After playing a couple of Warpath and Vengeance paladins and then switching to other classes I’ve noticed some problems regarding audio-visual feedback from these two skills.
Now I’m well aware that a lot of skills have combat feedback problems and that it’s an area in which LE is kind of weak, depending on which skill you pick - the newer Warlock skills for example - I’ll specifically talk about Fissure and Chaos Bolts here - sound meaty, look nice and feel powerful with nice on-corpse effects on slain enemies that are adequate for their visual and elemental effects.
So it’s obvious that the game is improving in this regard, but I still think constructive feedback is useful.
First off - Warpath - its main problems are:
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The skill itself is just weak on many builds - let’s be real the number one thing that makes gameplay feel bad in Last Epoch currently is how much killing you get rewarded with by investing into a skill, and Warpath just feels weak to play (especially fire converted Warpath). This is just a case of Sentinel in general (especially Paladin) just being old and not power crept at all compared to newer classes.
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Warpath hit sound effects don’t sound right - they always sound like you’re hitting metal with metal, even if you hit bugs or birds with a mace. There’s no variation in its sound design, and the on-hit sound design that exists already is weak and low quality compared to other skills I’ve played (for example the Primalist’s swipe).
Maces and swords sound the same when hitting all enemies, and that just must not be the case for adequate sound feedback.
Not only that but the flame conversion on Warpath doesn’t give that “tornado of fire that melts everything” feeling in its sound design, it still sounds the same with some added flame “whooshing” effects - it just fails to deliver that hot knife through butter feeling. -
Warpath’s animation looks kind of goofy when looked at, but it isn’t really visible for 99% of the time in gameplay so this is a minor thing. And I’m pretty sure there’s no special animation when spinning with a shield (the character still holds both his hands on the weapon hilt and spins… Where does the shield go then?).
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The movement speed handicap is expected and rational on a skill like Warpath, but maybe an alternative solution could exist to give it some more freedom of movement? It would really make it feel more like D3’s WW Barb which is still the best WW ability I’ve ever played in an ARPG.
Now Vengeance:
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The hit sounds effects don’t change when you change weapons - that means that there’s always a slash sound effect even when using maces/scepters. This just feels off when using maces specifically - the player expects a meaty bonk, kind of like Heavy Strike or Glacial Hammer from PoE (and especially the Heavy Strike in PoE 2 they showed) with an adequate animation change - instead the Sentinel always swings his weapon as if he’s cutting something and it always makes a slashing sound (although the slashing sound itself is quite nice, so when using swords it feels really visceral and fine).
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The goofy trail looks outdated - it doesn’t necessarily look horrible or bad, but it kind of irks me the wrong way. This might as well be a subjective opinion, someone surely likes that kind of flashy weapon trail on attacks, although I’d argue Rive’s trail was done much better and more tastefully.
That’s basically all I wanted to quickly write up since I’m done with Paladin/Sentinel for now considering how old they are and how much more mehcanical freedom and power new classes have. Can’t wait for a rework of sorts =].
A lot of older skills could use up VFX, SFX and animation touch-ups and I know EHG is working on these things slowly over time.
But I’ve always felt like people don’t put enough emphasis on combat feeling in these kinds of games, and yet engaging with combat is basically the only thing we do in them!
There’s a reason why people always say D3 is a “good action game but a bad RPG”, even today more than a decade after it came out.
If there’s one thing Wolcen did well it’s the damn hit feedback with effects, high quality screen shaking and animations.
A truly underappreciated thing in this genre I feel.
Thank you for reading.