While the Faction System as a whole is not tied to multiplayer its first implementation, Item Factions, will however see significant multiplayer integration, specifically with the Merchant’s Guild.
From what we can gather they’re currently working on the back-end systems to enable asynchronous trade. Also, the UI has been designed but not yet implemented and many pieces of concept art for its story elements appear to be complete. This system is scheduled to release at 1.0.
During the June 30, 2023 dev stream Mike shows off concept art of the Merchant’s Guild leader.
During the August 4, 2023 dev stream Mike shows off concept art of a new NPC. While not explicitly stated, one can assume this new NPC is likely associated with the Item Factions.
Cycles are Last Epoch’s equivalent of seasons or leagues. Not a whole lot about these has been explicitly nailed down yet, outside of its content being initially available to all realms (Legacy, Cycle, and Offline) albeit with some minor differences between them. To what extent this changes in the future will likely depend on player feedback and engagement.
The content that is added in these cycles is expected to be similar to expansions for the game, at least for the foreseeable future until they’ve added all of the features that they feel are core to the overall experience. The timeframe for how long these core additions will occur is unknown at this time. At some point it’s expected they’ll transition to content that only remains for that cycle. The current release target for cycles is every 3-4 months.
At 1.0 all existing characters will transition to Legacy (non-cycle) and a new cycle will start where fresh characters are created that can participate in the ladder and an economy reset. At the conclusion of each cycle all existing cycle characters will move to Legacy and a new cycle begins.
The ladder will be available to all cycle characters. There are plans to eventually add many types of ladders to the various endgame activities available, though it’s unknown when this will occur.
Matchmaking does sound like something they eventually want to see added to the game. What that looks like or how it’ll work is still very likely in early discussions/development.
Improvements to server performance and stability are a huge focus for the team. They’re currently working on multiple solutions to improve their back-end infrastructure and reduce instances of network inefficiency. Expect to see several improvements leading up to launch and over the course of the games lifespan.
The current online character limit is 20 but that limit is expected to increase by launch. What the new character limit will be is unknown at this time.
There really hasn’t been any relevant information concerning updates to the arena. There’ll likely be more arena champions at some point but don’t expect much to change with 1.0.
No new dungeons are planned for 1.0, but there have been several dungeon ideas thrown around during the dev streams. They’re also looking to improve the procedural generation of the areas prior to the boss.
The MoF is expected to see a few minor improvements, most of which are likely to arrive with 1.0; from putting more weight behind corruption rather than enemy modifiers, making it faster to progress to empowered on follow-up characters, and being able to swap between previously earned blessings. After launch there’s several expansions already planned for it.
We learned that the Favor System has been rolled up into the Faction System, which includes the previously announced Item Factions, and is a core element of them. Favor is required to perform most, or possibly all, actions within a given faction.
Expect significant improvements and additions to endgame content, itemization, pinnacle content, quality of life features, campaign content, etc. after launch, with some minor changes to these (in comparison) as the game nears 1.0. There’s definitely a lot of interesting things being touted by the developers in this section.
While there have been improvements to minion AI over the years it does appear that further advancements in these categories aren’t likely to occur until after launch when certain technical hurdles have been overcome.
This has been a long time coming now and we got some confirmation that it’s still going to happen sometime in the future. For those that don’t know what it is, they’re eventually planning to remove all (or most) sources of “X% increased critical strike chance” and only have sources of “+X% critical strike chance” instead because having a percentage stat being increased by another percentage stat has seemingly caused a lot of confusion amongst players over the years.
Apparently it’s one of the highest reported “bugs” to support staff because new players don’t understand it. A similar reasoning was given for the “increased ailment effect” rework that occurred in patch 0.9, though this stat does still remain for armour shred and some other stats.
The dynamic damage reduction system that bosses have is scheduled to be removed and replaced with something else, though no details were provided for this new system.
When you portal to and from zones the game currently does not save the zone state so everything will be reset upon returning. This has thus far been a technical limitation they’ve yet to overcome and is unlikely to be resolved prior to 1.0.
While there’s always bug fixes with every patch, we should expect even more going forward in an effort to bring the level of polish up in the game for its eventual release.
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.
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.
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,.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Both the Falconer and Warlock are set to release at 1.0. Mike provides a few details concerning active development of the remaining masteries – from their skills being designed and prototyped, skills being repurposed or incorporated into other skills, and even some visuals that are being worked on.
During the February 10, 2023 dev stream, Mike and Judd showcase concept art of the Falconer’s Falcon minion. Then on April 5, 2023 a texture mock-up of the Falcon is shown across EHG’s social media accounts.
There are currently a number of skills still to be added or implemented across the existing masteries. These include; one skill for Shaman, Healing Hand and one more skill for Paladin, two base class skills for Rogue, and one skill each for Bladedancer and Marksman. It’s unlikely all seven missing skills will be available at launch as the focus is primarily on the completion of the two remaining masteries.
There’s likely to be several minor skill adjustments leading up to 1.0 and afterwards, but the often teased skill rework of Tempest Strike won’t occur until after launch. Tempest Strike is having its role changed to a heavier and bigger hitting skill that scales off of attack speed, with another melee skill coming in to take the role that Tempest Strike used to occupy and then they can finally remove the Ice Thorns skill that’s been on the agenda for years now.
The following was asked during the May 19, 2023 dev stream and Reimer responded in the Twitch comments so I don’t have any record of it beyond my word.
The Druid rework in patch 0.8.4 brought forth the introduction of threshold nodes. Several nodes within the Druid’s passive tree received additional bonuses for placing a certain number of passive points into them. This system was well received by the community, but has yet to be fully implemented into the remainder of the base classes and their masteries.
The two remaining masteries will likely have these threshold nodes incorporated into their newly created passive trees while older passive trees will gradually see them added over time as they receive updates after launch.
Expect new masteries for the current roster of base classes to happen far in advance of new base classes being added. However, don’t expect either to happen until sometime after launch.
New cutscenes for the campaign are being working on, though it’s unknown at this time if they’ll be ready for 1.0. Presentation is being improved and new tools are coming online that’ll allow for more detailed and varied environments in the future.
During the June 30, 2023 dev stream Mike shows off various new visual fidelity tools that their environment artists & level design teams will be able to incorporate into future scenes within Last Epoch.
Chapters 10-12 won’t be arriving until sometime after launch. However, I do anticipate there’ll be a continued effort to improve certain aspects of the existing campaign in order to bring all areas up to the same quality level of more recent releases.
Improvements and additions to the quest reward system have been discussed for a while now, but it’s not something I’m personally expecting to happen prior to launch. Though, it would be a pleasant surprise.
A full campaign skip is not something EHG is currently planning to implement. However, each dungeon allows the player to skip a different portion of the campaign on subsequent characters. Unfortunately the difficulty of these dungeons on new characters is not properly balanced at this time, nor is there a full complement of dungeons to truly satisfy this feature. As more dungeons become available and they’ve been properly balanced for alternate characters this feature could hopefully become a more viable solution for those looking to skip a majority of the campaign.
Expect many new and updated enemies leading up to and after launch, especially as new chapters are released. Below are most, if not all, of the new or updated enemies they’ve teased over the months.
The long discussed update to the Character Sheet was recently confirmed to be coming after 1.0. Hopefully it’ll be worth the wait. Below is an early design mock-up that was shown more than two years ago.
The game guide requires some back-end improvements before it’s likely to receive any major additions. Also, Kyle and Mike have expressed an interest in adding a bestiary to the game, though Mike doesn’t explicitly state whether or not this feature would reside within the game guide.
There are plans to improve the loot filter system that will hopefully allow for some of the more common functionality requests players have in the future. Also, there are some minor functionality improvements coming that should allow us to select specific affixes with more granularity than before. Outside of features, there’s also plans to improve the tutorialization of the loot filter.
A button that’ll functionally reset the entirety of the passives trees has been confirmed to be coming, though no specific timeframe was given but hopefully it’ll be included with 1.0.
How the blessings selection screen appears immediately after defeating the timeline boss is scheduled to be improved and hopefully in time for 1.0. Also, previously discovered blessings and their highest rolled value are planned to be interchangeable within the Blessings window, possibly by launch.
A dodge-roll mechanic is something they’ve experimented with in the past, but won’t be included with 1.0. It may or may not be something they revisit after launch.
Mike reveals that there are plans to allow us to scale the mastery bonuses in some way via items, likely through the use of new affixes. It’s definitely worth clicking the source link to read the entire thread that Mike is replying to for further context.
The game was originally announced to include an offline mode but over time there were a lot of things said, that I didn’t include here, that brought into question just how “offline” it would be. However, this was finally all cleared up and made perfectly clear that the offline mode would be truly 100% offline by 1.0.
There’s a number of marketing materials being worked on for the launch of the game.
The quote below is before Judd officially announced that it’d be releasing later this year, but Mike did reveal that marketing was being set up for it.
An achievement system is planned but won’t be ready for 1.0. We’re not yet sure if they’ll implement their own solution, use Steam’s built-in solution, or potentially do both.
Cosmetics have thus far been a low priority feature but will likely become more prevalent after launch. Also, cosmetics do not currently show on the character select screen but this is likely be fixed by launch.
EHG is working with a video game localization company to bring several additional languages to the game. They announced that the initial languages, outside of English, planned to be available are: Simplified Chinese, French, German, Brazil-Portuguese, Spain-Spanish, Polish, Korean, and Russian. These localizations were made available in patch 0.9.2 and are set to be improved in the leadup to launch.
WASD movement is not in active development but it’s also not something that’s been outright dismissed. However, if it does come to the game it’ll be after 1.0.
Having some form of character customization available in the game has routinely been stated as a long-term goal for the company. However, do not expect this feature to arrive with 1.0, or for some time afterwards.
This specific quote below used to be in the Future Plans section of the Official LE General FAQ but was removed at some point, for whatever reason.
PvP is something they’ve expressed a strong interest in adding post-1.0. In fact, many years ago it was on the early access forecast and briefly discussed within a developer blog. It seems highly likely that some form of PvP gets included in the future.
With the help of the community a beta version of their API is currently in testing with Maxroll and LastEpochTools and will eventually be made more publicly available after it’s been thoroughly tested, though no timeframe has yet been given.
The PC release is their current focus, and will be for some time, but it’s something the team would like to revisit in the future when the games production and live ops pipeline is well established and running smoothly.
Judd, Mike, when 1.0 comes out, I think there should be a nice cosy little room in the End Of Time with a statue of AndrewTilley. That would be well deserved.
(Might as well put a bust of Dammit in there while you are at it).
