Last Epoch News

We hope all you Druid fans are ready for some excitement because heading into patch 0.8.4 our Primalist’s most adaptive Mastery is receiving a full development update. We are eager to share our vision for the future of the Druid Mastery, and all the exciting changes coming your way before the end of the year.

Today marks the kickoff of our Druid Development Week, so stay tuned over the coming days to catch even more great news (full schedule below)! Today, we will be focusing the Druid’s first and most ferocious transformation - the Werebear.

We’re moving away from a mana based resource for all Druid transforms. Previously, to maximize time in the form you often had to avoid using your heavier abilities and that resulted in one-dimensional gameplay where you mostly spammed your low cost abilities. Instead, all Druid transformations will now use a new resource called Rage. Rage will be restored to full when you enter a form and will then drain slowly over time. Skills themselves will have little to no Rage cost by default so it won’t feel punishing to utilize your whole set of abilities while transformed.

There will be many ways to recover Rage, so you have a lot of build options if you want to stay in one form for a long duration. Reaching the point where you can stay in a form indefinitely should be much easier than before and there will be more ways to achieve it.




The design goal of our new Werebear model is to connect our players to a 'massive, in your face brawler' type of fantasy. We started with new concept art, increasing the size and presence of our thick-furred fighter. Concept #3 - 'Top Heavy' was quickly selected as the best champion of this fantasy.





Next came the design of our new ferocious model. Below you will find the upgraded version of our Werebear complete with new textures & materials including bone, claw, fur and war paint.






When recreating the Werebear we knew we wanted him to feel like a massive brawler. Some of the design requirements here included moderate mobility and heavy sweeping attacks. The previous Werebear kit missed the mark in a few areas. Firstly, Charge felt too fast for the size and stature behind the Werebear. Secondly, Swipe was a bit too successful at restoring your Mana, preventing our Druid players from feeling the desire for working in Roar or Ravage into their rotations.

In our 0.8.4 redesign the Werebear form has a mix of both new and returning skills, and even the returning ones have been revamped with new VFX, sounds, altered base functionality, and new potential in their skill trees! Here is a sneak peek of the new skills being added to the Werebear’s ferocious arsenal.
[h2]Swipe[/h2]
Swipe is one of the more successful elements of the previous Werebear form. The ability to use the existing Swipe skill tree to augment your Werebear’s abilities was really great. It lets you create a stronger build while not wasting those precious specialization slots if you wanted to be permanently transformed. We saw this and made a focused effort to get a few more interactions like Swipe into each of the Transform trees. Every good brawler also needs a consistent, spammable, damage skill, and Swipe fits that role very well.


[h2]Warcry[/h2]
We replaced the old Werebear Roar with Warcry because it felt extremely thematic and fitting. This also reduced redundancy within the Primalist skills as a whole. We were then able to apply a re-shuffle of the skill unlocks, allowing Warcry to be unlocked in base Primalist instead of Beastmaster. Now, if players choose to specialize in Warcry they will gain the full effects in their ferocious Werebear form.


[h2]Maul[/h2]
Maul is a new skill for Werebear, replacing Ravage. Ravage had two issues that we wanted to resolve. Firstly it didn’t feel distinct enough from Swipe to use, given its similar status as a low AoE melee attack, and it was difficult to balance it to compete with Swipe when the latter had its own entire tree. Secondly, the new werebear model has different proportions, with much larger arms and a less prominent head. A bite animation like Ravage no longer made sense with this new model.

We still wanted to include a heavier melee attack with a cooldown in Werebear form to provide a way to mix up the melee gameplay so that it’s not always just Swipe Swipe Swipe. To reinforce a distinct use case for this melee attack we decided to give it a medium to a large area of effect and gave it more damage. We added movement to it to make it feel very different to attack with, and to help add enough weight and impact to the animation. With all these changes, the old name Ravage no longer fits so well, so we changed it to Maul.


[h2]Rampage[/h2]
Every good brawler would really love a way to get around the battlefield quickly. Especially in an ARPG. While the Werebear’s charge provided this option and it worked mechanically, it was not ideal for a charging Werebear to be moving so fast. It was also basically the same as Lunge, which we weren’t super enthused about. So we took some of the other themes and ideas we wanted to portray to come up with a new movement skill that is unique and fun. Having a wild Rampage feels very thematic. Mechanically you don’t move super quickly, but you damage all the units along the way and you can slightly adjust your trajectory while moving.




One of the strengths of the Druid fantasy comes from its ability to adapt to danger through transformation. In our previous version of the Werebear, this transformation also came with a fair amount of restrictions. Once you transformed you lost access to the previous skills on your bar that you chose to specialize in. Our new Werebear design solves this problem by introducing several options for you to tie in previously specialized skills and utilize them while transformed. As a result the Werebear arsenal feels deeper and more diverse than ever before.
Here are just few examples of these nodes as well some other powerful ones.

Few example nodes which allow you to utilize other primalist skills in the Werebear form Werebear specialization tree offers a wide variety of powerful nodes. Bringer of Storms and Crackling Assault in action

Thank you for checking out this sneak peek of some of the changes coming to the Druid’s Wearbear form in Patch 0.8.4. We hope you join us again soon to check out the exciting updates coming to the Druid’s skill - the Entangling Roots.

Here is a peek at what you can expect this week! See you next time!

Druid Rework Development Week:

1st November - Werebear Form Rework
2nd November - Entangling Roots Rework
3rd November - Spriggan Form Rework
4th November - New Form Teaser
5th November - Druid Overhaul Overview and New Form

In recent patches, we update the 3D and 2D art of several weapon groups and added powerful implicit affixes to support a wide variety of builds. In the next patch, we are updating more weapon groups such as the polearms.

We’re also making a couple of changes to item type names in 0.8.4. Polearms are being renamed to Spears and maces are no longer sometimes referred to as blunt weapons instead of maces. This changes from “polearms” and “blunt weapons” to “spears” and “maces” is being made for a couple of reasons.

• When we originally named these item categories, we went with names that had wide scopes that clearly encompassed all their individual base types. However this resulted in the names themselves feeling quite dry and technical, especially blunt weapons, so when choosing the new names we instead decided to prioritize compelling names with a strong fantasy attached.
  
• The second reason is that the intentionally wide scope of the original names resulted in ambiguity where they could arguably refer to base types that did not belong to them. In the case of polearms, we have items like the Imperial Halberd and Lucerne, which are an axe and mace respectively (they work better with those animations), but in a real-world sense they are polearms and many other games categorize them as such. Meanwhile, blunt weapons could be understood as also including sceptres and staves, especially as the name is stylistically different to something like “swords” or “axes” and so could easily be misconstrued as referring to a larger category of items.
  For both new names, there will be more cases where the item type doesn’t perfectly describe an individual base type, such as Spear for Trident or Mace for Pick Hammer. However we believe that this style of naming convention for these item types is common enough in RPGs that this won’t trip many people up, and if someone is unsure about an item’s item type it is better if that confusion is just not knowing what it is (e.g. “what is a club? Is it a mace or something else?”), than mistakenly believing that it’s the wrong item type (e.g. “I’m guessing that Lucerne is a Polearm”).
  

Now, let’s take a closer look at some of our new Spear weapons, which you will be able to find in 0.8.4.
[h2]Sun Spear[/h2]


[h2]Trident[/h2]


[h2]Ice Spear[/h2]


[h2]Coiled Bident[/h2]


[h2]Dragonslayer Glavie[/h2]


[h2]Deicide Lance[/h2]


We’ll be sharing more exciting news about upcoming content and features very soon through our social media channels so make sure to follow along:

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In the October 2021 Development Update we revealed our plans for Patch 0.8.4 and beyond where we talked about our ongoing efforts to increase the visual quality and fidelity of the game. New character models are an important step for the future of Last Epoch. The upgraded models will increase the fidelity of the characters, and lay the groundwork for facial animation support during key story moments in future updates.

The Sands of Majasa Update brought an exciting new Primalist model and armor set - something you can continue to look forward to in our next update. Next up on the remodel, the Sentinel!





In addition to the new model, the Sentinel is getting two new armor sets. Say goodbye to his starter armor set, one of the oldest sets in the game! In the image below you can see the replacement for our beloved and internally coined “bucket-head armor set”.



The second Sentinel armor set coming in Patch 0.8.4 will start dropping in mid-game. Our art team has added a lot of new details to this collection, combining several materials like leather, cloth, and metal. We continue to push ourselves towards new and higher standards for our character models and we are very proud of the work done here with the Sentinel.



We hope you enjoyed our first look at the new Sentinel model and armor sets. We’ll be sharing more information and teasers on the upcoming patch through our social media channels so make sure to follow along:

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Hello, Travelers!

Our most recent release, The Sands of Majasa Update, raised the quality bar for our patch releases and is a good example of what our growing team is able to accomplish. We welcomed thousands of new Travelers to our community, and with your help we hope to continue building a home for all Last Epoch players for years to come.



To our outstanding community members who have been working hard to keep in-game chat an inclusive and welcoming experience for all of our new Travelers - thank you! Due to our quickly expanding community, we acknowledge the need for a major update to our in-game chat services to provide you with a fun and functional experience. We’ll have more to share on our plans for updating chat in the near future.



We know players are excited about multiplayer in Last Epoch and we can’t wait to play with all of you, however, there is still work to be done before we can open the floodgates. We feel it is important to remain transparent about our progress, which is why we publish a monthly multiplayer status report. Last week, we released Multiplayer Progress Update - September 2021. To learn more, check also our Multiplayer FAQ.



A few months back we talked about changes to our roadmap format. The goal of this change is to better inform players about what’s coming to the game next. And in the spirit of these changes, today we’d like to share our forecast for 0.8.4.



As you can see in the updated forecast, the next patch will bring a lot of interesting content and long-awaited changes. Let’s take a closer look at what you can look forward to in patch 0.8.4, coming later this year.



Legendary items and the Eternity cache are a major feature of 0.8.4. Since announcing these features all the way back in 2018 we’ve iterated on their design a lot internally to ensure that they enhance Last Epoch’s itemization by providing great end-game chase and make item drops more exciting. . We’re not ready to announce exactly how Legendary items work or how the Eternity Cache factors into their acquisition, but hold onto your exalted items that have good affixes. You’ll want them.



Earlier this year we talked about plans to improve the Druid mastery and especially the transformation skills and mechanics . Here are some changes you can expect to see in this next update:

• New Druid form
  
• Transform skills are all getting new visuals
  
• Transform skills are all getting new skill trees
  
• New transform mechanics including a new resource system
  
• The ability to stay in transforms permanently more easily
  
• Support for multi-form builds
  
• Keybinding for druid form abilities
  
• Reworks and Updates to other druid skills
  

We will share more about these changes in the upcoming weeks, but for now, enjoy this sneak peek of our reworked Werebear gameplay.





Patch 0.8.4 will bring our first dungeon into the game. The dungeon system is another major system in Last Epoch that we will build upon over time adding more dungeons and dungeon mechanics in later updates. We will have more information for you closer to the patch release, but for now, we can reveal that it will utilize our first iteration of map layout randomization and will offer different gameplay compared to Monolith maps.



Crafting in Last Epoch is one of our fan-favorite systems so when making updates to it, we want to be careful not to change what players like about it. However, we feel there are some issues with the current system. For example, the random factor and fracturing items can lead to “feel bad” and frustrating moments.

In 0.8.4, crafting will get some major changes. It will still be deterministic, and involve using shards to augment or add specific modifiers on the item, and we also still keep an element of randomization. However, that randomization will no longer come in the form of an item suddenly fracturing.



We are improving Last Epoch’s visuals every patch and 0.8.4 will be no different. For example, In the Sands of Majasa Update, the Primalist got a new model and we will be adding new models for the rest of our characters in this upcoming patch. New models will support facial animations which will be important for the future improvements of the game. We are also hard at work on creating new and updated armor sets as we’re nearing completion brand new models on all of our in-game weapons and offhands.

Many visual effects, that don’t represent the current quality of Last Epoch visuals are being reworked. Some initial targets beyond the Druid rework include Flame Reave, Serpent Strike, Wandering Spirits, Frenzy, Haste, and many on-hit visuals.



We also are constantly looking to update older enemies. Some of the void enemies encountered early in the game are some of the oldest and are being brought up to our modern standards.



Another enemy that we will be replacing is all forms of Spriggans.



Last Epoch’s character creation and selection screen is also showing its age as many have pointed out. We understand that first impressions are very important and we’re reworking these screens entirely to include new visuals, better representation of characters, and updated UI.



One of our long-term goals is to continue to improve and rework campaign chapters to bring the quality of the campaign up to our new standards. We are adding more voice acting, making dialogue and narrative adjustments to help engage players with the story, and working on lore collectibles which will give players a way to know the deeper stories of Eterra.

We also have targets that will make combat in Last Epoch feel more impactful and satisfying. It is absolutely crucial to get the feel of the combat right, and we are exploring many improvements we can make , including updating hit visual effects, exploring directional hit effects, improving hit sounds across the board, and more.

We’ll be sharing more information and teasers on the upcoming patch through our social media channels so make sure to follow along:

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Thank you all for the amazing support and opportunities you’ve provided to Eleventh Hour Games. We’re working hard to make Last Epoch a game that you want to come back to for years to come.

Hello travelers, and welcome again to the monthly multiplayer update!

Through the last month we were hard at work delivering our Sands of Majasa update, which of course takes some of our attention to ensure we can deliver a high quality release to everybody. We were humbled to see more and more engagement with new players every day, and the reality of what this means for the scale of our multiplayer release is not lost on us.

I'd like to update everybody on our goals from the August Update, as well as share some information about some decisions we've made for group Arena play. I am also going to discuss some of the learnings we have made about the scale we need to get to in order to ensure a high quality multiplayer release.

Onwards to the updates!

1. Convert the Idol System to be 100% server authoritative

This is complete and works well online. We will have ongoing work to fix a number of the Idol affixes, specifically the ones that have very unique custom properties such as casting other abilities. It's more important for us to focus on the backend and technical portions of multiplayer at the moment, so we are happy with the progress we have made here until we get to CT and MP Alpha testing.

2. Collect additional server performance data

I am very happy to say we now have this. We can now actively see the performance of all of our game servers at any given time, and we have a permanent history of them as well. It's possible for us to find outliers, good and bad performance, and major outages using our own hand build diagnostics. This is crucial for us to be able to work quickly if there are issues when we go live. If you are having a bad time when Last Epoch multiplayer goes live, we're going to know where to look right away.

3. Improve gamepad support for server-side multiplayer

We performed some preliminary investigations here, and discovered that it will take some refactoring of our existing gamepad code in order to make it easier to co-develop it with multiplayer. We know what to change and have a plan of how to do it, and anticipate no issues making it all work. We are going to return to this project once we're done focusing on our backend and scaling.

4. More testing and optimization of the Arena experience for multiple players in a party, and advance supporting systems noted above

After playtesting, we have decided that Multiplayer Arena runs will use a group voting system in order to allow players to vote on whether to continue to more challenging Waves.

How it works

• Every 5 waves, a "majority rule" voting system will determine whether the arena run continues to additional waves
  
• When a player in a group dies, they will remain down until the end of the 5 wave run. If the whole party is downed, the entire Arena run ends
  

A Party voting on whether they want to continue an Arena run


Why use a voting system?

During playtests, we felt that having an entire run end due to one player having to leave the party unexpectedly felt too punishing.

Using a majority vote system to progress in the Arena allows the party some level of flexibility, which is particularly beneficial when attempting longer Arena runs.

We will continue to assess the multiplayer Arena experience and make any further changes required before we release it all to you.

5. Start preparing to add Multiplayer to the Community Tester Program

I probably should have been anticipating the response here, as I caused some chaos for our support team by having the community reach out through our support network :) sorry!

We had an overwhelming response of people interested in involving themselves in our Community Testing program, no doubt aided by the fact that it might involve early Multiplayer Testing.

I want you to know that we've received everybody's responses and we'll eventually be selecting new candidates as we get ready to test our game at scale - if you've already applied we will eventually get to you.

[h2]Multiplayer Stability and Scale[/h2]

It's first worth establishing two important concepts: Last Epoch as a multiplayer game, and Last Epoch as a platform.

The first refers to all our game content and gameplay "netcode"; setting up all the game content online, compensating for gameplay lag - essentially making sure the game is functional and feels as good as our singleplayer game does.

Last Epoch as a platform involves *everything else* it takes to bring a game online: How do we allocate you servers? What is our matchmaking code? How does our character storage database work? Can our login system handle hundreds of thousands of requests at the same time? Do we need a queue system? Do we have metric systems in place to monitor the health of all this?

We have been performing relentless testing of our multiplayer platform for Last Epoch to ensure it can scale up to handle many players, and do so in a stable manner. Between our continued development of our own skills as Live Ops developers, as well as observations about modern ARPG releases, we have learned a lot about where the real risks of a live release are (hint: the servers are the easiest part).

As a result of all this testing and learning, we have come to discover that some of our backend services may not hold up well to scale as well as we would have liked them to. We are very happy to make these kind of observations now before we release to a lot of unhappy people unable to play our game, but it still means we need to go back and make some changes.

So what does this mean? Firstly, this does not stop us working on Last Epoch multiplayer gameplay content - we're still readily adding and testing our singleplayer content and preparing it for group play, making sure it feels great and performs well. It does mean we are taking a step back on some of our backend systems to make them even better, such as the way we allocate servers, or our chat system.

While these discoveries can often feel like a setback, the reality is that we are collectively quite relieved to now have the confidence to build out our own platform and own it. We are also confident that we'll be able to quickly fix any problems that might happen when we go live. We now have a clear vision for Last Epoch as a long-term live platform, and I'd like to share more of my philosophies on that next month.

[h2]What are our goals for October?[/h2]

We will be focused on making the changes mentioned above for the sake of our stability and scalability. We're actually well underway in most avenues here, and we hope to be playtesting Last Epoch multiplayer with our new changes in the next coming weeks. Until then, we're still actively adding and changing game content to account for group play.

Rather than provide a list of bullet points this month, I plan on discussing the core pillars around what matters to us for a successful Multiplayer release, and what you as a player should expect from us when we go live. I will also update you on the progress we make strengthening our backend to prepare for release.

I'm sure we're also going to show you a cool gameplay feature or two ;)

Thank you so much for all the support, and I am really excited to show you all what we have cooked up for next month.

Stanzwar