[Unofficial] Roadmap to 1.0 and Beyond

AndrewTilley · July 24, 2023, 6:13pm

Roadmap to 1.0 and Beyond

Unofficial Roadmap

As mentioned, this is an unofficial roadmap and most likely does not contain all the features planned for launch, and certainly not everything afterwards.

Roadmap to 1.0

Remaining Masteries (Falconer & Warlock)
Item Factions (Merchants Guild & Circle of Fortune)
Server Performance/Stability Improvements
Improvements to the Endgame Experience
True Offline Mode
Polish - Bug Fixes, Optimization, Combat Feel, Quest Improvements, UI Updates, Party Play Refinement, Localization Improvements, Controller Support Improvements, etc.

Flex Features

Missing Skills (Healing Hand, etc.)
Passive Tree Threshold Nodes
Campaign Improvements & Cutscenes
New & Updated Enemies
Game Balance Changes

And Beyond (in no particular order)

Remaining Missing Skills
Remaining Passive Tree Threshold Nodes
Remaining Unique/Set Item Models
Aspirational Content/Pinnacle Bosses
Monolith of Fate Expansions
Full Controller Support
Update to Set Items
More Dungeons
Lost Memories
Chapters 10-12
New Item Types
Additional Factions
Achievement System
Updated Character Sheet
Skill Progression Improvements
Additional Masteries and Classes
Ongoing Efforts - Update Skills/Passives/Enemies/Environments, Improve Server Performance/Stability, Optimization, Animations, Combat Feel, Bug Fixes, etc.

Flex features are those that EHG hopes to include with 1.0, but will only be added if time permits. While I hope most of these will be included I can’t say for certain, and there have been various dev responses that bring into question whether or not certain features will be ready in time for launch.

As we draw closer to release I imagine the likelihood of each of these flex features making it into 1.0 will become more clear. It should also be noted that some of these items may not even be considered flex features by EHG, but rather fall within the “polish” bucket.

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Roadmap Discussions

These are all the most recent discussions concerning features they’re working on for launch.

July 15, 2022
Q: What system do you think will hopefully carry the 1.0 launch? Maybe monolith or arena or multiplayer or something else? Totally okay to skip this question if it’s weird.

Mike: No, I understand what you’re talking about and…um…uh, I do kind of want to skip it. I’d love to answer it though. We kind of just want everything to be a little bit better, everything to be a little bit more polished, everything to be a little bit more complete, and I think that’s what’s going to going to be the big push on 1.0. It will be a push to bring a lot of new people into the game. Maybe there’s new dungeons, new monoliths, things like that, new features in the monolith, new features in dungeons, things like that – just getting those experiences to be better.

I think having, and this could change as we’re still a ways out, but I think having fewer major endgame systems at launch – like I don’t think it would be smart for us to do an entire monolith level endgame system for launch. It’d be like if PoE tried to make a second mappings level system at their 1.0 launch, or something like that. I don’t think – I know it’s different then and now, but I don’t think that including another system that’s this expansive and this big would be wise at launch. Maybe something that tied into this, maybe tied other systems together.

Improving the experience of these systems, that would be good to have. Keeping those gameplay systems that are available really strong, really tight, and really interesting. There are a few things missing, and they are things that people have talked about a lot in critiques of Last Epoch and things like that, which they’re not wrong, and we need to get right before we move on to more things. Not move on, but before we start adding major endgame systems we need to make sure the ones we have are really awesome. I think they’re really good right now, I don’t think they’re really awesome yet. So I really want to get to the point where I can confidently say that, ‘Okay monolith is really awesome. It’s fun to play, it’s engaging, it’s got depth and complexity, it’s all those sorts of things.’

Source: YouTube Link

January 13, 2023
Q: When roadmap to 1.0?

Mike: Roadmaps are tricky. I don’t know if we’re going to do or when we’ll do another roadmap. It’s one of those things where we might find – the number of features that are left to do for 1.0 is not a huge amount of stuff and it mostly hinges on feedback from 0.9. We have a lot of things that we have listed that we’re like, ‘Hey we need to do A, B, and C to get from 0.9 to one 1.0.’ We know we have to do these things and those are things we know we have to do. The 3 Mastery classes, for example.

However, it’s possible that after 0.9 releases, because we’ve opened it up to such a wide population compared to what it is now, some new problems might show up and we’re like okay we need an extra patch to get through this, or we need more time to sort out these issues. There’s things that could crop up so I don’t want to say specifically what it is. It’s hard to put a timeline on those things, especially now, because we might find out that we need more time to get to it. We’re in ticking things off the list mode. [Mike laughs]

Source: YouTube Link

April 21, 2023
Q: I’m constantly seeing people, especially on Reddit, suggesting things you’ve already said you have planned or will not do. I’d like to see an updated roadmap or something that we can point people towards.

Mike: Yeah, it’s hard because there’s – with the things we’ve said we won’t do, we’re not going to put things we said we won’t do on a roadmap…like, ‘We’re not going to do these four things’ type thing. That’s not the sort of stuff we’re looking to put on a roadmap really, if we were to do it.

I do think a roadmap is a really good tool. I do agree the roadmap is a really good tool for it, especially for new players or even returning players…just people who aren’t sitting and reading everything every day, that sort of stuff. Like a one-stop shop infographic where they can get the up-to-date information on what’s relevant for them, and looking at it that way it is a really useful tool.

Source: YouTube Link

June 16, 2023
Q: I assume you guys do not have a date for 1.0, but is there a roadmap to 1.0? Like all the features that are planned before full launch.

Mike: Not really. We do have a date planned for 1.0. We have an internal goal for 1.0, and we have a list of features that are sort of our internal must-haves and then we’ve got another huge list of features that are our hopes we have for it. [Mike laughs] We can’t really put those “hope we have” features on a roadmap because there’s a lot of them. There’s a lot more than we think will be possible to get in for 1.0. Almost no matter what that list is going to have things missing off of it from the 1.0 launch.

So the things that we’re like okay well this is getting in for 1.0 no matter what, like all the resources go make it happen type features, there’s only like three of them. So suddenly our roadmap is just like Masteries, Item Factions, and Performance Improvements. It’s kind of an underwhelming roadmap to release, you know. [Mike laughs] Especially because we’re doing a ton of other stuff, it’s just that those are the only things that we’re like, ‘These will for sure be in, like we’re doing these.’ So really that’s about it.

Source: YouTube Link

June 30, 2023
Q: What are the goals for 1.0?

Aaron: Mike, I’m going to try and answer this question. I want you to correct me if I’m wrong. Okay, well the goals are to obviously have a strong and successful launch, servers to work correctly, no lag, towns to work, to launch an amazing factions system where you’ll have the Circle of Fortune and the Merchant’s Guild, endgame mechanics with the arena and arena of champions, at minimum three dungeons, with the monolith and it being kind of refreshed with possible randomization, not randomization…uh, yeah randomization…

Mike: Unexpected content.

Aaron: Unexpected content. Yeah, because randomization sounds like…

Mike: It implies procedural level generation, yeah.

Aaron: On top of that you will have 15 masteries and five base classes and each one of those masteries is very distinct. The three that are not currently in are the Warlock, Runemaster, and the Falconer that’ll all be dropping by 1.0. So what’s left is polish, the three masteries, and the factions.

Mike: Yeah, pretty well and there’s a pretty big emphasis on the polish, I think for us anyways. A lot of what we’re doing, a lot of what we’re focusing on is the polish. I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s a few sections that need it quite badly.

Source: YouTube Link

August 4, 2023
Q: What’s currently the priority for Last Epoch? Endgame? New skills? Or something else?

Mike: I mean, it depends on – there’s lots of priorities that come up and sometimes it’ll be like… Okay if we’re going to pick like the main priority for the whole team then maybe it’s – okay the priority is getting to 1.0 and it’s like, ‘Okay what are the things that are mandatory to do before 1.0 comes out?’ is kind of what it is.

So what’s the most important thing? Oh let’s say it’s like server stability and performance and all that sort of stuff. Well, the people who write dialogue for quests don’t really have much to do in that category so you end up with a ton of different priority elements. So yeah, there’s a lot of things that are called priority, but server stability and performance are really high up there.

Finishing the classes – so a bunch of new skills. Beefing up endgame. A bunch of new content, that sort of stuff, things to do…mechanics, functionality. Improving old stuff that’s been in the game for a while. The Item Factions. So there’s several priorities and things that are getting worked on simultaneously.

Source: YouTube Link

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Release Date

EHG will be releasing the 1.0 version of Last Epoch on February 21st, 2024, as per this announcement.

The quotes below were taken from in-game chat on the weekend of the 0.9 launch where Judd was answering non-stop player questions in chat (which was awesome btw), so I don’t have a source link for these.

June 16, 2023
Q: Will Diablo 4 seasons and POE 2 affect the release of 1.0, and how are you planning to work around them?

Mike: We have a pretty good idea of when PoE2, D4 seasons, and releases and things like that are happening. We don’t know for certain but we have rough estimates that we think are pretty good because we’ve played these games for a long time. I’m sure people have a pretty good sense of roughly when these things are going to be. We think we do anyways, just because we play a lot of these things and have our own that we’re releasing. You get a feel for when these things are going to start to happen.

So we have planned around those releases for when we want our releases to happen. So far, in the last year or so – basically since 0.9 released where we dropped multiplayer, all of the releases have happened as we’ve expected them within about a week. If things keep on the path we expect we should not be conflicting with anything. We got a little lucky with that. [Mike laughs]

There are people who are working and have worked in industry for a while, and a lot of us have been a part of this for a long time now. You get pretty good at making educated guesses. We’ve got a few – like this is the most likely one and this is what we’ll do if this happens, this is the second most likely one and this is what we’ll do if this happens type thing. We’ve got contingency plans and everything.

If it can’t be avoided at all then we won’t, but we do plan to – because we know a lot of people like to play more than one ARPG and we don’t want people to have to choose between different ones if we can avoid it. Also, if a new release hasn’t come out for either of the other two in a month or so then it’s much more likely that people will be ready to hop into this one. So yeah, we do try and strategically place our releases such that they don’t collide with Diablo and PoE.

Source: YouTube Link

July 14, 2023
Q: Is 1.0 scheduled to come out this year?

Mike: We have previously, sort of in unofficial channels, said that our goal is this year. I’m not prepared to say a date or anything like that. We do have an internal date that we’re working towards that I’m quite confident on. However, until someone says, ‘Here’s the date, go ahead and say it Mike’ I ain’t saying it. You can’t make me.

I’m like something that don’t crack…like, I don’t know, a really hard nut. Like a hazelnut. Yeah! Or that last pistachio in the bag that you just like – it’s just sealed! It’s fused shut. Only like a welding torch will open it up. I don’t know what I’m talking about. [Mike laughs] Alright, moving on. Mike you’re crazy.

[This made me laugh, so I decided to include it.]

Source: YouTube Link

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