Last Epoch News

Hello Travelers,

First and foremost, we would like to thank all of you who participated in the Pack the Server Event Week. We understand it was a lot to ask to sign up for the event, and changing around branches on Steam to get involved, and we greatly appreciate everyone who took the time and effort to do so. This event was able to provide us with all sorts of great information from not only our backend systems but all sorts of feedback provided directly by all of you.

Bugs were encountered and squashed. The servers struggled and were improved. Over the course of the event, we released several hotfixes to improve and fix various issues brought to our attention, and eventually even released the last remaining endgame system to the event, the Arena, alongside a number of server-side improvements which made it possible.

One of the things we were able to test to great results was our ability to quickly develop and QA changes based on feedback, complete a build for the fix and release the build within a short timeframe. On the day the event started, the client released at 10:00AM CT, then only 6 hours later were able to release the first hotfix for several bugs, as well as adjust to feedback changing the beta disclaimer to only display once per account. Over the event, we also continued to get a lot of great feedback regarding the various performance, scenes, VFX, and SFX sounds, which were great to read and feel the excitement for 0.9. Overall, we were very happy with the results of the event.

As we continue to close in on 0.9 (less than a month away!) we’re focusing almost entirely on resolving the remaining bugs as all core systems for 0.9 are in place. That means all the little bugs regarding quest state tracking, channeling skills, controller adjustments, and continued endgame server performance are the items on our remaining hitlist for 0.9. Of course, we still have one more upcoming event on Feb 23rd, the Open Beta Event, in which all steam users are able to participate, even if they don’t currently own Last Epoch.

Over the coming weeks, we will be posting more information regarding the launch of 0.9 Convergence, some more specifics on some of the changes you all got to experience, and of course as we close in on patch day itself, the much-anticipated patch notes!

Thank you, everyone, we hope you enjoyed your time during this preview of 0.9, with the zone reworks, skill changes, and of course the early multiplayer beta allowing us to get the servers tuned for the much-anticipated release of the multiplayer beta on March 9th.

We hope to see you all there on March 9th for Beta Patch 0.9 - Convergence!

Hello Travelers!

This past weekend we held our first of multiple multiplayer events, the “Invitational”, which went exceptionally well. The aim of this event was to gather feedback, test our live operations procedures, and give the community their first full look at playing together with friends in Last Epoch. We were able to capture a ton of significant data and feedback to help us prepare for the multiplayer release coming with Last Epoch: Convergence on March 9th.

From what we observed, many of the participants thoroughly enjoyed the new and updated campaign zones, all the VFX, SFX, and music changes, which was fantastic to hear. We also received a lot of positive feedback regarding the ease of grouping up, and generally feeling great playing together for hours on end, outside of a few minor bugs (we’re on them!). Some issues that we are aware of and have been actively working on did rear their heads during this event, such as server-side performance in end-game activities and specific late-game team strategies that were providing too great of a bonus for groups. While we were aware of these kinds of things, from the event, we were able to get a better view of where these impacts are coming from, have made some adjustments to our priorities, and have already made some changes for the next events.

We want to go over some of this feedback and what kind of differences you can see between the Invitational event, future events, and Patch 0.9.



[h2]Server-side performance[/h2]

One of the last things we saw during the event, but one of the first we want to address, is some late-game activities server-side performance. While participants agreed that client-side performance has improved significantly with this release, we did encounter some issues with server performance for endgame builds that can spawn a lot of objects. As mentioned, this was something we were already aware of and actively working on for 0.9. However, the event was able to show us a few specific things that were leading to more performance loss than others.

One of the largest offenders we were able to identify was server lag encountered when groups would split up within an area to individually tackle different parts of the zone. This caused a number of issues, including many actors to all be activated at once, and the server needed to handle that data flow for each player. We’re already well along on a fix for this which should greatly help reduce that performance hit, and while it won’t be in place for Thursday’s event, it will be in place shortly after. There are other hidden things we’re working on (like excessive server logging); however, we think this was one of the more visible issues, and so wanted to make sure we’re addressing it here.

Another offender we saw with ‘lag’, was actually not performance at all. We found some participants who were experiencing lag were actually being assigned to incorrect server locations, such as European players being issued North American servers. This is something we immediately began investigating, and have some changes in place to help address incorrect server allocations which should help with many of these scenarios. In conjunction with the added ability to see server region with the latency tooltip, we expect this to help improve the experience when partying with various players, as well as being able to recognize reasoning for certain ping values.

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]

Of course, there was a lot of gameplay experience feedback provided that we’re acting on as well. For the next event, we’re prioritizing some of the quickest improvements we can get in in time. Some adjustments are technically smaller things, like adjusting the latency bar to represent expectations with ping values better, and adding server information to the latency tooltip, however, this can have a much larger impact on user experience and received more feedback than we expected. As such, we’re working on adding these two items for the event this Thursday.

One of the more common areas of feedback we received during the event was that the campaign was made a bit too easy when in a full party. In response to this, we’re going to be bumping up enemy health scaling for the next event. We’re doing this in smaller increments, so we don’t over-correct, as many of these players are highly experienced players, but we’ll be continuing to monitor feedback on this and adjusting as well.

We also heard from participants that they really enjoyed the new online monolith experience with seamless transitions between Echoes and Echo of a World (the rest area in monoliths). For the campaign, though, the length of some loading screen times was a common topic. We have some adjustments already in the pipe to help reduce these loading screen times, which we’re hoping to have in for this Thursday’s 10k event.

[h2]Itemization[/h2]

Another common topic of feedback was item gifting and the user experience of it. While feedback noted that the interaction felt really good with gifting, and it was a strong addition to gameplay, currently, once you gift an item to a party member, that item can’t be gifted again. Being unable to gift it further caused a couple of negative experiences during the event, so in response, we’re changing this so that when an item is gifted, it retains its ‘giftability’ status and can still be gifted to all the same people who were eligible for it. While this does offer a bit more power to the gifting system, we want to prioritize a fun experience.

Many keen-eyed community members also called out that there seemed to be something up with item drop rates during the event, and that some things appeared a little more common than normal. They’re correct! In response to feedback from both previous blog posts, and event feedback, we’re adjusting some drop rates. In particular, this means making ‘rarer’ idols such as Smite on Throwing Hit not as rare, culling some of the lower level drops - converting them into crafting material drops, and adjusting the distribution of exalted items to make drops more exciting rather than all the focus being on echo reward nodes. We’re continuing to tweak this to reach an even better state in the looting and gearing experience in Last Epoch, and are actively watching feedback on this topic.

We also see the efficiency of boss farming in multiplayer talked about frequently. We currently have an active plan to bring this in line that we’re working on implementing. When you participate in a monolith boss fight in multiplayer, in order to get rewards you will need to have sufficient stability for the fight, and receiving rewards from the fight will cost your stability. So while you can participate in any boss fight, in order to get rewards you need to have, and spend the stability for it. This means you won’t be able to farm stability once as a group, then chain bosses with each party member. While this change won’t be in place for Thursday’s event, we wanted to acknowledge that we do hear this feedback, and are actively working on it!



There are, of course, many other things we’re continuing to work on, and with our next pre-patch event in only a few days, we’re hard at work on getting everything ready for this Thursday’s 10k Multiplayer Beta week-long event. We’re really excited to get everyone in the community into the experience, as well as the big Pack the Server party, where we’ll ask everyone to help us break things on Saturday. There’s a lot to see and explore with 0.9, including many new unique items, base item changes, updates and adjustments to almost every skill in the game, new zones, VFX, SFX, Enemies, and a whole bunch more. Even if you’re not a big ‘multiplayer’ enthusiast, there’s still a lot to see and check out in this patch.

If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to sign up for the 10k event, you can quickly and easily do so here: https://events.lastepoch.com/packtheserverparty. We hope to see all of you in Eterra in just a couple of days.

Until then Travelers, may the bees be with you!

Hello Travelers!

March 9th is getting closer by the minute. With only a bit over a month left, that means It's getting time for pre-patch events!

Everything is kicking off this Friday, January 27th, with the Invitational event! For this event, many of your favorite Last Epoch streamers will playing and streaming the internal test version of Last Epoch Patch 0.9.0 - Convergence.

If you've been paying attention to our streams and dev blogs, there will still be all sorts of new features to catch, including balance changes to almost every skill, item changes, more than a dozen new unique items, visual reworks, new music and SFX, and more! So make sure to tune into your favorite content creator this weekend to get their point of view on Multiplayer and Patch 0.9.0 Convergence.


Here is a short list (though it's not final) of content creators who you should be able to catch throughout the weekend streaming!




Presented in no particular order:

- GhazzyTV
- Lizard_IRL
- McFluffin
- Ter3k
- Heavy_GamingTV
- QuietForMe
- AaronActionRPG
- Palsteron
- crouching_tuna
- PerrythePig
- dr3adful__
- VisionGL
- Thyworm
- jaytheproduct
- TheAristotelian
- RektbyProtos
- BorOfSol
- DmGamingEu
- VulkanARPG

After this event, make sure to keep your eyes peeled on our social media channels as we will then be posting more information regarding the February 2nd Pack the Server party, open to all Last Epoch owners. This will include information on how to get your account registered and put in queue for the event!

Finally, on Feb 23rd will be the Multiplayer Open Beta Weekend, which will feature a special trial version of Last Epoch available to all steam users to try out Patch 0.9 and multiplayer up to Chapter 5! So if you’ve been watching Last Epoch, and have been waiting for an opportunity to give it a try, this event will provide you an opportunity to not only try out Last Epoch, but also the upcoming patch!

We're again really excited about these events, and hope to see you all this weekend with the first Pre-patch event!

Join us as for our weekly Dev stream with Senior Game Designer Mike.

The Stream Charity for December is Salvation Army International.

All twitch subscriptions, bits, and donations will be going towards this charity!

All past streams can be found on our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LastEpochGame/videos

Join us as for our weekly Dev stream with Senior Game Designer Mike.

The Stream Charity for December is Salvation Army International.

All twitch subscriptions, bits, and donations will be going towards this charity!

All past streams can be found on our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/LastEpochGame/videos