Why I think the game fell off so hard and why its disappointing

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

Yeah, we don’t have the variable to determine where the pieces land, so we can’t come to a solution. So it’s finding out what decides the landing position and hence derive the outcome from that.

That is irrelevant. Landton’s Ant is based on a board with random white and black squares. I gave you the most stripped example derived from it: all squares are white (or black, same result). It doesn’t matter what the landing position is since they’re all the same. And with all known rules, including your starting position, since all starting positions are the same, you can’t predict what will happen.

@Kulze

And depending on the program to simulate it we can absolutely create a pre-determined outcome

See? This is why you’re not getting it. All of these problems are solvable. None of these problems are predictable. Chaos theory isn’t about unsolvable systems. It’s about unpredictable ones.

So, to further the point:
With the previously stripped down Ant problem, which, I remind you, we could never predict from the start but which we already know the outcome of, let’s introduce a single new rule change:
1-Squares still turn black and white
2-Instead of turning left and right you now go forward on a black square and back on a white square.
Can you predict the outcome? After all, you know all the variables, you know the initial position (which, I remind you again, since they’re all white, means any square is the same) and you even know the outcome of the previous system.

You can make a computer to simulate the outcome, but you have no way of knowing what the end result will be.

So, to circle back to the original point: if a system as simple and barebones as this is unpredictable, what do you think the result is of introducing a single unique item to a system like LE or PoE? Can you predict all the outcome? Or are you only able to predict some of the outcomes and several others are unpredictable?

Which means that, in order to fully make sure that there are no surprises, you have to test for every single one.
Or you just accept that that is an impossible task and simply test for the expected outcomes and know that a lot of unpexpected ones will come up that you will have to deal with.

@Kulze

After all… as much as you can’t prove something doesn’t exist… you also can’t prove something exists.

Not for mathematics. You can’t prove P/NP, but you can prove that the Polya conjecture is false (thus doesn’t exist) and that the Poincare conjecture is true (thus exists). And since Chaos Theory is a mathematical field, your logic doesn’t apply here.

@Kulze

The issue with the realistic approach to the n-body problem is that there’s basically never only 2 bodies available.

That is irrelevant, though. The whole point of it is that a 2 body problem, mathematically, is completely predictable when you know all the variables. It always has been. Whereas a 3 body problem, mathematically, is an unpredictable one.

It doesn’t matter if you can never find those exact conditions in the world. The whole point of the field is to study the emergence of complexity out of deterministic systems and try to identify underlying patterns in it.

[Airowird]

@Kulze

which is not an apt explanation of what I’m saying here.
Yes, you can’t prove something doesn’t exist with guarantee, it’s one of the prime foundations of the scientific approach anyway. You can only showcase the likelyhood of it being near infinitely small.
In the same manner you can only proof a method brings a specific outcome, you can’t ever proof the complete underlying principles, they’re also approximations… as it’s the closest we have at the current respective time when working with them.
After all… as much as you can’t prove something doesn’t exist… you also can’t prove something exists. The best doable thing is that the perception of existence is shared with a substantial amount of other individuals, which makes peer reviews so important as recreating environments in as much detail as possible - and deriving new findings from that - is such a big deal.

Except I can perfectly prove 97 is a prime number, not just “an approximation of one”

There is an actual proof that for the infinite sum of 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + … = 1
A computer can try adding it up to a billion decimals accuracy, but that doesn’t mean there is no proof that beats the computer’s “approximation”.
I don’t need a computer to calculate the result of Pythagoras’ theorem if I have 2 known lengths.

So there are things I can prove. And there are things I can’t. For the things we can’t, we use prediction models. But sometimes, even the weatherman is wrong. Doesn’t mean I don’t get wet when it rains.

[Macknum]

@Airowird

Except you don’t always have the time to analyze 10 or 100 players. That’s why you want them to come forwards with their thoughts themselves.

If EHG has not enough time it’s an issue on EHGs end.

@Airowird

Can you?

Yes

@Airowird

And more importantly, can you do it with the same amount of data collection and effort?

Yes

@Airowird

If 99% of Shaman players are totem Spriggan builds, which Shaman passives do you buff more, the melee or caster ones?

For starters? Everything not Totem related. Duh? Slapping some percentages on skills without changing mechanics isn’t that hard. That’s a possibility for starters.

@Airowird

CT is good to know when players see such a massive gap towards #2 or #3, they are playing #1 despite not being their favourite.

I can’t tell how CTs do stuff but if you build your argument on asumptions it’s pretty… useless I guess. Why do you think CTs see gaps at all or play xyz ammoun of different classes? Or even test what is new?

@DJSamhein

PTRs have some serious downsides as well. They kill the hype (since new stuff is already known) and they reduce the number of players that join the actual launch.

That’s true. If the season theme and the changes were ass I skipped the season. If the season theme and changes were to my liking I played the season. It offers me choice. Sure a lot of people who played on the PTR didn’t touch the season because they had their share of fun and invested time with the season on the PTR but as long as we don’t have numbers to back this up we can’t use this as an argument because we can’t tell if it’s true or not.

For example: PTRs have serious upsides! The increase the hype and numbers of players that join the actual launch! Proof me wrong

[Airowird]

@Macknum

@Airowird

Except you don’t always have the time to analyze 10 or 100 players. That’s why you want them to come forwards with their thoughts themselves.

If EHG has not enough time it’s an issue on EHGs end.

And maybe CT is a better way to solve that issue than PTR

@Macknum

@Airowird

Can you?

Yes

@Airowird

And more importantly, can you do it with the same amount of data collection and effort?

Yes

Then you should apply for a job at EHG. Not kidding, if you really are that good at understanding human motivation, at the very least you should consider a QA job in the entertainment industry where you can get it.

[…]

@Macknum

@Airowird

CT is good to know when players see such a massive gap towards #2 or #3, they are playing #1 despite not being their favourite.

I can’t tell how CTs do stuff but if you build your argument on asumptions it’s pretty… useless I guess. Why do you think CTs see gaps at all or play xyz ammoun of different classes? Or even test what is new?

Point here was that on an open PTR, people will still play what they think is best (in their frame of mind). A CT player is more likely to feel obligated to test what they perceive to be #2. And then provide argumentative feedback as to why X node is never picked at all. Again, if 94% of people chose option A out of 3, it doesn’t give you data on where B & C are situated in their decision making except for “below A”

@Macknum

@DJSamhein

PTRs have some serious downsides as well. They kill the hype (since new stuff is already known) and they reduce the number of players that join the actual launch.

That’s true. If the season theme and the changes were ass I skipped the season. If the season theme and changes were to my liking I played the season. It offers me choice. Sure a lot of people who played on the PTR didn’t touch the season because they had their share of fun and invested time with the season on the PTR but as long as we don’t have numbers to back this up we can’t use this as an argument because we can’t tell if it’s true or not.

For example: PTRs have serious upsides! The increase the hype and numbers of players that join the actual launch! Proof me wrong

I don’t have number to prove(not proof when it’s the verb, FYI) you wrong, but at the very least, it takes a week or so to get decent guides out.

That means anyone wanting to “ride the hype train” needs to rely on their own decision making for a week at least, as guides aren’t reliable yet. Congrats, you now have the unbiased data you wanted to achieve with PTR over CT. And more people will consider live feedback being listened to as positive vs the expectation when it’s a “beta” CT.

[Macknum]

@Airowird

And maybe CT is a better way to solve that issue than PTR

Sure maybe that’s the case… maybe not. We don’t know untill people try. We get a very big patch EHG is cooking on for months and therefor I personaly think it would be best to get as many hands on deck as possible.

@Airowird

A CT player is more likely to feel obligated to test what they perceive to be #2.

Again I don’t know what CT players feel.

@Airowird

And then provide argumentative feedback as to why X node is never picked at all.

We can’t tell if this is true but given the fact Mike once said the CT project is very helpfull it’s at least very helpfull for EHG. Outside of this I can only speculate.

@Airowird

not proof when it’s the verb, FYI

ty. I always get the feeling that I’m happy my english teacher isn’t arround. She would would most likely be very displeased with me today ^^.

@Airowird

I don’t have number to prove(not proof when it’s the verb, FYI) you wrong, but at the very least, it takes a week or so to get decent guides out.

This is highly dependend on the game and on top of it we can’t tell if there is any backround stuff happening and the guide creators have some kind of deal in place. If I was a developer I would give each and every person who is known to breake games the chance to play the game before if they keepguids back for xyz days. So they can blast through the game and get everything they need for guides in the future while I get a lot of valuable data.

@Airowird

That means anyone wanting to “ride the hype train” needs to rely on their own decision making for a week at least, as guides aren’t reliable yet.

We can put this to the test for D4 next week :). Oh btw if you played the PTR and talked to some knoweledgeable players you already know what to do because most stuff was openly communicated.

@Airowird

Congrats, you now have the unbiased data you wanted to achieve with PTR over CT.

Now I can’t follow anymore ^^. What?

[DJSamhein]

@Macknum

@Airowird

A CT player is more likely to feel obligated to test what they perceive to be #2.

Again I don’t know what CT players feel.

You might not know what a CT player feels, but you can be certain that a CT has instructions from EHG on several things to test.
PTR players are, mostly, just regular players that want to try it out and feel no obligation to either test for balance or to report on said balance.
CT testers may be unpaid volunteers (we don’t actually know what the deal with them is, at least I don’t), but they aren’t just players. They have to test and report on things. If they don’t, they lose their spot. That’s how CT testing works generally.

@Macknum

If I was a developer I would give each and every person who is known to breake games the chance to play the game

They don’t always want to do it, though. Best example was GGG wanting to pay Neversink to do his filter management internally for them and he refused.

I don’t know if jungroan is a tester for GGG, but I doubt it. And I doubt he would want to. A big part of his “fame” comes from him breaking the game regularly. And I would argue that he also derives a lot of enjoyment out of doing so.

To be clear, no one is saying that PTRs are bad. Just that they have benefits and drawbacks. One of them being the cost. You might think that PTRs are free testers, but you do need to provide the servers for them and then you need to have several people analyzing the data from it. All of that costs money.
And if the return you get from PTRs isn’t magnitudes better than what you get from a CT, then it’s not worth the investment.

It’s easy for a company like Blizzard to throw away money at this because they have a huge financial backing from everything else. It’s not easy for a company like EHG or GGG to do the same.
This is without going into the benefits/drawbacks of revealing information early.

[OneOfTheBest]

(I never read replies) It fell off hard because it’s a ‘cash grab’. The game has been balanced around streamers and youtubers. There was even a time where during the free trial servers they increased Exalted items dropping by like 20x to make sure streamers were hitting their builds and getting their viewers to purchase.

There’s really only 2 options for why they have failed to update the game.
Option 1: Cash Grab. Devs and shareholders have agreed to invest the bare minimum amount in the game and probably will do 1 more big update around summertime once PoE-2 has cooled down and before Diablo 4 announces another expansion. Whether the update is great or not, who knows, but probably will just be a few class tweaks, another boring Boss, and 1 new mechanic for Echoes.

The other option is the ‘devs are scared to make a mistake’. Which definitely isn’t the case. There’s not some 55 year old head Dev sitting in his office right now saying “awww man I’m scared to ruin my beautiful game, even if releasing a patch would help me pay for my third divorce and mortgage!”.

So what has happened is the shareholders and devs have obviously had a meeting, and decided to put the bare minimum into the game because they are a ‘side chick’ game compared to Diablo 4 and Path of Exile. They will get new players no matter what, and they know they have no way out outdoing PoE or beating the smoothness of Diablo 4 gameplay and funding. They also know they are side competing with games like Grim Dawn and other 2nd level ARPG’s.

TLDR: Devs and Shareholders had a meeting and decided to put the bare minimum into the game because even if they do amazing updates they will still be outdone by PoE2 and D4.

[TriKster]

@DJSamhein

They have to test and report on things. If they don’t, they lose their spot. That’s how CT testing works generally.

Please stop spreading false information.

[Macknum]

@DJSamhein

You might not know what a CT player feels, but you can be certain that a CT has instructions from EHG on several things to test.

Why is everyone jumping to conclusions? Sure I would be happy IF EHG does some kind of focus testing with specialy prepeared toons at certain stages of the game to see how things are. Am I certain EHG is doing stuff like that or gives instructions? Nah!

@DJSamhein

CT testers may be unpaid volunteers (we don’t actually know what the deal with them is, at least I don’t), but they aren’t just players.

What are they? Cars? Dogs? They are normal players as everyone else.

@DJSamhein

They have to test and report on things. If they don’t, they lose their spot.

We can’t tell. I was in focus test groups where nothing was demanded at all and this was the norm. I even offended devs once asking if I/we should focus test specific stuff… no wonder that game isn’t arround anymore. So my experience differs a lot from yours

@DJSamhein

They don’t always want to do it, though. Best example was GGG wanting to pay Neversink to do his filter management internally for them and he refused.

Why should he give in? He makes more money on his own. That example is rather flawed.

@DJSamhein

I don’t know if jungroan is a tester for GGG, but I doubt it. And I doubt he would want to. A big part of his “fame” comes from him breaking the game regularly. And I would argue that he also derives a lot of enjoyment out of doing so.

Again a flawed example. i would not fish for extremes or for people who make a lot of money, like neversink with donations. There are a lot of fish in the water not only the whales.

@DJSamhein

To be clear, no one is saying that PTRs are bad.

I never was under the impression someone said so all fine, just enjoying a convo about the topic here… also it might derail the convo quite a bit . (sorry btw ^^)

@DJSamhein

You might think that PTRs are free testers, but you do need to provide the servers for them and then you need to have several people analyzing the data from it. All of that costs money.

Nothing in life comes for free. Yes you actualy have to invest time and money to make the best out of it. So if you don’t have the capacity forget about it for sure. Then again don’t wonder if ppl get mad when you deliver a flawed product.

@DJSamhein

And if the return you get from PTRs isn’t magnitudes better than what you get from a CT, then it’s not worth the investment.

We can’t tell without trying and EHG giving feedback on the matter . This will most likely not happen so we only can speculate.

@DJSamhein

It’s easy for a company like Blizzard to throw away money at this because they have a huge financial backing from everything else. It’s not easy for a company like EHG or GGG to do the same.

Now you want to tell that GGG is a small indi studio or what? GGG has enough money to do how they please.

@OneOfTheBest

(I never read replies) It fell off hard because it’s a ‘cash grab’.

(Yeah you better don’t) you have a funny definition of cash grab let’s see if everything els is equaly… special.
.
.
.
okay nothing to see here…

@TriKster

Please stop spreading false information.

How is it false? We can’t tell… maybe he is even right. I don’t think so personaly but I’m no psychic ^^. maybe all CTs are held hostage in white rooms with nothing that can distract tehm and they are whipped if they underperform and don’t find a bug every 10 minutes. Only EHG and the CTs know. Yet I never heared a CT scream for help so I guess my take on it wrong ^^.

[DJSamhein]

@TriKster

Please stop spreading false information.

How is it false information? I specifically said:

@DJSamhein

we don’t actually know what the deal with them is, at least I don’t

So this might not happen with LE. But it was the case in CTs I participated in the past. There were guidelines on things the devs wanted us to test and some even gave specific instructions on stuff to try to see if it breaks/no longer breaks the game.

@Macknum

What are they? Cars? Dogs? They are normal players as everyone else.

They are testers. On a PTR, the majority of players just wants to have fun playing the game and they don’t care about broken stuff or feedback. On a CT, the players want to test the game.

@Macknum

Why should he give in? He makes more money on his own. That example is rather flawed.

Who’s jumping to conclusions now? It’s a free service, so his revenue most likely only comes from ad revenue due to traffic and the occasional donation. I doubt that is more than a paid job monthly.

[Macknum]

@DJSamhein

On a CT, the players want to test the game.

What now… they are players all of the sudden again? As long as we don’t have insight in the CT program we still can’t tell. So to me they ask players for feedback and they play content early and that’s it. I don’t think it’s to harsh or kind of a second job or whatever. To me it’s like people play new content and at best find bugs and report them and give feedback qithout any quotas to reach or preassure applied. So players stay players first who test stuff.

@DJSamhein

It’s a free service, so his revenue most likely only comes from ad revenue due to traffic and the occasional donation

I had some inside from a dude who makes modes on nexus mods who has it’s own donation link. He makes good mods with several thousand downloads over the year. he makes more money with donations then with his job and his taxes are a nightmare ^^. When I look at the PoE community that pays hundrets of dollars on cosmetics on a very regular basis I would be very suprised if Neversink isn’t making a crap ton of money. So why should he sell the golden egg laying goose for a one time buyout?

[DJSamhein]

@Macknum

What now… they are players all of the sudden again?

Are you trying to intentionally distort my words? I very specifically said that they aren’t “just players”. I never said they’re not players.

[Airowird]

@Macknum

@Airowird

And maybe CT is a better way to solve that issue than PTR

Sure maybe that’s the case… maybe not. We don’t know untill people try. We get a very big patch EHG is cooking on for months and therefor I personaly think it would be best to get as many hands on deck as possible.

We do know because it’s not a novel concept.
I have played D3 beta, several WoW xpack betas, Hearthstone, even got into HotS alpha … The atmosphere on discords & forums there were completely different than the PTRs I played. And I don’t just mean people weren’t constantly being toxic dicks.

@Macknum

@Airowird

A CT player is more likely to feel obligated to test what they perceive to be #2.

Again I don’t know what CT players feel.

As someone who has enjoyed these closed betas as a hobby, I know how I feel about it, and the way other people acted in those CTs atleast indicates a correlation with those same feelings in those others.

@Macknum

@Airowird

And then provide argumentative feedback as to why X node is never picked at all.

We can’t tell if this is true but given the fact Mike once said the CT project is very helpfull it’s at least very helpfull for EHG. Outside of this I can only speculate.

Again, my personal history has shown me that CT forums have more targetted feedback, especially about options being avoided, when compared to PTR forums.

@Macknum

@Airowird

not proof when it’s the verb, FYI

ty. I always get the feeling that I’m happy my english teacher isn’t arround. She would would most likely be very displeased with me today ^^.

you’re welcome

@Macknum

@Airowird

I don’t have number to prove(not proof when it’s the verb, FYI) you wrong, but at the very least, it takes a week or so to get decent guides out.

This is highly dependend on the game and on top of it we can’t tell if there is any backround stuff happening and the guide creators have some kind of deal in place. If I was a developer I would give each and every person who is known to breake games the chance to play the game before if they keepguids back for xyz days. So they can blast through the game and get everything they need for guides in the future while I get a lot of valuable data.

@Airowird

That means anyone wanting to “ride the hype train” needs to rely on their own decision making for a week at least, as guides aren’t reliable yet.

We can put this to the test for D4 next week :). Oh btw if you played the PTR and talked to some knoweledgeable players you already know what to do because most stuff was openly communicated.

Except the Last Epoch CT has some form of an NDA involved. You can read all about it here.
That means you can’t know if a guide creator is talking based on experience or just making stuff up. So players should atleast be more suspicious about guide content.
Plus, a lot of guides are made by streamers or other content creators, and NDAs cut into their income, so very little of them would actually join CTs without compensation and at that point, you’re just part time QA and can get in trouble on the content creation side.

And no, most NDAs also include telling people you’re under NDA, so a guide creator can’t just say “fresh from CT, here is the guide for when your patch is downloaded!!”
The examples I mentioned I was either not under NDA, or the NDA expired once I got a public forum badge that the game dev used to basically tell everyone I was in the beta anyway.

@Airowird

@Macknum

Congrats, you now have the unbiased data you wanted to achieve with PTR over CT.

Now I can’t follow anymore ^^. What?

A lot of players treat PTRs as early access. So if you just slap your data collection on the live servers, you generate the same data live as PTR, without burning out casual players before the actual release.

@OneOfTheBest

(I never read replies)

Then I don’t read your posts, because I’m not here for you to shout at and take it. Discussions go both ways. Be an adult and either participate fully or don’t reply at all.

[evok]

OK I’m going to voice my opinion here. I have over 1k hours into the game almost all of it before official release. Just logged in yesterday to play for a bit, I think they made a serious mistake in maintaining that whole void area as the first one you run for any length of time. It is extremely dark and unattractive. Not a good way to win over new players.

Just got through it this morning and got to the final boss at about level 26 or so. I lost to the boss and it respawned me a mile away with ofc no map done and full of mobs all over again. Then I remember every time you leave an area and go back into it, it all has to be cleared again. I promptly quit the game and sorry I won’t be back. This game disrespects my time even more than the newly released POE2.

Good Luck 11th hour I think you’re a great group of devs but this game is not rewarding enough for the time you want us to put it. The combat is not in any way fun enough to merit killing the same mobs again and again and frankly the unity engine is just plain ugly imho.

[Kulze]

@OneOfTheBest

(I never read replies)

Ah yes, clown’s back! Ensuring everyone knows right away what that person is! Good job!

@OneOfTheBest

The game has been balanced around streamers and youtubers.

Has it? Interesting to know that a game with too little content is balanced for Streamers and Youtubers?
I guess in that case PoE is really bad for content creators.

@OneOfTheBest

probably will do 1 more big update around summertime

April to be exact, which is spring, not even late spring… just spring.

@OneOfTheBest

but probably will just be a few class tweaks, another boring Boss, and 1 new mechanic for Echoes.

Unlikely given that we’re already seeing the major notes in the roadmap, which would be surprisingly hard to bring to such a low level.
If it’s enough anyway though we’ll see… and if the quality upholds on top unlike in 1.0.

@OneOfTheBest

the shareholders and devs have obviously had a meeting, and decided to put the bare minimum into the game because they are a ‘side chick’ game compared to Diablo 4 and Path of Exile.

Ah yes, the winning strategy which brought the majority of other games trying to do the same into the red. The classic winning strategy, clearly uncovered by you! Such a genius!

I guess it’s clear why no replies are read, can’t take it to get this mass of wasted writing space dismantled before someone can even finish a single sneeze.

@Macknum

Why should he give in? He makes more money on his own. That example is rather flawed.

Depends? We don’t know the revenue he gets versus the effort it takes to do that stuff.
Secondly, it’s a more stable position compared to being a freelancer basically. So it’s unclear.

@Macknum

Again a flawed example. i would not fish for extremes or for people who make a lot of money, like neversink with donations.

No, jungroan is a prime example of a fantastic tester. He goes out of his way to specifically find things which are utterly and entirely broken.

This is a top-tier tester, you want the extremes specifically for such types of jobs. Not some random joe off the streets.

@Macknum

they are whipped if they underperform and don’t find a bug every 10 minutes

You give them a whole 10 minutes? 5 is enough!

@evok

It is extremely dark and unattractive. Not a good way to win over new players.

It’s fairly aged in terms of design, but it does a fantastic job in immersing us into the story.
After all out protagonist is brought from a vibrant world into this disaster of a decaying thing leftover. That’s a good presentation, can’t complain there. It’s supposed to look drab in comparison to anything else in the game.

@evok

This game disrespects my time even more than the newly released POE2.

Wait… PoE 2 does… disrespect your time?
They got fantastic systems in place so it doesn’t happen at all! It’s counter to that, item drop balancing needs to be worked on a bit more though.

As for LE… how so? Persistent instances cost massive amounts of resources server-side. Also if you’re at the final boss (of Act 2?) then you respawn basically a few feet away from the boss arena, it’s one of the smallest map areas in the game.

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

They got fantastic systems in place so it doesn’t happen at all! It’s counter to that, item drop balancing needs to be worked on a bit more though.

I think he means because all mobs respawn on death, which make areas like the Dreadnought quite miserable at times.
I actually had a “fun” moment where I died to the boss, then got attacked because some mobs spawned near the checkpoint.

[Kulze]

Yeah, I know that’s what likely is meant, it just makes very little sense.

After all it’s a classic ‘Checkpoint system’ to ensure a player has the ability and power level to pass segments, otherwise having to re-do them. It’s a fairly normal thing.
They didn’t do it in PoE 1 and hence you get situations like people throwing themselves against Kitava, ‘dieing through’ the boss with 20… 30… 40 deaths, wittling her simply down by making a pile of corpses out of yourself.
Exciting gameplay, right? Guaranteed wins!

I would say solving the initial downsides of their systems rather shows some proper thinking. And Last Epoch also has at least some sort of weight behind your actions. Either your build and skills are up to par or you gotta re-do stuff… how it should be!

[kozlow]

Why is it so hard for people to maintain intellectual honesty and focus on the central theme of the original post, instead of completely distorting it?

Let’s get back to the topic: EHG could have focused on improving the builds and having 10x the diversity of options.

For those of you who are talking about poe, d3/d4, GD, revenue, dead game vs. live game, etc., have you ever tried to create your own build or create an off-meta build and not been frustrated?

Are you happy and satisfied with the variety of builds we currently have in Last Epoch?

[Kulze]

@kozlow

Let’s get back to the topic: EHG could have focused on improving the builds and having 10x the diversity of options.

The topics is why it fell off so hard and is disappointing, that’s the thread title, which includes a large variety of things.

First and foremost: Lack of end-game. Simple as that. We got a single core-audience viable end-game mechanic and 2 bothersome side mechanics that are either extremely simplistic (Arena) or simply not fleshed out properly (Dungeons).

That’s the first and foremost reason, everything else following afterwards. The second you mentioned with:

@kozlow

Are you happy and satisfied with the variety of builds we currently have in Last Epoch?

Variety? Yes.
Viability and power level of them? No

You can make a lot, a large portion just feels fairly bad.
Much like end-game getting the classes into a properly working order without being utterly all over the place is also important.

If we go into the third reason it’s likely the pacing of the game, hence difficulty in campaign versus monoliths, overall power scaling… that stuff.

[Airowird]

As someone who has tried making their own build in early, poe, D3, D4 (but not the jungle book xpac) and Grim Dawn …

I would rank build diversity for self-made builds as LE > GD > D4 / PoE > D3
I’ld even throw WH40k - Inquisitor around GD, as long as we’re talking the quality of options vs the raw amount. (e.g. It only has 3 schools of damage)

I once had a list of like 50+ builds that I had either played or had a planner for built around something. Did they all succeed hitting 300-600 corruption etc? Some did fall off earlier or no longer exist due to a revamp, (RIP Squirrel Spriggan BM) but I’ld say more than 3 out of 4 managed to hit at least 300 corruption and the ones that didn’t were usually a self-imposed restriction. (e.g. building around Void Cleave → Abyssal Echoes → Erasing Strike combo all at once, forced myself to use a specific set,…)

The builds that failed regardless were usually still able to hit 150-ish corruption, but lacked the scaling. So pre-Aberroth, that build could still do everything around. To me, that’s a build that needs more support, but didn’t completely fail like e.g. not having a set for it in D3.

I will say that the problem is more clear now that there is more power creep, so you see which builds are capping at 1000 corruption vs 300. And it’s definitely something they’re gonna have to work on for both current balance and whatever new things are coming in the future. But they are working on it at least. Sentinel has some few issues, like Time Rot not being a viable build due to its stack cap, Paladin lacking its 5th skill, … But it’s in the pipeline for 1.2, so we’ll have to see how it improves then.