this might be my favorite discussion of recent times.
Big thank you to all the player coming in and expressing their feeling, and being honest about stuff.
Dying in an aRPG is part of the learning curve and from what i gathered even some of the players here, that are admittedly on the “lower skill end”, do find it ok.
I think one of the most important points is, that the boss fights are very well telegrapohed and usually you will see, from what you died.
Even if you are not fast enough or don’t know how to react to stuff, when you are encountering it on the fly, the first time fighting the boss.
You learned something and will know 1 more thing, when fighting the best, the next time.
One more suggestions
Some players mentioned, it feels very punishing, after dying to a boss, that their echo progress is resetted so far, that they can’t do the boss immediately.
I think this is also one lever EHG could change, to make the difficulty gradually increase.
If the amount of echoes, that you lose, when dying would start lower and ramp up from timeline to timeline to timeline, this could be a way to make the game feel less punishing at the start of a players journey.
Currently you lose 2-4 echoes. With my idea i was more talkign about losing 1-3 echoes in the very early timelines (maybe the first 3-4 timelines). Then slowly increasing to 2-4 echoes.
And for the later timelines it could be maybe even 3-5.
And when it comes to empowered timelines, this could be ramped up even more.
This would not the difficulty directly, of the boss fights, but would still contribute to the overall difficulty of the game.
I like this idea a lot but feel 4 should probably be the max otherwise the loss of progression might be enough to make some players give up. Maybe I’m unlucky but I always seem to lose 4 echoes and I die to the bosses a lot so it does become a little frustrating. You can put me in the group that doesn’t learn mechanics well and after a few deaths I still haven’t learnt them yet.
I’m probably 50/50 on the question of whether LE is too mechanically difficult. It really depends on what build you are playing and what boss you are fighting. As the game develops more and becomes more balanced I’m sure things will even out.
You the amount of echoes scales, with how deep you are in the echo.
My numbers are probably not 100% accurate, but if you are just like 3-5 echoes in the timeline you only lose 2 echoes and when you are like 6-10 echoes in you lose 3.
And usualy by the time you can encoutner the 2nd quest echo or later the boss(around 10+) you will lose 4 echoes all the time.
It’s not random.
I think having a gradual increase of the echoes you lose within a timeline is also a good thing.
But yeah my initial suggestion was more leaning towards timelines as a whole.
This isn’t really helpful to the discussion and you need to understand that the game has to work for players of differing skill levels. Lots of seasoned players have died to the bosses and I’m sure they wouldn’t call it a baby mode snore fest the first time they encountered them. Doing the new bosses on an existing level 100 character is not the same as a new player doing them for the first time whilst levelling up.
Some of the bosses are very easy to learn the mechanics but others are not so obvious without a few tries at them.
Bosses are always hardest the first time you come across them but soon enough they’ll 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.
You are right, however I think there is a real place for taking influence from MMO raids and especially WoW mythic+. I often bring this up because I think it has a lot of potential. As someone who enjoys hard (and group based) boss fights, I don’t really think any game beats WoW. I would still be playing it if they didn’t have such terrible design decisions around dailies and gated content - I want to play the game, not work a second job to be able to do so.
My favourite content was by far pushing M+ as high as possible, and if you think about it, that is a very ARPG influenced game mode. Repeating dungeons, packs of trash mobs, increasing difficulty scaling and modifying affixes with interspersed boss fights.
Obviously there is a balance to achieve between keeping the identity of Last Epoch and ARPGs, but to limit something just on that fact could really be missing out on some unique content.
I think everything should be casual friendly at the normal difficulty setting, but there also need to be options for people to scale harder content available. Additional mechanics are one of the best ways imo, as well as adding damage/health. Just damage/health is an artificial difficulty increase though.
we also need to see what MP will bring to the game, having things simple for single player but a harder fight in MP could also be a real possibility. The game is going to have to have some scaling for MP so why not have the boss fights being that bit tricker to compensate for the number of players.
I’m just not a fan of the game or story not being available to casual players because the end boss is just too hard for casual players. Personally I really enjoy hard boss mechanic fights but thats because i’ve got a lot of background in MMO raiding, like you. But casual players are also important and shouldnt feel blocked out or frustrated.
Yea I agree with everything you’re saying. I’d love to see an MMO inspired MP end game section where there are roles and support. Not exactly the tank/healer system because that isn’t exactly how it works in ARPGs, and you can’t really have a class too focused on support and still be able to solo. But I’ve always loved playing utility/support and enabling my team to do things. I think it’s very interesting and could even create some very unique content in an ARPG setting that isn’t locked to archetypes.
Not sure if you played Guild Wars original, but the Mesmer in that was one of the coolest support classes I’ve ever seen. It was like offensive support, so not healing allies but debuffing enemies when they took an action or damage they were punished for it, etc.
I agree all game/story content should be available on the normal difficulty, with the option to scale up if the player wants the challenge. Empowered timelines already do this so I think EHG is on the right track there.
I think the main issue people would get extremely frustrated as you can die to a boss in LE and the whole fight is over, no second chances and have to redo it again.
Even PoE gives you up to 6 tries on any boss, ‘tries’ being re-entering the zone, theres plenty of people with insane characters who may die at least one time to an end end game PoE boss and that would mean their whole run was over…even GGG arent that ruthless
EHG always need to keep that in mind when designing a boss that they could be infuriating a player from one shots
Personally I think the Dragon Emperor in LE is one of the worst bosses in any aRPG ever made due to the fact he can be allowed to enrage or even slow you and its just a gigantic AoE circle - you can survive it or you cant, but sometimes you cant even exit the circle in time even with capped movement and a movement skill because he stands in stupid spots
I agree about Dragon Emperor. As a VK (2H ES) on my first time running that boss, if I wasn’t slowed sometimes I couldn’t run out in time even if I predicted he was about to start channelling… and most of the time I was also slowed.
I had to spec Rebuke just for that fight and just stand there. It’s not even a hard fight but that mechanic is so punishing for low mobility. Or even as you noted you could have a movement skill but he is still in a bad spot.
This is a really good point and is the reason I can get a bit frustrated at times. Perhaps a system similar to the way you get three revives in Wolcen if you die when fighting a boss might help? At least then you might get more of an idea of the mechanic that just killed you without having to lose some echoes.
I dont remember the game being “difficult” rather mechanically annoying. In that I still completed the entire monolith but if i complained about annoying/unbalanced mobs/mechanics people mistook it for someone who “couldnt complete” the game or kill bosses at all.
For bosses for example you were fighting an harmless big hitbox doing mostly nothing until at some point the boss casts some circle that blapped you in oneshot because you inadvertently pumped too many monolith +dmg modifiers. <- So the answer was: “when in doubt always avoid those circles (even though you could tank them probably)”
Or the plethora of mobs that have a point based aoe around them that hurts only melee (unavoidable dmg for melee) while doing nothing to ranged.
I’m not sure how that would fit with the echo design here though. I think at some point they still want you to lose some echo progress and work your way back to the boss fight. It does work well in Grim Dawn though but not sure it would fit here the same.
I dont care about losing echo progress but if you think about it, its completely pointless to throw someone back 3-4 echoes if they die to a boss, firstly if its a gear issue they wont really find this out until maybe the 4-5th death until they possibly die to the same thing, or its a skill issue which again serves no purpose to make the below average player take another potential 20 mins to even try again - if the player isnt even fully aware its a gear issue for some reason the next 3-4 echos or more wont be spend regearing it will be just getting back to try again
One thing that can change by throwing you back is the modifiers on the echoes. It could be that you had a really hard modifier on that particular boss that made the fight too hard on that occasion. You could end up with an even harder mod the second try though depending on the choices you get
possibly, but throwing someone back 4 echoes in a timeline of a boss they cant defeat simply means they shouldnt be in that timeline possibly anyway, so they will make minimal progress.
Also im against modifiers against bosses, they arent balanced at all and either a complete ‘no go’ which again Emperor of Corpses loves to always give massive increased to Necrotic damage 3 echoes before the boss to give an increased chance to one shot you
A 50 year old gamer has longer reaction times than an 18 year old. That 0.05 second adjustment may be more significant than it seems in the first glance. I’d rather see larger numbers of enemies and higher caliber enemies appear earlier when it comes to difficulty.
The original thread about Abomination being too difficult is not something I agree at all.
Just before finding that topic - i did kill Abomination at lvl 50. With zero resistances (some were negative even), zero defensive passives and level 30 weapons. My only defenses were like 10% dodge and armor and around 500 hp.
My experience with LE is 130 hrs spread across all Masteries. I did not clear every empowered Timeline and i don’t play Arena. My highest level is like 84 (but clears lvl 100 Monoliths since it seems levels do not matter in LE).
Having said so - on my first character i did progress as you normally would as a new player and Abomination or any other boss for that matter - did not give me any issues at all.
I wonder more what Evo was doing to be level 84 BEFORE fightning FIRST boss in Monoliths.
Also Heavy you wrote ‘‘The level of your character and the area level does make a small difference (in terms of enemy health mostly), but still it’s a very mechanical fight.’’ That is completely silly since in reality it means you have 30 levels of passive points more and all skills should be max lvl too. Normally you would be lvl 55 for this fight (tbh each time i have done it you will be underleveled if you just power through Monoliths). Your abilities are at lvl 15 or so around that time. Not to mention at lvl 84 you could have powerful lvl appropiate gear.
If anything - boss is too easy (which is ok since it’s the first boss of Monoliths). Though difficulty does not really change the further you go but that is another issue.
To me it’s absolutely crazy you can stop doing Campaign (which also is an absolute faceroll, mobs are made of paper; diffuculty of bosses is just right perhaps they have a bit too much hp) and around level 40 (maybe even earlier why not) just start doing current endgame. XP in lvl 55 Monolith seems to be like 5x faster than in Campaign yet you pretty much also 1 shot everything and cannot die or get hit even. All of that with 0 resistances and fully glass cannon builds. Imagine going into Maps in PoE (where end game starts) and having zero resistances. Ye you can do it but it’s not recommended and probably will be painful.
Also this presents other problems. What about finishing Campaign? Do you just progress through Monoliths unlocking Blessings and getting better loot? Or do you go back to unlock Idol slots(maybe 2 bars at this point) and like 2-4 passive points? The whole thing is silly and clearly not fleshed out yet. Imo you should not be able to start end game (Monoliths for now) until you finish Story first.
Having played most aRPGS in the last 25 years - there is definitely nothing about Last Epoch bosses that makes them more mechanical fights compared to everything that is out there. Certainly i would not compare LE bosses to MMO bosses like WoW raid bosses (perhaps on LFR/Normal if anything). Izaro from PoE (Lab boss) is a great example of a boss with lots of mechanics,phases and variables. Also mechanics change on a daily basis. For those that do not play PoE.
And yes i realize Izaro is a pushover these days due to power creep and Lab not being updated for many years. Still it’s just one of many examples of how many mechanics can PoE bosses have. Shaper/Uber Elder, Sirus or Conquerors even - they have more mechanics than any LE boss. That is if you do not burst them down from one phase to another within 2 seconds obviously.
My point is - in LE I will never have to go to some website/youtube to read and watch about boss strategy. They are just not that complicated and quite straightforward. Abilities and what you have to do are telegraphed well enough. Unlike lets say bosses in PoE where there is a serious visual clarity issue for years now.
Whole thing about one shots and making the game easier is silly to me as well. It’s quite clear at this point that devs of LE do not want you to just stand still and facetank every possible attack like in many aRGPs. They did state multiply times that you are supposed to move out of certain abilities/effects. This is concious design and not a flaw of the game/difficulty. Even on super tanky builds some abilities are supposed to completely wreck your ass and that is fine. Though i am sure players will come up with ways to lazy tank literally everything.
Pleasing all players is not possible and attempts to do so never end well from my experience across number of many games. Difficulty that could be tailored specifically for what players want is the way to go for sure.
So far i am fully expecting and hoping for more ‘‘standard’’ and refined end game modes. Monoliths are great on a surface - but then you realize you can just rush through the whole map and just kill a boss. Whole system falls apart then for me and if it was the only end game the game has to offer at launch - I would not be playing for sure (despite rest of the game being more than fine). Imo it is a serious oversight that you do not need to kill some amount of trash to spawn the boss at the end. Like in Diablo 3 or Wolcen. The whole gameplay loop of just zoom zooming from one boss to the next hoping for Quest Echo - is not that exciting. Especially if the game and bosses are so easy that you do not need to even cap your resistances.
Unless the intended role of entire Monolith system is to be like regular Rifts from Diablo 3.
In that case i would have no problem with that (though still kinda disappointing you can just skip everything and rush to the boss at the end).
