In case you missed them, here are the previous Dev Stream Transcriptions:
This is the fifth dev stream, hosted by Mike Weicker, which originally aired on March 26, 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: When can we expect the legendary items patch?
A: Legendary items are a really interesting problem to solve. We’re not really ready to bring them out just yet. Legendary items are going to need to be – there’s a few requirements I can talk about with legendary items – they’re going to have to be very distinctive…there’s going to have to be a story behind it. When you think about the word ‘legendary’ – like there’s a legend behind this item – many have heard about, but few have known and it’s a deep mystery of an item. If you think about it from that stance they’re not going to be common, you’re going to see a lot of – I hope – speculation on how to get them…when we do release them. I know given the age of the internet there’s going to be – once that information’s out, it’s out. I personally really loved when everyone was trying to find the Fractured Crown for the first time and no one really knew how to get it. Everyone knew it was in the game, people knew what it did, but no one knew how to find it. I loved that…that was fantastic.
Timestamp: 08:50-10:10
Q: Will each map section below be overhauled with better graphics and layout, maybe something like Titan Quest’s world map layout? Ancient Era, Divine Era, Imperial Era, Ruined Era, End of Time.
A: So you’re talking about this map here? [opens the world map] If you are talking about this map here, we have new maps – a brand new map coming that is…you can basically forget that this whole map exists because it’s completely different. Its’ got an entirely new layout designed from scratch for all the zones we have and all the planned zones we have coming up. It’s WAY more detailed. Our artists have just been hitting [it out of the park] – it’s crazy…it’s really cool. There’s a version for every era and you can really see the difference the world takes in each time period. So that’s coming up.
Timestamp: 10:12-11:16
Q: Are you able to talk more about the Shade of Orobyss? Is that Last Epoch’s version of The Shaper? Will it be Last Epoch’s first true endgame boss?
A: It’s not the same thing as The Shaper…it’s different. It’s something that will exist in the Monolith and it will be very difficult. It won’t always be the same and sometimes you’ll want to seek it out, sometimes you’ll want to avoid it – you’ll know it’s coming. I don’t want to ruin everything…how it’ll happen and everything. It’ll be tough – we’re building a bunch of abilities for it right now. I know encounter design is working hard on that right now, and I’ve been helping with some of the abilities but it’s mostly been our lead VFX artist that’s been building the abilities for it…and it looks great. There’s lots of new mechanics and effects coming in for that. It’s tough – it’s like building a whole bunch of bosses all at once for one boss, really.
Timestamp: 11:22-12:38
Q: So legendaries will be secret, so you won’t tell us when you implement them?
A: I think it’s pretty hard for us to hide when new items come into the game, unfortunately. It’s unclear how we’ll reveal them. They’re not in the game right now, I can tell you that [laughs]. They’ll likely interact with a major system. It’ll be a big deal to get a legendary. I would not expect most builds to incorporate legendary items – like they may not be the best thing for your build…we’re not going to have a lot of them. I can’t exactly give away what’s going to happen with them but, for example, I really like the way WoW did legendary items…initially – and I’m not saying we’re doing the exact same thing at all. I just like that feeling of, ‘there’s only one of them out there for a long time…oh, now there’s two of them out there’ – and that feeling of mystery behind them, that feeling of what do they do, how do you get them, you worked really hard to get them…that’s the sort of feeling I really liked with them.
Timestamp: 12:42-14:04
Q: Will there be more melee skills in the future?
A: Yes! Ah, there are three melee skills that I know of for different classes that are in the works. I don’t know how many more will be coming afterwards, but I know at least three more are coming.
Timestamp: 14:08-14:26
Q: Any plans of a potential new class that will summon water-like elementals as pets?
A: Have you been reading the Masteries panel again? [laughs] Ah, yeah…new Masteries are coming, they’re coming. We’re really working to flesh out and complete what we’ve got. When we do drop new Masteries, they’ll drop as a complete thing – so they’ll have all their skills, they’ll have all their passives, and it’ll be like one big drop for the whole Mastery all at once. I’m not sure when that’ll happen, but it’ll probably be a little later on…overall. Who knows…who knows? I don’t know when it’ll happen [laughs].
Timestamp: 14:46-15:32
Q: I’ve played through most of the game for the first time - right now I can’t really tell when I’m fighting a major boss in the story. Any plans to make these moments more impactful?
A: Definitely! I think that punctuating bosses with entrance effects – so like I’ll use, because it’s such an easy example – in Diablo 3 when you fight The Butcher for the first time it like smashes through that door, it comes out, and there’s an arena….there’s a lot of setup there and there’s that ‘I’m here’ animation. Personally I think that was a well done entrance animation for that boss fight. I think things like that will work their way in as we get more time to polish up things – that would be the goal.
Also, we’re likely working on getting some more chapter delineated story scenes. So like each one of the characters when you first start the game has a little video that plays that describes how they got on the path to Welryn in the first place, and having more things like that throughout I think would help a lot. Especially after you fight a big boss, maybe there’s a cutscene to explain why you’re going to the next zone. Things like that I think would really help a lot to advance the story understanding and help people feel more engaged. Also, I really like the style of those cutscenes.
Timestamp: 15:38-17:16
Q: Can we expect older movement skills to be reworked to get at the same level of Shift and Surge?
A: Umm, there’s a lot of things that some of the old movement skills have that Shift and Surge don’t, and we really want to keep them feeling distinct. With Fury Leap you can target anywhere, and it’s very different for a Primalist to have that impactful smashy smash when I land instead of like the Rogue’s Shift ability. Getting that skill to feel appropriate to the class is really important. I know Shift feels great guys…I know it feels fantastic. Yes, we want all classes to feel fantastic. Having the Rogue feel the most agile I feel is the most appropriate for that class fantasy.
Timestamp: 17:34-18:32
Q: Is there any reason why you chose Unity over Unreal Engine?
A: It’s what the people that started the project knew how to use…is the biggest reason really. Unity is also a little easier on the wallet right out of the gate [laughs].
Timestamp: 19:08-19:26
Q: Are you ever going to consider making the game free-to-play but with MTX in-game?
A: We’ve considered that. It’s hard to transition, and there’s a lot of reasons why we do have a box price on the game. It might happen down the road – I can’t say for certain – but it definitely won’t happen before 1.0 release.
Timestamp: 19:32-19:54
Q: Any plans for gender choice on classes?
A: Yes, there’s a huge – I talk about this question a lot – there’s a huge thread on the forums about this. It’s something we want to do, but it’s something we do not have the resources to do at this time. It’s something I would say that there’s a very good chance it’ll get incorporated at some point, but we can’t say for certain. There’s a lot of littles things that go along with it – namely voice acting – that cost a lot of money to get done. If we spend the time and money on making a character [editor] it makes it so that we can’t spend money on other stuff…like more bosses, more unique items, and more cool stuff to wear on your character. There’s a lot of things that would have to get pushed to make that possible. So not yet, maybe someday.
Timestamp: 20:22-21:30
Q: How are Lost Memories coming along and how different is it now compared to when it was first conceptualized during KS? I’m super curious how supporters will be involved to design them.
A: Lost Memories are, ahh – they’ve changed a lot since we first initially conceptualized them. They’ll probably still change a little more too so we’re still working on it. So we’ll let you know [laughs].
Timestamp: 21:35-22:05
Judd shows off a little teaser of the map shifting from Divine to Ruined era:
[Mike opens the link and proceeds to talk about it] Here’s a little teaser of a piece of the map – this is zoomed in as far as you can zoom in with the map, and it is humongous. We had to put two of the biggest textures we could put in the game to just fit it on screen fully. So it’s going from what looks like Divine to Ruined, I think. So this is The Temple of Eterra and you can see how it changes as all void is creeping in – and it’s sort of like that last bastion of hope. So yeah, a little teaser there.
Timestamp: 22:05-23:00
Q: When can we expect skill tree for Sentinel’s stances?
A: Umm, yeah…that’s kind of an awkward question. Not every skill in the game is going to get a tree that exists right now. Some skills might get cut – I don’t know what skills those are going to be.
Timestamp: 23:12-23:40
Q: Is the price going to be the same after launch?
A: Yes, we do not plan on changing our price point after launch. This is what the price will be for likely a very long time.
Timestamp: 24:28-24:40
Q: Do you plan to add something like “minions are aggressive”? I feel like I have to stay 1-2 sec until they start attacking monsters.
A: Yes, we’ve been talking about how to best add customizable behaviour for minions. Different minions you want to behave differently and having us just assume we know how you want your minions to behave is a dangerous thing to do. So we’re going to try to add in some way that you can customize their behaviour between a few options, likely. We’re unsure exactly where that UI is going to go yet. Some of the minions also have, for example, wolves have a new AI on them that’s a lot more effective. So the wolf AI is a lot better and we’re going to be improving all the minions AI, and also try to give you a little more control over them.
Timestamp: 24:44-25:54
Q: Maybe add a Boss Icon in each world map zone, indicating there is a boss?
A: Yeah, that’s a great suggestion. We don’t want to spoil too much of when a boss is coming up necessarily for the first time players, but I think better indicating when you’re fighting a boss – through music, voice acting for the bosses…in some cases, etc. There’s lots of things we can do to make it better known to the player that you’re fighting a boss.
Timestamp: 22:56-26:29
Q: What is the main focus for balancing (softcore vs hardcore)? What makes Lagon so different from the other mobs in regard to skill targeting? I feel some builds are bad against Lagon.
A: Yeah, Lagon is really difficult. There’s a ton of little things we change for Lagon – basically every patch – targeting, movement, his hitbox, all sorts of stuff. There’s a lot of custom logic for how Lagon works because his hitbox is so big. Right now we’re trying to get the AI to work better with it, and have them attack it more consistently because yeah…it’s a little tricky. Most of it has to do with him being so big and having the platform you’re fighting on being so small. This is all very intentional really because we want to make it have this almost claustrophobic feeling that you are fighting this God – that sense of scale that you are this small person that is trying to face a God and stand up to him. More stuff is coming for that for sure…we’ve got a big list, don’t worry.
Timestamp: 26:35-27:43
Q: Will this game have leagues/seasons?
A: Yep, we’re calling them cycles right now. They’re going to be similar but different to what you’re used to in comparison to what you’re referencing when you say leagues and seasons.
Timestamp: 27:45-27:58
Q: Any news on when Warlock will be added?
A: No, sorry. We’re working on it.
Timestamp: 28:05-28:08
Q: Is there a potential that you will add Hirelings like D2 into Last Epoch with their own inventory?
A: Umm, it’s possible we may add those at some point. It’s definitely not going to be in the game for 1.0. It’s something that’s a cool mechanic. There’s a lot of stuff that goes with that. I thought it was great in D2. I really like how some of the mods for D2 have expanded on that to make more of them really useful. It’s something we’ll definitely look at. We’ve touched on it a little bit with that relic which creates a crossbow wielding mercenary – I know they don’t have their own inventory or anything like that, but we’re trying to get a little bit of that feeling there. Giving everyone a follower changes the balance a lot. There’s a lot of people that don’t necessarily want – like maybe you want to be on your own…no minions, just yourself and is there any sort of compensation for being someone who doesn’t take a companion, or something like that. So there’s a lot of stuff there [to consider].
Timestamp: 28:18-29:45
Q: Any word on endgame?
A: Yeah, we’re doing a ton of stuff with the Monolith. We’re expanding how the Monolith plays and works – just deepening that adventure you’re going on. We’re trying to make it a little clearer as to what you’re doing. Right now it’s a little nebulous with just pick the left or right path and it’s really hard to plan for things that are going to happen and things like that. We’re trying to make that experience a little more fleshed out – I guess you could say. We’re also adding in some new challenges, as we’ve teased with the Shade of Orobyss.
Timestamp: 30:00-30:35
Q: As a composer (hobbyist newbie/beginner but still) I can say that your soundtrack is great - it suits the game.
A: Thanks, I will tell our composers. We’ve got a couple working on the game right now and they’re both awesome. Like everyone, they like hearing when their stuff is appreciated.
Timestamp: 30:40-31:00
Q: Other issues with Lagon are that his base is so far from the player which causes issues with certain proc skills.
A: [Insert CT name], you’re right [laughs]. Each enemy has sort of like a location where they are and then they have a radius that is their – like how big they are – and any time there’s a distance to target check it actually takes the location plus the radius so that number might be slightly off for Lagon as we do set those manually.
Timestamp: 31:12-31:44
Q: Any thoughts about move speed and move skills? They feel kind of feel mandatory and I always want to have a move skill in my 5 slots.
A: Yeah, this is a huge topic. We talk about this all the time. Movement skills are really important – yes, they absolutely are. In almost every single build – you can go look at the ladder on our website right now – and basically every single build will have at least one movement skill in there. You may have noticed that there isn’t that many movement skills per class. We try to work in a couple if we can, and try to keep them as distinct from each other as possible. We’ve batted around ideas of having like a movement skill slot going in your bar, things like that…all sorts of different things. It’s nice that – because we only have five skill slots – there’s potential to add more power to a build by not taking that movement skill with you. For example, I’ve seen some Arena builds that just stand in the middle so they don’t take a movement skill which I think is a cool option to have, and it means you can have builds that are specialized for different task…I guess you could say. So do I want to go faster, do I want to kill things easier, do I want to take an extra survivability or utility skill, all those sorts of things.
We’ve already noticed that with multiplayer – through internal testing – that there’s that feeling of I got to keep up. It’s something we’re well aware of, and will continue to balance the abilities as we go forward with that in mind.
Timestamp: 31:47-33:50
Mike talks about the increased exposure the game has seen recently:
This has been a crazy week. I don’t know if you guys have been looking at the CCU numbers, but every day this week since Monday has been a new high. It’s just wild to see everyone who’s playing the game right now. There’s so many new members of the community talking in Discord, Reddit, and all the social platforms. There’s tons of great ideas coming in – it’s just been awesome. I’ve been trying to answer as many questions as I can. Every time I’m not working on this I’ve been trying to get in an answer on my phone. It’s been great to see all the new faces. I’ve been having a ton of fun with all of that.
Timestamp: 34:35-35:21
Q: Is there any news on when the official release will be?
A: I do not have an official release date for you. I am sorry. I know people are looking forward to it, but the answer is really ‘when it’s ready’. Multiplayer is the really big feature we’re working on that will make it ready. We’ve got lots of other endgame, new abilities, and all sorts of other stuff coming down the pipe too.
Timestamp: 35:38-36:05
Q: When Druid class? I want that most.
A: Ah, we’re doing some updates to the Druid class – not this patch, it won’t be out this patch, but it will be out soon. The Druid will be getting some sweet new upgrades.
Timestamp: 36:32-36:45
Mike opens his passives window and says this:
It’s funny, sometimes I see things that I know that are on the ticket to change and bugs – like when this opens and it always opens to the Primalist [passive tree] even though the last thing I used was the Shaman [passive tree] and that’s the Mastery class. I see things like this and I’m like, ‘didn’t we fix that’ but it’s not fixed yet – and it’s because it’s the old version.
Timestamp: 37:10-37:30
Q: Any plans to rework shapeshifting?
A: Yeah, we got big shapeshifting rework plans. There’s a ton of shapeshifting work happening. I think the overall goal in our shapeshifting was really good. It didn’t work out the way we hoped, and we kind of went back to the drawing board on them. However, the new version is shaping up to be fantastic so far.
Timestamp: 37:48-38:20
Q: A lot of new players to the game always ask about crafting. Any chance of a quick rundown while you’re on stream so they can see it in action?
A: Absolutely! We do actually have some updates coming to crafting as well. The panel is changing and it should be a lot clearer, easy to use, and a lot more engaging…I think. We’ll still keep the same core values of the crafting system – so you’ll still be able to apply affixes directly to items and things like that.
[Mike proceeds to demonstrate how the crafting system works. I suggest watching the video for this.]
So we’re changing things up a little bit. We’re looking to add new Runes and Glyphs. Right now we have these five Runes and two Glyphs, and we are looking to expand this repertoire of Runes and Glyphs so that you’ll have more options for things you can do to items. Some of them will be super-duper rare, some of them will be super common…because you’ll want to use them a lot. They’ll let you craft things in new and interesting ways. There’s all sorts of interesting things we’ve got planned. There’s tons of great suggestions on Runes and Glyphs that have been floating around the forums for years now. It’s funny – quite often I’ll see a post and it’ll have a big list of suggestions for Runes and Glyphs and I’ll go through it and I’m like, ‘yep I got that one, yep I got that one, etc.’. Yeah, you’re ideas are great and for the most part we want to do all of them – some of them we’re like we’d love to do that but we can’t…it doesn’t work – but there’s a lot of great ideas out there and there’s a good chance that most of them are on our radar.
Timestamp: 38:47-43:54
Q: How have you guys been dealing with all this new attention?
A: With giant grins on our face, because it’s great. Every time I see a new person come in – there’s posts on Reddit saying ‘I just found your game, having a ton of fun with it’ – it feels so great seeing people having fun with our game. That’s just the best thing.
Timestamp: 44:04-44:30
Q: In regards to trading, will there be an in-game system like an auction house in WoW, or will it be similar to PoE?
A: There will be an in-game system. We really wanted to avoid requiring players to venture to another website to do any sort of trading. There’s room for all sorts of stuff to go wrong with that, and there’s room for all sorts of really great features with that too – like tie-ins with mobile integration, and things like that…so it’s not all negative. However, we really want to keep that experience in-game as much as possible. I do not know of any game that does exactly what we’re planning. I’m sure there’s something very similar, but it’s not something I’ve seen anywhere before.
Timestamp: 46:02-46:56
Q: Are technical questions ok? Are you using the Unity ECS? How many mobs on screen at the same time can the game handle?
A: Umm, a lot [laughs]. I don’t know the exact number. We’ve done a ton of optimization stuff around getting more mobs on the screen in a healthy position. There are some zones that are still a little light, but yes we’re going to be able to support a lot more soon – or at least support the ones we have and not have frame loss because there’s some areas, especially later in the game, that get a little iffy. It’s got a ton better recently though.
Timestamp: 47:30-48:14
Q: Will we finally be able to reorder the skills on the shapeshifted bar?
A: That is something we are looking at doing. It’s not implemented yet so I can’t say for sure it’s going to happen, but it’s on the list. I know it’s something a lot of people want to do. Shapeshifting is changing a lot guys…so some of these things will be a little odd [laughs]. I don’t know how to explain it.
Timestamp: 48:19-48:45
Q: I hope new mods are added to the Monolith, rewards like unique drop rates or specific areas to farm gold would be really cool.
A: Yeah, there’s some new stuff for the Monolith coming with specific rewards to specific zones – unique things that don’t exist yet in the Monolith that are coming. I don’t really want to give too many details about it yet – because it is still in development – but we are working on some fun new stuff for that.
Timestamp: 48:52-49:26
Q: Any changes to Lich, specifically the low life version?
A: There aren’t any major changes coming down the pipe that I know of for low life Lich specifically. There’s skill balancing stuff and there’s a couple new nodes here and there in a couple new places, but nothing super dramatic. You will get access to Volatile Zombie so maybe that’s something you’ll want to incorporate into your build…maybe not.
Timestamp: 49:40-50:06
Q: Will you add sockets into items like Diablo 2, with unique runewords?
A: So we’re definitely not going to just transplant that system and put it in our game. We like trying to come up with new and interesting ways to do things. We will be adding in more item related mechanics to do things. I know sockets are something a lot of people have talked about – the challenge with sockets in how they exist in Diablo 2 is that our crafting system is basically a socket-able system. For example, you get a ruby in D2 and stick the ruby in your weapon you get fire damage and that’s basically the same thing as our crafting system so we’re probably not going to transplant that socket-able system one to one because it really does conflict with our crafting system. We have talked a lot about what sockets could look like and it’s still in development. That’s the best I can say on that one.
Timestamp: 50:45-52:28
Q: Any plans to have more than 4 craftable affixes down the road?
A: We’ve talked about it. We actually used to have six. We intentionally dropped it down to four. Who knows, it might go back up at some point, though it’s not likely to go back up pre-1.0.
Timestamp: 53:08-53:25
Q: Are there any plans to add multiple animations per skill? Skill spam looks much less uncanny valley with a sequence of several animations imo (especially for the arm flailing ones).
A: Yeah, I agree. We do have some variations on some of them already. For example, with Swipe the Primalist goes left-right-left-right. We’re still looking at that, and we want to get more animations in. Getting all of them to look pretty good takes quite a while.
Timestamp: 53:30-53:58
Q: Any sort of rough ETA for multiplayer?
A: I can’t give you one right now, I’m sorry.
Timestamp: 54:38-54:41
Q: Will the current inventory also be updated with new graphics?
A: Yes, we’ve got a whole new inventory panel coming. I think I can show you guys a little bit of the layout of what that’s going to look like. Let me just open my inventory for a second. Oh, that’s a cool inventory I’ve got here. We’re flipping things a little bit, layouts of a few things are changing, some tabs are going away, and some tabs are coming in. Yeah, a little teaser for you.
Timestamp: 54:52-56:00