Last Epoch News

Hello Travelers, and welcome back to the Pre-Patch Hype Week Blog Posts - Weekend Edition!

For today’s post, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the new enemies and models you’ll be encountering in Beta Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames.



[h2]Quill Hog[/h2]
The first one up is a very colorful fellow which you may have spotted during the Reaper Form post. The Quill Hog is a new enemy which will be encountered as early as the first chapter of the game. Like many things in nature, bright colors may look pretty, but more often than not indicate danger. That is certainly the case with the Quill Hog, which is able to use its quills as both tools for burrowing and as projectiles.



[h2]Bolroth[/h2]
The next new enemy we’re taking a look at is the new Bolroth. This large and lumbering creature sports some very odd adornments. The coral-like structures contain a sickly-sweet substance attracting small prey, which then become entangled and pulled down into digestive fluids deeper within the structure to be consumed by the Bolroth.



[h2]Rahyeh Soldier[/h2]
Rahyeh’s forces are also getting a facelift in 0.9.1. Today we’re showing one of his common foot soldiers. A zealous servant of Rahyeh, this soldier is more than happy to meet blades with you.



[h2]Vine Crawler[/h2]
The flora inhabiting Eterra has also grown more deadly in the Rising Flames with our last new enemy we’re showing off for today. Most often found in heavily vegetated areas, with sharp thorns and a temperament to match, the Vine Crawler is one plant with 6 foot deep roots.




Alongside new enemies, some other models are getting visual updates bringing these models up to our current standards in preparation of our 1.0 release. Starting off for all the Primalists out here, we present to you the new Primal Wolf and Primal Bear companions! These new models feature adornments and armor helping them stand out as companions, alongside new animations to give them more personality. Who’s a good doggo? All Primal Wolves are good doggos!

[h2]Primal Wolf[/h2]


[h2]Primal Bear[/h2]


[h2]Unique Item Models[/h2]
We are very pleased to announce, that as of the release of Patch 0.9.1 Rising flames: every unique Weapon in Last Epoch now has its own 3D Model! We want to share a few of these with you today, and hope you enjoy the beauty of these new models for uniques we’ve been familiar with for so much time without them.

[h3]Storm Breaker[/h3]


[h3]Acidfletch[/h3]


[h3]Soul Bastion[/h3]



That’s all for today’s look at new Enemies and Models coming in Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames. We’ll be returning with the Pre-Patch Hype Week Post on Monday and look forward to seeing you all there as we release with our final, and biggest Blog Post for 0.9.1 Rising Flames, coming May 25th!

Travelers, as you are likely already aware, yesterday’s announcement has given us another chance to earn our reputation as the community-driven ARPG, and the studio that listens. We’ve spent the last 24 hours reading your feedback, discussing it internally, and deciding what to do next. I want to thank our community for challenging us to be better. We’re here today to say we hear you, and want to answer that challenge.

We are making three immediate changes.





Admittedly, we ended up leaning too hard into following the established and successful models in the industry. The operational cost of EHG as a studio has risen sharply with the increasing team size, quality of the game, server expenses, etc., and our current price tag of $35 for the game was never designed to be the only source of income to ensure that we’re able to continue operating. So, when we were evaluating our options, we leaned on advice designed around previous titles, and that was a mistake.

Last Epoch fans aren’t here because they want something that’s already been done; you are here because you see how much we have to offer the genre. Over time we hope to bring that same innovation and player focus into the monetization space.

New Pricing and Purchase Experience
As echoed in our community yesterday, the experience of purchasing currency bundles and then managing leftover funds is not an enjoyable one. So moving forward we will have a new structure of currency bundles at the following price points:

• $4.99 USD = 50 EP
  
• $9.99 USD = 100 EP
  
• $19.99 USD = 200 EP
  

*note the 1c offset on these prices is not something within our control to adjust at this time, as it is powered by Steam’s localized pricing model. Also note Steam will automatically convert USD into your local currency.

Additionally, items for sale in the store will always be equally divisible in 50 EP increments, meaning that if you see an item in the store that you want, you will be able to purchase exactly enough currency required to buy that item, and no more.





We are now also ready to announce our Supporter Pack pricing for Rising Flames. For players who choose to purchase cosmetic MTX, we want the Supporter Packs each cycle to be the reveal that is most looked forward to and the place you can go to get the most value for your money spent each cycle. We hope that value is recognized below, but we of course will be keeping an ear out for your feedback.

• Eternal Traveler - $20 - (includes 150 EP)
  
• Eternal Templar - $30 - (includes 150 EP)
  
• Eternal Vanquisher - $40 - (includes 150 EP)
  
• Eternal Legend - $50 - (includes 150 EP)
  

As with all things, art and design are subjective in nature, so what’s fantastic and exciting to one person may not be to the next. There can be some levels of understanding of “This item is more grandiose than this item,” but at its core, humans are so varied and unique in their perceptions that we’re never perfectly aligned in what we think is “cool” or “worth it”.

We say this because we understand this concept, and so when some players say, “That’s ugly, I would never pay X,” or they say, “That’s way overpriced for that garbage,” you also have to recognize that there are others who say, “Wow that’s awesome and fits the character I’m making perfectly” and think it’s a good choice.

With that in mind, we understand that the price points proposed initially were met with a general sentiment of being too high, and we’ve made adjustments to our inventory that will be ready to share fully for 0.9.1 - Rising Flames.


As for EP itself, we have seen confusion around why we need a separate currency at all. Which is a completely fair question, and it does have good reason. This is a larger conversation, but it’s important to break it down because the answer is many-layered.

First, using an intermediary currency is very much necessary from a transactional / functions standpoint. This includes things like being able to award EP for community events, being able to refund EP when there is a hiccup with the actual transaction process, and being able to resolve payment disputes with Steam/sellers.
A big part of this is our ability to reward our player base in ways that give them freedom of choice. We want to make cool things, but “what’s cool” when it comes to cosmetics to incredibly selective. It’s much better if we can use EP as a reward and allow you to get the things you would want, instead of being saddled with something that you felt wasn’t worth it. Though, there may be some specific cosmetic rewards in the future as well.

We have done a lot with our community in the past, and we have plans to do so much more. Utilizing EP is just one of the ways that we can continue to do so.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Epoch Points are something that we have offered from the very beginning of the Last Epoch existence. They were initially called Cosmetic Coins as a placeholder, but there are quite literally millions of them distributed to our players already. We have always intended to use a secondary currency as a reward system, and again, this just puts it in a place where any other option just could not work.


To sign off, Last Epoch is a passion project being made by fans of the ARPG genre and gaming as a whole. When our community tells us in unison that we have made a mistake, we have always worked to correct it. We hope that if you’ve been part of our community for long enough that we’ve shown that to be true, but we know many of you have joined us recently and we look forward to the next 10 years of proving it to you.

We sincerely thank you for your passion in what we’re creating here at Eleventh Hour Games and taking your time to provide us with your feedback. We hope and aspire to always rise to the occasion to correct our mistakes when we’ve planned or introduce something that isn’t well received by our fantastic fans - the fans who have taken us from a small after hours group on Kickstarter to the studio we are becoming.

Appreciate you all,
Judd.

Hello Travelers and Happy Friday!

If you happened to read yesterday’s post, you may have caught today’s topic at the end, “Weaver’s Will”. Like any good cliff-hanger, we’ll be continuing that conversation in today’s episode of Pre-patch Blog Post Hype Week!



Weaver’s Will is a new Unique item type arriving in Beta Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames. These items expand the roster of item rarities, entering the fray with Unique and Legendary items, by being both!

Similar to Unique Items, all Weaver’s Will items will have a fixed list of effects which will be unique to that specific named item. Where they differ from normal Uniques, is that these items do not roll Legendary Potential, but instead roll a Weaver’s Will value. These items will always drop with Weaver’s Will, and have a roll range of 5 to 28.



Instead of crafting on these items, these items will level alongside you as you play. As you kill enemies in Eterra with one or more of these items equipped, the Weaver will rebuild the item, consuming a point of will to add an affix to the item. The item can rebuild a total of four different affixes, at which point it starts upgrading the tiers of the existing rebuilt affixes (it could also increase the tier of an affix before acquiring all four affixes). These items can even be rebuilt all the way into exalted tiers of affixes including up to T7.



The Weaver, though, is a bit more discerning in their taste for items, meaning normally “rarer” affixes, such as +skill level, will be far more common to be rebuilt for slots such as relics.



Rising Flames will also arrive with several new Uniques to continue expanding on potential build opportunities. While this post is primarily dedicated to the new Weaver’s Will Unique item type coming in 0.9.1, we also want to share an example of one of the new Uniques coming in Rising Flames.



With a whole new way to reach Legendary items in Last Epoch, as well as the ever-expanding roster of Unique items coming in this patch, we’re excited to see what kind of builds everyone comes up with!

We’ll be back again tomorrow with a look at some of the new awesome enemies and models coming in Beta Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames.

Hey Travelers!

If you’ve been waiting for your chance to put a little extra shine on your favorite hero of Eterra then today’s announcement is for you - Rising Flames brings the beta launch of Last Epoch’s Cosmetic Store and our new Supporter Packs. We are very excited to bring some of these awesome upgrades to our community for the first time, and we can’t wait to see all the amazing work our designers have created - wielded by, conjured by, and running alongside the Travelers of Eterra.

As fans of the genre ourselves, we know that Cosmetic Stores come in all shapes and sizes, and so they inspire a wide variety of opinions from players. We get that. So let us take a moment to share our thoughts and guiding principles below.

[h3]Why are we introducing a Cosmetic Shop?[/h3]

It has always been our goal at EHG to develop a great ARPG for the community to enjoy for the next 10 years. We want to deliver new content multiple times each year and continue to lift expectations and push limits of what a great ARPG can be. To be transparent, this is an expensive goal. Content production at this magnitude is a multi-million dollar annual development expense, with millions more in sever expenses each year.

The Cosmetic Store is our way of introducing a fully optional, power-free, and truly feels-good way for our fans to unlock cool new stuff, and support the development of Last Epoch so we can create great content in Eterra year after year.
[/expand]

[h3]Will there be pay for power in Last Epoch?[/h3]

No. We’ve been saying this from day one, and it won’t change. Pay for power, no matter how little of it is introduced, simply breaks the spirit of the game. We will not be offering a head start to those who pay more, we won’t be offering a battle pass stacked with power-based currency, or anything else that gives you a competitive advantage.

Every purchase in our shop will be purely cosmetic and entirely optional.
[/expand]



After the launch of 1.0 each new Cycle will bring with it a new set of supporter packs for our players to enjoy. With Rising Flames, we are kicking off our Pre-Launch Support Packs - the “Eternal” Series. These packs feature exclusive Portals, Backs, and Pets from each of the four Eras in Eterra.

When new supporter packs are launched, those packs will only be available during the current Cycle in which they were introduced. For the Eternal series, this timeframe will last from the launch of Rising Flames until 30 days beyond the launch of 1.0.

Supporter packs offer exclusive cosmetics to players joining us for a specific cycle (these items are not available in the shop). Once a given set of supporter packs retire, players will no longer be able to purchase those cosmetics. We will certainly give our community notice when a series of supporter packs are no longer available for purchase.



Supporter packs will be available directly through Steam, or through the in-game store which redirects to a Steam-purchase overlay. We also intend to have them available for purchase through our web store in the future.



The Cosmetic Shop will be available in-game either by using the hotkey (by default “U”), or through the menu. The in-game store will allow you to filter what kind of cosmetic you’re looking for, and provide you a large view of those items while browsing.

It’s also important to note that the items available in the Cosmetic Shop during this beta launch are only a small sample of what we intend to launch with future patches. This phase of the Shop is designed to gather and incorporate feedback from the community, work out any bugs, and provide an early look at the types of cosmetics players can expect. The Shop will be launching with only a select amount of Back, Portal, and Pet slot cosmetics. As you can see on the sidebar in the preview below, we intend on exploring other categories of cosmetics in the future, such as weapons and skill VFX.



Selecting an item will give you a larger in-game rendering of the item, with any related animations, as well as include a video of the cosmetic in action so you can be confident in what the cosmetic really looks like - all while browsing.



(Edit: We do apologize, these captures had an incorrect price listed for this particular item. We recognize that caused some headache. We have corrected the error from 250 EP to 165 EP for the Glacial Path portal)



Previously called “Cosmetic Coins”, Epoch Points will be the primary method of acquiring cosmetics from the Cosmetic Shop. For many familiar with Cosmetic Shops, this should be a fairly familiar experience. Basically, EP provides a way to pre-load your account with funds for cosmetics, these points will be available to purchase cosmetics with at any point. Your already existing Cosmetic Coins will be displayed as Epoch Points - this is just a name change, not any difference in value or quantity.




Epoch Points can be purchased through Steam, and are automatically loaded onto your account. They will be available in the following denominations:

- 9.49 USD for 120 points
- 18.99 USD for 265 points (240 + 25 bonus)
- 49.99 USD for 755 points (630 +125 bonus)



With the Cosmetic Shop Beta becoming available, we want to strongly reiterate our stance regarding MTX. We will not offer power or convenience as MTX. This has always been our stance, and we have no intention of changing it. We will not sell loot pets, we will not sell experience boosts, or dungeon keys, stash tabs, or anything of that nature.

It is important to note that we are building the Cosmetic Store as a way to support the long term development of an amazing ARPG we love - not the other way around. We want to ensure the game itself always offers the best quality of life features and conveniences we can create, and nothing is held back for monetization. We will also continue to push our standards for non-purchasable in-game gear models, animations, VFX, and everything else that makes Last Epoch look great.

Thank you all for joining us again for today’s blog post, as we get ready for Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames, and we’ll be back tomorrow to talk about Weaver’s Will!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to the second day of the Pre-patch Blog Post Hype Week!


Originally we were going to be talking about towns today, but in a Shyamalan-like twist, we're going to instead be covering the new Reaper Form coming in Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames!




Reaper form is getting a whole new visual overhaul to better match the theme with new robes, scythes, and VFX. We think the visuals can speak louder than words on this one.




With the flames rising on May 25th, you'll now be able to reap the fields of Eterra in style. Reaper form will now also use Reap when you transform, using the skill tree, allowing you to get into the fray right away.



0.9.1 continues our goal of improving our visuals in Last Epoch, getting things up to our current standards, and with this new Reaper Model, we continue to push Last Epoch into its 1.0 Era.

We'll share again here the original concept artwork which inspired this Transform, which I know I regularly keep as my own computer Background!





Thank you all for joining us today for a quick look at the new Reaper Form coming in Patch 0.9.1 on May 25th, and we'll see you all again tomorrow for our next post of the Pre-patch Blog Post Hype Week as we talk about the Beta version of the MTX Store.