Last Epoch latest patch feels really good

What I like about last Epoch is contant developer communication with forumers.

A rarity for game dev these days.

The communication appears constant because there aren't many users.

Anyway, new patch is out!

Hey,

Could you please briefly describe what endgame content LE has right now?

I am thinking to spend few days on it, but not sure is it worth or not.

There are two endgame modes - arena and monolith.

Arena is the more simple one - you kill waves of increasingly stronger enemies. You get better exp than the monolith and your result is put in a leaderboard.

The monolith timelines are similar to PoE maps. You choose between two ways to juice the map you want to run then go and eventually reach a boss that is equivalent to the Shaper - with mechanics and attacks you want to dodge. After defeating him you open a new, higher level timeline. Eventually you open and empower all of them (the equivalent of making your entire Atlas tier 14-16). The overall goal is to get the boss-specific uniques (some of them locked behind an empowered timeline), get the blessings you need (you get a passive after defeating each boss, you can hold 3 at a time) and farm for gear.

It is worth noting that the current endgame does not offer a fraction of what PoE offers but they improve it with every patch. In the last patch they added 3 new timelines, empowered versions to every single one, a bunch of uniques associated with their bosses and a score of new blessings to modify your build.

I don't know if I would say that Last Epoch's endgame doesn't offer a fraction of PoE's. PoE's is a lot more quantity than quality, offering an endgame that isn't randomized progression is a lot. Most of PoE's endgame is just maps by another name anyway.

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j33bus wrote:

I don't know if I would say that Last Epoch's endgame doesn't offer a fraction of PoE's. PoE's is a lot more quantity than quality, offering an endgame that isn't randomized progression is a lot. Most of PoE's endgame is just maps by another name anyway.

You might be right about POE endgame. But it feels layered enough, with sufficiently differentiated content that, with the inclusion of atlas skill tree in the latest expansion, I find that POE is miles ahead of their competitors.

For me, personally, I think it will take a strong spin on multiplayer gameplay, for me to consider LE as POE equal - or at least a true contender.

Yea honestly, I think the Atlas passives are the first improvement to the endgame they've made since the beginning, including introducing maps over the maelstrom of chaos. Everything else has felt bloated and unnecessary, full on Delve came close to being great but it still required you to do maps.

The fact that I can just gimme a map in LE is great, and it basically makes all the other nonsense that you have to do to support doing maps at level feel like the chore that it is.

Wrote an essay on my impression of the latest LE patch. Sharing it here:

So I’ve been playing a new Multishot Marksman to experience the 0.8.1 patch. Played character to level 85 and have done all the basic monoliths and unlocked the empowered version. Just want to share my impression of this patch.

Playing the Marksman (Rogue) from 1 – 85 feels really smooth. Aside from a bump when I reach Lagon’s Isle (I seemed to always feel a difficulty spike when first reaching here in many of my builds), my Multishot Marksman never really struggled with content. I was mostly using @Peddles Multishot Marksman for this so kudos to him for the build (link: Shotgun Multishot Rogue - Written guide with gameplay | 60-80k crits (up to 100k with better gear)) :slight_smile:

My other impression playing through the rogue from 1 – 85 was also that the whole experience felt like an extremely well-curated SSF journey. I made T8-12 items to power through most of the early game. I got decent bases to craft/upgrade in a well-paced manner as I ran through the monolith, eventually crafting to T14 – T18 gears as I reached the empowering timelines*. My BiS uniques (Drelkor’s Compass, Xithara’s Conundrum) both dropped for me right when I was at a good place to use them (around high 60 – 70 I think). The gearing curve is similar to my experiences in earlier patches playing Shield Throw Pally and Meteor Sorc.

I also quite enjoy the new monolith bosses additions. They are certainly mechanically interesting (particularly the Heorot fight). I find they all generally on the easier side though (have not tried the empowered version) – going blind on them and I mostly could clear them on the first attempt (Heorot took me two attempts). At this point, I’m not sure whether I should think LE’s boss fights are better scaffolded than POE’s, or that the former is still less mechanically challenging and undertuned compared to the latter.

The empowered monolith timelines also feel like they’re pitched at the right difficulty level. With T14 – T18 gears, they don’t feel completely unfair, but I do need to pay quite abit of attention or I would quite easily fail the echo.

I know all these probably sound like the solo/offline ARPG fan dream come true. In fact, if I were such a fan, I would probably be quite happy to have LE be considered released as of this patch. On the other hand, for online ARPG fanatic like myself who really enjoy the trading and MP aspects of such games, I really wonder – why would anyone need to trade in this game? And how would it affect the gear acquisition curve when implemented? How would MP find its place in such a well-structured solo adventure? I can’t wait to see patch 0.9.

*As a side note on crafting and gears, one of the changes that jumped at me was the whole prefix = offense, suffix = defence change. Philosophically, I am not sure I like such a clear distinction. From the point of view of my marksman run through, the main issue is that on quite a few gear slots I simply don’t have enough interesting affixes to choose from. E.g. for boots, prefix = movespeed and dex, gloves = crit chance and dex. For helm and chest, there are quite alot of different skills prefixes but it seems we’re likely always to go for our main skill affix?

TL,DR feedback for the devs - great content and pitching for the SSF experience as of 0.8.1. Now go ace the MP gameplay ;)

Last epoch (BETA) is MORE polish & have MORE content than PoE at release.

The combat is also MUCH MUCH better, & very little intolerable stuff like the ones in PoE.

Also it still has a chance to be a decent online game, wheer the train for poE has left ags ago.


The end game is what need work, & will take time, but it also have the ability to be better than the instance base end game that many arpg now has.


Thy could for example, integrate story into the end game, & that story continue from league to league, like a TV series. SO every league or sesaon will be a continuation of the story & fresh for player instead of just "legaue mechanics"

End game in PoE is like a heavily iced cake. You can ice up the maps, they are still the base maps under the icing.

Now it’s the time to try Last Epoch!