I’m a massive LAN party guy. I’m one of the lead organizers of a massive annual LAN party. I go to monthly LAN parties. We are absolutely working towards LAN play. It’s just not something we are doing for our pre-Kickstarter demo. It’s not our current focus. I have an active D2 LAN character that I play with my buddies once every couple months at a LAN party.
We absolutely want to have LAN play. It is not cut from the game. If we get an outcry for LAN play as a primary feature then it will move up the list from a want to a need.
2024 edit: LAN mode was removed from our feature list. We no longer plan to include LAN mode.
Hello! I’m a veteran gamer that is excited about Last Epoch, but I have a few questions. I love complicated/interesting gameplay and I particularly enjoyed raiding in WoW. Some of the boss fights use interesting mechanics and make your party balance judgement, skill and experience to overcome the boss. There are also some clearly defined part roles, tank, healer, dps, that aren’t always present in ARPGs. I’m wondering if you are planning on having more complicated boss fights or roles in the endgame?
We definitely want to have difficult boss fights to ensure that the endgame is challenging. This is something which will likely not really be seen until late in the alpha or even the beta.
We don’t plan on having roles such as those. Typically either healers aren’t really capable of doing much content solo, which doesn’t feel good - or they’ve the same damage as everyone else, so everyone plays healer because they’re superior. Some classes (Paladin’s a good example) will have more utility than others. There’ll definitely be ways of helping your team, but not to the extent of an MMO’s healer.
“The primary form of multiplayer in Last Epoch is partying with up to 4 of your friends online to take down the toughest monsters in the timeline.”
Does this mean 4 people total OR you and 4 friends? I’m guessing it’s the former. But seeing as how there are 5 distinct classes in this game, I’m wondering if 5 players is what you had in mind.
I was reading the comments and when I read Terranisaur comment I thought popped in my head.
First I would like to say that the primary games that I play are - D1 Thank you GoG), D2, D3, PoE, WoW, Divinity, Pillars of Eternity etc.
I really like that some characters as the Sentinel have good utility/support aspect within their passive trees, which can be a huge benefit to group play and I also believe that mixing ARPGs mechanics with MMO mechanics is not a good idea, however have you considered to have an alternative Spec for each character?
Something like the Armory in D3 where you can change your gear and skills with a click of a button that will allow you to jump from one build to another, but not more. This will allow a player to have one Solo/DPS orientated build and another utility build.
P.S. I really haven’t put much thinking on this, just thought of it while I was reading.
The number of base classes isn’t too much of a factor here. If we were to hypothetically add a sixth base class in an expansion post-release, it would be unlikely to affect the player cap.
The reason I play ARPG instead of MMO’s personally is that I am able to do all of its content by myself OR with a friend. You brought up HAVING to have a group like in WoW to run dungeons. To me this is bad because if you can’t find a group to run said dungeon with then you are essentially blocked from ever getting the loot from there which in turn could cause your character to be sub optimal. As a character builder that is suuuuuuper frustrating. That said I love challenging bosses as it gives a goal to build characters towards. My suggestion is that if you have content that requires groups to get loot that you make the loot available in another way. Or best of all have the bosses scale based on number of players so it’s do able solo OR in a group.
I’m in the same boat with @GingerNation here. I’m a very social person and have no problems with gathering a large group quickly but I simply prefer playing alone. This way the sense or pride & accomplishment flows more greatly through me.
I don’t mind tho if some bosses require grouping but finding a solution for both group play and solo play would be the best. The challenge for the individual should stay on the same level in both forms of play, not sure how realistic or easy to achieve that is tho!
@GingerNation and @kiss_me_quick I’m not sure where you read that. I think you might have not quite understood Kyle’s intended post. We don’t have plans for bosses which are only doable in group play. We do have plans for bosses to maybe change in group play to have more mechanics to keep things interesting instead of just increasing the numbers. We do want it to be possible to play through the end game content and get the gear you want in a solo self found mode.
