Honeymoon phase is over. So what’s your take on the game now?

General
122

Well I wouldn’t say 0/10. Because I think it has potential.

But yeah that part hits hard. Class balance is awful in this game. And yeah I can’t believe they released this game with some classes having alpha level designs compared to the recent ones.
And yeah Le’s loot is boring. Never once do I get excited about drops.

That is my one knock on EHG’s. You can tell how inexperienced they are about releasing the game with some classes so poorly designed. This game still feels like in early access.

I would give it a 6/10. I enjoy it. But there are glaring issues. And I fear EHG’s will take too long to address them

123

My friend, the problem here is that ward items DOMINATE the game, there is only ONE tiny set of EQUAL items used by two builds to dominate the game, it is not only clearly superior, they are DETERMINISTIC. This game has the WORST equipment progression of ALL the ARPGs I’ve ever seen, and being worse than D4 is an achievement, even there you still clearly see the progress, here you can play for months without seeing anything new, or just trying placing an attribute on copies of the same item.
You can craft but not that much, since the stats that REALLY matter t6-t7 can’t be crafted… and worse than that I see that this is the direction of this game, I predict that it will become irrelevant before S4
I myself won’t go back unless they drastically change the defenses and fix the boss fights to make them CLEAN and interesting and not a scavenger hunt to dodge little red marauders on the ground.

1 Like
124

Just briefly chiming in again. I appreciate your post, already responded. Followed it, watched it descend into the usual cesspool of people beating their egos against each other as if their overall sense of self is dependent on besting people opinion-wise on gaming forums.

OI.

Thanks for the original thought, sorry about the rest.

2 Likes
125

Careful… knowing EHG it’ll probably be more RNG with a chance to remove one of the core affixes, turning your Unique yellow lol… too soon?

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126

I could get on board with that. I put in 110hrs before stopping so I can’t complain there. One of the things I wished was implemented (and this is my fault) is specialization swapping. I had assumed that you’d be able to switch at some point and went Sorc on my Mage. I always liked the traditional spell slinger, but when I started looking up builds, I could find very few. I could however, find a ton of Runemaster builds. They are so far and away better than Sorc it was comical and was a real downer.

You could argue that you should play for fun, and that’s a fair point. But if you play primarily with friends, as I do, and one class is so busted that it renders you useless to the point where you just sort of follow your friends around echos while one overtuned death-stick kills everything, that takes all the fun out of it for me. For them the screen is exploding and it’s fun, for us, the game is now a glorified walking simulator.

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127

Yeah rune master and sorc is a night and day difference. I decided to level a sorc after my rune master to see how it plays and how it’s designed. And man sorc is horriblly design wise compared to rune master. Lol

128

Yeah, the new classes have neat interactions and passives. The older ones are outdated in relation to that feeling. I expect they will revamp them eventually to feel more like them, but I was personally a little disappointed when their Shaman revamp didn’t do that much.
I hope they will still tweak it and add those nice interactions the new classes have, but I was actually expecting them in 1.0. And the fact that it didn’t happen makes me think that it will still be a long time until they are all up to par.

129

I would love to see a roadmap from EHG to know where their head was. I think we’re clear on focus for 1.1, the end-game boss system (which I personally don’t care about given the state of itemization).

Where are they headed after that? I personally would like combat to be more crisp and consistent (example; there are times i can click two skills quickly in succession and they both fire, most of the time I need to double click the second skill). To do that, I’m guessing they need to upgrade to a newer version of Unity.

2 Likes
130

Last Epoch is a teadious buggy mess.
Starting a new character has never felt wors in an ARPG.
Still there is enjoyment to be found here.

1 Like
131

This is my list, the best to the worst:

SUPER) the loot filter
really great) Crafting, really good one, also the affixes are pretty good
great) the transparency of the developers and the processes that lead to the various decisions, whether agreeable or not
great) A lot of different builds viable
very good) A good and smoth gamplay, even if not every time and with some edges that need to be improve
good) the graphic it’s decent, but maybe by 2/3 years from now will become a bad point
Meh) the balancing intent of the devs, not everytime explained well, but the intention is good
bad) the unknown about the future, and about the innovations that can be included in the various cycles, especially hearing only the intent of pinnacle bosses, not something i’m really looking for as the main change for a new cycle;
more bad) the uniques, i don’t know how to say it, but they are simply a mess, a lot of unique with stats that don’t are coherent each other, a lot of great uniques for specific classes, the newest ones, but almost garbage ones for other classes, ando to many useless unique in general, they are a lot, but if ober 50% of them are usell i don’t see the point to have them;
really bad) the whole system of the game about the loot, this is mainly my problem, not playing the MG, and not want to play dozens of alt, i really don’t like to get millions of loot with gear that aren’t from the class i play in that particular moment, a lot of useless affixes on good gears, a lot a useless uniques from the phropecy that are not for my class, all this time of things;
really bad) the CoF, i don’t know for what reason we can’t get some phropecy that help with the uniques from the bosses, the MG can buy them, so the guild provide a huge help with them, but the CoF no, for boh, and also a more specific targetable item and affixes;
really bad) the classes balance, you can insta guess who are the older ones and the newest ones, not a good insight, and so also the clear umbalance of them
almost garbage) the performance are really bad for some reasons, on my steam deck and on my PC for some reason a similar game as Diablo 4 runs much better, some times simply it’s getting a lot laggy for no reason;
GARBAGE) the alt system, there is no point to redo all the things as mission for passive points, idols slot, main quest, you can say what you want, but there is no way that the actual system is better that on as for example this: with the first character you do all as now, but with the others you will have from the start all the idols slot, all the quest related passive points, and all the waypoint unlocked, so with the 15 passive points, the idols slot, we can make from the start a decent character, also with the loot gained with the first one, and start to push if i want a area with a level for example of 20, and be free to jump to various areas, i really don’t get how this can be worst that the actual system, you will still make and feel the development of the character, but with not tedious limits.

1 Like
132

I played some beta, and have 450 hours since launch. I’ll put my take in point form; positive and negative. Then, my suggestions last.

Positive:

  • atmosphere, story are on point.
  • class fantasy is generally good. Most classes feel like I would imagine.
  • loot filter is great
  • basic endgame loop is good. Repeatable, scaling, clear to understand.
  • item drop rate is overall good.
  • basic crafting is fantastic.

Negative:

  • needs to be an adventure mode of some kind. Being involved in story on multiple playthrough is tedious.
  • Legendary crafting is punishing to the point of being unfun and draining.
  • the factions are bad bad. Massive disparity between CoF and MG which impacts crafting and overall enjoyment
  • game performance. Cmon now…memory leak, connection issues. It’s pretty bad.
  • class balance issues are actually so egregious that some classes are nearly unplayable if you have any interest in meaningful endgame. Also, why make mastery’s unchangeable if you will leave half of them unbalanced and terrible.
  • shards everywhere. Clicking the button :sob:. Negative gameplay loop.
  • defenses that aren’t ward feel meaningless.
  • group play is not optimized. I wanna do endgame with friends and the stability system hinders me. WHY!?
  • character appearance…they all look the same. Gear all looks the same. Transmog plz.

Suggestions:

  1. Balance your classes and systems…enough of this “no balance during cycles” nonsense.

  2. Make passive and idols points from subsequent playthroughs available from monoliths. Why do I need to do story. I’ve seen it.

  3. Add a/some Gauntlet timelines to fight superior versions of existing bosses. A la, Ubers/Pinnacle content

  4. Give an actual reason to push beyond 800 corruption other than ego. Incremental corruption gain and shade of orobyss loop is pretty tedious and boring. Perhaps #3 as an additional way to boost corruption. Something!

  5. QoL changes quickly. Shards, respec all points, gear appearance editor.

3 Likes
133

Yeah like top streamers aren’t just one giant echo chamber.

134

Honeymoon phase is over, however LE and I are still very much in the dating phase free to see other ARPGs and maintaining separate living spaces.

I don’t see the major issues getting fixed for at least two more cycles so I’ll see you and others in cycle four probably.

135

Amen.

I don’t know how EHG imagines balancing their game. Every couple of months, dropping 20 pages of patchnotes of untested changes in one fell swoop?

You’ll be long married to PoE2 by then. Probably,

3 Likes
136

Considering that GGG announced releasing PoE2 as early as 2020, I wouldn’t hold my breath. I don’t expect it to be ready before summer 2025, though I’d think 2026 is more likely. LE will be past cycle 4 by then.

137

I am starting to miss the AAA polish in the moment-to-moment gameplay that I am used. For instance, the combat responsiveness and the character movement. There is no skill queuing, traversal skills do not cancel animations when you want to move out of the telegraph, and the character feels floaty and shuffles while holding a mouse while moving.

I find moment-to-moment gameplay somewhat more important than the systems because if I do not enjoy combat/gameplay the in-game systems can be the greatest ever and I would not care.

I know EHG is working on some engine update but I am not sure if these things will be addressed.

1 Like
138

That’s funny. I was just literally thinking about that. At this exact moment I’m playing a healing hands divine bolt paladin and while divine bolt is somewhat flashy, it really lacks in responsiveness, feel, and sounds effects. And then smite. You’re raining down these beams of light from the sky, you would expect like this crashing down sounds and explosions when hitting the target. Instead, it’s just “thud-thud-thud thud thud…”

For how much I do like this game, the moment to moment gameplay is what is preventing me from loving it. If my classes felt amazing, sounded amazing, I wouldn’t mind the echo grind. Because the moment to moment gameplay would feel good, but currently it doesn’t and so echoes get boring super fast.

That’s why d4 is currently my favorite arpg. Even when the systems aren’t great, the combat is absolutely amazing. It flows, feels super responsive, animations are great, and the sound effects are the best in any arpg.

1 Like
139

Some skills/builds are better and some are worse but there is a lack of polish with gameplay in general such as:

  • There is no skill queuing so if I am in the middle of the animation of one skill and I am at the same time pressing another skill, it does not register and I have to press it again when the animation ends.
  • Character movement feels floaty. The ambient conclusion/shadows introduced in 1.0 helped very slightly but it is FAR away from perfect. I did not experience this in Path of Exile or Diablo IV, maybe a little bit in Grim Dawn which is pretty old.
  • Lack of animation canceling on traversal skills

A lot of players here will tell you that gameplay, combat, or character movement feel is good enough already and they want to see new uniques before anything else but new players who will try the game do experience combat and if it’s not on par with games like Path of Exile 1-2 or Diablo IV, they will quit before even reaching empowered monoliths let alone care about how many uniques are there.

As you said, Diablo 4 has no competition in moment-to-moment gameplay in terms of responsiveness, animations, and feel. Yes, there is a lack of complexity in D4, I myself quit the game in S2 but I am going to give it a second chance with S4, and if they keep improving the systems, GG. And then there is Path of Exile that from what I’ve been told is even better graphically wise than D4.

1 Like