I’ve been playing for +150h so far, and I’m enjoying the game. I still remember the first time I was introduced to this genre of games with Diablo 1 which scared the hell out of me (I was 14 at the time), but Diablo 2 was where I spent the most time on back in the day. However, this game gives me a lot of PoE vibes if I were to compare this game with other well established titles in the same genre.
I have a few suggestions, questions and will be prodding at some questionable game designs of Last Epoch, and will separate them by topics for easier understanding.
Just a warning, these are just my opinion and in no way am I saying this is exactly what I expect the game to have. It’s just some thoughts and ideas I had while playing the game.
Monoliths
Monoliths are the bread and butter for the end game, this is where most players will spend the majority of their time doing. And so, it’s quite important that this end game loop feels good. In general, I like them. However, some QoL changes could help improve the experience.
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Arenas feels really bad in Monoliths. Most guides I view tells people to avoid them as they take too long compared to the other nodes. I think the main reason for this is because of the design of the arenas. The map is too large and enemies takes too long to spawn in between packs. Maybe make the maps smaller, and spawns more frequent with bigger density. If the maps were smaller the node would go faster, and bigger density = more enemies = more chance for loot thus making it as attractive to run as the regular nodes. And given Arena nodes are less frequent, it would totally justify having increased spawns and bigger density in them.
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As of now, the only way to tell the difference from a Arena node to a regular node is to select it and read the name on the bottom. I picked up on this pretty fast, but my mate was having issues identifying an Arena node. Maybe the nodes need a better visual representation of what it is. So for example, the Arena nodes could have the round icon with the representation of the reward but has a different border to the regular ones. (maybe some spikes, or a pair off crossed swords behind the round icon)
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If you play in a party, everyone has different progress within the timeline, having different rewards to the rest of the party. Perhaps it would be a better idea to sync progress so everyone is in the same page. Either have the timelines reset when joining a party, or have the party leaders’ progression be the baseline for the rest of the party. But as it is right now, it kinda feels like the the whole party is working towards 1 single players goals, makes it feel kinda selfish in a way, defeating the purpose of playing in a group, which is to achieve a particular goal together. Or at least have the rewards of an echo from the party leader be the same for other party members.
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While doing monoliths in a party, if you’re not the one starting it, you have to take a portal to meet up with the player that initiated the echo. Please give porting in players 1 second of invulnerability when they actually pop into the echo. I’m grinding echoes with a friend, and sometimes my friend or I stay behind cos we’re either clearing the inventory, shattering items or visiting the shop. When I take the portal in, I am dropped dead centre in a massive group of mobs putting myself in great danger of dying and losing all rewards for that echo. I’ve died to this once or twice, my friend has also died to this a few times, and they always felt like an unjust death.
Gameplay
Gameplay in general feels good with some janky mechanics here and there (especially with the movement skills, oh boy do these need a lot of love). Let’s touch in some of my gripes with it and how in my opinion it could be improved.
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Movement skills comes in 2 flavours, it’s either a dash/blink/jump (lets just call em dashes for easier reference) or a channelling ability. With the dashes, they feel alright in general (apart from getting stuck in animation when using one, but this is a bug and hopefully fixed sooner than later), the only problem I have here is why can I dash through some walls, but others I can’t. It gets pretty confusing as what I’m allowed to do so I end up wasting time and CDs to try to dash through a wall or ledge and hope it works. It should be clear what dashes can go through, either we can dash through walls or we can’t. Now channelling movement abilities feel awful. A lot of the maps aren’t really straight, and when they are, it’s either too narrow or has obstacles in the middle. They cost too much mana in the case of Paladin and with him when you touch a wall it slams into it making you waste more momentum. Let players change directions while channelling, or make the direction follow towards your mouse cursor. It can have a slow turn rate, but for the love of god, let us be able to move away from obstacles or correct the angle in those narrow corridors. Think of Sion ult or Nunu’s snowball in League of Legends.
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Some areas when you port in either by walking through the end of the zone or by using a waypoint have enemies too close. The entry area for a zone should never have enemies near enough to pull aggro. During levelling these are generally the area where I stop to level up my passives and/or skills. Please leave these area clear of mobs for our convenience.
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The crafting system is gold, it’s so well designed and it’s a vital aspect of the game, so it’s an interface where we will spend a lot of time using. I have no issues with the UI itself, however, there’s something that happens that is prone to force big mistakes from players. And yes, we should pay attention to what we do at all times, but mistakes happen and we should do everything to minimise the risk of committing a mistake. For example, when you shatter items, the Rune of Shattering stays in the Forge next time you open it. I have shattered a perfect item this way cos I just wanted to try and seal an affix but did not notice the Rune of Shattering was still up and when I hit the button, my item went bye bye. Could you not make the Forge remove any Runes it had on previously when you open it? If you close the Forge it should reset any Runes used previously.
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In this game there’s a few casted self buffs that stack, like Maelstrom and Sigils of Hope. And yes, I am aware you can spec it so that these buffs auto-cast when you do something else like using your main damage ability. However, before you spec into those, these self buffs feels really bad. The reason for this is because these abilities have a casting time and animation. For example, Maelstrom, you want at least 6 stacks of it, forcing you to stand almost in place for a few seconds just to stack it up to 6 for then the buff to wear off a few seconds later. Either make them not have a casting time and animation or have them act like an aura that increases stacks the longer you have it active. I’m not sure the best solution for this, but as it is right now feels really bad.
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Ranged enemies are a huge hassle, especially if you are melee. They are constantly dashing backwards, and sometimes dash off screen. There’s a couple of issues with this. One, as a melee, they’re kiting you to the point of frustration, and two if you ignore them, they dash so far back that they’re attacking off screen. Enemies should NEVER deal damage to you while off screen, that is just bad game design. They should never dash back unless it’s a boss. And their attack range should be extensively shorter. This is excruciating as a Swipe Druid, cos not only do they not have a dash, you have to chase these kiting mobs, very very frustrating experience, same with my Smite Hammerdin.
Campaign
This is no secret, the campaign isn’t the majority’s cup of tea, or how most feel it’s a waste of time having to redo the campaign on their alts. However, I’m not here to poke holes into the story or progression with alts, but instead certain design choices made during the campaign.
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In the Temple of Eterra, when you go into the Lotus Hall, there are a few things that aren’t really good design. When you first go in, you have to go all the way down the stairs just to be told you can’t open the door, and new objectives pop up telling you to go to each side to flip a switch. Can’t this be done some other way instead of forcing us to go down like that? I noticed a habit of this with other quests which I will touch on later.
Also, when you reach one side you have to go back in time, to then just flip a switch then go forward in time and proceed. It feels really bad having to go through 2 loading screens and really makes no sense at all. Feels lazy in a way. Wouldn’t it be better if for example, you reach one side, it tells you to take the portal to the past you flip the switch there and have to progress through the temple all the way to the other side, flip the switch then go forward in time to open the door? This would mean you would have to design another version of the Lotus Halls but just sounds better than travel in time > loading screen > flip a switch > travel in time > loading screen > run to the other side > travel in time > loading screen > flip a switch > travel in time > loading screen. I think the biggest issue is that we’re forced to go through 2 loading screens in less than 10 secs x2. -
The side quest line ‘A Study in Time’ also has the same problem of forcing players to go somewhere just to be told they can’t progress through it. When you’re progressing through this quest, at some point it will tell you to go into the Ruined College, and after going in you’re told you need a crest and you can’t open the door. Can’t this be done outside rather than having to go inside? The dialogue can happen as you get to the entrance of the college and you’re told you need the crest.
Items
I don’t have much to complain about items, and the concerns I have has been brought up by other people. However, there’s an item type I have huge issues with, and that’s Idols. They feel kinda weird mainly cos they’re all over the place. With so many gods and other “higher” entities, we only get 2 main types of Idols (disregarding class specific Idols). There’s nothing that really sets them apart other than being Lagonian or Eterran.
From what I can tell, Lagonian Idols are fire cold and lightning, Eterran are poison, void, physical and necrotic for offensive affixes and then Lagonians are lightning, cold, fire, elemental resists and health while Eterran are poison, physical, necrotic and void resists for defensive.
This not only makes absolutely no sense, but once you’ve gathered a good number of them it becomes a huge visual pollution, making players waste a bunch of time hoovering their mouse over each single Idol to see what they do. It can get confusing, and definitely cluttering. These need a desperate look into, and have better options to make the experience better for players.
For example, we should have 7 types of non-class specific Idols, and what 2 affixes choices they can roll.
- Lagonian Idols - Offensive Lightning or Spell stats, Defensive Lightning stats and Health stats.
- Rahyenian Idols - Offensive Fire or Spell stats, Defensive Fire stats and Health stats.
- Heoborean Idols - Offensive Cold or Spell stats, Defensive Cold stats and Health stats.
- Majasan Idols - Offensive Poison or Bleed stats, Defensive Poison stats and Health stats.
- Eterran Idols - Offensive Elemental or Physical stats, Defensive Elemental or Physical stats and Health stats.
- Imperial Idols - Offensive Necrotic or Spell stats, Defensive Necrotic stats and Health stats.
- Corrupted Idols - Offensive Void or Spell stats, Defensive Void stats and Health.
Note: any of the Idols could roll 2 health stats. Physical stats are meant by stats like armour, crit avoidance, endurance, endurance thresh, dodge as well as Physical dmg, melee, throw, crit chance, crit multi, etc etc… Moreover, for example, Melee Lightning damage would be under Lagonian Idols, Fire Melee damage under Rahyenian Idols an so on, and not under Eterran Idols (cos it rolls Physical stats).
Also to set them further apart, Idols should have 2 glows on them to indicate what they are - red glow offensive, green glow defensive. So an Idol with 2 offensive affixes should have 2 red glows, or if 1 offensive 1 defensive affixes 1 red and 1 green glow to better identify them visually.
Obviously what I wrote could be improved on, I just quickly came up with these, but it’s just to prove the point that Idols could use much better work especially when you can use your own lore to give more flavour to the Idols, cos as of right now, they’re kinda meh.
Conclusion
Please do not take my words as gospel. I’m not trying to reinvent the game. These are just my opinion. I am no expert in this game, however, I truly believe these would improve the game by a lot. Thank you for taking the time to read, and have a good day!