I love the idea of having a difficulty level that slows down wind up times - This way the game can be enjoyed by more types of players.
I play these games mostly for the strategy element (which combination of items and skills will allow me to use this off meta skill?) As a result, I need there to be these mechanical challenges (to highlight a poor synergy build), but I do not get the same thrill from them as the next player, and I certainly do not need the sheer volume and repetitiveness of them.
For example, this game loves wind up AOE ground effects. So we, the player, learn to avoid these to not die. Then we have to avoid 10 of them to kill the next rare monster. Then we want to challenge the next boss, and we have to fight through 20 monolith runs, each with 10 rares, so now we have learned the skill of dodging an AOE ground effect, and been asked to use it 2000 times before we can test out our build vs the next mecahnically difficult mega-boss fight. Did we really need to spend so much time to reach the next boss?
By this stage, players who are loving it are not learning anything, and certainly not testing their mechanical skills. They have an algorithm they are repeating, and they are grinding it out to find powerful items or gain XP or make the next area.
I, who have tired of the grind, simply stopped caring about what the next boss fight might be, and never even try it. In this case, it is not gated behind mechanical difficulty, it is gated behind grind (work).
So I encourage you to add another dimension to this discussion:
âReducing the grind makes mechanically difficult fights more appealing.â
Hey⌠interesting topic⌠Is LE mechanically too difficult?
Short answer IMHO: No. Well, maybe for some.
Long answer:
Speaking to your OP regarding Bosses specifically. All games have a learning curve and I am not referring to that part of the game as a âmechanical difficultyâ.
I feel that the progression of the difficulty wrt. bosses & mobs could be adjusted better into more of an even curve that âhockey sticksâ into end-game.
At the moment, and in some ways expected for an EA game where balance is still being worked out, there are some steep cliffs to climb with regards the bosses (end game & campaign) and even certain mobs during the campaign for lower lever characters.
These cliffs are positive for some and frustratingly annoying/rage enducing for others. Personally I have no problem with these âcheck pointsâ as I see them as nice baby challenges that make me re-evaluate my build and skills and I suspect that a lot of the people on the forums (experienced arpg fans) are likely to feel the same as I do. I love a good challenge in arpgs and I have no problem banging my head against a boss until I figure out how to kick his/her/its arse.
The problem is the newer gamers who dont have thousands of hours of understanding how these kinds of games work (sometimes good/sometimes bad) and I can 100% understand how annoying it could be for them vs a more predicatable progressive increase in difficulty.
âModes of playâ ala Hardcore etc could address this in single player, but it will be hard to apply the same in MP.
IMHO both difficulty curves are fine, but its how the user base interprets it that is the real issue - for me at least.
Hmmm there is one good recipe for success: Just play it veeery save untill know what the boss does and then start to fight and get more and more aggressive.
For Example: First time I encountered a big skeleton that throws a Soul Spear some time in the past I was hammering it like I was braindead and died from the skeletons attack⌠revived⌠and died again becaus i was rezzed in the flight path of said spear. 1 in a mill chance maybe who knows but i never died to said enemy again since then.
I donât think LE bosses are to hard I think LE bosses take more time to get used to.
Maybe adding something to better learn bosses mechanics(especially for hc/hcssf),like at the end of the story mode having a âpractice roomâ via Cronomancer that let you choose to fight vs a boss(no death,no exp,no reward) and/or a boss rush like 2d platform,starting from the first boss then ramp up until emperor(death/reset on sc,reward can be a random item boss only drop or a random blessing)
But wouldnt you like the reward of killing the actual boss? Yes, its a slog to run the MoF again just to get to the boss, but thats sort of the point of these kinds of games - loot/xp etc⌠So practising may help learn the boss, but all that effort for no reward or progression seems counterproductive to me.
I challenge this assumption. Where is it written? Where is the praise for any game because it is a âslogâ? The truth is that many people will put up with a slog, embrace it, even (if they have investment bias). Developers have a lot of incentive to provide no alternative to the slog, because it is an easy way to make a short game seem longer, to make a small development effort stretch further and it is an easy measurable to balance a game around (how long will players spend to reach a goal?). But The true point of an ARPG, according to the definition implicit in the genre is to provide action and roleplaying - neither of which are remotely linked to slogging out repetitive monoliths.
Good post. I like the suggestion of adding mechanics in harder/empowered timelines.
Right now, I do not think itâs too hard or too punishing. What do you lose getting killed by Lagon? Lost exp, repair costs, a long run back brawling through hordes of boring trash again? Nope, just try again, learn 2 mechanics and that resistances arenât useless.
Well, ârush modeâ can be similar to Mof in some ways,like:end of 1 first rush(no modifier,just bosses as they are)-> 1 random item/blessing.second rush(choose 1 or 2 modifier)->2 items/2 blessings.Third rush etc etc just giving random example and numbers.
Well, sure you can challenge this assumption⌠IMHO, action role playing games are a bastardised mix of three entirely different types of games⌠hence the âsort ofâ in my statement⌠Roleplaying games like Witcher 3 /Skyrim for example have all the role playing and much less emphasis on gear and skill builds etc⌠Action games like Fortnite/CoD dont give a crap about anything other than pew pew from start to finish⌠Then you throw in DnD style games with the skills / gear and rolls and things get really complicated.
So with this hybrid, mix of things one of the primary things that I feel exists in games like LE/PoE/D3 etc is the fact that you run maps, defeat bosses, pick up loot, gain Xp and use this to improve your char to be able to run more difficult maps, then rinse repeat in what is inevitably a repetative cycle⌠at the core of it, what else do you do in LE? [EDIT: sure its under a overall storyline but thats about all the roleplaying component]
For devs its to keep content coming - i.e. more creative maps, harder bosses, better gear and more skills - fresh so that this repeative cycle continues before people get bored and move elsewhere.
If thats not what a person likes to do then this kind of game arpg is likely to be not for them.
When I met Lagon first I died something like three or four times in a row. As Iâm usually a poorly skilled player, I wondered if I was the right player for this and if I should give up. Then I read comments here about how to fight Lagon: get some resistances and learn the fight. I did one more try and it was a success.
Same thing with the Abomination, that was a shock because it was a difficulty raise compared to previous echoes. And hero after hero, the Abomination is still a kind of pain, because you have to tank him while destroying the vessels. Now, I have defeated all pre 0.8.1 timelines, so up to the Emperor of Corpses. I think the Abomination may be the most difficult boss of all.
Boss fights a mechanical, yes. And in my opinion, it is very well done and tuned. The game is not âclick then skill 1 twice then skill 3 then click then restart the sequenceâ, you must observe and adapt, but everything is telegraphed and understandable. I think itâs the right level of mechanical.
My only regret is sometimes the loss of echoes. When I met Lagon 80 first, I died (I made an error). I wanted to fight again, but I couldnât because of the echoes lost. I would have like an option to replay the fight instantly, instead of having to replay a bunch of echoes. I understand it can be useful to lose several modifiers, but instant retry also seems to be a nice feature.
As a conclusion, I feel the game is globally fair. It has a very good balance between difficulty, variety of threats and ways to manage all that. This very good balance is one of EHGâ, biggest achievements with this game!
I personally think its fine as it is. But it could be an good idea to give boss some debuff each time you fail a boss that resets on you killing them. The debuff could do things like either lowering their dmg, health or slowing their telegraphed attacks, so for people who fail at killing the boss have it slightly easier the next time they attempt the boss.
Oh, you want more? Iâve died to several of the bosses the first time I came to them but once I learned the mechanics Iâve not had any problems with them, even with objectively bad builds. After following the advice of my esteemed raid leader (stay out of the #### Llama, dead DPS do no DPS you ####ing muppet @Bax) & learning the mechanics, even watching some videos first to learn the fights. So I think that the normal mode monolith fights are in a good place for ânormalâ players & hopefully the empowered ones are in a good place for higher-skilled players.
I donât think itâs too mechanically difficult.
Some things take time getting used to, but if youâve played multiple ARPGâs then the mechanics should be okay to get used to.
Not saying that some boss fights are easy, they can be difficult, but theyâre not impossible.
Iâm happy as things stand at the moment. I would not call myself an expert gamer and I am nowhere near the ranks of the ahem more âeliteâ players (I am pushing 60 now so everything is starting to slow down!!!), but I play all the current ARPGs and I really think Last Epoch is well balanced and has an acceptable learning curve when it comes to MoF boss mechanics.
I die to bosses, sometimes more than once or twice (!), but I get there after a few attempts, and speaking personally, I would much rather feel the satisfaction of fist pumping the air and shouthing âYESSSSSâ after a boss fight, than just shrugging my shoulders and saying âOK another one down, on we go yawnâ
I can understand new player frustration too, but seriously I donât think just making the first one or two bosses easier is the right way to go - as others have said here, there is a lot of resource online for the game, a lot of experienced players with some good tips and advice, and that can often help if you feel you are hitting a brick wall. If there were something OP in the campaign that was preventing progress, I would agree it may need to be looked at, but we are talking about end game now, and I do think that most players want to be stretched a little by that stage.
I think a lot of issues and concerns like this may well disappear once Multiplayer is dropped in, and people can buddy up. I remember also failing at the firt MoF boss several times, and I hadnât realised for the first couple of attempts what I had to do FIRST, until I realised I had already seen similar structures in the campaign earlier
TL;DR The Devs have done amazingly well with this game, everything feels pretty much just right, the balance is great, there doesnt seem to be any one class that is overpowered, and the bosses can sometimes be a pita and take a few attempts at, but overall I think the difficulty is sitting nicely dead centre
no, the fights arenât too difficult in my opinion.
You want a bit of a challenge otherwise its just another walking lump of exp and items.
Bosses are always hardest the first time you come across them but soon enough theyâll be easy, that said this is an ARPG and shouldnt go too far down the line of complicated, multi-phase bosses that require specific builds or combinations (for when there is MP) and I think all the content should be casual friendly in the end.
This is a hacknslash ARPG not an MMO raid afterall.
and @Llama8 iâve seen you play this game, you still stand in crap a lot but glad you learnt somethings after years of me badgering you in raids!
and in terms of mechanics i think thats about the right point - after you know a fight and have the right build you can stand and face tank it a bit but that first time you come across a boss youâre not likely to do that.
It also depends on the character and build youâre running. Mechanics should make a fight different from just trash but not stop normal players from enjoying the game and seeing the content.
Lets not see content locked behind âhard modeâ fights
Also, to chime in. I am a pretty low skill player myself and have found the damage mechanics for players to be so generous I have a lot of wiggle room with defense stats. With some of these Lich builds out there you can really tank a lot of damage to the face. I have a much harder time in PoE.
Its interesting this topic came up, I havent played LE in a while and havent seen any of the recent bosses and currently playing PoE - they just released a new boss and one of the mechanics is a memory game to step on tiles in the right order and if you screw up you basically die extremely fast
In the final phase of fight you have to do the memory game while rotating laser beams spin around and if you get hit you take damage and lose all form of recovery for 10 seconds, while there is also potentially patches of degen on the ground that slow you, she does the memory game multiple times in the fight - took me about 5 tries to get better at it - its actually stupid and has no place in an aRPG but you just get over it and learn to win but I am the type of person who isnt going to be defeated by a game boss by giving up
The bosses in LE are easily able to be countered with certain defences, most you can just life steal through all their shit. I only had an issue Rahyeh on my first 2 fights as I didnt realise he did so much damage and tried to just tank it
I disagree it being mechanically too difficult however I feel like the campaign doesnât do a good enough job to teach you.
Now i am all in for reducing the difficulty of normal timelines if people struggle with it but empowered should not be reduced at all unless new difficulty is added that is a lot harder than current empowered timelines.
but glad you learnt somethings after years of me badgering you in raids!