You mean 97/95/80/78? 
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It is currently, but the dev (Mike) did say a few months back that people were reaching max level “too fast”. We’ll see if there are changes.
I only speak Truth. It can be hard for a mortal to comprehend it, a mortal life after all is short about 60-80 years best, maybe less if you spend your life playing computer games.
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Howdy,
I resonate with your points here. I think you had to know you would get some of the more…“fervent” supporters of the game disagreeing with you. No offence, of course, but these forums are a biased echo chamber for LE support–as most game specific forums are.
I see what you mean by saying PoE is better, etc…It is! D4 is also better…
A bunch of folks will come in here and say “well being better is subjective!” We are talking about digital media, art, and entertainment…mass subjectivity = objectivity. It really isn’t complicated. If more people think your game is better…and more people buy your game…IT’S BETTER–The masses have deemed it so.
Sales and foothold in the genre is the competition. The last placed football team in the league isn’t the best team because of our subjective position on it…Same with LE. It is the least popular major arpg in the genre…because it is the worst. Doesn’t mean folks can’t love to play it, but the “that’s your opinion” stuff is nonsense, lol.
Anyway, a bit ranty, but I had to mention it cuz some of these replies to your feedback are insane.
It is pretty obvious EHG is happy to have the game remain stagnant, or there would be significant content added to bring new players to the game, not cater to its existing players (it’s pretty obvious what people enjoy since the market is led by superior games). EHG wants LE to be a niche arpg, so it will remain so.
I will personally give 1.1 another crack because I enjoyed cycle 1 for a bit, and played in beta bunch too…but I think in terms of retention 1.1 will have similar issues. There is not much interest anymore with the dated mechanics in LE…why would anyone want to come to LE to do all the stuff they hate about PoE and d4 again? Less so…because in 2024 you can’t even fully respec your character!
There just isn’t anything setting this game apart…which is sad because they had something here.
That’s not how popularity works.
And now you’re confusing things the other way, objectively worse performance with popularity or a group of people’s emotional reaction to it.
I can’t stand smoked salmon, but that doesn’t make it objectively bad, nor does it make it any less of an opinion than someone who likes it (like my sister & one of my kids).
This is not true, though. The masses only determine is something is more popular, not better. Is Taylor Swift better than Led Zeppelin? Does it even make sense to compare them?
At most, you can say that the masses will determine if a game is successful. Being better has nothing to do with it.
According to this line of thought, rice is the objectively the best food in the world, because it’s the most eaten. Since more people like it, it’s better than any other food.
We have PoE numbers and LE numbers. We don’t have D4 numbers. So we can’t really know how many players join a new season or how many stay for how long. Blizzard only releases those numbers every now and then when it’s convenient to them.
You mean like a pinnacle boss, a new faction, new uniques, new mechanics? It’s more than D4 did on their first 2 seasons.
Quite likely. I’d be willing to bet D4 has the same retention issues, though they’ll never release the numbers to show.
The only reason PoE manages to have a higher retention is because they have lots and lots of endgame stuff to do. Which took them years. Not LE nor D4 are anywhere close nor will they be in the next 1-2 years.
There are actually a few, like crafting (which D4 felt they had to copy), factions (which GGG already said they’d like to copy) loot filter, corruption, etc. They don’t have enough stuff to keep us entertained for a longer time yet, though.
LE still has a long way to go, but it’s definitely in the right track and it will still have lots of time to prove itself.
Perhaps I am unclear what you mean? That is my point regarding LE. people reaction to it vs. objectively worse performance.
LE is objectively worse than PoE and d4.
No, Led Zepplin is objectively better; they have sold more albums.
The only relevant number is the revenue; this is a business with direct competition by other companies over the same consumers. IF LE were better, it would have sold more copies/generated more fiscal revenue than its competitors.
It didn’t (unless there is some hidden information somewhere?). Ergo…
Sure, but you cant even fully respec your character (mastery). The campaign is bad. The campaign skips are bad. How is is objectively bad? Sales. There are no more build options than any other arpg, due to poor tuning and seasonal model. Graphically its decent, but not amazing…if you care about such things.
There simply isn’t anything to separate this game from the competition and EHG is fine with this. There is nothing wrong with being niche, but admission is the first step?
No one wants to play this way anymore. There are better games that do the same thing. How do I know this?
Sales.
I mean…I like the game too and wish it were better, though!
He meant that a team might be the most popular and still lose. Which would go against what you said, since the most popular team should be the best one.
They haven’t sold as many albums in the same amount of time. Over the course of over 60 years they did.
EDIT: But by that metric, Rhianna is objectively better than Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones or AC/DC.
PoE doesn’t sell anything and is considered the best ARPG. So that’s just not true.
Nor will you. That’s a design choice. You don’t like it, other do.
What do sales have to do with a part of the game being good or bad? A game can have one of the best mechanics in the genre (re: wolcen passive tree) and yet fail miserably.
There is. Each of the 3 top ARPGs target a different playerbase via their identity. D4 targets casuals via their MMO-like blend and easy difficulty. PoE targets the hardcore playerbase by the complexity of their systems. LE aims for a middle ground that appeals to the older D2 fans via it’s game identity.
For the foreseeable future, you’ll have most ARPG fans cycling between the 3 ARPGs. They will flock to one when the season starts, then go to the next one when that season starts. Some will even cycle through even more games like Hero Siege, No Rest for the Wicked or PD2. That’s the model of contemporary ARPGs and that won’t change anytime soon.
Aren’t everything. I’m willing to bet that over 90% of players that bought D4 haven’t returned to it since.
Not to mention that, like I said, PoE doesn’t have sales numbers and is widely considered the best ARPG.
All that really matters is player peaks at season start and player retention. Which D4 won’t ever release because it wouldn’t paint a good picture.
That makes them more popular. There’s a difference. What metric are you using to judge “objective better-ness” for something creative?
Do you believe that you are objectively worse than someone else because they earn more money than you? Or have more friends? Or vice versa?
Ahhhkkkkkchually, what I said was:
“Sales and foothold in the genre is the competition. The last placed football team in the league isn’t the best team because of our subjective position on it…Same with LE. It is the least popular major arpg in the genre…because it is the worst. Doesn’t mean folks can’t love to play it, but the “that’s your opinion” stuff is nonsense, lol.”
Pretty convenient to leave out the first sentence which holds the defining parameters of the point…
When she sells more she will be bettter.
She is.
??? PoE doesn’t sell anything?
“West Auckland-based Grinding Gear Games - maker of the multiplayer fantasy game Path of Exile, played by millions worldwide - saw its after-tax profit for the year to September 30, 2023 fall to $28.4 million from the prior year’s $48.9m, according to documents filed with the Companies Office overnight”.
Guess they don’t sell anything?
Yes! And that is totally okay, but the general public doesn’t like it…or the game would have sold more copies than its competitors. It is a worse game because of the “design choice”. I referenced this in my original post.
If enough of a game is good: people will buy it. Wolcen was bad.
Yes, LE wants to be niche. The price you pay is: you make less money because the game is worse; less people play it.
Probably better to save this portion until have 1.1. Proof will be in the $$. I think its speculation.
It isn’t though. D4 is the best arpg whether we like it or not; more people bought it…I prefer PoE and LE to d4 personally, but d4 is clearly better.
I don’t think retention matters at all in a competitive market with so many releases and content; particularly, within a seasonal model.
sales in a competitive market space within the same genre.
No, that’s not a competitive market within the same genre.
Actually, what you said were 2 opposing things:
If the masses like something more than another, than that thing is objectively better.
But if the masses like a team that didn’t win more, apparently that team isn’t the best anymore?
It’s almost as if you can’t simply apply raw numbers universally to all situations.
You see, that is what tells you that numbers don’t actually measure quality.
Right now her music is objectively worse than Zeppelin’s, according to you. However, if she never releases any more music and over time sells more, than her music, which was worse one day, is suddenly better because she sold 1 more copy.
Neither Swift’s nor Zeppelin’s music changed in the slightest, but suddenly one is “objectively” better and the other is “objectively” worse.
Popularity is not the same as quality.
You were saying D4 and PoE sold more copies than LE (before you edited to add revenue). Either way, you don’t know the revenue of D4 nor the revenue of LE. You’re trying to compare sales numbers (which D4 didn’t really release anymore, there are just estimates, even though they’re certainly quite higher than LE’s) with revenue.
This just doesn’t make sense. What you’re saying is that D4 is the most perfect ARPG of all time. Everything in the game is perfect because it’s the game that sold the most. It’s not allowed to have parts of the game that are worse than equivalent parts in other games.
Which is just silly. PoE’s endgame is clearly way superior to D4 and objectively better. And yet, they didn’t make as much money as Blizzard did.
A game might not sell as much as others and yet have a part of it be superior to the competition. It’s just the whole that doesn’t work as well.
It’s actually the only thing that matters. If you don’t have enough retention, you don’t have enough players around to buy MTX, which is how these games make money in the long term.
Initial sales numbers only matter for the initial revenue. Long term player retention stability is what matters for the longevity of a game. As can be easily seen with D3, which had a big number of sales and yet quickly died out.
How is that not a competitive market within the same genre? If someone does the same thing you do and gets paid more, it’s the same market, it’s competitive. That must mean they’re objectively better than you at your job.
Besides, you’re saying that games are measured by how much money they make. How is that different from saying humans are measured by how much money they make?
Likewise, you’re saying the more people like a game the better it is (which is often exclusive with the above). How is it any different from saying that if someone has more friends, they’re better?
The thing is that you’re trying to apply raw numbers universally except when it doesn’t further your argument.
And, like I said and you ignored, using your own arguments, you agree that rice is objectively the best food in the world.
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It’s already sold more copies than PoE, so, yay?
Niche doesn’t make it less good, it just makes it less popular.
Is English your mother tongue? You seem to have difficulties comprehending the difference between the two terms. Or can you only see the world in financial or numerical terms?
Yes, it is.
PoE also sold fewer copies than ever non-F2P game.
Just to add to this: LE sold over 1 million copies. At 30$/€ or equivalent, that’s 30 million. Which is probably more because many people bought the more expensive editions. Not to mention the supporter packs.
So BY YOUR OWN METRIC, Last Epoch is currently better than PoE.
EDIT: Also, if sales were the single metric for how good a game is, the GOTY would always be awarded to the best selling game and Minecraft would win every time. When many times GOTY isn’t even awarded to the most sold one.
The $28.4m he’s mentioning is profit after tax, not sales & in a single year, not spread over ~5 or however long it’s been.
Though LE has sold ~1 million units & PoE has sold 0.
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That’s just the point. We don’t know the total revenue of PoE since it started. Maybe it’s higher than D4’s. Who knows? We don’t have access to either the financial values of revenue nor of active players. Everything is just guess work.
Not to mention the big flaw in his argument which is economics. There are many objectively better things selling less because people will flock to the cheapest choices (which is also why rice is the most consumed food in the world).
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You can work out most of it from their stats going back to whenever their first uploaded statutory accounts was for PoE.
And revenue is less important than profit/EBITDA.
I know, I’m just saying that you’re comparing two very different things revenue v profit after tax) & drawing a specious conclusion.
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You can do that for PoE because GGG only has PoE, but you can’t do that for D4 because Blizzard has lots of different games. You can’t separate their D4 profits from everything else.
I feel like that’s one of these modern… how to phrase it the best way… deseases? nah that sounds to harsh… well however you wanna call it, one of the modern ‘problems’ we have is, that due internet, update and post-launch support, quite some old gems have had time to get their level of refinement and addtional post-launch-content support, that people tend to compare a new modern vanilla-release versus one which is out since a long time. Some people also argue because others figured out what to do, that it makes it less time consuming to programm and implement such stuff. MMO’s suffered the same situation and now it’s ARPG’s.
Also ‘Endgame’ is such an huge mootpoint anyway. Everyone expects something different in a different scale. For some it’s challenging content, for others it’s one particular mode which blows everything out of the water, for other it’s a variation of ton of things, for others Endgame is the level of replaybility: Means starting over with new characters, alts and twinks ← so not even the “grind” you do at level 100… but the building new characters.
I’d argue what should be the most ‘important’ about a solid 1.0 Release is to have a great foundation where you can build Endgame on, and that’s where as example → Diablo 4 so far suffered a bit, because what use is getting level 100 fast and having a cool “endgame-mechanic” if the gear is whack and itemization sucks. (Now with season 4 they tackled that issue)…
And that’s the thing, and i know i’ll get quite some disagreement here, not only argue that last epoch hase a pretty great foundations, also with monolith one of the best first iterations if it comes down to an “endgame-mechanic” - it just needs a bit of polishing and the game itself needs more variation in Endgame-Activities. (I mean well, we do have Arena and Dungeons as well, so yeah okay… )
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I understand your point, but at the same time, that’s the reality: today, people get to choose between playing the current Path of Exile or the current Last Epoch. It doesn’t really matter to them that PoE has been released more than ten years ago; what matters is the state the game is currently in.
Nonsense. In every domain, there are things that a hardcore audience would appreciate which the mass market dont - e.g. fine/abstract art vs mass appeal artwork, arthouse film vs hollywood blockbuster, fine wine vs the $5 wine the average person is used to drinking.
Just because LE is leaning to be a game that the core ARPG player would enjoy and not chase mass market appeal and sales does not make it a bad game.
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