Last Epoch - time travel action-RPG

[Fedora Master]

Interesting concept but the feel of the gameplay is meh at best, like all Diablo clones.

 

[kreight]

what did I just read?

 

[kreight]

The new class - Rogue - will be introduced in the update launching Dec 4.

 

[deama]

I played this several months ago, the concept was neat, but the gameplay was just average, it needed more fluidity.

 

[tritosine2k]

Interesting concept but the feel of the gameplay is meh at best, like all Diablo clones.

Thought about this for a while now, long enough so I can propose a metric to rate 3D ARPG.
See, it's no secret ARPG's are watered like festival beer, or straight down to monkey see monkey do levels of effort.
My proposal is henceforth the "spin metric".
So what's spin / spinning?
Initially, Diablo used 8 directions for movement- 4 ordinal and 4 diagonal. What happened is this: sprites also have 8 facing. This leads to an interesting consequence in retrospect : alternate facings happen to be SNAPPY.
So, original Diablo going to score ideally, because you dont get into funny scenarios with 3D models spinning in place that looks horribly retarded.
Going by spin metric Last Epoch is brutal offender, like, MOBA levels of bad.

 

[kreight]

Everyone who uses "diablo clone" is a retard. It's a fact.

 

[Renevent]

Interesting concept but the feel of the gameplay is meh at best, like all Diablo clones.

Agreed. Mechanically wise (skills/items/etc) the game is pretty cool, that said gameplay wise something is missing. It just feels clunky and it's not as fun as it should be killing those hordes of monsters. For an ARPG where that's what you do over and over and over that's a pretty big issue imo.

 

[Hyperion]

Isometric ARPG's after Diablo 2 all tread the same path of catering to the knuckle dragging fans of the genre. So long as you dangle a carrot in front of their face they'll never attain they will sit in their chair eternally while their lower lip collects bugs, dust, and dorito crumbs from resting on the floor

Regular enemies explode in one hit from one massive attack, which in turn explodes into a fountain of loot that's all but guaranteed to be shit. Bosses are artificially given damage resistance (the more you do, the more damage reductiom they get) to prevent you from skipping phases and mechanics. The fights themselves ard terrible, and instead of giving me active boss fights with funky attacks that kick my ass, I'm left moving around the battlefield like an MMO contending with scripted attacks, and phases.
The takeaway is, it doesn't matter what your build is, what damage type you do, whether yoy build for crits, damage over time, two-handed melee, dual wield. It's all the same because every regular enemy dies instantly while bosses must survive at least x seconds to ensure you have to react to and survive all phases.

The game is built on loot, but the loot is so shitty that you need to filter 99%+ of it out because Heaven forbid you kill something that isn't a loot pinata. Affix ranges and combinations ensure you will never get an item that will change your build entirely.

It's sad because the skill customization, the unique (albeit tropey) classes are there, and lay a good groundwork for a potentially fun ARPG. The Time Travel aspect could be used to great effect and create some interesting mechanics that tie into the storyline, but are, as expected, wasted.

 

[Sweeper]

Read somewhere it's slower than PoE but faster than Grim Dawn, sold! I'll wait for the kind people to beta test it for me first though.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Read somewhere it's slower than PoE

considering PoE is basically just a game of running around the map while things explode everywhere I sure hope so

 

[udm]

Been playing several hours of this. It feels like an in-between of Grim Dawn and Path of Exile. Obviously there are things from both games that I liked and didn't like, and LE seems to take the best of both. I'll have to play it some more to get a better assessment, but so far it's pretty good.

 

[kreight]

New patch arrived couple of days ago with a bunch of stuff. They finally fixed those bow legged primalist animations.

https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/beta-0-8-1-patch-notes/29532

 

[udm]

Yeah, after several hours in this game, I'm done with it. I'm not really a fan of the itemisation/crafting system (and the clunky UI doesn't help), plus character builds just feel too limited compared to the titles it's inspired by (even Torchlight 2 had better synergies). The lore isn't compelling either, like a generic mashup of tropes and names. IDK, it seems it's trying too hard to emulate the big titles without having its own flair. Maybe I'll come back to it when it's out of EA.

 

[Iron Balls McGinty]

Been playing this for a few days now, really enjoying the necromancer class, I have a boney boy army!

 

[deama]

Been playing this for a few days now, really enjoying the necromancer class, I have a boney boy army!

How many skeletons can you summon/hold?

 

[PapaPetro]

Would like to see something surpass PoE.

 

[Iron Balls McGinty]

Been playing this for a few days now, really enjoying the necromancer class, I have a boney boy army!

How many skeletons can you summon/hold?

It depends on how you upgrade your skills.
I currently have 5 skelly mages which I upgraded to deathknights, a bone golem which I upgraded to a blood golem, and I can have a mix of 11 or 12 skelly archers/warriors/rogues depending on the nodes I activate.
Those are my perma summons, I also have wraiths that I summon, they last about 10-15 seconds each but I can spam them as long as I have mana.
There are also exploding zombies, hungry souls, wandering spirits and shades for temp summons.

 

[ADL]

0.8.3 is releasing on September 3rd 2021

What to Expect in 0.8.3

• New Chapter and continuation of the story of Last Epoch
• New Sentinel Skills
• Necromancer skills Updates
• Skill Improvements and Overhauls
• New Primalist model and armor set
• 45 New Weapon Models
• and much, much more!

New Chapter
145

Your journey continues in Chapter 9 where you will uncover more secrets, visit never seen before locations, and will have to fight through new and challenging enemies.

• 15 new locations
• 30+ new enemies
• Epic boss battles

Updated Primalist model and Armor Set
In the Sands of Majasa Update, the Primalist will be the first character to receive an entirely new model 144. In addition, we are bringing a new Armor Set, which fits the brutish nature of this character.




Sentinel Skill Updates
Sentinel is getting a wide variety of updates to his arsenal - many of his skills such as Warpath, Lunge, Judgement, Erasing Strike are getting significant improvements or complete overhaul.



We also updated visual effects of many skills, including conversion variants.



Sentinel is also getting 3 new skills, giving him even deeper customization and more ways to play.

Void Cleave
Void Cleave is a powerful 2-handed melee attack with a short cooldown and moderate mana cost that hits all enemies in front.



Multistrike
Multistrike is a 0 mana cost Sentinel melee skill. Its damage ramps up over time as you use it by creating more and more extra hits to other nearby enemies.



And no, you are not counting wrong. More is still coming!

Necromancer Skill Updates
Many necromancer skills are receiving significant updates to address several issues. One of the main goals is to support the necromancer style with permanent pets, leading an army of undead monsters to battle and just support it from behind without constantly summoning the army.



Controller Support Improvements
We want to deliver the best possible experience for playing with the controller and the next patch brings major improvements to Controller Support.



Monolith Improvements
Monolith of Fate will also get some major improvements, including balance pass to all spires and timeline exclusive echo reward types that grant unique or set items of specific types, allowing you to target farm specific uniques. In addition, we have given buffs to many empowered blessings.

New Weapons
Several weapon groups are getting a complete rework with new 3D models, 2D art, and powerful implicit affixes to support more variety of builds. You will be able to find 45 new weapons across 4 weapon groups, including 1-handed and 2-handed axes.


Sands of Majasa Update also brings new unique and set items, balance changes, bug fixes, quality of life changes, performance improvements, new music, and so much more.

 

[ADL]

Major 0.8.3 patch releases tomorrow

https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/sands-of-majasa-beta-0-8-3-patch-notes/43486

 

[geno]

I should look for magic items instead of rare ones for forging, right?

 

[Tacgnol]

I should look for magic items instead of rare ones for forging, right?

Yeah, magic items with high tier modifiers have more crafting potential.

As an example with a phys weapon, you'd want to find a magic with top tier phys modifiers like +phys % damage and +phys damage flat and then craft things like attack speed onto it.

This is why it's a good idea to set item filters to show items with high tier modifiers for good crafting bases.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Bought it a couple of months ago after i read about it on the codex, played for about 50ish hours, had a lot of fun. Some rough edges here and there, ui, inventory, crafting etc. But shows genuine promise.
Will play after 1.0 rolls out

 

[Grunker]

still no multiplayer

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/druid...T8tVm9syMXMuLTkdMrss7pcoLJ0F3x9Alpst176dFVD10

Druid Overhaul - Werebear Form

Druid Overhaul - Werebear
We hope all you Druid fans are ready for some excitement because heading into patch 0.8.4 our Primalist’s most adaptive Mastery is receiving a full development update. We are eager to share our vision for the future of the Druid Mastery, and all the exciting changes coming your way before the end of the year.

Today marks the kickoff of our Druid Development Week, so stay tuned over the coming days to catch even more great news (full schedule below)! Today, we will be focusing the Druid’s first and most ferocious transformation - the Werebear.

Spoiler

New Resource - Rage
We’re moving away from a mana based resource for all Druid transforms. Previously, to maximize time in the form you often had to avoid using your heavier abilities and that resulted in one-dimensional gameplay where you mostly spammed your low cost abilities. Instead, all Druid transformations will now use a new resource called Rage. Rage will be restored to full when you enter a form and will then drain slowly over time. Skills themselves will have little to no Rage cost by default so it won’t feel punishing to utilize your whole set of abilities while transformed.

There will be many ways to recover Rage, so you have a lot of build options if you want to stay in one form for a long duration. Reaching the point where you can stay in a form indefinitely should be much easier than before and there will be more ways to achieve it.


RageNodes_Examples1696×498 535 KB



New Werebear Visuals
The design goal of our new Werebear model is to connect our players to a 'massive, in your face brawler' type of fantasy. We started with new concept art, increasing the size and presence of our thick-furred fighter. Concept #3 - 'Top Heavy' was quickly selected as the best champion of this fantasy.



Primalist_Werebear_Concepts011920×1176 185 KB



Primalist_Werebear_Concepts021920×764 180 KB


Next came the design of our new ferocious model. Below you will find the upgraded version of our Werebear complete with new textures & materials including bone, claw, fur and war paint.





Werebear3D1920×1080 81.3 KB



Werebear Skills
When recreating the Werebear we knew we wanted him to feel like a massive brawler. Some of the design requirements here included moderate mobility and heavy sweeping attacks. The previous Werebear kit missed the mark in a few areas. Firstly, Charge felt too fast for the size and stature behind the Werebear. Secondly, Swipe was a bit too successful at restoring your Mana, preventing our Druid players from feeling the desire for working in Roar or Ravage into their rotations.

In our 0.8.4 redesign the Werebear form has a mix of both new and returning skills, and even the returning ones have been revamped with new VFX, sounds, altered base functionality, and new potential in their skill trees! Here is a sneak peek of the new skills being added to the Werebear’s ferocious arsenal:

Swipe
Swipe is one of the more successful elements of the previous Werebear form. The ability to use the existing Swipe skill tree to augment your Werebear’s abilities was really great. It lets you create a stronger build while not wasting those precious specialization slots if you wanted to be permanently transformed. We saw this and made a focused effort to get a few more interactions like Swipe into each of the Transform trees. Every good brawler also needs a consistent, spammable, damage skill, and Swipe fits that role very well.

Warcry
We replaced the old Werebear Roar with Warcry because it felt extremely thematic and fitting. This also reduced redundancy within the Primalist skills as a whole. We were then able to apply a re-shuffle of the skill unlocks, allowing Warcry to be unlocked in base Primalist instead of Beastmaster. Now, if players choose to specialize in Warcry they will gain the full effects in their ferocious Werebear form.

Maul
Maul is a new skill for Werebear, replacing Ravage. Ravage had two issues that we wanted to resolve. Firstly it didn’t feel distinct enough from Swipe to use, given its similar status as a low AoE melee attack, and it was difficult to balance it to compete with Swipe when the latter had its own entire tree. Secondly, the new werebear model has different proportions, with much larger arms and a less prominent head. A bite animation like Ravage no longer made sense with this new model.

We still wanted to include a heavier melee attack with a cooldown in Werebear form to provide a way to mix up the melee gameplay so that it’s not always just Swipe Swipe Swipe. To reinforce a distinct use case for this melee attack we decided to give it a medium to a large area of effect and gave it more damage. We added movement to it to make it feel very different to attack with, and to help add enough weight and impact to the animation. With all these changes, the old name Ravage no longer fits so well, so we changed it to Maul.

Rampage
Every good brawler would really love a way to get around the battlefield quickly. Especially in an ARPG. While the Werebear’s charge provided this option and it worked mechanically, it was not ideal for a charging Werebear to be moving so fast. It was also basically the same as Lunge, which we weren’t super enthused about. So we took some of the other themes and ideas we wanted to portray to come up with a new movement skill that is unique and fun. Having a wild Rampage feels very thematic. Mechanically you don’t move super quickly, but you damage all the units along the way and you can slightly adjust your trajectory while moving.

New Werebear Skill-Tree
One of the strengths of the Druid fantasy comes from its ability to adapt to danger through transformation. In our previous version of the Werebear, this transformation also came with a fair amount of restrictions. Once you transformed you lost access to the previous skills on your bar that you chose to specialize in. Our new Werebear design solves this problem by introducing several options for you to tie in previously specialized skills and utilize them while transformed. As a result the Werebear arsenal feels deeper and more diverse than ever before.
Here are just few examples of these nodes as well some other powerful ones.




Werebear_SkillNodes1188×352 281 KB



Few example nodes which allow you to utilize other primalist skills in the Werebear form




Warbear_ExampleNodes1663×614 603 KB



Werebear specialization tree offers a wide variety of powerful nodes.

Bringer of Storms and Crackling Assault in action

Thank you for checking out this sneak peek of some of the changes coming to the Druid’s Wearbear form in Patch 0.8.4. We hope you join us again soon to check out the exciting updates coming to the Druid’s skill - the Entangling Roots.

Here is a peek at what you can expect this week! See you next time!

Druid Rework Development Week:

1st November - Werebear Form Rework
2nd November - Entangling Roots Rework
3rd November - Spriggan Form Rework
4th November - New Form Teaser
5th November - Druid Overhaul Overview and New Form

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/899770/view/3109166146173932971

Entangling Roots - Skill Rework​

We hope all you Druid fans loved the unveiling of our new Werebear design in the Werebear Blog. We are thrilled to have you back again for our next reveal. We are eager to share our full vision for the future of the Druid Mastery, and all the exciting changes coming your way before the end of the year.

Today marks day two of our Druid Development Week, so stay tuned in the coming days to catch even more great news! See the full schedule below. Today, we will be focusing on the Druid’s skill - Entangling Roots.

Entangling Roots - Rework
While redesigning the Druid as a whole, we knew we needed to elevate one of his skills into the Mastery-locked section of his passive tree. After some consideration we felt that thematically, Entangling Roots fit this spot very well. By elevating the skill in this way, we also knew we had to elevate the power, visuals, and impact of the skill across the board to make sure it was worth committing to. We are thrilled to share with you the results of that work below.

{LINK REMOVED}

We wanted to keep the core fantasy of rooting large groups of enemies while also being open to changing other aspects. We quickly came across 3 design challenges.

• Currently it created too much visual noise by being a large persistent area of effect, and this was a major barrier to bringing its VFX up to our latest quality standards as it had a negative impact on performance.
  
• In it’s current form, Entangling Roots simply slowed enemies rather than completely immobilizing them resulting in them doing a slow walking animation that again did not hold up to our standards.
  
• New enemies walking onto the skill’s area were also effectively rooted. This often created a pile-up effect as enemies were all stopping at the edge of the skill’s effected area. This made it harder to solve as completely immobilizing the enemies exacerbates the pile-up effect.

To combat visual noise it made sense to avoid leaving a persistent visual effect on the ground for the full duration of the root. From a mechanical perspective, losing the persistent ground effect would have the added benefit of preventing the pile up issue, as no new enemies could be rooted after the initial cast. As such, we changed the skill from having a persistent ground effect to having an initial impact that left enemies immobilized, while also suffering damage over time.

From a visual perspective, this meant we could focus the roots visuals around individual enemies, allowing us to increase the prominence of the roots without causing too much visual noise and increase their visual fidelity without sacrificing performance.

The end result is a fresh take on a classic Druid-themed skill that we are very proud to share with our community. We hope you enjoy exploring this newly energized skill and its brand new skill tree full of unique decisions and powerful changes.

Nodes Examples

The skill specialization tree is also getting a complete overhaul with a wide variety of options for different druid playstyles. Enjoy a taste of what Entangling roots skill has to offer!

Values have been omitted as we are still balancing the skill.

{LINK REMOVED}

{LINK REMOVED}

{LINK REMOVED}

{LINK REMOVED}

{LINK REMOVED}

{LINK REMOVED}

Thank you for joining us for this reveal of the changes coming to the Entangling Roots skill in Patch 0.8.4. We hope you enjoy the new direction for the Druid and, as always, would love to hear your feedback in the comments! We hope you join us again soon to check out the exciting updates coming to the Druid’s most adaptive transformation - the Spriggan.

Here is a peek at what you can expect this week!