I see this has been posted before but the main post was from nearly a year ago. I am coming to the game from Diablo 3/4 and with the Last Epoch 1.0 release. As a new player but a veteran in the ARPG category, 15 classes is an extremely exciting and enticing marketing piece! They are cool and unique, the skill system is so good and thorough I would even want multiple characters of the same class with completely different loadouts. However, playing the campaign 15 times at 12 hours a piece (180 hours combined) is quite an inhibitor to class exploration.
I see the alternate leveling paths with dungeons which are a good idea. However, they are simply too difficult (unless you have a previous class fully built and supplying gear) for newer players and are frankly quite clunky as an alternative, especially with how side quests unlock power progression.
I suggest, as have others, just an Adventure Mode that is activated through an NPC after receiving your Mastery (the questline up until the Mastery selection is a reasonable length). The activation of Adventure Mode could be irreversible to give it some weight. It should only be available if the account has beaten the campaign previously on another character (or just make it available regardless and let the player decide what they are playing for) and it should unlock all waypoints (or at least major waypoints) and then also unlock a lower leveled tier of the Monolith that gives the additional Passive Points and Idol Slots as you progress through the Monolith.
I love how much EHG listens to and values the community, it is refreshing and the game itself is truly fantastic.
Dungeons already work as campaign skips.
And you have more quests that give you passives/idols than you need, so you can select which ones you want to do.
And the devs already said they were going to balance dungeons to make this easier.
And the devs already said they were going to implement other ways to get the passives/idols without using campaign.
And there are already a buttload of threads about this. The âmainâ post, as you call it, may be a year old (donât know if itâs closed or not), but there are many many more from these past 2 weeks.
You donât need to do the entire campaign, even without any dungeon skips and only doing Chapter 1-Chapter 7(minimum necessary to get all passives and idols) it will take 3-5 hours with a little bit of pratices. And we are still not talking âspeedrunningâ.
I appreciate your clarification (and cadence) but would I still have access to the CoF Prophecy Room and Bazaar without getting to Act 9? I know I will still be in the faction but would the waypoint to go and buy prophesies be locked?
Also the time to get through Act 7 for me has been much longer than 5 hours (more like 9/10). I will take your word for the timing though and research the fastest pathing then.
For secondary characters with the dungeon skip mechanic itâs 2-3 hours, yes.
Youâll skip over to Act 9 mostly, only having to do a few side-quests, hence accessing that area directly. Also Act 9 itself is 20 minutes or so, worthwhile to do because of the stat boost at the end⊠but not needed.
At your first character youâll obviously take a lot longer, but with growing experience and knowledge where stuffâs happening itâll turn down by a lot.
Not to speak of the devs actively working on streamlining the skip-mechanics a bit more.
Also take into consideration that these types of games are meant to be played over several cycles, not a single one. 2-3 classes per cycle at most can be expected from a player, everything beyond that is excessive time investment already for the vast majority of people.
Itâs made this way to allow higher retention times, leading to having a fresh experience whenever you return again.
And no, you donât need to experience the whole content at once and in as little time as possible, enjoy the ride, isnât it better if it lasts longer with enjoyment behind it after all?
Thatâs fair, you bring up a good point in the cycles. I forgot they are doing that. I look forward to the more streamlined dungeon mechanic. Until then, I will just enjoy the ride. I am just eager to get to the âmeatâ of each class but youâre right, there is no need to Blatt through to it. The game not going anywhere lol.
To be honest this way of Argumentation didnât help your point at all. Quite the opposite.
The character and build you play comes together super quick in LE, so much so that you have a fully functional build for the most part within the first 1-2 hours. Even If one of the skills you plan to use comes extremely late in progression e.g. 30 points into the mastery it will maybe take 3 hours.
"getting into the meat of the character is one thing that LE does better than any other aRPG.
Argumentation is a poor word as my previous reply was a concession, the rest of your point after that is irrelevant to the core of what my post was getting at.
Dude, thank you! This is the best reply and the only one to actually understand what I was even posting for. I am only mad that your post did not show up when I was searching for similar posts prior to making mine. You said it much better than I did anyways.
Campaign is maybe 5-10h the first time, on your alts you can skip most of it and do it in a couple of hours - the campaign brings the game together, and i honestly think the entire game would lose its soul if u were able to skip campaign. So hopefully this is never gonna be an option, D4 lost its soul after removing the campaign aswell, it was the only thing they had done well in the game.
First time I did the dungeon skip, it was very fast, even under 3h. My advice - just donât do the Lightless Arbor (first available skip), for me itâs too much of a hassle at very low levelâŠ
Luckily there is an easy solution to this: you continue playing the story with every alt because you want it. And everyone who doesnât like to play the story 10 times can just skip it.
In general, Iâve seen this in this forum quite a few times. Someone suggests something, an improvement or an alternate way of doing things, and people are like âooooh no, it ruins the game, just play it the game as I do and you donât need to change anythingâ. I mean seriously? Only because some people are happy with the story it doesnât mean that everyone else has to too.
And now comes the shocking surprise: when offering alternate ways of doing things, NO ONE has to change their style of playing. You like the story? Play it. I donât like it, so I skip it. Why do people always have to vote against something they donât have any disadvantages from? Just donât try to force your opinion to other people, just accept that there are multiple ways of doing things and those multiple ways can be parallel to each other without any interference, and everyone is happy.
That is completely your opinion nothing else and you used a key word in your post: âoptionâ meaning you donât have to use it. Why restrict other people? I have more than 1200 hours in this game, done the campaign at least 15 times and would love the opportunity to skip it. I donât get why you people want to stick up for the game the way it is? Other options are always a good thing. It harms no one and you can always play the campaign if thatâs your personal desire.
I think discussions would be better served if we could avoid that argument. Not âhaving toâ use it doesnât mean itâs better for the option to be there. Often times itâs better not to give the option. Would the game be better if you had an option that you can activate and deactivate at will to triple the amount of loot, or to make your character invulnerable? Itâs just an option after allâŠ
Plus, games tend to evolve to take into account that you are likely to use the available options, making them not so optional in the end.
Iâm sorry but that is a ridiculous analogy. Many other games of this type allow you to skip the campaign after you have completed it at least once. None of them offer a âtriple the lootâ option. Lost Epoch is simply behind the times in this regard
