I’m not sad i’m just disappointed.
No way BM get so much love while necro and lich get so little. I guess easy league skip.
So the only necro skill to get updated is Abomination? Did I miss something?
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I too am really underwhelmed with the necro minion changes. Planned to start the cycle as a zoomancer, but whats the point? Nothing really changed. A let down for the big minion rework league.
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Excited to check it out
Abomination, Dread Shade and Sacrifice, plus massive passive changes (which enables entirely new scaling vectors), baseline minion buffs (improved AI is also a dps buff)
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Beautiful! Excited with the new chapter! Can’t wait to try all the content.
Just one glance in its current skill tree will tell you several problems. Increasing its damage is fine but doesn’t really fix it when you’ve already did “make-over” of some outdated skills in the past. This is coming from someone’s been reminding you to hopefully not leave it eat dust pre 1.3 news and from someone waiting for a complete overhaul of this very-outdated skill you missed to take action back in the Warlock update and now with 1.3 that has a focus on Lich and bleed stuff, you really missed this one imo. Can’t really help but some disappointment.
Still going to play 1.3 of course, at least Aura of Decay got some changes. As well as the other stuff in this patch notes that looks fun.
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hype hype hype, really excited to play 
Loot filter sounds and loot beams are going to be amazing.
Hey now, GGG hates melee as apparently all aRPG makers must hate something they still feel forced to put into the game, so EHG chose minions - but at least you get your melee! Grim Dawn exists if you want minions that don’t suck, of course. 
wow, some posts state things. the jump is difficulty at empowered is obvious even to one shot the world builds, and if that’s where most players get off - its not because some minority whine about things being too easy. give me a break. BTW I can find a post on here claiming almost anything you want, perhaps several. Woopie doo
yes, for all everyone talks about how easy it is to build on your own, the skill trees are so over the top in how vague they are.
They can delete mage at this point. Almost zero changes while the whole class obviously sucks
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How exactly did you balance Flay when you can literally release 25-30 Chaos Bolts on every single melee hit with a more multiplier of over 400% from mana stacking alone? You don’t even seem to pay the mana cost for it. That’s just clearly broken before even taking into consideration all the other things it can trigger.
Or does it not fully use the Chaos Bolt tree? It doesn’t say anything about this. Don’t know if you’re paying the mana cost from the Chaos Bolt tree or not either. So, again with the ambiguity. Playing LE is playing the guessing game. You can’t look at a skill tree and know how things will work. You’re just gonna have to guess. Isn’t that fantastic when making a build for a new season, that you have to guess how something’s going to work only to find out after playing for two days that your character is screwed because it doesn’t work like you thought it would?
So instead of the devs writing a sentence in a skill’s description, thousands of people might have to play for two days and then re-roll.
Nice. Zero balance changes across the board for most masteries.
Another dead season for competitive arena. Basically play tornado cooldown stacking shaman that has near permanent immunity from damage from spamming warcry on a faster cooldown than the damage immunity it provides, or don’t compete.
Incredible that the competitive balance of the arena gets completely ignored once again. How on earth is a mechanic that got introduced last league (more cdr available on idols) which allowed a mastery to get near permanent immunity to damage (warcry cooldown becomes faster than the 1second damage immunity it provides) left in the game for another complete season? Do the devs even look at their ladder or their game?
What a complete failure.
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They absolutely are.
Let’s just say for build that I played a couple but one of them was one of the better paladin builds that were supposedly unkillable and killed everything instantly. Fact is, that is only true in the hands of a very good player, go figure.
As for my own skill, no, I’m plain average, probably even above average but let’s just say average for the sake of the argument here. Point is, the moment I was in empowered, the build was struggling though tombs were in large part also responsible.
But here is the most important part. You cannot say those people aren’t wrong. How logically sound do you think an argument is that a player barely touched end game content, has just gone through a spike in difficulty, is also at the point where they can start farming corruption to increase difficulty and the instantly quit the game because it’s too easy? We’re talking about a point where they barely played.
The only logically sound option is the actual opposite, people are dying a lot, they are not having fun because it’s too hard and they quit because they just hit a brick wall.
That is the mindset of people who likes to push pinnacle content which is in fact the minority. Even in PoE 1 with so much pinnacle content, how many people do you think do that? The majority just want to go do maps all day with the flavor of side content that pleases them the most.
While I agree that today it takes a very specific type of mindset for people who make their own goals as opposed to people who just want the game to give them the goals, fact is most people don’t even play ARPGs for a goal, they just want to go in, kill a bunch of things, get loot, get their build better and call it a day. It’s very cathartic. Which is to say that not all games follow the same mold for player expectation.
So… if you played a VK in 1.2 and has this issue arising then you’re plainly spoken a atrocious player.
VK goes into 400c+ blindfolded basically. You got to get out of your way to die.
Only at 400c+ starts the point where VK actually feels like playing most other builds at 100c… and at 700c+ it starts to feel like other builds feel when reaching Aberroth.
I didn’t do VK, I played paladin which was still one of the better builds. I didn’t say the absolute best but yes, paladin and VK were the top contenders this past league. Actually, I did a lot better in 1.0 when warlock came out, it was in a good state. I also did a lot better with minion before EHJ started nerfing back in beta and even today we see nerfs to one of the classes that is amoung the worst to play in terms of power (there are a couple of exception, certainly a lot less exceptions after this patch goes live).
You say this as if it was so simple, fact is, sometimes there are things going on that won’t even let you see the telegraph of an attack and then you die, sometimes all it takes is a lot of quick hits in rapid succession which you just could dodge because the time you had to react just wasn’t enough, sometimes you just get crit and guess where most of your crit nullification comes from? Empowered blessings. There are many, many reasons why a player can die, saying get good is not really a solution unless you want your player base to be only the top skilled players which is exactly what PoE 1 does. There is a reason why 5 years ago PoE lost 50% of it’s player base after an entire month into a league and now it loses that in a week. Make the game require much more skill to progress and people quit because they hit a brick wall. It’s just that simple.
I’m not saying that skill needs to be removed entirely, of course some base level of competency should be required to play any game. However I am saying that the expected level of skill should be made around the average, not around the top players and I’ll even say one more thing in this matter. Good players are at fault for games being harder and harder because they keep pushing the narrative that it’s just others that are bad and the truth is, in most cases they don’t even understand what they are saying. I used to play WoT and I was a good player according to my statics. I’d watch average players play and think they were just bad players because to me, it was hard to grasp how they could be that bad, why weren’t they doing this or that, why didn’t they looked at the map, why didn’t they took X or Y position, etc, etc… It wasn’t until my father also started to play that game and me watching him and thinking, damn he sucks at this. Then i went to check his skill ratting and he was average. It was shocking for me to see that, that level of skill was the average. Of the reality is that when you are better than someone else, it makes it look like they are just bad at it from your perspective when in truth,. they aren’t actually bad, it’s just that you are much better and demanding that everyone be at a higher than average skill level to play is not really a good argument unless we’re talking competitive gaming.
It’s Last Epoch Time… AGAIN! Looking forward 
Thanks for this futur update ! A very nice work it seems and finally thx for the Offline cosmetics ! Playing since now december 2021, i think the game is perfect at every updates !
I understand the need to adjust the power of certain items following the introduction of the new Primordials, but reading the patch notes on the changes, there are still some items that are taking a big hit. I hope they will still be playable despite this.
And exactly here we have the problem with Last Epoch, you’re right with that one definitely.
People wanna just go on → fine.
Kill a bunch of things → fine
Get their build better → RNG trap, pure and simple. But that’s not the major issue when transferring to empowered, it creeps up with the exalted items though.
So we already get issues there given that the progression is not smooth for items as soon as exalteds are implemented. Instead of ‘collect shards and make your 4 T5 item’ you suddenly have ‘collect the right base with the right affix and a fitting affix combination besides that one to have a chance’ which is obviously several magnitudes harder to achieve.
That’s a big reason people leave.
The second issue is that the progression between a 0 corruption level 90 zone into a 100 corruption level 100 zone is a big jump. One that’s been called out repeatedly. It’s the exact same issue people have as with Lagon. So, the game gives a decent Act 1, good difficulty, good introduction. Then in Act 2 it begins to fall off difficulty wise, the game isn’t properly balanced for a good progression there. Unless you utterly ignore everything the game offers you besides picking up items - and not even then often - you’ll outpace the enemies severely by the end of Act 3. With the crafting even more so.
Up until you reach Act 8 with Lagon… which nothing prepares you for, and Act 9 is then following up on the difficulty with that. Everything is deadly comparatively… which is… odd to say the least. 80% of the game was piss-easy and suddenly you get demolished. Not a good design.
But don’t worry… if you finish it and go to the monoliths it becomes… piss easy again! And now you progress in this boring-ass state until empowered, level 90 might be a something actually starting to do a bit to your character as a beginner.
And then… you get thrown into level 100 with 100c which is vastly harder comparatively.
Still piss-easy in the grand scheme of games, but gratingly unfitting for the jump.
So no, it’s not ‘too hard’ or anything like that. It’s that the stuff before doesn’t prepare you properly and gradually introduces the fitting difficulty.
They got afriggin 5 ‘stages’ upwards to go through. So why not 0c → 20c → 40c → 60c → 80c ?
So you get gradually introduced and the progression is smooth. But nah, that seemingly is too far ahead for EHG to take into consideration (Also it’s EHG and not EHJ, they’re called ‘Eleventh Hour Games’ and not the ‘Eleventh Hour James’… which would make a great name for a butler though 
)
Depends on the class, but nah, you take it from items at the cost of offensive stats if you struggle. It is eased through the blessings defintiely though.
PoE 1 is a majorly knowledge based game, not one based on skill. A really bad player can do all content if that player has the knowledge of progression. Which in that game is the reason you either fail or succeed. And that knowledge has to be gathered gradually over extensive amounts of time.
EHG on the other hand didn’t want to do that (which is fine) but they’re not doing a good job at enforcing the specific power at specific times. The methods to ensure your character is strong enough to deal with content but not too strong to just delete things for large amounts of time are simply not upheld at all. That’s the ‘balancing’, which is one of the major issues the game has… and had ever since 1.0 in a very severe manner, actually before that already.
Umh… no? That never happened in this way? The only times retention was awful was during Archnemesis, which was when GGG mismanaged their game severely and had to pull back nigh entirely with what they changed?
This is a common visible thing to be seen with nigh any game on the market. The common person doesn’t play more then a week or 2 and then moves on to something else. ‘Forever players’ are extremely rare.
If you want to look into it specifically then you’ll actually realize that a surprisingly large portion of people which are ‘forever players’ in these genres are actually autistic, mostly with the ADHD combination. And that’s not a joke, it just relates perfectly to what the genre offers after all. Flashy fast gameplay which is extremely stimulating for the brain, hoarding and collecting, massive amounts of dopamine release from loot explosions. It’s just a hefty proclivity hence for people with that brain setup to lean into long-term.
So you can easily see when and why dips of engagement happen when you overlay it with the proclivities of that brain setup, quite heavily even.
Obviously there’s a lot of other people playing the game too, it’s a variety, but the bulk of long-term players fall into that category. The competitive area is the second large one for long-term players, which have a even bigger need for proper balancing though compared to the ‘forever player’ though… making it even worse for staying power for those.
Obviously!
Do you know ‘why’ that is though?
Because there’s a bazillion games out there for ‘mediocre players’ but barely none for dedicated players which invest a lot of time… and are actually catered to their needs. And those players also have a higher chance to be streamers as streaming has severe demands on time investment to make it work and become ‘big’ which simply falls directly into line with that.
And since streamers are nowadays the Number 1 long-term advertisement option for companies it means that companies have to cater to their needs or they’ll fail. The gaming sector simply has changed substantially over the years.
We’re talking about a live-service game here after all… and I would argue most of the problems come from EHG choosing this business model rather then making it a more casual SP game with Co-Op mode included. It enforces the seasonal model, it enforces the high investment into MTX, it enforces the high pacing of content releases and it enforces also the competitive aspects.
Why? Because without the competitive aspects there wouldn’t even be a reason there to have it live-service at all. They could’ve just gone and made a small-scale server solely for the Bazaar to have a economy, with a invisible check-system that simply doesn’t display any items which have been created by any client that even has an inkling of potential cheating abilities showcased. It would’ve allowed the restrictions for factions to be far more lenient. A good 60% of their resources are likely to go into upholding the live-service simply, resources which otherwise could’ve been used for progressing mechanics, polishing systems and balancing the game.
And all because no proper social setup - which is the common reason for live-service after all - are available, only competitive aspects… which also could’ve been entirely detached from the core game to reduce the overhead of costs substantially.
Because the majority of people are not gamers. They’re so called ‘tourists’ for a reason.
Gaming is a hobby like many other things. You cannot expect the bouldering courses to be made in mind for the people which go bouldering once and then leave again, you have segments for em… and the leftover is for the more dedicated people which come over… and over… and over again.
The same with RC car racing, you cannot call someone a ‘RC car racer’ when they buy a stock car, go to a race and then get absolutely wrecked there. It needs dedication.
Chess… go… swimming… marathon running… all of those things enforce you to be dedicated to do well. Why wouldn’t video games?
If you want a easy ARPG then go to D3 or D4, they’re piss-easy, they’re designed for it. You also got Victor Fran for the SP experience. If you’re a bit better versed then Torchlight Infinite does well for you. A bit above Torchlight Infinite comes Last Epoch, and beyond that does come PoE 2 and then PoE 1 in complexity and skill-reliance.
This game is made for a specific group of players and not for the vast masses and that’s good that it is.
It’s been the case since EA release and plainly spoken… nobody gives a shit that people rush in, whine and then ask to make the game easier so more people can play it. Why? Because then it doesn’t cater to the people which paid hundreds or even thousands into the production of it anymore, the people it was designed for in mind.
Welcome to life!
If you got a IQ of 70 you won’t study.
If you got two left hands you won’t create.
If you have bad imagination you won’t be artistic.
Everyone has things they can or can’t do. Some are more blessed with the options, some aren’t. Though luck, people are not created equally, all that can be done is give people the same chances and see how far they make it… but you can’t expect people to have the same outcomes, that’s insanity.
And it also relates to gaming.
My mother is as dextrious as a piece of molten bread, obviously this game won’t be something for her then. Should EHG now dumb it down until she can play it? Nonsensical.
Other people want extremely competitive environments and get bored out when they’re not non-stop challenges to a massive degree. So… does EHG not have to cater to them so they can get into the game? Ah shit… clashes with people like my mother now, doesn’t it? Can’t have it both ways.
What you’re asking for is ‘remove the enjoyment from the core audience just so people which aren’t the core audience, likely never will be and will with a masisve chance leave anyway have a more comfortable experience.’
The game is not designed for those people, so why go out of the way to cater to them at the cost of those it should cater to?
If oyu can include em without downsides? Great! Go ahead, do it! Immediately so! Only better to have more varied groups. But ffs… ruining the core design direction the game has in favor of people which either don’t have the capabilities despite extreme effort or those which don’t put in effort (and hence leave anyway) is beyond unreasonable.
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No they arent. There are graphs out there show casing the mob vs player power…this power curve has been one that been pointed out for yrs going all the way back to the EA days. Its been an issue for yrs and not in the way ur saying it is.
As for what mike said ur leaving parts out to fit ur narrative. What mike said is most player quit at that point because they arent the type of player that will push that far. This same thing happens in poe also happens in d3 and d4.
By nature most players will stop in general at that point.
The game being easy and providing no challenge till much how in corruption. Is the cause of the lack of player retention as well as lack of content. What ur saying is actually the opposite
LE is known to be called babies first arpg for a reason. It because the game is in fact easy. LE is the easiest diablo/poe like out there in the genre hell d4 has more challenge than LE does
Reality is its a minority that think the game is to hard like u do once u hit empowered the difficulty spike ur say happens doesnt exist (which is show cased in those graphs) at all that spike doesnt happen till ur at least around 300-400c
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