Yay, finally! Mastery respec. You brought me back!

General
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I think you’re confusing things. Character identity is just the sum total of your meaningful choices. It has nothing to do with the story. I don’t care about the story at all. I have never paid attention to it in LE, PoE, TLI or GD. But my character still had its identity.

For example, in D2 you’re usually playing the build. This is because respecs are limited (or were, it seems D2R is more lenient) so you won’t be changing builds much. That means your build choices are meaningful.

In LE you used to play the mastery because changing the build is easy. Your build choices aren’t meaningful because you can undo them in 10 minutes.

With a free mastery respec you’d be playing the class, because changing a mastery would be easy.

In all these examples you play the character. But the idenity (or lack of it) it has for you is dependant on which choices are meaningful and which can be undone relatively easily.

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Its not just about character identity. its about players identifying with builds/experiences of said character.

Necromancers suck to level up, dr3ad made a comment about this. he is happy now he can just level up as warlock.

But that means we are losing an identity point of necro, that leveling sucks. Dr3ad optimistically believes this means they need to work on necro leveling if everyone is playing warlock instead of necro in campaign. but I feel like its the opposite as a glass half empty person. Now instead the community and devs can just link to mastery swap “sorry you messed up a little, you can fix it though, you are supposed to level up as warlock then swap to necromancer at level X when you can get better skills and better items.”

I like that there is a uniform experience of “leveling as necro feels this way” its something anyone who is a necromancer regardless of level can speak about. it ties into builds being a progression. now you might just level builds as all one type, cause its just the most effective.

A huge part of these games is the discussion around the experience. SSF vs Trade? this is a discussion of experience. What items you found? or the item slam you hit? thats another really cool experience you can share. Not all of them are tied to class or character identity. But a huge part of the game as a medium is discussing and sharing your experiences. We are losing a bit of that medium.

And I guess thats okay because it will improve someone elses experience. I just think the better solution would have been so that leveling isnt some terrible experience everyone wants to avoid at all costs. Sounds like to me campaign/normal monos are just shit content and might as well be deleted if everyone just wants to skip them.

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I agree with most of what you said. This part I really disagree with though. If the campaign is a shallow and boring experience that most people want to skip then it means that the campaign failed to do what it’s supposed to: draw the player into the world of the game and the experience of the story.

That’s not to say the campaign is for everyone, which why alternatives (or cutscene skips) are so valuable in many games. But let’s use Monster Hunter Wilds, for every “this story sucks” post there’s another “I really enjoyed this story” post and inside both threads are comments like “imagine not skipping all the cutscenes and dialogue.”

I do beleive it’s somewhat weighted towards people disliking the story rather than liking it, but it’s far more balanced than Last Epoch.

EHG want to tell a story, they’ve spent thousands of hours hand crafting this world and the lore behind it, problem is that it’s just not fun to engage with for one reason or another. I followed D3s story once and then skipped everything on subsequent characters, conversely in Grim Dawn I always finding myself getting drawn into the world and the lore of it all because it’s just engaging to me.

I don’t think the solution is “just delete it.” but to find a way to really draw people who want to be interested in it (like me) in, while offering a way for people get through it without really engaging with the story.

LE has a really interesting world and I wish it was presented in a more engaging way. Not sure how that can be done, but I would hate to see the devs efforts wasted

Edit: thinking about it more, I think it’s because my character feels so disconnected from the story. I wasn’t invited to the council, I found the letter of someone who was. Sure I have the Epoch, but like… The story feels disconnected? Rahyeh is attacking, why? Now the Immortal Emperor or whatever is a threat so we gotta stop his undead. But wait! Yulia who you just met betrayed you to betray him. Aaaaaand we’re back to Rahyeh killing Heorot, guess we gotta get a spear to kill Rahyeh now and Lagon and Majasa need to infuse it with their Power like Heorot did. Oh no, Majasa was killed or corrupted(?) by her saintess with no real lead up to make it feel convincing, and suddenly Orobyss is the threat again. Haven’t heard his name since… What… Lv 20? And weren’t we trying to kill Rahyeh since he was the main threat since the prologue?

Each of these stories (Rahyeh’s betrayal, Orobyss, and the Immortal Empire) are all incredibly interesting on their own, but when I went from Rahyeh’s story to Orbyss to Immortal to Rahyeh to Orboyss without ever finishing any of the plot lines I’m just tired of trying to figure out what the hell is going on

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I was mostly being nasty.

I agree, and that was my nasty snide comment, I think EHG rather then caving and doing a bandaid game rule change to “change mastery” which really is a “I dont wanna relevel another sentinel cause its soooooo boring” button, they should work on early game pacing.

Ive said for years at this point, gear progression in LE is ass. Not because you cant get the 4lp items, but funny enough because its way to easy to get “Good enough” items, and too much power comes from skill levels/passive points. Some builds hit 300c simply on their passives and skills alone. So anyone playing those builds is bored out of their mind till they hit 300c because the gearing means nothing before then. Their character is “Done” at level 80 when they have level 20 skills, and most of their passives. The final minmaxing will let them push past 300, but if they can kill abby, then like what is even left?

Right now the curve in last epoch is messed up. There is no reason for normal monos to exist. instead you should just have corruption as the sole difficulty mechanic and start you from 0. Empowered monos are just level 100, 100c areas. But the thing is, corruption already scales level. the normal monos can only get up to 50c if you max them out, but getting 50c raises the level of the areas. So in theory you can tweak the formula to make it linearly scale up to level 100 at 100c.

The campaign is just a tutorial/story dump which is fine, people dislike it because they dont like playing at a low power level, easy to fix that by tightning the curve or making skills feel better at a baseline

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The MHWilds campaign is objectively made badly.
Not because the story itself sucks… but because the characters absolutely waste your time during them, 90% of the time it feels.

There’s a boatload of meaningful information or character development possible while upholding the MH-style… but instead it’s really low quality slob.

I think the split there is because the core of the story is fun but the execution of the story is plainly spoken: dogshit.

Hrmm…

Kinda yes, kinda no.

Because lets face it, how many years will it take at the current pace for the campaign to be finished and also in a decent state?
It’s not even ‘great’ when you play the first time. Sure, the core of the story is solid (like in Monster Hunter) but the execution is beyond abhorrent.
There’s quite a lot of grating friction points where you loose immersion by the character behaving unfitting for the situation, the difficulty and the bit that it’s simply unfinished still.

That’s a boatload to fix before people can actually say ‘it’s a good campaign!’. A few major things can be fixed swiftly (like the placeholder after Act 9 progressing into Monolith which is just utter nonsense. Zero effort, even for a placeholder) and others which will simply take years from now without dedicated focus.
Are players hence supposed to have a ‘crappy experience’ for all the time?

I’m not sure. Because at the other hand I don’t trust EHG to properly re-instate the campaign when it got all the major stuff solved, and feedback would also not be adequate meaning even after re-instating it loads of balance basses would nonetheless be needed.

EHG simply put themselves in a ‘doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t’ situation with their early 1.0 release and the inadvertently following expectations (and viable ones) coming along with that.

How many reasons should I call out? (Spoilers ahead, beware!)
Balance wise off-screen enemies appear far too early (Act 1!)… that’s very grating for a new player experience. Do we have to handle that non-stop in this game hence? Doesn’t feel good.
The character is barely introduced. What’s the backstory? Does a backstory exist? Hello diplomat which is a nondescriptive ‘story blob’ you’re playing! If there’s distinct classes which have their own voicelines then make them at least distinct and give them personality!
After coming back to the Divine Era the whole story derails. The Epoch suddenly looses the position as the most powerful artifact even gods fear since now suddenly only the lance can kill gods. Consistency has been thrown a bit out the window now. Also… why search for the lance when it’s already given away? Go the heck back to when it was made and take it, you’re the holder of the Epoch! And if not back there then go to friggin Eterra before the whole shit-show happens. But… it would suffice to warn him before the fight he has happens in the first place, so he’s properly prepared and has a fighter with the lance with him… but nah. But that’s beside the point.
Yrun’s ending makes exactly 0 sense. She acts against the wills of everyone and you kill her. It’s not explained at all. Acts against everyone, motives unclear… not great from a story perspective to say it mildly.
The next is a chicken chase for the others gods… which makes no sense. Get the damn back in time finally and don’t do it while the darn world is in a complete war! Only to end in Act 9 with getting the lance… and throwing your priority overboard as another one comes up. I mean… that should’ve been done from the start, everything from returning to your timeline to that was utter and entire filler solely.

And that’s mostly story issues. Not even talking about positioning of bosses, their mechanics not leading up to Lagon and Majasa and the follow-up alternative timelines in the Monoliths having no explanation as to how they come to happen. What did change to cause em?

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I’m glad someone else also feels how ridiculously disconnected the story gets. As I said in my edit: Rahyeh is the big bad guy, no wait it’s Orobyss, no wait it’s the Immortal Emperor, no wait it’s Rahyeh again, sike it’s back to Orobyss!

Pair that with the fact that your character really isn’t even supposed to be a diplomat. You were a traveler that found a dead diplomat with a letter and said “this sounds neat.” and just kind of stepped into the story (unless that was reworked and I’m confusing old intro with new one) and then your character has no agency past that point.

Like, I genuinely love the world EHG has made and I really want to engage with it. The new intro is way better than the old one too. It’s just… can we please finish a plotline or at least get to a satisfying point in the timeline and weave it into the next one? There was almost an attempt with this with Yulia’s double betrayal scene, but it’s so jarring going from “fighting undead” to “we’re in Rahyeh’s fortress, go save Heorot!”

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The small one because I already need a year + to drink it and they are easier to transport and store. On the other hand isn’t it neat if you get more for the same price? Like everyone could enjoy it if they want without loosing anything and use the content of said bottle however they please? If they drink it in one go (please kids don’t do this that’s very risky and unhealthy :stuck_out_tongue: ) or drink it over a long time without losing anything.

I only play builds. Chars are simply a vessel to deliver functionality to deliver builds. I can’t play a Lich who uses Warpath so if I want to use Warpath I’m stuck with Sentinel. It’s a class based system and all i care about is to get the right tools to play the build I’m looking for.

Look how many people rerolled their priests in WoW because in vanilla days Dwarf Priests had Fear Ward. People played it because it was nice to have and needed in other places even when they disliked dwarfs in general.

Effeicency is a big thing in games where numbers equal power or make your day easier. Personaly I don’t know one person who says he only plays Sentinel because the class fantasy is so cool and makes everything else unintresting. Most people i know only go for classes they know the templates of that deliver as soon as they know their ropes in the game.

And that was the conclusion everyone had. Make a leveling build untill you have the gear to transition into your OP endgame specc. It was obvious this happens all across the bords for people who want to play effectively.

That’s not a necro issue that’s a game issue.

One time was enough to drag me in while I like to play it some times when I took a breake from LE. D3 and D4 did a good job here when they left the choice on how to level up in peoples hands rather then making them suffer through the same old boring BS again and again.
Then again for me personaly PoE2 makes me do the campaign each time because it’s fun at least untill you have so much gear that you roflstomp everything anyway.

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Not confused, just don’t agree with you. I have a different perspective, which I already stated.

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I think that most players are in this camp, based entirely upon the trend of ARPG devs to allow respecing virtually everything. And then there are some that play/played D&D, and they are strongly in the camp that want to play the character (disclaimer: I never played D&D). Overtime, the char players have gotten less and less. Definitely I think there are more devs in this camp than players.

The player is disconnected from the story as soon as they get to the end of time. That’s when the campaign tells you, “your world/timeline dies.” All timelines lose in the end.
And the story of your world is just one of an infinite number of timelines. What you are maybe, kind of, trying to do is influence a timeline to defeat entropy. It’s a bold idea, but it invites the player to just not give a shit about their campaign world because it all goes to shit.

The world backdrop begs for a game system that gives you a different campaign every play through. I think probably EHG world designers have had this conversation. Maybe it’s what they were trying to do with the monolith system, and they only did that (instead of creating a completely dynamic campaign) is because creating a completely dynamic campaign would have been too challenging.

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Damnit, Typhon, now I want a LE campaign where you have maybe 6-8 timelines that you can spawn in and while you have a brief “End of Time” glimpse to grab your Mastery, you’re never allowed back there until you finish the campaign and you come to the place where all timelines end and start the endgame grind of exploring and restoring timeline stability through the Monolith system.

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Yes… yes it absolutely does. Alternative routes galore is what the setup asks for, but we don’t have that.
It’s all gratingly linear for the chaos-story there which allows massive freedom. All untapped potential which never makes sense in time-travel or plane-traveling stories.

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This isn’t a P&P tabletop where you play a role and act like someone else. You don’t even have a fraction of the possibilitys in games and you are narrowly tied by the game systems in place. That’s why I’ll never call H&S games aRPgs. Roleplay is to dear to my heart to soil it just because you have char stats ingame.

We had some fun “RP” sessions in Baldurs Gate 3 for the lulz but even BG3 what is pretty nice for PC game is still a tad bit of from real RP.

On the other hand given the dirty “RP” that happend in the underground train from ironforge it looks like people can make “RP” out of every crap

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Is this really what you thought I was saying (bold part)?

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This was a generic overview so people get my stance on it :slight_smile: . P&P is more about acting while games are about exploiting the systems in place for the best possible outcome. To make things short for once :smiley: .

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:+1:

What I was saying was, “there are players of these games, and definitely developers, who still approach them as if they were good vehicles for playing a character”.

I agree with your opinion that these game aren’t a good place for that, but I do have empathy for those people that would like these games to be a place where you could play a character.

CoH/CoV was the last game where, to some extent, I felt like I played the character. I don’t know that I ever played the character in an ARPG.

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Honestly, that Answer tells me everything i wanna know, because it pretty much tells me that - from a design-philosphy point of view you / EHG doesn’t really seem to care about the actual weight a permanent mastery-choice had (so being meaningfull and giving a character-identity), but rather is only reducing it down to any Meta / Efficiency risk.

Dissapointing but it is what it is. I really hope it pays for you off guys. For me it’s just not it anymore.

I mean, if we’re going by anecdotal evidence, than it would a pretty hard argument to nail it down, because on my end i’ve almost exclusively just people who play characters because they’re cool, and they don’t care too much about meta, that’s especially the case for normies (so pretty much the mainstream/majority of playerbase) → the only exception is when a game is especially hard, that they get with a guide (like PoE) and up with a meta class, but mostly it’s just what’s cool to them. From Diablo 2 to 3, 4, Grim Dawn, Sacred 2, Torchlight 2, etc to even games like Monster Hunter and stuff - most people i know go by what’s cool to them / class fantasy. It’s ONLY the hardcore-sweatlords which go which focus on efficiency and stuff. So now what?

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No problem :slight_smile: . I have zero reason to doubt what you say and I’m glad that there are people who only play one class because of looks, lore and whatnot. That’s a nice thing to read but unknown to me. Even the biggest purists I know don’t play one class only so it’s nice to read that there are still people out there that do so.

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The reason that it being meta defining would be an issue is that it would create a burden of optimal play that would force players to take non-intuitive and tedious actions that aren’t fun. Frequently taking the time to switch your build completely like that to do content more efficiently is not something that we want to promote.

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On a side note…

Do you mean like staring at a dummy while many 6-digits numbers blink every second, in the hope to see if a) a node works as intended and b) if it improves the character or not (often by a few percentages) ? That kind of non-intuitive and tedious actions that you don’t want to promote ?

(I’m against a dps meter and anything that reduce builds to a one-note parameter… but isn’t there a middleground ? EHG found clever solutions for problems way more complex than that.)

Edit: Second example.
By “non-intuitive and tedious actions that aren’t fun”, do you mean like retro-recording your gameplay when you die to try to understand what killed you because it’s sometimes an FX-Lasagna and the death message is often misleading ?

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