Well, would you consider POE to be lacking as well then? Because POE basically has the same lack of sense of anticipation as you’re describing.
I would say the real issue with LE is a lack of recognisable chase items.
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Strange. I vaguely recall uniques in PoE still need to be identified.
Anyway, I still frequent the PoE reddit since I actually like the game before burning out so I am quite up to date with their current issue. I think PoE’s problem with anticipation is not a problem of lack. Their problem is more of the amount of annoyance(trash drop, very low chance etc) is too much that it is now detriments the anticipation. PoE seem to expect player to play as if it is fulltime job. Stretch the hope too far and it turns to frustration. Thus, moderation is key.
EDIT: and I actually have opinion that PoE has a great mechanic to generate anticipation. It is one of the reasons why a lot of people are loyal and addicted to it (as long as they have the required time and patience to grind out the annoyance)
I concur with that problem with LE’s unique. Power of unique aside, the chase item mechanic itself is good for anticipation and is a major mechanic. It is however too sparse apart time-wise. Each boss encounter requires 1hr+ mono-ing. Furthermore, sometimes player don’t have enough time to meet a boss in a play due to short of free time. I think a different minor mechanic to generate anticipation in between those hours will still be good for the game.
Funnily enough, we’ve had discussions here where some have wanted much larger (longer) maps and such.
Besides, you like to talk about psychology:
→ This certain approach, which has entered the digital game industry since about the turn of the millennium to design a game in such a way that a player receives as regularly as possible and in the shortest possible intervals a success confirmation of whatever kind [this is like a dog treat to train / stimulate the dog] has among other things contributed significantly to the fact that many players can hardly do without it.
→ In addition, the attention spans of the average player have certainly decreased by HOURS… therefore one programs completely after the scheme “problem->reaction->solution” much also only in such a way that the maximum attention span to be demanded of the players does not exceed these nowadays often encountered 15 to 45 minutes if possible. Basically from one quick treat to the next.
I’m disgusted by it all by now.
PS:
Wanted to see how the translator copes with longer sentences.
Translated with DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator (free version)
Double funnily, I have the same opinion on maps. So, I also want more ways/mechanic that generate anticipation (minor or major), then gratification
I have the same sentiment as you on how the psychology of it can be abused. Unfortunately, that is just how human works with regards to entertainment and dopamine, not just in gaming. However, LE has in my opinion a lack of it and can do with a bit more, to be a better entertainment avenue. Abuse it and it become addiction, in moderation and it become motivation.
I agree. I never realized how much I hated identifying items in a ARPGs until LE gave me one where I don’t have to do it.
Filling up my inventory with items and making repeated stops or trips back to town to identify a bunch of items that are probably junk is not fun. It doesn’t add any “anticipation of gratification”. It doesn’t “increase my engagement and sense of satisfaction”. It just adds totally arbitrary time and frustration to the gameplay loop. I’d rather be able to filter out the majority of garbage items, and know in 1-2 seconds of hovering if I want the item for the rest, than have my inventory filled with shit.
It’s not. He read an article written by laypeople for laypeople and then tried to map lootboxes onto loot drops when they are absolutely not the same.
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I only reuse my older comment because I have to diasgree with you.
I simly hate identification mechanic especialy in PoE when you have to indentify every single item. This is reason why I ignore rare drop in PoE even with filter most of time. D3 removed identification process from rares (leg/set have tome for one click for whole inventory) and it was good move (forgot that they destroyed rares later). GD have identified items and gameplay is smother. Identification is usable only if you drop few items per hour and this is not even close to drop quantity in LE or any other ARPG.
I really don’t like to have to identify items in a HnS. Feeling of reward after the small frustration? I understand that in theory but I don’t feel it. For me, it’s just something that breaks the fluidity of my game.
I don’t want that in Last Epoch, I hope there won’t be!
Or at least, as always, as an option that can be desactivated.
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Hey mate, I put the article as goodwill for people to read so don’t nilly-willy extend it to my knowledge. My background is I took psychology as my electives in university and some reading on related topics throughout my years. Can I be wrong? Sure can, after all I am an amateur in the topic. EHG can hire/consult someone more qualified in both game design and psychology like what some devs do. You are however not doing the community a favor by constantly attacking people’s opinion and feedbacks that you don’t agree with.
I feel that people are not reading all the comments or just do knee-jerk reaction (or I am just bad at writing). This is exactly what I am suggesting…
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Yeah, I read your psychology posts that don´t fit on me. You quoted only what fits to your suggestion but it wasn´t meant that way if you leave it with rest of text.
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This just hasn’t been my experience, personally. YMMV
This is where we differ, clearly. If you tell me that you suggest such a mechanic for the sake of a gold sink, I can get my head around that. I don’t think it’s particularly effective, but I can understand it. Given that I don’t experience this anticipation you speak of as anything worthwhile, I fail to relate. Again, in my view it’s nothing more than a tax levied against me if I want even the opportunity to choose whether or not to use an item.
On this particular suggestion, we’ll just have to amicably disagree.
Given our obvious difference of opinion, I am curious what other methods you might be able to envision to drive this anticipation, outside of item identification.
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Sorry if I misunderstand but there are definitely language barrier here. We can agree to disagree on the topic. After all it is a controversial topic. Just one point on your comment that “identification is usable only if you drop few items per hour”. In my suggestion to only identify uniques/legen, it fits the use case then as we will normally only get 0-2 uniques per map on average in mono.
Sure 
I don’t have other ideas. Not a creative person myself 
. If I have one, I will surely update the thread.
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It is possible because english isn´t my native language. Identification of unigues could be usable with few drops now but we don´t know what will be other endgame systems and what will be caused by power creap in future. It was good in D3 after change but annoying when new torment levels were introduced and you have full inventory in a while.
I don’t see LE roadmap having that risk. But it make sense. I dropped D3 very very early so I have no clue what’s torment level, but power creep can certainly be an issue. But, that is more a problem with solving power creep than solving inventory clutter. The risk is definitely still there as none can accurately predict the future.
Anyway, I hope what the devs take away from this topic is mainly the anticipation part.
@Thaelyn more RNG (non-deterministic) crafting is another anticipation generation , but that is another huge can of worms so lets not go there until new patch is out
You don’t need to identify an HH in POE, you know it’s an HH by hovering over it… The same way you do in LE.
Scroll of wisdoms are only used by necessity, most of time there’s absolutly 0 hype/stress coming from it, and when you farm stuff like WE, it quickly gets old, like the second WE you drop you allready do not really even feel the thrill. (Thrill that i never felt in POE, to me scrolls of wisdom are 100% useless and outdated mechanic)
I don’t really think adding item identification will help. The reason I don’t get excited about drops in LE is because I know 1) drops are mostly trash and 2) I’m expected to craft my gear.
I also tend to go solo, so I have very strict filters. The drops I get are rare enough to add that sense of anticipation.
You also talk about gacha systems down below, but most gacha systems do let you skip and mass spin, so I’m not sure the point you were making about inconvenience is necessarily true.
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People have different opinions on identification that are not new points that have not been discussed in thread before so I am not replying further on those. This quote though is not factually correct for most popular lootboxes or pack. Keywords I use are either or all 3 inconvenience. Citing popular examples:
Genshin: at most 10 pull at a time and result shows up one by one
Dota: 1 cosmetic pull at a time
Fifa: 12-30 pull a pack
Overwatch/hearthstone: 5 pull per packs. Edit: Hearthstone even let you click cards one by one for reveal
FGO: max 10 summon a try
Also, I would consider needing (multiple) clicks to skip animation per packs a minor inconvenience.
I will put the two different experiences from FF14, LE, and PoE. We all need to understand that many LE devs play PoE and other games. They have posted in a text (somewhere) that they have made the decision based on their own looting experiences.
FF14
Not a single drop. All loot comes from chests that are specific rolled and quest rewards where the strict inventory system is bland. All you care about there is item level and does it work for the job, period.
PoE Experience
For last season in PoE I picked up a total of 12 rares that needed wisdom scrolls prior act 3. Out of those 12 items, I knew what they were. All the items were based on how I set up my filter that it was the right sockets and links and I care less about the stats. MY end of acts weapon was a level 2 crafted dagger from a vendor recipe. I did not wear a chest until the right combo dropped in act 3. I used 2 bindings on random items for boots and gloves, then those were more painful since I had to use chromes on them.
LE
I have more items in my stash in 6 months of playing here compared to the 1 . x era of PoE. There is a purpose for knowing what the item is and that has multiple outcomes, try to craft on it, feed the item to the forge for a chance to get that affix you are looking for, or just collect some gold (least optimal reason). The reason the stash is so full is, I am thinking of new builds and then I do one of the first two options then test the results in the game. I find that far more rewarding than anything that PoE can ever offer me due to one item, Scroll of Wisdom.
I used the drop downs to keep this post from being a wall of text.
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I agree with that decision and it has its own benefit. Since I’ve been overtly negative in the title and the thread, let’s go through where I do actually feel like a good implementation of anticipation in LE:
- Special node in mono (exalted, unique)
- Targeted chase items
- Crafting to smaller extent
Why I don’t feel anticipation or a good one on LE’s common drops: no tease, minimal bad loot to contrast, minimal flair and no possible engagement action. They are not necessarily bad in the absolute and offer their own pros as seen by a lot of contrasting opinion in the thread.
But,
An ARPG in my opinion would need a more diverse anticipation mechanic and designs spread out through the hours playing, to be hugely succesful. Identification of unique that just show the itembase ala D2 is my amateurish suggestion to add that. Other solutions are welcome.
Anticipation should come from waiting for items to drop not from the chore of having to identify them. Games that have identification mechanics barely increase the sense of anticipation because you know before hand that most items you identify are going to be trash or you can guess what the item is based on the base etc before hand.
Identifying items is boring. I’m glad EHG have streamlined some of the more archaic mechanics that have been common in arpgs. All they do is whittle away the sense of enjoyment I get from playing by consuming my time doing things that aren’t fun.
Surely there are ways to increase anticipation that are more fun and less chore like?
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This.
Let’s reduce everything down to the simplest terms possible.
Killing a monster = “a player action”
Using an Identify scroll on loot = “a player action”
So, right now in LE, it works like this: A Player Action can randomly generate desired loot.
To help players, EHG even added a Loot Filter which has the capability of filtering out undesired loot, leaving only potentially desired loot for you to interact with.
How would any sort of “identify” mechanic affect the game? It would be:
A Player Action can randomly generate desired loot.
Not because it generates it, but because it turns it from unknown (unidentified) to known (identified).
So the entire cycle becomes:
A Player Action generates A Player Action which can randomly generate desired loot.
All you did was add something called “Tedium”. Tedium is objectively bad (psychology not withstanding). There is no valid reason to add Tedium to LE.
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