Not here to hate, just give feedback and suggestions because at core, LE has lots of potential.
I have seen players of LE drop off substantially and I also stopped playing. I reached end of monoliths 2 times (once in EA and once in release) and honestly that is all that LE has to offer (average player, which i think stats show that also). LE is basically singleplayer experience just like Grim Dawn, you clear to get empowered monolith and thats it.
I think LE is better than D4 and by quite the amount. But when you compare LE and D4 to the PoE, you cant even see the difference between the LE and D4. I think LE aims for average ARPG fan but i think they caught “normies” which drop off very soon and leaves ARPG fans hungry
I would like to share my thoughts to the dev team as to why I think this is the case.
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First thing, bosses. Bosses are the main drive for the player to play more. Bosses are content which is hard and you need to farm more to experience and finish that content. Player has goal for his grind and works for something. Monolith corruption is just some number you chase and means nothing to regular player. Only people that care about that are streamers for their YT video (I reached X corruption) and yes, there are people who farm for bigger corruption but very small amount of people. In PoE when you find shaper and then farm to actually beat the Shaper, it is very rewarding for the player.
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Complexity and rarity of items. Expensive items that make or break your build is what also drives players to play. Players want to beat the boss, they need that item so they farm to get the items and when they got them, they go to beat the boss. Very important concept. Items need to be obtainable but not easily obtainable. And what makes item desireable is not 5 hours of farming for item to have +20% crit chance instead of 15%, but build that changes their skills and makes you 2x stronge, like chaning your skill from fire to water. There are such items in LE but they dont seem as impactful.
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Trading and complex economics, this also ruins number 2 somewhat. My first problem is that you can’t sell items that you have bought, big no for me. People can say trading is broken because game is new but I think that at the fundamental level, trading is not fun. Trading is basically you trying to sell gear, get money fast and then buy gear that you want and not interact with the trading anymore. There is no much reason to interact with the market. More expensive items just mean you will have to farm longer for items you want. Again comparing to PoE because it really is benchmark for these things. In PoE you have so much venues to generate income, syndicate, delving, crafting, farming, div cards, flipping items, flipping currency, bestiary, corrupting, basically people choose 1 or 2 things and specialize, generate currency with that method by trading with other people and then buy what they need. They need to do that because gear is basically tiered and you buy gear for T16 maps, then you need to buy for bosses and then for strongest bosses. So there is always reason to trade because you always need more. And there is reward in mastering your profession, while crafting is harder in PoE, when you craft that bow and sell it for 2 exalts, you feel very rewarded. Also if you don’t know to craft and see 2 exalt bow, you feel admiration towards that person, how he crafted it and how you might one day do the same.
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Multiplayer. There is basically no multiplayer in LE, just coop. People want to feel accomplished and show that to other people. And trading in LE doesnt allow that, whole time you interact just with vendors and you dont see other players. 20m gold means nothing to you or anyone else. Trading in PoE is done in person, connected via online page auction or by global chat. You interact with other people and trade. Sometimes someone has item you want and then you talk about it, someone has build you want to have so you talk with them about it, or when trading for item, even if they are selling it for 100 chaos, they might be willing to sell it for 80 chaos, leaving both players happy and trade successful. Having 200 exalts means nothing if you nobody knows about it. There were times and interactions where I were giving money away and chatting with people. It feels good when you go to the other player and put 100 exalts in trade window for the item.
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Power fantasy. Skills in LE are very fun and it is very innovative thing in ARPG space, but they shine in mid game which is not very long time. Longest time spent in ARPGs is late game where you try to reach ceiling of your power. Ceiling for skills in LE is very low. I want to showcase this in comparison to PoE, in PoE tier 16 maps are quite unique and very tough for new players and new characters. But you manage to beat them and you need to farm them. You get strongest but also better and that content is not easy but not hard anymore. You know the power of tier 16 maps, they mean something. In LE you just have “monolith zones” which to me have no difference. All use the same pool of maps and seeing snowy map means nothing, it can be hard, it can be easy, it can be anything, you just have some number (level or corruption) which tells you how strong map is and you need to be really good LE player to know difference between lv 70 and lv 80 monolith. To me it was always the same. So the thing with PoE is that you know the power of tier 16 maps. Then you get even stronger because youre doing hardest bosses so tier 16 maps are now somewhat easy. You feel good because you know the struggles of that map and that boss. And you must do tier 16 maps because you need fragments but you rush them now. In LE they are all random, you just chase region blessings. And then ultimate what really makes difference in PoE, Headhunter. Pinacle of your farming. You farmed so much and now you can buy Headhunter. Tier 16 map is now nothing, you just rush the map and everything dies, youre so powerful and item is OP, but it doesnt matter, you need fragment to kill hardest boss, where Headhunter doesn’t mean anything, it is not OP where it actually matters.
Long text but I would like to see LE succeed. PoE has its own problem, game is quite bloated and sometimes too much to do but overall it is still the best ARPG on the market.