Last Epoch

I kickstarted this game, so I am looking forward to it finally being fleshed out. I realized I am not one to kickstart games, because I have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees at the start.

Watching Ziz play this now. Looks like fun and seems to have some depth to it. AU$50 for early access with a year to go is a bit rich though.

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“At full release, slated for April 2020, the game will be priced lower than early access. Supporting now lets your voice shape the design of the game, and earns you exclusive in-game cosmetics.”

I was not a fan of the game all through Alpha, but it is starting to come together.

The passive progression is meh but I've heard they are going to implement something more novel later. I appreciate how they have different progression after level 20 to specialize your character. I also like the individual skill passives: they are a neat twist and as you can tailor your skill within the skill.

I started a lightning mage, since PoE has taught me that you never start a melee in these games anymore lol. I am going for AOE splitting (basically chain lightning) and high first target hit damage for single target dps.

The gear drops were severely nerfed for the first couple of levels for some reason (like almost no drops for your first 30-40 mins in the game) but it opened up after that. I think it was because there was no vendor up to then anyway, but it was odd not gear progressing for the first bit.

The more I play, the more I want to play, so I guess that is a positive sign. I am interested to see what this endgame is that they implemented.

hrm. looked at this before Im sure, but didn't bite at all.

Heres Rhykker's vid on it, at the launch of the kickstarter last year.

He states at that point, a free demo was up, and the model was, free level 1-20. at 20 a small price of $15 to unlock the full game. Then cosmetics on top of that.
I'm not sure how true that is now exactly.

Currently, it does seem very much like Path of exile. I don't see that "15$" thing anywhere.
Supporter Packs | Purchase Game | Last Epoch

They have a "supporter pack" page, that is EXACTLY like Path of Exile.
The 35$ steam price, is just the "Ardent Gladiator" supporter pack. the steam page expressly says so.

They are, somewhat transparently, moving more and more towards a direct clone of PoE.

They started trying new, different stuff, but obvious recent changes are obvious.

Couple of real problems I forgot to mention:

(1) No mana pots - it is all regen. It gets really fucking annoying in long fights, especially split mobs, as a caster. (Edit - skills typically have a "at zero mana skill still casts but does x% less damage) deep in their tree, but this is a TERRIBLE alternative to a mana pot).
(2) Maps respawn (INCLUDING FOG OF WAR) every time you zone - including porting back to town to sell.

Both of these are nearly game breakers for me at present. But then again, I am overly picky. I ragequit Pagan Online and STILL have not gone back because of all the fucking knockdown bullshit in combat. But they got my money.......

pinned "steam and our business model" post.

Last Epoch is a Buy To Play game which will enter beta on April 30th.

Buying the game & beta access costs $35. At release the game will be $15.

Post-launch the game will be supported by purely cosmetic MTX. We will regularly release free content updates which bring new zones, enemies, items, features, mechanics - and more! Our content patches will be released between Cycles (think Seasons in Diablo III, or Challenge Leagues in Path of Exile).

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Grabbed it yesterday. couldn't register my account till this morning. their site refused to send a confirmation to hotmail or something..
I logged in for like 5 minutes this morning before work to test the login after support got back to me.

My first thoughts were, "ooph, this is rough." Graphics/animations make Path of Exile back in 2011 look new. Movement as well. No dodge. Wolcen shits all over this, in that regards.
This does borrow bits and pieces of each of the other arpgs. Some torchlight, some PoE, some d2, etc..
Classes are preset, using prefab models/genders. Skills are not freeform. A mage has mage passives, and skills.
Offline is planned, but not in atm, I think.

Attributes. 1 per level at lvl 4+ meh. Each stat is effectively a primary/god stat for a class. like mage scales almost exclusively with INT. all stats go into int, and little reason to pump anything but int. The good however, is none of the stats pump Health.
So, their attribute system is not as bad as Grimdawn/diablo/wolcen.. but also not as good as path of exiles.

Class passives act like Grimdawn,etc. invest in class, to build mastery, at 20 points, you can spec into an Advanced class.
Class passives are mostly passives, but also have 3-4 skills that can be unlocked. Both base classes, and Advanced classes.

Skill system is a combo of the Rune systems of Wolcen/diablo3/etc, and path of exile gem sockets. Potentially the best system.
Can only pick 5 skills to "specialize" and mod however.
The shitty rune system of other games, has a lame, "either or", with no real variance. Wolcen swapped it up a bit, allowing abit more freeform, but still atm, theres largely a correct answer.
Path of exiles has been far and away the best, due to tying skill advancement to gear, and socket potential. Path of more multipliers has of course been a problem lately.
This preset passive tree system might help with that. The tree, gives a huge variance in potential builds for any given skill. But also prevents "more damage" stacking as an option.

Playing this with a controller on steam link/big screen.

Pretty fuckin good.

Nirgon said:

Playing this with a controller on steam link/big screen.

Pretty fuckin good.

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How "complete" is it? Been itching for a new aRPG and Torchlight 3 is awful according to reviews.

it's a fun game, i havent done too much end game content (specially the new stuff they added recently) but the mapping system is fine? idk, i got bored of the endgame pretty quickly but i pretty much always do in every aRPG

I really like the specialization system for individual skills though, its very neat.

I found i got my moneys worth and will definitely return once 1.0 releases, i want to see how the rest of the specs turn out that arent in the game yet, as well as the rogue class

Brikker said:

How "complete" is it? Been itching for a new aRPG and Torchlight 3 is awful according to reviews.

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You prob saw the same dog shit I did when it was pushed early. It's way way different from that now.

Not to kick the little guy, I'm just blunt. I've been playing the hell of out it and read all the NPC dialogue too. They got themselves a good little vidya here. Their devs neckbeard their forums too.

Just rolled this

Nirgon said:

You prob saw the same dog shit I did when it was pushed early. It's way way different from that now.

Not to kick the little guy, I'm just blunt. I've been playing the hell of out it and read all the NPC dialogue too. They got themselves a good little vidya here. Their devs neckbeard their forums too.

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Is the game actually fun now? I last played in February and it seemed lacking pretty much everywhere. Some zones were fucking packed with mobs and other zones were empty. Loot was all over the place, performance was crazy as it ran like shit in some zones. The boss fights were really underwhelming everywhere. The endgame was boring as fuck.

I looked and felt like it needed lots of work in the last build I played.

The first end game island boss I did was pretty cool. Started the second island a little while ago and will get back to it. I recommend this one as much as Grim Dawn.

The finished product with HC ladders should be great, considering the end game system lets you pick your mods (choice between 2 each time and they last 3-5 maps each) and pace stacking or reset them.

.8 patch is live on Steam.
Includes Rogue, and lots of other stuff.



Also, 20% off steam.

I was excited about this game and have played on and off in earlier beta but haven't played for 4-5 months because I had some crippling issue that lagged me ingame so bad. I tried deleting and reinstalling, had all my the graphics on low settings etc. So had basically given up. My old PC was ~ $2k rig 4 years ago so shouldn't have had too much issues with this game but could get no help from support or player suggestions on what might be cuasing it.

Just downloaded tonight with my new rig and man am I excited. Graphics actually look good on it when playing max settings (not stupid flashy shit but just good enough to be appeasing, i'm not someone who needs or judges games too much by graphic). It also ruins smooth as shit. Just started a rogue to try out marksman, love the new tab management.

Going to stick some hours into this and hopefully it will be a good long term game while I sit here and wait for AoC. I do like all the customization, definitely alot of options on builds and classes etc. I love the indie companies when it comes to ARPG's as they seem to get it right. Grim Dawn was so awesome had that been a full multipli-player game. For some reason knowing i could download a tool super easy and click a button to do the same thing as grinding for 100+ hours just to get some decent gear just always caused me to not fully enjoy it. With LE having multi-player and some growing popularity maybe this will be the next POE.

I just really hope a company can figure out the recipe of keeping a game fresh without the need for restarts in form of leagues. I really wish they would go to a sub model tbh, after you have the creation tools as a dev it shouldn't be that hard to pump out content every 3 months to keep people on the hook and grinding etc. Always hated the league's in D3/POE, if I am making a new char I want to enjoy twinking the shit out of him damnit If EQ can manage 20 years of expansions sure an ARPG could...just too many cheap fuckers wanting FTP games. Maybe make the base game FTP but if you want the content pack its $10 a month or something after you hooked a few million players....

Ok. At $28 bucks, I’m buying it. Maybe I’m a sucker, but I’ve never bought early access before and this will be my mulligan. From what I’ve seen these guys are as passionate as GGG. Hell PoE started like this too.

Gave this a whirl yesterday, not too bad so far. They do need to work on early game though, I was able to easy mode half ass through the first 20 levels spamming one skill, face tanking everything except boss telegraphs, and not paying much mind to skill points or gear. I also never had to potion either. Hopefully things pic up in mid/end game or this will get boring fast.