Melee as a close combat skill -> Arena Problems

[Sarno]

@Deathbane

Either Chapter One is too easy or the Arena is too difficult, which can’t be true if some players can hit wave 170 with just two main skills.

Chapter One is balanced around being the start of the game - what new players first experience. The Arena is designed to be a temporary stand in for end-game content which hasn’t been developed yet. They’re different content with different goals.

 

@Deathbane

I don’t think it’s fair to expect release-level balance at all stages of alpha development.

Of course not, but the discussion should be had, or would you guys just prefer that Alpha players just told you you’re doing a great job and keep it up!

That’s not a fair response. Nobody is asking you to refrain from giving critical feedback.

In the pre-alpha demos we had a Passive Grid system we spent a great deal of time designing and iterating upon. During the pre-alpha we got feedback from players saying that the system wasn’t intuitive, and that one of the two types of node points didn’t feel rewarding. That was critical feedback - we listened to it, acted on it, and now we’ve the current Mastery system instead. The game is better because of that feedback and that change.

If we’d spent 150 hours carefully fine-tuning each of the nodes in the Passive Grid, then removed it entirely, other areas of the game would’ve had 150 hours less development time invested into them. Imagine if Arena was available but Chapter One was not.

That’s the point I’m trying to get across. We absolutely want critical feedback - we didn’t spend a year working on and releasing free pre-alpha demos prior to our KickStarter for no reason. We did it precisely to receive feedback that forced us as a team to question our ideas, to improve what wasn’t good enough, and to consider other points of view. We just aren’t ready to try to get the numbers perfect when so much around them will change.

 

@Deathbane

If we follow that discussion, then some skills are already ‘obsolete’ and will remain so into the final version.

We’ll be dedicating a great deal of time during the beta to balancing skills. Skill balance will be more of a priority when all of the skills - and more of the content you use them in - is available. Skill balance is sensitive to various factors - how good is gear at level 10, 30, 50? At release all skills will have specialization trees, low-level itemization will be more balanced, and players will be trading with each other. You can’t balance around what isn’t there.

You can read about the various stages of development in this Developer Blog;

Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate, What’s the Difference?

Hi guys, Mike from Eleventh Hour Games back again to talk about our development cycle and what each phase means for you as a player and a backer as we head into our Kickstarter campaign. The specific timelines for the alpha, closed beta and open beta are very loose right now and we will release more detailed info about when we will hit these milestones later. We plan to be very communicative with our community throughout the entire process. Currently, Last Epoch is in Pre-Alpha. This means that…

 

@Deathbane

If f2P players can only advance up to level 20 and therefore can’t unlock the skills needed or which are most useful in the Arena, they will, alike myself become disgruntled or disillusioned and possibly not become a B2P player.

We do not currently plan to have Arena available at release.

The leveling experience will comprise of more than ten chapters - with quests - after which you’ll be able to start engaging with the endgame content outlined on this page.

I looked at the number of months between the game starting development and today, and between today and our currently scheduled release date. The game is closer to not having been started than it is to being released. That’s how early in development it is.

I sincerely appreciate you getting involved this early - being willing to spend time giving us feedback, being willing to support us financially, and being active on our forums. I just wish you’d try to view what’s currently available in context of what else is planned.