Even though I’ve played several ARPGs I’ve never “completed” the endgame of one, so I decided that once I’ve killed Aberroth and reached level 100 I would make a detailed write up of my most prominent thoughts.
Background: Long time gamer of 29 years. I’ve enjoyed basically every genre under the sun, and I almost love learning about games more than I love playing them. My first ARPG was FATE, a game that my cousin had showed me, and it had left a huge impression on me. Over the years I continued to check out more games like Diablo 3, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, PoE, Grim Dawn, Diablo 4 and Diablo 2 (in rough order of campaign completion). Even though I’ve mostly enjoyed those games, I was always left unsatisfied in one way or another. I got LE around the time of the 1.1 release, and while it wasn’t perfect I could see the potential, and I could see from the language of the developers that this was the ARPG for me.
What I think are LE’s strong points:
A strong foundation for a character progression system
Clear routes for smooth item progression
A very well balanced skill system
A fun and rewarding SSF experience
Simple but engaging endgame
What I think are LE’s weak points:
Trade (can’t vouch personally)
Lack of social features
What sets LE apart from other games in the genre
Some of the most community focused devs in the genre
The crafting systems
To me, LE has the strongest foundation for a modern ARPG today. My favorite thing in games is making my own builds, and I feel like I could take almost any skill and make a decent build with it. I’m very excited to see systems get expanded and iterated upon so that I have more tools to make my builds more unique! (I once tried to make an Avatar of Fire Archmage build in PoE. It wasn’t very good, but it was certainly unique XD)
One thing that I really like that I don’t see people talking about: Dungeons! I would love to see more dungeons. Especially dungeons with more unique mechanics that change how you play. I would really like to see a co-op dungeon and a rougelite-ish dungeon (What a groundbreaking and revolutionary idea, I know). One of my favorite things to do in PoE is heists. The gameplay of grabbing the stuff you want and getting out while making sure the alert meter stays under 100% is really fun, and the replicas and experimented base types are some of my favorite reward spaces.
On a similar note to experimented base types, another thing I’ve noticed in LE is items with alternate crafting mechanics like Merophage or The Cuckoo. I would love to see more items like that added in future updates. I honestly can’t think of a use for those two, but I love the possibilities that more items like them could possibly open up. I think I heard Mike say that one goal of the team is to make it so when you open your inventory, you see a lot of different colors in your gear. I really look forward to seeing more colors than just red and purple making space in people’s builds!
The map design in LE is superb. I rarely find myself having to backtrack across long distances, even when I’m unsure where the objective is. I’ve even started to wonder if the objective is generated a certain distance from the player after they make a certain amount of progress in the map. It feels that way sometimes because the objective is almost always in the general direction of where I’m heading. One major exception is dungeons. Sometimes, especially in the Lightless Arbor, I find that too many routes are closed off close to each other, and I have to make a major detour to get around them. I like exploring dungeons thouroughly (especially when I have an active scale charm), but the barriers feel like to much of an impediment to me. One change that I would really like to see, is the ability to take the first door’s bonus at the second door. (In short, just make it so you don’t have to run all the way back)
I feel like idols are, in a certain way, LE’s version of gems. They are small, slottable pieces of equipment that fill a small but signifigant role in your build. I really like this system, especially the fluid nature of them. I feel like they (along with monolith passives) help me fill in gaps in my build such as resistances, and make it much easier to transition from one piece of equipment to another when they have different defenses on them. I really want to see uniques that interact with idols in some way. Uniques that enhance/change the function of idols, unique idols that have an effect on their neighbors, ect. There is a lot of really fun space to explore here.
EHG is doing an amazing job at fostering a positive community. As someone who has always loved the genre but never felt like there was an ARPG out there “for me”, I appreciate devs’ willingness to listen and make changes that the community asks for. I really feel like the devs listen to feedback, and try to figure out the best solutions possible for the community and for the game. Just seeing the progress made from 1.1 to 1.2 makes me very optimistic for Last Epoch’s future.