[Unofficial] Roadmap to 1.0 and Beyond

AndrewTilley · July 24, 2023, 6:16pm

Itemization

Base Item Types

While it’s very unlikely we’ll see a new base type category prior to 1.0, there are plans to add more in the future to fill out certain archetypes that are currently missing. However, new base types within existing item categories are much more plausible in the near future and expected over the long-term.

July 14, 2023
Q: Any plans to add more crazy weapon types? I recently played Undecember and they have a weapon type called Bow Gun, which is basically dual wielding crossbows.

Mike: Yeah, there are some very intentionally missing weapon types that we think will fit really well with certain archetypes that aren’t in the game yet and we’re kind of leaving open in preparation for that. There are people who rummage through the game files a bit and they would have noticed a couple of these types that already have ID’s in the lists of item types ready to go but there’s just no item of that type in the game. For example, fist weapons and two-handed crossbows already have an item ID but there are none in the game.

We’ve intentionally left room for other item types to be slipped in as well. So things like, and I have no idea if any of these will be added but these are just the ones that come to mind for myself personally, things along the lines of a one-handed spear. There’s no one-handed spears in the game. There’s no two-handed shields in the game. There’s definitely room for some less conventional weapon types in the future. Maybe a one-handed crossbow.

As far as getting actual like “gunpowder” in the game, that’s not something we’re planning at the moment. It’s possible as a far future feature but not as anything anytime soon, especially not for 1.0.

Reimer: [In Twitch comments] We have ideas for sure, but nothing new planned in the near future.

Source: YouTube Link

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Set Items

It was announced that there’s a plan to prototype a mechanical change for set items. No timeframe was given for this change, but it’s unlikely to happen prior to 1.0.

April 7, 2023
Q: Are there any plans to rebalance set items at some point?

Mike: So sets have – there are some good set items that are a lot more specific and a lot more niche than uniques or rares. They’re generally very specific in what they’re good at doing and in the situations where they are good they’re actually pretty decent, in some cases. There’s a handful of them that are pretty good. Are they good enough for us to not do something with? No.

We actually, for the first time, have a plan to prototype a mechanical change for set items and their place in the item pools. So we’ve landed on a prototype plan for them and we’re going to test it and see how it feels and decide if we want to add it to the game or not. It is something that we’re looking at, and it’s something that we hear the feedback on pretty loud and clear.

Source: YouTube Link

April 14, 2023
Q: Any teasers on what you intend for set items? While I enjoy them they can use some LP type of chase. Maybe a progress tree you can feed other set item drops into.

Mike: That’s a cool thing that we have talked about doing, where you need to find like 40 of this set item to fully power up the set piece or set bonus or whatever – and there’s some real problems there so we aren’t going to do that.

We do have plans for set mechanics and improving of set mechanics and expanding on the possibilities because there’s definitely room for awesome and they’re not awesome yet and we want awesome so we’re going to make them awesome. However, I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to look like yet. We did very recently, last week, agree on a mechanical change for set items going forward that we’re going to test. It’s not in yet, we haven’t touched it yet…so it’s in the “queued for development” column.

Source: YouTube Link

May 19, 2023
Q: Set items, for the most part, seem very underwhelming.

Mike: For the most part I would agree with you there. There are some really good ones but yes for the most part set items are underwhelming.

Q: Am I crazy or is there a reason behind this madness?

Mike: Um, set items are kind of scary, from the developer perspective, and we’ve definitely aired on the side of caution with them – and aired is an appropriate term because they’re not what we want them to be. We do have a plan to bring them to where we want them to be. We haven’t executed the plan yet, so at least for this patch [0.9.1] they will continue to be a little bit underwhelming. A big part of it for a lot of people is that they don’t scale fantastic into the late, late game.

So set items have a lot going on with them, their tooltips are huge. I think I just got a ring…yeah, like this is I think the smallest set item tooltip of all – I think this might actually be the smallest one. Then if you hold Alt it’s already almost the full height of the screen. When we were making the tooltip system we had to make a system to shrink tooltips so they wouldn’t go off the screen, up/down. So they dynamically change their size so they can fit on the screen, even before holding Alt in some cases.

It’s just too much stuff to just slap legendary potential on them, but we do have a way that we think we can make set items – like get the core interesting part of a set item and incorporate that into your builds and have fun with it.

I kind of glossed over it but one of the big reasons why they’re scary is because you can really quickly get into a situation where your build is defined entirely by a set. Having that situation where like, ‘oh I’m going to play a Sorcerer this cycle and the Tal Rasha’s set’, for lack of a better term just because it’s the Sorcerer set in D2, and ‘Tal Rasha’s set is just the best set for it possible’ and so three quarters of your gear is just dictated by the set and away you go. There’s no real planning, there’s no real like, ‘oh how can I fit this item into my build’ and it cuts away a lot of the other systems entirely.

So we do really want to get it involved more in your build crafting and have it be in a situation where it’s not going to kind of take away that puzzle of putting together your gear.

Source: YouTube Link

June 30, 2023
Aaron: I’m really hoping your guys’ plan for set items is an augmentation system designed around a dungeon. You don’t have to say yes or no. You don’t have to blink. It’s just a blanket statement. I think that would be really fun, just like how you can augment a unique to turn into a legendary in one. I think that’d be really cool for a dungeon.

Mike: Yeah. I will say that the – here’s what I’ll give you. The thing we’re going with I didn’t think it’d be possible. I’d heard the suggestion before and it was sort of like a – when we decided for it at the meeting someone was like, and I can’t remember who said it but someone kind of said it as a joke and then someone else was like, ‘I mean we could do that.’ And everyone was like, ‘Are you sure?’ I was like, ‘Okay, well if we can do that, can we do that? Like let’s do that!’

Source: YouTube Link

August 11, 2023
Q: Concerning sets, will you allow us to transform a set piece into another random set piece to help us complete sets or do you plan for us to have to find each set piece “the hard way”?

Mike: We don’t have any plans for converting set pieces at the moment. I think there’s lots of opportunities for specific crafting on set items, essentially, through dungeon rewards. I think that’s a good place to put things like that and I think there’s lots of time to add those dungeon rewards. There’s also some changes coming to set items – which are not implemented yet, they’re planned, they’re not done, we’re working on it, but it’s going to be a bit still – that will change how you ask that question. I don’t know how else to say that without giving anything away. [Mike laughs]

Source: YouTube Link

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Weaver's Will Uniques

While more Weaver’s Will uniques are planned to be added in the future, none are expected at 1.0. There’s also a story element concerning the Weaver that we’ve yet to see. While only a theory, this story element may actually be contained within a future dungeon whose reward might incorporate these items in some way,.

June 9, 2023
Q: Are there any plans on making more rare endgame Weaver’s Will items or are they going to stay as more common leveling uniques? I feel like we’d need a dungeon to modify them if we had any super rare ones, to be honest.

Mike: They’re a little bit in the experimental phase still. We’re definitely looking at feedback from players and how they’re experiencing them and what they like and what they don’t like about it. This is actually interesting, in what we were just talking about – there’s a few things that we’ve kind of got in the pipe for changes and upgrades and expansions to the system that we’re kind of being like, ‘We think that people are going to feel this way about it and they’re going to like this and not like this and if we do this down the road with maybe a dungeon reward or something it’ll expand that and enhance it more for people in a few patches, or something like that.’

Getting that feedback is important to try and solidify those changes down the road. So yeah, there’s definitely room for expanding that system and, you’re right, the early versions of a lot of them were more focused around making more of an earlier game leveling item. It helps scale you into endgame but there’s not a lot of the Weaver’s Will uniques that are available now that you’re like, ‘I’m going to theory-craft my endgame build around that Weaver’s Will item.’ That’s not happening a ton right now, which is fine.

Source: YouTube Link

July 14, 2023
Q: What is the teams current opinion on Weaver’s Will items? Did it meet expectations?

Mike: Weaver items are really interesting, from like an expectations standpoint. We didn’t have – it wasn’t a very big project. It was actually a very tiny project that kind of just – we were like, ‘Oh something cool, slap it in. Yeah do it. Go!’ So I’d say they’re doing well. They were never intended to be as big of a splash, and I don’t think we tried to tout them as such, as like the legendary system in general. I’m pretty happy with how they’re working. I think they’re interesting enough and fun enough that they’re sitting in a nice spot.

I think there’s lots of room for the types of Weaver’s Will uniques that get created to expand on. There’s been a few really cool ideas that have come through the pipe recently that I think they’re going to grow into a really great part of our item system. They’re a little thin right now, which is expected and known and…yeah. However, I think people will be very happy with how they fit into the 1.0 Last Epoch itemization system, as well as going forward beyond that. I’m very happy with them overall.

Source: YouTube Link

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Shards

There are plans for a shard conversion system that will essentially convert one shard to another at a loss, though no timeframe for its inclusion has been provided.

May 5, 2023
Q: As some shards are insanely common, do you think an option to say tick a box and use 10 shards instead of 1…for an extra chance at crit success or something could make it into the game?

Mike: No, because there’s all these different things that are multiplying together to have the chance of having an item that is, let’s say, an 80% item – so an item that is 80% of the maximum power and there’s a whole bunch of different things, basically chances, that get multiplied together to say like, ‘this is the chance of it happening, here you go.’ If we say you can modify that chance pretty heavily by just dumping more resources into it then it puts an additive modifier on a multiplicative chance and it can cause some problems.

We’re probably more likely going to be taking a – because the other thing that doesn’t solve is say you’re like, ‘I play Rogues, I only ever play Rogues period and you have this increased void damage sitting over here and you’re like well I can’t do anything with that because I never use void damage because there’s no void damage on Rogues’ – there might be a tiny bit somewhere, anyways, the point is this still doesn’t solve that because you’re still not using any of those as well.

So there’ll probably be a vendor somewhere that’ll have – this is not next patch [0.9.1], for the record – but eventually we’re planning on having a vendor somewhere that’s just like, ‘oh I’ve got these super rare shards for sale and they cost 10 of any one shard to buy’ or something like that, you know. So you’re just trading in shards, like ones you don’t use for ones you do use. It’ll also kind of create this weird thing where like suddenly items that are just awful but have just like a bajillion affixes on them as they naturally drop are suddenly useful to pick up, which would be kind of funny, but I think you’ll still be picking up ones that have specific shards you want more.

Source: YouTube Link

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Runes

A new rune was added in patch 0.9.2 and it’s unknown if any further runes will come at launch.

June 30, 2023
Q: I saw on your stream that you liked the idea of some kind of rare glyph and/or rare/time-consuming method to revert slammed uniques back to LP legendaries. However, you guys then changed your mind and reverted to “maybe”, and then even further into “low chance of happening”.

What are the reasons to avoid doing it? Diablo 2 had Hel runes, to clear runewords and reroll rune bases, and it was not an issue and never introduced any sort of power creep. Is it a technical limitation of some sort? Hard to code?

Mike: Yes, I do like that idea. I’m far from the arbiter of what gets put in the game or not so the best I can say for an idea I like is “maybe”. Having suggested similar ideas in the past myself and having them not make it out of the discussion stage for reasons that also apply to this idea, I think it has a “low chance of happening”.

It shifts the rarity of the items. Yes, D2 has Hel runes, the rarity of runewords was set around that being in the game. Adding a Hel rune to LE changes that rarity. To be clear, Hel runes did increase the average power of characters in D2. Not by much but it did. Also, Hel runes are a little different because in almost every case (yes there are a few exceptions), high tier runeword costs are skewed pretty heavily towards the runes, not the bases. LE is kinda the opposite, especially with the ability to use a Rune of Creation on the exalted to copy it and get 2 cracks with it.

I like to joke about knock on consequences of changes sometimes by saying “a finger on the monkey’s paw curls inward…”. Well, in this case it could be something like that the average LP chance of items would probably go down as a result to maintain a similar overall average power level. These changes rarely happen in a vacuum.

Personal anecdotes and hyperbole aside, we do watch ⁠suggestions-and-like-to-see and ⁠feedback for what people want to see change about the game and what people feel about how the game is now.

Source: Discord Link

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Glyphs

A new glyph was added in patch 0.9.2 and it’s unknown if any further glyphs will come at launch.

April 14, 2023
Q: Do you have plans for further/other crafting options, especially for endgame crafting?

Mike: Yeah, I mean, so there are – we’d like to add in more runes, glyphs, and things like that. I think that as you get further into the game – as you get into endgame and your power level goes up the room for improvements is going to go down just because you’re finding really specific things and needing to have those specific affixes on your gear is going to make a big difference.

So, yeah, we’ll be adding more glyphs. I mentioned this last time that there’s a new glyph coming. I think it’ll probably be down here. [Mike points to where he thinks it’ll be displayed on the crafting inventory screen] There’s a new glyph coming right there. It won’t really have anything to do with crafting so it’s not really a good answer but there are things that we’re looking at to expand crafting here and there – some like dungeon rewards are a great way to add in new crafting mechanics.

I’m trying to say things without giving stuff away about stuff we’re going to do here. But yeah, there’s things we’re planning and looking at doing for sure. What am I talking about, the Circle of Fortune is going to be a great way to do that – to help with deterministic item finding and crafting and stuff, so yeah.

Source: YouTube Link

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Idols

Further additions to the idol system are a design space they’re purposely leaving open for after launch. Also, it’s likely we’ll see further common (small, humble, and stout) idols added at 1.0.

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Gear Progression

The addition of Item Factions at launch is expected to bring a certain level of power creep to the game. I believe these systems are going to require a lot of finetuning from the developers in order to strike the required balance.

September 6, 2023
Terek: How does EHG feel about the current gear progression? You were talking about trade, so how will Item Factions affect it?

Karv: Oh yeah, so of course you’re going to be trading so you’re going to have access to better items faster than before so you’re going to be able to destroy your enemies way faster. Also, the Circle of Fortune guys, like myself, can boost their item drops through prophecies to be able to target farm more and they’re also going to be getting better gear. So our power is going to be higher than the enemies would normally be. We have a bit of a low point in the early endgame where we have a bit of a plateau when it comes to the gear progression. So obviously the ceiling is going up now as you’re going to be able to trade for items so the plateau is like way up there now, and the same goes for the Circle of Fortune.

So that means that there’s going to be power creep – so the players are going to be stronger than the enemy so we have to understand that. So we have two things; one thing that we’ve already been doing, which is whenever we have a major patch we are increasing the monster health and damage. You can see this in the patch notes if you go way back. The second thing we’re doing is we’re making better monsters that are smarter, have cooler abilities, they’re way more engaging, and we’re reworking old and kind of bad monsters into way better ones as well.

Source: YouTube Link

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Socket System

A socket type system has been something they’ve toyed around with in the past but don’t expect one until after launch. Also, expect it to be somewhat different than other socket systems considering their crafting system, with the act of placing affixes into gear, is already too similar to sockets.

June 30, 2023
Aaron: Anything about a future socket system? And I know you’re going to say the crafting system is sockets outside of crafting.

Mike: Yes, I was going to say that. But no, we don’t have any plans for sockets at the moment. When we do eventually – so a socket style system is one of those things that I would call a core expectation of most ARPG players to have somewhere in the game. Whether that’s like PoE’s is with their skill system and it’s wildly different than D2’s but it’s still kind of that similar socket style system, mechanically at least. Meaning it has that functional process of taking two items and combining them together and having them actually be physical things, and all that sort of stuff.

We’ve toyed with slotting that into a few places, socketing that into the game in a few places, but none of them have really come together the way that we wanted them to. However, I’d be surprised if one doesn’t find its way in. I know there’s a couple sort of back burner plans that have continued to float around with, in regards to sockets or socket style system. Maybe even one of them is something that was a name that was dropped from development and that the name would probably come back relating to sockets.

Source: YouTube Link

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Item Models

Not all item 2D art will have matching 3D art at launch.

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