300hr Review/Comments to Dev (Beta/Live Release)

General
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Hello Internet and with any luck EHG,
I typically don’t bother to review games, just speak about them between friends but I was so impressed and disappointed with LE that I feel some summary of my experience may be useful. Or not.

I also don’t like any narrative that doesn’t address personal bias and point of view… So I’ll into with this… I have nearly 2k hours on PoE off an on through the years. I’m addicted to the skill tree and custom nature of the platform, but can’t stand the inaccessibility of truly end game gear and I grow so tired of every patch being, we nerfed your damage and def, buffed enemy move speed, atk speed, damage, hp, and we added no new mechanics everything just moves fast so you also have to play some variation of a tweeker build. Stack all the speed! Again this is only my opinion…

So on to Last Epoch. During beta I was impressed with just how fun the game was from level 0-100. The leveling experience was very care free and unlike similar games I felt as if I was playing my “build” for almost the entirety of the game. Of course things change as you level and get upgrades but the game was fun, and I didn’t feel like I was dredging through the first 80 levels just to start playing the game.

I feel as if a big reason for my personal enjoyment was access to 5-6 skills that actually felt useable. For as many hours as I’ve put in other ARPG’s I do not love holding one button and running in circles. But I believe ARPG’s have the capacity to offer this playstyle and multi-skill builds if the game is well designed. And at first glance and playthrough… I was really buying into my own narrative. Even more so on release to live I leveled a falconer and void knight, focusing on key combinations rather than a single ability (beta character was a muti-shot proc from furry zoomie ranger). I was having a great time, until I wasn’t…

I felt as if LE respected my time given the crafting system, access to infinite maps in end game, character exp progression, etc. The game just felt good to play. So what do I do, continue to invest my time, I check out the build planner and start to try and min/max my build with the right gear/affixes, blessings, the passive tree, the skill tree, the idols… the whole 9 yards. I think it’s fair to say anyone who dives into ARPG’s loves a good piece of gear without wasted stats that just fits perfectly in your grand design.

But that’s just it… the grand design is a pipe dream. When you really get into the gear it’s just as tedious for people who don’t stream for a living to obtain. Trying to farm the right base for your build, praying it drops with decent forge potential, then trying to to brick it because it’s gonna roll 4 stats, you need to get them to the stat you want without clearing the wrong affix or hitting the right scroll at random. Just with the amount of bases in the game and lack of target farming outside of unique it was a real s— show imo. “it’s a grinding game dude, that’s the game”… sorry 300 hours in half of which on CoF, if I can’t get something that resembles my build planner it takes the wind from your sails. Lets add to this LP items…lets add to this blessing optimization, lets add…

The trick is designing a better mouse trap, and instead of the twists and turns of the fresh experience LE was on my first playthrough the road quickly became a straight shot desert highway, it was clear where I needed, to go, how to get there, and yet I’d still feel as if I haven’t moved an inch playing 12 hours on a weekend. The only thing drawing me back in is my insane desire to have “my build” complete so I could make my final decision on the game trying not to dismiss my experience but not give into it either.

EHG has claimed they want to truly make a best in class ARPG and from one nerd to another, all you’ve done is gone and made something that already exist with a different skin. Access to uniques in the end game with LP feels like the only truly definable aspect about LE. LE in its current state to me is in actuality the first full version of their beta. I would assume like many of the other games available for purchase these days your investors told you to start generating some income and your timeline had reached it’s end. Lets be honest, your new classes far outperform the old clunky mechanics of old characters who are in despite need of some love and you have more bugs than a Red Roof Inn just for starters. We really don’t need an itemized receipt but you get the point.

A game release should be held to a higher standard than a beta; therefore you’ll also be judged more critically. I can no longer recommend LE to my friends, during beta I was hopefully for what the game would become, but that time has past. Perhaps what I wanted was too much from the game and I’m off base but that’s for you to decide on your own.

As for me I don’t think I’m done. Well actually I know I’m done because I have no access to my classes. Banned? No, buggy game, Yes. I purchased a new pc and while my characters are available on my old PC (all online characters on legacy BTW) they are unavailable on my new PC. It’s as if I’ve never played the game… So for someone who wants to avoid leagues/cycles and wants to see how far they can push a build with min/maxing. Losing 300 hours is a good reason to move on, and DD2 drops tomorrow so it’s nostalgia time.

Anyways, if you made it this far, thanks. Let me know what you think. I really did enjoy the game early on, but that’s gone and perhaps another perspective could sway my stance.

I’d like to add one more thing I didn’t get around to… big picture I believe games should be fun and engaging. If your business model is to sell cosmetics to support servers, employees, pizza parties, etc… Why do ARPG’s all make it feel as if you need to be unemployed or a streamer to enjoy the game? Am I off base here? If gear was more available at lower hours wouldn’t people spend more time creating new builds and shinny skins for their favorite skills/classes? This is a big part of why it’s my opinion EHG has just added lemon to water in the ARPG glass…

over 200k on release tho… I told you the game is fun from 0-100… really was a blast. o/ wave

(edit: typo)

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For as many hours as I’ve put in other ARPG’s I do not love holding one button and running in circles.

Unfortunately its a problem with this game too. Mostly because of the lack of synergies and certain synergies being locked in place for several classes.

Things are a bit too strict to be explored outside of making some uniques work together in different ways. The skills themselves don’t have much freedom.

And I agree that these games seem to cater towards a particular crowd and rushing towards the next upgrade. But I wonder what It would be like if a game offered the final upgrade early on and you were left just wanting to play the game and not worrying about number increases.

Perhaps its a sign that there’s something very shallow about the genre that has not been addressed in a very long time.

My friend has gotten burned out by the lack of upgrades to his character in the early 90’s on his blademaster rouge. I’ve been enjoying the game a bit more with my 4th character the other three were painfully dull. But I’m also starting to feel a bit worn out, not from not finding upgrades but just from the grim atmosphere 90% of the time. Whenever I enter a bright sunny stage I feel a lot better and want to keep playing.

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Loot is definitely an issue. I’m playing a Sorcerer through the campaign now because it’s more fun that chasing the impossible on my Necro currently. Taking a nice little break with an alt. I’m sure once EHG’s version of D3’s Loot 2.0 hits, this game WILL be one of the greats. Until then, all my friends have swapped from CoH to MG for the reasons you’ve mentioned. The only feasible way to obtain specific items for your build is to buy them currently. But I mean that’s what auction houses are for anyway.

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Maybe the game is sponsored secretly by Zack Snyder…

I 100% feel you on that point. Everything has been “dark and gritty” for the last 20 years, I’m over it lol.

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If this is for EHG, it should really be in Feedback & Suggestions.

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Yeah I feel your sentiment completely.

Im having fun leveling new builds and trying new things, but once I get to around level 80 or so I start to lose interest. Mostly due to, imo, how pretty bad these itemizations are in LE. There is just far too much loot drops that almost all of those drops are bad. Your loot filter can only do so much.

I’ve been saying it since day one I started playing. LE needs to greatly reduce loot drops, get rid of the bad affixes, and then in turn when loot does drop it should be much more impactful. I think the d4 changes that was announced for their items is a really good change. So hopefully EHG takes note and does their own item changes.

Yeah I can play a whole day at level 90, farming echoes, and not get a single loot drop that actually is an upgrade for me. It’s mostly all just stuff I can shatter and maybe be used for a leggo.

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Just out of curiosity, (not being sarcastic) because I am thinking about going back to PoE after 2 years pause, does PoE delivers to you that “complete build” feeling on SSF ?

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I like this point. Up to 80, you’re always making progress through unlocking passives, idol slots, and points on your tree are plentiful. In other words, you’re making progress. Once you get to Monos, progress turns entirely gear based and advancement slows considerably.

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And that is the core problem that ARPGs in particular have. Up to a certain level, something happens. In the case of LE, points that you can invest in the skills (that ends at 76). Passive points. But once you reach level 85, hardly anything happens that rewards the player. And there has to be a replacement. The items with dozens of affixes and the thousands of combinations that result from them, why do they do that? Timesink is the answer.
Rewards that also exist in MMOs could also work here? A weapon skin that drops 100% on a boss if you kill him at corruption 400? Or a double XP weekend once a month?
It’s clear that players want to have a goal and be rewarded for the time they invest. There have to be solutions.

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Even without giving actualy ingame rewards a proper achievment system with slightly difference/adjusted achievements each cycle will do wonders.

Them having some kind of rewards (cosmetic or what else) is obviously good, but just having them already give some guide line for players, which can motivate a lot of people.

I really thing the challenges in PoE are close to perfect. There are enough for every type of player. Some easy ones that serve as tutorialization. Some intermediate ones and some high skill level ones and even some gridny ones.

Can’t wait for such a system in LE.

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update, my characters have been restored so thank you technical team.

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The shallow part gets me, that’s kinda where I find myself so often because I enjoy playing the games and at the same time I strongly dislike a portion of the game.

I had actively put down PoE and wasn’t even excited for 2 because it’s been so many years and at this point I’m not sure what to expect. Personally I think I’ll be more interested if I just leave it be and wait without anticipation. I do hope they come through on the slower more technical aspects of the game, but by the same token I would have loved that from LE and supported it fully.

As far as comparisons are concerned… I see D4 as, pretty shallow in terms of gameplay but beautify executed when it comes to graphic design and movement. Like the rogue dodge… don’t get me started, amazing.

PoE takes the cake with continued development/give a fuck from the dev team and the customization is bar none. It’s truly in a league of its own and I’d say is a large part of it’s success over the years. That said even tho the abilities look different, the gameplay becomes very monolithic. move/atk fast. there’s little/no room for slow attacking hard hitting builds. Just look at snipe and how late in the game it was introduced, then it was gate kept by a helmet and finally released as a skill gem only to be used with GMP and releasing on 1-2 stacks. Like how is there not a support gem to go along with it that changes added projectiles to increase the projectile hitbox instead. That would be a truly unique thing to add to the game.

LE I discovered last year so I’m a late arrival. I thought it was cool, and I didn’t make decisions about the game because it wasn’t released. I’m not referencing PoE’s years of release either I’m just talking about apples to apples, do i like the game as it is now, full stop… Hopefully it will get there are some point but IMO the dev team has too much on their plate. They’ve released a terribly buggy unoptimized game and because their skill tree is significantly weaker in customization comparted to PoE, they have so much ground to cover before I would play it over PoE2… if it existed. In it’s current state I actually prefer LE over PoE because you can use more than one ability but I still have my issues. Now that I have my characters back, the issues I have wont keep me from playing as they work on the game. DD2 was a bust so I have time to play haha… anyways.

edit: typo

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I think that’s what auction houses are for is due to a lack of creativity by developers. Auction house addresses a hole in the game because loot is % based and without thousands of hours a single player wouldn’t be able to experience the loot table distribution in it’s entirety. So that’s one of the reasons I’ve said that LE isn’t best in class or even close, to me it’s no different and doesn’t solve one of the lifespan problems the genre experiences.

This is THEIR game, they could do it how they see fit. If this is what an ARPG is supposed to be, ok. maybe I don’t like arpgs and I just like killing mobs with abilities. I know that’s not true but you get the point. If EHG is going to offer CoF and MG I think a valid want would be something that feels good on either side of the isle. If you HAVE to play MG to remove a problem a lot of players have with the genre then why not address it instead of just copying it from other games? That’s my gripe. I’ll have to look up what you mean by their version of D3’s loot 2.0. I’m a big fan of playing games, and not waiting on baited breath what the dev is up to, haha but that’s on me if I’m uninformed.

edit: adding this…
I don’t think CoF is ment to be a challenge, right? It is NOT part of the challenge system in the game. This is why I believe it’s reasonable to want CoF to preform better if we can’t cherry pick what we want from what others are willing to sell.

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Yeah, i mean even some way of target farming outside of a small pool of uniques would go a long way in improving the feel of the game. Someone else mentioned that and I’ll have to check it out, fingers crossed for better loot.

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Rewards are cool, especially cosmetic. Gives a reason to do cycles as well. I’m a big fan of standard/legacy so I’m big on continued development because of the terrible loot options being so all of the place. Building on something you have feels good over time for me at least. Not that players should expect a carrot at the end of every stick tho, sometimes it’s fun just to grind away.

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I don’t feel like i have a grasp on what PoE is currently to answer that question. When I actively played I was not SSF, and would even use gear on loan from friends at times. I chose solo account found on LE because i wanted to experience if it worked. To my experience it’s got a lot of gaps, same gaps in other titles even with the impact of CoF. There is nothing I miss about trying to barter in PoE and staying up until 3am to get in contact with a seller… etc. Just because LE put it on a market place doesn’t change the fact that drops are too random. There is a way to let us feel good about drops while also getting progression. Answer is allow target farming bases, and increase forge potential overall in higher corruption. Carrot and stick. You can level to 100 on rares, nice items are not required in LE, but they do make the infinite map/corruption scaling fun. Games should be fun, and challenging. Not work. My opinion.

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That is what i spoke of in my video. There is numerical complexity and systematic complexity. Numerical is boring. “Numbers go brrr” what we need is the opposite.

The game is fundementally flawed as what makes a good game good is impact. From ai behavior, to collisions, to spell/ skill interactions, and your ability to make things combine and interplay.

In current form, arpgs have become brainrot for numbers exclusivly such stack numbers, stack %s, stack gear, etc. Abilities in LE do NOT feel impactful, enemies domt stagger, dont work together to avoid hits or hit you, dont feel alive, they just swarm…and then ting

I am not convinced this issue could be solved, as the developers dont seem to understand that impact is important for players.

In case people want to elucidate what i am speaking on

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Cool input. I can get behind your classification on arpg type 1&2 but I’ll add that some people want both honestly. I’d put myself in that category so I don’t think it’s as column a or b as your describe. I’m not familiar with the tiles you listed (aside from grim dawn). I googled them and I’ll give points to LE here, the game looks pretty. Some issues with using the same animations over and over/clunky animations, but it looks like something ready for 2024. There are a lot of clipping issues with mobility skills and projectiles (arrows behind stopped by a literal fire) that need to be addressed no doubt. Aesthetics definitely deserve points.

As far as impact, i think a lot of it boils down to what mechanics you can incorporate with large numbers, ie move speed and attack speed being the big factors. Even tho I can run around on falconer and cycle abilities I can effectively offscreen enemies by jumping on them with enough damage to 1 shot them, so then the gameplay becomes no different than any other near offscreen kill. This is getting really specific but the point I’m after is that how you get to the end result can have a big impact on feel. One shotting mob packs feels good, and when you’re trying to cut through the loot tables you want speed. I think there is room to have both by incorporating different mob types with elements of danger for the player under the same game.

I would certainly agree that the depth of the skills is limited and this is to be expected when they don’t have a system like PoE for example where the player makes all the choices. Even if LE develops to near PoE levels of polish, when PoE2 drops in 20 years they’ll be back to the drawing board because LE wont be able to compete (imo, again I’m a fanboy of the custom nature PoE offers at current. I think with the nature of the customization; it adds depth and if you’re stuck between 6 branches there’s only so far you can twist the skill to solve a problem in game. Problem in this case being, their is a mob trying to kill me and I need to unalive it. Lets not forget that aside from customization you have to address simplicity and ease of use. (take Dota vs LoL for example). Sometimes you just wanna use a skill because of how it feels to use how it looks, or the items (ranged vs melee) you use with it. That said there are a lot of different ways to play a build in LE but their is a massive disparity between effectiveness. Nothing like playing my void knight, cleave into eraser and getting my damage obliterated after a big hit… meanwhile I log on my falconer and can carpet bomb a boss with dive bomb in one shot. If they are going to keep to a fixed skill system (and they can also add new ones too, not leaving that out) then as I see it every class type should have access to a nuke, sustain, utility, mobility. Going to single out marksman because it’s what I’ve played it plays one way and it’s a frail cannon (if you can even call it a cannon). And sorry but swapping to a dagger to use the classes key skill is just… gross. Is it cool that it exist? Yes. Is it weird it’s only of the only ways to make the class impactful? No. Same could be said about the spell damage bow in beta. Like… the strongest part of marksman was using a spell you can’t specialize in, that felt so terrible. Again cool that it existed as an option, feels bad it felt like what you needed to do to clear high levels of the game. Personally I hope they intend to add more skills in the future.

Bit of a rant but Ill focus up and add that I’ve always thought it would be an interesting design philosophy if the developers were split in factions from within. Not that you couldn’t work on different teams but lets say you worked on the rogue team. You’d spend your time dedicated to improving that class, making it as strong as possible (within reason), working on the feel of the abilities, how the function, etc. Meanwhile you’re competing against the NPC team. They are actively trying to RIP players. Make the mobs strong, without relying on just making them zoomie. Mob density is a problem in LE zerging doesn’t need to be the only picture for end game either. Certainly you’d have to scale that with progression in game but now we’ve come full circle and I’m back on gearing.

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Reposting from another thread