You need to keep in mind that they said VERY few uniques will become class specific and majority will remain the same. My guess will be that uniques that boost specific skills for a given class will become class specific, such as Eterra’s Path for boots which can cast Primalist skills. Others, like Death Rattle for example, will likely remain universal because every class can use general minion buffs.
Yeah, I PM’d Mike & he said that the uniques that aren’t being converted to the new item bases will still drop as previously, you just won’t be able to gamble for them (as the item bases won’t appear on the vendors or gambler).
We only changed a couple chest pieces. Boots and amulets don’t have class specific base types so it’s not a concern for those 2. You are right on the money with the types of items that we did change though. Things that affect specific classes and/or skills.
I know, I just tried using them as an example. It made most sense to do it that way.
Overall i like the game but that change on the mastery passives rly sucks. So now i am forced to speed through the storypart to unlock a mastery so i can put points into those trees. That extra passives in the base class don’t make it up for me. And i dont think that moment of choosing the mastery will be more epic now. In my opinion it was not a positive decision. 
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Thanks for the feedback. We will be paying close attention to this from the community for this patch especially.
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hmmm… i somehow missed that info…
or simply forgot it … 
Great news :). Yesterday I was almost sure we’ll never get different gear and visual for classes because it might be to much work and now this ^^. Good work so far.
I understand what you’re saying here. And perhaps there’s some truth to it. But as a thought experiment, from a minmaxing and statistical perspective, you are always better off playing meta classes for the best loot in a trade economy to maximize your chances to get the highest loot value per hour. Essentially, the point is that with trade, you would rather get a high value meta class item then trade for several of the non meta classes item that you’re looking for.
But I completely understand some people don’t enjoy this roundabout way of gearing. I guess we’ll just have to see how the community behaviour change as trade is introduced and a more concrete meta shapes up.
You forgot to mention that reworking the base tree also allows for some build enabling skills to be added to that base tree instead of to a specific mastery tree. A good example in the Dev Blog pic is Smite. Previously smite was close to the middle of the Paladin tree requireing lvl 30-40 to unlock whereas in the screenshot, its 20 talent points deep into the basic tree making it much easier to unlock. My point is that these changes to base tree have another aspect that you did not mention.
I disaggree that passives put into basic tree are “insubstantuial”. For some builds, yes, the first 20 points in basic tree feel more like an obstacle, but in other builds those same passives are part of the core of the builds. I don’t think that the basic tree is meant to be easy to respec. This is supported by the fact that the higher you go into a tree the more costly respeccing a point is. If they wanted it easy it would cost either very little, or close to nothing to respec points in general.
Both of your solutions would require a major rework of all skilltrees, whereas this solution is a more gradual approach towards* your idea. Its always better to test out a smaller possible change instead of jumping the gun to a massive one.
Smite was lvl 10 on the Paladin tree, so my Shield Throw build gets an extra 5 points to use (because I would always take 5 points on the Paladin tree for extra block chance). If you’re not going block and there was nothing else interesting at the bottom of the Paladin tree then you’d get an extra 10 points.
No it doesn’t matter. But it’s spelled wildly inconsistently in the game and it’s a little bit annoying. It’d be nice if it was spelled the same, regardless of which way they choose.
Actually it does, if you get Armour, it gives 20% more benefit due to the extra letter.
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@Arborus made some excellent points above. I’d also like to echo @Callizer’s concern about smart loot making it hard for one character to farm for another and @Funfrock’s concern about serving short-term appeal at significant expense to long-term appeal.
I have two main concerns regarding a smart loot implementation:
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It’s less interesting. Sometimes finding a fantastic item your current build can’t use encourages you to try a build you never would have otherwise, and this adds to the depth and longevity of any ARPG. Smart loot doesn’t remove this possibility by any means, but it does nerf it substantially.
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It removes (well, decreases anyhow) an otherwise-existing incentive for interaction with other players. Additional trade tends to build community, and even die-hard SSF types (I happen to be one in PoE) enjoy giving away nice items that they can’t use to players who can.
Thus, I see it potentially weakening the game’s long-term appeal for both loners and socialites. The only real appeal I can see for it is for casual, short-term players, who play the campaign once or twice through and then uninstall. But should we be catering to them? They won’t contribute to the game’s long-term health (read: $$$) or long-term community.
I’ve doubtless forgotten a few things which support or contradict the above (short-duration leagues, for example, would weaken both statements). In any case, I do recommend considering very carefully what weaknesses and strengths you will be introducing to the game by implementing smart loot. Make sure the former doesn’t outweigh the latter.
Class-specific loot is a different matter. I personally enjoyed it quite a bit in D2, though it bears mentioning that there were only a few class-specific uniques per class in D2. It may start feeling restrictive, rather than special and interesting, if you go overboard on the quantity.
Also, please remember that there are ways to make loot de facto class-restrictive without preventing other classes from equipping that gear: add class-restricted bonuses (either explicitly, or implicitly via a bonus to a class-specific skill). That way if there are fringe uses for the other unusual bonuses conferred by that piece of gear that a creative theory crafter desires, you are not stifling that creativity.
It’s also worth taking the time to consider exactly WHY you are implementing class-specific items. Design decisions such as this, just as much as the smart loot table, involve both plusses and minuses. Is it adding genuine depth to the game and/or aiding your long-term goals of not being inadvertantly cornered into a nightmare balancing scenario (as we’ve all seen in a certain other game)? Or is it just a gimmick? And if it is the latter (which, mind you, isn’t necessarily bad design!), is it a FUN enough gimmick to be worth the restrictiveness it applies to your players?
Food for thought (I hope).
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Yeah I have to agree. I’m not a fan of the changes either and feel it is a step backwards.
I started a new mage with the intention of levelling up as a new player to the game would and wanted to test out Ice Barrage. I did an almost full clear of areas and didn’t rush through, possibly missed a side cave but not sure. My mage took his mastery at level 23 with 28 passive points spent and this made me feel like I had to respec straight away to get the 5 points needed to unlock Ice Barrage. It just feels unintuitive as it is and things unlock at the wrong points. Also a skill specialization slot should unlock when you take a Mastery so you have one free to test out new skills. As things are now you either have to save a slot or despecialize one that you have levelled.
Apart from those few points I’m loving the new patch 
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I really hope “smart loot” doesn’t make trading less fun. In PoE I enjoy playing off-meta builds and selling the meta gear I find to fund them. I’m really looking forward to doing that in Last Epoch as well, since it’s the only ARPG with an actual, decent trading system (eventually, at least).
English isn’t my language, could be the problem.
I saw that gambling will adapted to the class, fine. But I saw nothing for drops. Currently drops are far to be a good feature of the game, if now there’s plenty drops that will be for other classes, it will a boredom.
Drops in game are weighted towards drops from your class so you will find a majority of items that you can use on your class. This does not affect the drop rates of unique and set items.
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Thought I’d weigh in here not to add to the confusion of building a game based around a large amount of opinions but to acknowledge the fact the the Dev team have built a master piece already!
You’re all doing an amazing job and having played for only 3 days now I already feel as connected to the games development as I did during PoE testing.
Don’t loose focus, don’t loose passion!
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except it isn’t the same as diablo 3’s