Game Becomes Incredibly Not-Fun After The Emperor...and other random thoughts

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OK diehard fans and people who think every game should be Dark Souls, you’re not going to like what I’m about to say.

I’m someone who plays games to relax and as a little older gamer I prefer easier games, as my twitch reflexes aren’t what they used to be. Up until the Emperor I was having a blast, playing my lightning blast sorcerer with his power steadily increasing. Then as everyone is well aware, as soon as you finish the Emperor and go to the divine age the devs apparently decided the game needed a BIG difficulty jump. (If I had had to guess I would say that used to be the endpoint of the beta and the “every game should be hard” crowd complained it was too easy). So I carried my ass back to town and reforged protections onto my gear where I could and swapped out my DPS idols for defensive stats.

Well that worked sorta…I was quite survivable in most fights…and it made every fight feel like a slog because I had traded away a huge chunk of my DPS. That was the beginning of the end for me and Last Epoch for now. But still I slogged on, I wanted to finish what I had left of the campaign. I trudged my way to the Isle of storms and tons of mobs that all felt like giant buckets of hitpoints, not fun. Onward down into the temple, more big buckets of hitpoints that aren’t fun to fight. Side note, why can mobs like those stupid land sharks get out of my buffed black holes so easily? So on I went to the Architect…yeah, I know, the death of many a player.

This fight isn’t fun. I’m sorry, it’s not. This big ass arena where she keeps teleporting around and you have to chase her to maybe get one or two pokes at her before she teleports to another corner. The whole time being shot by her and her adds from off screen. Then when you die, not only do you have to start the fight over, you have to fight your way back to her.

This leads into a more general opinion of many bosses. It seems the primary way used to add challenge is “more adds”, this is pretty unimaginative.

Trying to make the game “harder” and slowing progress is what killed the last ARPG I tried out, Wolcen. ARPGs should be about killing lots of things fast while farming, they aren’t meant to be like regular RPGs where you’re progressing linearly through a story where you are usually fighting a lot less stuff.

I know lots of people here like to trash Diablo 3, but in it’s current condition, I think D3 does a lot right. One of the top things being it’s difficulty system. You can start on “Normal” where you can look on the direction of mobs and they die. Then proceed up through “Torment XVI” difficulty where it’s much more of a challenge. You’re rewarded with higher drop rates the more you up the difficulty. Now I will concede that T16 tends to be fairly easy due to too much power creep, but Last Epoch can avoid this mistake.

EHG seems to be clinging to some older gaming concepts like areas having set levels. In my opinion there is a reason this is dying out in most RPGs, people don’t generally like being limited in where they can play in endless open games.

Last thoughts…levelling. The game has a max level of 100 out of the gate, not sure that’s a great idea as it gives less room to grow, but whatever. I’ve heard that EHG has made statements about slowing down leveling after launch, please don’t do that. I know it’s mostly to please the evangelical D2 fans who think painfully grinding to 99 is some sort of achievement beyond showing a willingness to grind for 10,000 hours. Last Epoch has a bunch of interesting classes and sublasses, but people will be less likely play alts if they all have some sort of endless grind in front of them to level cap them.

I guess that’s enough for now.

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The good news is the devs have said on numerous occasions that tweaking the rise is something they’ll do in time. It’s a beta right now so my guess is that this will come in the form off the earlier part of the campaign ramping up gradually a bit more so that when you get to act 7 you’ve been upgrading gear with a smoother difficulty climb so it doesn’t feel like you just walked off a cliff.

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That only addresses one of the issues, and in my opinion makes the problem worse, not better. It will just force players to trade their offense for defense earlier and make more of the game a slog. Again using D3 as an example, in that game you can go through the entire campaign on whatever difficulty you want and this carries into endgame. Then when you feel you are ready to up the difficulty you can do it yourself when you’re ready. You are rewarded with higher drop rates, also set items don’t start dropping until Torment I, which is like the 5th difficulty level.

EHG is clinging to an old and dying system in most games, areas of set level. The die hards and even the “every game should be Dark Souls” crowd will eventually regret supporting this themselves. What new goals do they have when they they’ve reached the end of Monolith of Fate content and can faceroll it? They can’t just bump up the difficulty for bragging rights, they’ll be here clamoring for more harder content that a small percentage of the player base will use. And that right there is one of the biggest problems with set difficulty areas, the harder they get, the fewer players will see the content the devs spent time and money on. It’s not unlike MMOs adding ever harder raids.

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When I read your post title, I thought you were referring to the Emperor Dragon that is the final boss of the new Monolith of Fate.

I’m an older gamer too, and have played every ARPG that exists. As far as campaigns go, Last Epoch is one of the more relaxed and forgiving experiences during the story mode. If you’re struggling with damage, then its probably a build problem. It sounds like you don’t mind a helping hand, so I would suggest reading a guide on YouTube to fine tune your character. Boardman21 posted his take on Foe’s Lightning Blast sorceror in the Mage forum and it’s really well done.

Monolith of Fate bosses and higher waves of Arena can get rough and feel “Dark Soulish”, but if you start to get worn down then roll an alt and get back to the story mode. This game will transition to end game content as time goes on, which means the story will likely be made even easier as it becomes something the playerbase would rather rush through.

It’s interesting to read posts about how the game is too easy for the top 1% and too hard for some with story content. I think its important for both sides to realize each other exists and the devs have to cater to both. So, in summary, use a guide, perhaps switch to a different class that might be more forgiving (Vengeance Sentinel) if you hit an impasse and try to enjoy the game knowing that a lot will change between Beta and Release (more classes, more balance, more gear options, more skill tweaks).

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There are definitely issues with difficulty progression in the game currently. The story doesn’t really set the player up well for what is coming next, and doesn’t promote crafting before it’s already too late and players are stuck with under powered gear. With that said, I think many of the issues you have are a matter of difference in how people like to play games in this genre. I think that’s fine, and input from those who prefer a Diablo 3 style game is good, especially if the devs can somehow find a way to accommodate a wider range of audience, while still sticking to their core philosophy. One thing I’ll take exception to, is your notion that certain gameplay elements in the genre are dying. The level 100 cap and difficulty of getting there is in the most popular game in the genre, PoE, and it doesn’t prevent alt play. Set levels is also in PoE. Both of these are also true for Grim Dawn, which is another very popular game in the genre. Also, I’m in the group that has been playing and supporting this game and thinks the new patch has made it a bit too easy. I also don’t enjoy the “Dark Souls” genre, and I’m not looking for that kind of experience, and I don’t think it’s a good analogy for other players like me. What most of us are looking for is aspirational content that is challenging in so far as it requires a well built character with good gear and some player skill to complete, and also takes some time to get to. The best analogy for this, in my opinion, is the uber bosses in Path of Exile, where only about 10% of all players will defeat all of the ubers during a league. Currently, players are able to go from the first boss in mono and defeat the highest level boss in about 4 hours. That sort of speed is the kind of thing that can cause players to become bored pretty quickly.

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I agree that the increase in difficulty going into the Divine Era is jarring. I think EHG could make the game slightly less rippy overall, tbh.

In my opinion they should make the difficulty start to ramp up more after the first monolith timeline (lvl 55). That way, players that enjoy more laid back gameplay can just spam the lvl 55 monolith until they are able to overpower the next tier–62. You can do that for as long as you want–nothing is stopping you.

But I do definitely want the game to challenge our builds. I very much enjoy having zones set to specific levels–you feel yourself getting stronger as you stay in the same timeline longer, but when you go to the next tier of timeline, you notice an increase in difficulty, and the process repeats. I am a fan of critically examining my build and my gear because I am dying too much. If you aren’t–that’s fine, you could just stick with level 55 monolith until you can overpower 62 and 68. Nothing wrong with that.

There is no real purpose–except for enjoying the grind–in hitting level 100 in LE, so I don’t see the problem that you have with it tbh. Many people–including myself–enjoy the long grind to 100. You don’t have to do it for your character to be “complete.” It’s like getting 99 in a stat in Runescape–you really don’t need it, but some people enjoy the grind. I consider this design philosophy to be enjoyable for some, and irrelevant for others (which is, in my mind, basically perfect.)

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Ha, ha,… tell that to the obsessive compulsive disorder crowd, that do NOT enjoy a grind bit want to collect every item and finish every achievement. :wink:

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I’m not sure how to respond to this :S. I just meant from the perspective of character power. The last 10-20 levels aren’t a huge increase to character power, since most of your character power comes from having good gear and a good build.

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No worries, I know you meant well :slight_smile:
Objectively speaking, there is no reason to continue to play this game for any amount of time or to reach any kind of objective, though finishing the campaign is one natural (though outdated nowadays) such objective.

But one needs to be careful with such statements, Everyone wants to reach the goals they set for themselves in the time thay are willing or able to put in the game. And, obviously, this is impossible, given the differences in time, skill and ambitions among the players. Making any kind of statements about what goals others should ‘need’ or be satified with, is dangerous (and often leads to people feeling insulted, even unjustly so).

One way of addressing this disparity in goals, is to follow the ‘multiple difficulties’ route, D3 does so well, as @Conundrum mentioned.

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I agree with most of what the OP says, and it deffinitely seems like there are two different visions for the game, depending on what we expect from it as players.

Its good that there are several threads in the forums about them.
Some people wanting some content to be exclusive to a small percentage of the playerbase, because they like the challenge, and another one that wants content to be easily available for everyone.

Its not easy balancing both sides , and I really hope EHG reads everything and decide how they want to develop the game.

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I want to address one thing in your post. Saying X is good because PoE does it and has a gazillion players is not nearly as valid a comparison as the PoE fans seem to think.

What does PoE cost to get access to all non-cosmetic content? Exactly, $0. All other notable ARPGs are buy to play and not free to play. You can attract people willing to put up with a lot when the cost is zero.

Now I’m not saying PoE is bad, but it’s not automatically right in it’s decisions because it has lots of accounts.

P.S. Speaking of accounts, how many of those accounts are played regularly? I wouldn’t be surprised if my account was considered active because logged in once a few months ago…but haven’t actually played in at least a couple of years.

P.P.S. Grim Dawn’s numbers Grim Dawn - Steam Charts

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Great response.

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You said the mechanics were dying. Yet it’s in two of the most popular ARPGs in the past decade. If you’re not accepting the premise that those are among the most popular modern ARPGs, then I’m not sure that there is a way that we could further this discussion. It’s pretty much universally accepted that those are considered among the best that the genre has to offer, and that PoE is the most popular by far. Should you need further evidence, you could check out PoE’s viewer count on Twitch, which would hopefully alleviate your worries about dead accounts.

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I see you ignored everything I actually wrote and didn’t counter a single point. You’re right, there is no discussion with you. Just you thumping your chest and saying “me right, you wrong”.

But if PoE is so great, why aren’t all you evangelicals playing it?

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I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ll let the discussion carry it’s own weight at this point and i wish you well in your search for the game that is right for you, be it this or another.

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Haha I love when people use this argument lol. For one how do you know the people here aren’t playing it? People can play more than one game you know. Or do you literally mean that because people are here posting about this game instead of currently playing PoE? Like you expect someone playing a game to never do anything other than be playing it 24/7.

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Because virtually no one is going to play 2 ARPGs at the same time long term. None of them are THAT different from each other. But by design they do require a large time investment. Are you investing that time twice (or more)?

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What you are saying is absolutely based on no reality.
Nearly half the PoE players are only playing a month each new season out the 3 it lasts even more if the player retention is bad. What do you think those players are doing during the 2 next months waiting for another season ?
I’ll give you an hint : they play other games and good chance they are playing other ARPG’s.

Sorry but you are just projecting you doings on everyone else.

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You say I’m projecting.

Do you have any proof at all for your assertions?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

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You are making an statement that NO ONE is palying more than 1 ARPG in the long term.

On what is based this statement if not of the projection of your own doings ? Or do you have a source to link us that proves your statement ? Has there been any scientific studies showing that ?

Otherwise sorry but you just pulled that out of nowhere.
In the last 6 months (which a reasonable time scale) I invested 200+ in 3 differents ARPG : PoE, Wolcen (not proud of that) and Last Epoch.

See ? You can totally do it.

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