s not good for them so we won’t give it to them.” That may be valid for some of the time, but is this really one of those times?
Some people don’t want to have to aim, so automated aiming is good for those. Some people want to aim, so aiming is good for those. Some people want to press one button to do their dmg, and so those builds are great for them, but boring for others. Others want a complicated set of buttons to press, so those builds are great for them. Some people want auto pickup of runes on floor, and have it placed in forge. Others want to have to click the floor, then open their inventory and send it to forge. Why not have it be an option in the game menu, so those that want to micro manage runes can do so, and those that just want to sling spells and speed farm can do that. The reason it’s not an option, is cause almost everyone would choose the automated pickup and file option, and well “Even though players want it, the game would be less fun in the long run.” Are you so sure about that? I’m pretty sure we want more fun which is why we are asking for these changes. Let players respec, let them play around with builds. Let different builds have different styles. Let speed farms speed farm, let players decide what is fun and what isn’t. When it’s possible, give them options.
I’d say it is not unreasonable to request faster respecs at lower levels, and I suspect they need to be slower at endgame.
I’d say the issue is more that there is a huge discrepancy in experience gains between high corruption and low corruption. I’d rather have skill releveling be at 30 minutes at all corruption levels.
