Many problems still exist

[Narsiph]

Heya.

I quite enjoy offline mode and not having to deal with the extra bugs and extra problems on online play. I guess people that wanted to play Last Epoch online with friends aren't that happy.

For me Last Epoch is quite good as long you have a good tolerance when it comes the persistance of problems that are not new, like:

- Some/many buffs that come from skills aren't tracked and you have to keep track on them in your head (You can argue that this is "extra challenge"). Example: The bonus damage buff from blood splatter (I think thats an extra, not the skill. But LE players will know which skill I am talking about from the Acolyte)
- Warp-transition effect is not a loading screen but an animation played before the loading screen happens (You can try it out. Activate skills, open windows, move skill points around. Basically the game keeps running until the animation is done). This means the game is actively stealing time. Yes, you may argue "You life is going on for centuries, what is a lost minute". You can value your time or not - thats up for yourselfe. I find it annoying since it is definitively meant as transition-loading screen not just a flashy animation.
- Some effects aren't well telegraphed (Ground shaking from dinosaur/plant enemies are near invisible)
- HP bars aren't stable and they can disappear sometimes. Sometimes until you reloaded the game.
- Outside of resistances you do not need any equipment. And resistances are usually poison, necrotic and/or void damage. The rest is completely neglectable
- The falcon is constantly, and I really mean constantly, screeching.
- Overuse of dramatic animations (Before your first worm-boss). The elevator guardsmen being killed by the worm. First time it was spectacular. Second it was funny, third time I was "Yep, they made it and so they wanna use it". Same with the poor lying down guardsmen getting devoured.
- A clear discrepancy between characters and their specialications and "speed" you are able to progress. Namely the beastmaster which is really slow. Sure, near immortal and just can wait until normal enemies are dead but when looking at most of the other classes and specialications it is extremely slow. When you can count to 10 in a small mob group, while other classes are two screens or even maps ahead, is a sign that there's lacking some form of action.
- The micro transactions before fulfilled promises - "But, but, they are indie! They smol! They need money"
- Online server problems are completely the same as long before 1.0 (Example: You can't unbind skills. You simply just can't. Try it. Change yes, but not unbinding.) and I am not talking about the horrid loading times no matter what.
- Resetting mobs on maps is a feature since "it takes too much time/space to save the data" or something what was said. At least it makes boss-farming extremely quick if you want that.


Yes, you can defend the game as much as you want. Critique is valuable for those that have common sense and it's not "bash the game because I am fanboy of game-xyz". Being an extremist fan hurts the game too, because you defend it to a point where many people don't wanna put up with the antics of a few.

The list of problems is long and not new. But I actually like the Art-Style, although subjective, it is one of my favorites. It's gritty, dark and even if everything lacks "oomph" I am having fun. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that's looking for a good online-experience but I can recommend it for everyone that can overlook many problems and want to play offline - but only on a good discount if the problems stay.

At least missing skill-trees are fixed. That would be an extra disaster if they hadn't since it took years to finally get a skill tree for healing hand.

The game is here and it is a good platform to expand on it. For me personally, they should've not gone for multiplayer since everyone lacked experience from start on and creating multiplayer games is much harder. You need extremely good programmers for mulitplayer - clearly they have not. Currently the online mode is "It just works somehow. Not good but it works". Fine for early access but not fine for a final product - at least for me. And not I could not make a better online game - that's far from the point if you want to argue that way.

Maybe in 2 to 3 years the game will be fantastic. Currently it's good offline. Meh online. I have my doubt that much will change but maybe the devs have the right spirit, correct morale set and like the ongoing challenge of creating a game. Keep the lights on, the desks clean enough and slam down hard on the keys - There's a game to be finished!


Stay crunchy.

[Geist]

Every time they fix something 2 other things break that they didn't catch in testing. Or they fix something that somehow reverts a previous fix so an old bug is back. If they continue working on it they will get it to a point where the bugs will be less noticeable but it will be a while.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Narsiph:

- Outside of resistances you do not need any equipment. And resistances are usually poison, necrotic and/or void damage. The rest is completely neglectable

This is something I was very critical of before 1.0, but it's been mostly fixed. Many item mods and uniques have been substantially boosted and enemies have been rebalanced. The difference between a naked character and one in legendary 3+ mod uniques is pretty staggering, and you can now hit like millions of DPS endgame with the right gear.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Astasia:

you can now hit like millions of DPS endgame with the right gear.

Shame about dynamic DR though. You are correct though the previous record, that I know of, was a 3 second t4 Jurla kill and it can now be done in 1 second with a single button press.

[Narsiph]

Incredible new problems:
- Selecting and deleting a character may delete a different character (Can't reproduce). There is no way of "ops, I misclicked" ... Because you have to select your character you want to delete. And Primalist looks very, very different to the Rogue. Deleted my Falconeer... A lot of time just wasted.
- Character Level Reset (Can't reproduce)
Yeah, I played a bit to level 16 and was reset to Level 1.
- Skills not hitting a target, no matter if you selected the target or just 'free aimed'. Could reproduce on multiple occassions
- Sub-Skills not working at all (I currently know 3 in the Healing Hands Skilltree alone). Easily reproducable (for me).
- Skillshots disappearing and thus not hitting a target
- Deleting a character disables the ability to choose another character. Easily reproducable.
- Skillpoints get "refunded" sometimes as if you never had spent them when opening skill-trees
- Hardcore solo self found can access standard character inventory (Thanks Sorcerer! The unique was really handy!) and I am still able to do so. After so much bugs this was actually a nice bug for once. Because over 30 uniques and not one for one of my characters actual class was ever found.


I don't say LE is bad. But you have so many problems in so many varieties on hand that I have to wonder if you really can be so blind to defend the Devs so eagerly - or the game.

Beside a few catastrophic bugs (deleting another character instead of the selected one) every bug on its own is not gamebreaking. But if you don't play standard and hardcore instead, the mass of the bugs will have a huge impact. Especially if the skills arent working properly.

"But I don't have a problem" - Am I you? Are we the same person? Maybe you're not seeing the bugs or ignoring them.
"Yeah, its a rocky release like many" - Yeah, but whataboutism wouldn't be a nice argument in that case or in any case.
"Nothing is truly gamebreaking. Just play" - Lets play a scenario: Delete one of your level 100 characters, or all, and do it all again. But midway you delete the current played character. Then you will have the feeling I have experienced.
"Just stop playing then?" - I am thinkink about it. But theres no alternative left for me to play. PoE is constantly crashing. Activision Blizzard games are off the table and most if not all serious arpgs are played a lot already. Free to play is something I avoid since I never have seen any good f2p game (What I find good is subjective)

[CyberDown]

why so defensive, your listing issues that probably should be looked at, granted nothing life shattering someone needs to point out stuff like this.

Im just ripping on the clear burner accounts making ambiguous claims with no details

Keep posting the stuff you see in detail though im sure the devs appreciate this.

[Narsiph]

Originally posted by CyberDown:

why so defensive, your listing issues that probably should be looked at, granted nothing life shattering someone needs to point out stuff like this.

Im just ripping on the clear burner accounts making ambiguous claims with no details

Keep posting the stuff you see in detail though im sure the devs appreciate this.

I am not sure if a Dev would appreciate it. Because the before mentioned Problems are not new and the way you can look on it is relatively limited:
1. They "do their f-king best" which translates to "they are unable to fix those issues". Which would be incompetence.
2. They ignore those smaller issues and more or less hope for the best. Which would be negligence.

We are not talking "a couple weeks old" but "since the very beginning". It doesn't look good and without looking at the code, I couldn't even provide any form of help how to fix those issues. If I remember correctly, Unity is used, that means it is a high chance c# is used and I know that language.

But. I think they don't even have met the basic requirement of documenting your own code. Fixing bugs in an environment that has no hints on what it does is near impossible or at least extremely hard. That would explain why old issues are still there. And that would be a combination of incompetence and negligence.

Don't get me wrong. That is more or less a leadership issue than (then?) a general developer issue. You have a lead "position" that says "do it that way". If that didn't happen a programmer is probably doing it to their best knowledge and if they really started without any much training on how to create a game... Well, would result in something like what we can see here.

The game is currently a good foundation as a princible. But I think even the foundaition has a lot of cracks.


And what I've self-answered at the end is usualy fanatical fans throwing around (or people that are unable to make use of the common sense ability). Because I will answer one mor of the common thrown around phrases:

"Well, do it better then!" - I can. Not multiplayer and not graphics. But the rest, I can. Even alone. You know what. I will use my spare time from now on to make something better. May take a couple years but you will see it on steam.

Until then I will learn from the mistakes of others.


Stay crunchy.