Greetings!
I am beyond super impressed with this game – and very excited to see its evolution and community grow.
Below are my first impressions, interwoven with my research of the game and its community. I probably have 20-25 hours played and have only cleared about 7 echos. Some may not think that this is enough hours, but it’s specifically why I am giving feedback now.
I want the first 25 hours of everyone who plays this game to LOVE it.
It’s a bit long, so thank you in advance for reading!
Here we go!
Story
The premise of the story is fascinating and provides great ground for future content, however, I found that I did not enjoy its execution. I never felt compelled to listen to the NPC’s after giving the first chapter a chance. I ended up skipping most of it. I get that it may not be the most important thing in this type of game (per many players’ opinions I’ve seen) – but the voice acting was just… terrible.
The voice acting is probably giving me this core impression of bad execution. And I wish I could look past it and say it’s just not for me… but it stood out so much to me that I have to bring it up. I am generally quite open minded about these things to the point that it usually wouldn’t bother me (at least I like to think!).
I bring it up because it gave me the feeling of a low-quality game when I know this is of the highest.
Campaign
Oh my lord was this too easy in the beginning. It scaled nicely towards the later acts… but perhaps because I rushed it and was 5+ lower level than each zone recommended. I stopped playing for a week after my first level 37. I believe I have seen that many people think the same on how easy it is – and that the devs have mentioned tweaking this.
I also see that there is a Masochist option that appears to be disabled… and when it was unlocked, I believe it was only available after the game was cleared the first time.
I think it’s super cool to unlock new modes of playing after beating the game.
However, I think it’s super uncool to unlock the only increased difficulty after clearing the game for the first time.
I become quite disheartened by games that I can’t make harder for myself if I find it too easy, which for a player like me, makes it boring. Especially if I have to run through it again on Hardcore. I chose Hardcore first because the community agreed it was too easy, and only died because I was more than half asleep (my bad). Overall, this makes the game a chore to get to end game (unless the story is great and engaging… or unless the game has an amazing design for creating builds like this one 
)
But it shouldn’t feel like a chore outside other great systems.
I am also personally not too interested in a ‘more damage and more damage taken’ difficulty. It would be cool for challenges and the like, however – a difficulty setting like Ruthless in PoE is, to me, phenomenal and would probably feel much better.
I believe it’s important that the first play-through of this game is truly memorable. For me, it was my second one, because I decided to not fall asleep on my second Hardcore run while simultaneously playing at a lower-than-recommended level.
I believe that Last Epoch currently has the greatest potential a game of this genre has ever had to WOW and hook players from across the board, that I can’t emphasize enough the need for increased difficulty (or the option for it).
If I had one wish for this game outside of its endgame systems – this would be it.
The character build design is so fantastic that my enjoyment of it transcended the boring factor of the easy game-play. I loved theory crafting and executing it so so much to the point that I ended up playing and continuously changing and improving my build on what I thought was going to be my LEAST liked character and subclass - the druid).
This type of class is NEVER what I play, and I am excited to created multiple new builds and maybe even run a new one. I didn’t even use Swarmblade form until level 60ish, and only because I simply wanted to see it.
Incredible.
Crafting
Yes.
I still feel there needs to be a good introduction to the system and a better guide for it in game.
Particularly for endgame with Legendaries, Experimental stuff, etc.
Speaking of which…
End Game
I just started the end game, and have only just become aware at how amazing it is through videos online. I had NO IDEA how exciting it was until it was explained to me.
I reeeeaally think there should be some form of a good introduction in-game that emphasizes what there is to be discovered from here on out (after campaign). I don’t feel like the players should research outside of Last Epoch. Not advocating spoilers (I am the biggest fan of going in blind). But I am advocating a better hinting towards the magnitude and excellence of the adventure that waits.
For example – did you know there was a Leaderboard? I didn’t. A Leaderboard of what? It’s not even in the Game Guide (which I also didn’t know about until I beat the campaign).
I don’t have enough game-play to give more feedback on end game, but I really like what I’ve seen in videos so far. Except for the fact that within my 7 echos, I think I had the same map or mini-map section about 3 times?
That’s a little concerning.
Any other tidbits of feedback / suggestions
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PvP – Your team can make an incredible outside-the-box PvP system. I also know it probably won’t be a high priority for a bit.
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Daily / Weekly / Monthly Challenges (or unique echos)
This is a huge opportunity I see missed in this genre that can boost having a sense of community and accomplishment.
IMHO there is HUGE potential for this to be an amazing feature if done right. There can be class/mastery specific challenges, achievements, etc. Opens a new avenue to add ‘new’ content with experimentation.
- LFG system or hub.
This is the first time I am playing an ARPG solo, and I would like to hop in queue with some people and make some friends.
- Raid-like options
I remember playing Diablo Immortal end game for all of about an hour or three and then stopped and never looked back. But something that stuck with me from that short period of time was an 8 or 10-person boss fight. We tried it about 9 times until we got it and when we did, it felt so awesome. It was something quite new for me in the genre which made it incredibly exciting. Too bad it was a pay-to-win.
Perhaps this is something that can be interwoven with a LFG system / hub.
On that note – guilds would be cool if done right.
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Item Factions -------- wow this is cool
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Gender Lock ------- not so cool
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In-game button for feedback.
Would be an easy way to collect opinions from the players (especially those who don’t bother to come to forums and the like… which are an entire player-base in and of itself). A tad bit late on this one, however, even in full release this would be cool to have.
- Last notes
I can probably speak for most when I say that the most memorable experiences of gaming are through community and or with friends and family. Even if you play solo, you are more than likely to watch videos about the game, read really long posts like this one on forums, and in general – be part of a community (even if you don’t even participate in them).
I recognized that a lot of my last suggestions all involved some form of multiplayer interaction, or establishing this sense of community – in fact the whole reason I am typing all of this is so that others may like it and play it.
And so I guess my heart lies within making this game feel alive and community-filled within the game.
And anyone who wants to play SSF simply may.
Thanks for listening.
I know your indie studio doesn’t have the resources to implement everything and adhere to every request that the player-base wants collectively. Gender-locking, for example, is probably very time consuming and may become a feature farther down the line.
And I also know that some of the ideas that I provided may be waaaay down the line, or simply not a part of your bigger picture or team’s design / game philosophy.
Yet I hope this large post is a positive ripple in making the game the best it can be, for that is my wish.
Thank you for making an awe-inspiring game.
Greatly looking forward!
Cheers.