I feel the same. I have a belief they will start fresh with online characters, but leave offline alone (beyond some technical limitation between versions). Even if that is the case, I’ll wipe my own characters to start fresh at launch, even though I will probably have many many hours logged.
Are people really misunderstanding the point of a Beta? Why would characters persist? What if the devs needed to implement some type of feature or update to the game that would rework how characters are saved, making previous versions incompatible? If the masses are screaming about keeping their characters, they may be swayed and not implement something that would be better for the game in the long run.
Perhaps I will keep my beta characters when it is allowed, but only for nostalgia. After release I will play online only. To me it feels like wasting time playing offline when there’s online play.
I take the beta part as an experience boost. You have the knowledge to right away aim for certain builds you already know. This is a bit of an head start advantage. But at the end the hardcore player that starts fresh at release will overtake me after one week .
@boardman21: That amount of time spent in a ea title is HUGE. I can’t remember any game I played so many hours (except wow - but this was a time without wife and kids… )
I would agree with you if this was a free beta, but I along with the other people paid for this as early access game not beta, the beta part was only seen when i loaded up game for the first time. No worries I have accepted if as “This is the Way” I just double read early access data a bit more next time i see one of these ARPG again.
I might agree with you if the early access period was a few days or a week, but when the “early access” is clearly a year or more then it’s obvious that “early access” is alpha/beta access not “here, have a bit of a headstart with your characters as thanks for giving us your cash earlier”.
It was April but got pushed back, which is why the kickstarter backers who paid for the game on release when that was intended to be April were given access now instead of when it’s going to be released ('cause EHG aren’t a bunch of douchbags like EA).
I also feel like Steam’s use of “early access” is confusing things as that can range from months/years to days which are clearly very different stages.
I don’t see different between few days or few months. It’s not mine problem. But if character wipe would come without anything benefits for me I would really disappointing.
Thank you.It’s really soon but we don’t see some classes for example…
If there’s early access for a few days before release, that means that game is finished & the company just wants some cash sooner (which is a bit odd but that’s greedy big corporates for you) & they let you keep your characters/whatever.
If there’s “early access” for a few months or longer, that’s a beta & the company either wants more bodies for testing, or more cash to help their cashflow (or both) & you generally won’t be able to keep your characters/etc as it would **** over everyone else at start if you start with several thousand affix shards, every unique in the game & characters capable of doing arena waves in the many hundreds. Non-beta accounts just wouldn’t be able to attain parity with an account that’s had months/years headstart.
It would be nice if a dev (@Sarno ) could chime in as last I heard (& I can’t find where, could have been discord) they were going to move all the pre-launch MP characters across to a separate league at launch so as to not “polute” the launch. You would still be able to play them.
I’m personally looking forward for a good wipe, I have many level 75+ now and have all the mastery class after the story mode and I don’t feel like i waste my time doing so, I will be more familiar with the game than new players and will know what build I’d like to do first etc… It’s a huge advantage.
How I see things, when the game will be release, it will be like a new season start, and I’ll be glad to start from scratch like everyone else but with lot more knowledge.
And not to be forgotten than this kind of game is maid for replayability. I’ll even be OK to start over after major patch update, like 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 etc
I see it 100% like you @vargath, everypoint that you made. Also when the devs released the last patch i immediatly made a new primalist to test out the totems again I also share the thoughts of @XLVI_carpo to keep the beta characters for nostalgia, maybe like a d3 killed char in hc, or you make the char OF COURSE only playable in offline mode. But i will never play offline when i can play online mode with friends or use the bazaar as trade…i usually don’t like modding, that’s why offline is not interesting for me since you can’t convert chars. Offline is an important feature, but i think like 5% of the playerbase was playing offline in wolcen. Probably due to the servers haha
This is a problem regarding the term “early access”. It sounds like you get full access to the finished product earlier than the usual release. But this is not meant. Early Access is a term for getting access to the unfinished product to beta test before release.
By reading this I have to admit that this site does not tell the complete truth about EA and the downside (e.g. character wipes).
This may also be the reason I see so many complaints on steam regarding bugs in an EA game. Maybe many people are not aware they are indeed paying to test a game.
As already mention by others this is for supporting a game of an indie studio and often is the "2nd stage’ after a crowdfunding campaign.
What also come to my mind is the situation of the preorders that got access to LE last week. Are they aware that they are in a beta for now? Because they paid for a (bugfree) released game and now got access to a test version.
I guess they got informed along with their access key. But would be possible some aren’t aware.
I think that some understanding of the term & the context that it’s being used in is necessary (otherwise you get to a scenario where McDonalds has to put “this coffee may be hot” on their coffee). If a game is clearly many months to a year or so out from being released then it’s clearly not a “get-access-to-the-game-for-a-few-days-before-release-&-be-able-to-keep-your-characters/etc-on-release” type of early access. It’s also quite frustraiting when a company co-opts a term (early access) and applies it to anything that’s not been released yet, from a-few-days-from-release to a-year-or-more-from-release.
I totally agree with you. But there will always be people that are new to a mechanism like this, don’t read the terms carefully or misunderstand things. You can say it is their fault for not understanding what terms they agreed with when they clicked the purchase button (and you are still right on this). But the damage is done as soon as someone that feels deceived is spreading his point of view on steam, reddit, twitter or elsewhere. While there are maybe 80-90% people that say “Dude, you’re wrong. Chill and read the terms!” there are always others that take this opinion for truth and will spread it further. That’s sad, but this is how it is today.
Yes & I have sympathy for them & they are one of the reasons I get annoyed that “early access” can cover such a multitude of sins. If it meant just one thing, it would be easier for the new/less experienced people to understand what it means.
This game is in early beta development, not early access. You may not totally understand what you purchased. But what they have defined is perfectly clear to most people. You can view the forums and see at what point this game is in. And clearly it’s not early access, which is usually something offered to titles closer to release. This game most likely won’t see a release until early next year because of the social issues going on at this moment.
Here again seems to be a misunderstanding of the term “early access”.
LE is part of the Steam Early Access program. This is the reason I can play the game since april 2019. I am no kickstarter backer.
I think you refer to Early Access as a package to start some days/weeks earlier than the masses. This is often is some kind of preorder bonus with online games.
This is not the case, you are right. But Steam Early Access is something different. It means beta access to unfinished games. It offers devs the opportunity to continue the development.
Look on the steam page for further information about Last Epoch Early Access.
It needs wipe on release 100% I don’t get what are you crying about… Will be fresh and interesting start again for everyone, especially if they make trade available and stuff… When is release date anyways? Far away?
Here’s a link to the a statement from Mike Weicker on discord:
Mike Weicker 04.04.2020
To be clear the “wipe” we have said we’ll do is actually just that offline characters will never be transferred to the online environment. This can feel like a wipe because when online starts, everyone will be playing from scratch. We are also planning a league style system that will see a new cycle start at launch. We haven’t commented on if we will delete characters in the beta cycle or not.
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I also share the thoughts of 
