What's with all the bitterness surrounding this game?

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

So, I tend to bounce between ARPG's; currently, I'm playing Grim Dawn and Diablo 4 while waiting for Last Epoch's 1.0 update and the Falconer. Path of Exile doesn't "click" quite as well for me. In my eyes, all 4 games are equally good; I play Diablo 4 exclusively on the Eternal Realm, which cuts out a lot of the "Games as a Service" chuff.

I understand the complaints about D4, but what I don't understand is the same level of discontentment around LE. From what I've gathered, its a combination of a long Early Access period (even though 1.0 is finally locked in for February), the addition of MTX (which I agree with; the stuff currently on offer looks terrible and is much more expensive than Grim Dawn's "Loyalty Packs"), and various skill balance and endgame issues (which is an ongoing problem and something every ARPG struggles with).

Can someone enlighten me as to what exactly has the community up in arms?

[bitsu]

Originally posted by Mmm:

30 seconds to register in biggest social media forum or in official forum is not a high barrier to enter.

truefax, could a corporate entity work the opposite way as mods there have been proven to do so time and again?

Originally posted by Mmm:

Someone who thinks that critics is removed anywhere is out of touch with reality.

LMAO you have zero clue how the internet works. how marketing works. the very basics required to have an informed opinion online are completely missing
rip your money

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

Can someone enlighten me as to what exactly has the community up in arms?

I took a bit to think about this before typing this up. In my view what you have is people who feel strongly about LE. You also have developers who are lets say unwilling to close the door.

Lets use perhaps the most requested feature for LE, auto-pickup of crafting materials as an example. Regardless of where you fall on this issue if you poke around there are plenty of developer statements on it. Those statements boil down to, not at this time but keep talking about it. Keep bringing it up, keep discussing it maybe down the line in the future. This tends to inflame the topic, both pro and con. If the developer were to draw a hard line and say no, its not going to happen, that discussion would shut down. At least there would be closure for the topic, even if things changed down the line.

Now I am not faulting the developer for this type of response, but it does come with some baggage, and the internet being the internet things can become less then polite. With most things there is no clear best approach, as you have to balance a lot of factors, I only hope the upside to this position is worth it.

its just my take on why things tend to feel the way they do.

[justanotherhuman]

Originally posted by Ayk-:

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

So, I tend to bounce between ARPG's; currently, I'm playing Grim Dawn and Diablo 4 while waiting for Last Epoch's 1.0 update and the Falconer. Path of Exile doesn't "click" quite as well for me. In my eyes, all 4 games are equally good; I play Diablo 4 exclusively on the Eternal Realm, which cuts out a lot of the "Games as a Service" chuff.

I understand the complaints about D4, but what I don't understand is the same level of discontentment around LE. From what I've gathered, its a combination of a long Early Access period (even though 1.0 is finally locked in for February), the addition of MTX (which I agree with; the stuff currently on offer looks terrible and is much more expensive than Grim Dawn's "Loyalty Packs"), and various skill balance and endgame issues (which is an ongoing problem and something every ARPG struggles with).

Can someone enlighten me as to what exactly has the community up in arms?

Can't speak on behalf of the entire community, but I will quickly summarize what took all the good grace and faith I used to have on the game and put me on the negative side of the spectrum:
* 1.0 is coming with an unfinished story. (My biggest problem personally)
* An unfinished product with a fully functional MTX shop way earlier before 1.0.(Big RED FLAG)
* Many issues adressed here from gameplay balance to performance issues are being slept on most of the time in development. This was NOT the case when I first started playing.

Now, I did enjoy the game back when it was a promising project for quite a long time. But the end of the journey is becoming rather bitter, most promises and roadmaps just seemed to be abandoned or postponed to an indefinite date by the devs and all we are getting is another mediocre live action ARPG with a cash shop, and its not even F2P.

Full release with an unfinished campaign/story is not acceptable at all, after so many years of early access.

thats why i stop looking at road maps 5 years ago if anything teaches me is to pay attention to whats in front of me of the here and now i personally believe road maps are nothing more confidence man ideals then anything else

[Elmer Fudd]

THESE DEVELOPERS ARE SCUMBAGS , ENOUGH SAID .
no complete characters for 4 years and now microtransactions closing into launch

[Hamberdler]

The devs adding microtransactions in beta had a bigger effect on sentiment towards this game than you might think. The crowd this game draws is still pretty bitter over how mtx has infected everything, so they felt like they were getting milked once again.

Personally, I don't care they added mtx because it's cosmetic. They said they ran out of money and I'm not sure if I fully believe that but sure. At the end of the day I'm addicted to the game and spend hours daily playing it.

imo EH nailed the addictive quality of dark fantasy hack-and-slash arpg in this game.

[Pelerin]

The sentiments shared in this thread lead me to believe I've made the right choice in waiting for full release to play the game.

I've managed to stay largely oblivious to most of the drama and I won't be salty about changes and balance.

It's taken some effort not to buckle and dive in early though.

[Mmm]

There is 0 drama around LE, every complex game will get some bashing deserved or not.

If you are arpg fun in any form, you will buy this game, no way around it. It has fresh take on some of the key features in the genre, even though it is not ideal and with some fixable negatives.

If you are just looking around what to play next and care about campaign, sure, wait for release or whatever.

[Pelerin]

Originally posted by Mmm:

There is 0 drama around LE, every complex game will get some bashing deserved or not.

If you are arpg fun in any form, you will buy this game, no way around it. It has fresh take on some of the key features in the genre, even though it is not ideal and with some fixable negatives.

If you are just looking around what to play next and care about campaign, sure, wait for release or whatever.

Oh yea, I was always going to buy the game - this is my favourite genre.

I just wanted to wait 'til it was "complete" before jumping in.

LE is probably my most anticipated game, along with PoE 2.

Also excited for the new GD expansion.

[Koala 4peace]

Originally posted by Pelerin:

I just wanted to wait 'til it was "complete" before jumping in.

A sensible choice.

[makinaccion]

I enjoyed it quite a bit one or two years ago, in that time I got to experience the extreme censorship in chat, the messy roadmap, the awful endgame balance and itemization, and read quite a bit about all the stuff that got ditched since the kickstarter because of "reasons" and how some other issues turned into "features". Do not take me wrong though I did play a lot and I did have plenty of fun, enough to not regret at all the purchase and time invested, but the more I played the more flaws I noticed.

Then there was a whole year, or close to a year, of nothing, nada, zero, all because of multiplayer which was said to save the game, to be the biggest patch ever and yadda yadda...and it was a disaster, the performance isn't any better, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ RAM leak is still in there with myriad of other issues, they PUT A MTX SHOP before releasing 1.0, ALL the promises about 1.0 have come undone, it WON'T have all the classes, nor the story, nor game mechanics, balanced skills, nothing, nada, not even the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ offline mode... and for a game that has been in Early Access for 4 or so years now I believe, if not even longer, it's inexcusable...And then there's the trade fiasco, which was a MASSIVE, ABSOLUTE red flag to anyone with a working brain that EHG word wasn't worth ♥♥♥♥.

It is a shame because the game has a lot of potential, but EHG is clearly directionless on where to take it, on what to do and how to do it.

[mudofNYnumber1]

I feel like 0.83 was the peak. The direction is changing ever so slightly. Even Act 1 rework feels like it went in the entirely wrong direction. Now we're falling into the hero tropes from those comic book movies, no longer heroes of circumstance and chance. Feels like they retconned the story based on reading Reddit replies, which is concerning.

The promise of the 1.0 package is depleting. Now we won't get the end of the campaign on release. 1.0 feels more like 0.95 with that alone. The shear amount of time spent making 40+ finisher moves for Runemaster was really overdoing it, when we'll all just funnel ourselves to maybe 12 of them. They're doing what feels fun, which is great to have passion, but is perceived as lack of greater direction and management. Older sub-classes are starting to feel antiquated, and forgotten. We still don't have Warlock or Falconer in any capacity, and they're blitzkrieg introducing and then balancing after the fact. If 0.9 serves as an indication, 1.0 is going to get negative reviews like crazy because things will be straight up broken. It's understandable that they will be broken with such a large patch...but not when it's 1.0.

They still haven't fixed Lagon.

Things are populating the items shop when we're still not complete on the base $30 game. There is a lot more games as a service talk than I remember a few years ago. Seeing how absolutely terrible other companies have been exploiting that process over those last two years makes it drop my hopes, even though this developer is obviously not responsible for those atrocities. The thought still lingers in the back of my head.

Online was something we all wanted but on the back end, feels like it just didn't do the right things. Constant problems and connection issues. The bugs affecting single player introduced in that patch still haven't been fully resolved. We can't even use abilities in safe zones any more. It feels like they're going to do that dumb PoE thing where you load in with other players so they can kill your graphics card with their over-the-top MTX. Feels like the product is worsening quickly.

Overall, at 0.83 I thought this was going to dethrone all the other ARPGs on my list. Now, it feels like I'm gearing up to be disappointed. Whatever, it's just a video game. I just don't like knowing I was wrong about it.

[RudeFoxs]

i agree , as i have said in an earlier post , i feel ripped off , as a solo player they promised proper offline ,still no where to be seen, as said some classes still not fully finnished and finnished base story. but hey gotta have those mtx's instead of fixing the myriad of bugs and optimisation issues that are still still needed to be addressed, right , where did this tencent money go is my question.

[[LWT]Karpiu]

Probably a few main reasons would be :

1. Unfulfilled promises (for example different systems that were on the roadmap initially eventually got cut out of the game/postponed indefinitely)
2. Endgame progression/itemization
3. Endgame content (afaik on release it will still be barely changed compared to now, which will probably make some people wait even longer past-1.0, me included), it's kinda boring and lacking currently
4. Missing subclasses that people want to play NOW
5. Technical issues like memory leaking, stuttering, lags, long loading screens etc. These have been improved during development but there's still a lot of work to be done
6. Cosmetic MTX (biggest non-issue, but for some people it's a problem somehow)

In general, the game's decent but in its current state not for too long. It has great ideas in it like the skill system, or deterministic crafting, but it lacks in other important areas for an ARPG like endgame content.

[Ayk-]

Originally posted by LWTKarpiu:

Probably a few main reasons would be :

1. Unfulfilled promises (for example different systems that were on the roadmap initially eventually got cut out of the game/postponed indefinitely)
2. Endgame progression/itemization
3. Endgame content (afaik on release it will still be barely changed compared to now, which will probably make some people wait even longer past-1.0, me included), it's kinda boring and lacking currently
4. Missing subclasses that people want to play NOW
5. Technical issues like memory leaking, stuttering, lags, long loading screens etc. These have been improved during development but there's still a lot of work to be done
6. Cosmetic MTX (biggest non-issue, but for some people it's a problem somehow)

Great list overall I got to say. Just wanted to add a take why 6 is a problem for some people.

If all the above issues weren't there in the first place, I doubt anyone would complain about MTX shop. Adding a MTX shop to an unifinished game with lots of technical issues and unfinished content, alongside with unresolved problems is a red flag and will atrract attention in a negative way.

A lot of stuff that was supposed to be in the release version of the game will not make it to release, as you said, i will wait some post-launch patches before trying the game again, but I can't say I am excited or hopeful about the future of the game. It has been what, 4 years of early access? A lot of feedback was given on a singular issue another user pointed out and it is still there as a problem:

Originally posted by mudofNYnumber1:

They still haven't fixed Lagon.

[oldschooldiablo]

Originally posted by Ayk-:

Originally posted by LWTKarpiu:

Probably a few main reasons would be :

1. Unfulfilled promises (for example different systems that were on the roadmap initially eventually got cut out of the game/postponed indefinitely)
2. Endgame progression/itemization
3. Endgame content (afaik on release it will still be barely changed compared to now, which will probably make some people wait even longer past-1.0, me included), it's kinda boring and lacking currently
4. Missing subclasses that people want to play NOW
5. Technical issues like memory leaking, stuttering, lags, long loading screens etc. These have been improved during development but there's still a lot of work to be done
6. Cosmetic MTX (biggest non-issue, but for some people it's a problem somehow)

Great list overall I got to say. Just wanted to add a take why 6 is a problem for some people.

If all the above issues weren't there in the first place, I doubt anyone would complain about MTX shop. Adding a MTX shop to an unifinished game with lots of technical issues and unfinished content, alongside with unresolved problems is a red flag and will atrract attention in a negative way.

A lot of stuff that was supposed to be in the release version of the game will not make it to release, as you said, i will wait some post-launch patches before trying the game again, but I can't say I am excited or hopeful about the future of the game. It has been what, 4 years of early access? A lot of feedback was given on a singular issue another user pointed out and it is still there as a problem:

Originally posted by mudofNYnumber1:

They still haven't fixed Lagon.

What else needs to be fix with the lagon fight? The biggest issue with certain builds not being able to hit lagon has been fixed

From ruins of power patch notes.

Lagon

Reworked phases 1 and 3 of the Lagon boss fight (both campaign and monolith versions).

You can no longer directly attack Lagon. There are instead two large tentacles, one at each end of the arena, that share health with each other and with Lagon.

Lagon still attacks as normal.
The tentacles attack the same way as regular lagon tentacles with the same damage, but with a 56% larger area.

This change was made to bypass the numerous bugs that occurred due to trying to attack a boss that was so far away from and below the walkable area.

Fixed Lagon Tentacles being tricky to hit with some projectiles like Fireball.

Fixed Lagon Tentacles’ swipe attack not hitting in Multiplayer.

Added a ground visual effect around Lagon Tentacles.