Last Epoch Revisited

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So recently I have been on an ARPG kick and quite honestly… while I am most known for being an MMORPG player, I was an ARPG player first. I love Diablo and have loved it since getting my hands on the pre-release test of the first game back in college. When confronted with the decision of which game to buy… because Icewind Dale and Diablo II came out on the same day… I of course bought Diablo II. Years later I was STILL playing Diablo II as my primary reprieve from playing Everquest, and keeping a server running with friends. As such I have always bought and tried out pretty much every new ARPG that comes down the pipe, and Last Epoch was no exception. I did not like this game when I first tried it… but given that I also did not like Path of Exile when I first tried it I figured it might be worth a revisit.

Sometimes when you try out a new game there is one small thing that destroys the experience. If you search google on “Last epoch move and attack” you will find a litany of people who have requested the ability to bind move and attack to the same key, which is admittedly the post-Diablo ARPG standard. For whatever reason be it technical or philosophical… the Last Epoch team seems diametrically opposed to actually doing this. So when I found out that this was not a thing that I could do in this game, and that it did not have Controller support to fall back upon… I uninstalled it and moved on. Then I had a bit of a revelation last week while playing Path of Exile and on the podcast that changed my perspective a bit.

While Click to Move is a concept I am deeply comfortable with and fall back upon… I don’t actually play games in that manner if I can help it. Some years ago my friend Grace got me hooked on another control scheme for Diablo III, where I bind “Force Move” to W and then essentially “steer” my character while moving my mouse cursor around the screen. When I got into Path of Exile recently, this is one of the first things that I did and I am annoyed at that game that I had to give up a functional skill slot in order to make this happen. It turns out that I can in fact do this same sort of mechanic in Last Epoch and after some careful keybind swaps I was able to land on a gameplay structure that more or less maps to what I am familiar with in Diablo III, where I hit Q for the potion, 7/8/9 for some of my abilities because they are comfortable to hit on my g600 mouse, and spacebar for my “charge” ability. Once the mechanical aspect of playing the game was solved… it is actually a pretty solid option.

Last night I created a fresh Sentinel because I had no clue what I was doing the last time I had attempted to play this game. Essentially you choose a base class and then that can morph over time into one of three masteries. For Sentinel, I get the choice of Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight currently I am leaning heavily towards Forge Guard.

This is the class wheel from the wiki, and gives a pretty good representation of your options. The only traditional “Diablo” archetype that seems to be missing is that of the Barbarian/Brawler type character. While Sentinel looks like a Paladin/Crusader it does have a lot of the same tropes that you might find from a Barbarian including the very spin-to-win playstyle of “Whirlwind”. I noticed last night that a few of these mastery classes exist in the interface, but are not something you can choose. I am guessing since this game is still in active development that there just has not been time to complete them.

I think the thing that honestly impresses me the most so far is the fact that at level 7, I feel like I have a pretty complete package of abilities. I have a big single target attack, my default attack has been replaced by a three-hit combo, I have a ranged throw ability, I can charge at packs of mobs, and I can whirlwind down large packs of enemies. This is something that I would have expected to arrive at far later in the game, and quite honestly… reminds me a bit of how good Diablo Immortal felt at low levels. It seems like I am going to continue to get more abilities than I have room for, and as a result, will have to tailor my build looking for more direct synergies.

Please note that I have only the most shallow of understanding this game right now. However once I have arrived at a place where the controls felt playable, it is something I want to explore further. Essentially as far as I can tell character progression goes down two lines at the start. The first is a series of passive talent choices, with additional trees for the three master class choices. I greatly appreciate that it seems like I can just come in here and respec at will. That is deeply refreshing coming from Path of Exile where I am scared to death I am going to screw up and choose the wrong thing.

The next progression system seems to allow you to specialize in five different class abilities, with additional slots unlocking as you level. Right now I have spent some points specializing in my three-hit combo primary attack, and my lunging charge attack. I feel like no matter where I go skill-wise I am probably going to keep using these because they feel great. All in all the structure of this game feels something more closely related to Diablo III than the Diablo II roots that games like Path of Exile or Grimdawn have. I honestly appreciate the more hand-holding given in the talent trees and the ability to just respec everything at will. I always hated the need to roll a new character if you wanted to try something different in ARPGs and consider the freeform nature of Diablo III to be a benefit to the genre.

While I was able to get past the control scheme boss, many of my past complaints still exist. Classes are gender locked and there appears to be no manner of character customization. Mage is always going to be an old man with a book, which admittedly is better than the old man in a diaper look that Diablo III gives the male Barbarian. So depending upon your personal preferences here, you might end up having to play a character that does not suit your representation choices. Admittedly this is a problem in general with ARPGs, but one that I keep hoping someone realizes IS a problem. I cannot tell you just how refreshing the character creation system was in Diablo Immortal. Too bad that game is a dumpster fire for other reasons.

I’ve not spent much time honestly in Last Epoch but it is already something that I want to explore a bit further. The lack of multiplayer play was always a bit of a bummer as well with Last Epoch, but more of an “in development” thing than a willful omission. It seems that Multiplayer is currently in closed testing and planned to be opened up to all players “soon”. I think ultimately more than anything that is going to determine how engaged I become with this game, is whether or not it can scratch the same multiplayer fun itches that Diablo III has for many seasons. The design of the end game is extremely important for long-term replayability. In the meantime, however, I am preparing myself for the launch of the new Path of Exile league and getting in truly on the ground floor of that experience. It launches on a Friday night, which hopefully can give the same sort of vibes as a Diablo III seasonal launch.

ReedPOP and E3

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Good Morning Folks! Last week we got some news that E3 would be returning fully in 2023 and that it would be handed off to ReedPOP. If you are not familiar with that name, then you have likely never been to a PAX show. Essentially this is the management company that brings you all of the various PAX shows, New York Comic-Con, MCM Comic-Con, and the Star Wars Celebration among others. They do an extremely good job of running these shows and as a result, I think this is probably a great call to add E3 to the bounty of their responsibility. As a company, they have a unique understanding of how to navigate the communities of pop culture fandom.

Pax South 2015 – Heart of Thorns Announcement

The only problem that I see with this, is that ReedPOP is extremely focused on Fan experiences, and E3 has traditionally not been a fan-based show. Sure over the years, they have flirted with having fan-specific events happening around the show with public access hours to the floor. However, the crux of what E3 was designed to be… was to be a business event where game companies could mingle with both gaming press and distributors to show off what was coming in the next calendar year. E3 came into existence when the video game industry effectively outgrew the Consumer Electronics Show and needed its own vehicle. As such this became the show to announce anything, but most specifically new hardware generations.

As fans what this also gave us was a single week where an entire year’s worth of news coalesced into major presentations by large games companies. If there is anything that I miss from E3… it is this aspect where during a single week I would have back-to-back shows to watch and write about. Some of these were phenomenal and others like the ill-fated 2013 Xbox presentation linked in supercut form above, were not so great. Regardless you knew that over the course of a few extremely condensed days, you would reap the whirlwind of gaming news and have new things to daydream about. Sure most E3 demos were utter fabrications rushed to market to have something shiny to show off, but it represented a fulcrum on which games media turned and as a result something that the fans could bank on.

The first blocks to fall from the E3 fort, came when major publishers broke away from the core convention and started hosting their own elaborate pre-E3 reveal shows. These were still in person and still at venues surrounding the main E3 event, so it seemed “fine”. However, it was a sign that publishers were all too happy to abandon E3 as a concept and do their own thing if it seemed to be a better deal for them in the long run. Then came the digital-only shows like Nintendo Direct, which effectively replaced the pomp of the larger venue-driven events. They were not something that people who were already attending E3 could walk over to, but instead something that was more focused on the fanbase.

This trend was already starting when we all had to shift and deal with a global pandemic, which ultimately canceled pretty much every in-person show. The thing is… life finds a way and effectively EVERY game publisher shifted to doing their own version of Nintendo Direct. Geoff Keighly did what he does and organized a replacement for E3 in the form of the Summer Games Fest, and I legitimately assumed that E3 as we knew it was a figment of the past. The thing that I mourned the most however is how spaced out the entire process has become. Essentially the “Not-E3” shows started sometime in late May and are continuing still with upcoming events still planned to take place in July. The end result is… that I personally just don’t have the focus to follow a long schedule of events that spans the course of three months. I could tune in and be focused for four or five days max… and this year I think I watched TWO of the dozens of shows that were available.

Don’t get me wrong I think that ReedPOP is going to do a phenomenal job with organizing this show and making it run smoothly. However, E3 only has any gravitas if it can somehow convince the major publishers to play along. PAX already exists and does a much better job of supporting the smaller publishers and indie developers that get lost in the mix of a large show. Without PlayStation, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, Square, and Nintendo on board with the notion of a return to “in-person” shows and events… then E3 is just a brand that serves no purpose anymore. The problem there is I am not sure if the math adds up to E3 making sense for them to make a large deal about. During the time of the pandemic, they have all built their own direct marketing brands and with them their own shows. The eyeballs that used to be on E3 have how shifted to being focused on publisher-specific shows and whatever amalgam Keighly happens to be promoting at the time.

I have to admit that Microsoft did a phenomenal job this year with its Xbox, Bethesda, and soon-to-be Blizzard showcase. This is the only show this past year that I watched in real-time because it summoned forth enough interest to make me anxious over what I might see. As much as I might want to return to a time when we had a tight block of news updates all landing within the same week… I think that era is gone. We will continue to see the shows spread out more so that they are not in direct competition with other publishers. The way the E3 system worked the shows all happened within mere hours of each other, and as a result, it encouraged direct comparison. Fans talked about who “Won E3” and presented the best showcase… hint… it was never EA. Now in the post-E3 reality that we have been living in for the last two years, the individual publishers can give their shows a bit of breathing room… and plausible deniability.

Like I said before E3 was always a working convention, and one centered around the business of making, selling, and writing about games. I do have to wonder if the addition of ReedPOP to the mix signals a shift in the show to being more fan-focused. I do not think that E3 is likely going to get the major publishers back in the fold, and the best they can possibly hope for is some E3 adjacent events. Instead, the show itself is going to have to change into something different. Essentially I think going forward E3 is going to be PAX Anaheim for lack of a better term. The Keighly machine will keep rolling and keep courting publishers into his larger-reaching digital productions.

The above chart is from The Video Game Awards website and shows the significant growth that little venture has seen. In 2021 not listed on the chart there were a reported 85 Million viewers across the various global live streams. No matter what you think about E3… it never reached those sorts of heights. I think publishers have realized that they do not need a physical presence in order to reach fans and that the money spent on the small number of people who can actually physically go to a venue is better spent on digital outreach. I think the zombie of E3 will continue to linger for a few more years, but ultimately at some point, the decision will have to be made if it just ends… or pivots into becoming another PAX-style show. I think the last few years have shown that fans care way less about bespoke venues and instead just want some cool video game trailers.

AggroChat #395 – Friends of Einhar

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Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Tonight we have a show where we are mostly discovering games that have been out for a very long time.  We start off with Rimworld and Tam’s adventures in this story generation engine.  From there we talk about Wolfstride and how it is a very 90s anime representation of a video game.  From there Tam talks a bit about the Star Citizen Guide program that links someone needing help with a live person to help them, and how recent changes have made that system work strangely.  Finally, we dive into Path of Exile and how the rabbit hole has widened and captured most of us.  We talk about confronting the passive tree and the weird edge case builds it can support along with some early multiplayer experiences.  We also talk a bit about how important it is for games to support a controller and a mouse and keyboard to meet the players where they are most comfortable.  Finally, we dive a bit into the microtransactions within Path of Exile and their general acceptance.

Topics Discussed

  • Rimworld Adventures
  • Wolfstride
    • Very 90s Anime Game
  • Star Citizen’s Guide System
    • Echos of Everquest Guide System
  • Path of Exile
    • The rabbit hole widens
    • Multiplayer experiences
    • Controller Support in ARPGs
    • Acceptance of MTX

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Many Games and Little Focus

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Path of Exile – PC

Good Morning Friends! I find myself in a weird position right now where I am picking at the bones of several games but not terribly engaged with most of them. There was a time when I used to create these “regularly playing” posts, and in theory that is what today’s post is going to largely be. However, I just don’t really feel like reviving that format. If I was going to say I had a primary game at the moment it would be Path of Exile. I am very much in a bit of a honeymoon phase with that game… or as “honeymoon” as you can be with a game that is actively trying to make interactions with its systems difficult. I am not in my 60s on the Explosive Arrow Champion build and I have a few baby alts that are doing different things that I am poking around with as well. We have several folks from the AggroChat podcast playing right now and as a result, we have a “Greysky Armada” guild up and running. Not that I actually understand half of what there is to do with a guild… but we have a Guild Hideout and at least some Guild Stash storage.

Outriders Worldslayer – PC

Since Outriders Worldslayer just released, I am spending some time playing around in that game. I enjoy the mechanical systems but am a bit frustrated with how limited the expansion actually was. Essentially at its core, it adds one new activity to the game… the Trial of Tarya Gratar. If for whatever reason you don’t want to engage with the time commitment of that event, then you are stuck doing the same familiar grinds that have been in place since the release of the game. However, with the game being way more generous about dropping legendaries, I am actually trying to build a proper gear set focused around the Seismic Commander set. At the moment I am wearing mostly the “purple legendaries” gear until I can get a decent roll on all slots of the actual gear set.

Guild Wars 2 – PC

I am still logging in pretty regularly to Guild Wars 2, but I am not really doing much of anything. At a minimum, I farm resources in the three guild halls that I can farm each day, and gather what home instance nodes I have. Most days I try and figure out a quick path to getting 3 dailies done and get my 2 gold. However lately I have not even been doing that. Essentially I need to pick a goal and then focus on that because while I have a wealth of things that I could be doing… I am pretty directionless in actually doing any of them. I could focus on my Skyscale or knocking out the karka hunting achievement which would give me some way of disposing of excess ascended materials. The problem is that I fail miserably at actually sitting down and focusing on any of them.

New World – PC

I am in a similar “maintenance mode” with New World, where I am logging in most days and harvesting enough materials to get 3 of the Hidden Stashes which turn into diamond gypsum, and one of the proficiency caches that gives me emerald gypsum. I then take these out to Shattered Mountain where my inn is bound, craft some gear for expertise boosts and then log out for the day. Doing this has allowed me to take all of my armor slots, sword, shield, and warhammer to 600 expertise. Right now I am working on pushing up greataxe and hatchet. At some point when the major patch drops that take away dungeon keys I will probably start running some of these again through the new group finder tool. The devs made a joke about calling them tuning orbs and expeditions… but I am sorry… that is obtuse and weird. They are dungeons and they are keys and “ya done fucked up” by not naming them the industry standards.

Final Fantasy XIV – PC

I am even in a worse state with Final Fantasy XIV right now. Basically, I am logging in every 4 days… either to go house shopping among the ever-dwindling number of housing plots… or to collect my money from the lottery system because I lost yet again. None of these interactions make me happy. I am very sad about the state of housing in Final Fantasy XIV. The lottery while it helped in some ways by keeping me from having to set up an auto clicker in order to succeed… but I also feel pretty hopeless still about my prospects of acquiring a house. Now that there are additional catch-up mechanics, I really should dive back into the systems and catch a character up. However, there is a mental barrier between me and this game at the moment. If I win a house I will once again have the desire to spend time in this world, but so long as I am homeless I am lacking that traction.

Diablo III – PC

My return to Diablo III was a whirlwind romance. While it was not my fastest season in the world, now that I have finished up with those achievements and gotten the rewards… I have very little desire to keep playing. I had started a Hardcore Seasonal character, simply because I had never actually played in that game mode. I have to admit what knocked the wind out of my sails was when I realized it worked vastly different than I was expecting. I assumed that when I took a death, the hardcore seasonal would turn into a softcore seasonal. I mean this is how it works in Path of Exile and my brief jaunt into Hardcore Minecraft… but my assumptions were wrong. Instead, your character is just gone, and I cannot stomach the idea of wasting time on a character that poofs. This combined with the fact that I just got into Path of Exile has more or less stopped this project dead in its tracks.

Diablo Immortal – PC/Android

Lastly, we have Diablo Immortal. This one is mostly just a footnote because I have uninstalled this game from all of my devices and not looked back after my “fruitless grinding” post. There were a lot of things I liked about this game and the way some of the systems interacted. I specifically loved the way that legendary items worked, and how you could extract the “legendaryness” and apply it to other items. It appears that Diablo 4 is going to do something similar to this, so it makes me very excited for what that game might end up feeling like in the end. However, the monetization of Immortal is going to give me a great pause for what the future of Blizzard games looks like. I have to admit though I had some fun while it lasted, and if they at some point in the future come to their damned senses and make this a more reasonable option… I might return. Considering most of the reputable sources have stopped covering the game aside from the occasional dunk on it… I will be interested to see what the revenue stream looks like on this going forward. I am also curious to see what lasting impact this will have on the Diablo player base… since this essentially nuked the goodwill from orbit.