Patch 1.2 Timeline, 1.1 Event Updates, and Cycle Poll

Announcements
1

Greetings Travelers,

Over the last week, we have been reading and discussing your feedback about our announced plans for the Event Cycle launching on September 19th and Last Epoch’s next large update targets. We want to continue this discussion with you today and get your feedback directly.

We are holding a Poll for the next 48 hours regarding our Cycle Event and will act in accordance to your input. We think the details of this post are important for making an informed decision, but we want to make sure that the poll doesn’t get lost in the mix.

Poll Link: Cycle Refresh Feedback

1.2 Announcement

As always, we are working closely with community feedback to identify the best path forward for future updates to Last Epoch, and it’s clear that the community is eager for key improvements: expanded end-game content, better onboarding for new players, dungeon improvements, continued performance optimizations, and, of course, more balance and variety.

With this in mind, and after closely monitoring the ARPG landscape for later this year, we’ve decided to adjust our development priorities and timelines. Instead of focusing on some of the originally planned content for patch 1.2, we will prioritize delivering on the key improvements listed above. To achieve this, we’ll be moving much of the content originally planned for patch 1.3 into patch 1.2 and deliver a large, rescoped patch in Q1 of 2025. We acknowledge that the irregular Cycle duration is not ideal and aim for more consistent Cycle cadence going forward. However, we believe that prioritizing these high-demand updates will provide more value than adhering to a strict schedule at this stage.

That said, we are going to get some great updates out to you earlier with the upcoming 1.1 Event, and we believe a Cycle reset coinciding with this release may be favorable to the playerbase.

The Imperial Uprising Event

On September 19th, we are releasing some exciting updates that (based on the feedback we received from the poll) may or may not include a fresh start to the standard environment.

To remind you of some of the updates coming next week:

  • Event Modifiers
    • NEW: Favor Gain Bonus (Community Requested)
    • Reputation Gain Bonus
    • Gold Drop Rate Bonus
    • Random Unique Drop Rate Bonus
    • Additional Undead Enemy Spawns in Monoliths
  • 20+ New Shrine types
  • Addition of Loot Lizards
  • Dungeon Quality of Life (”QoL”) Updates
  • Stash Tab Priority System
  • Merchants Guild Search Improvements
  • Undead Enemy Updates
  • And More

We’ll be sharing more details of the content coming in the Cycle Event - The Imperial Uprising this Friday the 13th.

We would love to hear from you regarding our upcoming Event Cycle plans, and our original announcement of doing a cycle refresh by participating in this community poll: Cycle Refresh Feedback

Thanks again for your support of Last Epoch, for taking the time to give your feedback, and for helping make the game the best it can be. Keep an eye out for some additional polls and surveys coming soon so your voice can be heard for future developments. Our team is excited and working more efficiently and better than ever to get the next big updates for Last Epoch in your hands.

- Judd Cobler
Game Director, Last Epoch

28 Likes
2

Are there any plans to buff or expand the choice transformation abilities for Druid such as giving shifted forms access to Tempest Strike or Earthquake? As long as transformation abilities aren’t as good as the best possible ability available to Druids in human form, the transformations are always going to be playing second fiddle or relegated to buffing / mana battery roles.

Cheers, been enjoying the game otherwise.

5 Likes
3

With a refresh: might come back and check out the changes since 1.0

Without a refresh: no point economy is scuffed and inaccessible at this point

13 Likes
4

Another poll, another instance of the poll being awkward to fill out. The last choice should be multiple choice, people can have different, and equally weighted, reasons for not liking a cycle refresh.

9 Likes
5

Very pleased to read on the realignment of development priorities and timelines, particularly on end-game content and performance optimizations. I don’t personally see an issue with new-player onboarding and IMO that “space” should be reserved for the likes of D4. I was always under the impression LE was somewhere between POE and Diablo in terms of complexity - absolutely no need to rein in on that IMO.

With POE2 on the horizon, LE is at a crossroads and needs to get this right for players to incoporate it into that seasonal rotation.

In terms of the poll, for me it’s really simple… Without a full reset, there’s next to no incentive to play next week and if it didn’t reset I most likely wouldn’t. I like the game and appreciate it’s in early days, but the hype/desire to play/push leaderboards/farm/gear/grind etc. all revolves around a reset and not a new patch.

Great work from you and the team.

3 Likes
6

I wish I could pick multiple options for the second question. I usually lose interest with characters once they move to Legacy, and feel awkward that I just got a few friends into the game and we won’t have time to continue our characters before the refresh. I understand that aside from the Merchant Guild economy and the Leaderboards (both of which I don’t participate in) there isn’t any difference in mechanics between Legacy and Cycle, and no progress is being lost, but it still somehow feels bad.

I selected the option about Inventory/Stash management because I think that is the biggest pain point/ annoyance with dealing with characters going to Legacy. I almost wish there was an option to just mass delete everything there and only have the newest Cycle characters transfer over, just so I don’t have to deal with sorting and organizing everything again.

Thanks for the update on timing of 1.2 being early next year. It’s unfortunate, but I’m happy that EHG is wanting to give us a substantial content update with that, and not wanting to wait on the QoL stuff, and is splitting the difference. I just hope that by trying to include stuff from 1.3 you won’t be setting yourselves up for failure again by trying to put too much on your plate. Regardless, while it is a bummer that you won’t be able to stick to the Cycle release schedule you had intended, I massively appreciate the communication and forthrightness (and willingness to respond to player feedback) that this company continues to show.

Looking forward to the updates and the Event (Playing in Legacy probably). Keep up the good work EHG!

1 Like
7

Y’all havent had “consistent cycle/patch cadence” since .8 . Been saying you were aiming for consistency for far too long. Mp was a huge delay, 1.0 was delayed, 1.1 delayed, 1.2 delayed. Successful arpgs need regular updates, and yall cant seem to deliver on that. You cannot avoid poe, poe2, d4 forever. At some point you all gotta get your development timelines sorted and get the game on track and stop using them as excuses.

12 Likes
8

yeah at least allow us to use one human skill to use while transformed

2 Likes
9

Regular updates would certainly be nice, but EGH is still nowhere near the size of Blizzard/GGG. I think it’s unfair to say that they need to be on the same pace as companies with far more resources. But I do agree that EHG themselves is the one who’s setting that unreasonable pace. If they communicated that patch/cycles would be longer/more sporadic, then that would in some ways feel better than constantly being told there will be delays. Under promise and over deliver rather than the other way around, essentially.

10

This is the right call.

BUT balance and bugs have to be fixed before the next big patch.
If that patch is “ruined” by bad balance and bugs, non of this would matter.

Hold the "content for 2025, but use the current resets to get balance and bugs sorted.

14 Likes
11

Can we get a CoF rank update to allow nemesis base item types to be achievable items for CoF players with this “refresh”? (Think same arguments/reasoning as the exiled mage specific affix items)

2 Likes
12

With no major content update, skill/class updates or monolith updates…there is 0 reason to do a cycle reset. It makes no sense.

4 Likes
13

Very interested to see the shift next year and battening down the hatches in terms of regular highly consistent 3-4 month cycles to follow! The landscape of ARPGs will be completely turned upside down in the next couple of months for sure.

1 Like
14

Looking forward to the event! Take all the time you need for 1.2, really appreciate the great work you are doing!

1 Like
15

If we’re not getting a major patch until 2025 then please use the 1.1 refresh as an opportunity to do some balance chances and spice things up a bit. Lots of unused skills that could be playable with some numerical buffs.

5 Likes
16

As much as you believe 1.1 was a major patch - it wasn’t, at best it was a necessary balance patch, now this means there won’t be a meaningful update to the game for about a year after its 1.0 release. No further balance patches, no content, no meaningful improvements to performance.

Not a lot of people are going to stick around after the event with this poor of a client performance, very grindy CoF favour rates, barren MG bazaar, stale meta, bad dungeons, very uninspiring mono grind, and more.

Rather than halting releases for months on end there should be continued stream of smaller but meaningful changes until you find your cadence.

Worst thing you can do is go silent, :pray: provide updates on 1.2 progress and coming changes early and often. Include the community more than a month before release.

5 Likes
17

I’m definitely looking for the event and the refresh, there’s actually a reason to start a new character and grind from the beginning.

Is there more detailed info about Dungeon QoL?

3 Likes
18

I’ll reserve judgement on whether I’ll play or not after I see the details of new patch, particularly with a focus on endgame.

I feel like the endgame is very stale at the moment and had been since they added the Monolith Web feature some time ago, which really dampens my enthusiasm to invest time in LE again. Cycle resets help alleviate that somewhat but ultimately, farming loot just to endlessly grind monos until I quit the game with a monster encounter added every three months for flavour isn’t meaty enough.

I hope devs are working on some alternative to monoliths for endgame to motivate players to come back and pick up the game.

1 Like
19

Why is the games “economy” a deciding factor when it’s not needed to play? There use to not be one, in fact. How is it inaccessible?

2 Likes
20

They never did promise anything though… In another thread where this came up, no one could find any statement from EHG claiming the cycles would have a fixed 3-4 months duration…
Someone said that Mike confirmed it on stream, but somebody else searched through all Mike’s streams transcripts and the closest to this he found was something like “we’re aiming for 3-4 months”, which definitely does not amount for a promise.
Also, it’s completely viable that this is the timeframe they expect to work with only after the majority of core mechanics are implemented (i.e after 1.4 at least), and their efforts are mostly catered to developing new, cycle exclusive mechanics, new items and stuff.

2 Likes