I played 60 hours at Last Epoch. Here is my opinion:
It’s the best Action RPG I’ve ever played. There is intelligence in the design of classes and skills. The fights are nervous and demanding. I want this game to become known and have great success.
I will recommend it to my friends. This game needs more publicity.
Here it is said. Now I can afford to criticize the game:
Graphics:
Maps too dark: Ok we are in the Ruined Times or the End Times. But the shelters should be brighter. There should be a contrast between the dark exterior and these last human strongholds.
Lack of nature in the map: I find that it lacks nature, life. There should be more especially in the ancient and divine era.
Technical:
The slowdowns: This is not an original criticism. In some fights with a lot of graphic effects, they make the gaming experience painful.
Gameplay:
Limitation of skills: 5 skills in all. I know that many forum players do not agree with this, but I find that we are limited in the number of skills that we can use.
This is particularly true for the Necromancer, which has at least 3 slots occupied by summons, which it no longer uses during combat.
There should be an additional free slot, reserved for the movement spell (teleport, transplant etc.).
Enemies are easy to beat, even champions: The use of the same combat tactics is always effective. And we are not afraid to come across a group of enemies really difficult to beat. In D2 certain groups of enemies had auras, powers (Shock when hit for example) and they were a real pain in the ass to deal with. This effect do not exist yet in LE enemy elites.
Other:
The quest system: It is poor. I’m talking about the vertical bar on the left of the screen. The one on the right is good.
Chapters: I never felt that I was going from one chapter to another. We are very far from the game like D1 where each chapter quest was clearly visible and separate, and where there was a teaser between each chapter. Casually, it gives the impression of a sandbox game more than an RPG.
What I particularly liked:
The Game Guide is a great idea. It is a kind of mini wiki, and minimum necessary to understand the game. It will not replace a good big wiki but it is very useful.
The Craft is good. It frees the player from racing the THE single object. Making your PC more powerful takes less time than on games like Diablo 2, where the probability of dropping good stuff was so low that you had to play a whole life or almost.
The variety of the bestiary: >ariety as well visual as gameplay (some monsters are fast, casting spells etc.) that makes the game less repetitive and more difficult (it takes even more different enemies).
The impressive number of skills well done, with intelligent and balanced specializations. I only played the Acolyte class and I am far from having gone around. This is where we see the superiority of Last Epoch over other ARPGs!
Graphically, I really appreciate that the game is limited to a deluge of effects. I hate when there are too many graphic tricks, huge explosion every 2 seconds. I hope that you will continue in this direction of sobriety and clarity.
What I would like:
I find that the APRGs do not insist enough on team play. In the end, we have individual players who are happy to build their most powerful and autonomous character of the world. Ok but actually people really enjoy to play in a group, and like being able to count on their friends.
I think it would be really good if group play is highly recommended in difficult passages (some maps, some boss). It is 2020, the games should be built around the multiplayer experience.
We can even imagine original things, with two groups of rival players who have the same objective: the first group to finish a map grab a reward. And they can fight to get the reward.
Ssimple things but that would be very stimulating.
The game lacks artwork to define its background and identity. Without a unique musical soundtrack, some beautiful artworks from the world of Last Epoch would not cost much.
I think there should be monsters with specific immunities sometimes. This made it compulsory to use rare skills, or to help another class. I think it was a very good thing and I would like it to be the same in the late game for Last Epoch.
Speaking of which, maybe one way to do this would be to introduce a new difficulty level, Diablo 2 (Normal / Nighmare ) which allows you to redo the game (without giving passive skill points), with much more powerful monsters. This would increase replayability, it would be an alternative to the endgame of endlessly chaining the Monolith Runs.
We are more motivated if we go from point A to point B, rather than chaining runs without having the impression of being in an RPG.
Thanks for reading me. I hope my opinion can be useful.
Very nice review. Most of your points I agree with.
Here are some points I want to share my opinion:
Necromancer has one of the laziest playstyles. This is due to his/her nature being not hte one who does the dirty work. While I agree that it could need some more active gameplay mechanics I don’t think it is a good way to advertise more than 5 skills as a solution. Beastmaster pets have abilities that activate on summon skill use. Something like that. Right now there aren’t that much other skills that have strong synergies with your minions. But there are a few. For example Transplant in combination with rip blood. Both skills can provide buffs for your minions on use. And you don’t need rip blood equipped, it is triggered by transplant.
This could be not implemented, yet. I don’t know what EHG is planning, but I could imagine there will be an intro with some short cutscenes between acts that at the end show a bit “Chapter II” on the screen. Same style like character intros. This is something I’d really like.
The “ARPGs are solo games” attitude that many people have is one that propably comes from the fact that some big ARPGs absolutely failed in implementing nice group play mechanics and failed in propper scaling. I hope EHG can find the right way. Because I really like playing in a group, be it with friends or random people. This is my greatest concern right now. But this is the only one left since I play LE. The others are wiped away during development so i am confident the MP part will be nice!
Did you visit the artwork section of the homepage? There already are some nice wallpaper and a press kit. Also the ingame soundtrack is really nice. What else do you mean by “unique musical soundtrack”?
There are already enemies that have high resistances against certain damage types. Immunities is something I dislike because it can end in hitting a wall, when you face an enemy you cannot kill because of his immunity to your single damage source. Specialising on single damage types brings build diversity. When you always have to gear for several damage types you create mandatory build paths that you have to follow. Otherwise you will fail.
i also do not like to play the story more than once…
I like what they have already announced, more end game areas and not only monolith and arena runs.
Personally i am not so much in the MP experience as my experience with most other multi player action games is bad so i prefer that the team spend their resources on releasing the classes and subclasses that are missing.
This is really what people want? In some shape or form, almost everything is multiplayer and IMHO, it’s good not every game or genre is pushing into this “if you want be effective, play with other people” territory.
Playing with friends is fine and I can enjoy it sometimes, but they will lost me instantly, if they will start creating content, which is not solo friendly. If I would want to play multiplayer game, I would play WoW or something.
This. I really like to play with my friends but those kind of things are why I don’t play any mmo. The “multiplayer experience” as you said should’nt affect the solo experience in any ways.
Then I would suggest that you should be looking for a different genre, probably MMORPGs if you want something that generally forces a player to group up.
There are plenty of single player focused games that are doing well (eg, Last Jedi) and going against the “accepted wisdom” that players don’t want SP story-based games & that everyone wants always online multiplayer games.
That is a cancer that needs to die in a fire. Though I do understand why smaller companies might use it as they don’t have the resources to create the much larger worlds that would be required for not just repeating the same content 3 times before you hit end-game.
The solo experience isn’t affected by party areas. I don’t understand the mindeset of “single players” who think they should be able to do all on their own even if it’s classified as group content. WHY should we scrap engaging group content a lot of people like? It’s okay if it is there you simply can just not bother with it. Devs could simply not connect special things with it like passive point gains with it so noone is hurt or forced to play the content. Sure the loot will be better but you can still only have 4t5s on gear anyways so no need to go to there for self centered players who doom party content. Win for everyone ^^.
ARPGs already have mechanics for party content, difficulty scaling. Just use that instead creating “exclusive party content”. Also this game will have offline mode, how would content for multiple people work here?
Again you wont miss anything if you not go in there so who cares? ^^
A lot of games advertised scaling content and how things change depending on party size and so on and so forth. It took people arround one day to find out how many people are the sweet spot and how skilled people need to be to do the content and everyone else was shafted ^^.
If you go for it like in what was it called… Marvel Heroes Omega or something like that and make group content that is surely but slowly outscaled at some point it’s a matter of minutes to run it through at some point. Content that is set at a certain level is better then scaling stuff because outside of M+ in WoW for example noone got it right and sooner or later HP sponges will scale to ridiculus ammounts that not justify the means to take said enemys down because they scale endlessly. Sure there will be plenty of people who like this as well and a game mode for it like in the arena atm is fun but well designed group content is nice.
It won’t be the end of days if there will be nor party exclusive stuff ingame but it would be a nice addition anyway.
Of course you will miss things…for example, content, bosses and challenge.
Look, I am not against challenge for parties. Something like arena with wave of monsters for multiple people and some ladder, that’s fine. However in moment, you will put rewards in some way (either exclusive items, faster progress or just higher drop rate)behind multiplayer content or creating content exclusive for groups, you are alienating part of your community. Again, I don’t believe classic ARPGs are good genre for this approach.
There are MMOARPGs on the market, but not all of them needs to be that way.
Also, i’d argue one of the biggest Appeals for most ARPG Players is, how straight forward the Genre is in terms of Gameplay and especially Group-Play. No Holy Trinity and stuff, but simply everyone can do there build which they can play best with and have most fun with. I don’t want - even for co-op with my friends, to water that down to some stupid “One needs to be healer, one Tank, one DD” or anything in that direction. If i want that i would play a proper MMORPG.
#Topic:
Also i’m against having more than 5 Skills. It offers more buildvariety and stuff, and works especially with the skilltree concept.
And i agree with the people that 3-playthrough difficultys doesn’t work 2020 anymore.
Well let’s just agree to disagree here because you won’t move an inch as it seem and rather alienate everyone else instead of makeing content for everyone.
I’m already 100% sure that party play will yield more drops no matter what, because if party play don’t offers benefits vs increased scaling there is no intend to party at all outside of playing with friends. As we all know from the past and other games. That was never enough and party play had a lot of benefits over single play if it was for drop rates or better gear.
Yea, party play always have some benefits compared to solo play that’s why it does not need “more” or exclusive content. In Diablo 3 not only party play gives you more loot, but also gives you more experience overall. There was quite a big opposition so they toned it down. There are sill benefits to it but as solo player you never feel you are playing just in “inferior” way that much. I think devs should aim for similar goal here.
While I’m all for having multiplayer as a component, I’m going to beg to differ on the game being “built around the multiplayer experience.” I don’t like to play in groups except occasionally. I prefer solo. There are others like me. “'actually people really enjoy to play in a group” is true for some, not true for others. I think this game can have BOTH but one should DEFINITELY not take precedence over the other.
Will this then include stuff that’s just for solo players? I don’t understand why people who want to play multiplayer insist on having their own little niche areas for content. Works both ways. Again, I think there can totally be room for both but one should not be given special treatment over the other. No snowflakes here, please.
) which allows you to redo the game (without giving passive skill points), with much more powerful monsters. This would increase replayability, it would be an alternative to the endgame of endlessly chaining the Monolith Runs.