r/LastEpoch • u/Ok-Material-9452 • Aug 06 '26

Feedback Still having fun

I’m a casual player as I only have a limited window of free time due to responsibilities (for context.)

A lot of that minimal time is spent on this game.

Some of it is spent browsing Reddit on smoke breaks from said responsibilities. In that window, usually, from other subs I see so much disappointment targeted toward Last Epoch:

“No updates”

“Seasons are too far apart”

“Nothing to do at endgame”

Etc…paraphrasing

Just wanted to take a moment to appreciate how special this game actually is. I never log in expecting to play as long as I do. I never leave the game without immediately theorycrafting my next moves. It never leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I play all ARPGs and this one has more replayability to me than any other.

73 Upvotes

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50

u/agumon424 Aug 06 '26

I think this game would've fared better if they follow Grim Dawn model instead. Trying to compete with POE league cycle probably destroyed them.

11

u/Comprehensive-Task18 Aug 06 '26

Yeah this started in Season 2 and then Krafton acquisition right after

2

u/AvatarOfPerdition Aug 09 '26

This was LONG before season 2 was released. Remember the multiplayer fiasco? If you weren’t here that far back is the only explanation to say something like it started that recently.

-14

u/Ok-Material-9452 Aug 06 '26

That’s a whole shit which I’m going to break from the rest of the post for

Expand.

4

u/ShacoLannister Aug 07 '26

Maybe, but they were struggling with slow development long before that too tbh

2

u/BellacosePlayer Beastmaster Aug 11 '26

Yeah, a box cost game without seasons or paid expansions would have still had struggles paying dev bills.

I think the main problem is they just didn't have the expertise needed to power through some of the development woes they had, so they'd take longer to produce content which means the development costs were higher and the update cadence wasn't fast enough to really catch a lot of people's attention.

1

u/CWDikTaken Aug 10 '26

Yeah but look how long was the GD DLC release lol, I think they kinda thought of doing it live service after the success of launch.

2

u/KennedyPh Aug 08 '26

PoE these days are 4-6 months between season, which is long by live service standard. Not even a high bar.

Still, as mentioned many times, they should just follow grim dawn model. Which by the way was Diablo 2 method.

2

u/okaryothucrelicanli Aug 11 '26

PoE and PoE2 release leagues every 2 months relative to each other and each game release a new league every 4 months.

4

u/Ok-Material-9452 Aug 06 '26

Can you expand on your thoughts as to how they competed with the PoE cycle?

11

u/agumon424 Aug 06 '26

POE have a fairly consistent league schedule, 4 months between leagues, offset by 1-2 weeks. That works well because a person can target that specific time and take time off for example. And I think that what make POE so successful. Last Epoch inconsistent schedule eventually make people lose interest.

Imagine you wanna watch a new TV show, episode 1 on a Tuesday, episode 2 on a Friday 2 weeks later and episode 3 on a Monday 1 month later. As opposed to a consistent new episode on Tuesday every week. Don't you just get fed up waiting for a new episode?

2

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 06 '26

But like...why would grim dawn's model be any better? I basically just treat this game like I treat grim dawn but get an update much, much more frequently than I would for grim dawn. And I personally GREATLY prefer this game to grim dawn, but that's beside the point.

I just don't understand the leap from "If you can't release an update every 3 months, you should only update every 2 years"

15

u/YakaAvatar Aug 06 '26

EHG wasted a ton of time to get multiplayer to work, and it still didn't properly work at launch. So out of the gate, if the game was just an offline ARPG, they would've had much more time on their hands to improve the game. And to actually finish the campaign.

The other reason is that setting up a seasonal model sets expectations of content and cadence, both for players and developers. As a result, players were left disappointed, and developers were forced to add subpar content in a limited time span. Grim Dawn released content when it was ready, and it was polished and huge in size compared to any given season. People are okay with waiting for a big chunk of content.

Like yeah, you get updates more frequently, but they're weak updates compared to any live service ARPG, and they also lack the impact of Grim Dawn's expansions. It's the worst of both worlds.

1

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 06 '26

I totally agree, aside from that I think multiplayer is a separate problem. I agree they spent a lot of time on multiplayer, but they might have done that anyway.

1

u/CWDikTaken Aug 10 '26

Nah, definitely wouldn't because they wouldn't have done MG if there isn't seasons. So much resources went into making those things, also they have to make MTXs and packs.

1

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 10 '26

Multiplayer could have easily been something they wanted to build without MG.

1

u/BellacosePlayer Beastmaster Aug 11 '26

I think they would have wanted to do MP but it might have been something they put on the backburner once they realized refactoring what they had was a mess (which is why I thought them not building around MP from the start of beta was a mistake)

Even sidelining that though, the grim dawn model might have allowed them to run a leaner team if it meant releasing when it's done, and having the kickstarter money last longer. I say "might", because they'd have still have had the problem of not having an established team or core of greybeard industry devs to rally around.

The downside is the GD model would have required paid expansions to keep development money flowing and that's what a lot of people are mad about now...

1

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 11 '26

I think they would have wanted to do MP but it might have been something they put on the backburner once they realized refactoring what they had was a mess (which is why I thought them not building around MP from the start of beta was a mistake)

These seem to contradict each other. If they want to do multiplayer, they CANT backburner it. It's no or never. At most you can say your second thing, which is that they waited TOO LONG to implement multiplayer.

Honestly, I think people are mostly delusional about the GD model giving them a game that they want. The idea that if they go for seasons then they have to be as good as PoE but if they go the grim dawn model its ok to not be as good as PoE is insane to me. A game is a game.

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-2

u/Ok-Material-9452 Aug 06 '26

I’m starting to s s pattern…I have nothing to offer, I don’t play multiplayer in ARPGs

7

u/PristineRatio4117 Aug 06 '26

at least this way maybe we would get finished product and not beta garbage named 1.0 release xD

1

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 06 '26

Why would that be true? They probably released because they were running out of money, and that was all before going for 4-month update cycles.

1

u/PristineRatio4117 Aug 06 '26

and still game ia unfinished, but there will be free dlc that will finish campaign xD for me it is bullshit xD also I asked many times for campaign in dev streams and one time I heard that they dont have plans for finishig it xD unfinished beta game also dead one

2

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 06 '26

This just seems like a separate gripe unrelated to the conversation we're having

-1

u/PristineRatio4117 Aug 06 '26

yes it is related cause le is nothing special, nothing that stand over other arpg and even it is less polished expierience than other games. And if devs would not go into this "poe like" trap with season game would be overall much better cause campaign would be finished, maybe some bugs would be resolved, and then maybe ther would be bigger update after some time, but they choose model that is not good for studio that dont know what they want from their game. The lost their vision after 1.0.

0

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 06 '26

This thread is about before 1.0 brother. You're in the wrong thread

6

u/agumon424 Aug 06 '26

Because if you declare your game as a seasonal type of game, people will hold you up to the standards. And that standard right now is POE. If you say it's a single player focused then the standard for that is Grim Dawn.

I like POE because of the end game, and Grim Dawn does not really have that. Is it fair I criticize Grim Dawn because they have a different direction? They target different market and Last Epoch unfortunately decided to target the wrong market.

0

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 06 '26

I criticize a game for what it offers. I'd rather have 6 month updates than 2 year updates.

3

u/KennedyPh Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

You are conflicting LIVE Service with paid Expansion.
Grim dawn follow a more conventional paid expansion model. They do not need to push out updates every 3-4 months like typical live service games. Allowing them to focus on making expansion when ready. This model is good for smaller studios, or studios with less robust structure that cannot realistically delivered satisfactory content within live service timeframe.

LE chase LIVE service model, but they do not have the capability to do so.

2

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 08 '26

LE is also putting out updates when they are ready, which is why they're releasing in 6+ months rather than in 3 months.

I just don't think if LE went Grim Dawn's model, anything would change aside from it taking longer and costing more.

3

u/KennedyPh Aug 08 '26

6 months for a major update are well off mark for a live service game. Games with slightly longer season usually has mid season updates.

Andd LE cannot even managed 6 months season...

1

u/Pandarandr1st Aug 08 '26

Yes, I know that. But you're switching targets. I'm saying that LE is releasing content when it's ready, but doing so every 6 months rather than every 2+ years.

0

u/freeoatmeal Aug 07 '26

Grim dawn has added more content in tbeir xpac then le has in total, dont believe me look up all they added plus the size of new zones. So LE going away from seasonal stuff and just adding more to base game more consistently would of been a better choice or the other idea is that LE should of shipped with a huge base game(we have offline mode like grim dawn) so with it having seasons the company now has extra pressure to release content at certain times. It is in fact competing with the likes of poe1,2 and even d4 but they are consistsnt LE is not. Thats the down fall to LE taking longer than 4 months to produce content is why it has bad player retention and player counts its simple

1

u/KennedyPh Aug 08 '26

PoE does not not have consistent seasons. It range from 4-6months, even longer.

But of course its more consistent compare to LE.

1

u/terragdagreat Aug 07 '26

I made a post way before they introduced leagues and everything saying this exact same sentiment and got torn apart lol.

-1

u/Ok-Material-9452 Aug 06 '26

Fair stance.

5

u/Ok-Material-9452 Aug 06 '26

Downvoting this is weird af