Feelings of a lost player

Feedback and Suggestions
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I am not a forum kind person but since I am playing the game and the game is in developing stages yet I am here to try to help with my opinion (hope that will be useful in some way)

the company are trying to get a very large base of players mixing things like MMO and ARPG types… so you will have a lot of problems to balance the game trying to make everyone happy… as company do you know that is impossible but there is ways you can try to manage this… I know that you need to do a lot more to implement something that I will say here but I will say anyway in case can give you ideias on how to manage this problems

1- I dont know why the games dont have difficulty levels anymore but for casual, avarage and hardcore players is a total diferent experience the game… so why not put in the home screen something like the hours the player can play and the experience they have with this kind of the game so you can balance the game chosing the easy, medium or hard mode in an implicit way or let the player chose in the explicit way… doing this you can make for example a boss fight with less mechanics for casual players and a very intense boss fight with more mechanics for a hardcore player… doing something like this you can solve a lot of game experience problems that will raise here in the forums…(for what I understand as a game developer too, in the end the game experience of the player is the most important part because is the part that will make him keep playing and say good things for friends or that will make him give up the game and say bad things to friends)

2-trade system is time consuming for the company I know, but Guild Wars 2 has a very good traying system, and making something like that will highly improve the quality of the game and get more attention for other players

3-item filter system is something really needed for ARPG games I particularly have difficult to find necro damage itens during the leveling, saw a lot of fire and ice itens, dont know if there is a problem with the drop rate, but a good way to show to the player that you take his game experience serious is not rely in third part made things that is needed for the game… so maybe you can make a simple loot filter that has options where the player check I want itens with fire, armour and speed for example, so the game highlith the item to make easer to find… crafting and make something for the autoloot that is working for potions and gold you can have a place where the player can choose the crafting itens bases or types that will be auto looted with the gold. this make the experience of playing more smooth so the player can enjoy the real important stuff that is exploring, killing enemies and playing the game…

3-the passives of the game are much better clarified and simple to the new players understand, you dont need a college degree to build a character, BUT, in some cases the player can feel stuck with lacking of options, if you player as an acolyte you can basicaly do physical damage, bleed damage and necro damage, why I cant use elemental damage for example? a good thing in POE is that I can use any kind of damage/skill some classes will be better but this is normal… but at least I have the option to choose to use elemental damage with other class instead of using only mage. giving freedom to player test and do some unexpected builds can highly increase the happiness of the player with the game

4-as my college professor teach to me a good game is irrelevant if you dont know how to tell the history… I feel very lost in the game history and all kinds of eras that we have… read dialogs popups is very boring and I get lost changing from one time to another so easily and so fast… dont get me wrong is very good have all this content to explore but I pass the acts of the game and dont know how I did it… if I can suggest, make some others cutscenes explaining the game history and the important facts… short cutscenes with 1 min or less… this works to the player learn the game history and know when he finished something important and need to start a new big quest or something like this ( I worked in the video industry over 5 year, a good video can make a huge difference, believe I already saw, and already did that with many companies) if you make for example a cutscene when the player change the time line explaining how he gets there and way will make much more easer to player understand and dont feel lost in the game time line…

5-for the last (until now hehehe) the path finding system needs improvement, if we put our mouse outside a non-path area the player stop to move, since you have very narrow paths I die some times because a lot of enemies was following me my mouse was over a non-path area (was close but the path was narrow) the character stopped to move… I think if you change to direction type instead of click in the path area will be better, because if I click outside a path area the character dont move… and when we are being followed by enemies is not a good thing the character die only because I clicked in a non-path area…

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  1. This is… a weird proposal. This will be a multiplayer game, not a single-player platformer. How much balancing, testing, and development time would be required to essentially create 3 totally different experiences? The game can’t and shouldn’t cater to every single person, and it’s a fool’s errand to try.

  2. There is already a trading system in the works…

  3. There is already an item filter in-game that you can create without any third-party tools.

  4. (You said 3. twice) The game has archetypes… Just like most ARPGS and games do. PoE is unique in that you can kind of build whatever however, but this doesn’t necessarily lead to a better game by default, and it definitely doesn’t mean that your self cast ball lightning poison berserker is going to actually be good just because you thought of it. It’s artificial depth. This game has enough variety, for instance there are currently 100+ builds by a single person on the forums alone that all can clear end game. Also, many of the classes do also do elemental damage based on which skills and passives you pick. Seems like maybe you just didn’t open certain skill trees. This game has a ton of variety and the archetypes are actually VERY loose. You mentioned you’re playing a Necro-- Necro has a ton of skill-passives to convert skills into elements, bleed, poison, or necrotic. The main thing they could do is buff some underused skills, trees, and nodes, but as a whole LE is actually incredibly well balanced. Tons of viable builds.

  5. I actually agree with this one. The storytelling, writing, and voice acting need some work. I’m not sure if more cutscenes are the answer, they do help, but really that’d be a band-aid fix for what should be a concentrated effort to improve the story experience as a whole.

  6. I haven’t had too much issue with this, but the pathing can be a little wonky at times, especially when it comes to elevation. Probably worth improving

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This is not sarcasm: Does anyone really play ARPGs for the story anymore? Not since the days of D2 with Blizzard’s cinematic storytelling have I encountered a really good ARPG story. I understand all games have to have some story, but mostly I just keep marching along. I’ve created about 15 characters and I still don’t really know who Yulia or Grael are or what they really want other than they seem to be tangentially aligned with various deities.

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1- this is not difficult, see this as player and not a developer sound difficult but it is not, make a game for hardcore players and remove some things for the avarage and casual players is not difficult at all… you can do a boss fight with 10 mechanics for hardcore, remove 5 for avarage, and remove more 2 or 3 for casual… (this is a very trash example but just to give you an Ideia)…

4-until now I only saw damage conversion to void, necrotic and poision damage as acolyte, no options for elemental damage… this suggestion is based on the RPG base, the ideia of an RPG game is to you be what you want, give you freedom and this topic is about this… just that, I dont want to make them change the entire game… but I wrote my opinion saying that would be nice have an RPG that gives freedom to the player because when I started to play table RPG was about that, freedom to create and be what I want in a fictional world. and how you write POE is unique in that, but why we cant do a game better than POE? I think when the company started to make this game was aiming to be a unique game better than the other that came before…

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I don’t know why so many people call this kind of game ARPG. There is no role playing involved, you don’t take lore-related game changing decisions, you don’t act as if you were a specific character. This game, like Diablo, Wolcen, PoE, etc… is a Hack’n Slash. There is a story that shows us a rich, dense and interesting world, but the whole point is about killing monsters and getting rewards (items, shards, gold, blessings, experience).

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Like the acolyte all the classes have some archtype which they heavily support and there are some exceptions.

Acolyte does have some Fire Damage Support (for you or your minions)

But not having all the other damage types is not a bad thing.
It’s about class identity.

Just because the game would offer you the possibility to do everything with everyclass, would not make the classes mroe interesting or the game better.

I really prefer the strong class identiy over PoE’s blurred “classes”, which are obsolete.

Online/MP and Economy is in development, we just don’t have any details yet.

LE probably has the single best and easiest loot filter, that still has depth comapred to all other games i know of.

(GD and Wolcen have very basic loot filter, which are super easy, but don’t have any depth, for PoE you need to invest alot of time until you understand how you can setup your own loot filter, so you are reliant on 3rd party programs)

In LE you can do very basic things already, without much knwoledge.
And once you become famialr with the loot filter, you can make it more complex on your own terms.

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I’ll address the difficulty. I’m not a 12 hours a day type of gamer, I look at myself as a “casual”, but I do have experience in ARPG’s since I played most of the big titles out there for years. (TQ, Torchlight, POE, Diablo, Grim Dawn, Chronicon).
Tbh the game difficulty is perfect as is, it feels “normal” leaning to the easier side slightly.

In Last Epoch you don’t even have to craft during the campaign mode.
You can literally pass the entire campaign with items you loot on the go.
If your build is consistent in terms of damage scaling to support your main skills you picked, you should breeze through the campaign pretty easily.
Avoid the major charged-up bosses and mini-bosses hits and you might even pass through the campaign DEATHLESS.
For those without previous experience in these types of games perhaps the game will be difficult, but it still wont be punishing or tedious. They can always use a guide or a build for starters, and with time over come the learning curve and make their own builds.

It’s very close to perfect as is IMO. Making it easier then it is will be trivial and boring.

Adding extra optional difficulties makes no sense in multiplayer, how would that even work? Will players be divided forever between these 3 difficulties?
For single player it can be done, but honestly it doesn’t seem worth it to develop, balance, test just for that…

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As you sayed, you reflect and experienced ARPG palyer, so saying that is boring make it easer dont reflect a person that is starting for the first time… and beside what you believe, this can be the first game for a lot of peopel… so you cant say that is boring based only on your feeling, I just gave my opinion in what they can do to cover all player base that they can have. is my opinion just this…

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I think the original poster/starter of this thread has many good points and considerations to think of.

I again state that LE is in beta/EA at the moment. For example looking at Beardman21’s build compedion it is QUITE obvious that all classes are completely broken since they all can be made so that they totally obliterate all current in game content, all bosses with single hits, with mostly no gear farming at all. A pet class having 200+ pets only limited by FPS?..

Class, skill, specs specific issues left aside: this game has tons of potential. It already has many systems that are UNIQUE in the current generation of ARPGs. Mostly visible is of course the graphics, it’s in my Borg scale about 90% wonderful :stuck_out_tongue:

Skill system is unique. TOTALLY versatile loot, great loot filters, timelines. ALl of those are already in the game. And we will be getting more towards the release. I for example can’t wait for MP, I am still doing Diablo3 seasonal content in Multiplayer because it’s fun. Yes it’s repetitive in D3 but it’s still fun to get that loot and get higher in Greater Rifts in seasonal conent, get that new piece of loot that just pushes you bit more over the current edge of your potential.

THere are many systems that need improvement and I am not the only one to say that the class skill system is NOT working correctly. If a person can make a pet build having 200+ pets running around killing stuff only limited by the fact that the Frame Rate drops so low if there are more pets … well, do I need to say more. Boardman21 has 100+ builds which are all totally overpowered, they whack and obliterate the current content with mostly no effort at all.

The base systems are in, they just nee serious rebalancing. I just fear what happens when the current state of these systems are fixed and the people exploiting these special builds can not do it anymore. They will be shouting “YOU NERFED US, I HATE YOUR GAME AND I HATE YOU”. Heh, this is beta. I have never been a meta player,… I sometimes try builds provided on forums but I want to do my own experiments with skills.

Many other things in this game need rework, animations, sounds, even music. Not all features are in, it’s beta yes we know.

However, as a person who has played computer games 40 years already. I know what makes a good game.

A good game is a game you want to stick in with. A good game is a game you want to help get better, meaning that you get involved in the community and give your feed back for it to get better.

If you would not care about LE or it’s possible future you would not be here stating your concerns.

I am a programmer and game designer myself, nothing as glorious as LE, but I have won some programming competitions with my game programming projects in the past doing my own game engines etc. I also know something about software design and project management since I’ve been doing it for quite a long time (since 1997 professionally and prior to that starting @1982 as a hobby). It’s not an easy thing to pleasure the whole user base. There is a certain point of balance in product, feature, delivery and support point of view… not only those but many other things like finance need to be in balance to get things working succesfully.

What I feel about LE currently, the company behind the game is a indie company yet they have managed to do one of the most intriquing ARPG for me since the birth of Titan Quest and Grim Dawn (I love both totally). Unique systems and a general great feeling towards us, the player community who love ARPGs. I am sure they will do their best to make this succesfull <3

I am sorry if I offended anyone.

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How do you Quote sections instead of the whole post?

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probably because they’re definitely classified as ARPGs

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You can either quote a specific section by marking it and there will be a “quote” button appearing next to the marked text.

This will put the text your marked into the position of your selection at your reply text box.

https://imgur.com/6eAAgJb

Also i already saw you quoting the whole post of some1, which is not needed, since when you reply to some1 (liek you did right here with me), you can open the dropdown menue to see the psot the persons replied to

https://imgur.com/Wvy4Luh

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Yeahhhhh thanks!

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to be honest you are not helping with the discussion, the game is not released so is obvious that will not show in generic searchs like this… since we dont agree with your point of view and you dont have enough knowloge to say what you say you are posting things like this…
If you dont like what you saw here, just leave… you dont need to waste your time here…
as @xanaki says I am here showing my opinion because I like the game and saw some points that can be improve, everything I say will be done? I am sure that is a no, but I am trying to make something to improve the game I like now while is in Beta, because after the official release is quite impossible to change something… so if you want to help the discussion or say something that will help the develop team to improve the game you are free to do… but if you dont have anything to say that will help you dont need to waste your time here…
All I want with this post is show some ideias and to other people show ideias too to improve the game that we like!

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EHG stated there wanna support this game at least a decade and a game over this amount of time will evole alot.

Why do you think a game can’t change much after “launch”.
Just because a game is “officially launched” doesn’t mean the devs will not change stuff.

Maybe we will get another major defense overhaul, maybe they will rework the MoF entirely.
There are so many things that could happen when a game evoles.

Some of the games that are out there for ~10+ years have evolved so crazy, you can’t even compare them with the original version.

But other than that, i agree, we are all here and spent time talking about this game, because obviously most of us care about it, hence we spent time here and giving feedback and do discussions.

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Agreed but my question remains valid: why are they classified like this?
For mainly two reasons:

  • There is a character sheet with hero progression, so it looks like a RPG
  • Activate a “ARPG” tag enables these games to be in the same category as some prestigious games (Dark Souls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Witcher and recently the three latest Assassin’s Creed for example). These games are globally better known by the mass audience and it gives HnS a better chance to appear on recommendations and therefore to be purchased
    It’s a discussion I’ve had many times with my son. ^^
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Some of the suggestions were good, such as feeling ‘lost’ in the timelines, as a new player I do remember being lost for some quests and such, though it is better now, small cut scenes at important story breakpoints could be a welcome inclusion.

I agreed generally with the pathing system but personally I have not had this problem in a very very long time.

The other points to do with selecting a difficulty at the start of the game? I basically wholeheartedly disagree. At this stage, you have only a week since you bought the game, you have to have some humility to recognize that your general game knowledge is at an ameteur level, and thus your build power will likely also be at a lower level, hence your reason for experiencing difficulty. Making the game easier will just make the game way too easy for everyone else, instead you should look at others / build guides / streamers and seek to learn and improve yourself instead of requesting that the game become easier. Every death or struggle is an opportunity for improvement.

My first few characters in the game, while I started in hardcore, mostly beat the campaigns and did fine, but of coarse were lacking in every area (from gearing, to build optimization, to player mechanics, to knowledge of how to fight certain mobs) which is normal for a new player. Now, as a 1year veteran, I have builds that fly through the hardest content. I’m able to do some of the bosses almost blind.

Its something that comes with time and I think you should give yourself more time in that reguard to understand that. And in time you will find that you will improve and yet it wasn’t the game that became easier, but you yourself who ultimately rose to the challenge and improved as a player overall, which is part your personal player journey that makes the ARPG experience so enjoyable in the first place.

Just my 2cents.

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i’d like to add on to what you mentioned “artificial depth”. poe you can build countless builds but due to the endgame being very challenging, you would end up having to optimize your build thus killing off a large amount of builds.

sure you get 1001 builds but then the question is “is it viable”. as much as i loved poe and its humble beginings where it touted “you can play using any class using any skill”, it is now too focused on having optimized builds.

not to mention, in poe for life builds you are expected to get 150% increased life thats roughly 20-30 passive points at 5% per passive not including the travelling passive points. pushing your life to at least 5-6k HP is a requirement for most builds, even then its not really enough, 10k hp is needed to be more comfortable. the passive tree is a lie.

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