I have not only thoroughly enjoyed my time in Last Epoch, but I have been extremely hopeful for the future as well. I’ve sold this game to many of my ARPG friends and it has become a staple of my game library. I enjoy the team and priority being placed on user experience and fun. I am always on board to support EHG. My feedback today is to share my concern over Krafton and their recent announcements and how it may effect that experience.
I was hoping to find some comments or reassurance from the team here but that is not the case from what I have been able to find. I would much prefer to hear from you all directly, the devs I have been supporting since early beta, rather than all of the speculation happening online or Krafton themselves. This recent announcement of theirs about massive investment into AI is seeming like a specter of death knocking on LE’s door.
Specifically, the concern is around how comprehensive the inclusion of AI is for Krafton. They aren’t just using it for streamlined workflows or whatever many tech companies are claiming. No, they are making a massive investment into immense GPU capabilities to power a dedicated AI. This will effect all aspects of their business AND creative endeavors. What does that mean for Last Epoch and EHG?
Providing those answers is vital, and it should be soon. The growing sentiment is to say goodbye to this game now. ARPG players, as you all know well, despise having their time wasted. Many will not want to continue supporting LE if it is only going to die in a year due to AI-slop art, voice work (I am a voice actor myself, so this hits home for me indeed), game systems, or anything else not carefully crafted by human hands. Furthermore, there are many who are concerned with the environmental impacts already being caused by huge AI server farms. Those gamers will abandon LE simply because they have already been avoiding AI as much as they can.
Maybe none of these fears are realistic? Maybe AI will never be used on any aspect of any EHG project relating to Last Epoch? If so, please let the community know. Give us your thoughts on what is happening. EHG has accumulated good will with its player base in part because of open communications. Personally, I believe the best option is continued transparency, even if you do not think we will like what is happening on the back end. At least then we will know we aren’t being fed a corporate lie.
Devs rarely post on the forum these days. If you want a reply from a dev you’re better off using their discord server.
As for your concerns, Mike said some time ago on stream that AI barely affects his work and he rarely uses it (if ever). It’s not advanced enough where it can replace programmers (especially when AI’s first priority is always to immediately please the user, even if they provide a wrong answer), so LE’s systems should be safe from that.
The only places I see AI being used are in the 2 areas you touched: visuals and voice acting. I could see them using AI to generate MTXs and to fill in the voice acting for the campaign.
Whether they will actually do that or not only they can say.
Though, again, it’s not likely they will here. Sometimes a dev will reply on the forums, so you might get lucky in this thread, but it’s rare. They answer more on reddit and especially on their discord server.
I’m a late joiner. I’ve had the game for a while, but it didn’t really click with me at first.
Now, I’ve completely fallen in love with it. It’s become my comfort game, and I’ve already spent a fair amount of money on extras for myself and a friend.
That said, I’m a bit worried that I might be too late to truly enjoy the game and its packs. I’m also having trouble understanding what the future holds for it.
I’m not sure if there’s an official roadmap, if there are plans to wrap up the story’s loose ends, or what Krafton really intends to do moving forward.
I just don’t want to keep investing my time (and money) in a game that might soon be abandoned.
In my opinion, the PR could be much better. I don’t use Discord, and I feel like I shouldn’t have to just to get updates on the game’s status.
There is no cause for concern. The announcement is about Agentic AI.
Firstly, the game is great right now… So keep enjoying it.
Secondly, the announcement from Krafton did not mention any games. At all. Not a single game.
Thirdly, every major company in the world right now is transitioning to use AI.
Finally, they even defined Agentic-AI at the end of the article, which is the AI they announced their investments in, here’s what it said "Agentic AI: AI that creates goals and plans, works with external tools to automate complex tasks"
Read the article. It talks about running Krafton and using AI for planning, automation, HR, personnel, etc. The same use-cases every major company is utilizing Agentic-AI for right now. As far as the article is concerned, this AI may not even be related to gaming.
I disagree with your assessment of the information given by Krafton, however. For example:
“Through our AI First strategy, Krafton will expand the growth opportunities for each member, expand creative attempts centered on player experience, and lead AI innovation across the gaming industry,” Krafton CEO Kim Chang-han
There are other quotes being released as well describing player-experience in video games and “creative” aspects of their AI. They are set to become an “AI-first” company in their own words. This obviously leads to plenty of questions. I am not saying the sky is falling, but I feel my concerns and those of many others are warranted, especially as we have no information on specifics. This is all guess work based on quotes, so I understand if you or others are not seeing any red flags here. That’s totally fine.
Myself? The more I see come out from Krafton, the more concern I have. Hence I am seeking clarification from EHG on this game I love. On that end, EHG Mike on the Discord did tell me and others that Judd is working on an official statement. So answers may be coming.
What really bothers me is how vague their statements are.
“Expand creative attempts centered on player experience” — what does that even mean?
It just sounds like buzzwords.
AI is amazing when it’s used as a tool to enhance human capability, but I wish they would focus on a Player Satisfaction First strategy instead.
Through this infrastructure, Crafton promotes not only AI workflow automation but also AI R&D and in-game AI service strengthening.
To internalize ‘AI First’'s company, the HR system and organizational operating system will also be reorganized.
“Krafton will expand the growth opportunities of each member through its AI First strategy, expand creative attempts centered on the player experience, and lead AI innovation across the gaming industry. He said that he will establish operating standards that work centered on ”
What I read out of this is the following:
‘In-game service strenghtening’ is to promote the usage of AI related tools in the member-games. They don’t have personal products, they own products which they bought from teams. Hence using it in these instances.
Last Epoch is one of those members.
The HR system will be highly automated, hence even the own companies which are owned by Krafton will not be able to properly get through to a human factor, this is the epidome of ‘success on paper’ established basically. As long as the short-term results say ‘it works’ everything else is non-mandatory.
Especially the quote directly is extemely problematic. Growth opportunities of each member with a focus on using AI as the first and foremost method. Expanding ‘creative attempts’ on the player experience is for a company like Krafton a general ‘Let’s see how many monetization strats this system can come up with’. And ‘leading AI innovation’ is not something we as customers want to experience.
The trailblazers are the systems which have the most problems and the highest risk of failure. Established systems which are proven to work is what a customer wants in those regards. This is after all not a crypto-currency speculation, it’s about a solid product for long-term use of players.
Anyone supporting “AI first” instead of “People first” has lost sight of the plot of humanity.
Imagine singing the praises of AI being used to create entertainment instead of being used to make it so we have infinite free time to enjoy and make art.
At this point Krafton could kill these people and they would welcome it with open arms LOL
