1 and 2. I just started this game last weekend, so I’ve only leveled one character to around 70. I’ve tried several other characters up to a little less than 30. But I’ve played ARPGs for over twenty years and made countless D2 characters. My point of reference is that I releveled the same D2 characters many times because it was fun and challenging, but I only ever leveled one of each D3 character because there was no reason to level another one and the leveling process was boring and too easy.
3. I gave examples, but all the masteries are sufficiently distinct archetypes that the same person shouldn’t be able to freely switch between them. Going from being a falconer to forgetting how to work with animals and being an assassin like turning on and off a light switch makes no sense. A person can’t be both a paladin and a void knight. I like those distinctions being set in stone.
I really like the mastery/skill system, but if there are some options that are strictly better than others, it shouldn’t be too hard for them to switch numbers around and give more build variability. I think having more visual customization options for the characters would help a lot, even if it’s as simple as a face swap. Also, making the leveling process fun is a separate issue. There are slumps in the leveling process where it seems too easy. The whole game should be engaging and you shouldn’t have to get to high levels to feel like you’re actually playing.
I just heard the official definition for “First World Problem” is being changed to “The inability to freely switch Mastery choice in the Action-RPG, Last Epoch”.
It’s a world full of magic and time travel. We could travel back and tell our former self to pick something ass because out innate choice was ass. There are countless ways to make sense in how you chosse and change classes in a world full of magic and timetravel.
i just think this topic will resurface many times bacause A: other games have distinct classes from the beginning or B: ways to respecc.
That sums it up pretty much and I hope the whole thing isn’t backfirering for EHG.
I may be wrong here, but any time this topic pops up, its from a person new to the game who fat fingered the wrong mastery.
Even as a beginner, watch a 10 minute vid of any high level PoE players, and pay attention to how they never stop moving, let the shit mobs do their thing and get to the end of time as fast as realistically possible. This can be done in less than 3 hours for us normies, down to an hour by speedrunners.
Grim Dawn didnt let you change classes (using mods to do it doesnt count here), once you put a point into either of your classes, it was done.
And as far as PoE goes, by the time you are ready to swap ascendancies (this is not super common), you should have amply currency to buy regrets. SSF is a little tricker simply because the npc currency swaps are pretty bad.
the first time you run into problems with most builds is empowered monos. I don’t understand why people think the problem occurs when you pick a mastery. To me changing masteries makes only sense in lategame if you are unhappy with what you picked. That’s not an hour stroll on the fast lane that’s hours upon hours.
To me the whole thing isn’t an issue because I can delete a level 100 toon without a sweat. When average people find out they “wasted” (well it’s never a wast because you collect stuff) a week or to of time because their class fantasy and the build they want to play isn’t working out I bet there will be some salty people. Heck even CC aren’t fans of this or point out a bazzillion times that there is no mastery respecc.
Maby it’s my imagination or simply my gaming experience that gives me the impression that this is a bad thing and I’m hopefully wrong. Time will tell.
On the other hand if EHG finaly did something about the awefull balancing every mastery is viable. If the game launches in the current state… well I know what I want to play anyway as my first 37 toons so I’m good ^^.
Good post, and I and on the small boat behind you. I am not tytykiller or any of the tryhard racers, but the complaints about lab and mastery here just dont matter much to me, but I am only slightly a selfish prick, we all should be able to enjoy the game in our own ways. EHG has been doing some groundbreaking and elegant, possible genre changing ideas. I have faith they will find a way to appease this crowd.
EHG has made it clear picking a mastery is a defining moment and decision. I liken it to GGG and their trading philosophy, they are adamant about making trade annoying as possible, its a feature, no matter asinine it is for the player.
Even in the unbalanced state of current things, all masteries are viable. What might not be viable is the combo of mastery and skills you want to use. But every mastery has enough builds to do endgame content. They might not push 1k corruption or do 1k arena waves, but all have builds that can push at least 300 corruption. Even shaman.
They did. On the other hand I don’t know if this is something defining or not. To me it’s not and I don’t care if I (myself) am able to swap masteries or not. I don’t think to option to do so is something bad as long as we are unable to switch our base archetypes. It’s just a negative to me when I think about other people then myself. I met several hundret people while gaming and not all of them would keep playing LE if the game isn’t taking players time into account and only looking at the celler dweller neckbeard no lifer data.
Yeah but balance is best possible build vs most awefull build. Running 300 corruption when others run 2.4k is simply stupid and nothing that should be defended or something to be okay with.
If I run the same setup as someone else and I’m behind 500 corruption I’m simply bad but if I run a different mastery and I’m behind 2k corruption compared to the fotom builds then the balancing of the game is bad.
I’m not disagreeing that the balance right now is bad. Older masteries need some love and I expect EHG to evetually address that. I just meant that, as the game stands right now, any mastery can do all endgame content without having to find 4LP uniques. With just medium decent gear they can do empowered monos and dungeons.
As opposed to PoE where many times over the years there were ascendancies that could only do some of the endgame mechanics if they invested mirrors into the gear.
That does not invalidate that masteries need balance. It’s just a perspective thing, where you can still have fun with any mastery and still do all endgame content. It would be worse if some masteries couldn’t do dungeons, for example.
It depends what fun is to you. For example in MMO’s i keep all tank classes and healer classes raid ready and up to date because next weeks patch could gut the tank that is good now into the ground. The class might be as funny as before but just beeing worse then other options is a bad thing.
I’m a fan of fun and efficency. I don’t play the most efficent class if I hate it for sure. But i don’t have fun with a “fun to play” class that is crap and barely even to pull their own weight.
Sure Shamans for example have builds that work while Blademaster Rogues laugh their ass off when A shaman says something like this.
I guess you know what I want to point out.
Imagine you are new to LE after you played D4 and facerolled everything with every class. You pick a mastery and a build that is bad and the friends you play with make fun of you non stop because you play the “fun class”. I know a lot of people who would get salty about this in an instant and uninstall the game. Others would just start over and call it a bad experince.The rest of the gang already played the game or watched hundrets of hours of stuff about the game and started out from a point as if they played the game several hundret hours.
Sure, but how is that different than any other ARPG? If you join PoE now and choose a build/ascendancy that don’t synergize or that is currently nerfed you’ll be laughed at by your friends as well. With the aggravation that maybe you can’t even do bosses, or delve, or red maps. If you join D2 and create a WW barb it’s the same thing. At least in LE you can simply spend some gold and respec to a better build in the same mastery and still do empowered monos. As opposed to the other games where you have no option but to reroll a new character.
That’s fair, but I don’t like that use of time travel and I don’t think going that route would be good for the game. I think it’s more fun to have some limits on what I can change when I’m doing a character build so I have something I can do different with the same class each season. Also, if I run into a challenge for my chosen mastery, I have an opportunity to tinker as I have to think in terms of the tools available to that mastery for a solution rather than switching to another mastery which might have a more obvious solution.
Plus, if we can just use time travel to change minute details about our characters, why couldn’t we also use time travel to restore the forging potential of an item we’ve messed up on?
LOL you know… the main theme of the game is… time travel? That was a good one sadly my tee ended up in the wrong pipe because I had to laugh so hard. That was fun .
Yeah I get that point of view but that’s a you issue and not a problem with the game. I done a lot of Pala and VK builds for example and I would’ve never respecced because every choice I made would’ve taken a ton of gold to respecc passives. Changing a mastery isn’t that cheap to begin with and would’ve been another nice goldsink and a way to burn crafting mats.
Yeah problem solving is a nice thing in games as long as there are any left. In most cases the mastery isn’t the issue but the build setup but this brings us back into “The balance is whack” terretory.
Because the time travel fluff of the game is a complete mess and wasn’t well thought through. To me it looks like the time travel theme of the game is there to reuse maps and enemy types and that’s it. There is so far only one side quest that brings the time travel aspect to the table. If you don’t read most of the text thrown at you you wouldn’t get the time travel aspect at all mostly.
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