16, actually.
They were capped at 150, though.
I personally switched to D2 and absolutely happy about that — it’s as competitive as you want, great variety of builds, tactics, strategies… But I am talking about Dota 2, not Diablo 
I would love to play ARPG if there would be challenging hack and slash game with interesting exploration and combat, but there are no such game, so for now it’s just not genre for me I decided. Will still checking for new games though — Titan Quest 2, maybe POE 2 1.0.
Guild Wars 2 comes surprisingly close. Can recommend.
The boss fights are interesting mechanically. It has loads of exploration with tons of secrets hidden all around the world. Dexterity based puzzles (jumping puzzles mostly) and a long progression system.
I played it (only PvP though) and loved, it just don’t have asian servers
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It’s not my type of game, but from everything I’ve seen from it, No Rest for the Wicked seems to fit what you’re looking for.
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Can confirm NRftW has a lot of exploration/discovery. Much less combat and it’s stamina based (going for a Souls feel).
The game annoyed the living shit out of me. I tried it again after a big patch and it still annoys the living shit out of me. Virtually everything chaffed me - items, item progression, character builds, crafting, man-ape bodies aesthetic. The exploration is very good though.
Yeah, that’s fair.
What do you feel about GD, then? Good combat, good exploration, not many chaffing points in it (other than trying to get that MI with the correct affixes, but that’s part of the drop RNG, I guess).
I love GD. Such a weird world/weird story, I don’t think that gets enough credit (but I never visited those forums). I have gone back once or twice, but it’s not something I think about/remember unless they drop a big patch.
I think GD, at the time I played it (couple years after launch), had noteworthy-good class balance. And interesting skills. Torchlight (every version), I wanted to love, but I hated Torchlight skills.
I am so excited for Titan Quest 2 and I’m not sure why because while I loved most things about TQ1, it’s sooooo slow getting started.
I know you love GD (I think? Yes?). Did you play Torchlight (any)? What did you think? TQ1?
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Yes, I love GD and it’s one of the games I return regularly, much like D2.
I played all Torchlights but I could never get into them either. Something about them didn’t really click with me.
I never really got into TQ1. Everytime I tried the game felt janky to me and I couldn’t ever advance much before giving up. Though, to be fair, this was during the time when I was really deep into D2, so I think TQ1 lost by comparison.
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I was really really slow to start. Combat, skills, the crafting. And, for the weapons and skills you had, the monsters could be surprisingly tough. It got good after about level 20-30, which took sooo long. I hope they speed up the early game a bit.
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I only ever played Infinite but what ticked me off is the fact that like 90% of the shop didn’t accept “jagged” premium currency you earn by playing, and the only way to earn “clean” premium currency accepted everywhere was to pay for MTX.
And the latest season mechanic? Direct copy of PoE’s Settlers league.
Oh I see what you mean there; so yes it seems the industry standard has only elevated its game, which makes a lot of sense.
EHG is a small fry in an ocean of corporate monopoly, so it stands that Last Epochs system would rely on these tactics to stay competitive rather than trust that they made a good game. In the end, its own retention system is driving people away.
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Okay. Well I just Alt F4’d and uninstalled.
I get off work, I load up Epoch, and I spend literally 4 hours going through my stash, pulling out all boots that are craftable, and start working on them for this LP2 Last Steps that I got earlier.
Most things bricked. Some got put away to be used another time after a few crafts went in a different direction.
One pair of boots was good to go. I pop a Creation (1 left now, but that’s not too bad of a farm with prophecies, I guess). I go run Julra, and I actually get what I wanted, sort of. (Health, and Strength instead of Armor percent, which is the same thing but slightly less of it.)
I swap out Wrongwarp for Frozen Ire just to see if the tundra blast is noticeable. I load up an Echo.
Some stupid boss instantly one-shots me.
And I just instinctively raise my arms up into the air in anger, reminisce of the old days where I would crash down on my table as hard as I could, and instead come down on the Alt F4 and angrily mash it out, as that feeling of an entire night wasted floods over me.
This shit is so dumb. I’m spending my free time on this crap. I have 8-10k ward, and about 60% armor. Why is an instant spell effect one-shotting me, at a corruption about half as high as what other characters can afk-tank? Why can I spend literally hours on the crafting bench and usually come out with not only nothing gained, but usually tons of stuff lost? It’s just not fun. It’s disrespectful of my time. Am I supposed to just sit at lower corruptions, where it’s super easy, and bury my head in the sand and ignore the fact that other classes can just afk-farm twice my corruption level? They get to play the game, but I’m supposed to sit at the kiddie table and be happy about it?
I try to be optimistic with this game, and obviously I like parts of it because I kept sticking through the miserable parts to get back to the good parts. But if I step back and look at it, THIS is what it is. My entire night was thrown into the garbage, because of this dog shit crafting system (being better than other dog shit systems doesn’t make it good), and dog shit balance decisions (and I don’t even mean class vs class; I mean universally terrible enemies and spell effects). I like parts of it, but it’s just NOT worth trucking through the parts that I don’t, which is MOST of the game. And the parts I like are build-planning, and actual gameplay against enemies (other than the broken enemies) - and that’s the MINORITY of my time spent playing Epoch!
Maybe I should check the game out in a few years. But right now, there’s a long road ahead, and other companies have left me less than optimistic on what to expect and how long to expect to wait for it. (Cough, BHVR.)
But, of course, best of luck to the company, and I hope everyone else continues to enjoy themselves on this game. I’m just bloggin’ over here.
Peace!
Walls of texts. All I can do is echo that maybe ARPGs aren’t for you. I’ve rarely kept to an ARPG as much as LE 1.2 since D2 when I played 20 years ago. If you’re getting hit for 20k damage, perhaps you shouldn’t be at 1.5k+ corruption or something. I’ve died to 5k hits at around 1k corruption and since then, I’ve been playing hardcore and only lost one character at 300 corruption at level 99 because I got whacked twice by 3k hits in rapid succession.
And I heavily disagree about drops not feeling exciting. But I’m perhaps the minority sinceI love to craft so I naturally feel the high when a multi-exalt for a base drops for me (i.e. multi-exalted sword). I got a 4 LP palarus that I’m waiting to slam on so anytime I see a multi-exalted sword, I’m excited to craft on it. Not to mention the high I got when I received that 4 LP palarus. Most 3 LP+ endgame drops are exciting. I’m fine with the failures of slamming and crafting because without the lows, the highs don’t exist.
If it helps (meaning you want to play LE), play hardcore. That will force you to play at an appropriate corruption level and force you to be careful about balancing your offense and defense. There is no infinite scaling in hardcore because you should know your limits or your character is done. Quite frankly I heavily disagree with having infinite corruption scaling. It creates unrealistic expectations. Abusing bugs and unintended infinite scaling mechanics are the only ways you can reasonably handle those ridiculous corruption numbers. That’s where you get people like the OP who laments one shots. Yes, at a certain point you’re going to get roflstomped because you’re playing at a corruption scale that is unreasonable for your character’s defense. You get to a point where no amount of defense should protect you from getting roflstomped. That’s the game’s fault they allow you to get there.
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Ah, nostalgia. What a trip.
For real though, most of those games don’t hold up to modern standards (goldeneye forever!)
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I am confused by this part… What do you mean by “they get to play the game and I don’t”?
Higher corruption is EXACTLY the same mobs, the same bosses, the same layouts, the same mechanics. With bigger numbers under the hood, yes, but nothing different, at all, in the gameplay.
“They” play the same game you play, up to every detail.
The only difference could be the Uber Baddy, I guess. That’s just one fight.
This is mostly specific to diablo-likes (or rather, PoE-likes).
The philosophy has changed: the modern companies want you to play the same game forever and ever. ONE game, a lifetime of good salaries for a large team… That involves FOMO and other psychological mechanics, to which you seem quite vulnerable.
My advice would be, don’t get trapped by this fallacy. Break the cycle. There are more great quality games than there ever was, just play around and don’t feel bad when you go from one to the other. This is not a marriage. Having fun for a while, then getting bored, is completely normal and healthy.
You CAN (and should) ignore this “game-as-a-forever-service” nonsense, there are enough different ones, and new ones coming out all the time, to keep you busy. And happy.
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Indeed, it is!! I have absolutely no problem not feeling like playing LE/PoE/Slormancer/Elite Dangerous/Dyson Sphere Program/whatever else I’m playing & playing something else.
Mmmmm, this I’m less sure I agree with. If there’s a game that you enjoy that brings new stuff to do in the game every few months, why is going back to it to enjoy the new stuff for as long as you enjoy it bad? As long as it’s you the player making a considered choice & you are resistant to their psychological manipulation.
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I think he meant more in the sense that you play it non-stop forever and ever and ever, not in the sense of stopping to play something else and returning with new seasons.
I agree with this more and more, tbh. I play games as long as they feel fun. If they don’t feel fun for some reason, I stop playing. Or I start over if that feels fun.
Plenty of times I stop playing games halfway (regular games, not live-service ones), either for a lack of time or for tedium or any other reason. Sometimes I go back to them after some time and finish them, other times I don’t.
There are way too many games (even within a sub-genre) to get stuck in any one game if you’re not having fun. It’s what happened to me with PoE and it caused me to stop playing it for years.
So these days I’d rather take it more lightly. Even if I don’t accomplish as much in-game as before, I have more fun and don’t burn out.
I might even return to PoE this league for a bit, though I have no rush to play on launch day.
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My bad, I didn’t mean that.
I meant “don’t feel like you have to play the same game forever”.
In other words, coming back once in a while because you enjoy the new content is great. Feeling forced to play permanently even when you don’t enjoy it anymore is bad.
We see a lot of that in MMOs with their daily/weekly/monthly grinds.
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Now that’s a contradiction buddy…
In infinite scaling, you ALWAYS arrive at a point where you get one shot by an attack that is mostly unavoidable (or barely avoidable).
That’s the very idea behind infinite scaling.
There are already more games out there than our lifespan allows us to play.
I never understood the idea of playing one game over and over, honestly.
I could pick like 200 games from, say, 1998 alone that would contribute to thousands of unique hours of fun. Instead people want to put those thousands of hours into repeating the same thing over and over.
OFC I’m open minded, perhaps they enjoy it more, it is a little bizzare if you think about it tho.
Last Epoch, Diablo 4, PoE and all other “seasonal” games are meant exactly for the player to play them for a while, get bored, move on, and return in the next few months.
Instead, people get frustrated that the game cannot provide them thousands of hours of unique enjoyment.
Duh! It wasn’t made to.
The “infinite game” people chase doesn’t exist.
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