Hey guys been here from 0.7.10 or something
here are my suggestions after a lot of hours in game (grew up on D2, adorder POE, Grim Dawn, Titan Quest)
How much gold I have earned after each echo I think it would be a really nice touch to show after each echo complition
I want some sort of experience bar for my faction and as well numerical value so I know where i stand at any given time withouth need press Y, same goes for weavers will items those experience bar would be perfect next to char experience bar
Skill icons on main bar changes when you make conversion of that skill so that picture repressents element that you are currently using
Account wide progress for corruption with ability for adjustment with a new character
Loot filter sound change for certain chase items or affixes drops
Crafting glyph that protect desired affix (50,75,100 perc chance to protect affix from rune of removal)
Corruption craft final slam after compleating some new dungeon
Monolith islands to be marked how much of corruption each one has
Make keys stackable
More colors and icons to stash tabs
Remove from prophecys that you get all sets if you find one (it losses the point of farming for sets)
Make sub-tabs under main tab able to fold like a folder hyerarchy on computer
Fix this please
Stop my character from moving when im on stash and sliding the slider down or up if im holding the slider and miss a little bit out from the stash tabs while im scrooling its moving my character away from stash and the stash is closed
Move that BS mechanich shield from bosses let me melt the boss if I have potential to
Make other monolith folow you corruption on certain monolith
stop making monsters that are off the screen coming on me its so anoying when im looting something and it really is bad mechanic very iritating
Make a sink for affixes i have 30k already after playing 150 hours of 1.0 (maybe allow to buy favour in certain ratio with those affixes bassed on rarity of affix itself) (
2h staff should visualy be in two hands not one (this is pure lack of time to change this nothing else)
Suggestions for future patches
I would love to see certain mechanic that makes Corruption deeper you go different enemies you see if you go deep enought there is a lot that you havent encounter before, whery deep you can meet some of the bosses you never so anywhere else
I think that mechanic would give a special vibe how deep you went, gave some sort of mysticism to the game as well although you have played for 100of hours there are certain enemies you still didnt encounter but you want to so much.
Thanks for the great game I hope community will help to make it perfect
Iâve only been around since 0.9.2, but Iâll give you my 2c about your 2c
1- I guess it would be kinda nice, but not really too relevant. Nothing against, but I think there are more important things.
2- Nothing against that, though it will become kinda useless for legacy, since you will soon tend to have both factions maxxed.
3- It would be nice. Low priority, though.
4- Mike has said on his stream that corruption changes are coming at least for group play, where you can control some corruption gains or something. Details are fuzzy, but that will come for 1.1. I think he also said in the past that theyâll be changing catchup mechanics for alts. Letâs wait for 1.1 and see what happens.
5- Sounds and beacons would be nice to have and have been suggested lots of times in the past. As far as Iâm aware, the main reason theyâre not in the game is performance.
6- From what I understand a full affix canât be interacted with (as in selected in the forge) so itâs possible that this change would require some changes to the code. Other than that, no issues with it, though personally not something I care about.
7- I donât understand what you mean by this.
8- Agreed. I think Mike also said some changes will eventually be coming regarding this.
9- Also often requested. I think Mike said in the past theyâd like to eventually do that but it requires some code changes.
10- Agreed.
11- Changes to both CoF and MG will be coming in 1.1. Anyway, thatâs only a bad reward because sets are crappy right now. But itâs also in their plans to make sets better, so maybe that reward will become good? Either way we should wait for 1.1 and see what they changed.
12- I think you mean on the side window where they are shown hierarchically? I agree, that tab could have more funcionality. I believe Mike has also said itâs something they already discussed changing/improving.
13- Stash interface needs a few fixes. For example, when you hover the stash tabs and thereâs an NPC behind the interface, you get an icon as if youâre going to talk to him. Also, although not in stash, when youâre selecting affixes to add in the forge, quite often it closes on its own because⌠reasons.
14- Lots of threads about this. Itâs a divisive issue. Mainly, some people like to facetank/melt bosses while theyâre watching a video, others like the challenge it provides. I would advise you to chip in on one of those.
15- You mean increasing corruption in one mono would increase in all of them? I donât think the devs like that idea, but as I said, theyâre reworking this for 1.1, so who knows?
16- Well, itâs annoying sometimes but you can also kill mobs offscreen, so itâs sort of balanced.
17- Mike has said in the past (usually regarding autopickup/autotransfer of shards) that they want to change affixes to that they drop less but in higher quantities and also that they want to implement a system where you switch one affix for another at a loss (like 30->1 or similar).
18- I donât think everything is modeled yet regarding the gear you can equip and their animations. Maybe this is one of them.
This sounds like PoEâs delve (which is already a big inspiration for monos anyway). I expect this would be quite some work to pull off, especially because mobs are randomly selected for each echo (which is why some people will go in, check the mobs, leave if they donât like them and go in again until they do).
Considering that devs donât want us doing 1k+ corruption, ranges would be kinda tight, but overall itâs not a bad idea.
About the only one I donât entirely agree with is 14 & Iâm not sure about that. #15 is kinda already in the game, you get more corruption if your current mono is lower than your highest corruption.
The 0.9.2 showcase promotional material they showed on Gamescom actually had some of these already.
I guess because there were not completely finished for 1.0 they didnât implement them yet. But I am sure it will come soon.
They want to do this and it is in the works.
But it is easier said than done, because right now there are no items in the game that actually âstackâ so there is no system currently in place to ensure stack size integrity.
Mox talked about this a while ago, I canât find it.
But basically when they implement such system they want and need to make sure it is 100% working, to make sure there is no loss in items.
After the initial addition of customizable stash they always said they want to expand on it, but I guess that will be a lower priority, because the current Stash system already is really really good.
Adaptive DR will be removed in 1.0 and replaced with a much better, yet unknown system.
I personally think the goal of the system is fine, the implementation just feels bad for players.
Iâll trust in it to be âbetterâ when itâs there and I can see it.
Their faction pitch of âsolvingâ the issue between Solo play and community powered play also was a âfantasticâ one and we know how it turned out. CoF is a decent mechanic and MG is a disaster lacking understanding of basic economy.
So Iâll trust in it when itâs out, as generally everyone should do rather then blindly believing in something to be an improvement before it shows it actually is.
EHG has a lot to catch up on from 1.0. Their release plainly spoken⌠wasnât good.
Iâm not even talking about the server issues, those were handled decently well after all with the scale of them, albeit they shouldâve taken proper measures beforehand, some of the mentioned issues were repeatedly mentioned before release and just not fixed in time.
What Iâm talking about are the broken skill points, the atrocious localization into other languages, the very lackluster and outright bad implementation of trade and the sheer gal to release a product which doesnât even have a finished story, the last bit is Wolcen quality, which is atrocious.
Would the game have stayed in beta then all of that wouldâve been excused easily, itâs unfinished as a basic product, a beta. As a release itâs just not acceptable though and hence itâs not surprising itâs treated accordingly, EHG damaged their reputation needlessly by rushing it, a mistake to learn from for the future.
Everything you said, like âsolvingâ or âfantasticâ was never advertised this way by EHG and rather been hyped up by the community.
While both factions still need some tunings you make it sounds like an absolute disaster and it is not that. Yes there are some people very unhappy about it, but it is definitely not that bad overall.
Story not being finished was planned like this from the start. If you agree with it or not is another point, but the story was not cut short to meet some release date.
Measurements that should have been taken beforehand is always easy to say, but basically every dev has issues when making big releases, even bigger and more experienced ones that EHG.
LE already did move the goalposts a lot regarding when to release, the game wanted to release multipel times in the past and you could argue that they coul have taken another 2 years to release.
The problem with these ever evolving games is, there is never the right time to release, there is always something they could have added, or removed or changed.
At some point they want to release, because release really doesnât mean a lot other than some term.
I would argue that MG is that âabsolute disasterâ though.
Acess restrictions which make it not usable for your first character beyond far too fast initial unique access before you could realistically access them in the game?
Then following up with giving you basically nothing unless you play through the whole content, reach close to 300 corruption before even being allowed to buy items which youâve dropped variants of it 250+ times before?
Thatâs really⌠and I mean really bad.
Not to speak of missing affixes.
Search functionality.
No â1-clickâ gathering of gold for sold items.
Bazaar coding issues (the database checks are a disaster plainly spoken).
And more.
I donât know what you would describe as âawfulâ if not that, any worse and it wouldnât be functional.
Doesnât matter, if you âreleaseâ a game then even nowadays the core aspects of it are to be inside. Planned, not planned, going any weird routes, all useless arguments.
A âreleaseâ version has a finished story, the core elements are solid and it provides a proper experience regarding the genre.
If a studio âreleasesâ it in a state missing those points then obviously theyâll get flak for it, and rightfully so. As a customer youâre not supposed to need intensive research before buying a product, the baseline info is to be provided and the baseline expectations towards a customer are to be fulfilled.
In terms of a video game with a story this means a finished functional story⌠cliffhanger for expansion of it for the future? Fine! Having the core storyline not implemented? Not fine.
Simple as that.
Agreed! Which is why I said despite the shortcomings there it was well handled.
âshouldâveâ rather in that case. So yes, absolutely, Iâll state that clearly, they shouldâve done exactly that.
The game currently is not 1.0-worthy and wonât be until Act 12 is released, localization is handled and broken functionality - of any kind - is fixed. The âcore aspectsâ of the game. Iâm not talking about anything beyond like minor non game-breaking bugs or the likes. Iâm talking about the core functionality of the game being provided.
Which is why despite absolutely loving the game I canât recommend it to friends and also canât give it a positive review on Steam. Iâve abstained from giving it any review in favor of the quality it overall provides⌠but from the perspective of a âfreshâ and âunknowingâ customer I canât recommend it simply.
Oh! There absolutely is!
Saying otherwise would be fairly nonsensical, thereâs several states when a ever-evolving game can be seen as ârelease-worthyâ.
I mentioned it even.
Finished core mechanics.
Finished story.
Localization handled properly.
No major game-breaking bugs.
Thatâs a 1.0, it has been this way since the conception of versions in programming and has only been washed out over the years by especially big publishers pushing the boundaries and ignoring to provide quality products in favor of mass sales. Which is not an acceptable state for any other product and also shouldnât be for video-games.
The point is that itâs absolutely not âjust some termâ after all. It comes from the times when the internet wasnât a possible solution to provide patches for software. Hence devs needed to make sure to get as much of the product in a good state before it reached those states.
âPre-alphaâ, âalphaâ, âbetaâ and âreleaseâ are fairly clear terms after all. A âpre-alphaâ is barely functional but provides at least first views on what the product might be. âAlphaâ misses major core functionalities and is likely to have also major bugs which are utterly game breaking. âBetaâ is the state when the core aspects are implemented and it goes over to the polishing stage, which can see some major changes nonetheless⌠but itâs basically âdone but not quite readyâ in a beta, the in-depth testing for mechanics as well as overall polish basically.
âReleaseâ happens after all of that. Content available, polish done, everything tested. Beyond? Thatâs another topic.
Just because in the industry itâs changed to devs using the terms literally willy-nilly until they lost all meaning in every single way doesnât mean that they donât have an actual meaning. Terminology is important, and as you mentioned:
It showcases how washed out it has become, when a term has no meaning why even use it? Empty words can simply be left out after all! And if the term âreleaseâ has no meaning then neither do âalphaâ, âbetaâ or even âearly accessâ because they donât mean anything then. So⌠to have them reasonable exist they need mandatorily to have meaning⌠and itâs been perverted over time simply.
What are even âcore-mechanicsâ?
Is crafting acore mechanic? Is legendary crafting a core mechanic?
In an arpg that is planned to exist for at least 10+ years there will always be more core mechanics being added, at what point shoudl they stop?
Path of Exile had all of its core mechanics with 1.0 release, yet it doesnât even resemble the same game 11 years later. Many things that have been added would now be considered core mechanics.
Last Epoch is planning on continously adding stuff, but at what point is it 1.0 and what point is post 1.0 additions?
Finished Story? Maybe, maybe not. I donât see anythign wrong with a game that aims to get continued support to also roll out missing story content over time.
Localization? I donât think that is needed for a 1.0 release. Even though I would have liked if they would labeled the localization Beta or ânot finalâ yet with its addition in 0.9.2. Or make a public test branch with it before releasing it onto the lvie version.
There will always be some game-breaking bug for some amount of players, this is almost inevitable.
I woudl actualyl argue that LE really deserved its long long long EA/Beta phase, because they continously improved and added stuff and they never used it as a excuse, like a lot of other games that basically were finished and kept being beta for several years.
But LE received a lot of featurecreep over time, because of how successful and very well received it was relatively speaking.
So the amount fo stuff added far aexceeded what was initially planned for 1.0.
That is why they could have waited anotehr 2 years for release.
IMO they could have called 0.7.9 or 0.7.10 a release as well, the game was feature complete in my eyes at that point.
Like PoEâs D3âs & probably D4âs release? Have they all had complete stories? And Grim Dawn & Titan Quest, their stories didnât continue in any of the expansions either. Plus, aRPGs are hardly played for their stories, so thatâs a bit of a weird thing to complain about.
Why? Itâs clearly not finished if thatâs the case.
Crap localisation I agree on, but none of the other things are ever in a big release either. Would you slate PoE 1.0 for having a janky ending (act 3) & missing so many âcore mechanicsâ?
Agreed.
It is if you want people who donât speak English to be able to easily play the game rather than having to alt-tab out to check what every term means. Just because English may be widely spoken doesnât mean foreign language gamers should be subjected to the jankiest of janky translations (& I say that as a massive Anglophile with the linguistic capabilities of a beached Whale).
I dont know man. TQ released almost 10+ YEARS Ago, back then some how you managed to get a complete and functional product that had all its main features. Somehow the further we go forward the worse game quality gets. The devs had 5 years of EA. All these features should been complete. They been sitting on their hands for years it seems.
Combat mechanics, hence a initial setup of all classes and all skills for them, roughly in line with each other⌠but that leans more into balancing. Too much disparity would mean something in the beta-stage has gone awry.
Since itâs been said thereâs a story⌠that. So the quest system and the storyline up to a point where it makes sense to have a proper cut-off to continue in the future. Imagine the ending of a book which clearly has more ahead in the future, the story itself is told though.
Since itâs a loot-based RPG the itemization aspects. Hence since they went with it a functional crafting system, the item bases and the loot mechanics overall.
Everything else is a âbeyondâ. End-game mechanic is important because itâs a live-service game, but absolutely not needed to be able to say âreleasedâ, neither are the dungeons, their only functionality which canât be removed is the LP mechanic⌠but thatâs also something âbeyond basicsâ already. EHG chose those to make their game more enjoyable long-term, they have nothing to do with the core aspect of the genre though. But⌠and thatâs important⌠since they decided personally to have them at release itâs to be expected that theyâre in at least a âdecentâ state.
The same goes for every other chosen mechanic beyond the baseline functionality to say âyeah, this feels like a finished gameâ, hence the factions for example.
Then we have the quality of the product, which as a baseline is the localization, the balancing and the feeling of proper progression rate. Languages that are provided at release should be expected to be properly localized. Balancing is expected to not be utterly awful, wonky is âokâ if itâs fixed along the line (shouldnât be but acceptable) but nothing which is massively out of line. And the progression rate is one of the major aspects. Hence things like Act 4-8 not preparing you for the Lagon fight are a big âno noâ overall reducing the quality of the product despite the great mechanics otherwise.
Thatâs a âreleaseâ.
No, but EHG chose to put it in nonetheless, hence extra work for them to get the game release-worthy. If you chose to give someone content then itâs also your responsibility to provide the quality on par with your product otherwise. That should be a given.
Has that something to do with the terminology of when something can be called âreleasedâ properly?
Thatâs the âbeyondâ and a completely different topic.
Transformative changes of a product are a completely different topic as well, and a very complex one on top of that.
Oh, I do neither!
Thatâs why we have something thatâs called âEarly Accessâ. It showcases the minimum of the product isnât done yet! Wolcen did the same shit with âreleasingâ with a half-assed story that was unfinished and people ripped it apart for that (and a hundred other topics on top). Rightfully so!
I donât see why LE should have a special status there when they screw something up, obviously customers will ârip them a new oneâ when they do a bad thing⌠and âreleasingâ with a unfinished main storyline is such a situation.
Not? So⌠if youâre for example speaking only spanish, buying a movie which promises to have a spanish dub and then that movie makes nigh no sense⌠is that acceptable for you?
Thereâs a difference between offering something to the customer of your free will or not doing so for whatever reason. Localization couldâve been kept in their mother-tongue as well, solely so. EHG released with several other âsupportedâ languages though, some of them so badly localized that the core aspects of the game couldnât even be deciphered then itâs a completely different topic. If you personally provide localization then said localization needs to have the respective quality as a mandatory aspect. Otherwise⌠donât provide it
That should be a given, not some novel point.
Yes, and for that we have a wonderful function to refund a product on Steam, because when your hardware doesnât allow to run it you can give it back.
But for example getting soft-locked or worse hard-locked without being able to progress is not something your game should have. Soft-locks happen at times, fair, but a hard-lock happening? Thatâs a big âno noâ again, that shouldâve been seen after proper testing and fixed.
The same goes for nodes of skills not having the right values assigned. Thatâs a easy thing to fix and test for, itâs a major oversight which is a lack of testing and not excusable.
What âexcuseâ?
Thereâs a distinct category of people which wonât buy a product thatâs not âreleasedâ ever. Why? Because they expect a specific amount of quality standard which those games often donât provide. Which is fine.
If you buy into a unfinished product then youâre personally agreeing to never see it released and have a permanently broken product at your own risk. To a degree obviously.
The second a studio âreleasesâ though those excuses vanish at that exact moment, and rightfully so.
Exactly my point!
If the feature creep is there and it doesnât have all the other functions implemented yet (like a finished story when the game clearly sells itself for having a story) then thatâs on the hat of the devs. Really nice for us customers that they provide it! But never an excuse for leaving the major important stuff behind.
No, since the story wasnât fully implemented then and also isnât fully implemented now. Hence LE was never a ârelease candidateâ.
PoE had 3 Acts in 1.0 if I remember right, said that more will come but it felt âcompleteâ as you killed the guy which was the reason youâve been exiled. So yes, back at 1.0 it seemed like a finished story.
D3⌠I have no clue how 1.0 released, sorry, canât comment to that.
D4 had a finished story in 1.0. You killed Lilith which was the whole reason why everything was happening. Youâve averted the danger story-wise. Sure, much open beyond cliffhanger-wise but the core aspect of a reasonably finished story is there.
LE⌠you kill Majasa which had been taken over and the actual perpetrator leaves.
All the while throughout the whole game you get ripped around the timelines trying to first get back only to find out shitâs going down and you trying to stop it⌠ending with⌠nothing?
Howâs that finished? A finish is when you for example avert the direct danger, bringing stuff into balance but a new looming threat is on the horizon (expansion for the future)⌠or you fail and the story resolves by the downfall into it being a time-loop, where it makes sense why you go into alternative timelines.
As 2 possible examples.
Our end? âThe perpetrator fled, where has she gone! Oh, that person knows something! Tell me where she went!â âNah, not in the moodâ âAh, ok⌠Iâll lean back and chill thenâ
Wha? Whoever thinks this ending is reasonable in any way has definitely taken a few drinks too much. This isnât a cliffhanger, this is the most lazy thing Iâve ever seen in storytelling, itâs a clear placeholder without effort and thought put into it, obviously saying âyeah, weâre not finished yetâ and it clearly being communicated like this as well.
Grim Dawn⌠well, you killed the big bad, so whatâs left to discuss it being done? Itâs obviously a normal ending.
Titan Quest⌠sadly never played it, should pick it up sometime. So canât argument there.
For quite a decent amount of people itâs important though, Sacred 2, Dungeon Siege, Diablo 2, Diablo 1, Torchlight, Torchlight 2⌠all of them had the story as a major point. Itâs just fallen out of favor nowadays⌠which doesnât validate giving someone an awful experience. If people donât care about the story at all⌠why put so much effort into it? PoE, Grim Dawn, LE⌠all of them put a ton of emphasis on the story, just because a good chunk of people ignore it doesnât mean itâs not important. Theyâre grand stories even, tons of effort put into them⌠if itâs solely about the gameplay then they also couldâve just ignored them and put something utterly generic inside.
It works, absolutely! Can be finished easily too!
Alas⌠they didnât. Their choice their responsibility, simple as that again.
Oh, itâs finished. Like a movie is finished if the core story is told, like a book is finished if the core story is told.
Thatâs storytelling 101. Cutting off the story in the middle is completely different from a cliffhanger for potential future stories, it means this story is told but thereâs more stories ahead.
Diablo 1 followed all of thise.
Diablo 2 followed all of those.
Torchlight followed all of those.
Even Lost Ark followed all of those, a game which thrives through Pay-2-Play is superior to LE in terms of providing a âfinished productâ, and thatâs a live-service too.
Before I get into details, Iâm kinda shocked by your negativity. I have read your issues, but all of them are everything but âcoreâ to me.
Regarding this MG statement: While I donât participate in MG, I think that protecting the economy in this way has itâs merits. Whatâs wrong about finishing the campaign once before you get access to your faction perks? This has the beneficial side effect of discouraging bots.
Opening up purchase options too early has the potential to truly trivialize the game and then those players are done.
Is this serious? I mean, talking about how many acts are needed before a release is one thing. But bringing up the game that established this procedure like they did the opposite is rich.
I personally am 100% with EHG here. We have 9 acts already and they provide a decent experience allowing me a smooth transition into the monolith system. Itâs not like weâre repeating those acts 3 times like in D2 and early PoE. That might be seen as a lack of content in modern times.
And you would have delayed the release for this reason? Two more years of development without real revenue? PleaseâŚ
Well, yes and no. Iâve seen parts of the localization and itâs truly silly. I would even go so far as to expect refunds for non-english-speakers based on the quality of their local product. However this doesnât taint the main product.
Again, why would you trash the entire game for this particular reason?
It looks like we agree on the fundamentals being class, item and world design. And except for the unfinished story which is part of the world design, your complaints arenât really core.
Class and item design are lightyears ahead of our biggest âcompetitorâ.
And if you care for some actual core disasters:
open world
scaling monsters
group rewards >>>>>> solo rewards
real time based boss events
battle pass
no lootfilter
So please, just put your complaints into perspective. Those arenât even first-world-problems but rather 0.5-world-problems
Agreed, but low prio to me. Still good to bring those up.
I donât know, I think not. Part of the joy of a twink character is to breeze through content thanks to the items your main has gathered on the side. The actual problem is the slow process of building corruption, if that changes (maybe due to balance changes soft-capping us at around 300), than this twink problem vanishes too.
Absolutely! And mini map icons.
Too powerful imo. If I could protect my t7 affix, it would probably be too easy to optimize the item. I had suggested to remove the forging potential cost from runes of removal for I generally agree that they are a bit too harsh. These are a last resort already and they feel bad when you âwinâ on the affix choice but still lose for youâve lost 10+ potential.
Not sure if I like corruption orbs in PoE. Itâs bad enough to brick great exalteds at Julra, but bricking âfinishedâ items?
Itâs truly a sad reward and we all hope something will change to either sets or this reward.
What do you mean, the adaptive damage resistance? It does feel weird at times, yes, but the intent isnât too bad. Better than damage immunity phasesâŚ
Within one character I mostly agree. Would need some control however to reduce corruption.
I hate spires the most and Orobyss attacks after he died. Something should be done to let us loot in peace after clearing enemies in the vicinity.
Why? I donât need a sink for something that doesnât occupy stash space. Iâd like to integrate keys into this functionality.
It very much shows, I recommend you trying it out, the issues become fairly clear then for yourself as well.
And Iâm not talking about âaccess after campaignâ. Iâm talking about getting nigh immediate empowered monolith boss-drop unique access right after entering into the faction as the first failure.
Then following that up no functionality until around level 90+ where you start to actually get access to exalted items beyond your weapon.
Iâm not talking about âopening up access too earlyâ which is an absolute non-issue if the mechanic wouldâve been implemented in any other way actually⌠Iâm talking about it having none of the expected functionalities a player can reasonably expect from a market during the playthrough of their first character. being broken in both directions at the same time with too early access and too late access.
As mentioned, try it out, I did specifically for both factions to have personal experience. CoF is well handled, as expected it has worse functionality the further your progress, which warrants the thought about adjusting the boss-unique situation as well as more targeted farming methods for the future⌠a minor point. MG? MG is - and thatâs the mild statement - utterly fucked.
It just doesnât do what it should do.
Youâve completely missed the point then.
Also they didnât âinventâ this whole thing, they stumbled into the live-service aspect of gaming like nigh every other company back then, and some handled it far worse, like for example âStar Wars Galaxiesâ with a complete re-invention of the game after years of service and hence following up in shutting down their servers because itâs mismanaged completely.
But that has nothing to do with the story-element itself.
LE couldâve 200 chapters and unless they actually finish their told story in some manner rather then leaving it a wide open gaping maw for whatever reason it wouldnât feel complete anyway. Iâm not talking mechanical transition here, which is fine, Iâm solely talking about the story-telling aspect.
Which is not fine.
First of all: They set it up in this way, itâs a devâs responsibility to handle those things, not the players.
Path of Exile actually provides a surprising good example there.
The initial 3 acts are âYouâre exiled and you seek out revenge against the guy exiling you, achieving it at the endâ â sounds kinda like a finished story, doesnât it? You got your premise, your adversary and you go and beat said adversary, resolving the issue, right?
Now they added more, Act 4. Killing your adversary after all showed he was in touch with demonic powers, so the new storyline is that you kill the underlying corruption of the church there as well, which was Maligaro. A step further! â Premise, adversary, plot-twist, resolving it. Once again, a done deal.
Then we got the expansion with 10 Acts, Kitava, full-scale current storyline, once again a good done deal â Premise, adversary, plot-twist, expanding on the plot-twist, resolving it. But this time with a second story for the end-game on top!
Then that bonus secondary story got expanded with Elder + Uber-elder
Then it got scrapped and re-made for the Warlords + Sirus.
Then it once again got re-made to instead have the Maven as the adversary for the end-game.
At no point in time was the story ever without a decisive ending. So yes, PoE is a prime example on transformative story-telling and always providing a full experience no matter when you as a new player pick up the game. We can talk about it being transformative in the first place and if thatâs good/bad, but thatâs another topic.
LE?
Go ahead and follow the storyline. At first we get the Epoch and thrown into another timeline. So⌠the premise is obviously returning to our timeline, right? So the first cut-off point for the story is After Act 3 as a finished storyline, the return to our timeline wouldâve been the first possible point for a finished release. â Premise, the âvoidâ and âfutureâ as the adversary, return as it being âresolvedâ. Counts as a finished story.
Beyond that? We the extra segment of the Emperor, which is Act 6, next possible cut-off point! Another timeline before we can return and the story is âresolvedâ.
But those werenât the releases, release is chapter 9 and hence a failure in storytelling.
Chapter 7 made no sense as a cut-off point, Heoroth leaves a open gape in the story as itâs clearly that our new adversary - Rahyeh - isnât challenged. Neither does it happen in Act 8 (Lagon) or Act 9 (Majasa). At no time our current adversary is challenged and the story âresolvedâ, itâs still open.
Act 9 provides a plot-twist, declaring Apophis as the new adversary, but she simply runs away⌠which obviously doesnât resolve it, it showcases we have one but we never deal with her.
So⌠where does the story resolve?
Thatâs not a miniscule thing, thatâs a mandatory point for a story, which means itâs not finished.
So, the release shouldâve been with Act 6 and no further storyline release until the next âcut-off pointâ is reached, simple as that. Because the current story is not finished to be told and hence a new player doesnât ever get closure.
It has led to confusion and rightfully so, which is a bad story-design for a game and a quite understandable negative point.
If itâs so bad it warrants a refund then yes⌠itâs a taint for the main pproduct.
Just not for you since youâre not affected.
Because if you buy into it as a non-english speaker it is a core aspect for your gameplay. Once again⌠if you canât provide the respective quality then donât offer it until you can.
Thatâs basic business, donât offer a faulty product, make it on par with the quality otherwise seen before releasing it.
None of your points has anything to do with version status.
Open world is a design choice.
Scaling monsters are a design choice (and can be a major net positive if done right, example: No Rest for the Wickedâ)
Group/solo rewards are a balancing issue.
Real-time boss events⌠I donât even know what aspect of it youâre talking about there.
Battle-pass is a monetization aspect and a completely different topic.
Lootfilter is a aspect of itemization and the modern diablo-clone style drops, solely depends on the implementation of the item-drops and isnât a mandatory aspect, a modern solution is a automatically adjusting lootfilter regarding your game-state without player-input at all to provide a baseline quality experience. Obviously needs some work to get there but giving full player-agency there as we have is also a viable option.
I put them into perspective for the related aspects. I recommend to re-read what my points are since it seems like you missed the core of it and talked around it mostly.
However, this is a cliffhanger and according to your own definition thatâs acceptable. You get a plot-twist, the new adversary escapes and we get a âto be continuedâ.
MG bad because you get buying access relatively late. Looking at rank rewards, you get to buy everything but legendaries by rank 7. Iâm excluding LP uniques at rank 8 for they are the mold for a legendary.
I donât precisely remember at which point I was rank 7 but I stand by my estimation that this is early enough. You should not be able to buy items before equivalents of those items drop. If this statement isnât met, I agree with you that you should be able to buy them earlier.
Story bad because it has no ending so far. I didnât miss that point but I consider it moot. I consider it better to have 9 acts without an ending than 3 acts with an ending that we have to repeat 3 times before we get into endgame.
Entire game bad because spanish localization bad. Just no, thatâs like a car releasing in 5 colors and one of them looks bad. Even if 4 were bad, that doesnât affect the car itself.
Regarding D4, I never meant to stay inside this âunfinishedâ scope. D4 has fundamental flaws (some by choice, like you rightfully said) that make this game so much worse than LE. I only brought that up to put your complaints into perspective.
If we go back to the car example: D4 has 3 wheels, a driver seat off by 90 degrees and to add gas you need to remove a wheel. Those are issues, not a bad color.
It doesnât âresolveâ the story.
A cliffhanger for a resolved story is what provides the option for a sequel, a cliffhanger without resolving a story is just a unfinished story.
We just have a unfinished story.
Which is why I even provided the examples of Path of Exile, their respective story is always finished but provided options beyond, nonetheless⌠finished. A good storyteller can spin a story on endlessly, writing a saga which contains several stories in one grand arc⌠but nonetheless, if a story is provided and not finished itâs simply that, even if the sub-segments and hence sub-stories of the arc are told.
Any story worth telling needs a premise, a adversary of some kind (a problem can also be said âadversaryâ) and a resolution.
Leave any aspect of it out and itâs not finished, it fails the baseline of what a story is supposed to do.
Diablo 1 leaves has you go out and kill Diablo, ending with Diablo being killed and you taking his place.
Premise being youâre a traveler which is drawn to diabloâs power, the adversary is diablo himself, the resolution is that youâre becoming the new diablo.
Obviously it leaves open the âbeyondâ which led to diablo 2, 3 and 4. But the story in itself is resolved.
We have no resolution in LE currently.
Exactly, MG should provide items neither too early nor too late. Access should be roughly in line with progression.
Which isnât the case.
Boss-uniques are accessed far too early.
Exalted items are accessed far too late.
You get access to exalted items in empowered monoliths earliest if youâre not dallying around, which is just not fitting with the game progression.
Not release worthy, no matter how long the story is.
The core element of a promised storyline is not provided, hence itâs not release worthy.
Thereâs a myriad of ways to handle stories resolving when youâve planned more beyond, and EHG has even shown that theyâre fine with implementing NPCs specifically with text to provide you a resolution to the status quo. So⌠instead of telling us through a NPC ânah, Iâm simply not in the mood to provide you with the information youâre risking your life forâ they couldâve done it by telling us to find the solution in the alternative timelines which gives a fluid progression into monoliths. Still not resolved but at least better.
Or⌠they couldâve kept a placeholder to provide a reasonable outcome to solve the problems at hand.
As mentioned, we have 2 natural cut-off points in the game, Act 3 and Act 6, where Act 6 wouldnât progress into it being a failure because of different versions of us having the Epoch but instead dealing with the emperor and hence âsolvingâ the problems coming up in the future in our mind, positive or negative outcome doesnât matter. It just needs to be resolved.
Instead we got no resolution, without resolution a story isnât finished, simple as that, every single writer can tell you that.
Wrong equivalence, which is why I used the example of a movie with bad dubs. We can also use a book with bad translation. Itâs a core aspect, the story can be fantastic which is written⌠but the experience to dismantle the nonsense to understand the story is nonetheless awful, resulting in a overall worse product.
A good equivalency is bad anime-dubs for example, it changes the style and hence lowers the quality.
D4 is as âfinishedâ gameplay-wise as LE is. It makes for a vastly inferior product for several reasons (bad itemization which has been actually solved with the new season, surprisingly. Bad visibility of effects, wrong hitboxes and more) but it can definitely be called a ârelease candidateâ because it offers what a game is supposed to offer. How well itâs done is a completely different topic there though.
To get it into perspective:
Books can provide great stories or outright awfully told ones.
A half-written book though can never be called âfinishedâ, which is the equivalence of âreleasedâ. Which means a âalphaâ book (half-written) can be superior to a âreleasedâ bad story (fully written).
Itâs a bit of a wonky comparison but should work to understand the argumentation there.
I donât agree with this. A cliffhanger, many times, is basically a postponing of the resolution. Or a shifting of said resolution to a new plot which will be resolved in a later season/chapter/episode.
For example, if you look at the GoT series (and even the books), each season finishes without the story being resolved. And quite often with a cliffhanger. And many other shows do the same thing.
An even better example is the Matrix. The first movie resolves the story (because they didnât know if it would be successful enough to have sequels. It happens quite a lot in trilogies). But the first sequel doesnât resolve anything and just finishes with a cliffhanger that will be resolved later. It would have been better if there were no sequels at all, but that is another matter.
And Iâll even give you another example from what is considered one of the greatest books in fantasy ever: Lord of the Rings. Each of the first 2 books doesnât have a resolution to the story, only to some subplots. And even those are often left hanging to be resolved later.
So you have 2 types of storytelling:
-You donât know if there will be sequels: you try to resolve things as much as possible while leaving something in the air for a possible continuation of the story
-You know that there will be a sequel: you just finish it on a cliffhanger and leave the resolutions for the last story.
So what we have in LE is basically the same thing where weâre waiting for season 2 to come and resolve it. Though, from what I gathered from dev communications, weâll only get chapter 10 soon-ish and the last 2 will still be a while to come.
You might not like stories that do that, but that becomes a matter of preference.
