Last Epoch

Caliane said:

Its always that for ARPGS. An absolute paradox for sure. farming for gear to farm. This is where alts come in. farming for gear to farm, but then get some cool item that enables a new build, or playstyle for another character. start that other character. This is why the 1-endgame play also does need to be fun. Arguably the biggest issue ARPGS are a genre face nowadays. 3 month leagues also face this issue. PoE acts 1-10 were amazing.. the first 35 times you did it. then at that point, players start getting tired of aspects of it.
"Solo self found" is a huge factor in keeping it lively as well. its forces you into a position of making do with that you have found personally. roguelike aspects effectively. choices matter with gear, and currency. you have to totally no life/streamer mode it for a SSF build to ever be "done" by auction house standards, in most of these games.

Click to expand...

I'd say halfway through PoE had a really good sweet spot where after clearing the acts and getting into mapping, you still had a consistent progression of loot progression > Character development > and filling out the atlas. You could play well into T15 maps and still feel like you were still achieving something. Of course eventually it got too bloated, but at some point it was there.

This game is fucking tight and I can't think of one system that id consider "stupid".

Hateyou said:

I don’t really understand why this is an “issue” that ARPGs face. Pretty much every game made is expected to have 20-40 hours of content to be considered a decent game.

If you play one character through the end of LE, do all the end game dungeons (3 currently, I think?), unlock all the end of time stuff, and don’t even touch the arena you’re likely at 50-60 hours and the game isn’t even in full release yet. Why is it that the expectations for this game, or any ARPG is that they should be some hundreds or thousands of hours of fresh gameplay play time? That’s an absurd expectation, even for a $60 game, which this isn’t.

Get more realistic. You paid $30 for a game that isn’t finished yet. If you don’t like making alts clear the whole thing once and be done, like most video games. Revisit it on full release when there’s more content if you feel cheated. This is mostly aimed at Gravel but he’s hardly the first person I’ve seen complain like this in arpg games. I’m not sure why people have a different time standard for this genre.

Click to expand...

I definitely agree with all that. I've never understood people who bitch about "replayability" or who won't buy a game that doesn't have stuff like NG+. I'm fine with playing a game once and moving on to one of the 34509820 other games in my backlog.

As for ARPGs in particular, I expect to be able to more or less easily complete the base level of gear required for a particular build, followed by at least the first few upgrades to each slot as I go through the endgame. IMO Last Epoch failed miserably at that back in 0.8.3-0.8.4 when I played it. Just getting to the base level of gear was a huge pain in the ass, and upgrading from there required jumping through a massive amount of RNG hoops. The single most important item ended up being completely unattainable despite there being "targeted" farming available for it. And that was just the basic bitch version of the item, not even taking into account legendary potential, etc.

That's why I'm curious about what they've done to improve the loot and crafting systems, especially as MP is released and most ARPGs with MP tend to lower drop rates to make up for playing in a group even though most people will play it like a single player game. I'd like to see what has been added to the game but 'm not about to put another 60-100 hours into it if all the systems work the same as they used to and still have layer upon layer upon layer (repeat about 5 more times) of RNG.

Caliane said:

Its always that for ARPGS. An absolute paradox for sure. farming for gear to farm. This is where alts come in. farming for gear to farm, but then get some cool item that enables a new build, or playstyle for another character. start that other character. This is why the 1-endgame play also does need to be fun. Arguably the biggest issue ARPGS are a genre face nowadays. 3 month leagues also face this issue. PoE acts 1-10 were amazing.. the first 35 times you did it. then at that point, players start getting tired of aspects of it.
"Solo self found" is a huge factor in keeping it lively as well. its forces you into a position of making do with that you have found personally. roguelike aspects effectively. choices matter with gear, and currency. you have to totally no life/streamer mode it for a SSF build to ever be "done" by auction house standards, in most of these games.

Click to expand...

Theres some more to this too.
some thoughts I've had in the past, and remembered.

big number goes up, and cookie clicker.
The first post talked about some of the roguelike and overarching tactical choices, and alts for justifying the arpg infinite grindset.

The second aspect that goes into it is the actual gameplay. simple mindless games can be very fun. vamp survivors. or, the alterative, big number goes up of constant level ups, and upgrades. Cookie clicker, and idle games. A big part of arpg design is that. major similarities in late game mapping and a clicker game. notice how people want 1 click builds, and go for speed, speed speed. the next gen ARPG might be a game that REALLY embraces that. goes full clicker with leveling, and gearing. embraces the scientific notation damage numbers of exponential damage, etc. the reincarnations systems of clickers also would fit right in with arpgs, and alts as noted.

this is arguable d3's biggest problem with a level cap at launch. And poe has its soft cap, great. but progress still slows down too much mid mapping.

Nirgon said:

This game is fucking tight and I can't think of one system that id consider "stupid".

Click to expand...

They did really well with the systems in this game, it really is top tier and I'm curious to see what else they bring to the table.

Hekotat said:

They did really well with the systems in this game, it really is top tier and I'm curious to see what else they bring to the table.

Click to expand...

Yup now imagine they had some of the top talent that these McGamer "AAA" institutions have, working in a better direction than the one being given to them.

Well i'm at about a 1/10 on enjoyment in the late game. Tried the lvl 75 mono lagon a bit ago, 2nd half got way too chaotic and I just ended up getting chain stunned to death once I got hit once (made it a while before something hit me but once I got hit I just couldn't move til I got hit 4 times and died). All 4 of the dungeons were not enjoyable at all. Lowest level of arena I made it to wave 12 or something before I got 1shot. Temp sanctum boss I died right away to the full room aoe cause I didn't know I had to use the dungeon item to dodge it. Lightless arbor I died to the boss on the level 60 (cause the lowest level was 20 so I figured that'd be a waste to do as a lvl 75) without doing a single point of damage because he was invuln and just raining down 800000 meteors of doom. This fight was also laggy as fuck for me, for the 15 seconds or whatever I managed to run around trying to figure out what to do. And I got 1-shot halfway through whatever the other dungeon is by something I couldn't even see because the screen clutter in there was utterly ridiculous.

Challenging end games are jarring after playing all the corpo trash games that come out these days

This is BS. I have THREE full tabs of useless epics/sets/uniques. Multiplayer, can you trade?

Brahma said:

This is BS. I have THREE full tabs of useless epics/sets/uniques. Multiplayer, can you trade?

Click to expand...

OMFG! And as SOON as I talk shit!

updated visuals are nice. constant progress.

Looks like online code is rough though. getting caught on rocks with travel skills, invisible attacks, etc. all stuff I never had happen offline.

I can honestly say, this is my favorite ARPG. They nailed so many things from gameplay to classes to trees. The endgame was a little confusing at first, but I figured that out. It's missing a few QOL features, but given what I have seen so far, I can't see them not adding them. I also swear to god whatever drop algorithm is in place, makes sure you get the exact opposite of what you need/want. Oh! You're a flame mage of pure fire born from the depths of a sun? Here is a dagger constructed by frost giants and baptized by their absolute zero semen!

One thing they absolutely hit out the park, are the boss fights. They are JUST right as far as reflexes needed, resists, and your particular build/style. You never feel cheated. Hell they TELL you what killed you and why! Your dumb ass has low fire resists...that's why the nuclear fuckbomb of ass flame killed you! I love it!

I really hope that D4 doesn't over shadow this game. They have a real winner.

Brahma said:

I also swear to god whatever drop algorithm is in place, makes sure you get the exact opposite of what you need/want. Oh! You're a flame mage of pure fire born from the depths of a sun? Here is a dagger constructed by frost giants and baptized by their absolute zero semen!

Click to expand...

Glad i'm not the only one. Every idol that drops for my ice sorc is lightning or fire damage and every wand/staff/sceptor is minion damage and/or necrotic damage.

Too much hype to ignore. How’s this compare to poe, I don’t have enough space in my head to learn another game as intricate but I could handle a Diablo 3 scenario

Pasteton said:

Too much hype to ignore. How’s this compare to poe, I don’t have enough space in my head to learn another game as intricate but I could handle a Diablo 3 scenario

Click to expand...

It doesnt have annoying maps to deal with rolling or trading for. The variations on the skills are unique unto each unlike just "lol put more dot dmg and gmp on all these things".

No alteration orb spamming to craft serious shit etc.

Highly, highly, highly recommend.

Pasteton said:

Too much hype to ignore. How’s this compare to poe, I don’t have enough space in my head to learn another game as intricate but I could handle a Diablo 3 scenario

Click to expand...

Did you play Titan Quest or Grim Dawn?

Brahma said:

I can honestly say, this is my favorite ARPG. They nailed so many things from gameplay to classes to trees. The endgame was a little confusing at first, but I figured that out. It's missing a few QOL features, but given what I have seen so far, I can't see them not adding them. I also swear to god whatever drop algorithm is in place, makes sure you get the exact opposite of what you need/want. Oh! You're a flame mage of pure fire born from the depths of a sun? Here is a dagger constructed by frost giants and baptized by their absolute zero semen!

One thing they absolutely hit out the park, are the boss fights. They are JUST right as far as reflexes needed, resists, and your particular build/style. You never feel cheated. Hell they TELL you what killed you and why! Your dumb ass has low fire resists...that's why the nuclear fuckbomb of ass flame killed you! I love it!

I really hope that D4 doesn't over shadow this game. They have a real winner.

Click to expand...

This is why rolling with a few others is great, something always drops for other members of the group.

they might be hyping this up a bit too much. its a decent game. but, it is 100% an indie game. it does not have the budget of diablo or lost ark and it shows.

Some people like the deterministic crafting. I'm not sure i could really point to anything that really stands out as brilliant design. unlike PoE.

storyline is a mess. And, redoing the mainquest over and over for alts sucks real bad.