Thoughts on Endgame after first lv 100 character

Feedback and Suggestions
1

I recently finished leveling my first character (A poison Aura Lich) to lv 100. I just want to give my thoughts on endgame as it currently stands and make some suggestions for the future. I know they are planning more endgame systems, so hopefully some of those address these concerns, or if not, that they take some feedback into consideration.

It’s kind of anti-climactic at the moment. You don’t even get a little fanfare for reaching lv 100 and there’s no real fixed end boss or goal like fighting Shaper/Elder was in PoE.

The pacing, or perhaps the way rewards are structured, at endgame is kinda off. So as things stand, there are effectively 3 things to go for as concrete goals: You can complete different timelines to get all the blessings, you can try to push your corruption for a timeline up as high as you can go, or you can push arena stages as high as you can go.

The problem as I see it is that only completing the timelines for blessings directly gives you rewards needed to fill out your completed build, but as an incentive it’s essentially orthogonal to the other content objectives.

  • Arena is completely separate content from Monolith and yet you’d want the blessings to do as well as possible in it and until you can self sustain the round 80 golden keys, you need to run echos anyway to even be able to play arena. So while it can’t stand on it’s own as a separate endgame playstyle, doing it gives you essentially no progress beyond basic gear and xp progression, which it isn’t even clear to me if it’s meant to have some enticing reward structure since it says that nowhere and it doesn’t seem to give any more just at a glance.

  • Near as I can tell, it doesn’t really matter which timeline you do corruption pushing in, but you do have to pick one and stick with it since it takes a long time to build up and it doesn’t carry over to the other timelines. You’re not really going to significantly build up corruption in any timeline by just going through it the handful of times needed to get the blessing you want. (Unless you are extraordinarily unlucky, in which case you have my condolences)

In either case, it kind of feels like you’re not really meant to do these 2 progression goals until you’re done with the blessing stuff because spending time on them directly competes with the time you spend on the blessings, but while the blessings are a capped thing, the other 2 are boundless. This I guess would be fine if I got through the blessing acquisition relatively quickly, but honestly here I am with a lv 100 character that while it isn’t completely maxed out is good enough that I just want to move on, and my highest corruption at the moment is 119. Like even if I wanted to push corruption, it would take a lot of slogging through content that is now trivial to me while I barely get any fun gear upgrades anymore. At least with say, D3’s Greater Rifts, there was a constant challenge to beat the time in order to advance and you were able to skip up difficulty quite a bit if you could keep winning the run. Here I’d need to just keep running echos with no challenge for me until I find increasingly far away Oro fights.

So I guess the takeaways from this:

  • The difficulty scaling is off at the moment, the incentive structure for the game has you spend way too much time at difficulties which will not challenge your skill or build. (This one I’m a bit less confident on because obviously difficulty in these games is conditioned on what you end up building. Maybe I just happened to play one of the more powerful/safe builds, although I wasn’t really going out of my way to find one, I just liked the look of what lich was doing with it’s life and I found a build that did that.) By the time you get to the point where it’s reasonable to spend your time going for harder difficulties, you’ll likely find yourself bored of the character. Again though, that’s just a personal preference thing.

  • The game could use some more concrete goals and achievements to work towards. Infinite scaling is cool in it’s own way for the sake of leaderboards and stuff, but for someone who’s more interested in just having fun with a character and trying to achieve something with it, having some cut off point where you have some big finish then the game pats you on the back and tells you it’s fine to hop off here if you want helps make me want to push towards that goal and makes it more satisfying to stop rather than just ending once I’m sufficiently burnt out.

  • The game could do better at having it’s systems either better stand on their own if that’s the goal or to have them better integrated if that’s the goal. As things are now it’s just weird that there’s one activity that’s kind of given primacy over the others but it’s not the main objective you’re meant to push yourself on.

  • I’d like to see bosses and challenges which work a bit more like raid bosses from WoW rather than just being a bunch of variations on “dodge the thing.” For starters, the bosses we have now don’t even always hurt enough to kill me if I do stand in the fire, but that’s a balancing thing and while those bosses should be more lethal to actually be real challenges, that’s not where I’d be happy to see boss design end. I much prefer fights that require some strategy, gear, and build optimization to do well. The simplest examples of these kinds of mechanics can already be seen in bosses in PoE for example. The Shaper has puddles that track you before dropping and will eventually fill up the room to act as a soft enrage timer. This both checks your DPS and you get to manage your limited space as a resource by placing the puddles better. There are also add spawning phases in the fight where if you don’t kill them quickly enough an NPC that’s helping you goes down and you wont have their help for the next phase, so you have to be good enough at AoEing them down, maybe using some control tools to keep them off her, etc. Those are like the most basic examples I can think of, and while there are some limitations to designing these mechanics when you can only expect one player to be dealing with them instead of a raid group, (Although who knows, maybe we could get some multiplayer bosses? Maybe dreaming too much there.) there is probably a lot of design space out there to create some memorable bosses that will be worthy mountaintops for players to climb for.

4 Likes
2

I agree that corruption should be shared among all monoliths as it takes way way too much time to buiöd it up.
You made some good points, like a final Boss would be cool who might drop something really useful / powerful.
I ll wait for the next Patch to See what will change and be added and go feom there with my Feedback/ critcism.

1 Like
3

As someone who recently hit 100 (spellblade) and paused, having many of the same realizations hit me, I second much of this. I know there are multiple other end game systems planned, and beta is beta, but nonetheless.

Hitting 100 feels really anticlimactic. I get hitting 100 isn’t an endpoint, but it should feel like it has some substance to it beyond just another passive point. Like you said, even some sort of “congrats” message from the game would be nice, but something new being unlocked, or a random mastery-specific unique, or that idol slot in the middle being opened would give it more umph.

Relatedly, once you hit 100, can echos that award tomes of experience be removed from the pool? Or can tomes give you something else?

On to monos, right there with you on the challenge. Give a way to stack corruption faster, at least at the start of an empowered mono. Corruption - and therefore the difficulty - ramps up very slowly, and there’s no substantial way to expedite it. And give a way to carry corruption over from one timeline to another; maybe some sort of Monolith equivalent to Golden Arena Keys? A way to start at more than 100 corruption? Maybe just add a third tier: regular, empowered, and [whatever name here].

2 Likes
4

The devs are aware of the issue you mention regarding having to pick 1 monolith to stack corruption on and are working on something to help stack corruption faster on the others.

They have also reworked some of the earlier bosses so I wouldn’t be surprised if they reworked some of the later bosses or added more (as they did a patch or two ago with the lvl 90 monos).

I agree about getting bored by the time you’ve reached the empowered monos, I’d like to see a transferable key that drops from the empowered mono bosses that let’s you skip the normal versions (like in Grim Dawn you can get the account bound consumable that allows you to skip the earlier difficulty once you’ve done the later ones). Like there’s a wave 80 arena key (and IMO should be higher wave keys as well).

2 Likes
5

The 2nd point of your takeaways is something that really stands out to me. Personally, a big part of why I think D2 and Grim Dawn are the currently best games in this genre is that they have a clearly defined end. No objection to stuff like arena that’s there for people who want to see how far they can push their characters, but I’m really hoping there’s going to be a clear final goal to monolith (not just “do all the timelines to get all the blessings”).

1 Like
6

I personally think that a good solution would be to have the endgame mechanics between the last two story chapters. When you reach lvl50-60’ish, you are level locked until lvl80 to do the second last story chapter. So that you have a grind and semi-endgame phase where you are gearing up and becoming more powerful to proceed.

If you succeed this chapter - you are back to endgame content / monolith again, with the last story chapter unlocking at lvl90 this time.

Lastly - the final boss is always lvl100. And to see the conclusion of the story you have to have become powerful enough to beat him.

In motivational psychology both short term and long term goalposts are important. What happens when you are finished with the story and you have endgame grind, is that this grind does not have a final purpose or challenge other than the grind itself.

By combining the last story chapters with the endgame grind, you get excitement to see how the story ends. You are giving a set and defined goal for your character. To beat the end game story boss.

It also makes sense from a logical perspective - that your character needs to prepare and power up to deal with this final challenge. It gives you a clear goal.

The problem with endgame grind is that you’ve already saved the world and completed the story. There’s nothing else to look forward to. The Shaper and the Elder being solutions in PoE’s endgame.

IMO story chapters → lvl60 → endgame content and grind → lvl80 → Next story chapter → endgame content and grind → lvl90 → Last story chapter unlocked → At any point here, you might challenge the story endgame boss which is always lvl100.

With leaderboards and if there are seasonal resets, this would work even better. A player might want to be the first to kill the last boss and tries at lvl92, someone else might safe it by waiting until lvl96. The winner being who can get the last boss down fastest and at the lowest level. So a SSF HC leaderboard where someone kills the last boss at lvl91 has priority on the leaderboard for example.

The problem with all the story content being done only BEFORE the endgame content - is that there is no real motivation or goal to become stronger afterwards (other than to just enjoying a new character). This is easily solved by placing the endgame grind and game mechanics, weaved into the game before the last story chapters. And having the final boss of the game be the ultimate goal, where you are rewarded for your effort.

1 Like
7

I strongly dislike the idea.

I agree with the need for a motivation, through objectives. But splitting the campaign likes this seems very bad to me. I mean, what about the immersion? I’m deeply involved in a story (yes, even in ARPGs this can happen), and I must stop it and do some other activity? That could result in me being totally disgusted and consider quitting. Please let me immerge in the story from the beginning to the end if I wish to do so.

We need a motivation for endgame, yes. In Last Epoch, I see endgame as a succession of smaller campaigns, and that’s something that could be developed. So maybe we could have a narrative embracing all the storylines, with a global goal to achieve. Something like “time is messed up, I have to fix it”. That will partially be done with achievements (EHG already said they want to implement achevements), we just need something story-driven with that.

But please, don’t split the campaign. Or at least, do like it is now: give a choice. At any moment after reaching the End of Times, we can chose to go for endgame, but we don’t NEED to. It’s a choice.

2 Likes
8

Good points and arugments. It was just an idea I threw out there brainstorming. I don’t really know of a “best way” to do all this that could please most people.

1 Like
9

I like the base of your idea: give some motivation to the players. We can build something around that.

3 Likes
10

Yeah, whether it’s continuing the main campaign, having a separate campaign for monolith, having some super-dungeons/bosses, whatever, I’d really like to have some target for endgame that isn’t just “grind to get gear to grind further to get new gear to grind further to…”.

2 Likes
11

Maybe this idea is just silly but what the heck…

For the time travel themed story. Maybe one idea could be that at reaching lvl100 you get access to a secret area. You find out that your interference with time is what caused the void, and if your character had died in the beginning the void would have been avoided.

So what happens is that you enter the first area after the camp in the beginning, on the way to finding the old dying man in that small forest there. When you encounter yourself - the void is created due to the time paradox.

Your earlier timeline character turns into Orobyss - seeking to devour you. (Void wins ending). If you defeat yourself - the void never happens (world wins secret ending).

The fight being you fighting a simulacrum of yourself - using your exact skills and stats but balanced appropriately. When defeated your simulacrum turns into Orobyss, revealing that the cause of the void - is a version of you trapped in a time loop. Only by killing this entity can you repair the timeline.

Maybe that’s just too much. Dunno.

Edit: I just thought it would have been really cool if Orobyss is another version of the player character, the player character creating the void and Orobyss unknowingly by messing with time and creating a paradox. So that you are actually your own final boss.

12

I’m not the target audience to give a word on this because I bore easy of ARPGS. Gone are the weeks I’d spend running Mephisto and consider it as the peak of gaming.

Now after years of PoE I still haven’t run a single uber lab since by the time I’ve done 50-100 maps I’m bored and do an alt. At most I play 2-3 weeks into a new league.

But as someone whose highest is a level 70 I found it difficult to keep interested in continuing to play. Super fast echoes are an improvement over the Atlas for sure, but not much of a point when after 30-40 I don’t really have nothing to show. The fights were not harder, the rewards did not improve, nothing really said to me ‘continue!’.

I know there are other goal points such as empowered monoliths and corruption increasing but it all pales in front of getting new build defining uniques and happily make a new alt to try this new thing.

2 Likes
13

Thank you for writing this. I just want to say your thoughts completely resonated with me.

1 Like
14

Upvote and bump. I wrote a similar thread where I suggested increasing boss difficulty & changing the gear/progression system to try to give you something to do in end game but just got a bunch of naysayers. Glad to see other people have had a similar experience.

By level 80 or so you will most likely have done everything possible in the game including essentially min/maxed your build. There are always small upgrades to find but the rarity of t6/t7 items with desirable stats and the fact that a full t5 set which can be crafted will have you shredding all lvl 100 bosses (as long as your build is decent) makes an endless gear grind for minimal upgrades tiresome.

When you play an OP build (like nova boy) you can grind grind grind grind to 1000+ corruption just to find things aren’t actually much harder but even more disappointing than that is there is basically 0 noticeable change in drops. You would think as corruption goes up you’d get way more t6/t7, and even frequently seeing 2+ t6/t7 stats on an item.

There is literally no reason to continue playing the game after a VERY early point right now outside of just having fun messing with different builds which also frankly gets tiresome quickly (especially playing the story over and over and over again).

I don’t write all this to dig into the game or the devs. I think there’s a TON of great foundation here and of course we are still in beta. But I would really like to at least see some proposed plans for end game content and really a system that just makes the game enjoyable to continuously play. I haven’t had this much fun with an ARPG since D2, but it doesn’t hit the replayability value D2 had for me.

Grinding monoliths is kind of a painful system to begin with but it would feel way less painful if there were actually rewards at the end. I can’t even get into arena because I see zero incentive as I’m not interested in ladders. Would love to just see difficult bosses & a more incentivizing-to-play loot system, but I’m sure there are plenty of other things that can be done to create interesting end game content.

I will say I’m excited for multiplayer and worrying less about the grind and more just having fun with other people, but even then that will get boring fast if there’s no tough bosses to conquer together.

15

Comments like this mean no developer can ever make a game without offending someone, is that even the right words to use ‘disgusted’ you are revolted by the fact theres something else to do in the story and you will QUIT the game because of it? wow.

You can…just not engage with it? I am at a loss to how anyone can successfully develop a game when people like this exist, who can get extremely offended to the point of ditching the entire game as they are offered more content to do

1 Like
16

Welcome to the internet.

Sometimes non-native speakers can make some interesting word choices that don’t quite mean what they mean in their native language. And sometimes those choices mean exactly what was intended and people are just strange.

17

I don’t know, maybe I did not use the right word.

Imagine, you’re in a cinema, watching a movie. Than, 30 minutes before the end, the movie is stopped. A guy from the cinema comes and says “You can go now, we’ll show you the end of the movie next week”. If this is the new way to “enjoy” a movie, it is the last time I go in a cinema.

The proposal I reacted to was not to have more content. I would be happy with that. It was to delay the end of the story. It was like “go do something else, you’ll see the end of the story later”.

Maybe a bad choice of words from me, English is not my language and I’m not as fluent as I would like to be.

18

I think you just really enjoy being immersed in your game/story/character. I enjoy this too, and try to cradle it as best I can. :slight_smile:

19

I will repeat some idea but here my list :

Reward for LVL 100 : Legendary Item for leveling new caractère or a bonus for end game and a nice visuel.

Better reward in Arena

Spire don’t shoot you when standing still so you can pickup the loot or maybe just less domage

More corruption = more stability per echo

Something else than echo like boss rush, protect an objectif, etc…

A special interaction with forge. Like you need to do something very hard for a forgeron and he will help you to craft one item. Like you add half instability or you can craft tier 6 or you only do minor fracture. A random help for one item one time.

20

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.