Last Epoch is Hyping Up Multiplayer as a Part of Its Biggest Early Access Release
Mar. 6, 2023Last Epoch is Hyping Up Multiplayer as a Part of Its Biggest Early Access Release
Last Epoch, the time-traveling ARPG, is readying up for its version 0.9 Early Access Release. The biggest addition will be full multiplayer support.
Players who log in after the patch drops will be able to play cooperatively with up to 3 other players. There seem to be no restrictions in terms of content, meaning you can play the entire campaign and the endgame with your buddies.
However, Last Epoch’s multiplayer will be more likeDiablo II, and not likeDiablo IV‘s semi-shared open world. Players will need to assemble parties with their friends to partake in multiplayer, and you will only ever encounter people in your group. No randoms will be wandering the echoes of Eterra.
Of course, loot is one of the cornerstones of any good ARPG, and it will be no different in Last Epoch. All monster drops will be instanced so that players will not need to worry about their friends “accidentally” picking up that legendary item the second it drops. Any loot generated while in a party can be shared freely with all the folks in that party. More on this later.
Lastly, enemies will scale based on the number of players in the current group. Only health values will be modified with this scaling, which is more prominent in endgame activities. The damage dealt and the actual number of enemies will not increase with more players.
Eleventh Hour Games looks like they are definitely listening to the feedback of the community. One of the previous updates in December of last year introduced item gifting during the multiplayer tests. This decision was somewhat divisive, as many players enjoyed the feature while some others preferred that they solely rely on their own spoils of war.
The developers took the feedback to heart and are introducing what they call the “Item Factions” system. This is a simple reputation system at its heart and will split a character to be able to freely trade or sell any equipment or have increased quantity and quality of their natural drops in combat. Representing the “Merchant’s Guild” allows players to trade their loot while working with the “Circle of Fortune” which increases loot quality.
Some limitations, however, are being implemented to ensure that the system is not abused. A character can freely swap between the two factions. As you level one faction, you gain more perks, encouraging you to stick with one. Any item that you receive while representing one group cannot be used at all if you swap to the opposite. Essentially, this means that changing factions is like re-speccing your character entirely as items available to one group will be completely unavailable to the other.
As mentioned earlier, any loot that drops while in a party can be freely shared with anyone in the group. The in-game gifting system allows this functionality, wherein generous Eterrans can just simply right-click their friends’ portraits and hit “Gift Item”.
At the moment, only equipment pieces and idols (thinkcharmsfrom Diablo II) can be sent to your friends. This includes any gear that may have been created from the game’s extensive crafting system. Runes, Glyphs, and other resources cannot be gifted.
Also for those who hate their friends, any item gifted to you can freely be given to someone else later on. You monster.
While multiplayer is definitely one of the most exciting aspects of Last Epoch’s Convergence Update, there’s even more coming in patch 0.9. Eleventh Hour Games has done overhauls to many of the game’s systems, including combat responsiveness and engine optimization.
Since slaying hordes of enemies is the bread-and-butter of the genre, the team has made killing monsters more satisfying. This is thanks to the new on-hit and on-death effects that will occur from all types of enemies. Expect the battlefield to be a lot more bloody due to this change.
Additionally, using different damage types to decimate your foes will trigger varying effects. Fire damage will cause an enemy to be immolated during its death animation, while frost will freeze and maybe even shatter the target.
Tons of visuals have also been updated. Everything from player character animations to NPCs to monsters, almost everything in-game got a pass-through, especially the older elements.
Much like the visuals, sound has also received substantial updates in this Last Epoch update. Some skills have received “substantial reworks” in their quality, such as Disintegrate, Aura of Decay, Meteor, and a ton more. A ton of skills also receive new hits sounds, ensuring that combat sounds as meaty as it looks.
New music as well as voice acting for select NPCs is just the icing on the cake.
If I had one criticism of Last Epoch’s early access, it would be the game’s optimization. While already visually appealing, the game would hog resources and would sometimes struggle to maintain a steady 60 frames per second.
Hopefully, this will change for the better now, as the team has worked a lot on performance. One of the techniques that they’re using for this is called “pooling”. This has player abilities added to a “pool” when used, saving the effects in memory for later usage. When an ability is used again, it is drawn from that pool instead of having the game re-render it.
There’s definitely more to it, as Eleventh Hour Games details tons and tons of technical info on their optimization efforts on the game’s Steam Page and forums. Check those out for a more detailed look into making sure Last Epoch runs as perfectly as possible.
We’ve already covered a ton of info above, but Last Epoch’s Convergence Update has even more up its sleeve. As with most major ARPG updates, 0.9 will include tons of balancing, tweaks, and other small changes here and there.
In other news, check outDragonheir: Silent Gods is a New Turn-Based Strategic RPGandLost Ark Sets to Bridge the Gap Between Regions.
Auberon
Writer at Fextralife. I really like vanilla ice cream.
