It seems like the game hits a bit of a lull or slow point around level 28, a little after getting your mastery. I’ve noticed that I’ve hit “burn out” on several characters at this same point.
I think it has to do with there not being enough to “play with” at this point in the game. With respeccing being expensive, I’m not going to try another build “just for fun”, and I pretty much already know what my optimized build is anyway–it’s just grinding out the exp to get the points.
It’s also possible at this point that you could have 3, 4, or even all 5 of the skills you’re planning to carry with you into the end game. So earning new skills (which also starts to come at a slower rate) isn’t necessarily as exciting.
There aren’t really any mini-games or side activities to switch up the grind a bit. And any items you find aren’t going to matter very much since you’re still low level.
ARPGs like this one are already very long and full of content. It’s important to make sure that every hour is as fun as possible and there aren’t parts that drag.
I get your point, although I never felt like this at such an early level.
The sense of progression gets smaller the further you go. But there are a few things you can look forward to:
Completing the story (just for the stories sake, it’s not mandatory for anything)
Earning all passive points and idol slots by progressing the main story and side quests
Unlocking your last few specialisation slots for skills
maxing your specialised skills and passive tree by leveling your char
Then, when you get to the monolith you can look forward to:
Acquire boss specific unique items
Acquire blessings
Farming Dungeons for their specific loot
Competing with others on the Arena Leaderboard
The further you progress, the less punishing respeccing your skills becomes. So experimenting is easier at higher levels.
May I ask you if you follow a build guide? Because this can also make a new player experience feel a bit uninteresting because you don’t need to really think about what skills and passives to take and combine.
Currently there’re aren’t any side activities. This may feel a bit empty when you come from PoE where you get distracting with systems right and left. This will propably come with time, but hopefully not get as overwhelming as it is in PoE (for new players).
For me personally it’s the levels around 70-80 where I lose interest in my characters. I usually try to at least unlock empowered monolith timelines to see if a build is not crap.
I find this pretty interesting as getting the mastery is the point at which my interest in the game increases… I actually find it a little dull before then because its just getting used to the class/first skills and how the game works. (and I have been playing arpgs for many years so I already know how games like this tend to work)… for me the mastery choice is where you begin to start figuring out what you are going to do and what remaining skills are going to round off your character to take on harder content…
If you are already in the grind mentality by level 28 then LE has most definitely missed the boat for your enjoyment of the game… You are barely a few hours in and already “feeling the grind”… Dungeons, side quests, arena, monos etc all come in after this point… but if you are already in that frame of mind then its far too late…
LE is actually still 3 chapters of campaign content short…
Based on my experince of this genre, I would guess that Arpgs are not your usual cup of tea? What similar game has hit the nail on the head for you personally wrt. keeping you interested barely 2-3h in?
Note - I never follow a build guide until I reach the monoliths - I find that this is like someone telling you the final score before you have watched the game and ruins everything for me - If I did this then I would 100% be bored out of my mind after an hour or two trying to follow a build guide instead of just playing… (see reply to Rawsuicide below)…
100% I dont think anyon should be following a build guide until they have finished the campaign at the very least… It turns the “fun” of playing & discovery into a “find the right box on a shelf” exercise and totally ruins, imho, playing & having fun…
The game is easy until at least the lvl 80-90 monoliths and doesnt need a plan… I think people should be following build guides much later when its easier to respec, easier to find the right gear and easier to level up against more challenging content…
Since we’re on the subject of dull moments, there are two points in the story where i feel “I just want to get this over with”:
The Temple of Etera (Chapter 3?)
The temple is well designed, and there are a lot of monsters to fight which makes it enjoyable. On the other hand, the map feel like its too big which makes me get bored. Honestly, I like to make new characters, but it is this particular part, when I look back on my experiences between level 0 up until i get mastery that makes me dread the most.
From the Shining Cove to Maj’Elka during the imperial Era
I don’t remember which chapter this is, but it is right after you beat captain undead-lightning-crab-spear-man (lol?) on his ship. that whole sequence of zones feels super drawn out, and additionally, the mob density feels low compared to the Temple of Etera. That in addition to the back tracking you have to do in some areas makes me really dislike this particular part.
In any case, these are just opinions. take them how you will…
The big question is. how many times did you play it? I made someone buy LE and he was wowed by everything and never bored or at a dull point at any time.
I played the story a bazzillion of times on multiple toons and sometimes even twice with the same build on a fresh toon. All the story content is dull and boring for me buuut I always know there is an endgame and stuff to get what carries me through.
I wasn’t following a build guide or anything, and I’m not new to ARPGS either. On the contrary, thinking about it more, the problem may be that I’m pretty good at them. So by 28, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what my end game build is going to look like, and I want to get to end game and find out if I’m right.
In the meantime, the story content is pretty mindless, as it needs to be beatable for people who don’t necessarily have optimal builds.
But things have opened back up for me. At 34, I was able to start doing the monoliths, so now that’s a decent challenge for me to engage with, at least for a little while. And the rewards are coming quickly since it’s technically level 58.
So after reading your replies, and thinking some more, I think the answer to my own question is that there needs to be content that is high challenge / high reward at all stages of the game, but now I’m realizing it may be the case that there already is.
But maybe the game could do a better job of helping players identify content that is their preferred level of challenge for where they are in the game?
I believe the devs want dungeons to fill this role. After your first playthrough, you’re able to use dungeon keys to enter a dungeon and skip a significant portion of the story. They’re designed to be more challenging, so that they provide a challenge for experienced players who are playing characters that have better access to gear. Unfortunately, you won’t experience this the first time through since you need a key for the dungeon (which you will get later) and more unfortunately, they’re currently too difficult to be a reasonable skip option. But hopefully when they’re more balanced they’ll be able to fill this role for subsequent playthroughs.
As @McFluffin mentioned, the dungeons are probably there to address some of this but right now they are not there yet (imho) and honestly with the gates (keys etc) they are not the answer.
I think that two things will help with this… a balance pass for the game to address the big difference in difficulty in areas (and perhaps make it a little more challenging - even for new players) … and have more content that isnt locked behind gates/keys etc that can add “side challenges” to break the levelling stages more… This may be as simple as adding more side quests to allow players to test their builds at regular intervals… maybe even be tier based or even just a few levels higher than the char by default , more dungeons without keys for low tiers or even opening up Arena earlier (it used to be accessible from the EoT where you get your mastery)…
