This is the fourth dev stream, hosted by Mike Weicker, which originally aired on March 19, 2021. I’ve transcribed the video below, but you can watch it for yourself here. I’ve done my best to capture Mike’s responses as accurately as possible (nearly word for word in most cases), but please consult the video for precise phrasing and/or context.
Currently, these streams take place every Friday at 4pm EST on Twitch. You can check the schedule here to see when it starts in your region.
Q: What about a “Rune of Finality” which has a 100% chance to fracture the item with a 100% chance to successfully complete the craft?
A: Yeah, we’ve actually talked about things like that where it’s just a guarantee, this is the last thing you’re doing but it works no matter what – it seals the item. It’s pretty powerful and it lowers the bar of a perfect item from whatever the highest difficulty is to whatever the second highest difficulty. It’s a pretty binary thing to do so if we did it we’d probably just end up increasing the difficulty of crafting alongside it…which might not be great. But we’ve definitely discussed more Runes and Glyphs along the same vein.
Timestamp: 07:25-08:12
Q: Please implement a mechanic where there’s a unique that will only drop from breaking something in the environment.
A: There’s a part of me that wants to say, ‘who says we haven’t already?’ and just watch everyone go looking for it [laughter]. I promise you there’s not one though. Actually, if there is I don’t know about it. Kyle is hiding things on me all the time.
Timestamp: 08:22-08:45
Q: When can we expect the next big update?
A: I don’t have an exact date for you. We do have quite a large update that we’re working on right now. I would say – I mean, the terrible answer is when it’s ready – but we’ll likely get closer to making that information more known soon.
Timestamp: 09:02-09:30
Q: So happy with the design of the new Spriggan form. Thank you for it.
A: Yeah, we know you’ve been enjoying the Spriggan form so far, but you’d probably love to see the new stuff we’re doing even more. It’s going to have some sweet new interactions and things it can do as well. I’m pretty excited about the new Spriggan form changes, and Werebear form changes too.
Timestamp: 09:50-10:12
Q: Is there a third form coming for Druid?
A: Yes, we are simultaneously working on a third Druid form. It will round out the Druid’s –you’ll have three forms; Spriggan, Werebear, and mystery form…that will be pretty spicy.
Timestamp: 10:52-11:22
Q: Will the requested loot filter improvements be coming in the new update? Such as only showing the item if it has 2 or more T4 or T5 affixes.
A: Yeah, getting more logic into the loot filter is definitely something we want to do. Getting some AND’s, OR’s, connecting rules together, just deepening what you can customize it to do. We put a lot of work into the loot filter a few patches back and there are definitely some weak points that need to be resolve. However, I think we did a really great job with the initial version of it and we will be expanding it. This will very likely not happen in the next patch. The next patch will be focused on quite a few other things that I think you’ll very much enjoy. There was a mini-teaser of one of them last time and that was one of the smallest things we’re doing.
Timestamp: 12:30-13:25
Q: Are there any plans to change monolith modifiers? Instead of having “has chance to dodge” maybe have a mod for “has chance to have double density” this way monolith could also have arena scaling system for people who want the challenge.
A: There’s a few changes to the Monolith coming. We know that there are certain modifiers to encounter on specific builds. For example, if you’re an Aura of Decay Lich you don’t really care about chance to dodge because there’s nothing to dodge…really, but if you’re a Flurry Rogue that needs X number of hits or X number of crit’s or something like that than there’s definitely problems with being forced into taking Echoes that have mods like that. We’re looking at the cause of that more than removing them all together because we do like having elements of the endgame that certain builds are maybe really, really powerful at doing one thing but they have a problem with doing certain other things. That should affect your build decisions. If there were no negative things that could appear in endgame for your build than it’s kind of broken and overpowered.
I would use the example of Hammerdin’s from Diablo 2 as there was almost nothing that was magic immune – there were a couple things though they were very rare. There were characters like Sorceresses that had to pick two elements so that when something immune came along they could deal with and then there’d be doubled immunes so it didn’t matter anyways. There were a disproportionate number of Hammerdin’s that appeared because they were so versatile and could just do any content.
We want to avoid having builds like that where it’s just like ‘here’s my build that does everything perfect and that build that does just a few things perfect is useless because of it’. We’d like things to be good at things and other things be good at other things. Diversity is good.
Timestamp: 13:30-16:06
Q: Will there be mana related mods planned for Monolith in the future? For example, monsters mana leech or mana regen is decreased?
A: Ah, I haven’t seen any directly but that’s a really cool idea so maybe.
Timestamp: 16:10-16:22
Q: Are randomly generated maps still on the menu for LE? Do you have any update on this?
A: Sorry, we don’t have any updates on it right now.
Timestamp: 16:38-16:42
Q: Leeching mana? Please God no, I already can’t play meteor with Focus in its current state!
A: We are looking at mana, mana mods – not specifically the way Focus is though we are looking at Focus as well – but we’re looking at the bigger picture of it. We had a meeting yesterday and at the end of the meeting we talked about the frequent requests we’ve been receiving about looking at Focus – so we looked at it.
Timestamp: 17:30-18:02
Q: What do you think of the Diablo 2 Resurrected announcement? Do you think this game is a competitor to LE?
A: I mean…Diablo 2 is very near and dear to my heart so I’m really excited about it. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun. I think there’s a lot we still don’t know about it, and I’m excited to learn about what or if they’re changing anything…all those sorts of things. Diablo 2’s a great game…it’s a very old game and a lot has changed since then so yeah – we’ll see what happens. I’m really excited for it.
Timestamp: 18:04-18:55
Q: I like that mana matters in LE, but it’s definitely a delicate balance with high mana cost skills.
A: Yes, you’re right and there’s a lot of skills we’re looking at – especially in Sentinel – like high mana cost melee skills that don’t quite feel like they’re worth the mana investment to use them on a regular basis or at least weave them into a build. Like I rarely find that people are using Erasing Strike and like Forge Strike – I know there’s a couple builds out there with that one but it’s definitely less than things like Vengeance, for example, and a lot of that has to do with the defensive capabilities of Vengeance. But yeah, we’re looking at it.
Timestamp: 19:13-20:04
Q: When is wolf minion AI coming to my skellies?
A: Next patch.
Timestamp: 20:05-20:08
Q: There isn’t much we don’t know about D2:R - they won’t change much for release for people to get the same feeling as with D2, so auto group, auto pick up, shared stash, better game search, some bugs corrected and everything else is the same.
A: Yeah, that’s like – I would say we don’t really know until it happens. I was really excited when they said it could be modded.
Timestamp: 20:30-20:54
Q: Are there new supporter packs coming? I would love to support the team, and the current ones aren’t really my thing.
A: We probably won’t be releasing new supporter packs until we get closer to launch or possibly at launch, I think. Thanks for wanting to support us, that’s great…I love it. We are making lots of MTX stuff in the background – we have a separate pipeline for that – so at launch, we will be releasing some MTX stuff for sure. We really want the Early Access experience to be about getting the game and the mechanics right first. We like to focus on the hard mechanics while we’re still able to change things relatively quickly, and feel there’s a little more flexibility while still in Early Access.
Timestamp: 20:58-22:07
Q: What are the summoner classes? Is it possible to go full summons like in PoE/D2?
A: Yeah, for sure. There are two primary summoner classes – every class actually has some sort of summon. The primary summoning classes are Beastmaster and Necromancer. The Necromancer is a Mastery class of the Acolyte – so you’re summoning skeletons, gone golems, wraiths, things like that…undead creatures of all sorts. The Beastmaster is a Mastery class of the Primalist is all about nature summons – so you got raptor, scorpion, bear, sabretooth, and wolf. There’s also Shaman, which I call a summon class – to some degree, that focusing a little bit on totems. So yeah, there are a lot of summoning classes and you can go pure summoning though it’s not fantastic, a lot of the time, to go completely pure summoning because you only have five skill slots on your bar you generally want a little bit of…a little bit of something else [laughs].
Timestamp: 22:14-23:40
Q: Warlock Mastery when?
A: Soon….ish. Not like soon, soon but you know, we’re working on it. All the Masteries we’re working on…they’ll be here when they’re ready. They will not be here next patch, I can tell you that because they’re not ready yet [laughs].
Timestamp: 23:50-24:14
Q: Will the old transformation forms ever become MTX in future for nostalgia purchase?
A: I hadn’t thought about that, but that’s a cool idea. I mean, if someone really wants to be the old one. The only downside is that the new one is significantly nicer quality so it’s harder to put lower quality things as a purchasable option in the game. So…maybe, we’ll see.
Timestamp: 24:22-24:49
Q: Is controller support important to you?
A: Yes, controller support is very important to us. Since day one we’ve had some sort of controller support available and we do continue to work on that. We’re doing a bunch of UI updates right now and there was a post teasing it just after my stream last week. One thing that some of the posts may show – I don’t know which screenshots are being used for it – but pretty well all of the panels are being designed such that controller functionality within those panels will be a lot better. While we’re making them we’re also looking at how someone would navigate this with a controller that doesn’t need a mouse cursor on the screen. So we’re looking at – so if you’re cycling through your specializations on the Skills & Specializations screen maybe it’s triggers that’s used…and stuff like that.
Timestamp: 24:52-26:05
Q: Will you have customizable UI options?
A: Customizable UI is really cool. Things like WoW, I had a very different UI from the base UI. It’s a lot to do to make the UI – there’s a lot of individual UI panels and having them all layout nicely so that when like someone comes to a stream, or something like that, but still be customizable is a very, very difficult and in-depth thing to do. We’re not ready to do that yet. I know a lot of people would like it because there’s people like, ‘oh, I need to have my buffs at this point because I’m just used to having my buffs there’. I definitely get the need or the want for that, but we’re just not ready to do it yet. Sorry.
Timestamp: 26:28-27:38
Q: What about a grid based customization system?
A: Yeah, like having certain spots where things can go and you can flip between them so you can have different layout options…for sure. We’re going to get one really good one right first before we look at that. A lot of things that come up like that are really interesting and enticing ideas that we’d love to do, but it really comes back to scope. We’re making a really big game here and having it not become too big is important. Unless something is real quick and easy to slap in and if it’s not already on the list to go in it’s probably not going to be added in [laughs].
Timestamp: 27:43-28:30
Q: How much of a focus will Runemaster and Falconer have with minion building?
A: I don’t want to go too far in-depth on them without giving away what they are specifically, but I wouldn’t call either of them a primary minion class in the sense that Beastmaster and Necromancer are.
Timestamp: 28:36-29:00
Q: Will the classes be gender locked?
A: So I answered a question last week about this, but it’s the same thing as one of the one’s I just answered as well…it comes down to scope. For launch the classes will be gender locked. There is a lot of things that go into making a new gender for a class. All the voice acting has to be done twice – I know there’s not a ton in yet but there’s some that isn’t actually put in yet that’s done and doing it all a second time…also if there’s ever – like there’s a ton of little things that have to be done. It’s not as simple as slap another model on there and it’s good to go. Animations have to be re-thought out, the armour has to be remade for that other gender as well – and a lot of that takes quite a long time to do. Unfortunately, for 1.0 there will be a single character for each class to play. After that we may look at opening it up and if we do open it up the character customizations could possibly go beyond just gender…who knows – all sorts of stuff could happen.
Timestamp: 29:08-30:30
Q: What are the major goals of Cycles (Leagues/Seasons) for Last Epoch?
A: I would say the major goals are to keep the fresh and interesting, to provide new challenges, and to include interesting new options. So a way to expand the storyline, a way to bring content patches in a theme all at once – like having an update that maybe comes with a new endgame system, or maybe a new chapter, or things like that. So we’re just looking at expanding the game and having it stay fresh and fun. We’ll always be looking at adding in new balancing – so a new zone gets added in and balance needs to change, new character get added and balance needs to change, all those sorts of things. It also just gives a way to reset the economy. Personally, I just loved that first little bit when everyone is hyped about finding…a crappy Falcon, or a Chimaera’s Essence [using LE items as examples] – you know, like finding just a basic item is just suddenly cool again because there’s nothing there and that economy reset is always a fun time to play. Those ladder reset parties you get in – like who can get to 50 first, who can get to 80 first, you can get to 100 first. All this sort of stuff.
One of the biggest goals of cycles – and seasons, ladder reset, all that sort of stuff – is inspiring the community to have fun and make new and interesting builds.
Timestamp: 30:36-32:40
Q: Do you have any plans for a “non-story mode” leveling process or boost to endgame once you’ve completed it once?
A: Ah, we’ve talked about it. It’s another one of those things that we hadn’t really planned for initially. It might be a post 1.0 feature, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a 1.0 feature at the moment. It might be, but for now it’s just going to be the story. I understand that the story can get a little repetitive, but in any game system like this it can get repetitive. I think that there’s more interesting stuff that’s going to keep coming out of the storyline. Going through it as a different character does act as a bit of a tutorial, at least for the first little bit when you’re trying out a new character – though I know there’s some of you that have played all of them already.
Timestamp: 32:45-33:42
Q: Any plans to support modding like Steam workshop? (Thinking of something like Grim Dawn)
A: No, not at the moment. It doesn’t mean it will never happen, but it’s not something we are looking at right now.
Timestamp: 33:45-33:55
Q: Softcore and Hardcore game modes will be on the same patches or will be balanced differently?
A: They will always be balanced the same. We want softcore, hardcore, SSF, all those things to be a single game. We do take hardcore into account when we’re making balance changes, for sure. Even something as simple as making a new node or making a new item – sometimes we can’t put that [that meaning a hypothetical skill node or item] in the game because it would become absolutely mandatory for hardcore. Or we should really put this in the game because someone in hardcore is really going to like it. I think cheat-death mechanics are a good example of things we’ve added or removed based on hardcore considerations – or modified slightly – because if there were a reliable cheat-death mechanic everyone would just take it, including softcore players. Maybe that’s not the best example [laughs].
Timestamp: 34:00-35:02
Q: Do you thing hard to play builds and 1-bottom builds should have an equal ceiling of power?
A: That’s really tough to answer. I’d hope that they wouldn’t have quite an equal ceiling of power…I think. Most builds should have relatively equally ceilings of power. If there’s any build that’s really good with pressing just one button on your entire bar then I think we’ve kind of done something a little bit wrong – not completely. I would classify a build with four minions and Swipe with never pressing any of the four minions’ activated abilities as a one button build, but if you’re pressing their activated abilities then it’s not really a one button build anymore. I know some people like to relax with games like this, just have fun, and it’s not really about min/maxing or getting everything perfect – I definitely have builds like that too for myself [laughs]. Though, I think if you’re really going to put the focus and energy into optimizing your own efficiency and gameplay then you should be rewarded for that – at least a little bit. I’m sure that with the most GG/OP items even a one button build will be able to do pretty darn well.
Timestamp: 35:07-36:54
Q: What is your stance on affix shard vacuum?
A: I love it. I was one of the people that worked on it, it was great. I didn’t think it was a very controversial topic…is it?
Timestamp: 37:12-37:38
Q: I think it’s only controversial insofar as some players would prefer auto pickup instead.
A: Okay, I see what you’re saying…so the difference between having the vacuum and just walk over anything and it auto happens. It’s really easy – I’ve said this before – to add quality of life improvements, like that, to the game and I’m sort of using it as a QoL example. I don’t know if it’s actually a ‘quality improvement’ [laughs]. It’s really easy to add conveniences to the game, and it’s really hard to take them away – even in an Early Access state. We’re definitely at a point – because we’re in Early Access – I’d feel more comfortable taking something like that away, but I know people would not be very happy about it…if we took it away [laughs]. There’s enough people playing now that we can’t really do that without first putting a lot of thought into it. We are cautious with adding things like that. Having items of that nature having weight to them is important – like having intention to pick up the item – and then taking note of what you got…I think is an important thing.
Having it be an auto-vacuum there would be a lot less intentionality behind it, and it would make seeing what you’re getting less obvious. I think there’d be more times where you’d go back to your crafting window and be like, ‘oh I’m trying to craft and oh my god I have shard I’ve been looking for, I didn’t even know I picked it up.’ I think moments like that – where you don’t even know you picked it up – aren’t really great. This is part of the reason why shards go to your inventory and you have to send them to your crafting window which also displays what shards were sent. That’s why there’s things like that there. I say it every time…things could change, who knows. I understand that a lot of people find it frustrating to have to pick it up and do it every time, but that’s where it is right now. I do think that it helps a lot when there’s a clump together and you can pick one up and you get them all. I think that’s really good because you’re still getting that intentionality of I’m going to pick up an item – so you still have that ‘I did this intentionally’.
Timestamp: 38:26-40:54
Q: Are you guys improving the critical strike chance calculation system? it looks hard to understand when you add 50% chance with an item and it raises 1-2 points on the character screen.
A: I think what that is – is like 50% increased critical strike chance compared to 50% added critical strike chance. I don’t see us changing that anytime soon because I’m pretty happy with the way that it works right now. Though, I could be wrong…someone [other dev in the comments] tell me if I’m wrong about that assumption.
Timestamp: 37:40-38:20
Q: What are your thoughts on the discrepancy between health leech and other healing methods like skills/health regen? It seems insane that I’m leeching 2k health/sec or could take 1 sec to cast a spell that heals me for 100 health or with a ton of investment only getting 180 health/sec regen. I feel like the current leech rates just pushes that 1-shot feeling.
A: Yeah, healing spells are really tough to balance especially when there’s a multiplayer environment. Being able to heal other people is a very powerful ability in a multiplayer game so a little bit of its power is taken into account – even though it is still single player right now. So there is a little bit of that – where a little bit of the power is in the fact that you can cast it on other people still. There’s a little bit of discrepancy there – sorry, the discrepancy I was talking about was the discrepancy between health leech and healing spells in that health leech you can stack up to be very effective. Health leech also scales with your damage and your damage is scaled against enemy health and then enemy damage is scaled against your health so your healing kind of needs to be scaled against enemy damage…which the numbers – the numbers are always weird – because as soon as you get into higher and higher content damage has to get higher to make the content more challenging.
Timestamp: 41:15-42:30
Q: It seems like people usually choose ‘normal’ items over sets / uniques, since normal items are so strong. Have you all considered a system outside of equipment for these effects / set bonuses instead? So that you could have optimal gear equipped while still taking advantage of unique effects and bonuses via a different method or system in the game.
A: Umm…there’s, we have – idols. Idols is the answer to that question, really. So we’ve put some effects on idols that are unique effects – and there’s more to come with idols too…don’t worry, that system is not finished. Idols are a big part of that, yes, and also because you can’t craft idols so it’s a little bit different. I think that the core of that problem is more about making unique effects and set effects proportionally powerful to the items in which they’re competing against, and getting that balance in a better spot. I think it’s better than it was two patches ago – even one patch ago – but it’s still not perfect. We will continue to work on that for sure.
Timestamp: 42:32-43:50
Q: So will idols potentially get pretty whacky / build defining later on?
A: I would argue that there is already some build defining idols out there. But, I mean, there’s definitely room in that system to grow.
Timestamp: 43:58-44:12
Q: What’s Eleventh Hour’s MTX strategy? Will MTX be accessible at all via playing the game? Will there be a transmog system?
A: We are planning a – ah, it’s not fully built yet so I don’t want to say what we’re planning just in case it doesn’t work out right, really. We do want the MTX system to feel good and not feel – we don’t want people to feel forced into buying any of the MTX – but we do want people to feel like they are getting good value when they do buy something. You’re buying extra stuff, that’s great…we’re very happy with that. We want it to feel exciting and cool, and be able to show off to your friends what you got, and that sort of stuff.
We are also trying to make gear and items that you find in-game to also look cool. We don’t want you to look like you’re just walking around in rags or something because you couldn’t fork out the extra money. There’s a balance between being able to find cool stuff and that MTX system. That is a delicate balance for sure.
Sometimes there are really cool items in the game that you want to look like but it just doesn’t fit your build at all. It is important, I think – there’s an interesting thing here in the decision of what gear you wear…how it looks being a part of that decision isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think. But having the flexibility to make your character look the way you want it to look is a very powerful thing to have in a game like this. I hope that gives you some insight into our thoughts on the process. I know I didn’t really give away any really concrete information – I’m sorry about that.
Timestamp: 44:20-46:35
Q: What about skin transfers or being able to turn items into cosmetics?
A: Yeah, that’s kind of what I was talking about being able to look the way you want with the gear you’ve found. I think it’s a valuable thing so there’s a possibility that we see that.
Timestamp: 48:20-48:31
Q: What is your stance on loot boxes?
A: [I’d suggest just watching the video for proper context.]
Timestamp: 46:38-48:08 & 48:32-48:54
Q: No problem. My biggest concern aligning with that question is that I don’t want Last Epoch to be quite as exploitative as something like Path of Exile – especially since we’re already paying for the game.
A: That’s a very good point and I think a good example of that is – with paying for MTX and having a price tag on the game already – things like, for example, stash tabs have no real money MTX in our game…they are an in-game purchasable thing. In Path of Exile it is something you pay real money for. I think that’s a big difference – in the fact that they [PoE] doesn’t have a price tag initially and we do. So things like that are the reason why we didn’t put a price tag on stash tabs, because you are buying the game already.
Timestamp: 49:02-49:50
Q: Will you introduce more real stun immunity for all classes? Similar to Warpath and the Mage’s huge idols.
A: Ahh, maybe. I think stun immunity needs to come at an opportunity cost – either you’re giving up damage, or mobility, or some other utility, or you’re giving up something else…to have stun immunity. I think that would be appropriate.
Timestamp: 50:00-50:42
Q: Do you believe a game company trying to make a long lasting online game, such as LE or PoE, is able to survive on initial sales or do you think multiple sources of income is important to survive?
A: I think multiple sources of income would speed up a lot of processes – like being able to hire more people so we can do things faster. Having multiple sources of income would make being able to get things in the game faster. However, I don’t think it would determine our long-term survivability. But we get a lot more really cool art if we have more income [laughs] – a lot of really cool art. Basically everything just goes right back into the game – it’s how we make the game more awesome. All of us that are working on it – it’s the most important thing to us…just making an awesome game. Just about every major decision we’ve made from day one is ‘what’s the best thing to make this game awesome?’ It’s how do we get this game to the most people as possible, in the best state as possible, as quickly as possible.
Timestamp: 51:15-52:50
Q: Are you guys aware of Druid summons that get stuck behind with mobs that you ignored and also vanishing and locking the skill on some maps?
A: Yeah, there’s some updates to all summons coming soon.
Timestamp: 53:32-54:00
Q: Any teasers for Falconer?
A: I got nothing for you, I’m sorry. It’s going to be awesome, it’s going to be like no other pet style skill, it’s going to be unique, it’s really cool – I know I’m not doing anything to help the anticipation for it [laughs]. In the state it is currently, it is nothing like any other pet skill in the game.
Timestamp: 55:02-55:38
