More minion unique items please!

Then it is a worthless system.

No, they just don’t want you to get an exalted item & remove any “bad” affixes so you can guarantee what goes on the legendary.

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i mostly agree with this, i made a post a while ago about that. Iam glad that since then a lot more build enabler uniques were added.
I still hope that some of them will be adjusted so they get a bit more interesting.

It’s fine to have differing opinions but let’s keep things civil. I have deleted several off topic posts.

Since you’re here, Mike, perhaps you could give us a rationale then to settle the argument.
I understand you probably had no hand in the decision, since you’re the forum guy, but why did the development team, or whoever was responsible decide to make a system built on an already multi-hundred if not thousand hour grind for those unlucky with drops result in a single dice roll instead of a deterministic outcome?
Why does this already diluted RNG system result in even more RNG?

I am a senior developer and one of the designers that was heavily involved with the Legendary item system. So while I’m not the one person responsible for this, I did have a hand in it and am very proud of the system. While it’s not perfect and we are still ironing out a few little things, I feel like it’s going to be very popular going forward.

I feel like there may have been a bit of a miscommunication as to the intention of these new items. Legendary Items are very rare and not absolutely necessary to have in every slot. These are end game chase items that you’ll be working towards.

Finding super end game uniques with LP at all is going to be very rare. Possible but very rare. It’s difficult to look at an item system and not want to plan for BiS but I think that’s a big difference between ARPGs and MMORPGs, you can’t really get BiS in every slot in an ARPG while you are expected to strive for BiS in each slot in a MMORPG.

I understand the draw to want perfect gear and that’s fine but that’s not the game we are designing. You won’t have perfect gear. You’ve got to decide on priorities and pick the best of several imperfect options. This type of decision making is something we look to add to almost every system. The shape of your idol inventory so you don’t just end up with 1 type of idol, skill trees having more things than you can ever get at the same time and gear that you’ll need to evaluate and swap around as you find new pieces.

Part of the reason that we have introduced the crafting update at the same time is because they play off of each other quite heavily. Most of the new crafting items can be useful when preparing your exalted for creating a Legendary Item.

There is a lot of RNG involved with assembling a really great legendary item. Along the way you’ll probably get several good ones too.

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nobody enjoys an endless chase.
How many hours do you intend to be sunk into a single item? there are 15 classes in the game (or at least, there are going to be) you could more than justify making the system a bit more generous. Imagine how long it would take (assuming you’ve played diablo 3) to get a full set of primal gear with max caldesan (150) for every set on every character. simply put, you’d never be able to do it, and that’s in a DETERMINISTIC system with set stats and known pieces.
then imagine if Caldesans had a chance to add a random useless stat to any given item, and if it chose the wrong stat, you now need to go get a new primal version of that item to try again.

this is what the legendary system looks like right now.

(endless grind gets longer for no determinable reason)

I would agree if there wasn’t a competitive leaderboard. as it stands, you’re separating characters by luck, not by skill. no matter how many layers of RNG you add, someones going to have the stars of every universe align and get the perfect item with perfect rolls and a perfect legendary forge really quickly, and everyone else will have to grind for longer and longer just to compete.

Then I would say please reconsider. for all the faults Diablo 3 had, primals were generally a good idea. (as an example of “a perfect piece of gear”)

This is not a benefit in the eyes of a non-religious-no-life player who can’t afford to play this game for several thousand hours per item per character.

I appreciate your well thought out response Mike, but please understand. right now you’re making a game that makes players play more. You’re not making a game that makes players WANT to play more.

Thanks for the feedback.

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To think that a simple Exalted affix on an end-game legendary is going to buy enough Arena waves to create this sort of death spiral you’re describing is extremely laughable in its face. Yeah, 300% minion damage on a Unique is a lot, but there are so many dangers in Arena and so many scenarios that you’re not going to displace player skill with raw luck, in any event.

If it becomes the case that an Exalted stat provides an uncharacteristic increase in build power, then the skills can be better balanced so that power lies more within build synergy than raw stats. And yes, I understand what you’re saying about ultra Uniques becoming truly BiS with Legendary stats, but in that event, either the Unique is build-defining enough that it could function on its own without the Exalted stats, or a rare item can make a great substitute and in essence, you’re only losing a few % of power.

The game is not “making” people go on an endless grind any more than casinos are “forcing” people to gamble their life savings. There’s always going to be a meta where classes with tighter synergy are going to outpace lesser classes, and no amount of Legendary RNG is going to change that. One class is always going to have more mobility, one’s going to have more AoE, one’s going to have more single-target burst, and so forth.

The only thing a ladder does is provide an extreme emotional attachment to a completely fake status. Nobody cares whether you’re the 4th ranked or 6th ranked Necromancer in Last Epoch Season between July 2023 and November 2023. There is nothing else that is gated by having or not having a rare Unique with Legendary potential, and if there is, that’s a larger problem inherent in the skill itself than with the Legendary equipment creation.

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For visibility/further feedback… I disagree, this makes me want to play more. As Zarono put it I’m not a

I play 2 or 3 times a week max for a few hours here and there.

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you’ve clearly never competed on a global leaderboard before. Give it a month, and every single character on the leaderboard will have the exact same build as whoever was in number 1 slot 2 weeks prior, and the one on top will come down to whoever rolled the biggest numbers.

it’s not a guess, this is an observable trend in every ARPG with RNG loot that has ever existed.

I’d say this is a fair argument if this game offered monetary returns, but it doesn’t so this is false equivalence. (and don’t ask for it to, i’ve seen what a real money auction house can do to an ARPG)

more than likely, we’ll end up with a scenario that one class is better than every other class across the board, since that tends to be what dominates the leaderboards until it inevitably get’s nerfed, then people will find the next best thing that maximized every category.
that’s just a statement on game balance though, and has no real bearing on the prior conversation.

no, they care if you’re the first ranked necromancer, as that will decide the meta for the next season. second place is just the first meta slave.

this is a poor argument. on the one hand, you could say “nothings broken because you could just go invincible god tank that does 1 damage every 5 minutes, and EVENTUALLY you’d clear all the content in the game.” on the other hand, people spend money on video games to have fun, not be told that at the end of this 500+ hour journey they get to roll some dice, then be told afterwards that they get to do it all over again from scratch with nothing to show for it.

I never had this much fun with LE since start of early access. Everything in me currently is screaming “play more!”

I’ve never crafted such nice items like I have currently. Playing an older Shuriken Rogue that I skilled into Umbral Blades. I’ve 4 or 5 exalted items equipped that I all crafted new in 0.8.4. I’ve created an t24 weapon with a t6 exalted affix and an t3 sealed affix on top.

Acquiring better gear was never so much fun in LE. I’ve stored a bunch of uniques with leg potential, ready to craft (just not yet found the right unique base items for my build).

People that are complaining about itemisation being too hard or too unfair or only for nolifers after 0.8.4 are either

  1. not playing actively and making their opinion just from reading patch notes, dev blogs or other complaints and therefore “theorycrafting” the game
  2. or playing ineffectively by not knowing how to use all the game mechanics to maximise farming gear or using the crafting system.

The second category can be helped. People can learn and adept. They just have to be honest about what they really struggle with. For example a lot of early feedback about the new crafting came from people that used pre patch base items for crafting, not knowing that they usually have less FP than post patch dropped items.

The first category is a bit more problematic. This kind of attitude can influence development into a wrong direction. For example when people state that its “impossible” to do certain things within 100h of gameplay when they just tried for 5 hours. What some people write here sounds logic and is often well thought out. And that’s the key phrase: “Thought out”.

When you avtually play the game, bring your character from lvl 55 mono to empowered timelines, you can see and feel how really satisfying the actual itemisation is. Every 3 affix exalted with 1 or 2 good stats has the potential to be turned into a great item thanks to rune of chaos and the high FP. I’m drowning in good loot. I’ve bought 6 new stash tabs since patch, while I haven’t bought one for months before.

If people actively play the game and still say “legendaries are only for nolifers” and “old crafting was better/easier” theres nothing anybody can do. This is then purely based on a subjective opinion (which is fine because that’s the nature of opinions - as is mine when I say I have the most fun ever). Everything that alters game experience into their direction might directly impact my game experience negatively. All I can do is, hoping that people that feel that way are a small minority.

I would never support the old crafting system, nor have I complained about the current crafting system outside of the range of parameters being a bit weird at certain levels (which is just a knob to turn)

But (good) legendaries are only for the lucky and the no lifers.

I was more referring to the time commitment. Yes, the casino has different variables by you placing money into the slots, but I was specifically pointing out the time that you spend there. In Last Epoch, you run monoliths and such for a lottery legendary. In casinos slots, you pull a lever. At the end of the day, you decide how many hours you spend running a build / pulling a lever, and if you want to ignore all the good loot you get running monolith rewards and such because you’re not getting a T3 Legendary, that’s not the game company being “abusive.”

no, they care if you’re the first ranked necromancer, as that will decide the meta for the next season. second place is just the first meta slave.

No, they don’t care. They really, really don’t care. Devs will look at trends and make decisions based on how easy it is to abuse a particular class/skill to have super high DPS / clear / not worry one bit about survivability. But the devs are not giving you gold stars for clearing X amount of Arena waves. They’re much more interested in giving their entire player base a fun and engaging experience (I know that’s subjective, but at least they want people to buy their game) and could not care less that one guy has a LP3 Unique while another player only has a LP2 Unique.

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I think you are making an error in your evaluation. You are clearly ignoring the drive for players to be at the top of the leaderboards in those other games. Namely, the prizes. As far as I know, you get nothing for being on the leaderboards in LE. That removes a lot of the drive to copy someone’s build just to take the top spot.

This could change in the future if LE starts rewarding people for placing on the boards at the end of each season.

Oh a necromancer crying about itemization? Too bad my manifest armor and forge weapons can’t cry for you since we ran out of tears crying for ourselfs.

in the latter part, your wallet decides that. but while we’re on the analogy, people don’t spend 500 hours in a casino just hoping to win once, they’d give up and leave long before then if not a single lever pull resulted in the prize they were there for.

speak for yourself, because every leaderboard consisting of cookie cutter meta slave copy builds speaks for me.

they are literally catering to the people who will no life their game for years on end for a single good item.

your manifest armor gain stats from your stats, thus allowing you (the character) to actually be useful.
there’s a reason i don’t complain about forge guards. they’re actually functional.

give it time, the game is in beta. so long as there is a leaderboard, there will be incentives.

Have you been in the game long enough to know the history of the Arena in this game?

have you been in this game long enough to be from the future and know everything that is ever going to happen ever?

It wasn’t an insult. It was a question. Arena, since you don’t know, wasn’t planned as a part of the game. It was supposed to be a placeholder for other endgame content. People liked it, so it has been built on. I wouldn’t put too much stock in there being a desire by the devs to put in prize support for the ladder. It would work against their goal of build diversity.