I have been playing since 4 years ago and I feel like the game pacing got out of hands, I know the majority of people like to blast the game so it wouldn’t make sense to change it, but we can add an optional starting challenge mode for people that don’t like this?
I know hard mode boots exist and before that there was a “masochist mode” but taking more damage is really not something I would ever want, less loot received already does that in a way and make the game pacing slower at the same time.
I personally had the same issue with Path of Exile 1 until the ruthless mode dropped, but I would never ask to make as many changes as ruthless did as despite being a very big fun they went to far in many aspect of it, for example removing mov abilities and nerfing ascendencies.
I also think current LE got way too generous with monster density this patch, especially in tombs, I know people didn’t like the downtime we had in the past, but I feel like now it’s too much and also the performance has been degraded by a lot due to that.
Here some very random numbers I would add as an optional starting option for people who want to opt in, just some numbering changes to not subtract dev times:
Old School Mode:
- 50% less loot drop
- 50% less rarity of loot drop
- 50% less frequency of nemesis, exiled mages and loot lizard
- 25% less monster pack density
Numbers are fairly random ofc, but the intention of this is to make the early game matter again including the non-empowered monoliths, for people that like a slower a progression instead of zooming trough the endgame as fast as possible.
I already made a thread on reddit 2 years ago for a similar request, but that “hard mode” was more extreme to that as it also nerfed crafting by a lot, but if anyone is curious about that https://www.reddit.com/r/LastEpoch/comments/12m2r0m/hard_mode_similar_to_ruthless/