Guys… first I just wanna say I realise just how much work you’ve put into this so far, but I can’t help but feel you’ve wasted a lot of that time with these stale classes. They are all so cliche, literally nothing is interesting about them in the slightest, and its obvious you’ve just copypasted 90% of the skills from other games. Fireball? Skeletons? Wheres your imagination? I get that some people like these cookiecutter “classic” classes, but that doesn’t mean literally every skill has to be the same. Give me a week and Ill blow your damn mind with some original skills.
If you’re planning on adding new classes in at a later date, and I really hope you do, heres some out-of-the-box ideas -
Innate class bonuses that fit with the profile e.g.
warrior always has 30% extra phys dmg reduction, but 15% less max ele resist
mage always has 10% more max ele resist, but takes 20% more phys/poison dmg
assassins always have X% chance to instantly kill normal enemies regardless, but this bonus just translates to X% more dmg vs bosses
rangers have 50% more evade, but cannot block or use shields
Keep in mind these are just examples, I’m sure you can find a way to balance this kinda stuff.
Mix/match subtypes to ease the monotony e.g.
tornado casting druid? No. How about tornado of bones from a necro? Or better still, A ROTTING CORPSE CYCLONE. (btw if you use this idea, plz give me credit coz its epic as hell)
Skeletons again, woooow yayyy zzzzz… Why not a gang of zombie macaques? Why not a skeletal snake?
Fireball explodes? No. How about fireball sets something on fire and that creature runs around screaming and setting other creatures on fire? Could be a lot of work, but sure as hell would be a lot of fun and hilarious.
Maybe a bit of realism wouldn’t hurt, like a massive lightning strike exploding with a shockwave and stunning everything around it?
Shield charge on warrior? No. How about shaman conjuring a wild boar and riding it headfirst into a mob?
Keep the classes as they are if thats the longterm plan, but please just throw in some crazy shit to spice it up coz so far it’s really really impressive despite the fact you’ve been “inspired” by PoE, Diablo, Grim Dawn etc. You have taken some of the best elements from them and used them well. It’s just really sad that the classes are such a massive letdown. Good job all the same guys, thanks
i initially bought and wanted to play the game mainly because of the Lich Mastery, because it’s class fantasy looked unique and sick AF, which still holds true. Together with Lich Void Knight also grabbed my attention.
On first glance i thought the same as you. Mage? Fireball? Sentinel? Spin2Win? Very basic cookie-cutter.
But after playing the game more and more and understanding all it’s game system, i realiszed, that you could make something truely unique and crazy out of the most ordinary base class fantasy. For example Mage Fireball.
You can bring this single skill into so many different directions.
Now my question is, how long did you play the game already? And did you try to utilize all the game systems at hand to try out all the “cookie-cutter classes”?
Because i am almost certain, that you will discover alot of “crazy shit” (as you call it).
Regarding your inhereant class bonuses:
Those seem cool, but very dictating already, which i do not like. (Masterties already are kinda defining, which is enough)
Your mix & match suggestions does not fit what EHG wants this game to have: Strong Class Identity. You are already able to mix & match different mastery skills. For example a Shaman that uses the BM Scorpion and he can adapt it to it’s damage type, Lightning or Cold etc.
You also are able to play alot of weird “outside-the-box” stuff if you really want.
I want to tell you again, even the most basic skills like Warpath or Summon Skeletons you can convert into some very “unusual” and unique skills in this game.
I leveled up 3 classes to around 20 to try em out, and heres my take -
Standard chain lightning blahmage
PoE cyclone clone build for sentinel
full spec necro summoner
Regarding the sentinel, the skills are so “meh” i didn’t even bother choosing a 2nd skill to master at all. And literally, Warpaths skill tree is directly clapped from PoE, I don’t even think I need to argue that point its so obvious.
The necro summoner is very very average at best, and even speccing as many points as possible into movement speed for minions, they still lag so far behind me that im killing most mobs with Rip Blood before they catch up to me.
Lich is very comparable to Grim Dawns idea, but i’ll say “inspired” as unsarcastically as I can
I checked out all the skills trees and theres not much at all in there that makes me go “Oh wow i wanna try that!!”
As for strong class identity, as I said, some people might like that, but im old, old enough to have played every single RPG you can think of, and then a ton more you can’t. So I’ve seen everything repeat so many times that when something new comes out, I cross my fingers and smash a tequila shot in preparation.
That is hardly enough to completely judge the game/classes IMO. (You even haven’t checkked out all the “mastery/higher” skills yet then.
The base skill with some chains in pretty cookie-cutter yes, but i have the feeling you did not explore the whole ksill tree, there are literally gamechanging nodes in that skill tree for that skill.
This statement showed me, that you most definitely did not have explored the whole tree.
Warpath is a pretty old skill compared to alot of the other skills and some of it’s parts are definitely lacklaster, i agree, butthere are also some pretty cool and unique parts about it.
The part i mainly talking about the the top/right section with the void spells.
While this is not interesting for your Full Melee Sentinel, it can open up pretty unique playstyles.
I played hundred of hours in GD, not sure what you are talking about.
You think Lich is a Necromancer Copy? I highly suggest playing it, instead of jsut looking at the skill trees.
This really sounds like alot of your judgment comes from purely reading through skill trees and not actually playing them.
Just to be clear, i do respect your opinions, and it’s sad that your first impression seems so bad and you think LE is uninspired, but again… i highly recommend you playing the game more.
I played literally thousands of hours in several other aRPG’s and LE is the most unique one overall, even in it’s current state. It’s not finished yet, it’s not perfect.
But it’s really going to be something truely unique, of that i am sure.
While all of the other classes probably do need a review/rework, I’d say that that’s due to the Rogue being so much more polished & synergistic than the others…
I wouldn’t say it’s unique, not even remotely, but it does somehow still “feel” different. And you’re probably right, I need to play more, but getting over how monotonous it seems right now is a challenge. Also, it doesn’t inspire confidence in its uniqueness when I just watched a video of a guy making a freakin Hammerdin ala D2 as a “levelling build”… Anyway, I’ll keep goin on my spin2win dude for now and see whats up with the endgame \m/
EDIT SERIOUSLY, the hammer spiralling is literally stolen from D2… unique yeah…
The devs openly admit inspiration from other games and that’s not a bad thing.
Last Epoch easily brings enough very unique ideas to the table, arguebly some of the most unique skills i have seen in an aRPG.
Alot of the skills do not seem so “unique” on paper. But after you unlock enough Skills and Skill Points within the skill trees, you can discover some really unique and crazy synergies/combinations, trust me.
Sometimes early game can feel a bit monotonous, but that’s the case for alot of aRPG’s IMO.
There are people that are excited that you can build a hammerdin D2 style. It’s not a bad thing and you don’t need to bother either. Because you can build a different way. You can throw hammers in a cone, in a nova, throw hammers that chain to enemies, you can have hammer have a void damage aura.
You can build fireball throwing balls in a cone or throw them in a line. With pierce and homing you can generate fireworms that spread all over the screen, chasing enemies.
You can have the lighting chain to enemies (pretty standard). But you can also have the lightning not spread, but chain to the same target repeatedly. You can also convert the blast into ice and channel that skill.
With the skeleton mages you can have them throw fireballs or ice bolts or necrotic projectiles (in a cone, you single one like a machine gun) or turn them into dual sword wielding death knights. You can make the mages sacrifice your warriors and or wraiths. You can choose to have several mages or 1 big Archmage.
With Skeletons you can choose to have Rogues, archers or warriors.
And for sentinel in general there are so many different build possibilities (you can even go a staff wielding caster route). You can do melee, range, hit or ailment builds.
Just because you haven’t discovered all the possibilities the game has to offer, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
I’d suggest you just try out different things or look into
One thing is true: After the rogue every class looks like they need an overhaul because they actualy seem to be lame and outdated compared to the rogue class. It looks like the rogue is the pinacle of the class development while acolythe and sentinel are pretty blunt and primalists are left in the dust.
Maybe it’s me but even on paper the Rogue seems far more intresting, interactive and full of synergies then the other classes and gameplay wise I won’t touch the other classes even if the Rogue get’s nerfed hard because it’s funnier then everything else and mechanicly something i waited for.
Well, after reading this i can say one think. You played PoE too much. Playing PoE needs already planned threes, 5 programs, and evrythink prepared before run. Here you start class and you playing adding some thinks based on loot and lvling, LE is more like GD, but less options at this moment, you cant play it on PoE way. In late game there are idols which change game sometimes, in way GD legendaries did. For example i wanted to go meele mage build based on mana strike, conception change few times during lvling, and i end up with mana strike ability as my buffing other meele ability. First i go for crit, then i got mana items, and go for idols whch increase ligtning damage x3(item base) if you have more than 200 mana.
This game is diffrent you no need to planned run just go for a mage and play it. Or go for Axe guy and play it. There are many weapons base items which change gameplay too. In poe classes are strict here you must check idols aswell and skill thress and passives to create somethink big, you no need 10 hours of planning, so you could do content(for now, poe become shit after beta).
I agree with the general idea, some skills suffer from the Clone Syndrome, I had the same feelings when I saw the darn flying hammer and the inevitable Whirlwind/Cyclone that are thrown at you at like level 5? This gives a really bad impression.
Thing is, if you cater too much to the uninspired crowd that wants hammers skeletons and cyclones everywhere, you end up making an uninspired game that will get nothing but a Cloned label. And people will wonder “why play cyclone here if the original does it better?”
This is pretty much what plagued mmorpgs with the wow clones horde.
All the games try to copy D2 whirlwind, but D2 when it went out was nothing like this.
Just look at D1 signature skills, for example D1 had the iconic Hydra, then compare the D2 vanilla classes to D1, various new classes and ideas.
Then look at the expansion, a trapper assassin and a shapeshifter druid? That was amazebro.
Same was done with D3 launch btw (NO NECRO at release), and same goes with Grim Dawn, you don’t have the “fighter” and the “assassin” you have the soldier and the nightblade. Bows don’t exist, Ranger doesn’t exist, there is the Demolitionist for rifles and Inquisitor for dual pistol gunslinger. How can you compete with that?
You are going to see the ubiquitous raise skeleton but the Necro itself is so distinguished that you can accept it as the Grim Dawn Necro and not a clone of something else like the D2 Necro.
Didn’t try the new Rogue, at glance it seemed like ranged -> PoE stuff, melee -> Katarina + Zed in an ARPG, but that’s just an “at glance” and the trailer looked good anyway.
However OP, unique LE sauce DOES exist, it’s not a 100% copypasta, rather the initial implementations were done with what they had visibly, and it’s clear the classes+skills need a new pass and in various cases some serious redesign. Thinking about Erasing Strike, Smelter Wrath and various ancient clunky stuff from the first releases.
Most people want some level of familiarity. That’s why it’s in a genre. aRPG. Like going to the movies, most people have strong preferences about the type of movies they like to see (usually genre based but can also be based on who their favorite actors are, etc.)
LE has a LOT of unique stuff going for it. First, it has some of that familiarity so veteran aRPGers feel like, well this isn’t MY english (or insert your language of choice) but I can understand it. Then they start playing, they start tweaking (as many others above have mentioned) and they start to get the strong ‘dialect’ that is LE.
For example, the spin-to-win. Technically it doesn’t really exist in LE. It’s REALLY hard to make a stand-alone just go out and spin to win character because you almost always run into the mana cost (something the devs have said they want to make sure stays part of the play style, mana-management.) so how do you solve it? You have to get creative. One way is Volatile Reversal. Some like that, some don’t. Others prefer something like Rebuke, to do a quick fill up of mana. But what you don’t see is a spin-to-win build with no concerns about mana regeneration that can handle everything in the game.
And I know some of the more high end players are going to slam me for that because, yes, obviously it can be done, but the fact that you have to find creative ways to make it work and that there are a number of ways to do it is where LE gets its unique diversity. So nyah.
Point is, LE followed the rules of the aRPG genre and then preceded to also color outside the lines a good bit.
Unfortunately this is also a big problems with movies with nothing but remakes and sequels trying to follow some specific concept that tries to milk cash with zero risk.
Before that, the everyday random blockbuster was Alien: first ever “people in space with a carnivore alien animal”, or Terminator: first ever killing machines that look like people but traveling from the future, and apparently first ever time travel movie, how can you have such a piece of sci-fi in a cinema movie with Schwarzy??
People were going to the cinema to get surprised by a Jaws, not by a Star wars 9 or a Marvels something 6
This is not true, D2 is a cornerstone and it invent from scratch, it didn’t copy the Barbarian or Assassin/Druid from anywhere on sight.
Starcraft didn’t copy from anything before (altho it was originally intended to be made from wh40k, they made sure to release something not alike). All the stuff that people think is “genre familiar” was genuine original content and ideas when it came out, and that’s the real reason it does stick out for years.
I didn’t say I agree with it but i’m also not trying to tell other people how to like their movies (games). All of the sources you mentioned are multiple BILLION dollar franchises so they most certainly know how to cater to a broader range of people. Some aRPGs are niche. some try to be broader. just like movies. You can be as erudite as you want about it but a small game company ( or a very small indie film production company) that wants to succeed needs to take both the hardcore gamers and the general gamers in order to survive.
And I personally think LE is pretty spot on, not perfect, of course, but certainly not
This stuff is based more on opinion than being facts.
At some point somebody invented the wheel. It’s design is reasonable. You could invent a new wheel that is more of a square than a circle. You may win a prize for innovation, but people buying bikes with your kind of wheel would… have a disadvantage while driving.
You can create games by defining everything new. This has worked many times. But also it didn’t work many times. Same goes for copying games. Good copies can overtake the original. But they can also fail.
Devs have to be cautious to not make everything new but also no only create a carbon copy.
Also there defenitely are people that like familiarity. Especially if they like certain skills in certain games, there are people that are like “Cool, this is like skill X from game Y! Nice!!”. There also are people that are “Oh, this is like skill X from game Y! How boring!!”
There’s neither black nor white. Imho EHG has done a good job in implementing familiar skills, that attract people with nostalgia, but also implemented opportunities to make different things with these “familiar” skills.
People expect Spin 2 Win skills. I bet my left egg there would be a rant on this forum as well, if there was no such skill as warparh.
I think there has to be both - old and new. And there already is.
You should check out some of the class mods for GD. Player made classes and skills, some of them are so amazing and original that its surprising nobody else has ripped them off. I cant name any specific examples offhand atm, haven’t played it in a long time, but it just goes to show how people can take assets that already exist inside a game and use them in new ways. I don’t suppose the devs are gonna add mod support at all??
I’m actually amazed by the LE community. There is a guy with 15 hours? gameplay saying the classes are boring and the community is actually replying friendly with constructive responses! Really impressive!
As many hours as I have in GD I certainly have checked out many of the various mods from RoT to Grimarillion to DoM. I even tackled a little Nydiamar.
But again, these are very niche. I’m willing to bet you the mod community at best is probably less than 10% of the total GD game playing population (and I think that’s probably being generous.) Crate made GD modable for the simple fact they KNEW their resources had to go into a more ‘marketable’ game. So they gave people, and even encourage, people to use the mods to do what they want. Heck there’s even a ‘season’ going on right now that uses a very stream-lined mod to act as a clean season (it’s fun.)
No idea if EHG is going to make it moddable. I wouldn’t fault them for doing it or not for doing it. What probably would end up being a bad idea is trying to cater to every little niche that gets brought up that is going to satisfy a teeny-tiny little fraction of a player base.
Instead, based on my experience with LE, they’re catering a little to both with the understanding that there has to be some give and take to reach the best possible median. that’s smart business and savvy creativity because I’ve always believed that constraints/problems always breed the best kind of creativity.
when you’ve played ARPG’s for a long time, it just turns into “going through the motions” i get where hes coming from. using playtime means nothing if he has clocked couple hundred or thounds of hours in D2, D3, torchlight, Grim Dawn, PoE etc.
i dont know how i feel about the blade dancers “flow” line. they want you to use 4- 5 different skills for a damage buff on the last skill. it feels a bit…
What do you mean by “playtime means nothing” ? For example I start playing PoE and play 3 characters for few hours each. What will I think about the game? I leap slam with some auras around and summon few zombies and skeles which are pretty useless at the beginning. I couldn’t even begin to understand how complex the game gonna get and how many intresting builds I could make.
I could understand if the game just doesn’t appeal to someone (like torchlight/victor vran to me) but calling it generic after few hours it’s just not meaningful
Now my question is, how long did you play the game already? And did you try to utilize all the game systems at hand to try out all the “cookie-cutter classes”?