This is so true, and its why the big companies are not allowed to do innovation. Why do it when you can just copy things that work? We really need some sort of laws that prevent th is sort of IP-theft, but until they we are stuck in this situation.
EHG does want to innovate, so thats a good thing. I was not recommending anything radical here the only thing i am worried about in the game atm is 1) clans 2) keys on dungeons and 3) Making LE standout better than others. Another “skinned version” of diablo will not bold well for le’s future.
Diablo has a larger player base due to having history to the name. If it attracts the casuals, so be it. Not that LE is hard to play, but the grind is made fun along the way with the crafting system. Many people are afraid of change (playing diablo for so long) or may just simply be aloof to other possibilities.
And truly we never know, D4 could bury Last Epoch… if they decide to include a basic loot filter, meaningful stat options on their items, and a skill tree rework.
Yeah I agree with you, but I don’t think it really should be called IP theft. One thing I think should Not be a thing in the industry is making a system, feature or mechanic only able to be used by that company (such as a patented or trademark or whatever it’s called). I feel that only will harm the industry instead of help it in the long run. I mean it’s called a genre for a reason.
No it does not… It has a larger player base because its a good game with good concepts backing it. The argument of brand loyalty does not hold water anymore, we can thank the toxic streamer culture for that.
As i mentioned above, there is belief that between d4’s upcoming changes and poe2, that might just happen. Which is why we need to fight hard to make le standout as a unique game. Everything is here. The quality is exceptional, it just needs some refinement.
I am not so sure that this is a good way to do things. IF every game is unique, it may be possible to generate huge amounts of innovation from that. Maybe there can be a middle ground “we all agree this should be shared universally” sorta like the unspoken rule that we have now. The problem is without a way to draw a line there will never be a reason to not just yeet something from another game and add it to yours, which means the investors will never approve of that innovation and creativity. Its very frustrating to designers like me.
Loot filters are often not a good idea. A lot of the stuff is client side in LE, in time we will learn there are massive security issues with the game. Wait a while until the hackers get a hold of learning that they can dupe/create broken items while playing online. This is something they undoubtedly are already looking into.
Loot filters are not a good thing because they generally cause game stability (lag) issues. And from a design perspective the entire intent of not having to look through gear is already not fulfilled, invalidating the entire reason of it being added. Adam and i had a convo about this a few weeks ago and we both agree making the stashes more efficient would be a better move.
Yeah, I think from seeing history time and time again. Companies get greedy the bigger they get. If they can trademark a system or mechanic. They will. This will hurt consumers that love a genre and developers that want to innovate.
Once a line is drawn, what’s stopping companies with cash to keep pushing that line in their favor. Nothing. For small creators it seems harmful. For players they get less similar games that they like. Nothing about this sounds good other than profit for the more wealthy of companies.
I do understand what you are saying overall and yeah I agree that it must be very frustrating to even deal with. I feel for you and developers in those situations. It must be tough.
Also I’m not sure what the right thing to do would be, this is obviously just my thoughts on the topic. I love talking Game Design btw. Can talk for hours haha
Sir, I’m 33 and have been playing the diablo name since it’s first release in 1997. Diablo 1 invented the genre, you cannot actually say that it doesn’t have history. Please don’t put out false claims just because it doesn’t match what you agree with. Brand loyalty will always be a thing, every other franchise game that spits out the same game year after year proves it (Battlefield, COD, every sports game). People will play Diablo because its Diablo. D3 took the genre in a more casual direction, and to be fair D2 was pretty casual as well (all top tier uniques and runewords become easy to acquire through trade and all offer top tier dmg and dmg reductions which make the game too easy).
Grim Dawn brought difficulty back into the genre by forcing the player to balance between defensive and offensive affix gains, having a baseline level of defenses to survive the Ultimate that aren’t automatically met with end-game items.
POE brought great options to a variety of end-game of grinds over the years of development (make a build, pick an end game that suits you).
LE is bringing the game forward with that same difficulty (here being to craft an item with your optimal defenses while trying to find/keep the offensive prefixes of choice), but with a customized difficulty setting (infinite corruption).
D3 / D4 is more cookie cutter, which I’m not saying is a bad thing, they just didn’t implement basic needs that the genre needed in order to pull it off (loot filter / optimal stash space at minimum).
All games have cookie cutter builds, even this game. Lets not pretend like LE is somehow exclusive of this fact.
Honestly, Le has really good foundational positions. Some class refinement and a few tweaks to other things as well as some core features like clans and it will be in a very good place. The problem is that even if/when it gets to that point, it wont offer anything unique…
We need to recognize that our love for the game as it is, can actually blind us to the truth and that can prevent the game from becoming even better than it is. So its healthy that we stay objective about everything in it and look at it with a balanced view (ie we dont fanclub)
The graphics are good, but nearly perfect score? Cmon, man. There are a looooot of visual bugs and horrible textures here. Lightning is good, yeah, with current graphics power it should be at least this good right? Some echo scenes just beautifull and pleasent to eye. But mane many aspects need work, like shadows, character placement on ground, movement animation, texture quality, few skills just plain and simple visualy. They made a lot of work on floor movements (vertical) in echoes in good way. Thanks for that btw, you don’t forget my request Grass is horrible like moving left-right not natural at all. Yeah I know thats not so important in arpg, but this is like 4/5 not near 5
Absolutely disagree with that. The lack of the keys is what killing games.
arpg game design is not a party play, but solo. But you should know it right? you are designer. So why do we should care about some “primal focal point of grouping and social iteraction”.
WHy you hate keys so match?
Simplification of things make them boring! Good example of removing books/scrolls of identification and teleport in diablo and removing flasks in d3. Just one of many examples how you can destroy the feeling of game. What next, auto-level to 100?
Sorry about third post. Diablo already lost. They most successfull game was created by another people. What we see now is total garbage for masses and making money. D4 ui was brougth from another game concept, paragon points mechanic half stolen from Allodes Online mmorpg (they made it waay before d4 released), the graphic is horrible in color way and the game just boring. Last Epoch have own good points and unique mechanics, just fix bugs, optimize and move on, we are alright here. There are plenty of work to do.
I have yet to see them (not saying they dont exist). Bugs are normal so i wont discredit them from the odd-ball issues. We have to keep in mind there is a mix of old and new graphics and the old ones are being updated. PPE effects like bloom are in some scenes but not others. Iv noticed these small things but they are likely just older assets/scenes that need to be touched up.
The more important points of this score was because high graphics limit population values, and the majority of the 5 points (at 3) was given just for this simple point which is so important.
This question is very easily answered by another question. “why did le’s population bloom at launch and not before?”. The answer if you think about it will be due to the online mode, which is the reason people bough the game. Think about it, if streamers said “this game that is for city building is great” will you buy it if you dont like that genre? This strongly suggests that this condition (ie social interaction) was the one in the genre they were looking for other wise they would of bought the game years ago.
This is a very complicated topic and its not so much about keys, as much as it is to what they keys are tied to. Dungeons and base level pvp (like battlegrounds) are the meat, not the filler of an online service. Limiting or preventing access to them undermines the very reason to do any form of social interaction.
If that was not clear think about the logical process that people follow for the majority of mmo/online services. “dungeons! im gona grind them because they have great loot and xp in any game” is the go to thought process of people.
Like set items (green and called sets), dungeons should not of been designed in a way that they mimic the other games variants of concepts that are intuitively accepted and expected to be a specific way. Keys are not bad because they are keys, they are bad because they stop interaction both in early game and late game. Sets are not bad, but the fact they were designed with the name sets and the same colors as diablo confuses people because it rubs against the industries standard.
IF the intent is for dungeons to be exclusively end-game i would highly recommend the team removes “dungeons” from their names and distinguishes them from that content. Just as i recommend sets be another color and called something other than sets. This way the social expectation can push for dungeon content (as in the industry standard) and fulfill that social interaction (which was the purpose of buying this specific game at this point in time).
At the moment the keys are fairly common, And from what I understand they’re quite rewarding. In order to limit being rewarded more than usual I can see a use for gating via Keys.
But I do understand that If the key’s were more rare than they currently are that could certainly cause some friction with the mechanics. Especially the way POE handles keys where you needed 4 different types of the key to open the portal. Leading to things where you could never farm enough keys to run the maps. So you would buy them from other players (I really despise this part of that interaction the most)
Back in GunZ the duel days. We would have to farm lower content to get the Boss items to fight the higher level bosses. And the drop rates were not always so kind.
And once you completed or failed the Boss dungeon you would have to start from zero again usually.
But you could not trade these Boss summoning items. But it would get players together to share their boss items, I would place Boss item 1 and another player would place the other and we could open the dungeon together. In that way it fueled social interaction via the lack of marketplace transactions.
I believe another method could be used to gate the content so that you could not spam it to infinitely run more profitable content while not having the friction caused by key farming. But as I said currently the drop rates are very generous I think.
If I said anything incorrect I apologize as I have not fully interacted with all the dungeons.
No one is challenging the key access late game, but that is long after the initial thought process is invalidated. This is destructive to “setting an example” or “habbit” that makes social interaction something that has to be worked against (ie you need to push yourself to do it), and thats not good for first impression or late game social interaction.
online mode != mmo most peoples don’t play in party, we can try to request this statistics from developers. But I am pretty sure it is. Do you need other players to iteract with? Yes, thats great. Do you need them to slay monsters together? No, not in this genre. Thats why I am telling you, arpg dont focus on party play, you can complete all contetnt alone. And thats why you don’t need to focus on party play. Well, that would be great to see some mmorpg with arpg loot and gear mechanics, but it’s entirely different thing and not gonna happend. Because it’s to complicated for most peoples.
Grass is horrible like moving left-right not natural at all. Yeah I know thats not so important in arpg, but this is like 4/5 not near 5 