The size and resource difference between Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard and Eleventh Hour Games is as big as it gets in the industry. The amount of employees and the budget (being it for marketing or proper development) allocated to Diablo dwarfs mutiple competitor arpgs even if they are combined.
How then you play Last Epoch and you feel that the game is not only better crafted but it provides considerable more upgrades between seasons than Diablo? The amount of real upgrades found in Last Epoch between season 1 and season 2 outperforms what Diablo manages to delver in 3-4 seasons.
I really don’t understand how people tend to forget the size and budget difference between studios when evaluating the amount of upgrades to arpgs. Blizzard is a giant that has “no more conduit shrine” for season 8 as a highlight.
Easy, passion and creativity. Actually listening to the community too, not just saying they do. POE2 is suffering from the same problem right now too in 0.2, albeit not to the same degree.
MS really had/has little to do with this game. Not defending it.
As for Upgrades in LE, it is because they took their time, and it was not short from the last upgrade. I will probably get to it next week. If I don’t make a Huntress after this clean Sorc build.
I agree they have had little to do with the game, but MS marketing is all over this game, clearly showing that is the primary focus being pushed down from above.
Example: 200 FREE Platinum for EVERYONE!
This is the very playbook that brought MS where it is today… Word, here have a free license, just show us your Word Perfect license… Here have MS Office for $50, just show us your Word Perfect license… If it wasn’t for gimmicks like this MS would not be where they are today…
Oh, Free platinum today; gone tomorrow now give us money… Many will already be hooked and fork it over blindly…
All to often what we see with Blizzard is with every company making it big.
They grow with passion and dedication to a common goal by making great products. Then the sell and sell again each making money in the sale while losing all passion and dedication. Now it becomes a money machine more about profits than passion and dedication.
Better crafted is a tough one. Playing both LE has come a long way, definitely in terms of gameplay and in seasons.
Graphics…. Lacking. D4 completely dominates LE here. Not to say LE isn’t playable but it’s the little things you notice. The screen isn’t perfect and ripples a bit. No it’s not the video card or computer. Definitely better than 6 months ago when you would see blocks of green or purple where the screen should be.
Game play seems better this round, though I just got back in and I am not to far. But just like D4 the S Tier changed and isn’t more…. Just a different set of choices.
Fixed character sex and look is another down vote for me. D4 whips LE’s butt in this. Not a deal breaker at any part but in this day and age. People gripe D4 is an arcade game…. That is classic arcade if you ask me.
Crafting hands down LE. D4 isn’t even in the sane game here. D4 has its lips wrapped around the back end evacuation chute of a broken hooker in comparison.
It’s also easily to see more upgrades between seasons when the product isn’t at the same level. Blizzard game play and graphics top notch. LE has gotten better in this but when you have glaring problems it’s easier to say more but realize that more it just playing catch up.
Don’t get me wrong I am going to be playing more LE till I am bored. I will also play s8. But in terms of it…. LE, POE2, or D4… pretty much all the same.,… get in play till tired… go do something else.
Realize long ago they’re just games for wasting time and grew out of their my life type activities.
Granted I only played for awhile after official launch, and maybe things have changed since then, but the only thing I really liked was the talent set up and skill trees (hey were a theorycrafting paradise) and stash was amazing. Beyond that:
Combat is floaty and not satisfying
“Crafting” is atrocious, way too swingy, hope + affix chunk might be free, might eat 95% of your crafting potential
No good exalts ever drop
Uniques are underpowered unless you slam them, which generally bricks them with bad stats
Set items are garbage
SSF faction is not a good replacement for trading (which also sucks) because nothing good ever drops
Leveling is boring, story is nonsense
Endgame dungeons are badly designed, can’t practice boss mechs if it takes 20-40 minutes to get back to the boss each time
Monos are incredibly boring & repetitive and nothing good ever drops
Loot filter is only needed because the game showers you with garbage at every step
End of day, D4 has problems, but it’s fun to play. I can’t say the same about LE. I kept thinking “oh I’ll get through the campaign, end game will be fun” and it was worse.
One company spent 9 months to overhaul its end-game. The other did not not. D4 has all the tight controls, good combat, graphics and fun to make it happen if they decided to put an end game in. Its on the roadmap! Until then LE has gone up a few rungs in the ARPG tier list.
The only thing that makes sense to me is they tried to develop by metrics instead of first-hand experience and/or vision
That is like the ONLY thing that makes sense, like even remotely IMO
Had the devs played the game first-hand (or more specifically had they had the time to try things out first-hand) they’d have understood that it was absolute mistake/disaster to for and double-down on the blasting route and speeding up the gameplay the point where things lack even today 2 years later
Also would’ve understood that trivializing the entirety of pre-launch development in favor for whatever the things that they come up with in a month or two was a super bad decision also
I mean it may or may not be true that the Game Designer of PoE2 plays the game “all the time” as he claims, but I think it’s safe to say that our genius designers in big ol’ Rod 'n Joe do NOT play the game (arguably at all)
My list of things I don’t like about Last Epoch was not intended as a one-to-one comparison with things D4 “does right.” It was a list of why I don’t like Last Epoch, full stop. You seem to have skipped my final statement entirely, which is the crux of why I think D4 is better; at least it’s fun to play. Ergo, I think LE is a badly designed, unfun game, regardless of budget.
You have some good points about D4 in your list, I didn’t break it down myself but I agree with most; except set items: not sure what the obsession with those is. Aspects perform the function of D3’s legendary powers and set powers in a far more accessible and flexible way. Set items have no purpose in D4 as we know them. They would have to be reimagined or else they will just further funnel builds into pre-defined, boring metas.
Also, wanting a loot filter in D4? I’m not against it, but I can’t walk 10 feet in last epoch without a dozen items dropping. Items rarely drop in D4 except from chests and bosses/event elites. Completely different world here.
I think no conduit as a highlight for s8 is disingenuous. S8 has a lot more then that. LE had a pretty weak launch and took an eternity for a big update. Le finally did release a good update, though.
I like both. I’ll play both. they are both good.
Games like LE have to actually earn their player bases. Diablo just rolls out another plate of trash and the 45 year old diablo fan bois eat it up and buy cosmetics. Why would they change?
You said that you get through levelling in LE hoping that the endgame was going to get better but it never did. Well, a considerable amount of people would say that the same or worse happens to D4: it’s still a levelling game without any meaningful endgame activities.
I get it, you like the combat and the graphics. And that’s really all D4 has to offer. So that’s why it’s at least odd see you criticizing LE’s crafting for instance when it’s considered possibly the best crafting system in all arpgs right now.
The key argument is “getting graphics and combat right and nothing else” in a company as big as Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard is underwhelming. LE achieves a quite respectable quality of combat and graphics while delivering much more than D4 in terms of crafting, endgame, loot and more. That’s quite remarkable and actually I don’t know how Blizzard let it happened internally.
it does ? I bought LE and played it a bit more than 2 hours and hated it… combat was janky and weird, not fluid and dynamic. Feels like I was playing a game designed in 2008. Crafting was designed so convoluted and even more RNG based than D4 is.
Way too many affixes on loot it was worse than D4 pre-S4 loot overhaul…
I couldn’t even refund the thing that I accidently played it just a bit over 2 hours on steam unfortunately.
The only thing I like about LE in terms of system is the SSF VS Trading factions … which should be implemented in D4 with blizzard own take on it.
They aren’t forced to hold up big updates for paid expansions.
They know what the state of the genre is and take what’s best and makes it their own
End game and the various systems in Last Epoch keep the game from getting dull. D4 is just a terribly boring game loop and Tempering is one of the worst crafting systems I’ve ever seen.
I didn’t say that. You seem to be approaching a difference in opinion by trying to put words in my mouth. All I said was that the game is more fun. Yes, that comes down to the combat because that is the game, but I didn’t mention graphics anywhere.
“It’s considered” is not my concern. It’s a system with a lot of potential, but it’s frankly worse than D4’s because while the methodology is better, the results are far more bricks, both in regular items and slamming.
I disagree with this statement in its entirety. LE’s combat, as I stated, in my opinion is floaty and unfun. Crafting is a brick factory. Endgame is awful. Loot is awful; set items suck, most uniques have to be slammed to make up for the stats they don’t carry. Too many gimmick effects and gimmick builds.
My point here is not in any way that D4 is great; just that Last Epoch is certainly not great.
I’m open to a conversation, that’s why I’m here, but you’re not going to convince me it’s a great game, and I would appreciate not being told I think things I didn’t say. If you want to engage me we’re better off spending time discussing why we have our opinions than in trying to counter them. For example: what do you find enjoyable about LE’s endgame?
Combat is really bad (and clunky), elites don’t feel like elite at all (except those that are “of Haste” or “of Blades” i.e. sped-up or double-damage, those can really hurt)
Crafting is decent/good
Loot is quite good, perhaps best in general (after D2)
Endgame is nothing in particular but still decently good (and has another layer of actual complexity added in S2)
Builds are a bit of lackluster and have too much of a “catch” in them (for example => you now fire 2 additional cloned attacks from the side BUT Puncture costs mana => not something that you want on a generator :P)
Too many of those “BUT” nodes on skill trees IMO
So if I were to guess, people like LE because
It resembles build-first “traditional” a/RPG game (much like D2)
Has a good loot
Personally not that impressed by combat itself or monsters though, and also think I’m skipping S2 cause it’s spider-themed (not a fan of :P)
That’s coming from the same person who claims to be “open to a conversation”.
It’s all right bud, you are free to keep praising D4. Just have some minimal level of awareness and do not be so confident criticizing parts of LE that are bad or inexistent in D4. Google cognitive dissonance while you are it.
The only thing left, according to your own arguments, is combat is better in D4. You might not like crafting and endgame in LE, but don’t go out there saying how bad it is when those elements in D4 are worse or simply inexistent.
Your point is clear, you only have bad things to say about LE and the size and budget of a studio does not matter. Please have some common sense and realise than this forum post is not for you then. You’ll save everybody’s time and effort.
Until then LE has gone up a few rungs in the ARPG tier list.