Wolcen Hype Release!

Technically that's the dream. It's an impossible one, but it is the ideal.

The basic argument that people shouldn't be running true endgame stuff in a matter of days from release rings true to me, but I guess they're so used to it from other games that when the means to do so is taken away, they cry foul. Oh well, everyone knew the Bledge gutting was coming. There it is, in all its hammered glory. If the one skill that made the game feel 'not slow or boring' (i.e. like endgame PoE for veteran exiles) is now slammed, and the pace has been subsequent dialled back, then we can only conclude that is how the devs want it. And I'm a big fan of devs making games the way they want them to be, not pandering to the demands of spoilt gamers. IF that dev stubbornness damages the game or company dramatically, you'll see change soon enough. If not, then I'm content to play the game they want to make. Warts and all. This seems to be something of an antiquated attitude though, so who knows. I do think they have more leeway to be stubborn when it's a buy-to-play though. Chris has said repeatedly regarding PoE and its f2p model: 'the players are the boss', which to me is like saying passengers should get to dictate how a plane is flown, not the guy sitting in the cockpit with years and years of experience. Of course, how much of Chris' glib commentary can be taken to heart will likely remain secret until the end of time.

I'll see how the Wolcen crit changes feel. I definitely lean on crit a lot regardless of build because it's so easy to do so, so maybe that's sign enough that I shouldn't. OTOH ailments are still monstrous so there's that to consider.

I'm just glad they got rid of the bats, at least for now. Time to get back to my ranged builds!

Ok, so maybe level 187 is just a trap for OP builds, and anyone that beats it means that something else needs to be nerfed? The end goal of the balancing should be that nobody clears that floor using anything. So the balancing M.O. should be to nerf anything that might give someone the remote possibility of ever clearing level 187, solo. More nerfs are required.

Let's nerf Immortal Offering, Which Time Cannot Heal, Anomaly (2 vortexes, does a bunch of ticks, massive CC with the pulling waves, and low enough CD to make it perma with gear), and Bladestorm (still does too much damage with the ailment mod).

Let's nerf all that, and not one person, even the most determined, masochistic gamer in the existence of gaming will clear floor 187, ever.

Even way less OP builds than Bleeding Edge got nerfed, for example below

This is close to the maximum you can do with a mage build (using a staff):

https://youtu.be/Qn_4drGM7qo

I improved the setup a little over what it was in the video, gave it more crit % and crit damage %. But it only increased the damage by about 20-25%. I don't think anyone in their right might would say that this is OP, considering the gear it took to make this build work. You need INSANE gear for this build. This build still works after the patch, however I did lose a bit of damage due to the crit damage % nerfs. The point is, this was completely and totally unnecessary. I don't think that mage build is OP at all. Taking down some of those champs and the boss was a fucking slough. It melted packs of trash easily enough. I haven't found a video of anyone doing much better with a staff wielding mage. This build doesn't even do 1/50th the DPS of Bleeding Edge, maybe not even 1/100th. And it still got nerfed....

The end goal of their balancing will obviously be that nobody clears floor 187, solo. And the nerfs have just begun, I guarantee you when the patch drops next week, one or more of the skills I listed above will be nerfed. Bet me.

It seems to me like Wolcen developers intend for expedition 187-189 to be like GR 150 in Diablo 3. And balancing from here on out is going to reflect this, and they're going to take something good away in every patch, until things are like that. If this is what they're going to do, sorry, but I think I'll just go back to Diablo 3, because Diablo 3 is a better game.

You can already respec builds in Wolcen on the fly, which basically means it's no more complex than Diablo 3 is, if you get to the nuts and bolts. Most of the passive tree skills matter very little, and most of them are used as bridges to get to the beefy, multiplicative damage increasing nodes. But, if you remove the later, then I could just write my initials on the passive skill tree, or draw a cat head, call it a done build, get damage and defenses on every piece of gear (just like D3), and it'll be functionally as good as anyone else's build. While having worse gameplay, and worse performance than D3.

Wolcen "feels" more like D3 than any other ARPG on the market that's not D3. What I can't understand is how people can knock D3, and at the same time praise Wolcen? D3 does nearly everything better than Wolcen does.

So you wont play Last Epoch because its not offline but will go back to Diablo 3 which is always online?

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Johny_Snow wrote:

So you wont play Last Epoch because its not offline but will go back to Diablo 3 which is always online?

I don't buy ARPGs that don't have an offline option, anymore. I purchased D3 years ago, so I already have it in my possession. The developers are cutting their own necks by not having an offline beta. They're losing customers over it, how many is anyone's guess. That just means I'm going to wait for release, pay less for the game when it releases, and not support their game during development because they don't have an offline option. That's their choice, and that's my response to their choice.

I have no intentions of buying or playing Diablo 4, if it releases without an offline option. It's rumored to basically be like an MMORPG, which means I am most definitely not going to even entertain the possibility of buying it, if true.

You must live somewhere where you got internet only half the time or something.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

You must live somewhere where you got internet only half the time or something.

My internet isn't the most reliable, and it's prone to having erratic latency spikes. Unfortunately, I can't do much to remedy this, other than move. And I like it out here more than I hate bad internet.

D3 seems to handle latency spikes a little better than PoE does.

I don't expect a game in beta like Last Epoch to have particularly great net coding, so latency spikes would make the game pretty much unplayable, or get my character killed repeatedly. If for some reason Last Epoch functions differently, and most of the stuff is done client side, meaning it doesn't communicate with the server for every action in game, I might be able to play it, but I asked a question on their forums about this and nobody bothered to answer, so I'm assuming it's the same as PoE.

But if someone wants to answer the question of "Can I play Last Epoch online with bad ping" without latency impacting my gameplay, then I might get it if I can play it without much issue.

When I first started playing, just after release combat was completely unplayable. I was getting delays of about a second each time I clicked on an enemy. I tried again today after patching and the problem has gone away, so I can actually play now.

I've just finished Act 1 and so far so good, no other problems at all. I can definitely say I prefer playing PoE so far, but I'm still having enough fun with it to continue.

hooo boy, today is not a good day for the game. 122 positive reviews against 287 negative. Its been mostly negative-heavy since launch but never this bad.

I'm frequently getting stuck above the world when using Wings of Whatever skill for movement and buffs, seeing a lot of mobs getting stuck (and inaccessible) on various environment objects, and seeing AoE ground effects for specialist/champ mobs without any mobs of any kind nearby.

New patch features are solid, or something. And the best part is, none of the host of new problems, whether minor or serious, are going to be fixed before next weekend. If their claim of one patch day per week holds true anyway.

Yeah, a good friend of mine used Wings of Ishmir, landed on top of a tree. Made for a nice screenshot.

Mobs spawning in impossible places is disturbingly frequent. Morosian Seers out of bounds, Demons of Flesh inside walls, that sort of thing. You can't hit them, they can't hit you. And if they're a target for a mandate, well, that's a dead mandate. Oh well. Not like it really costs anything at that point.

I imagine this is also why they haven't re-enabled random dungeon generation. The geometry and the spawning aren't fully reconciled.

There's no reason to doubt their one patch per week claim. I dunno. Unless they break the game completely with one of them I don't really care. Heck, even if they did I wouldn't be that upset. There are other things to play. I've paid for the game. Mine forever. It'll be there when they fix it.

Strange how going from a support addict of one particular game back to a regular old gamer bouncing from title to title has improved my perspective on these things. $20 purchase years ago. Currently at 506 hours played. Game could die tomorrow and I'd be very sad, especially for the devs, but not howling for a refund.

The number of people doing just that because their one clearly broken build got a reality check is hilarious. The entitlement!