It’s crazy, what you describe as a downside/negative is actually one of the most positive and best things for me, when I played LE for the first time.
Picking something that sounds cool at first to discover what really is behind this class/mastery is the best part about the game. I am even envious for new players experiencing this the first time these days. Discovering all the possibilities was truely exciting even back then, when I started playing with EA Steam Release in April 2019.
And while there was stuff I discovered, that I thought would be good, but happens to be bad or disliking it. There was way more stuff that I couldn’t even imagine, but discovering all the possibilities with the skill spec tree was a pure joy.
People really should go into a game and just discover stuff. The player does not need to known every skill or detail of a class.
Some broad overview is more than enough to make a decision. And if it happens to be, that you don’t like you decision for whatever reason, there are so many different skills, builds and options even on one individual mastery.
If you are not willing to try out more stuff it’s on you.
But that is the whole crux of this discussion.
Just because you or other people don’t see the “downsides”, doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Even though I find "downside not a fitting word for this.
This is not a black and white, right or wrong kinda thing.
This is a fundamental design decision that would have major impact on the game in the long run, both for new and veteran players.
Yes, but one can’t really have much of a discussion about whether a thing feels bad for a person. All that would happen in such a thread would be the OP says X feels bad & a few people would either agree that it feels bad for them as well & some would commiserate with the OP for the feels-bad & that would be it.
Potentially yes. We have minion classes because some players want them, ditto for casters & melee.
Except it does. You can see all the skills, passives & the mastery bonuses at lvl 1. The pre-mastery skills are set out such that all the archetypes that the base class has access to are available before you have to commit to a mastery, want to play a melee/caster Lich instead of a minion necro? There are skills available for you to try what that gameplay is like before you have to choose Lich/Necro(/Warlock ;)).
Personally I would think that if a person is inclined to want the “most optimal version” of a particular build/skill/archetype, then they’d be the type of person who reads up about stuff before making irrevocable choices.
Yeah, this is true, and it’s the case for a lot of things. Tooltips generally aren’t too bad for what they’re intended for (ie, not as a PoB for your actual DPS).
And if it becomes known that changing masteries at point X in the game is the fastest way to do Y then the Great Unwashed will start doing it as well. This is how metas come about, the “elitist scum” spend a lot of time figuring things out & that knowledge gets disseminated to everyone else.
Different class archetypes isn’t exactly the same thing, but that’s not the point I was making.
The point is whether it SHOULD be added. I don’t debate that it COULD, or that players WANT it. But SHOULD has a finality to it where it’s mandatory. If they decided their game wouldn’t have minions in them, because it’s their vision, SHOULD it be added just because some players (like me) like it?
For example, I’d like AFK builds like the ones in GD. Or even retaliation builds like in GD. LE doesn’t really want them in the game, at least for now. So SHOULD they be added to the game just because I want them? If there are enough players that want it and EHG decides they want to do that, then fine. If EHG decides to add things just because a couple of players want something, that’s fine too. It’s their game. But none of our suggestions SHOULD be in the game.
While I somewhat agree with this sentiment, I think it’s too reductive. Different players have different tolerances for different parts of the game. While it doesn’t bother me, I understand that many players hate playing the campaign over and over again at low levels.
I used to play PoE with a friend who was the opposite of me in that regard. He hated the campaign/low levels part of the game, so he would only create a new character (other than the first one each season which we would start together) when I was around to rush him.
Me, on the other hand, like the leveling process and I’d start new characters even when I wasn’t rushed to maps. I tend to get more bored once I reach the endgame loop and tend to start new characters for different gameplay.
I don’t think the problem with this thread is with players wanting the game to be easier, rather with them wanting to avoid having to constantly repeat a part of it they dislike. I don’t have a problem with that.
The only issue I have with this thread is that mostly the tone being used is demanding, like EHG has a moral obligation of fulfilling their demands. It’s the whole ultimatum stance of “Fix this or I’m gone”.
There are plenty of threads that request or suggest stuff without trying to stand on a moral high ground.
Personally, whenever I’m confronted with a demand of this kind, my immediate reaction is to do the “or”. It’s part of my personality. I don’t know how EHG’s “personality” (in this case it being a sort of sum part of the devs involved in these decisions) reacts to this tone, but I’d assume there’s a good chance that it only makes them entrench in their position much more. From what we’ve seen in this thread, it seems to at least affect the other players in that way.
@DirePenguin always has a very hyperbolic way of expressing his thoughts, which often does create a lot of discourse, which can be good or bad, depending on how far the discussion drifts away.
But to his statement I would say:“You can absolutely love and like a game as a whole, while still disliking specific parts”
I am very much loving Last Epoch as a whole. But do I like every single piece of it? No absolutely not.
Some thing people dislike about games they like are small annoyances, and sometimes it is a deal breaker for them, especially for things that they frequently encounter multiple times
Yes, I do… and my hyperbole grows more intense the longer (and more dramatic) simple issues are drawn out, and made to look like, actual issues with the game itself. This is a simple preference, being twisted to put the weight of the blame on the design of the game itself. When no problem actually exists. There is no false advertising, no subversion. It’s clear as day.
I mean, it’s gotten to the point that “anyone against this change already has 20 alts, and isn’t an issue for them” levels of deflection. If it’s an actual problem, then it exists for everyone. If it doesn’t, then it’s just a preference. If someone with 20 alts wants to create another, they have to do all the same quests to get their masteries and passives/idols unlocked. There’s no special treatment for someone with 20 alts, and someone on their first character. The only difference is in familiarity with the campaign and game itself. Which, I would think shouldn’t be something just glossed over because someone doesn’t want to do the campaign more than 1 time.
I completely agree with everything you just said except this part:
Color-blindness is an issue that not everyone has.
Now, that said, because I did agree with everything else, the specific issue at hand is definitely not a problem. It’s part of the game. It’s inherent. Every time I hear people complaining about not being able to skip the campaign it’s disheartening, and frankly, a little disrespectful. The designers put a huge amount of effort into making that. They’re also working hard to provide more and more ways to expedite this need to get through the campaign.
Since they are continuing to provide more ways to do this through numerous avenues and means, this is one of those instances where people just need to get over it or move on. By the time you get to about your 10th alt the campaign takes almost no time at all to do. And if that’s too much to ask of someone’s play time dedication, take up pinball, solitaire or pay-to-win games. aRPGs are GRIND games. A certain modicum of efficiency built into the game is fine but given the nature of aRPGs I think the Devs have every right to expect us to put some time into it as well.
Well yes, but accessibility options are not game design decisions. I’ve already lobbied in favor of accessibility options for some of the portal cutscenes being toggled on/off. I don’t see them as being the same kind of "issue*. …Whether or not someone can play a game, is in an entirely different ballpark than if they want to play it.
Yes, and that’s kind of how I see it. I abhor this modern-day thinking that “the game doesn’t start until max level”, that’s kind of been out there since WoW. The campaign IS the game. The rest is just stuff you can continue you to do, once you finish with it. It’s not the other way around. It’s a lot harder to continue to develop storyline(s) and quests, every month, to keep people occupied, so we have other “mindless” mechanisms in place…like echoes and arena. But I don’t agree that their existence renders the game itself, as throw-away.
As has been mentioned, the developers have already conceded many areas to lesson the requirements of completing the full campaign…to what we have now. Doing anymore would just make me wonder why bother having a campaign, in the first place.
EDIT: The really amazing part about LE is, you never are forced to complete the entire campaign. Your first character, can just get to Mastery selection, do all the quests up to Lagon, and never have to see anything past that point. It’s even worse now, with MP, and the ability to piggy-back on other players portals.
I think he meant that only as a case of not everything that is a problem to a player is a problem to all players. It was just a rethoric point, I think. Meaning that something can be a real problem but some players being fine with it. Something the Wolcen devs firmly believe in
As someone that started a decades long path by playing exclusively D2 for over 10-15 years (well, technically it starteed with D1, but that didn’t really have a campaign or was REALLY an ARPG. More like a proto-ARPG), I really like campaigns and I’m used to do campaigns over and over again. But I can understand that the emphasis of that has shifted over the years, especially with PoE (even though they still make you do the campaign over and over, the emphasis is endgame).
I agree. And, presumably, at some point after 1.0, we will even have the option to use dungeons to skip the campaign almost entirely. If devs give you an option to skip it this will end up like D4 where no one plays the campaign past the first time, which is a shame, cause the only thing that actually felt fun in D4 was the campaign, which was very well designed.
Personally, I think we should be forced to do the ENTIRE campaign at least once. After that we can use the skips currently in place and use the dungeon alternative once it’s implemented. That will give players a choice on how to progress their characters. But at least one full campaign should be mandatory, where you don’t have any of the endgame stuff unlocked until you do.
You know, I never really looked at it like this before, and this might be the crux of the issue. I, as well, began my real gaming journey with D1 (it was DnD, C64, Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and MUDs before that, but let’s stick with things with real graphics). So I’m accustomed to having to complete a game, and usually not having anything else to do afterward. It’s nice that modern games have evolved to have life outside of that initial campaign. But, at the same time, I think it’s also spoiled generations of gamers into thinking that that extra stuff, is the game.
Even POE. It has a rich story, colorful characters and questlines. The developers even make a concerted effort to have each new season/expansion tie in with what came before. Yet, to 99% of the players, the game is mapping… the characters are simply known for their offerings (merchants, crafters, etc), and the campaign/story are hardly known to anyone – myself included. It must be disheartening, for a developer, to have their work reduced to just mindless excursions into soulless map speed-runs…
Well, in all fairness, this happened to me as well in D2. I’ve played it countless times and, as established, it only has campaign. However, after the first couple time I stopped paying attention to the story. After more than 20 years, I can barely remember any piece of it.
Same thing for PoE. I’ve paid attention to the story only for the first couple times and now I’ve forgotten all about it.
But I do go through the story in most games. The exceptions for this are:
-GD, because I don’t like the dialog way in which it is presented. Something about the dialog boxes in GD annoys me in a way that PoE doesn’t. I can’t precisely point out to why. Maybe it’s something in the design, like the font or the box itself, or maybe it’s the dialog itself and the way it flows. First time I played GD I started to read the story, it started to stress me out and I ended up skipping all dialogs, only paying attention to the ones that had consequences (like smith quest and saving people)
-LE. Sadly, this is because I see LE’s campaign story the same way as GD’s. I don’t know why, but I can’t really pay attention to it. And I’d like to. I’m an avid reader and time-travelling fantasy setting is right up my alley. I hope that once they get more cutscenes and voice acting I’ll be able to engage more with the story.
Yeah, I have the same issues… with both game. GD, for me, is how the options just keep cycling through, and you’re never really sure if you’ve gotten through with the dialog, or…? It might also be that, other than factions, and Duncan/Angrim, nothing feels like a ‘choice’. It just feels like clicking through text, just to see more text. Well, I guess there’s the guy about to burn his family, and then the suicidal psycho, and those ones are fun to read.
LE feels the same – it just feels like there’s a text box that I need to click on to make it go away.
This is exactly why I am intensely unsympathetic about this topic and this poster of it. If you care about what’s “optimal”, care about it. It is ridiculous to blame unhappiness about a “sub-optimal” result on game design after having done no research or planning and being unwilling to start an experiment over from scratch if it fails.
Agreed 100%. You see this attitude all the time - The campaign is not the game, “it’s the tutorial” or “it’s a waste of time”. The “real” game doesn’t start until you hit max level or the endlessly repeatable content. I’ve wondered for a long time if newer generations growing up on live service games/MMOs has totally polluted the way they view content in games in that way (and others). As opposed to older gamers who grew up on very finite games, where you got what you got and the “endlessly repeatable content” was you playing through the game and beating it again.
This situation is a give an inch and they ask for a mile.
There is so much lack of permanent character choices in this game other then mastery. I wouldnt cry if wasnt locked in, It does not really matter to me, I make a new character for each build because the progression of that build is important to me.
That being said, is it really that big of a deal that you have to make one permanent choice? next thing you know it will be like “well I chose primalist, I want to be a mage now!”
D1 only had a campaign, after you’d killed Diablo then you got to do it again on Nightmare and Hell difficulty then that was it. No maps, no uber bosses, not even a cow level.
I’m curious how you coild think that it wasn’t an arpg though.
Aren’t you thinking of either D2 or the (unofficial) D1 expansion?
How do you figure D1 had a campaign? It had random quests that could or could not trigger in any given run. You could sort of construct a loose narrative from it, but all the “campaign story” D1 had was a cutscene at the end.
Also, D1 only had the one difficulty. You killed Diablo, you started it over again in the exact same difficulty.
Also, D1 had save scumming, which I feel is also very important in considering it as a proto-ARPG.
I usually consider D2 as the father of ARPGs and D1 as the grandaddy.
That was the story. Before the concept of “end game” was added there was no need to label one part of the game as “campaign” & one part as something else. Campaign = story.
Not according to the wiki (though it’s been ~20 odd years since I’ve played it. Apparently nightmare and hell were originally only for mp until the expansion enabled it for sp as well.
What does that have to do with the price of fish? D2 had editors, does that mean it is (or isn’t) an arpg?
D1 actually had a reasonable story (certainly compared to D3) that you picked up, presumably via the quest text.
Yeah, I forgot D1 had difficulties in MP. I never played MP with D1, especially because it was the dialup age and it was expensive. Also, there was no lobby to pair people with.
But the single player campaign had only the one difficulty, unlike D2.
Although both are cheating, I feel differently about both. One you’re cheating stuff to make your character stronger, the other you’re cheating for avoiding consequences of your gameplay (considering the most used form of it was reloading when a fight went poorly).
This one is a personal issue I have and I accept that not everyone feels the same way.
D1 had only 2 cutscenes. One at the start, one at the end. There were bits of lore that you could only find out over multiple runs (or, if your RNG was really bad, might never even find out). So it had a story, in a loose sense, but it didn’t have a campaign. Campaigns need to have goals that take you closer to the story end. D1 just had a “Here’s some monsters, go whack’em”.
Don’t get me wrong, I like D1. I even played D1 once again earlier this year. I have it on CD and I even bought it on GoG so I could run it on modern PCs. But I don’t think it can yet qualify as having a campaign or being an ARPG. It comes quite close and was the first to do it and laid the groundwork for D2, which is why I consider it a proto-ARPG.
However, I also accept that some people might consider D1 to be a full-fledged ARPG and, thus, the first one. I was only stating my opinion on the matter
…Whether or not someone can play a game, is in an entirely different ballpark than if they want to play it.
