Last Epoch 1.0 launches Feb 21st, 2024!

Early Access isn’t about a content cadence to be expected post release it’s about making 1.0 a great experiuece … if you’re wanting release-like cadences maybe Early Access isn’t for you?

3 Likes

You are right, I am too impatient, but I like the game.

2 Likes

Please remember to keep conversations Civil. Player harassment is not acceptable. Real World Politics, Religion, and Ideology are not appropriate topics for discussion in Last Epoch spaces.

Our responses concerning character customization have not changed, the responses Andrew linked earlier are still applicable, including that it’s something we would look at after 1.0. The reasoning for this is still correct, in that we designed Last Epoch to place significance on each character’s silhouette to make them visually distinct, and that character customization is a ‘very’ large task which was not budgeted to take place for 1.0 as it requires double the amount of work with models, animation, rigging, voice acting, armor and weapon fitting, cosmetics fitting, and more.

12 Likes

Well if I cant play all the classes with similar power levels/design intent in 1.0, is it really a great experience?

For me thats the number one thing I notice right away, is if im struggling with basic passives and skills in a game and feeling weak, and my friend is blasting the entire screen with passives/skills that have unique mechanics and mine is “+2 health” and theirs is “+5 health, health regen now applies to mana” or some other game changer passive…

it feels really awkward and bad to have to explain to new players “oh you just picked the wrong class, that one is bad and 5 years old, pick one of the new ones.”

Hopefully with the 2 extra months of polish, we will get to see shaman and FG spec ups, which before were stated most likely out of scope because of time constraints, but now there is a lot more breathing room which is great.

1 Like

Nice, good idea, time for improvement that’s you need. I can’t wait, but for sure at this time I gonna testing a few Builds / skills yet, Spellblade mastery is awesome for me. Good job guys and thx for this game, I hope it will be amazing experience for years.

Btw on 100% Is it confirmed that changes / content for cycle will be in game also in the same time on Eternal Server to don’t force players start over and over?

2 Likes

I think one key piece of information that might be missing here is that we created the current version of our playable characters to be specific characters, not a blank slate to be molded. So what we’re actually saying is that this one specific person is a rogue and this one specific person is a mage and this one specific person is an acolyte. The acolyte character was originally a disciple of the mage and left him to pursue different types of magic. They aren’t inherently evil magics either. The mages viewed them as unsavory but that’s just their views on it. The Acolyte has gone on to be a very successful master of those different magics and save the world just the same. She is still very much a hero. The Knight character, back in like 2018 before it was changed to be the sentinel, was actually female and she is also still in the game at the End of Time to talk to. I think the biggest disconnect here is that we let you name the character. This immediately gives a sense of creation and ownership to the character. That it is uniquely yours. If you were starting a new “Frank the Sentinel” instead of making “a Sentinel” that you got to name, I think it would probably help this be a lot more intuitive too.

Now, at the same time, we have received a ton of feedback from a lot of different players with a lot of different opinions on the matter. The general feeling that I get from most people is either that gender locked classes is terrible and needs to be fixed or apathy. We do intend to add character customization to the game, including body type selection. It just won’t be a 1.0 feature. The dev time to payoff ratio isn’t good enough to make the cut at this time. That is because the dev time is high, not that the payoff is low. It is a very unassuming feature that would take a lot more dev time than you might think.

14 Likes

Someone concerned by that will never be satisfied and they should probably move on.

2 Likes

I’m in the same boat, (kind of). Gender locking classes in any game nowadays seem strange to me. People that only play ARPGs don’t care too much about it which is probably why it’ll never change though, at least not soon if ever.

1 Like

Not everyone shares the same priorities as you and your alleged friends.
I, and many others, would appreciate it if you would kindly refrain from raising a stink in the comments, particularly when such topics have already been addressed multiple times.
There is no need to put any more stress on the dev team than they are already under to release such a massive game on indie grounds.

I’m sorry you and yours feel that the game is unplayable without your requested feature; you really are missing out. I’d advise you to arm yourselves with patience and revisit Last Epoch hopefully sooner rather than later.

4 Likes

Well in the arpg scene especially as mike said, thats how a lot of the games are.

You dont play “a witch” you play “the witch” in path of exile.

In dungeon & fighter, Creator and Dark knight classes are only available as female for the creator, and male for the Dark knight. And while they do have a “Female fighter” and a “Male fighter” the classes are actually distinct, with entirely different movesets with some basic skills having overlap.

Again this is because you dont play a male fighter, you play the male fighter, they have different backstories to!

I think it really is just a difference in rpg type. Cloud is Cloud in FF7(even if you can name them sometimes), where as something like the pokemon protag is a silent self insert.

I dont think either is inherently better then the other, you just have to decide if its a deal breaker.

2 Likes

I learned about it from Kickstarter and I’m really happy that the 1.0 schedule is finally out.
New languages have been added in 0.9.2, but if you can add more, please add Japanese as well. I can’t wait until the launch!
Thank you to our dedicated community and amazing team.

2 Likes

Well I hope 2 months more help a lot.

To be fair LE has like, the least character lore out of arpgs that do the whole ‘you play the x’. different takes on the exact same voice lines, a different short introduction video.

I definitely have never got the impression LE has pushed in a ‘playing the x’ type thing, it comes of way more like my character is my character, and the customization being lacking is because non-aaa game, and early access.

3 Likes

Thank you for taking the time to respond, I really appreciate it.

To your point about the characters being specific individuals, not archetypes, I do understand that, but respectfully, it doesn’t matter; that isn’t the point. I know several people who just do not play characters of genders different than their own, whether that means they only play Ezreal, Graves and Aphelios when playing ADC in League of Legends or that they love Star Wars and Soulslikes but just couldn’t finish Jedi: Fallen Order because experiencing the narrative through a male POV made them feel too dysphoric, despite liking Cal Kestis as a character. Video games are a unique medium in that the point of view of the character can become very personal, especially when you’re hearing their thoughts and words voice acted aloud from your perspective. The character being your own creation or not doesn’t make any meaningful difference.

To the point about the Acolyte and her story and morality, again, I do understand that she is not a villain and by the ethos of Eterra, she’s not evil, she’s just a maverick. That said, I understand that because I played her for a couple hundred hours; she’s my favorite character. A person looking at this game with no prior knowledge does not have the same viewpoint. When multiplayer came out, my partner looked at the classes available and saw that her options for a female character were a woman who uses curses and dark magic and corpse desecration - which, far beyond a trope, is a cultural touchstone with literally centuries of historical context - and a hired killer, she rolled her eyes, said, “No thanks,” and went back to playing Elden Ring, and I can’t blame her for it. First impressions are powerful, and there is, frankly, a lot of cultural baggage weighing on what you’ve made available to your potential female players when looking at this game as a prospective buyer.

I didn’t ask this question expecting you to have done a 180 and said, “Actually, yeah, we’re shipping 1.0 with no gender lock.” I was just hoping to hear something between, “We know it’s something people want right away, it’ll be our first priority after 1.0,” and, “Don’t hold your breath, based on our current internal roadmap, you can expect Diablo V to be out first.”

2 Likes

Also aesthetically the acolytes armor etc… is all extremely based on evil tropes to do with magic.

1 Like

Yes, aesthetics certainly are a part of it and neither of the playable women in Last Epoch particularly screams, “heroic,” from their visual design.

Actually, I wonder if this might not have been feedback they’ve been getting and sort of pushed them to delay it just a bit. I’ve seen looooooads more feedback about Shaman and Forge Guard and even a little with Rogue being outdated. Who knows. I won’t expect it, but maybe now some tweaks can be brought up to speed.

I don’t think people for whom the only criteria for buying a game is the gender of the character are any kind of prospective audience. Plus I highly doubt that among gamers their number is higher than those who want the company’s efforts to be spent on developing gameplay, story and introducing cool new features.

Well and personally I do not know people who refused to play, for example, in The Witcher 3 because of the inability to change the Geralt’s gender.

So I really want the developers to spend their power and time on what is really demanded by real players, and not on the invented problem of not being able to play due to gender lock.

9 Likes

So I really want the developers to spend their power and time on what is really demanded by real players, and not on the invented problem of not being able to play due to gender lock.

I’m not going to get into the weeds of this attitude or all of the inherent assumptions coded into it, but, because you’re not the first person who’s said something like this here and probably won’t be the last, I will respond, once, with the same answer I give to everyone who makes this claim in regards to any of countless discussions:

Just because something is not a problem for you does not mean it is not a real problem.

2 Likes

So you seriously think that developers should focus on solving the “problem” to attract people who choose games exclusively on the ability to choose a character’s gender? Instead of developing gameplay and other features? Are you serious?

5 Likes