Locking in Mastery Feels Bad

Feedback and Suggestions
21

Base class and character name choices don’t require time and investment. This is about how the decision making and game progression feels as a player, not some all-or-nothing cynicism. If you were just going for technically correct on my use of the word “everything”, I’ll grant you it is the best kind of correct. Misses the point, though.

What I want, and I’m confident I’m not the only one, is for our time valued as players, especially in the new player experience. So, a couple options are being passed around here to consider how the game can help alleviate the feeling of time being wasted on a reroll. These include the possibility of mastery respec in lieu of more clarity about what the decision will mean, or, better, a more comprehensive presentation around that decision so players are sufficiently informed.

22

I wish the mastery quest included some kind of flashbacks from former maters of the past and future so you can opt in to play a template of a mastery to see if you like the skills it’s offering.
When I start to play some games I find a lot of things sound awesome on paper just to find out it’s complete trash to use the stuff like I intended it. some form of playtest before you make a choice that worst case invalidates your whole progress might be intresting for new players.

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23

This is actually a cool idea. It would tie into the whole splintered end of times and then incarnations of you running around all over the place that the Forgotten Knight hints at as well as a few others.

There was something kind of akin to this in D3 that they implemented several years after Reaper of Souls. I haven’t played it in years but it was the thing where you could test out other people’s builds and earn some rewards and xp while doing it. Can’t remember what it was called.

I highly doubt this would be something that could be implemented soon™ but it would definitely fit thematically with the shattered Epoch stuff.

24

That would be the challenge rifts. Although I’d argue it’s not really quite like this, since you couldn’t change the build at all and most selected builds were really bad. Even for a simple and easy game like D3, they usually had a lot of crappy barely functional builds.

I’d argue that the challenge rifts were actually worse for this purpose, since you’d be trying a class with frustrating choices, rather than a fun build.

I agree that, in theory, some sort of showcase of classes, as long as they’re minimally optimized and fun, is a good thing. But it breaks the workflow. You are playing the campaign, then around lvl 20ish you’re at the end of time and are taken somewhere where you’re trying out 2-3 builds. You spend some time with each and then go back to make your selection and continue the campaign. It feels clunky to me. Not saying it can’t be done, just that it would need to be “optimized” to not break your flow.

25

That’s not entirely true. The play style of all masteries is present in the base class. If a class has a melee/minion/caster mastery that play style will be available to the base class if you wish to try it.

True, but all of those things have been available to theplaywr to read through from lvl 1.

It also only takesa few moments for someone to give you a lift to the end of time for you to take a mastery at lvl 1 in MP.

26

I bet a lot of people don’t get how transformation skills work and don’t know how they are able to see what skills they are forced to use while shifted for the druid. When they played Druid and opt to play a Lich that can pick and choose they might be even more lost.

Just to note one glaring example where “reading” stuff isn’t helpfull. On top of it if I read the tooltip of Erasin Strike for example and play a VK to use it because it sounds awesome and I’m finaly there to get that wet noodle of an attack that isn’t even close to the tooltip from my point of view then I won’t care but a bunch of people will most likely riot.

All of this is part of a good new player experience and LE has… non. There is no need to implement somehting later tbh because all the pissed players will leave anyway and players who know the game don’t care anyway.

Then again I understand why people think it’s a bad thing to lock masteries… then again it is what it is. Before release the devs should post a read first thread in the steam discussions and on the forums that make it clear that mastery picks are final and can’t be changed and should be carefully choosen because people need to replay the whole story if they don’t like their choice.
Just to point at something so people stop crying what some will do for sure ^^.

27

This is basically a matter of perception, tbh. If you play for 20ish levels and then select your mastery, it gives you an illusion of choice and players sometimes wish they could take it back.
If, however, you selected your mastery directly from the character creation, this would be a non-issue.

Objectively, there is no difference between:
-getting 20 levels, selecting your mastery, getting 10 more levels and being unhappy with the development and wanting another mastery, and
-selecting your mastery, getting 30 levels and being unhappy with the development and wanting another mastery

But the player perception is different in both cases. In the first they feel like it was a character (or build) choice that didn’t pan out and should be able to be undone and in the second they feel like it was just a creation choice and they just have to make a new one. Even if both cases end up being the same, objectively.

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28

Yeah, but either way will lead to complaining… it’s just the nature of society today. If you make mastery a selection at creation, then we’d hear about how it takes too long to invest in passives to unlock the master-specific skills, so players ‘waste’ 30 levels just to begin to play their mastery. Then we’d have threads to make all class/mastery skills available at level 1, so players don’t waste time playing the game.

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29

I don’t totally agree with you. I agree that someone will always complaint no matter what, for sure. But the amount of people complaining changes based on the choices you make.
Skills being locked behind levels is a common enough thing in ARPGs that people are used to it. Whether it’s LE, D3/D4 or even PoE with minimum levels for skill gems, it’s just something that part of the deal. As you get more levels, you get more powerful skills. I don’t think (many) people would complaint about that.

They’d probably complaint about having to dump 20 points in the base tree before being able to use the other trees, though, so… :man_shrugging:

Ultimately, someone will always complaint about pretty much anything. Devs just have to balance between their vision of the game and the amount of complaints they can/are willing to ignore.

At least EHG replies to the community and explain their point of view. GGG just says “No”, when they answer at all.

30

Yes, and people have complained about that… “why do I have to wait so long before getting my build-defining skill/spell?”. It goes hand-in-hand with “why do build defining items have such a high level requirement?” But, as you said, there would be some other complaining, so it’s basically 6-of-1 or half-dozen of another.

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31

I agree with Heavy. In fact I will go further, there is sufficient build depth in this game that even two characters of the same mastery can feel totally different. Example: I currently have 2 high level VKs. One is a classic spellcaster Autobomber and the other is a melee-based Apathy’s Maw wielder. They only have 2 skills in common (Volatile Reversal and Anomaly) and their playstyle, gear and blessings are completely different.

I can. I have played 3500 hours of this game. I currently have 20 Alts all pushing endgame. Lowest level among them is around 80 and many of them are elvel 100. I have also deleted a half dozen level 80+ other Alts as I needed the room. I felt all those characters were completely different. Different enough that I needed to keep them as separate chars! So it adds plenty to the game. Had I only had one char and refitted him whenever I wanted to try another build, I would not have played 3500 hours.

Some stats: of my 20 Alts I have…

4 Beastmasters:
Earthquake / Aftershock melee
Bleed Squirrels
Classic Zoo
Lightning Wolves

3 Runemasters
Frostbite Claw
Ignite Dominion Claw
Hydra

2 Paladins
Smite Hammerdin (caster)
2h Rive crit (melee)

1 Forge Guard
Sword + Manifest Minions

2 Void Knights
Autobomber caster
2h melee Cleave

1 Lich
Poison DoT

1 Shaman
Spriggan Totems

1 Sorcerer
Lightning Meteor

2 Druids
Cold DoT Werebear
Lightning Bug

3 Necros
Single Minion Archmage
Flame Wraiths
Aaron’s melee Golems

Since I have been through the story 20+ times, yes I agree it is a slog. However you do not need to do all of it. I stop as soon as I have all side quest rewards, which is just at the Tundra area. Takes about 8 hours total. [The real slog is the standard Monos between campaign and empowered Monos, and the devs plan to address that I believe.]

But it isn’t. You are only saying that because you haven’t tried other ideas. If I had that mentality, the only build I’d have is Flame Wraiths as it is absolute top tier. No need for any other build. But think of the all the fun I’d have missed out on playing all those other builds.

Footnote: I have 40 high level chars in Grim Dawn :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

In summary: if the thought of levelling a ton of Alts (for whatever reason) turns you off, then this is likely the wrong game. This game HEAVILY promotes tons of Alts, and the build depth is sufficient that even Alts of the same mastery feel like completely different chars with completely different gearing and playstyle.

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32

I mean, pretty much this.

I also have 20 alts, some the same Masteries, but completely different builds. I also have a ton of Grim Dawn alts – most at lvl 100.

That being said, I’m not sure what this whole thing is trying to achieve, and what is the exact problem being fixed?

People don’t like playing that game?
People don’t like playing the game at low levels?
People don’t like playing the campaign?
People don’t like having more than 1 character?
People don’t like … ?

I get that “I don’t want to have to make/level another character” is being stated as the problem, but… why? What is so terrible, that leveling as another Mastery, is such a tragedy? How is it any different than creating an alt (which I would assume the majority of players are going to do anyhow)?

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33

Honestly, I don’t think it is ‘so terrible.’ aRPGs are 100% based around alts. Always have been. It’s a staple of the genre. Should it evolve and move away from that? Would it then still be an arpg? It’s like trying to play basketball using a baseball diamond. It’s not really basketball at that point. There are just some things that are inherent that don’t NEED to be fixed. Alts are fine. Locked masteries are fine. They don’t need to be fixed.

Do I think that there can be easier/smoother ways to advance said alts? Sure, and that’s something I hope they continue to advance that. But given a bunch of the stuff that has come out, the Weaver’s Will stuff, the fact that legendaries don’t take on the level limit of the exalted. Once you start getting a handful of these the campaign gets to be almost trivial at that point to breeze through.

34

I think most people get tired of the campaign. This happens in PoE as well. In LE’s case, I think, it’s aggravated by the fact that the campaign is exactly the same every single time. The maps are all the same, the exits are all in the same place, every single mob is the same. In PoE they make the exits/objectives random and so are the mobs. Makes it seem a little different.
But if LE would change to that, people would complaint that a fixed map would be better (like they do in PoE) and finding random exits is annoying.

Personally, I don’t mind the campaign. Never really did ever since D2 all the way down all the ARPGs I’ve played until LE. I like the leveling up process, the build slowly starting to come together. However, I understand some people just want to get that part done and get to endgame, especially when they’ve already done the campaign multiple times. If they could be given an option to start all new characters at level 80, they’d be happy.

35

Yeah, I would agree as well. They’ve made a bunch of progress from where this was, say… 2 or 3 years ago, but could still make a bit more. Maybe be a little more forgiving with crafted twink gear (lowering/removing) level requirements on T2 rares?

I think it’s already a huge bonus that we don’t have to navigate the campaign multiple times, through various difficulties, or have to complete the entire campaign to unlock all passive bonuses and unlock the end-game, ala POE. So I don’t think any major shift is needed, but maybe just some little tweaks that are specifically tailored to make twinking a bit easier?

Hi2u D3, and people complain that there’s nothing to do, and it’s too casual.

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36

Well, D3 did have a problem with not enough endgame, something they spent 10 years NOT working on :stuck_out_tongue:
D4 is better but still going the same way, though they still have a chance to add more endgame to it. You can skip campaign there as well.
I think both did that because D2 was ALL campaign :joy

But yeah, people will complaint no matter what. If you gave everyone lvl 100 chars with full gear and an OP build, many would complaint that it would be boring and some would be all too happy, strutting around their ePeen :tm:

As I said before, I think it all comes down to the devs vision of the game, what kind of players they’re aiming for and how many complaints are they willing to ignore. Because no matter what they do, they’ll have to ignore some complaints. Otherwise you get D3/D4 again.

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37

Yes, we all understand that it’s become very popular to try to use “This feels bad!” as a thumbscrew, but that doesn’t make it a valid complaint when it’s obviously not.

Anything that feels bad about being locked into a Mastery in Last Epoch is sourced entirely in a player having the wrong perspective about what a Mastery is and means. That isn’t a problem with the game’s design that EHG needs to solve, it’s something those players need to either fix about their attitude or get over.

Yep. One of the most obnoxious traits about Modern Gamers is how many of them expect (demand) a landscape where any choice they make can always be undone, or redone, otherwise “their time has been wasted”.

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38

Diablo 2 released in the year 2000 and allows players to completely respec their build 3 times for free and any number of times beyond that once they’ve reached endgame and can grind for more respecs.

Being locked into a mastery feels bad because the masteries are a choice within a class that, unlike every other choice in the game, cannot be undone.

Again, I would point out the example of my Void Knight. I selected Void Knight to build around Javelin and now feel that Paladin would scale Javelin better. I am forced to play a suboptimal version of my build or start the character over fresh. I’m not asking for a mastery respec as free as everything else in the game, I’m asking for a mastery respec system to exist in the first place.

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39

What people have been pointing out is: what would you have done if mastery was a selection at character creation? Which it could easily have been. If instead of selecting between 5 classes and then specializing in one, you selected between 15 masteries.

1- D2 only did that after some time and players constantly whining about it. Initially there was no respec at all
2- In D2 you can brick your build by selecting sub-optimal skills/sinergies. In LE you can’t. You just respec into a different build
3- D2 isn’t really a valid example for this, not only because it’s old and ARPGs have evolved since then, but because LE more closely resembles GD and PoE. And here you have 2 games where one gives you what you want and another doesn’t.

GD doesn’t let you respec masteries. You select the first one at lvl 2 and the second one at lvl 10+. Once you select them you’re stuck with them. Want to change masteries? Create a new character and complete the campaign 3 times.

On the other end, PoE now lets you respec ascendancies (I’m pretty sure it didn’t at first). However, you have to pay 5 times more for the respec than you do for the tree and then you have to again complete the labyrinth.

Is one better than the other? Not really. It’s a matter of what the devs want for the game. Players will complain either way. In PoE they now complaint about having to redo the labyrinth. So players will never be happy unless they get what they want for free and without effort.

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40

The thing is
Changing from VK to Paladin is like going from Sorceress to Barbarian, not changing from Meteor to Frozen Orb.

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