Perhaps I’m approaching Monoliths all wrong, but it feels as if the most efficient way to approach the MoF (efficient in terms of TimeInvestment -VS- Reward) is to just beeline to the end objective of every zone. Killing monsters within the MoF feels like a secondary task, rather than the primary one, & it feels as if it’s only worth killing monsters so long as what you’re killing is along the direct path of the zone’s objective. And I have to say, this makes the MoF feel a bit hollow to interact with. If I may, it feels more “Diablo 3” than it does “Path of Exile”, & I think this is the exact opposite of what any up-and-coming ARPG dev team should want.
In my opinion, the MoF should be reimagined in a manner which flips the dichotomy mentioned above on it’s head, or at the very least in a manner which makes killing monsters within the MoF feel rewarding enough to persuade players not to simply beeline to the end for the chest loot explosion. The main reason people sink 100’s if not 1000’s of hours into these Hack-N-Slash ARPGs is specifically to lay waste to hoards of monsters for loot, & not to simply beeline through zones killing only what you must in order open a chest at the end.
My suggestion: Have the MoF zones somewhat mirror Path of Exile’s maps. Give players a monster counter which tracks the monsters remaining in the zone, & give them a reason to track down and kill a significant portion of those monsters. Also, each echo tileset should have it’s own “Echo Boss”, & killing this boss should be made the equivalent of opening the chest in the “Echo Of A World” upon completing a zone. Honestly, you could entirely do away with the current chest-opening system & the MoF would only benefit from it. After all, this is a genre built around slaying monsters, & not mindlessly opening chests, & I think the MoF should mirror that concept.
The content of the reward chest at the end depends on the number of enemies you killed. The more enemies killed, the more items in the chest.
I seriously doubt copying another game would be a good idea. Getting inspiration, yes. But “mirroring”, no. EHG are making their own game, not a copy of another one.
Not commenting on your proposed solution. But I agree the feeling and “problem” you raised is exactly how I feel about the current MOF and why I am not motivated to play it too much.
I’ve raised this feedback to the devs multiple times. And it’s acknowledged. So we can hope the devs would find a good solution for us.
PS: not sure the Diablo3 and POE analogy works in this case. Diablo 3 itemization is complete crap compared to POE no doubt. But when it comes to actual gameplay (particularly multiplayer gameplay), I actually think D3 might edge out, if not flat out superior, to POE.
Yet the most efficient way of approaching the MoF in it’s current state is to beeline to the end while only killing what’s directly in your path, rather than hunt down monsters in each Echo before moving on (as you do in Path of Exile). Clearly the current system doesn’t reward monster killing enough.
I seriously doubt copying another game would be a good idea. Getting inspiration, yes. But “mirroring”, no. EHG are making their own game, not a copy of another one.
Refusing to utilize the wheel because someone else invented it is, with all due respect, asinine. POE’s approach to mapping works as well as it does because it’s designed with a fundamental truism about Hack-n-Slash ARPG’s in mind; that truism being that people play these games to kill hoards of monsters for loot. The current MoF simply does not reward that style of play, but rather reward people for killing only what they need to on the way to each Echo’s objective. This is a bad design for an end-game system within this type of game.
I agree with that, but you clearly talked about “miror Path of Exile’s maps”. Miror is pure copying, it’s not using the same concept.
But I understand what you mean. I have no opinion on the base, because I don’t play PoE (got bored during the campaign after few hours and stopped).
PoE doesn’t have a multiplayer mode, it just has some aura bots that you can hire (or occasionally for free) along with a toxic af “trade AI” that refuses to acknowledge you when you message it for trade.
My exact words were “somewhat mirror”, as in MoF echo’s should at the very least mirror the way in which POE maps reward monster killing.
In Path of Exile’s map system, simply beelining to the map boss while leaving the vast majority of monsters alive isn’t only insanely inefficient, but in most cases it will actually impede your progress. This is precisely the way an ARPG endgame system should be designed. Meanwhile, in Last Epoch’s MoF, echoes are reduced to cheesy running simulators that lazily trigger a dopamine rush with a chest full of loot which requires a minimal amount of monster killing in order to access.
PoE doesn’t have a multiplayer mode, it just has some aura bots that you can hire (or occasionally for free) along with a toxic af “trade AI” that refuses to acknowledge you when you message it for trade.
POE has an entire 6 person team meta which most top-end players utilize. Moreover, this “multiplayer” approach offers a massive advantage over people who play solo due to the fact that Quantity scales multiplicatively per person in your group, & that can be even further abused by builds which stack Quantity gear (which the team meta has).
In fact, the advantage you get from playing the team meta is more than large enough to render solo play a meme of sorts…a joke, & even somewhat of a waste of time, if you will. Playing the team meta, you can make in 1 map what would take a solo player ~10hours of power mapping to make (This is not an exaggeration). Spend just 1 hour tagging along with a proper Quantity abusing team running juiced T15 Tower maps, & solo play will forever be ruined for you.
So not only does POE have “multiplayer”, but it’s multiplayer is actually quite literally overpowered to the point of it honestly needing some nerfs.
The thing that seems to be missing from some of the logic in this thread is this:
A LOT of players have come here precisely to escape PoE, so trying to encourage making this a clone of that game would seem somewhat counter productive.
I agree that some other games in this category have some theoretical gameplay ideals that could be looked at, but that’s as far as I think it should go. We have come here precisely because of our admiration of the direction in which this game and the devs are going. The manner in which they adopt gameplay and test mechanics have been such that many of us have come here to play and buy into that ethos.
So suggesting they look at a certain part of the game for improvement is great, making some methodology suggestions is also great, but lauding another game developer’s exact method up as an example when that same game is one we left seems a little too far.
Jerle already stated that the devs were aware of the problems you reference and are looking into how THEY want to address it; so to keep on defending another game in this manner seems as though you might be in the wrong forums now
As I said earlier, and as it is written in the game, it’s exactly the opposite.
The more enemies you kill, the more items you have in the chest. Really.
Sometimes I rush to a very nearby objective and I have something like five to six items, sometimes the objective is far, I kill many monsters on the way and I have a huge lootsplosion.
A LOT of players have come here precisely to escape PoE
You actually don’t know that, you’re merely projecting your opinion onto everyone else. It’s much more likely that the majority of the people who have contributed to this game did so specifically to support competition within the genre, because having more good games within this genre actively competing for players means we the players can only win.
It’s just a fact that POE is considered to be the current king of it’s respective genre, and for good reason; & no one’s opinion is going to change that. Ignoring that fact while also refusing to learn from aspects of POE that made it successful isn’t just stubborn, but it’s also a self-defeating endeavor for any dev team in this genre to embark on. A lot of those Wolcen fanboys had the same mindset that you have now with LE, & we all see how well those guys over at Wolcen are doing with their innovative approach to combat XD
And lets stop pretending as if modeling the Monolith of Fate after parts of Path of Exile’s map system is on par with turning Last Epoch into some POE clone…that’s just ridiculous.
Yet again, the most efficient way to approach the MoF in it’s current state is to beeline to each echo’s objective while killing what’s along that direct path.
You keep repeating that same line, yet the point you’re missing is that it’s not enough to make it worth-while to scour each echo killing the majority of the monsters in them before moving on to the next.
If anyone reading this right now is currently full-clearing each echo before moving on to the next, then your total reward sum after x-hours played is going to be less than the people who are racing to the objective while killing only what gets aggro’d along the way.
In other words, you’re pissing upwind in the middle of a hurricane with a smile on your face because you think that’s rain hitting your forehead. But I’ve got bad news for you bud, rain isn’t yellow, & going out of your way to kill more monsters in echo’s isn’t worth the time invested.
As I’ve stated in other posts, we acknowledge this feedback and we have plans to make it feel better to kill more monsters and not always rush to the objective.
Without having access to EHG’s metrics & some form of “on-boarding” questionnaire, there was a massive spike (7.2k players) in players on Steam back in March. The previous highest spike was 2.7k in December (Rogue release). The March spike could be due to word of mouth on the monolith update (0.8.1) in Feb, but most in-game chat over the past few months was about people pissed off with PoE & that they had heard about LE & loved it.
I don’t think that saying “a lot” of players, certainly the recent new players, having coming here to escape PoE is particularly unreasonable.
Those two reasons are not mutually exclusive. One can be pissed off now with PoE & want to try something different and want to encourage some new blood in the industry then potentially go back to PoE later. That’s entirely how PoE is designed. GGG are fine with tat & so are EHG. Gaming is not a zero sum game.
I agree, companies should always try to learn from everywhere else, from the big dogs in the genre as well as the smaller companies/games. I’m of the opinion that just because a thing “wasn’t made here” doesn’t make it bad, but also that just because the current genre/industry leader is doing a thing doesn’t necessarily make that good either in general or for the thing that you’re making.
Or maybe you’re just enjoying the game rather than treating it as a job that absolutely has to be treated as something that must be done efficiently or otherwise you don’t do it at all. IMO, that’s a toxic mindset to be in. But if that’s what you enjoy then more power to you.
People can and should play however they want, regardless if its optimal. It’s okay if it’s less optimal if they are having fun. No one’s fun is wrong. We should just try and make both playstyles somewhat equally rewarding.
