(2) QoL changes to remove levels of tedium

Feedback and Suggestions
1

Please consider the following QoL changes, as they would cut down the amount of time farming consumes, especially at higher levels:

  1. Auto gold pickup
  2. Auto crafting materials pickup

Both would be in user-defined ranges. These aforementioned changes are the main reason why I still consider Grim Dawn as my favorite ARPG, with LE a close 2nd. Having to round up shards and gold after long multi-screen battles is just annoying, serves no purpose other than to waste time.

Please make this an option, not a mandate; not of fan of that, either.

Can’t wait for 7/9…

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1.)
Umh… that’s in the game?

2.)
Yes, it’s been a point of talk for ages. Formerly it was disagreed upon since the trading aspect was expected to be implemented for it.
This isn’t the case anymore though and hence the sole major reason has been removed.

Exceptions should apply for rare materials to emphasize them, the others are solely tedium and have no value for long-term display.

3

Blockquote
1.) Umh… that’s in the game?

I think they are talking about something similar to Diablo where a non-combat pet goes and picks up the gold/crafting materials for you. I would definitely put out some money for an in-app purchase on a gold/mat gathering companion.

4

Yeah… gonna go with a ‘hard no’ on that one.

The second EHG implements functional paid things no matter of what exactly they are I’m out of here.
I’ve had enough with those atrocious business practices and will drop any game no matter how good nowadays by the first simple whiff of such crap.

If it gets put in as a general function and we have solely skins - hence vanity - for those pets in comparison then it’s 100% fine in my book.
But… not even remotely needed in the current state of the game.

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They have actually said they will never charge for something that affects the game play. Mike has even used this as an example (at least I think it was Mike). If they ever introduced Pets picking stuff up, everyone would get for free, it would never be a micro-transaction.

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Tbh I expect it to change at some point.

They were pretty firm “we dont want you to filter by LP, it removes the item hunt”

Sure enough with enough feedback, it was so.

I think the feedback is still there, we might get auto shard pick up.

At this point they really are quickly running out of excuses. “Uhhh they are items” But you cant filter them, trade them, or even remove them from their special stash once they go there. Dont sound like items to me.

“uhh there is some rare ones” tbh, This is cope. Any rare shard you are gonna be shattering for. I never go “omg look a rare shard!” and get excited. I get excited when the “shatter this” color pops up on my filter.

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I’m fine if they add it for free too. But if we are talking in-app purchases to support the future development of the game, I’d rather have something that I pay a few bucks for to save people from clicking “I” and then “Transfer to Inventory” than something that effects actual game progression.

Just saying, I’d rather put out there for something basic than having to pay for “cycles” or something down the road if the cash flow slows down from the initial purchase and development on fun and new things slows down.

8

Yes, to be clear about it:
Supporting a developer for a well made product which has proper quality, proper support and also… or actually nowadays especially proper practices is a thing which should be done. It’s not without reason I picked this game up during Early Access as I was willing to risk the loss of money should it fail at that time as well as enjoy their product during that time, going in fully knowing what their premise is.

Which leads to the part you’ve talked about ‘save people from clicking’ is clearly a functional thing.
There’s a set amount of business practices which are good and others which are a shit-show beyond end and far far too often used nowadays as well as - very sadly - normalized. Basically game companies having found a prime way to screw over customers in one way or another which not a single person should be fine with but nonetheless people go ahead and do it since it’s ‘just done’. Giving any company a free pass for such behavior is the reason as to why other companies copy it… and then push the goalpost just a tiiiiiny bit further, until nearly every company does it… before pushing it a tiiiiiny bit further and so on and so forth.

So, that means there’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ business practices. Let’s start off with the ‘good’ ones.

You buy a game and can use it. Hence the classic ‘pay 2 play’ model. Welcome to Last Epoch.
‘Free 2 play’ would be the second viable model with ‘good practice’. But it’s a detrimental method for creating a healthy community as you get entitled pieces of… yeah, let’s not write that out, you get the gist.

Since Last Epoch is not a single-player game but has ongoing costs for server a secondary model needs to be there to fund those, once more, there’s different options there for that.

The first is a ‘subscription’ model, hence ‘use our service and pay us for a specific time of usage’. All good and fine.
The second is everything related to pure vanity items. Non functional things which have no relevance to the game at all.

Ah… and then we’re out of ‘good business practices’ since business models are fairly established, simple and straightforward nowadays to discern.

Which leaves the ‘bad business practices’. And those are a massive list.

‘pay 2 progress’ like boosters, direct progression, equipment and so on.
Functional microtransactions like those pickup pets, new modes and similar.
Drizzle-fed content through DLC which is utterly overpriced for the content received.
Paid mods… unless it’s free range for mod creators to have the developer quality check beforehand and let the creators price it while giving them a substantial amount of the revenue created from it.
Lootboxes, no matter if it’s functional or vanity, of any kind. This is no darn TCG which mandates that measure to have it functional (for drafts which those were created for majorly).
Any sort of time-limited content. We’re digital, there is not a single non-monetary reason to time-limit content outside of creating FOMO.
And probably many many more awful ways.

This also includes many malpractices regarding DLC where games are released either functionally unfinished to then sell those later on or create a boatload of DLC with low cost (since the core engine and game is a massive undertaking in comparison) to inflate the price more and more to get a ‘full’ product and keep already paid customers forking over hundreds in a drizzle-feed way.
The only time a DLC is valid is to provide substantial amounts of content which are as - or more - polished as the main product and hence warranting the price tag. DLC is to be priced lower for the same amount of game-time then the base product given that - as mentioned - the core mechanics are already in place and hence the needed effort is substantially lower to create it.

So, there’s hence people like me which have become utterly sick of those malpractices over time since the gaming sector has burned them or tried to burn them with wasting their money on awful and not well valued things over and over again and which will hence immediately stop using products from a company doing those practices as well as inform everyone in their social circle about that decision.
This is the category I fall into.

Not to speak of it opening up a immediate slippery slope to abuse it piece by piece further until one day you go too far with it and cause the game to die through means which can’t be taken back, each of the aforementioned ones having by then caused plenty of negative in the meanwhile. A game is there to have fun, not to lure someone into making bad decisions, cause time mismanagement in reality, enable gambling or anything else. A good game has only one thing to manage… being mechanically, story-wise and graphically good. In my eyes in that exact order even to call it a ‘game’.

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I meant like how Grim Dawn does it: currency/crafting materials are picked up if the character is within a certain range.

What I don’t like about how materials are handled now is that you have to stop and click on one of the them, which may not be anywhere near where you’re currently located, which in turn means waiting for the character to move or your original click is ignored. Plus you may have piles of materials that aren’t conected to each other, requiring another click. Kinda difficult on Empowered timelines with (3) or more spires raining down every time you stop.

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Yes, point 1 relates to Gold.
Gold is picked up automatically within a range simply by walking over it.
Which is the same mechanic as Grim Dawn has basically.

I agree to material pickup not being a thing is… dated for the game. And the display of items on the ground and their prioritizing for positioning not being properly done is a separate issue from auto-pickup for those… which I also agree needs work, albeit it at least ‘functions’ for now, hence lower priority.

Which once again… I agree that common affix shards should be auto-pickup + auto-store. Actually every affix shard should be auto-store, and with the talks about keys getting a similar treatment those being auto-store (but not auto-pickup) also falling into that category.

11

To be fair, the problem is more with autotransfer than autopickup. Even though I don’t particularly like not having autopickup, the fact is that their intent does happen: you do make a choice to pick them up or not. And most of the time you don’t bother picking them up because you already have a lot of them.
So there is a basis for manual pickup, even if we don’t agree with it.
This will be even more so if they do end up making something like Mike once suggested which was to have shards drop less often but in higher quantities and to be able to convert shards at a loss.

I don’t see a basis for manual transfer though. There is no point in having shards just occupy your inventory. There is no point in having to click the button to transfer them.

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12

No need to hide QoL behind the paywall, it can be a reward for an in-game achievement.
For example completing Lightless Arbour gives you a magnet, that increases the gold pickup radius, with different power for each dungeon tier.

The feature I want the most is autotransfer. If it ever gets a keybing, many players will just use a script to periodically press that key, because there’s no reason to not click that button. but clicking it requires so many actions: open inventory, click, close. I play mostly with mouse only, and having to reach out to the keyboard after every echo to transfer shards feels BAD. For controllers it’s even more miserable.

When playing offline I used a mouse macro that would do a sequence of actions to transfer shards with a single mouse wheel click. But I don’t want to risk using macros online to not get banned for my desire to have some QoL. I miss it so much :frowning:

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Oh, the piles of less than 10 gold that are scattered all over the arena and take up 1/3 of my screen, so I have hard time seeing monsters coming at me. Can’t filter them, and makes no sense to pick up either. Nice!

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I’ve come around to this as well. It has become an unnecessary step and despite the nifty little animation they did with it, it currently serves no purpose at all. I say ‘currently’ because the one reason I haven’t been more vocal about removing this feature is because we have no real idea if future plans they have MIGHT mean it’s a necessary step because of something we might be able to do with shards BEFORE they go into the bank.

I have no idea what that something might be but it’s a possibility only EHG might know about. If they ever arrive at the point and say, no there won’t be anything like that, then I would 100% back them removing this.

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15

They could add autotransfer until such time as they need shards in inventory. I don’t think we’ll have a use for it soon, so might as well just call the function when we pick them up until we do.

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Why not just do the ‘suck’ when we pick them up so it looks like we are absorbing them

ive got 2k+ hours in this game played only on a controller. every single time I open my inventory i use my mouse/kb which i need to switch hands etc ive done this maybe 3500+ times and im kind of over it as well

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Correct that was mike that said this

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18

Those are still valid reasons to not have auto shard pick up. Especially with the new glyph. Which makes shards a bit more of an item now.

Auto shard pick up is nothing more than players wanting things handed to them.

In no way should players be handed rune of creation, this new glyph. Rune of accentiion red shards ect that drop.

These rare shards are colored red. My understanding is these only drop as a shard u cant shatter items for them

U want the power of crafting mats pick it up just like if u want that 3LP bow for ur marksmen pick it up.

If a player a rushing conent they shouldnt have some way to vacum up crafring mats. U miss that rune of creation ect and dont pick it up thats on u.

Auto shard pick up removes the risk and reward. Risk being ur rushing or dont pick it up. Reward being u stopped and picked it up.

This also removes the risk of dying and losing out on those shard drops since they will just get sucked up like a vacum vs player actually having to pick them up

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This is actually a very valid point, one I had not considered, mainly because I only play offline and could care less about ladders and/or leader boards. I guess a compromise would be to have materials be gathered the same way that gold currently is.

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This is such a convoluted and outdated take on the topic.

First of all we need to differ between ‘functionality’ and ‘QoL’

Yes, picking up shards/glyphs and so on has an opportunity cost, it takes a click and some small amount of time to do. This makes common affix shards worthless to put that effort forward for.
Rare shards and glyphs for example? There it’s basically always the need to do that, it’s very rare you wouldn’t want to pick them up, especially the rare ones have never a reason not to be picked up.
Hence the opportunity cost doesn’t apply to them in the first place, even someone rushing will pick em up, much like someone rushing will pick up a unique without looking simply because it could have LP on it.

Now that means time-investment and effort for pickup is not even a topic, the only topic would be representation in that case, and there EHG is right… presenting a good drop is important, which is why we see rare stuff in another color after all. We already have that though, that aspect is solved.

Hence that solely leads to how much the opportunity cost and representation need to work together. And once again… as mentioned. When you don’t even put effort into reading what shard you pick up by Act 2 then it won’t become more important by Act 9 or even Monoliths. It’s senseless to try to enforce it despite it having no value. Actually… it’s detrimental even, common affix shards take away the importance from rare affix shards and glyphs, you pick them up together and hence you tend to automatically lump it together in your brain as ‘just material’ while it should be important though.

So hence we can talk about auto-pickup for common affix shards specifically, maybe even the most common glyphs like chaos and hope. The others - once again - should be emphasized hence and not be picked up.

Which leads to the secondary aspect of ‘material transfer’. And there lies the crux of the problem. There is no reason, 0, nada, zero, null for having them idling for even a millisecond in your inventory. It’s a useless mechanic. Hence there’s 2 options available for EHG by now: Keep it as a placeholder in the background without us as players having to deal with it or alternatively make it have a distinct strong and clearly understandable reason.

Yes, which is why - like gold - they should be treated similar like gold. You have to walk over it, it gets picked up this way. Means positioning during fights versus greed is still a viable point.

Given that the majority of high quality crafting materials drop from dangerous enemies… hence removing the danger before they show up and not randomly doing so during gameplay… the whole notion is not something which upholds itself well. But… for the bits where it does the display of it happening is still important.
Once again, solely and only for rare materials if we go into auto-pickup there.

For common crafting materials this argument is a zero-line. It’s not applicable, nobody gives a singular shit about common affix shards as soon as they’re halfway through the current campaign already, which makes it a non-issue for auto-pickup. Otherwise we could argue for gold auto-pickup as well, it falls into the same value category.

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