Yeah the effort required just doesn’t seem to fit the reward.
The devs need to balance the player’s desire for awesome loot naow(!) with the inevitable consequence of getting it quickly that they get bored & stop playing.
A 15% drop chance isn’t actually too bad, the drop chance for a Zod in D2 was 1 in several million, but that didn’t stop people from farming for it (dupes/cheats notwithstanding).
Yes, I think that there you have to go through too many monoliths to get to the boss. I’m ok with it being semi-random & I think the way they’ve done it (with an increasing probability the more monoliths you do) is good, though I agree that they could reduce the thresholds a bit. Probably somewhere between 1/2 and 1/4 after you have beaten the boss for the first time.
And I think that’s part of the problem, gamers today (myself included) want to have things a lot faster than they did “back in the good old days”. They (/we) are so focussed on the destination that we forget to enjoy the journey.
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I have 710 hours invested in Last Epoch since buying the game in late January.
The monoliths aren’t a journey. They are the same maps we’ve done over and over, with a couple quests injected in the cracks to give the illusion of variety. Monolith loot is uninspired, over abundant and worst of all unfiltered. Rare mobs aren’t particularly rare, challenging nor are they rewarding. Cleaning forges and destroying spires does not a journey make. Part of the reason they are so boring and so monotonous is that we are forced to do SO MANY. In any ARPG you’ve ever played are you not rewarded with a way point as you progress? Do you know of any ARPG that makes you start at the beginning of an act if you fail or simply want to kill the boss again?
I’ll say it again. 36 monoliths to get a 2nd crack at Rahyeh, and of course he drops another Atrophy (now I have two).
So we’ve come full circle. Guaranteed drops plus A multiple monolith barrier to get to each Boss. = a lack of desire to kill that boss again (aka boss farming).
I agree on that, nowdays it’s all about efficiency, and not the fun of playing said Games anymore. And in one Hand we complain Games get boring too fast, at the other Hand we aren’t willing to spent more time on a particular Game anymore either. Ironically if “grinding” is outsourced to Monetization, than people are okay with, even when by only playing / grinding it’s so overdone that you grind down your soul for specific stuff you want (look at Lootboxes and stuff).
I for myself are more the type of player who prefers you need to invest more time to get stuff, and not less, and i really hate it when stuff gets to overcasualized or pimped down to efficiency like people expect in Grim Dawn to have waypoints direct on Boss and stuff, and not running put of the Dungeons / Ways anymore.
Speak for yourself, that’s how you feel about stuff like that. For myself it’s part of the journey and the interesting part about doing Endgame and stuff. Not to mindlessly fight “Only” bossmobs over and over gain, but also running around and slaying normal Mobs as well which in a ARPG also can drop stuff.
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So you’d rather have a much faster turnaround on the boss but with a miniscule drop chance for what you want, which I understand because you have a lot more pulls of the slot machine even though your chances of getting the good drop are probably similar to winning on a slot machine.
I agree with you, they could do with making subsequent runs quicker, they could also do with adding more zones & more objectives so it’s less boring (for want of a better word).
I took journey. 9 characters, 710 hours. The first couple times it was fun.
I’m not suggesting the journey be shortened. But once you’ve completed the journey should you be forced to do it again?
We’re talking about boss farming.
Baffling that the notion of doing 30 monoliths to fight the boss…each time is being defended.
Because people have a different viewpoint to you, it’s normal. Some people enjoy playing Farmville, to me that’s incomprehensible.
At least we’re not going back and forth on what farming is anymore.
And just for the record… I didn’t rush through anything. I’ve put my time in.
You’d be really bad at ploughing 
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From my Viewpoint, yes it should be “forced” because this is how this Mode works. It’s not a Bossfight arena mode. If this is planned out as a Bossfight Arena Mode from the beginning, and they would add such stuff afterwards, than it would be a different topic, but this is meant to running this monoliths over and over again until you reach the boss, and shouldn’t be shortened and taken away from one type of players, only because the other type of players expect more of an bossrush kind of type.
Also i’ve to add:
One of the aspects, and consider i almost played it for like 12 years, which i found most boring in D2 were this Baalruns and stuff, only trimmed down to running the same boss over and over again and not playing with the enviroment anymore. I was quite happy when modern ARPG’s introduced Normal Rift (Diablo 3), Endless Dungeon (Torchlight), Mapworks (Torchlight 2) or roguelike dungeons / shattered realm (Grim Dawn) [and they also have stuff like crucible and now also totems which you find exploring the world, and Nemesis is also more exciting because it wasn’t on a fixed spot, but different so your running around the world anyway). I’m quite happy the go this route also with monolith.
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Mike,
Are you speaking from experience?
I ask because you have 32 hours played in Last Epoch.
'I’m quite happy the go this route also with monolith."
I was happy with the monoliths after 32 hours as well.
After you’ve put a couple 100 hours into the monolith I’d love to know if your opinion has changed.
You’ve got 900 hours in Grim Dawn, Do you think they should get rid of the way points? Make you start at the beginning of every zone or act to fight a boss?
Last Epoch
34 hrs on record
I’m not asking for a boss fight arena. I’m asking not to have to do 36 monoliths to fight a boss again.
Slightly stalker-y, but yeah. Making subsequent runs quicker by reducing the threshold for the quest echoes to spawn and ramping up the spawn chance a bit faster would be nice. Is it a slippery slope?
Edit: I’m also not sure that’s a wishlist rather than a store’s list of available SKUs.
The moment I read “From my Viewpoint, yes it should be “forced” because this is how this Mode works. It’s not a Bossfight arena.”
I suspected his play time was limited.
In POE, it takes about 30-50 maps to do one sirus. So it’s about even.
But I get where you’re coming from - monolith runs in between bosses just aren’t very interesting or rewarding atm. So while I agree what you suggest may be a solution. The devs may also be thinking about making monolith as a whole more interesting to run. So that there’s shorter term goals to achieve while working towards the next boss kill.
Well with Monolith runs now there are more things tied to it then just the item drops, there are also the perma-buffs. Maybe what they could do is once you unlock the next ‘region’, you can access the final boss again through a 3 or 4 echo ‘mini’ quest. BUT you don’t get the opportunity to upgrade or change your perma-buff. For that you’d have to run the gamut.
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I’m genuinely conflicted about this. Which means its probably reasonably balanced.
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