Disclaimer, I am old, bitter, nostalgic, and weird (not necessarily in that order).
Having played only a little bit of 0.9, then started 1.0 a few weeks ago, I realise I cannot get anywhere near the enjoyment I had in 0.8, the golden age of LE in my eyes (see disclaimer above).
So here is my completely-stupid-suggestion-that-is-never-going-to-happen:
Would you consider releasing standalone, offline versions of each Last Epoch’s iterations? Maybe as part of a supporter pack each time a new cycle comes in?
This could be a bit of income for you, I am sure dedicated fans would buy each and every one of them for collection’s sake, and I would for sure buy 0.8.
[Also, I asked the same thing in PoE some years back, and they never followed through, so doing it would show the world how superior EHG is compared to GGG. ]
Ah ah, it’s hard to say, mostly nostalgia I guess. It’s not very rational I suppose.
But I can try to point out a few things.
When I came back to 0.9.2 after a very long absence, I discovered three (!!!) entirely new categories of items: weaver’s will, personal, experimental. None of them mentioned in the guide at all (but they are now). Plus piles of new uniques obviously. No new bosses or monsters, all additions are on the player’s side.
And now more dungeons with different mechanics, prophecies: the game feels bloated already, just after launch. I miss simplicity.
Now in 1.0, two entirely new classes, and one new skills.
All of them a few thousands times more powerful than anything seen before.
And uniques still spiraling out of control, most builds published online now use legendaries in nearly every slot, instead of just 2-3 build defining uniques like before. Boring.
Some kind of Walk-Around-Invincible-Destroying-Everything-Simulator (this one is dedicated to Direpenguin).
Generally, I feel like the game has been made a lot easier (it already wasn’t very hard), because the policy is to introduce new skills and new items at a fast pace, and everything new has to be exponentially better.
There is just too many things added for the exact same content, the equilibrium is completely off, and I doubt it will ever be possible to restore it.
One note regarding that: I forgot to acknowledge that there are actually new monsters and mini bosses, especially in chapters 4 and 5.
This is a very good idea, I hope we get more of these.
Sadly, at the moment they backfire, because they translate into more xp, and players end up more overlevelled. The new monsters fail their purpose, and effectively make the campaign easier.
Just reduce slightly the xp formula, or better scale areas on player level, and these new mini bosses would become far more interesting.