Rory Mckay

So far, this game is everything you want in an ARPG. Any gripes you have had in the past about others, will quickly become a distant memory as you dive into the robust nature of Last Epoch. Where others are one dimensional, this ARPG has depth --- right down to the tool tips. From class build variety, unique skills, mechanics, systems, to quality of life, it's a well thought out game with the end user in mind. No buyers remorse. Especially since the price point is "on point!"

What I think is that the company has lost it's way with the franchise and perhaps as a whole, based on playing Blizzard games for 30 years. I have seen a shift from creating games to the monetization of them instead. There is a lot of evidence of this, but I will stick to the facts of D4 and not go too deep with explaining why those things are bad, because it's all over the web and also, quite frankly, I am so disappointed and tired of talking about it. The good: - Graphics - Music - Gameplay, progression, character power increase and scale for most classes DURING the campaign The bad: - Gameplay, progression, character power increase and scale for most classes after the campaign decreases significantly AFTER the campaign - Many affixes on gear don't roll together often enough for key builds that are necessary for classes to not lose power and to progress - Gold being valuable idea created a market for farmers to dupe and sell gold, thus inflating the market beyond a non dupers scope to purchase/trade - Many bugs that should not have made it to live versions, like the eternal realm character port to seasonal - Season 1, it's bad, really, really bad - The battle pass, Google how dirty it is - The shop, same as the battle pass - Devs response to character power loss by significantly decreasing all character class power as a fix before the season 1 - The significant decrease to experience gain in open world content or normal dungeons, and shard gain from hell tides, has resulted in mistrust of the devs, because the only option is to play nightmare dungeons, funneling the play into this specific route despite the devs claiming they do not want nightmare dungeons to be the focus - Many things are too costly, respec, gear creation with aspects, reforging stats gear - Reforging gear gives two options and exponentially increases in cost - Many class mechanics do not fit properly or have synergies - Many class mechanics rely heavily on unobtainable gear because of the drop chance and affix roll odds - Some classes have paragon damage buffs to damage they cannot do (sorc specifically) - The game has significantly increased the amount of different items needed but has decreased the storage capacity of the charcter and personal stash - An overwhelmingly large amount of performance issues from rubber banding to login, disconnects, etc. that should simply not be happening due to the company's experience with online gaming (~25 years or so), their presales numbers, open beta numbers, the on demand computing, storage and scalable infrastructure we have today - A staple of the franchise is the "secret cow level" themed events that were not released (unless this was recently discovered) - They removed an entire school of damage - Arcane, from being part of the character skillset... game was rushed There's a lot more but, these issues are enough to get started. While some aren't too bad as a single issue, they are compounded with other issues to create a deeper problem within the game that can't be fixed with a patch that just adds numerical buffs. I wouldn't buy the game if I had the choice again. Apologies if any spelling errors, but I am too tired to check