Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where ability buffering was not working online
  
• Fixed a bug where Bone Curse with Illusion of Pain would not fall off after 1 hit if the hit came from Chaos Bolts with Cursed Blood
  
• Fixed some instances of infinite loading screens when playing in a party
  

Changes

- When portaling to a team member that's inside an echo, you will now be placed in Echo of a World with the green portal to join at the time of your choosing.
- When health is a fraction of 1, it will now always round up to 1 instead of rounding off resulting in health sometimes displaying as 0

Bug Fixes

[h2]UI[/h2]

• Several item tooltip fixes, including:
  
  
  
  • Fixed a bug where opening / closing an item tooltip would have a drastic performance cost
    
  • Fixed a bug where tooltip text could continue off the edge of the tooltip instead of wrapping
    
  • Fixed a bug where some languages with a larger text height could be missing information on tooltips
    
  • Fixed a bug where prefixes and suffixes had different line spacing on item tooltips
    
  
  
• Fixed a bug where some enemies were not displaying their top of screen health bars
  

• Fixed a bug where some skills, primarily traversal skills, would not work after a zone transition until using a different skill first.
  
• Fixed a bug where some scorpion enemies were unable to be targeted by Spirit Plague
  
• Fixed a bug where channeled movement skills could break if continued to be channeled after running into a wall
  
• Fixed a bug where every other use of Void Cleave with the Gravity's Edge node (traversal) would have its hitbox at the start of the movement
  
• Fixed a bug where skills could stop working after closing a panel until the panel was closed a second time
  
• Fixed a bug where the player's character was visible under the surface on certain locations during using of Synchronized Strike and Lethal Mirage
  
• Fixed a bug where Puncture's Stay of Execution, and Detonating Arrow's Aimed Shot nodes would play the VFX before the character animation when charged to max
  

• Fixed an instance of a bug which could break all party interactions until re-logging
  
• Fixed a bug where players were unable to portal to other party members when both players were inside of an echo
  

• Fixed a bug where Shade of Orobyss' "Starburst" ability would explode upon his death
  
• Fixed a bug where the falling rocks during the boss fight in Lightless Arbor could sometimes fail to display a telegraphing indicator before falling
  
• Fixed the invisible walls during the Elder Gaspar fight in The Chambers of Ruin, which could block projectiles
  
• Fixed a bug where Death's Embrace's Grim Harvest could trigger while at negative mana
  
• Fixed a bug where Enemy VFX could stop playing / freeze
  
• Fixed a bug where enemies would fail to play their death animation
  
• Fixed a bug where the B_Circle button would focus the action bar panel (skill bar) if it was previously selected
  

Changes

[h2]Systems[/h2]

• Added Camera Smoothing options to settings: Normal (default/current), Low, and Off
  
• Added functionality to Character Delete screen
  
  
  
  • The screen will now display the character class/mastery/level
    
  • When deleting a character, you are now required to enter the character name to confirm the deletion
    
  
  

• The "B" button on controller can now be used to close keybind prompts
  
• After binding a controller button, the cursor now re-focuses on the corresponding binding
  

• Reduced gold turn-in reward for Desert Treasure from 20k to 2k
  
• Added Buff Icon for Bone Armor (Acolyte)
  
• Improved performance when picking up Shards
  

• Fixed an issue where the Mage would T-pose during some animations
  
• Fixed several cases of back-slot clipping and floating capes
  
• Fixed a bug where the Sentinel idle animation with a 2H weapon would behave as if a shield was equipped
  

• Fixed a bug where if a panel was opened with keyboard and mouse, further button presses via controller would activate the assigned skills through the panel
  
• Fixed a bug where when opening the bindings menu, or interacting with it, with a mouse, would result in the bindings disappearing
  
• Fixed a number of bugs with rebinding controller configuration
  
• Fixed a bug where players would continue to run in the direction of their last input if the game became unfocused while moving
  

• Fixed a bug where player health bars were not appearing in offline
  
• Fixed a bug where Forged Weapons' health bars could be displayed at top-of-screen instead of the boss' health bar
  
• Fixed missing Localization in the Gifting panel for resonances
  
• Fixed a bug where Item Tooltips would get stuck when adding a new tab to the stash
  
• Chat channels are now specific to cycle/non-cycle
  
• Fixed a bug where Husk enemies would not have health bars
  

• Fixed a bug in offline where players would not have full health, mana, and potions after logging in or reviving
  
• Fixed a bug where invalid offhand items could be equipped from the forge (eg. catalyst with a bow)
  
• Fixed an issue where monolith quest progress would reset if you left the zone/server after starting, but before completing the quest chain.
  

• Fixed a bug where Bone Curse "Signet of Agony" node's resulting aura would persist after de-speccing out of the skill
  
• Fixed a bug where Erasing Strike's "Ravenous Void" node's void beams wouldn't move in online play
  
• Fixed a bug where Volcanic Orb could be cast in incorrect directions, such as flying up when the cursor was over top of a ridge line
  
• Fixed a bug where if you teleported back to the monolith hub or rest area while a companion was downed, the revive UI would continue to persist even after being revived.
  
• Fixed a bug where Manifest Armor was not benefiting from Increased Area for Area Skills stats on items the player is wearing that are applied to Manifest Armor, such as on gloves
  
• Fixed a bug where the Gathering Fury unique bow's chance to repeat bow abilities was applying to non-bow abilities, and could kill the player if it repeated a Falcon ability
  
• Fixed a bug where Boardman's Plan's chance to summon a Storm Totem on hit with Tempest Strike was not working
  
• Fixed a bug where triggered instances of Tempest Strike were not benefiting from the Tempest Strike skill tree
  
• Fixed a bug where Bone Curse's Marrow Thief node would not grant 10% less damage taken
  
• Fixed a bug where Death Seal's Skeletal Sheath always granted Bone Armor for a fixed duration, ignoring the duration Death Seal was active
  
• Fixed a bug where Firebrand's Galvanize node would disable Brand of Arcanus
  
• Fixed a bug where Flame Rush could cause the player to become invisible
  

Hello Travelers,

Today we wanted to connect with everyone regarding the recent gold exploit, as well as exploits in general within the online environment. We want to talk a bit about what were doing in regards to these issues, and what our plans for the future are.

We take exploits within Last Epoch very seriously and ensure that any time an exploit comes up, we give it our full and immediate attention. We strictly enforce our Terms of Use when it comes to exploits and RMT (Real-Money Trading), and as such, one can expect that abusing such exploits or engaging in RMT, both buying and selling, will result in a permanent account ban.

Since 1.0 has launched, we have been aware of two exploits. The first allowed duplication of items through the bazaar. We were made aware of this exploit three days after its first discovery, and deployed a fix for it the same day. The second exploit we became aware of was the recent gold exploit, which we created and deployed a fix for in less than 24 hours of being made aware of the exploit.

[h2]Current Actions[/h2]

In response to the gold exploit, we have reviewed gold activity on an account level, identifying, and banning those accounts which have been participating in illegitimate gold generation. We dont want to speak too much to how this was tracked, as it could only really serve to provide bad actors information to try to avoid detection. With this, we are aware of the concerns of legitimate accounts being falsely flagged. We are quite confident in our tracking not falsely flagging accounts, though as always you can appeal any moderation action through support.lastepoch.com.

We have also banned accounts with duplicated items from the first exploit, and we have been and are continuing to process and ban all accounts linked to RMT services (both buying and selling). These regular account bans for RMT involvement are actively removing significant amounts of gold from the economy, which we expect will help bring down inflation.

We are aware of the inflation which has occurred within Merchants Guild, and are discussing methods to deflate the economy again. We expect the removal of much of this gold through the bans to both those who exploited the gold bug, as well as RMT involved accounts, will help quite a bit, though we are also discussing additional actions. At this point, were not implementing any actions which were able to talk about, however if we do plan to take any actions which directly effect players we will communicate those actions.

[h2]Moving Forward[/h2]

We want to make sure were not only reacting to exploits, and are instead working on proactive measures to prevent exploits in the first place. Were making sure to act both on a technical level and on a user level. Actions were taking on a technical level are much harder to discuss, as saying what we would be doing is just providing information to bad actors on how to try to exploit after. However, we want to strongly state that we are not ignoring these exploits occurring and are taking active measures to combat them.

Lightless Arbor and Runes of Creation generating legitimate duplicate items has also been contributing to the perception of item dupes. Some of this comes from awareness regarding that these legitimate duplicates are possible, as well as to what extent. It may be surprising to know that Lightless Arbors Vaults of Uncertain Fates can actually produce up to 12 duplicates of the exact same item. These legitimate duplications can produce some very suspicious-looking listings on the Bazaar. So when we talk about changes on a user level, what we mean is that we are working on not only preventing these exploits, but also this kind of confusion being generated by user experience. As our first action to help address this, we will be introducing mirrored item card graphics to help visually represent when an item is a legitimate duplicate (on duplicated items, the 2D art for the item will be mirrored / flipped).

Weve also found, in general, the Merchants Guild centralizing of gold leads to a fair amount of inflation all by itself, and as such, are looking into and discussing inflation control methods such as implementing a Gold Tax on transactions in 1.1. We dont want to implement this kind of change during the current cycle as it would be a fairly fundamental change to the Bazaar and Merchants Guild. Well have more information concerning inflation counters, Tax or other, as we get closer to 1.1.

[h2]Closing[/h2]

We dont think its a very controversial statement to say that abusing an exploit, ruining the game for all players is not acceptable, and that doing so should result in a ban. We also acknowledge this isnt just on bad actors, but its also our responsibility to do everything we can to prevent these exploits from being possible in the first place.

With that said, we want to be clear in stating that we acknowledge the feedback from the community concerning allowing these exploits to have slipped through, and want to make sure we state that we are taking these events very seriously. We are actively investing in both addressing, and preventing these exploits, with no efforts spared, or shirking of the issues.

Hello Travelers,

In today's Hotfix, we are fixing a list of things for you!

Changes

• Improvements have been made to Monolith visuals and performance along with several bug fixes
  
  
  • Fixed a bug where some channeled movement skills such as Rampage could end abruptly in the Alpine Halls monolith echo
    
  • Fixed issues with trees obscuring your view in the Hidden Oasis monolith echo
  
  
• Added a fix that will warn players when files must be verified.
  
• Fixed Loot filter toggle "X" sensitivity
  
• Fixed bugs where the following skills' damage areas were not scaling with area modifiers from their trees or from items
  
  
  • Abyssal Echoes
  
  
  • Dancing Strikes (not all parts of the combo were affected by this bug)
  
  
  • Erasing Strike (just the initial hit, not the void rifts)
  
  
  • Forge Strike
  
  
  • Healing Hands
  
  
  • Necrotic Mortar (from Summoned Skeletal Mages)
  
  
  • Reap (from Reaper Form)
  
  
  
• Fixed Passive and Skill Tree localization issues
  
• Updated visuals for Announcement banners
  
• Updated Unique Reward icon in Monoliths from Ring to a generic icon
  
• Added missing name to Graveyard
  

• Fixed a bug where the player's Falcon could fail to be unsummoned after the player has died
  
• Fixed a bug where Warpath would cause players to become stuck in place and unable to move
  
• Fixed a bug where Drain Life with Blood Pact and Ghostflame with Arteries of Malice would stop channeling when at very low current health
  
• Fixed a bug where Healing Hands was still scaling with cast speed instead of melee attack speed when Seraph Blade was allocated
  
• Fixed a bug where Gathering Storm was still scaling with melee attack speed instead of cast speed when wielding a staff and Lagonian Diplomacy was allocated
  
• Fixed a bug where Thunder Tempests from Tempest Strike's Cloudburst Conduit could not hit enemies
  
• Fixed a bug where Added Spell Damage Affix with Tempest Strike did not work
  
• The grace period for your minions now ends when your own grace period ends
  
• Fixed a bug where attempts to cast minion-targeted abilities like Dread Shade on minions that were in grace period would always fail
  
• Fixed a bug where stationary minions would never leave grace period, resulting in them never attacking
  

• Fixed a bug where items sold in Online mode were displaying original price in the "Buy Back" tab
  
• Fixed a bug preventing Defensive Conversions from displaying in the character sheet online
  

• Fixed a bug where Soul Embers would persist after the dungeon was completed
  
• Fixed a bug causing Void Despair to be invisible
  
• Fixed an error when leaving Offline mode
  
• Fixed a bug where, players spawning into a new location would reveal part of the map too soon.
  

Hello Travelers,

In todays Hotfix, we are reverting the change to the cost of Despair Glyph Prophecies.

With this, we wanted to talk a bit about why this change made it into the last patch, similar changes, and a bit more about our specific reasoning behind them.

[h2]Glyph of Despair Prophecies[/h2]

This change (favor cost for despair glyphs) didnt have anything to do with Merchant's Guild (MG) - at least, we werent aware of a significant issue being caused by MG players swapping to abuse this. We believe MG already has a very good pathway to Despair Glyphs with Vault of Uncertain Fates, so wouldnt have been benefiting from this prophecy by swapping.

This was actually something we had decided before 1.0, that the favor cost was too low for this reward along with other adjustments in a late pass. However with the post-launch changes/fixes, this was as soon as it made its way through the pipeline with other priority fixes pushing their way ahead of it. So this was purely in regards to its own balance within Circle of Fortune (CoF). One of the discussions this has started internally is regarding review of these delayed adjustments.

Our previous pipeline didnt include design looking at the final patches when they went out, so unfortunately we missed this change and re-evaluating it. We have adjusted our pipeline to try to catch delayed changes so we can be more mindful of them and consider if they should go out, or be delayed to the next cycle.

TLDR: The change was made before 1.0, got stuffed in the pipeline, and just finally got out without further design review on timing. Well be keeping a better eye out for delayed changes like this.

[h2]Arena Key Sell Prices[/h2]

With the Key value nerf, the impetus for it was as we had stated, that it was being leveraged by MG players with swapping factions. However, this was a change we had planned for some time, and it was really just the final push needed to prioritize the change. With the key values, originally they had a higher value on them so it gave them some value for players who didnt have any use or interest in them (never played arena).

Keys were never intended to be a source of gold farming, which is something which crept up over time with them being easier to target in the Monolith. With the interactions in CoF, it was the straw which broke the camels back, so to say. We definitely agree we did not sufficiently communicate reasoning behind this change, and thats on us creating that misunderstanding. Well be making an effort to include bigger picture reasons behind changes such as this, rather than the immediate reason, as we had.

TLDR: Arena Keys were never meant to be a method to farm gold, and it had reached a point of prominence that even MG players had begun to feel the need to swap to CoF to leverage it.

[h2]Mid-cycle Changes[/h2]

In regards to mid cycle changes, we had approved these changes as they dont impact moment to moment gameplay, and wont suddenly cause a build to not be able to clear a certain difficulty of content it was able to previously. The survey we had previously gone through was about those kind of build impacting changes, rather than general systems. We should also mention this is our guiding star, not our railroad. In specific scenarios we may decide another route is better, such as this Despair Glyph change not being enacted during this cycle. For these kinds of changes, we will use our best judgment, and will always be receptive to hearing feedback on them.

We have also seen some feedback regarding the survey not covering bug fixes which result in buffs. The reason for this is that we have always had the intention to follow through with bug fixes that result in buffs mid-cycle, and did not feel that was controversial to be surveyed. We wont be holding back bug-fixes that result in buffs.

TLDR: Our intentions with mid-cycle changes from the survey is to avoid nerfs to the power level of characters, or moment to moment gameplay. We will still do changes that are buffs. These are guides, not rules - we will exercise discretion.

[h2]Thank you[/h2]

As always, thank you voicing your feedback to us - it is sparking discussions about the timing of these changes, as well as communication regarding them. We hope we can clear up that both these changes were things we had been discussing for some time prior and were not just due to abuse, and help to put to rest some of the conflict were seeing.

CHANGES

• Reverted Favor cost increase for Despair Glyph Prophecies
  

Hello Travelers!

Todays blog is a little different from our usual fare. As most of you know, Last Epoch launched on February 21, and the reception has been amazing. In the first week after launch, over 1.4 million of you logged in to play Last Epoch. At our peak, we had just under 265,000 players all roaming Eterra simultaneously. Thats good enough for the 39th highest all-time concurrent player count recorded on Steam, and were humbled by your support and enthusiasm for the game.

Theres plenty of cause for celebration, but lets not ignore the obvious: Last Epochs launch was pretty rough for the majority of you who play online. Your patience and positivity have been amazing, but it was obviously not the launch experience that you or we had hoped for.

Now that the initial launch woes are behind us, its time to reflect on the experience. What happened? We put a strong emphasis on testing our servers and infrastructure ahead of time, so what did we get wrong? Last Epochs backend team is here to give you a bit of a recap of what went on during the launch.

[h2]How Our Game Works[/h2]

Lets begin with a quick explanation of how our game works when played online. When you boot up Last Epoch and enter the game, what you see as a player is relatively straightforward; first you log in, then you select your character, and then you join a game server. Behind the scenes, though, what youve just done is communicate with and move through half a dozen online services. These services log you in, provide you with game data, and give you a server to connect to so you can play the game. You connect to this game server, but then the server itself goes out and talks to even more services to authenticate you, load your character data, and check things like your party membership.

These supporting services are the backend of our game, and without them our game doesnt work. Some services are more important than others, but as a general rule, most services are required for the game to function. The good news is these services are all pretty resilient. Behind the scenes, each service is not one program but many copies of the same program. If one of the copies breaks down, the other copies keep working. Crucially, if a service is overloaded, we can fix that by just deploying more copies of the program. If our services are designed properly, we can handle any number of players; all we need to do is throw more copies at the problem.

(This design applies to our game servers, too; Last Epoch has never once run out of game servers for players because theyre all interchangeable, and we can create as many new ones as we need. The closest we ever come to running out of servers is when we get a spike in players and need to wait a short amount of time for extra ones to boot up).

[h2]Preparing For Launch[/h2]

The designing our services properly bit is the hard part. For some of our services, its very challenging to design them in a way that actually lets us scale just by throwing more copies at the problem. If you were around for the launch of patch 0.9.0, our first multiplayer release, you saw our game go down as soon as we crossed 40,000 players. Why? The service that matches players to servers had a design flaw where it started slowing down when there were many servers available. Once about 40,000 players joined servers, the performance of the matcher got so bad that it didnt matter how many copies we threw at the problem - every copy would crash under the strain.

The backend team spent much of the time between 0.9.0 and 1.0.0 hunting down and fixing these sorts of design flaws. Some flaws could be fixed easily, others required entirely new services to handle our players data in a way that could actually scale. We were given a blank check to do whatever was needed to support our launch, so the only obstacle was time.

By the week before launch, we seemed to be in a reasonably comfortable spot. Everything was built, and wed performed multiple rounds of load testing on our entire backend to ensure it could handle the volume of requests we expected at launch. The results were promising, and we hadnt pulled any punches on the testing either. We were as ready as we were ever going to be for launch.

[h2]The Morning Of Launch[/h2]

For something like a game launch, readiness is mostly about having a plan. You can have confidence that youve tested and prepared, you can have confidence that you know how your services work, but you cant have confidence that nothing will go wrong. Instead, you plan for what to do if something unanticipated happens.

On the morning of launch day, we went to scale up our server matching service to the numbers we used in our tests, and to our great surprise, it refused to spin up more than half the copies we asked for. Server matching is a critical service, and in our testing, it needed a high number of copies to handle all the players we expected, so getting stuck at half capacity was a serious problem.

This wasnt even the only pre-launch hiccup. In a case of unfortunate timing, our service host had an incident the night before - still ongoing at launch time - that affected us in a way that prevented us from deploying changes to any of our backend services using the tools we had relied on for months. Our ability to fix our services was killed at the same time one of our services needed fixing.

We had workarounds for these problems, but they were not quick fixes. We were going to need to break apart our deployment tools and move our services around manually, but this was not something we could sneak in before the doors opened to all our players. Minutes before launch, we estimated that we could handle maybe 120,000 - 150,000 players before things started to fail, and we crossed our fingers that wed be able to resolve our issues before the player count crept too high.

Well, you know how that went.


[h2]The Next 5 Days[/h2]


What unfolded over the next five days was a blur of emergency fixes and risk management. As it so happened, our first two pre-launch problems were only the tip of the iceberg.

In software, you sometimes run into a problem called cascading failure. When different parts of a software system rely on each other, an error in one part can cause errors in all the other parts as well. This can make it look like the entire system is failing even though only one part actually is. Finding the root cause of the failure is very difficult when everything is failing all at once.

The server matcher problem had caused a cascading failure in our systems. When players fail to connect to a server, they usually just try again, meaning our struggling server matcher had to deal with 2-5x the number of requests it would normally need to deal with. In many cases, players would get through the first half of server matching but would fail the second half, meaning servers would bring themselves online and then shut down again because a player never connected. Servers booting up and shutting down put pressure on our other services, and so some of those also started to fail.

When we fixed the server matcher, some other services continued to fail because they had trouble recovering from the chaos. Our deployment tools still required attention, so fixing these other services was a slow and manual process. To clear up the backlog, we needed to scale some of our services way past what would have been needed had the game been working smoothly. This brought with it new challenges since cloud services have some built-in soft caps that we would never have hit under normal circumstances, and working around those caps took time and, in some cases, code changes. We identified and cleared away many of these caps before launch, but we hit new ones as we scrambled to rearrange our backend.

You may be wondering, if the problem was recovering from too many players, why did we not simply have some downtime, or at least turn on player queues, to alleviate the pressure? The answer is that we did, but the problems ran deeper than the server matcher. At various points during the launch, we brought down our services, and many of you found yourselves in long queues as we struggled to keep up. Inevitably, once we started letting you all back in, we would run into problems again, and we could not clearly see what those problems were until we scaled everything up so high that the services stayed online and operational even though they were strained from other failures in other areas.

Sprinkled in with our deployment woes, we had a couple of genuine code problems in our services. One of them - one of the few examples where we straight up overestimated our ability to scale - was a bottleneck in how quickly we could process requests for a single town in a single region of the world. In Last Epoch, once you reach the End of Time town, you will always load into that town when you enter the game from character select. We knew ahead of time that this bottleneck existed, but we underestimated what would happen when we suddenly fixed a broken game and hundreds of thousands of players all tried to access the same town at the same time, in the same part of the world. We thought that the server matcher would be a little slow at first, and then it would start to fix itself as more and more people got into the game. What happened instead was that it took so long to get into the game that almost no one actually succeeded, so they quit and tried again, over and over, and the problem never tapered off. This was not the kind of problem we could fix just by adding more copies of the service, so it took some emergency problem solving.

Each time we found a problem and fixed it, we immediately saw improvement, but this allowed even more players to enter the game and play, which would uncover the next problem, and so on.

[h2]The Final Fix[/h2]

By Sunday, we had managed to fix, deploy, and scale our services to the point that most of our backend was handling over 200,000 players just fine, even through flurries of retries and errors. Yet amidst all the chaos, there was still some strange behavior happening on the game servers that was causing problems. During our periods of stability, when the game was up, players were able to connect to game servers, but their connections would often time-out once they got there.

Every time a player joins a game server, the game server checks to see if the player is in a party. This is a simple operation, and in all of our testing, we saw that this check completed very quickly, even under heavy load. Yet our logs were telling us that checks for a players party were taking up to a minute, sometimes even longer.

Over the first four days, we made a number of changes to the party service to alleviate pressure. Each fix helped for a while, but inevitably, it always slowed down again until players could no longer join servers. On day five, with all the other backend problems solved, we were able to get a more precise look at the party errors, and the culprit was a single, innocent-looking line of code. A single line of code that was supposed to be the most efficient request in our entire party service but instead ended up consuming all of the services resources under heavy load, slowing the entire service to a crawl.

It took about an hour on Sunday afternoon to rearrange the party data so we could check over 200,000 players party memberships without bringing down the service. We deployed the fix, the game came back up, and its been online ever since.

[h2]Lessons Learned[/h2]

This blog post is 2,000 words long, and there is still a whole lot more we could say. Internally, we have been cataloging and planning for ways we can improve, and we want to ensure that our processes moving forward include the lessons we have learned from the launch.

First, we learned the hard way that our internal tooling for deploying our services was not robust enough on launch day. Our tools were too brittle (breaking when certain services went down) and too inflexible (too many manual adjustments needed in an emergency). When the system came under strain, we couldnt deploy our fixes quickly, and we usually had to cause additional downtime to do it. Had our deploy tooling been stronger, we could have gotten to a stable state much more quickly. Our top priority on the team right now is improving our tooling so we can effectively respond to situations like these.

Second, our services themselves could be more flexible. We had to make many changes over the course of the launch that should have been simple configuration changes but instead required a full redeploy, which turned simple fixes into long, risky operations. This weakness was identified ahead of time and has now become a top priority to improve.

Third, we need to do a better job of anticipating how player behavior affects our backend. Our testing was designed to simulate how and when our services would break, but we needed to spend more time considering how the conditions would continue to change once things started failing. Now that weve seen what happens during a fraught launch - how players put pressure on services differently than when everything is working - well be able to incorporate that data into future tests.

(As an aside, our testing effort, in general, was a huge success. Despite how it may look from our launch struggles, our testing identified many other critical issues leading all the way up to the week before launch, and without those efforts, we might still be trying to fix the game to this day. Even though were post-launch, we plan to continue incorporating load testing into our regular development cadence going forward.)

[h2]Thank You[/h2]

With the launch behind us, were all very thankful to you players for showing so much passion for the game, despite the rocky start.

EHG started from a group of gamers hoping to make the ARPG they wanted to play, and now EHG is a group of gamers hoping to make the game YOU want to play. Your passion, enthusiasm and, when deserved, criticism have continued to encourage our teams to deliver that game and push the definition of what an ARPG can be, should be, and will be. Our team could not have made Last Epoch what it is today without you, and we will endeavor to keep making the game you all deserve.

Here's to a bright future, Travelers.

Changes

• Players can no longer stun themselves. An example of this was by using the Signet of Agony node in Bone Curse
  
• Replaced the XP Tome sound effect in Echo of a World
  
• Flagged more prophecy rewards as "rare/valuable" (which animates them to rotate and makes them slightly larger than other stars in the Constellation)
  
• Increased the favor cost multiplier for Glyph of Despair Prophecies
  
• You can no longer gain experience while in the grace period (the period of invulnerability after arriving to a new area)
  
• Added missing name in Graveyard
  
• Overhauled terrain, spawners, and shrines in the Hidden Oasis Echo Map to both improve visuals, and performance, and fix hideable issues with palms
  
• Overhauled visuals and added Scene Variants for Lightless Pits Echo Map
  

• Fixed a bug where Upheaval's "Master of the Totem" didn't buff Tempest Strike Totem damage and armor
  
• Fixed a bug where Storm Crow's "Arborist" didn't buff Tempest Strike Totem with Flat Spell / Melee Lightning Damage
  
• Fixed a bug where Swipe's "Avatar of Stone" doesn't buff Tempest Strike Totem, Warcry Totem & Upheaval Totem with Flat Melee / Spell Damage
  
• Fixed a bug where Storm Totem's "Fulgrite Core" wasn't providing Flat Spell Lightning damage based on character Shock Chance
  
• Fixed a bug where Tempest Strike's "Heorot Arsenal" node was not providing stats to the Cold Projectile that Tempest Totem shoots when each Tempest has been removed in the skill tree.
  
• Fixed a bug where Tempest Strike Totem, Warcry Totem, and Upheaval Totem were not benefiting from Spell Lightning Damage for Existing Totems (such as the Omen of Thunder Unique Item)
  
• Fixed a bug where directly transitioning from channeling Warpath to channeling Rebuke while at negative mana would not start mana regeneration.
  
• Fixed a bug where Fury Leap would play the landing animation in mid-air on long-range casts of Fury Leap
  
• Fixed a bug where the Acolyte's Wraith's weapons would drift during animation transitions
  
• Fixed a bug where Mirage hits on Puncture would not grant stacks of Bleeding Fury
  
• Fixed an issue with Acid Flask's "Alchemist Gift" throwing animation where the trap would spin in place then teleport to its destination
  
• Fixed a bug where Acid Flask's "Alchemist Gift" node did not have a throwing sound
  
• Fixed a bug where Healing Hands would not get a Fire tag when taking the Searing Light, or Skyfall Nodes
  
• Fixed a bug where the Spell Tag would be removed from Healing Hands with Seraph Blade when you also took Skyfall
  
• Fixed a bug where Ballista's "Armed Construction" node was giving 1% increased radius per dexterity instead of its listed 1% increased area per dexterity
  

• Fixed a bug with the sword in the Fallen Ronin set was deforming in a weird way on the Primalist
  
• Fixed Terrain and floating vegetation in several scenes
  

• Fixed a bug where some Game Guide pages couldn't be linked in chat
  
• Several Localization updates
  

• Fixed bug where Void Despair would spawn in place for a brief second before starting its emerging animation
  
• Fixed a bug where the Idol (big worm) could become stuck after knocking guards off their platform in Last Refuge Outskirts
  

• Fixed a bug where advancing dialog with a controller would skip pages if there were multiple.
  
• Fixed a bug where menu options could still be selected with a controller while they are invisible/inactive on the Death Screen. This was resulting in potentially closing the respawn menu preventing you from being able to respawn.
  

• Fixed a bug where your stats could become out of sync with the server. This could result in issues such as the client believing you had less movement speed than you did.
  
• Fixed a bug where Prophecies could be re-rolled on login in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a bug where you could not return to character select while in-game on an offline character
  
• Fixed a bug where Vsync was not applying during Splash Screens (this appears before the login screen)
  
• Fixed a bug with pickup range reliability in Multiplayer
  
• Fixed some instances of Gates blocking paths in the Preserved Sanctuary Echo map
  
• Fixed a bug which caused the game to freeze after switching inputs on the Skills panel
  

• When exiting a transform such as Werebear Form, your stat sheet may display your mana regeneration incorrectly. This is only a display issue.
  
• Gamblers Fallacy and Soul Gamblers Fallacy state they do not work with channeling skills
  
  
  
  • This was wording only and functionality has remained unchanged.
    
  • This is a change we are intending for 1.1, and the description change got through early. To be transparent, this is a change we are intending, though we are planning to go over Disintegrate at the same time providing it with buffs to compensate and stand better on its own instead of relying on this singular item interaction.
    
  
  

Hello Travelers,

In between attempting to save the citizens of Eterra, and eradicating them, almost 70,000 of you have joined in with your voices to discuss mid-cycle balance changes. The turnout for this survey has been fantastic; and further, is in addition to the many discussions here on the forums and other platforms on the topic. We want to first thank you all for your enthusiasm on this topic driving it forward.

Today, we want to share the results of the survey, as well as the decisions which have come as a result of the feedback.



For the purpose of reading the below results, the following information can help:

• Scale:
  
  
  
  • 1 - Strongly Disagree
    
  • 2 - Disagree
    
  • 3 - I have no opinion on this topic
    
  • 4 - Agree
    
  • 5 - Strongly Agree
    
  
  
• When we first started the survey, the scale was in reverse. We received immediate feedback about this, and swapped it before too many results came in. While the results below do not reflect this change, we made this change very early into survey so it had minimal impact on the results
  

• We will release fixes mid-cycle for bugs which result in an item, skill, or build highly overperforming
  
• We will add leaderboard functionality displaying which specific patch, or timespan an entry happened during.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where you could enter a Quest Echo regardless of Stability or Quest completion state
  
• Fixed a bug where a Lost Cache could be opened more than once in multiplayer
  
• Fixed an issue where if multiple characters shared the same name, only the first character with that name was showing on the character selection page.
  
• Fixed a bug where killing some Timeline Quest Bosses too quickly would result in the Quest state not progressing resulting in the Timeline Quest not successfully being completed
  
• Fixed a bug where the benefit from Infernal Shades Purgatory could persist through multiple casts of Infernal Shade
  
• Fixed an issue where the Delete prompt on the character select screen would not block clicks, allowing players to change the selected character being deleted.
  
• Moved the online/offline switch to be behind the Delete prompt fade on the Character Selection screen to prevent changing characters while having a delete prompt up.
  
• Fixed a bug where logging into specific characters would result in LE-52 Lost Connection to Game Server while other characters would connect without issue
  

• Fixed a resulting bug which prevented players from skipping the first two Timeline Quests in Empowered Timelines
  

Hello Travelers!

In todays patch we have previously mentioned skill changes, stash tab cost reductions, audio updates and more! We plan to release more information regarding the mid-cycle balance changes tomorrow. So if youre interested in seeing the results of the survey, and our plans going forward as a result of the feedback, please keep your eyes out for that post on our forums!

Changes

[h2]Campaign[/h2]

• Moved Transition to Temporal Sanctum from The Ruined Coast so its not as easy to accidentally transition after combat.
  

• Changed Cloud Gatherer to only apply to any individual Smoke Bomb one time.
  
• Wandering Spirits now has 30% more spirit reveal frequency
  
• Wandering Spirits now has a base of damage of 20 (from 16.2) and damage effectiveness of 200% (from 180% actual, 140% listed)
  
  
  
  • These are compensatory buffs that were intended to be included alongside the change in 1.0 that made Wandering Spirits always fade out when the reveal duration ends, but the buff did not make it into release. Since the initial change was a nerf and did make it into 1.0, and this compensatory buff was always planned to be paired with the change, we're adding the buff in this patch instead of waiting for the next cycle.
    
  
  

• Added Localization type to in-game bug reporting tool
  
• Improved player to player trade user experience so that you can no longer request a trade which requires a higher rank than the potential buyer possesses.
  

• Reduced the frequency of the Falcons CAWWWWs (attack vocal sounds)
  
• Updated audio for Healing Hands
  
• All chapter 6 scenes have new 2D ambient loop sfx
  
• The Barren Aqueduct has new music
  
• Soul Cage props in chap 6 have looping sounds again
  
• The Barren Aqueduct and Nests of the Fallen now have sounds for the running water on the ground in the aqueduct
  
• The large running water props in chapter 8 now have sfx
  
• Added looping sfx to the large rusty pipelines that cross the map
  

• Reduced cost of Stash Tabs
  
  
  
  • Stash tabs beyond the first 6 previously cost 10000 more than the previous tab. Now stash tabs 7 to 16 cost 2500 more than the previous tab, and stash tabs beyond the first 16 cost 5000 more than the previous tab. This results in the cost of large numbers of stash tabs being reduced by around 50%.
    
  
  

• Added a failsafe to Imperial Welryn for killing the commander early or off-screen.
  
• Fixed an issue where you could complete all Chapter 1 quests, but do not have the first Chapter 2 quest Last Refuge
  

• Fixed a bug where Profane Veils Vampiric Pool gave 40% of the consumed minions maximum health as ward, instead of the listed 4%
  
• Fixed a bug where Runemasters passive node Sanguine Runestoness threshold bonus (15% of health regen applies to ward) was scaling with points allocated
  
• Flame Whip now receives 4% increased damage per point of intelligence (this affects Flame
  Whip casts from all sources, and previously never received attribute scaling from any source)
  
• Fixed a bug where the effect of Chthonic Fissure's Eradication was not doubled when the player was cursed
  

• Fixed several issues with Heorot fight including Ice Spike stopping projectiles, and being frozen not stopping actions in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed bug where minions were not benefiting from items when being respawned after leaving towns in multiplayer.
  

• Fixed a bug where casting Summon Skeletal Mage with Grave Passage allocated caused the "minions transported with traversal skills" experimental affix to not bring any minions with you
  
• Fixed a bug where a Two-handed weapon and off-hand could be equipped at the same time
  
• Fixed a bug where Circle of Fortune Prophecy Lenses could be socketed into locked sockets with Shift + RMB
  
• Fixed bug where Wraithlord would try to consume other players minions
  
• Fixed bug where Spine of Malatros Flame Whips were not receiving some scaling
  
• Fixed a bug where Stygian Coal's more Stygian Beam Damage per 10 current mana affix did not work
  
• Fixed a bug where Stygian Coal's Stygian Beams were not affected by Drain Life's Horrify, Condemnation, Unholy Mass, Stupefy, Soul Blast, and Ravenous nodes
  
• Fixed a bug where Chronicle of the Damned's chance to reveal a Wandering Spirit on kill would cause the player's existing cast of Wandering Spirits to stop releasing spirits
  
• Fixed a bug where the Wandering Spirit from Chronicle of the Damned's chance to reveal a Wandering Spirit on kill always instantly faded away
  
• Fixed a bug where items influenced by the Rank 8 passive from Circle of Fortune would not have the Circle of Fortune tag
  
  
  
  • They still have the "cannot be traded" tag
    
  
  
• Fixed a bug where Flame Whips did not benefit from Chthonic Fissure's Eradication when using Spine of Malatros
  
• Fixed a bug where Chthonic Fissure's Grasp of the Undying did not apply to Flame Whip when using Spine of Malatros
  
• Fixed a bug where only the "while cursed" benefit of Chthonic Fissure's Death From Below applied to Flame Whip when using Spine of Malatros
  
• Fixed a bug where Chthonic Fissure's Chronicles of Ruin did not apply to Flame Whip when using Spine of Malatros
  

• Fixed a bug where right clicking a dungeon key upon first entering game would not open the map
  
• Fixed a bug where campaign prophecies could still appear while blocked
  
• Fixed a bug where enemies could appear invisible while playing in a party
  
• Fixed a bug where the gate in Soul Wardens Road wouldnt animate going down.
  
• Fixed a bug where The Mountain Beneath would walk through terrain in The Sheltered Wood
  
• Fixed bug where item tooltips could disappear when loot dropped
  
• Fixed some instances of players facing backwards after a scene transition
  
  
  
  • Please continue to report any instances of this issue via the in-game bug reporter
    
  
  

• Fixed a bug where mousing over a vendor inventory then back to your inventory it would play the item bought sound effect
  

• We will be releasing a bugfix for Infernal Shade in a hotfix later this week
  

Greetings Travelers,

As we continue our mission of collaboration with the community, we wanted to reach out and get as much feedback as we can on the topic of Mid-Cycle balance. In years past we have reached out to the community via a survey, and we found the feedback very valuable. Today, we are hoping to do the same once again.

Previously, our decision on the topic of Mid-Cycle balance has been to avoid adjustments to skills and items that are overperforming but are not bugs and to avoid fixing bugs that result in those skills becoming significantly weaker. The exceptions here are bugs that cause server stability issues.

To be clear, this small survey only focuses on bug fixes or balance changes that apply to overperforming skills or items. We will continue to fix bugs that result in skills and/or items receiving a buff. Things like server stability, Item Factions, or similar issues are not a part of this survey.

We know that the conversation can be more nuanced than your typical agree, disagree, no opinion poll, but we also want to get the sentiment of the community at large. Please take a few minutes (its only seven questions) and let us know your thoughts.

Link to Survey: https://forms.gle/4fZaNNP65oH7HFdA8

Thank You,
Last Epoch Team

Greetings Travelers,

Todays patch is centered around 2 specific hotfixes.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a bug that was causing players that die during a Dungeon run to transition and immediately disconnect from the game.
  
• Fixed a bug where clicking on the transition object after Fire Lich Cremorus in Soulfire Bastion Dungeon was not correctly triggering the teleport to the Soul Gambler area.
  

Hello Travelers,

For todays patch we have a bunch of fixes for controller, UI, skills, and more. Were also spending a moment to comment on Dive Bomb and Ghostflame. Read below for the full notes.

BUG FIXES

[h2]QUEST[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where players would get the Immortal Empire quest before gaining access to that quest state of Elder Gaspar
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the elevator to the Council Chambers to never appear after defeating waves of monsters at the end of the Void Assault quest
  

• Fixed issues with interacting (such as opening a chest, or talking to an NPC) while using a controller
  
• Fixed an issue with mapping the Y/Triangle controller button
  
• Fixed issue with controller bindings disappearing when using a mouse
  
• Controller binding dialog can be closed by pressing the B / Circle button
  
• Navigation cursor refocuses the corresponding action binding button after an action is bound
  

• Fixed an issue where once a party member enters the arena and you do NOT enter the arena, you cannot open any UI
  
• Fixed an issue so that Steam Required and License Required are separate errors
  
• Fixed issue where some enemies had no/only partial red outlines when hovered
  
• Fixed an issue where item tooltips displayed when the mouse was not hovering them
  
• Fixed issue causing no characters found to be overlaid on your character list at character selection
  
• Fixed inconsistent portraits for Maceth and Leyda
  

• Fixed a bug where Elemental Novas damaging area was not affected by increases to its area of effect
  
• Fixed issue where when returning to human form after transforming turns, the player model invisible
  
• Fixed most instances of a bug where channeled movement skills, particularly Flame Rush and Shield Rush, could lock the player into the movement and not visually move the player until the ability ended
  

• Slightly Improved party transition times
  
• Fixed a visual gap in Festering Sewers
  
• Fixed weird visual triangles at top of screen in The Ancient Cavern
  
• Fixed issue with players dying prematurely by setting their actor to invincible as soon as we spawn them, then allowing grace period to overtake later
  
• Fixed issue with linking the game guide in chat
  
• Revert change from previous patch that was causing players to see other players running in place (reverted change was a fix aiming to fix players not animating when joining a scene).
  

• Require players to manually click to transition scenes during the campaign
  
• Various Bazaar UI/UX improvements
  
• Greatly reduced the sell price of Arena Keys and Arena Keys of Memory
  
  
  
  • Arena keys now sell for 175 (from 6500)
    
  • Arena keys now sell for 175 gold (from 6500)
    
  • Arena keys of memory now sell for 265 gold (from 7250)
    
  • This was done to remove the burden of optimal on MG players feeling like they needed to level up CoF and use arena key prophecies to farm gold effectively
    
  
  
• Added Prevention for CoF bonuses from doubling XP tome rewards in Monoliths
  
  
  
  • This is also technically a bug fix as the XP Tome Reward isn't a direct item reward. Item Factions are not intended to have an effect on experience gains, only how items are obtained.
    
  
  

• Fixed a bug where Ghostflames Spirit Kindling could apply to the player if it had previously hit a Wraith during its lifetime and was not currently hitting a Wraith
  

• Changed Cloud Gatherer to only apply to any individual Smoke Bomb one time.
  

Last week, we announced a set of cosmetics that would be given to all players who played Last Epoch before March 1st, 2024. With servers more stable, we have now set our sights on granting those cosmetics.

Were going to cloak you in the Autumnal Wrap - a thank you gift we announced during the launch weekend. Youll also be swarmed by all three bee pets from the Refer-A-Friend program.

These cosmetics will appear automatically in your inventory over the next few days after this weeks patch. No extra steps will need to be taken on your end. The Last Epoch communitys patience, support, and positivity during the first week meant the world to our teams. We were humbled by the sheer volume of new and returning Travelers who wanted to explore Eterra.

This hotfix resolves a couple of memory leaks occurring in Monolith and Arena scenes.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a large memory leak that occurred in long sessions within Monolith and Arena
  
• Fixed a small memory leak that occurred in online play related to specific abilities
  

Bug Fixes

[h2]Skills[/h2]

• Acolyte: Ghostflame: Fixed a bug where the ailment duration increase from Occult Embers did not apply to bleed duration when the skill is converted to physical by Arteries of Malice
  
• Sentinel: Smelters Wrath: Fixed an issue where its animation would break if it was the first ability used in a scene
  
• Primalist: Spriggan Form's Healing Totems can now have cold visuals if your Spriggan Form or Thorn Totems are cold converted
  
• Acolyte: Chthonic Fissure: Fixed an issue where Cthonic Fissure was causing a client performance dip.
  
• Fixed an issue where occasionally using a transformation skill (Werebear, Lich form, etc.) the player character would become entirely unresponsive
  
• Fixed a bug where the Falcon's thrown acid flasks could cause it to consume its own Falcon Mark
  
• Fixed a bug where Transplant was using the incorrect VFX showing some necrotic VFX at the original position
  
• Fixed a bug where Dive Bomb passive "Rush of the Hunt" was not scaling with points allocated
  

• Fixed an issue where NPCs that could not be interacted with would sometimes have an interaction prompt spawn when approached while using a gamepad.
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using a gamepad, it was not possible to specialize points in the Bone Curse skill tree without relying on the Virtual Cursor
  
• Fixed controller navigation on the Social Panel
  
• Fixed controller navigation on Choose Mastery panel
  
• Fixed controller navigation for "Quest Completed" popup
  
• Fixed a bug where some controller inputs on the map locked after navigating the quest list
  
• Fixed a bug where the Item Gifting D-Pad navigation could break if the player closed out of the Item Gifting window with an item still in it.
  
• Fixed a bug where Configure Stash Tabs did not work with the D-Pad Cursor
  
• Fixed a bug where the virtual keyboard could enter a state where it cannot be properly closed, locking the Player out of Gamepad inputs.
  
• Fixed a bug where Upheaval's VFX was playing when you were just summoning the totem
  

• Fixed an issue that would sometimes result in a disconnect on transition while in a party.
  
• Fixed an issue in the Forgotten Graves where the Infernal Husk patrols would fail to spawn a map marker.
  
• Adjusted the Music in scenes The Ancient Cavern, The Verdant Lakes, and The Ancient Forest
  
• Fixed bug where skipping Risen Lakes and having "Admiral's Dreadnaught" quest active or complete, then returning to Risen Lakes would make the quest "Immortal Empire" incompletable.
  
• Fixed bug where some enemies that join combat late were not animating.
  
• Fixed a bug where a Last Refuge Guard's death animation was looping
  
• Fixed Move Or Break Destructible left click option not working
  
• Fixed some clipping issues on Rogue and Acolyte, and fixed short Sentinel
  
• Fixed a bug where the Wraithlord would not despawn upon unequipping Wraithlord's Harbour
  

• Fixed issue where game version was not showing new revisions
  
• Fixed a bug where an item label could fail to show if you were looking at another item when it dropped.
  
• Fixed a bug where legacy characters could show up as an incorrect hardcore character
  
• Fixed a bug where dodges did not display floating combat text
  
• Localization changes and corrections
  
• Fixed an issue where opening the Ladder menu did not properly close the inventory ui
  
• Fixed an issue where occasionally the overlay map zoom would default to extreme zoom in making it seem like the overlay map didnt work at all.
  
• Fixed a bug where occasionally, the gamble/purchase prompt in tooltip item appeared at a very large size
  
• Fixed a bug where non-equipable items (such as keys) would disappear if you tried to quick-move them to the forge
  
• Fixed bug where UI Elements for some passives were continuing to display after points in that passive were removed
  
• Corrected a layer issue with the Rogue T10 Helmet
  
• Fixed several Rogue and Acolyte animations
  
• Fixed an issue that would occasionally lead to a state where you can not see or pick up items on the ground.
  
• Fixed an issue where occasionally player characters would not load their gear visuals or display name (instead displaying the default name of a bear emoji)
  
• Fixed an issue in Thetima where quest icons above NPCs would not always update properly
  

• Fixed an issue where a boulder was in the way in Lost Catacombs Monolith Echo Scene
  
• Added multiple failsafes for unlocking Heoborea waypoint after completing The Scorched Grove.
  
• Fixed object collision on railway-stop in The Osprix Warcamp
  
• Fixed unreachable chest in The Burning Pier
  
• Fixed NPC in The Burning Pier not animating
  
• Fixed ground texture in Forest Trails Monolith scene
  
• Fixed shrine placement in The Wengari Fortress
  
• Fixed a section of floor being visually missing in MakElka Lower District
  
• Fixed Alrics Cage not visually open in The Dreadnoughts Deck
  
• Fixed bug where If you die on the step for killing Yulia and then return to the zone later, the positions for the Soul Cages are not shown.
  

• Added a way to remember the last chat language selected so it doesn't always default to English, and uses the system lang the first time instead
  
• Added gold spawning animation
  
• Made performance improvements and added Scene Variants for five additional Monolith Echo Scenes, and improved performance for Welryn Outskirts
  
• Changed "Jump the Deck" completion to only complete when entering the next scene. This allows the quest tracker to continue pointing to the next scene if the player does not travel there for whatever reason.
  
• Now unlocks waypoint to End of Time after Pannion creates the Rift to chapter 2 to allow players to proceed without using the timerift
  
• Added check for completing Artem's Offer for players that had the quest before the previous patch.
  
• Added waypoint unlock for Lake Liath when you complete the Deep Harbor questline for players that leave after completing Deep Harbor, but don't proceed to Lake Liath.
  
• Added support for merging faction progress when leaving either Solo Character Found (SCF) or Solo Account Found (SAF) Challenges
  
  
  
  • When you abandon a SCF character this merges the faction progress with your SAF progress.
    
  • When you abandon a SAF character this merges the faction progress with your normal progress.
    
  
  
• Fixed the options in the settings panel so you can't accidentally abandon SAF as a SCF
  
• Switched Brigandine Boots to use T25 boots' 3D art for Primalist
  
• Added refresh on start function to social panel so it loads friends list on start instead of waiting for the social panel to be opened.
  
• Reduced size of Ulatri Scavenger's Firebreath ability
  
• Spriggan Form's Healing Totems can now have cold visuals if your Spriggan Form or Thorn Totems are cold converted
  
• Fixed a bug where the ailment duration increase from Occult Embers did not apply to bleed duration when the skill is converted to physical by Arteries of Malice in Ghostflame tree
  

Hello, Travelers!

Wow, what an opening week for Last Epoch. We are absolutely floored by the turnout and response to the game. Having started as an after-hours passion project from die-hard ARPG fans, were in awe that Last Epoch reached 265,000 players online at one time this weekend, the #39 highest concurrent user count recorded on Steam - ever. We appreciate you all bearing with us as the load initially gave us trouble for online gameplay, but were happy to say that were holding mostly steady above 200,000 players in-game and have made improvements each day in the backend infrastructure to support the demand. Well continue to monitor and address any issues that crop up.

I want to take a moment to talk to you all about whats coming next.

[h2]INCOMING HOTFIXES/POST 1.0 PATCHES[/h2]

We have a good sized bugs fixing and quality-of-live improvements patch that were hoping to deliver this week, and plan to continue releasing weekly patches. In addition to weekly patches, the team will be actively monitoring services and applying hotfixes as needed.

Thank you for taking the time to report issues youve found in-game with the in-game bug reporting tool. This is the most optimal way to report issues as it also sends us your player logs and a screenshot if you choose to include it, which helps us diagnose and address issues much more rapidly. Forums and third-party sites are a much less ideal way to submit reports as we dont get this information, and its not immediately tracked in our internal systems.

[h2]ONLINE SERVICES[/h2]

We are excited to see the servers holding above the 200,000 CCU mark (concurrent users in the game at one time), and that scene transitions and queue times have gotten much shorter. There may still be shorter periods of downtime as we roll out updates to improve the reliability after our turbulent first weekend, where we had some unanticipated bottlenecks in our backend architecture. We will continue to make improvements here, including making social services (like adding friends) even snappier, focusing on scene-to-scene transition times, ensuring in-game chat is stable, making queues continue to flow smoother and faster, and more.

Were going to put out some information about what happened at launch that caused the instability under load, but we want to focus our backend team on improvements for a while longer before we pull them off to help us write this up - and also give them some much-deserved rest after working through the weekend.

[h2]LOCALIZATION[/h2]

Localization improvements are ongoing as we focus on the quality of our translations and further coordinate with native speakers and quality assurance testing teams. We will be releasing improvements with our weekly hotfixes to address the feedback we have received so far, including quality fixes to all languages, menus, affixes, and UI errors reported for Russian, Korean and Chinese. We ask for your continued support in improving our experience in all languages by submitting reports to us by via the official Last Epoch Discord in the Localization/Translation Forum located in the Feedback and Reports section under feedback-forums or by utilizing our in-game support tool, and choosing the category Feedback

[h2]FUTURE CONTENT[/h2]

Were excited to start to share with you the future content plans we have for Last Epoch, including our next major Cycle patch, 1.1.

The content coming for Patch 1.1 is designed specifically in two parts. The first, and most important part is focusing on and committing time to act on player feedback. We are wholly committed to making the best ARPG in the genre, and listening to our amazing community is a big part of that. In addition, throughout the 1.0 Cycle we intend to release quality of life and bug fix patches regularly.

Secondly, as you all may know, were going to have a heavy emphasis on expanding end-game content now that weve released 1.0. For future patches we have plans to expand the monolith, bring great new itemization options, add more boss content, class and balance updates, campaign content, etc. For 1.1 specifically well be focusing on bringing some pinnacle content, or very hard fights that will give you challenges to aspire to. Well be sharing more on this and more of whats to come in 1.1 in the not too distant future.

Its worth emphasizing that EHG has a strong focus on listening to the community, as its where our team came from, and we want to hear what you want to see in the future. We are active in our forums, Reddit, and social channels, so if you want to see something, please do voice it! You are not shouting into the void, nor do you have to amass an army to get us to take notice. Were there and ready to have conversations with you all.

[h2]SENTIMENT & REVIEWS[/h2]

While were continuing to receive high praise about the game itself, Steam reviews and sentiment took a heavy hit due to the initial turbulence of online services at launch. We are committed to regaining that trust by making improvements to our backend infrastructure for this amount of load and providing a great experience for online play.

We take time to read your reviews and feedback on Steam, socials, and our forum and take swift action to improve the areas that we see players are dissatisfied with. We know that seeing our Steam reviews lower than theyve ever been is concerning to players who are looking forward to the future of Last Epoch, but we want to assure you that the team has always been committed to making a game you can enjoy and expect updates from for years to come. Weve seen that passion reflected back at us in the community this past week, and it has bolstered our resolve to that goal even further.

Last Epoch is here to stay.

[h2]GAMEPAD SUPPORT[/h2]

Were thrilled to see many of you enjoying the immense amount of gamepad updates weve brought for 1.0, and we have a lot of updates coming before 1.1 that will improve the experience even further, including better navigation of certain panels. We aim to release LE on console in the future so making sure that the gamepad experience is top notch is a focus for us.

Thank you all for your amazing support and excitement of Last Epoch. Theres so much more to come and were thrilled to build this game for all of us ARPG fans. Well keep you all posted with more news, patches, insights, and plans shortly.

- Judd | Founder & Game Director

Server Stability

Were still working on server stability and will continue to update our server status thread here: 1.0 Server Status Thread

Server issues continue to be our highest priority and we have assigned all possible resources to resolve the server issues.These fixes come from our other teams whos skill sets do not apply to server issues such as the art and design teams, working in tandem

Bug Fixes

• Added failsafe when skipping speaking to Keeper Balthas, the quest does not work in the next area
  
• Added failsafe for if you leave after the Drake event but before speaking with the Keeper Guard.
  
• Fixed a bug where Gathering Storm's Rending Vortex did not affect Storm Bolt
  
• Fixed a bug where Healing Hands Skyfall was not working in online
  
• Fixed extra idols and set pieces from CoF rank rewards not being tagged as CoF items
  
• Fixed bug where no matter what the player has equipped in their weapon slot, the text in the "my stall" section of the bazaar always reads as "equipped two-handed sword" regardless of what the player actually has equipped.
  
• Fixed a bug where Flurry was aiming upwards if you were standing extremely close to the enemy
  
• Fixed a bug where abilities cast indirectly by Surge's skill tree did not require positive mana to trigger
  
• Fixed bug when returning to character select, the echo loading UI would break and stay broken for the remainder of the session
  
• Fixed bug where the monolith transition VFX/SFX was played when entering the game offline.
  
• Fixed a bug where Avian Arsenal did not work when Falconer's Mark was consumed by a spell, bow, or throwing ability
  
• Removed gate that was preventing movement from The Fractured Drain to The Barren Aqueduct
  
• Fixed bug where Glacial Path Portal was missing
  
• Fixed timing of Drake sequence where voice lines were playing over top of each other
  
• Fixed an issue where the player could see the Drake model appear in an inactive state just before the sequence starts
  
• Fixed bug where "sure you have questions" line from Balthus would not play just before the bridge on the players' first play through the scene
  
• Texture Fixes:
  
  
  
  • Black Wolf
    
  • Scalebane Leader
    
  • Soul Warden Sarcophagus closing
    
  • Haruspex Orian Model
    
  • Temple Guardian
    
  • Temple Guardian Mace
    
  • Bug Textures
    
  • Soul Bastion Icon
    
  • Torment Wheel Layer Correction
    
  • Uma NPC
    
  • Enemy Texture adjustments
    
  • Sentinel T15 armor set
    
  
  
• Fixed bug were Bow item Prophecies were resulting in no items dropping
  
• Fixed an issue where there were no prophecies when first interacting with telescope
  
• Fixed a bug where Artem can fail some part of the quest return interaction process and drop his item while not completing the quest.
  
• Fixed a bug where keys could be removed during dungeon run starting.
  
• Fixed a bug where a random wall was being shown in The Lotus Halls
  

• Increased Online Character Slots to 25
  
• Advent of the Erased's ward gained when you gain or refresh Haste now has a 1 second cooldown (previously none), but now gives 30-60 ward (from 15-35)
  
• Optimized shadows in Last Refuge Outskirts, The Ruins of Welryn, and The Summit
  
• Disabled refer a friend in social panel
  
• Made adjustments to the Emperor of Corpses's collision to make it easier for melee to get near it and to hit it with melee attacks
  
• Updated logs to show death logs on client
  

Travelers,

We have heard your concerns with the current Refer A Friend system implementation and will be temporarily disabling it.

Because we arent fans of letting a small issue ruin the fun for others, we will be granting everyone who owns a copy of Last Epoch all three of the bee pets.

However, the teams here are very focused on getting services back up and working. As a result of us not wanting to take time away from that, we are going to hold off on granting these rewards until services are stable.

Our current plan is to monitor the situation and grant all three bee pets, and the Autumnal Wrap (Cape) to everyone who owns Last Epoch no later than Friday, Mar 1st.

We very much appreciate the continued support while we work through these issues. You can get consistent updates on Discord, Reddit, or our Forums.

Discord: https://discord.gg/lastepoch
Server Status Post: 1.0 Server Status Thread
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LastEpoch/

Travelers,

Thank you so much for your incredible patience as we work hard to address the ongoing issues. Your support means the world to us! As mentioned in our previous updates, we've established an active update thread on both our forums and Discord:

Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/lastepoch
Visit our Forums: https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/1-0-server-status-thread/62977

To express our heartfelt gratitude for your patience, we're delighted to present you with a unique token of appreciation a complimentary in-game gift for your characters: The Autumnal Wrap back-slot item. We can't thank you enough for the love and support you have shown thus far. Anyone who owns a copy of Last Epoch while we are still solving our scaling connectivity issues will automatically be awarded the Autumnal Wrap.

Thank you once again to those who continue to support us, sending us your positive messages, and continuing to spread that positivity while we continue the work on getting more servers up and running.

Thank You,
Last Epoch Team

Hello Travelers,

Thank you all for the amazing support for our launch, hitting over 150,000 concurrent players! With this burst of volume, an issue was discovered within an API being used for our backend services. We immediately got into calls with several of our providers, and continue to actively be in the war room with them to get this issue resolved and get everyone online.

For players who are looking for a solo experience, the fully offline mode has made it so you can get in game right away and start playing. Though, while this is available for those who are happy to play offline, we understand that's not a replacement for online play. It does not at all decrease our efforts to get players in-game online with friends and other travelers.

We have an active running update on our #news channel at https://discord.gg/lastepoch, as well as on the discussions here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/899770/discussions/0/4338725580140385603/


Thank you for your patience as we get these launch jitters resolved. We're all hands on deck to get everyone in and playing the way they want. We have a whole bunch of servers ready for everyone once once we get this API issue resolved, and look forward to hearing about all your travels in Eterra!

Greetings Travelers,

Today is a historic day for the Last Epoch team and everyone here at Eleventh Hour Games (EHG). What started as an after-hours passion project has blossomed into one of the most anticipated releases in the ARPG genre, and we are blown away by the support we have received.

Thank You. Thank you to our families for putting up with us while we worked long into the night, and thank you to our community for supporting us even when all we had was a dream and a few vaguely Traveler-shaped pixels.

We look forward to seeing you all in Eterra, atop leaderboards, and expanding across time in the Monolith of Fate.

A few reminders:

Last Epoch is releasing Wednesday, February 21st, 2024, at 11:00am CT!


Welcome everyone to the patch notes for Last Epoch's Release!

Its been an amazing road to this point, and its unreal to be writing patch notes without using the term Beta Patch. With this patch Last Epoch will officially be leaving Early Access. We couldnt have made it to this point without all of you, our amazing community driving the world of Eterra alongside us. We can not say it enough, Thank you.

We also want to mention again here that to prepare the servers for our release on February 21st, we will be shutting down our servers 24 hours before the patch, starting: Tuesday, February 20st, 2024, at 11:00am CT

While the servers are down, authentication will not be possible. If you are already playing in offline mode before we take down the servers, you should be able to continue your play session, however offline will not be able to authenticate to log in once the servers are down. This is also a good point to note that one of the features being added with 1.0 is a true offline mode, which will prevent this kind of interference with offline mode in the future.


Last Epoch 1.0 will introduce:

• Acolyte Mastery: Warlock
  
• Rogue Mastery: Falconer
  
• Item Factions: Circle of Fortune and Merchant's Guild
  
• New Primalist Skill: Gathering Storm
  
• Rework to Primalist's Skill: Tempest Strike
  
• New Paladin Skill: Healing Hands
  
• Resonances
  
• Full Offline Mode
  
• Scene Variant System & Lighting Improvements
  
• New Cinematics
  
• Full Controller Support
  
• and more!
  

Hello Travelers, and thank you for joining us for another pre-patch blog post! In todays post were going to be taking a look at some of the new items and affixes youll find in Eterra with our release later this week!

Were expanding the range of base items for Boots, Gloves, and Belts, and with the new Armor Sets coming in as we talked about on Thursday, those will get new item base effects as well. Further, well take a look at a couple of new generic affixes, new mastery affixes, and a few of the new unique items youll be able to find February 21st!

New Item Bases

[h2]New Boots Bases[/h2]

Boots are receiving two new Base Item types, as well as implicit changes for two other bases. The two new boot bases are both endgame boots: Citadel Boots offering Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes, and Vanguard Boots offering Effect of Haste on You.



[h2]New Gloves Bases[/h2]

Gloves have had three new base items added, and received changes to three existing implicits. Taking a look at two of the new implicits, the Ascetic Gloves offer cooldown Recovery Speed, while the Arcane Bracers will offer flat Mana, and Increased Mana Regen.



[h2]New Belt Bases[/h2]

Belts, previously lacking diversity of selection are receiving four new Base Items, as well as changes to four existing Implicits. Today were taking a look at three of the new Belts: The Divine Girdle, offering Increased Movement Speed, the Praetorian Belt offering high Armor, and the Chain Belt offering Ward Decay Threshold.



[h2]New Helm Bases[/h2]

New Armor sets means new Implicits! Taking a look at a few helms, first is the Mages new Tyrant Crown, offering Elemental Damage Leeched as Health an often in-demand stat.

Next up, the Rogues Blood Visage Helm offers Increased Damage Over Time, and Bleed Duration provides a great option for the Rogues many DoT builds.

Lastly, the Acolytes Necropolis Helm offers Ward Decay Threshold and Ward Gain on Kill for stronger ward retention and some ward-generation while clearing.



[h2]New Body Armor Bases[/h2]

Along with the new Helm Base Items, the new Class specific Armor Sets also means new Body Armor Base Items! Today were looking at three of the upcoming base Body Armors as well.

First, the Apocalypse Plate offering Armor, Stun Avoidance, and Increased Echo Damage when a skill is Echoed offers a great option for the Void Knights out there.

Up second is the Primalists Beastmail providing Armor, Increased Movement Speed, and Health Regen offers a great body armor for Minion players who use mobility and regen to stay alive.

Finally, the Acolytes Coven Robes offer Armor, Increased Cast Speed, and Mana Regen, making for a well-rounded casters body armor.



New Affixes

February 21st will bring with it twelve new general weapon affixes. With several classes receiving new and updated skills, were also adding an additional 33 Idol, Body Armor, Helmet, and Relic affixes to find in Last Epoch.

[h2]Weapon Affixes[/h2]

One area of feedback weve received is the lack of effective stats on Weapons for some builds, and in particular Minion builds. To help address this, were adding a few new affixes.

Covering ten of the twelve new weapon affixes, were looking at two groups of suffixes youll be able to find on several weapon types.

Increased minion damage is a stat which is in fairly high supply in Last Epoch, where minion flat damage is quite rare. So to make the weapon affix feel more impactful, weve changed the minion damage suffixes to offer flat damage to minions instead of increased damage. These will come in three flavors: Minion Melee Damage and Minion Spell Damage, Minion Spell Damage and Minion Bow Damage, and Minion Melee Damage and Minion Bow Damage.

As a more general-purpose Affix, weve also added a new suffix which grants damage penetration to both yourself and your minions. This suffix is available for each of the seven damage types, though are rare, and can only be found on endgame items.



[h2]Class Specific Affixes[/h2]

With the new masteries and skills coming on the 21st, well also be adding a number of relevant class-specific affixes. Weve offered a selection of a number of these affixes you can look forward to below.

[h2]Warlock Affixes[/h2]

• Idol: Sickening prefix - % Increased Damage Over Time while you have an Ailment Overload
  
• Body Armor: % Increased Spirit Frequency with Chthonic Fissure
  
• Helm: % Chance for 3 additional projectiles when you directly cast Chaos Bolts
  
• Relic: +X to level of Profane Veil, % Increased Damage Over Time
  

• Idol: Scattering Suffix - % Increased Area with Caltrops, % Chance to shred Armor on hit with Caltrops
  
• Idol: Winged Prefix - % Chance to deal Double Damage with Falcon Strikes
  
• Helm: % Increased Damage with Dive Bomb, % Increased Area with Dive Bomb
  
• Body Armor: +X to level of Explosive Trap, %Increased Throwing Damage
  

• Idol: Reckoning Prefix - % Increased Frequency of expending Storm Strikes
  
• Body Armor: +X to level of Gathering Storm, % Increased Area for Area Skills
  
• Helm: % chance to gain a Storm Stack when you use Gathering Storm and hit an enemy.
  

Happy Saturday, Travelers!

For todays pre-patch blog post, were taking a look at information regarding the three headlining features coming on February 21st: Trade Factions, the Warlock, and Falconer!

There have been a lot of new Travelers recently joining us in the final stretch to release, so for todays post, were going to be covering all of the information regarding these three big features.

Item Factions

On January 11th, we released our deep dive into the Item Faction system. Item Factions is our answer to the eternal trade debate. Offering an option to players who want trade as part of their itemization experience, and those who dont, without splitting the player base, and without being left behind the other.

To read the full deep dive, you can do so here: Trade & Item Factions. Our Game Director, Judd, also made a video overview of the Item Faction system, which you can watch it below.

[previewyoutube=SOo0Ule6dNY;full][/previewyoutube]

With Item Factions, you can either join the Merchants Guild, which grants access to the Bazaar to trade items with other players, or join the Circle of Fortune, which grants significant item drop bonuses.

We do want to mention one fairly large change to Merchants Guild weve made since the deep dive. From both the CT Program, and public discussions, there were concerns about item supply within the Bazaar. This concern stemmed from the ability to sell certain items being locked behind Reputation levels. This meant players would not be able to sell many items for some length of time, reducing selling participation.

To ensure a strong item supply within the Bazaar, there is no longer a Reputation level requirement to sell any class of item. Also to promote healthy item supply within the Bazaar, Favor costs for selling items are much lower than buying favor costs, so Merchants Guild members can be a bit more free with selling items.

Warlock



The Warlock makes its long awaited arrival on February 21st. With both existing Curse abilities and five new curses, the Warlock is a master of forbidden arts, twisting enemy minds and bodies.

With the Warlock, we wanted the class to focus around manipulation of souls and curses. This theming can be found across the masterys abilities: from the Mastery Skill - Chthonic Fissure cracking open the ground to spew out souls, to Profane Veil, converting yourself into soul-like ephemeral fog.

The Warlock is not concerned with distance or close range; they have many options at their disposal to choose the amount of risk they desire in their combat style. The Warlock focuses on debilitating their foes to enhance their own damage and combining curses, debilitations, and damage synergies to eradicate their enemies.

Abilities such as Chaos Bolts and Cthonic Fissure enable the Warlock to fight from range. Profane Form may be used as an escape skill or an aggressive skill by granting it synergies for passing through enemies, either applying or reacting to applied debuffs. Soul Feast functions well at mid-range.

Abilities such as Ghostflame and Profane Form enable the Warlock to enter close combat range, to apply debuffs and high-risk, high-reward levels of damage.

The Warlock is focused foremost on debilitating curses and debuffs, and while direct damage does exist in the class, its slightly more niche compared to their foil, the Sorcerer.

For the Warlock reveal, we partnered with the amazing people over at Icy-Veins.com , who released a number of articles detailing the various Warlock abilities and passives. Weve compiled all of these information releases below:

Passive Tree Reveal: Last Epoch - Warlock Reveal: Passive Tree - News - Icy Veins
Ghostflame: Last Epoch Warlock Mastery - Skill Reveal: Ghostflame - News - Icy Veins
Soul Feast: Last Epoch Warlock Mastery - Skill Reveal: Soul Feast - News - Icy Veins
Profane Veil: Last Epoch Warlock Mastery - Skill Reveal: Profane Veil - News - Icy Veins
Chaos Bolts: Last Epoch Warlock Mastery - Skill Reveal: Chaos Bolts - News - Icy Veins
Chthonic Fissure: Last Epoch Warlock Mastery - Skill Reveal: Chthonic Fissure - News - Icy Veins

Falconer



In the case of the Falconer, we wanted the mastery to offer an atypical minion playstyle. One where the Falcon is much more than a minion or companion but an extension of your own play.

The Falconer is designed to synergize with several playstyles: melee, bow, or throwing, creating a tie between the existing Bladedancer and Marksman masteries. As Throwing is a common focus for Rogues, we also offered extra synergy towards Throwing skills in passives and synergies, and even introduced the first Trap Skill to Last Epoch: Explosive Trap.

With Falconry & Falcon Strikes, the Mastery ability you gain upon becoming a Falconer, we created the very core of the mastery, the atypical minion: The Falcon. The Falcon is un-targetable, meaning it cannot take damage, scales strongly with many of your stats, and offers options to join in with your build style, be it ranged or melee. This means that, unlike many minion-type setups, the Falconer can build strongly for their own stats, with the Falcon growing in strength alongside you.

The Falconry & Falcon Strikes skill offers within its tree methods to build the Falcon, many of which will apply across all actions the Falcon takes. With Explosive Trap and Net, the Falconer can ensure an unfair fight by leading enemies to their end. Or perhaps, use Arial Assault to fly into the fray with the Falcon to cut down enemies alongside your avian ally. Alternatively, you can order the Falcon forth to Dive Bomb the enemy, plummeting into a group of enemies like a feathery meteorite.

The Falconer focuses on its unwavering bond with the Falcon. By sharing stats with the Falcons, the Falcon and Falconer granting buffs to each other, and coordinating their attacks together - the Falcon is far more than a minion.

For the Falconer Reveal, we worked closely with all the fantastic members over at Maxroll.gg, who created created a technical deep dive into the mastery with all the passives and skill trees, as well as skill overviews.

Check out the Falconer Reveal here: Falconer Reveal - Last Epoch Maxroll.gg

You can also find the Falconer available in their build planner here: Falconer Reveal - Last Epoch Maxroll.gg

Closing

Thank you again to both Maxroll.gg and Icy-Veins.com for working with us on these new Mastery Reveals! Weve already started seeing a ton of great theorycrafting in the community for these masteries, and cant wait for everyone to get their hands on them.

Join us for tomorrows pre-patch blog post when well be going over New Items and Affixes youll be able to find on February 21st, including both new Implicits and Uniques!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to day three of the pre-patch blog posts!

Healing Hands is a skill which has existed in the Paladin tree for quite some time, without being able to be specialized. Theres various reasons we waited to create a tree for this skill, one of the bigger reasons being that we wanted this type of skill to be able to support nodes which help cooperation with other players.

With our release of Last Epoch on February 21st, Healing Hands will finally be getting its long awaited skill tree. While Healing Hands at its core offers a large amount of support, focusing on healing, one should remember that the Paladin is not a back-line player. Healing to a Paladin means more than mending wounds, but also healing the world of its evils. As such, Healing Hands offers a great deal of customization for offensive ability as well, including multiple ways to make it a directly damaging ability.

Healing Hands

As a baseline, Healing hands is an ability which casts a medium sized area of effect which heals all allies, including yourself for an immediate burst, and applies a heal over time for three seconds.





Both heals from the ability scale with Increased Healing Effectiveness, as well as the nodes on the skill tree. This grants Healing Hands not only strong immediate recovery, but also provide a fairly strong heal over time to help keep yourself and allies nice and healthy. As a Paladin, Healing Hands can offer very strong competition to even Life Leech as a source of health sustain, in addition to its specialization options.

[h2]Clerics Hammer[/h2]

Clerics Hammer grants Healing Hands a chance to trigger on any melee attack, up to a 100% chance with the full four points assigned. This imbues all melee attacks to provide healing to all allies and yourself in the area. When combined with other options on the tree, this can also effectively convert any melee attack into an offensive spell melee attack, synergizing well with many of the Paladins hybrid melee and spell abilities.





[h2]Hand of Aurelus[/h2]

More favorable towards ranged damage? Hand of Aurelus allows Healing Hands to instead synergize with direct Smite casts, adding its own healing area to smites. Combined with Searing Light, adding Damage to Healing Hands area of effect, Healing Hands can further augment Smite builds with the additional hit damage.





[h2]Divine Bolt[/h2]

Healing Hands also adds support for Divine Bolts. By picking up the Divine Catalyst node, you will cast a number of Divine Bolts with every direct use of Healing Hands. Further, with just one point in this node, all sources of Divine Bolt will scale with the nodes in the Healing Hands tree.





[h2]Rahyehs Chariot[/h2]

Healing Hands can also be converted to a Traversal ability, charging to a target location casting Healing Hands upon arrival. This adds a 6 second cooldown to Healing Hands, however, unlike Lunge, Rahyehs Chariot does not require a target to move to.





[h2]Seraph Blade[/h2]

Prefer to channel your healing powers through your blade? Taking this node will convert Healing Hands into a Melee Attack. converting Spell Damage from the tree into Melee Damage. A heavy hitting melee attack which also provides strong healing, Seraph Blade embodies the strongest aspects of the Paladin Mastery.





[h2]Unbroken Prayer + Skyfall[/h2]

Who doesnt like a good Sky Beam? By assigning Unbroken Prayer, converting Healing Hands into a channeled ability, you can further specialize it into Skyfall. By paying an additional mana cost each second, you will deal additional fire damage over time while channeling Healing Hands, scorching clear a path of righteousness.





Closing

Thank you for again joining us today in this coverage of the Paladins Healing Hands skill tree. Offering potential as both a support ability, a damaging ability, triggers, or direct casting, Healing Hands offers the Paladin a number of new ways to build. Healing Hands still remains available at 5 points invested into the Paladin Tree, meaning you can also pick up Healing Hands as either a Forge Guard or Void Knight should you theory-craft such a use.

Tomorrow well be recapping the coverage of Item Factions, Falconer, and Warlock for all the Travelers just recently joining us, or who may have missed the previous information releases. Then on Sunday well be covering some of the new Item bases, Item Affixes, and Unique Items coming with the release of Last Epoch on February 21st!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to day two of the pre-patch blog posts!

In todays post were having a look at some of the new and updated enemies coming to the world of Eterra on February 21st. These enemy updates also marks the point where we have officially completed changing all models in Last Epoch to fully custom created models.

This is largely a visual post showing off the new models our amazing enemy design team has put together. Get your eyes ready, and mind steeled for new horrors arriving in Eterra with the release of Last Epoch.

New Enemies

[h2]Void Prophet[/h2]

The Void Prophet will replace the current Void Clerics. Weve also reworked this enemys abilities to make them a bit more fair. There should be far fewer Travelers suddenly evaporating in the presence of Void Prophets without clear telegraphing.



[h2]Mildly Corrupted Cultist[/h2]

A perfect example of everything is relative, the Mildly Corrupted Cultist is replacing many of the generic cultist enemies. This enemy gives a fair representation of the common result of what happens to a humanoid when coming into contact with the Void.



[h2]Corrupted Cultist[/h2]

Of course, the prior begs the question of relative to what? The Corrupted Cultist is the result of the continued effects of the void on humanoid victims, and comes in to replace many of the ranged Cultist Enemies throughout the Ruined Timelines.



[h2]Bone Scavenger[/h2]

One of the new Imperial Era enemies coming to Last Epoch, the Bone Scavenger displays some of the military might of the Immortal Empire with this ambushing pack creature.



[h2]Bone Sculptor[/h2]

The Bone Sculptor is another Imperial enemy which you will find in the Immortal Empires Ranks. The Bone Sculptor is a necromancer, capable of creating hordes of zombies if left unattended; Though they arent afraid to get their own hands dirty as well.



[h2]Flame Paladin[/h2]

Rahyehs forces are also seeing some bolstering in the coming war with the updated Flame Paladin. On top of a brand new look, the Flame Paladin will also be bringing new abilities to the field, helping them stand out from the standard rank and file.



Companions

The release of Last Epoch will also see updates to some player minion models. Today were going to have a look at three of the updates with the Primal Scorpion, Primal Sabertooth, and Primal Raptor! We know these companions well, so for these ones, well let the updated models speak for themselves.

[h2]Primal Raptor[/h2]



[h2]Primal Scorpion[/h2]



[h2]Primal Sabertooth[/h2]



New Armor Models

Alongside new enemy models, were also adding 17 new armor sets across all classes in 1.0. Rather than Set Items, Armor sets are base items which have a cohesive visual model between the armor pieces. These are all part of the base game as armor you will find while playing, not MTX (purchased microtransactions). Today we are showcasing 10 of these new Armor Sets.

[h2]Sentinel Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Rogue Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Primalist Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Acolyte Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Mage Armor Sets[/h2]





Closing

Thank you for joining us for day two of the pre-patch blog posts, taking a look at some of the new enemies and models coming February 21st. We hope you enjoy these visual improvements as much as we do, as the team continues to improve on our techniques and tools, continually pushing our visual standards ever further. Join us again tomorrow as we take a look at the long awaited Skill Tree for the Paladins Ability: Healing Hand!

Hello Travelers,

Welcome to the first blog post of the pre-patch blog posts leading up to launch! For all the new Travelers joining us for 1.0, pre-patch blog posts occur during the week before Patch Day, in which we talk about some of the prominent features coming with the latest update. We will have a post every day, culminating in the Patch Notes on February 19th. Of course, the three most prominent features coming in 1.0 are Item Factions, the Falconer, and the Warlock; however, these are certainly not the only features arriving with our release of 1.0!

Back in November, we talked about some of the updates coming with 1.0 (November Developer Blog). When covering Tempest Strike, we mentioned that the change to Tempest Strikes mechanics left a gap in the Primalist class for a low cost, spammable generator. Without further ado, and to kick off these blog posts, lets start by covering the new Primalist Skill - Gathering Storm, as well as some of the new Tempest Strike features coming February 21st.

Gathering Storm

Gathering Storm will become available to all Primalists at level 2, replacing Ice Thorns. Those who have been following our posts for a while may remember we intended to remove Ice Thorns but wanted to have a new skill to implement in its place.



Strike at your enemy with a mighty lightning powered storm. When you use Gathering Storm and hit at least one enemy, you gain a Storm Stack. Every second you expend a Storm Stack to cause a Storm Bolt to strike a nearby enemy. This interval is reduced by 2% for every stack you currently have.

With higher stack counts firing off Storm Bolts at greater rates, Gathering Storm is an ability that is about pressing the attack for greater reward. By the time you reach 50 Storm Stacks, there is zero delay between consuming stacks to generate Storm Bolts, so a greater stack count is always beneficial.

Gathering Storm costs zero mana by default, and inherently gains 4% increased damage per point of strength to the Melee Attack, while each point of Attunement grants it +1 spell damage for Storm Bolt.



In its tree, you will find various ways to generate, spend, and manage stacks and gain different effects from Storm Stacks. Its also worth noting that old references to the Lightning ability in the Shaman Passive tree, and some of the other abilities, have been changed to Storm Bolt. All instances of Storm Bolt use Gathering Storms Storm Bolt - even when your Primal Wolves cast it. Meaning these additional Storm Bolt triggers synergize very well with Gathering Storm to create a quite frenetic storm of lightning.

Lets take a look at some of the ways you can customize Gathering Storm through its skill tree.

[h2]Frostbringer[/h2]

Frostbringer converts Gathering Storm and Storm Bolts Base Damage from Lightning to Cold, and converts Shock chance to Frostbite chance. This offers a great route for those looking for more crowd control through freeze, and damage over time with Frostbite.





[h2]Ranged Spell Conversion[/h2]

With Lagonian Diplomacy and a Staff, Gathering Storm can be converted completely to a spell. Striking out with Storm Bolts directly, this node allows you to put complete focus into the spell aspects of Gathering Storm, though with an added mana cost.





[h2]Dual Wielding Support[/h2]

What would a skill about pressing the attack be without some dual-wielding support? The Two Eyed Storm node grants your Storm Stacks the ability to strike two enemies for the price of one; so long as you have a weapon in each hand.





[h2]Whirlwind Tactics[/h2]

For those that like to synergize their builds with Minions, youll also find support for this within Gathering Storm. One such node, Whirlwind Tactics, expends a number of Storm Stacks whenever you use a Companion ability.





Tempest Strike

As we covered in Novembers Dev Blog, Tempest Strike has been reworked in functionality while keeping the same theme. Tempest Strike is now a powerful high-cost combo ability which triggers a Tempest with each strike, rather than a chance for a spell effect that it had previously.





While we talked a bit about how the skill was mechanically changing, at the time we were still making changes to the ability, and werent quite ready to show the tree for it. So today, as we are covering the new Primalist Skill, we also want to show everyone some of the new skill tree options coming to Tempest Strike.

[h2]Druids Call[/h2]

Supporting transformations, Druids Call allows you an option to turn Tempest Strike into a melee triggered ability while transformed. Im sure theres many lightning Werebears out there who just had their ears perk up at the idea of adding another skill to the repertoire.





[h2]Tempest Sacrificing[/h2]

In Tempest Strikes tree you will find a number of nodes that allow you to sacrifice one of the Tempests in order to gain attack speed. Though do be aware, removing a Tempest does not remove the corresponding Strike. Youll also find opportunities to synergize with other abilities for further spell combos, such as with the Ceaseless Typhoon node, which grants a chance to cast Tornado each time you trigger Wind Tempest in the combo.





[h2]Totem Support[/h2]

With the Looming Gale node, you will convert Tempest Strike into a Tempest Totem which casts the three Tempests in sequence without the melee attack. This also converts the ability into a minion ability by changing it to a totem, allowing Tempest Strike to fit into other totem and minion builds.





[h2]Tempest Focus[/h2]

Just want to keep it simple and add more Tempests? Weve got you covered. Granting any of the strikes a chance to cast one of the tempests means you can lash out with multiple tempests on each strike. Pick a specific Tempest to focus on, or just trigger more of all of them, the choice is yours.





Closing

Thank you for joining us for this look at some of the updates coming to the Primalist with the new Gathering Storm ability, and reworked Tempest Strike ability. We look forward to seeing all the new Primalist, and in particular Shaman builds you all come up with.

We also want to take this opportunity to provide advanced notice concerning launch preparation. To get our servers set up for release, we will be taking the servers down 24 hours prior to launch.

Join us again tomorrow as we look at some of the new enemy models and animation updates weve made for 1.0 as we get ever closer to the release of Last Epoch!

Greetings Travelers,

Weve got some seriously exciting news to drop Last Epoch is teaming up with Starforge Systems for an awesome collaboration, and its all thanks to you, our fantastic community! Your support has been nothing short of amazing, and its time to celebrate together. Over the next few weeks, get ready for some incredible giveaways and rewards were talking Last Epoch-themed PCs, slick cases that look like they came straight from Eterra, and Platelights to add that extra cool vibe to your gaming setup. We wanted to show our appreciation, and what better way than hooking you up with some seriously cool gear?

This collaboration is all about you, the Last Epoch community, and we cant wait to share these awesome goodies with you.

Over the next few weeks, these giveaways will be popping up on our social channels, partners spaces, and even in a few new places. To help you all get the best chance at scoring one of these amazing items, we will continue to update this thread over on our forums with the information you need!

To kick things off in a fantastic way, we are giving away one of 5 decked-out PCs. This thing will come loaded with hardware, a sick custom Last Epoch print, and 5 interchangeable platelights, so you can rock your favorite class while you slay your way across time and Eterra.

Giveaway List
Giveaway #1 - Full PC, giveaway powered by VAST.
Dates: February 12th, Winner announced March 15th.
Link: https://vast.link/Last-Epoch



Link to Forum announcement: https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/last-epoch-starforge-collaboration-giveaways-master-thread

We're bursting with excitement to announce that over 1 million players have joined the Last Epoch community!

This wouldn't have been possible without the incredible support of each and every one of you. From the day we launched into Early Access, you've been there with us, playing, providing feedback, crafting amazing theories, and spreading the word about Last Epoch. Your passion and dedication have fueled our drive to create the best possible game, and we are truly grateful.

We know this news might not be fresh, but we were hard at work getting everything ready for 1.0 and wanted to make sure we took a moment to celebrate this achievement with you, our amazing community.

Thank you to everyone who has played, theory-crafted, reported bugs, shared their experiences, and simply enjoyed Last Epoch. You are the heart and soul of this game, and we can't wait to continue this journey together as we approach 1.0 and beyond!

Greetings Travelers,

Here is the timeline of what to expect with the launch Last Epoch 1.0 starting on February 21st and leading through the weekend!

Launch Time - Day 1

Last Epochs 1.0 Patch will become available to download via Steam at 11 a.m. Central Standard Time (USA). If you do not see the prompt to update your copy in Steam, please restart your Steam client and check again. It could take upwards of 20 minutes for the client to see the update.

Online Version Downtime

Last Epochs online services will be down for maintenance and deployment 24 hours before launch. During this time, the team will be hard at work getting everything prepped.

Twitch Drops Begin - Day 2

If you have not already linked your Twitch account, head over to the link below and get your account linked.

Link: https://twitch.lastepoch.com/

Twitch Drops will unlock for content creators beginning Feb 22nd at 12:01am CST and ending on Feb 26th at 12:01am CST. Each day will feature a unique cosmetic, so be sure to tune in to a drops-enabled creator each day. The following week, you will have a second chance at scoring any missing items. You will not be able to earn duplicates of these MTX items by participating a second time however.

Support Needs

We have an incredible support team. These are people that work for us directly, and will be standing by to help you.

If you are in-game and have support needs, please use the in-game support tool by pressing the (Esc) key, and submitting a support request that way.

If you have issues with your account, Please use support.lastepoch.com - The Submit a Request button in the upper right corner is a live and supported item.

Please know that we expect to get a massive influx of support requests, and we will be doing our best to knock those out as they come in.

If you jump on Discord or Reddit or comment on your issues in random places throughout our social spaces, we will not have the resources to utilize those spaces for direct support during our launch.

We will not tolerate any amount of abuse of our support staff. It pains me that I have to say this, but please know that our community guides, codes of conduct, and terms of service apply to our support staff as well. If you are found to have been verbally abusive to our support staff, we reserve the right to revoke your access to online play.

Enjoy the Game!

Last on the list of things to remember. Have fun! Last Epoch is a world for you to dive into and slay your way to victory!

We look forward to seeing you in game at 11am CST on Feb 21st, 2024!

Hello Travelers!

As many of you may have noticed, with Last Fridays Release Trailer Announcement, we also announced the release of two new Editions for Last Epoch! The new Deluxe and Ultimate editions are available both in-game and through Steam and offer a bunch of our latest cosmetics for a great value!



https://lastepoch.com/pre-order

Today, we wanted to spend a short amount of time discussing these new editions and answering some of the most common questions we saw over the weekend regarding both them and supporter packs in general.

New Editions

Of course, we should start by explaining these Editions and how to get them.

We have an excellent little comparison graphic which shows what youll get with each of the editions:


(Please note, cosmetics are not available in offline mode.)

You can also get a pretty good look at what these cosmetics look like on our website by hovering over each of the inclusions in the pack comparison. These all use the MTXs in-engine renders in an effort to display the cosmetics as accurately as possible.

These Editions can be purchased directly through Steam or the in-game MTX Shop.

In game you can open the MTX shop either through the flyout menu, or with the default shortcut of Shift+K and select Pre-order Editions at the top.



When purchasing through Steam, its important to note that there is a section for Packages which include this game and Content for this game. If you already own Last Epoch and want to purchase one of the Editions, we recommend the Upgrade options rather than the full packages, as the full package will not grant an additional game key.



One of the questions we saw come up, was Why are some of the items listed as being available at 1.0 instead of right away?. The reason for this is that the cosmetics have been developed using new character rigs and lighting systems coming in with 1.0, so we cant add them until all the underlying changes are added as well.

Currently we dont have an option to upgrade from a Deluxe Edition to an Ultimate Edition at only the difference of cost, however were looking into routes for adding this capability.

If you already own Last Epoch, or purchase any Edition of Last Epoch - Standard, Deluxe, or Ultimate before 1.0, youll also get the Golden Guppy cosmetic pet! This is the only part of the Editions that is exclusive to the pre-order and will go away once 1.0 drops February 21st.

Editions and Supporter Packs

It is important to note that Editions are separate from Supporter Packs. One of the big distinctions between these Editions and Supporter packs is that the Deluxe and Ultimate Editions will always be available for the Last Epoch and can be upgraded at any time (however, the Golden Guppy is only available if you pre-order before Feb 21st). Supporter packs are packs that get changed out with cycles. With this, we also want to confirm a few details regarding how we plan to handle Supporter Packs.

To start with, Though Editions are separate from Supporter Packs; we will not be offering additional supporter packs on top of Editions with 1.0. The current supporter packs will continue to be available through to Last Epoch Patch 1.2. We dont have a date at this point for 1.2, even a very loose one, as 1.1 would come first, and right now, were still focused on 1.0. However, we will provide at least 30 days notice before any supporter pack is removed from availability, and we will also try to ensure theres an overlap of supporter packs, allowing for as much choice as possible.

This does mean that unlike Editions, Supporter packs will not be available forever. Part of what a supporter pack is, is something that says, I was here when [], much similar to gift shop souvenirs. However, at the same time, we want to balance that I was here exclusiveness with fairness by providing multiple cycles for packs to be available and ensuring multiple options are available.

Closing

If you havent already, now is the best time to pickup a copy of Last Epoch by grabbing one of the editions here: Last Epoch on Steam

If you are one of the amazing people that has already purchase Last Epoch the base game, and would love to continue to support the studio, then definitely consider upgrading your edition today as well!

Last Epoch Deluxe UPGRADE: Last Epoch - Deluxe UPGRADE

Last Epoch Ultimate UPGRADE: Last Epoch - Ultimate UPGRADE

Thats all for today talking about the Editions and Supporter packs. Of course if you have any questions we will continue answering them as best we can while we continue preparing for 1.0 in just over a month! We look forward to seeing the Warlock reveal starting later this week over on Icy-veins.com, when all sorts of curtains get pulled back, and hope to see many of you there!

Hello Travelers!

[previewyoutube=esrO1CocQ9w;full][/previewyoutube]

Today, we are thrilled to showcase the Last Epoch 1.0 Launch Trailer: Echoes from the Void, and the opening of our updated Pre-Order Editions.

Our Launch Trailer, Echoes from the Void, is the mysterious response to [Eterras CGI Trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGwBxbOcLns).

Along with the 1.0 Trailer Launch, we are proud to showcase our Deluxe and Ultimate editions, available for purchase now!

Starting today and up to 1.0 Launch on February 21st, anyone who purchases, or has purchased, any edition of Last Epoch will get the exclusive Golden Guppy Baby Chronowyrm cosmetic pet. You read that right; if you already own Last Epoch, you will soon see the Baby Chronowyrm in your cosmetics inventory!

If you already own Last Epoch and would like to score one of these editions without purchasing the game again, you can do so right here.


[h3]Deluxe Upgrade:[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/990898/

[h3]Ultimate Upgrade: [/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/990899/


As for the Deluxe and Ultimate Editions, these are absolutely jam-packed with incredible cosmetics and offer phenomenal value.

Last Epoch leaves Early Access and Launches into 1.0 on Wednesday, February 21st, 2024.

Grab an edition, and jump into Last Epoch today!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to our deep dive into our Trade and Item Faction systems arriving February 21st, 2024, with the Full Release of Last Epoch! Weve got many exciting features to share with you today.

While we feel confident in what we are sharing with you today, these systems are being actively tested in our Community Testing program, and the details below are still subject to balance changes.

[previewyoutube=SOo0Ule6dNY;full][/previewyoutube]

[h1="a-brief-history"]A Brief History

From the launch of our Kickstarter campaign, we knew we wanted Trade to be part of the Last Epoch community, and through our time creating the world of Eterra we went through many discussions and iterations of how a trade system could exist.

As many of you know, balancing a trade system is one of the most challenging issues to tackle in a loot-based game, as it drastically impacts the item hunt for all players. Many players do not want to play an ARPG unless there is a trade economy that gives additional value to their items and enables them to create builds more reliably. Many other players voice that a trade economy ruins their enjoyment of the item hunt and dont want to participate in those types of systems at all. While Last Epoch does offer a solo challenge mode which does mean all items are found by yourself, it also limits co-op.

After polling the community and receiving thousands of responses we found that these two camps of players are divided shockingly close to 50/50.

On December 22nd of 2022, we announced our plans for the Item Gifting System as our version of trade. This was designed to fulfill what we felt was the core necessity to trade, to be able to share items with friends youre playing with, while protecting the itemization systems we had built elsewhere in Last Epoch. Thankfully, our community was great enough to let us know that we needed to do more. So we got to work.

After many design meetings and conversations with the community, Item Factions began to take shape - what we feel is a unique and exciting solution to the trade debate in ARPGs - a solution not seen before, and which we believe satisfies both sides of the conversation. Item Factions holds a place of pride for us, as its a direct showing of what can be accomplished when working closely with our community.

So the very first thing we want to do when discussing item factions is to say this: Thank You. Thank you for being part of our community, being involved in the future of Last Epoch, and continuing to push us to innovate and drive Last Epoch forward to become a great ARPG we can all enjoy.

[h1=what-are-item-factions]What Are Item Factions?

One of the most common suggestions we received - and what other games have tried - was to have different cycles for trade or trade-free. This solution wouldnt work for us as it would mean dividing the player base away from each other, increasing overhead for itemization, and balancing what would be effectively two games. So, the question became: how can we implement two different ways to find and acquire items without creating a division within the community?

The answer? Item Factions. A fully integrated solution into the lore and mechanics of Last Epoch, allowing players to make a meaningful and rewarding choice in how they want to empower their loot hunt in Eterra.



On February 21st, within the world of Eterra you will find two Item Factions:

• Merchants Guild - grants the ability to trade items with other players through the Bazaar, and player-to-player
  
• Circle of Fortune - grants boosts to items you find yourself through Prophecies, and passive bonuses
  

Hello Last Epoch community!

As we get closer to the upcoming 1.0 launch of Last Epoch on February 21st, its time to drop the details on what you can expect for Twitch Drops during the weeks after launch.

First off: Head on over to www.lastepoch.com/twitch and make sure your accounts are correctly linked.

Starting on February 22nd (Thursday), you can head on over to the Last Epoch category on Twitch and look for users who have drops enabled.

Four total cosmetic items can be earned, and each day will be different. The following week, starting on February 29th, each item will be available one last time in case you missed it the first go-round. You will not be able to earn two of each.



[h3]Schedule:[/h3]

Week 1 - February 22nd - 25th

• Day 1 (Thur the 22nd) - Mantle of the Prophesier cosmetic back slot item.
  
• Day 2 (Fri the 23rd) - Green Dire-Guana pet cosmetic item.
  
• Day 3 (Sat the 24th) - Merchants Mantle cosmetic back slot item.
  
• Day 4 (Sun the 25th) - Blue Seers Orb pet cosmetic item.
  

• Day 1 (Thur the 29th) - Mantle of the Prophesier cosmetic back slot item.
  
• Day 2 (Fri the 1st) - Green Dire-Guana pet cosmetic item.
  
• Day 3 (Sat the 2nd) - Merchants Mantle cosmetic back slot item.
  
• Day 4 (Sun the 3rd) - Blue Seers Orb pet cosmetic item.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where mini healthbars were not appearing over enemies or minions
  
• Fixed a bug where Flurry would collide with friendly players and minions
  
• Fixed a bug which could result in a Gray Splash Screen on client start
  
• Fixed an issue where Lagon would not drop potions in phases 1 and 3
  
• Fixed a bug which would result in enemies in arena not animating properly after spawning
  
  
  
  • This can still occur due to a different bug which we are still working on, however is far less frequent
    
  
  

• Reduced the sizes of many textures loaded on client start. This should reduce the starting memory footprint when launching the client, as well as help the client launch a bit faster. Because this reduces the start-up memory footprint, we also expect this to help with many cases of crash-on-startup which were due to memory issues.
  
• Added support ticket submission to in-game bug report tool for players looking for support rather than to report an issue.
  
• Several backend improvements for performance improvements while playing in a party, as well as for longer game sessions
  
• Cleaned up a number of log events which were not logging useful information
  

Welcome Travelers, and thank you all for joining us for Novembers Developer Blog as we progress through the final stretch to 1.0. As many of you are likely already aware, yesterday saw the first reveal of our Cinematic Trailer for Last Epoch over on IGN. We want to thank everyone for the fantastic support we saw in regards to the trailer, its been a great morale boost to see the continued excitement for our 1.0 release. If you didnt have a chance to check out the Cinematic Trailer yet, please do so below!

[previewyoutube=zGwBxbOcLns;full][/previewyoutube]

Of course, on October 20th, we also announced our roadmap to 1.0, covering the main news articles to keep an eye out for, as well as our 1.0 release date of February 21st, 2024! Were all very excited for the big day and wanted to talk about both what to expect in regards to the roadmap, as well as share with you all some of the things weve been working on. Im sure youre all excited to hear about some of these things coming, so allow us to waste no more time and get into it!

Roadmap



Let us start by talking a bit about the Roadmap we showed with our Release Date announcement. As many of you are aware, 1.0 not only marks the release of Last Epoch from Early Access, but will also introduce Item Factions, The Warlock and Falconer masteries, and a host of additional updates!

In the roadmap, we showcase the major upcoming announcements leading up to our 1.0 release on February 21st. We wanted to provide a bit more context on what to expect from each of these areas and give you a bit of a look into how Last Epoch continues to support its community, with both the Warlock and Falconer previews being community-driven exclusives that are designed to bring some awesome depth of information for these masteries ahead of their release at 1.0.

As you may notice with this dev blog, this roadmap is not an exhaustive list of all news posts to expect leading up to 1.0, so you can look forward to much more insight into 1.0 before the big date. Instead, this roadmap shows the dates of when you can expect to get more information on the three headlining features for 1.0 - Item Factions, The Warlock, and The Falconer.

[h2]January 11th - Item Factions[/h2]

Fresh into the new year, keep an eye on our socials as well as here on our regular posting platforms where well be releasing a comprehensive blog post diving into Item Factions: providing information on The Merchants Guild, The Bazaar, Circle of Fortune, and Prophecies. Theres a lot of information well be sharing in this post, so look forward to getting all the info in this deep dive! As a note, to clear any potential confusion, Item Factions are launching with the 1.0 update, and not on Jan 11th.

[h2]January 25th - Warlock Preview[/h2]

On this date, our community member AaronActionRPG will be providing a first look at the final Acolyte Mastery - The Warlock over on Icy-Veins.com. A long-time fan of the acolyte class, a huge supporter of Last Epoch, and a great member of the community, we are excited to see what Aaron and Icy-Veins have in store for the reveal. As a note - The Warlock will be coming with the 1.0 update, and this will be an early informational look at the class.

[h2]February 8th - Falconer Preview[/h2]

Just over a month before Patch 1.0, the bird will be the word over on Maxroll.gg with the first look into the final Rogue Mastery - The Falconer. Weve worked with the team over at Maxroll before, and are happy to be rejoining them for this reveal leading up to release. Here, some of our hardest-going community members will be representing Maxroll for this reveal, so we know no interaction will be left unturned. Find out how the Falcon works, what kind of skills will be coming with the mastery, and what kind of stats to expect on the Falconer over on Maxroll.gg on February 8th! As a note - The Falconer will be coming with the 1.0 update, and this will be an early informational look at the class.

[h2]February 21st - Last Epoch 1.0 Launch Day[/h2]

The big day! On February 21st, 2024, Last Epoch will be releasing with version 1.0! On this day, everyone will be able to play the Full Last Epoch experience with Item Factions, The Warlock, The Falconer, and all the other improvements weve been hard at work on!

Of course, 1.0 is just the start of our journey here at Eleventh Hour Games as we plan for many years of content to come. However we cannot understate our excitement to be hitting this massive milestone, and look forward to seeing you on Launch Day!

Other Features

A couple of weeks ago we invited everyone to provide feedback on things they wish they knew as a new player to Last Epoch. We would like to thank everyone for providing responses to this form, and well be going over this great feedback to find further improvements to the new player experience we can sneak into 1.0, as well as what kind of community resources we can put together to continue supporting you all in your travels.

If you havent had a chance yet to provide feedback on things you wish you knew as a new player, let us know by following this link to the form: https://forms.gle/8Mg9u7e1NJcyDJph9 .

Now, Lets take a look at a few of the improvements coming on the big day!

Visual Improvements

[h2]Lighting and Shadows[/h2]

One of our major goals for the game is to improve both visual quality and performance across the board. To continue chasing this goal, we are making multiple changes to our lighting systems, shaders, and more.

Historically, many of our scenes felt a bit floaty, with characters and objects not grounded in the way we would wish. A big part of this issue was missing good contact shadows and shadows in general. There are many reasons why this is not as simple to solve as it may look - the most significant reason is of course the performance.

One of the systems we have improved for 1.0 is Ambient Occlusion. Our new implementation creates much more accurate contact shadows and brings much-needed depth into many of our scenes.

In addition to ambient occlusion improvements, we are also adding a modern screen-space Soft Shadow system. In many scenes, where we previously did not have any shadows, player light is now the source of physical light where objects around the player properly cast shadow, which is increasing much more dramatic lightning in our scenes, while still keeping performance in check. Since this is screen space solution, it has fixed performance cost, no matter how many objects or monsters are on the screen.



In addition, we are reworking lighting in almost every scene in the game, with multiple goals in mind - to improve performance, to increase the visibility of the player, and frankly, to improve the visual fidelity of our scenes.

Here is our EoT scene as an example. With new ambient occlusion, shadow system, and reworked lighting, all objects in the scene feel more grounded, the player character is clearly visible and there is a much better sense of depth.



[h2]Scene Variant System[/h2]

The scene variant system is another major system we are introducing for 1.0. It is basically a set of tools and shaders which allow us to improve the visual quality of our scenes and add more variety to the game. It allows us to create dramatically different-looking scenes by using scene variant templates

In the past, it was quite hard for us to create different variants of the scene, having different weather effects or changing our vegetation. In most cases, we needed to create new materials, new texture maps or assets, and decals, and combine them to achieve results we needed - which has a negative impact on performance, since it all can increase draw calls.

However with shader changes, we now can change the vegetation, wetness of our surfaces, and add puddles to the scene using just shader functions. In other words, we can now have richer looking scenes, while improving performance in the process.

This set of tools also allows us to create new scenes more quickly, allowing the level design team to focus on, well, level design, without trying to solve technical issues and challenges.

Last, but not least, it allows us to bring much more variety into the game. For example monolith scene can look very different each time you will enter it, as you can see in some of the examples below!

We have big plans for the system and you will see us utilize it more and more as the game progresses in the future.



Shaman Revisit

Weve heard all of the feedback regarding the Shaman Mastery and agree. For 1.0 well be revisiting our favorite warrior of the north (sorry Grael), giving this mastery some much needed love helping to bring it up to par with the other mastery options in Eterra. With this revisit to Shaman, we wont be doing a complete rework of the mastery; However, we know some aspects of the mastery can be a bit lacking at the moment, and we decided it needed some time dedicated to it in preparation for 1.0.

These changes are still a work in progress, so for todays post well just be speaking a short bit to one of the big improvements coming to Shaman with the reworked Tempest Strike skill. Well also be making changes to the Masterys Passive Tree to improve options in the tree and a new, as of yet to be disclosed skill. Expect more information in a later post!

[h2]Tempest Strike[/h2]

Tempest Strike, as its currently implemented, is a spammable melee skill imbuing each strike with a chance to trigger elemental storm spells on hit, and offering elemental penetration instead of attack speed scaling. Being a hybrid skill with both attack and spell features, with the spell procs not being the most reliable, and lack of attack speed scaling, Tempest Strike has been in a fairly rough spot. As such, Tempest Strike is getting a complete rework for 1.0, keeping the same name and theme, but with completely new mechanics, skill tree, and even role as a skill.



As of 1.0, Tempest Strike will instead be a powerful high-cost combo ability. With each strike of your weapon, Tempest Strike will flow through launching penetrating icicles, creating tornadoes, and expanding rings of lightning. In its tree youll find the ability to specialize into each of these strikes making them more powerful, or removing them for other benefits. Youll also find the reworked Tempest Strike will be quite favorable to building attack speed, allowing you to rage an elemental storm through hordes of enemies with a whole new suite of animations and VFX.

Speaking of storms, this change to Tempest Strike leaves a vacancy within Primalist for a low cost generator, or filler skill, tailored towards Shaman - but thats a story for another time as we get closer to 1.0.

Endgame Rebalance

Weve gotten a lot of feedback concerning endgame echo modifiers, as well as corruption scaling. As such, weve decided this is another great area we can add polish to with our release. In this area, there was two main pieces of feedback we wanted to address. The first is inequality and obfuscation of Echo Modifiers, and the second is the effects of scaling corruption.

[h2]Echo Modifiers[/h2]

With Echo Modifiers, we wanted to focus on enemy power coming less from the modifiers themselves, and more from the inherent strength of high level enemies and Corruption directly. The goal of these changes are primarily to achieve a more predictable experience in high corruption Timelines.

To accomplish this weve made Echo Modifiers have shorter durations (now lasting a maximum of three echoes), and importantly made these mods no longer scale with corruption or distance from center.



As we dove into echo modifiers, there was a number of mods which scaled invisibly with corruption including enemies enraging at half health, Enemies have high speed and crit chance until approached, and enemies are deadly if not damaged recently.

These mods actually scaled at the same rate as increased damage modifiers, which if you're familiar with these mods, means these quickly became extremely deadly without clearly presenting the increasing difficulty of these mods. This will no longer be the case as these will now have fixed values alongside all other mods, including the infamous increased damage mods.

We're still tweaking numbers for this and testing the changes, so we're not quite ready to share numbers. These changes to Echo modifiers should make for a smoother more predictable experience, however don't expect tackling endgame scaling to suddenly be an easier task.

[h2]Corruption Changes[/h2]

While Echo modifiers are getting reigned in, were also shifting some of that power from scaling modifiers directly into Corruption scaling. The difficulty modifier from corruption will now scale much more quickly meaning corruption will be the primary method of scaling difficulty, and hitting these points should be both a quicker and smoother experience. For this, we feel its important to provide some numbers here for context, however please do keep in mind these numbers are still subject to change:


100 corruption: 60% more monster damage and health (from 50%)
200 corruption: 170% more monster damage and health (from 100%)
300 corruption: 281% more monster damage and health (from 147%)
500 corruption: 505% more monster damage and health (from 289%)

Corruption will now also slightly scale up the average legendary potential and weavers will values. This means item rarity from echo modifiers will increase the total number of unique item drops for more chances at Legendary potential, while Corruption will have a multiplicative effect directly increasing the chance for Legendary Potential on each Unique item which drops.

Closing

With 1.0 being such a significant point for us, features are not the only thing were working on. Were continuing to work through many of the current bugs, Improving our networking, improving performance, and addressing many balance concerns brought forward by you all. We want to ensure Last Epoch has the best launch it can for everyone, and were working hard towards that goal.

With 0.9.0, we had to change a number of processes with the Community Tester program, meaning we werent able to get the program back up and running for 0.9.1, and managed to get the program up and running only just before 0.9.2. We know with this, theres been feedback and concerns regarding if there will be sufficient testing and review of these big new features coming to Last Epoch. Were happy to say that the program already started a week ago providing testing a few of these upcoming features, and have already started adjusting to feedback from these community members!

Currently the program isnt accepting additional members, however we wanted to provide the reassurance that were as always committed to working closely with the community, and making sure we fulfill that cooperation and coordination for these important features. Though not limited to the CT Program, we as always will be keeping a close eye on everyones feedback as we continue on the path to 1.0 and beyond.

Thank you all for for taking the time to read up on the latest goings-on here at Eleventh Hour Games. For more information concerning 1.0 and all things Last Epoch, make sure to mark the Roadmap Events on your calendar, keep tuned into our social channels, and join us on Discord at discord.gg/lastepoch for further blog posts and teasers as we work forward to the February 21st release!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where a Lost Cache could be looted multiple times
  
• Fixed a bug where simultaneously exploding Volatile Zombies creating Infernal Shades could exceed the Shade limit
  
• Fixed a bug where holding Shift would not prevent movement
  
• Fixed a bug where Region Select was defaulting to US-Central
  
• Fixed a bug where Exiled Mage's Mana strike was not able to reach players
  
• Fixed a bug where closing the in-game Bug Report tool with esc would disable game inputs
  
• Fixed a bug where some Osprix enemies would appear invisible in Liath's Tower
  
• Fixed some instances of pink particle effects
  

Hello Travelers!

A quick hotfix today to resolve an issue where a small number of players were unable to log in.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where some newly created characters were being generated with items using a newer version of item serialization that the live client was not able to deserialize preventing the character from loading, or any character if the item was placed in the stash.
  

• Fixed a bug where Volatile Zombiess Grand Sacrifice and Effigy of Combustion could trigger while on negative mana
  
• Volatile Zombie changes: Dreadful Horde and Giant Zombie now only have a 10% chance to trigger their effects on indirect casts (from always triggering), such as via Awakening Presence or the Experimental Belt affix
  
• Giant Zombie gives 120% increased mana cost (from 300%)
  

• Flurry collides with players and minions in online play
  
• Flurry is producing too many projectiles
  
• Weve seen reports of this still occurring since the last patch, and are re-investigating
  
• Flurry sometimes not hitting with very high attack speeds
  
• Detonating Arrow Cone is exploding in the wrong direction
  
• Flame Rush tracks Rune generation between skill uses
  
• Effigy boss (giant worm) can spawn loot off the map
  
• Skeleton enemies missing health bars and hover outlines
  
• Enemies in arena not properly animating after spawning
  
• Runic Invocations Unbridled Ruin not providing its damage bonus
  
• Teleporting back to town doesnt put you near your portal
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the Soul Eater Backslot was on the wrong layer causing some decals to appear on top of it
  
• Fixed a number of abilities that, in online play, when used multiple times in the same scene would stop working or start behaving differently. The most common occurrences of this issue were:
  
• Blade Shield would not spawn Shurikens after first cast in a scene, if it hit an enemy
  
• Flurry would generate too many arrows and Multishot procs
  
• Cinder Strikes first attack would not deal damage
  
• Fixed a bug where Town Chat would be unavailable while in a town scene
  
• Several bugfixes for Town reliability and connection issues
  
• Fixed a bug where Frost Claw projectiles would be deleted when coming into contact with Water
  
• Fixed a bug where Osprix Raiders would appear invisible in Liaths Tower
  

• Added Keybind for Force Move. This is unbound by default.
  
• Removed Lost Caches from spawning in Arena Echoes
  

• Updated dropdown options to better match types of bug reports
  
• Replaced Severity selection with a Unable to Progress checkbox
  
• Added additional information to Bug Report Tool for contacting support when looking for assistance rather than submitting a report
  

Travelers,

Im thrilled to announce that Eleventh Hour Games is launching the long-awaited 1.0 version of Last Epoch on February 21st, 2024. After a journey that started with the dream of uniting genre enthusiasts to create the next great ARPG and forming an after-hours team through Reddit, to holding a successful Kickstarter 18 months later, and then building Last Epoch alongside our passionate community throughout Early Access were confident in saying that weve made something truly special.

Last Epochs 1.0 launch will mark a new beginning for Eterra, and will set a new bar for quality, polish, gameplay feel, and visual excellence. Beyond 1.0, Eleventh Hour Games will bring substantial new content to Last Epoch every few months in what we call Cycles. These releases will contain additions and refinements to many aspects of the game, such as end-game content, skills, unique items, gameplay systems, quality-of-life features, etc.

We understand that February is later than we had initially targeted for this release; however, our original December timeline became a bit crowded with other studios releases, and we didnt want to force the ARPG community to have to choose. By moving our date, well also be able to take advantage of a few more months of polish for our new systems and classes, complete more bug-fixing, and reinforce our team with a restful and well-deserved holiday break.

We thank you all for your unwavering support and enthusiasm that has allowed Eleventh Hour Games to make this game for all of us. We hope you will join us in Eterra this February and invite your friends to join in a new co-op hack-and-slash experience!

- Judd Cobler
Game Director, Last Epoch

Hello Travelers,

Were releasing a quick hotfix to address a few issues with Towns instances. This hotfix aims to resolve issues with Town servers zombifying preventing new players from joining the Town instance. The most common incarnation of this issue was preventing players from being able to log in with characters to the End of Time within a given region.

Changes

• Fixed a bug where Town servers would sometimes zombify preventing players from accessing the Town
  

Hello Travelers!

Were releasing a quick hotfix today to resolve a progression blocking bug within Council Chambers. We are still working on a number of other bugfixes for a complete patch, but wanted to get this fix out ASAP.

Changes

• Fixed a bug where the barrier would sometimes fail to dispel in Council Chambers preventing access to The Sheltered Woods
  

Hello Travelers!

We have a whole bunch of fixes were releasing in todays Patch. Two of the fixes we were targeting for this patch - Offline Temporal Sanctum Progression, and Ground Decals carrying over between echoes werent quite able to get in. The changes for these items unfortunately arent quite fixing them, and we dont want to delay all the other updates for them. While we continue to be hard at work on those bugs (and others), read below for all the fixes and updates out today!

Changes

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]

• Fixed a bug that occasionally resulted in a duplicate player body after entering a new scene.
  
• Fixed a bug that occasionally prevented Rune Prisons from spawning their encounters.
  

• Fixed a bug where Puncture would sometimes deal 1 damage
  
• Added Scaling Tags to Glyph of Dominion
  
• Fixed a bug where Frost Claw would leave a 'trail' on the ground when converted to Fire or Lightning
  
• Fixed a rare bug where some abilities could fail to hit
  
• Fixed a small timing issue with Runebolt
  
• Runebolts explosive skill tree node has had its placeholder name updated.
  

• Fixed a bug where players were unable to Unhide Quests on the Map
  
• Fixed a bug where changing or disabling a Loot Filter would sometimes prevent players from closing the Loot Filter panel
  
• Fixed a bug where Medium Item Names was displaying Long Item Names
  
• Fixed a bug where clicking on quests on the Map would not always bring Players to the proper node on the Map Screen
  

• Fixed ability pooling for Shade of Orobyss and Majasa
  
• Added ability pooling for a number of enemies to increase performance
  
• Fixed a bug where Exiled Mage's Mana Strike would fail to hit players
  
• Adjusted VFX for Winged Fire, and Dreadworm enemies
  
• Updated Skeletons weapon materials
  

• Fixed a bug where there was incorrect spacing between Hanja in Korean chat
  
• Added several localization updates
  

• Fixed health recovery stacking from Death Rattle
  
• Fixed a bug with the Unique gloves Hand of Judgment which resulted in abnormally rolled values.
  

• Fixed a bug that prevented some hardcore players from transitioning to softcore properly upon death.
  
• Implemented improvements to server stability and optimization
  
• Reduced matchmaking timeouts from 10min to 5min (This is not the AFK timer, but how long a server will wait for user connections, such as during a loading screen)
  
• Added several lighting improvements in Chapter H - Majelka
  

• Decals persisting and layering from scene to scene.
  
• Progression blocker in Temporal Sanctum (offline)
  
• Transition times between scenes
  
• Rarely disconnecting immediately after connecting to a new server.
  
• Enemies in Arena and Monolith often do not animate properly
  
• Continuing localization and translation improvements
  

Changes

• Fixed the waypoint on the world map for Last Refuge Outskirts being unusable.
  
• Fixed the Hide/Show Quests function on the world map.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused error spam in The Immortal Summit.
  

• Progression blocker in Temporal Sanctum (offline)
  
• Some skill projectiles are colliding with 'invisible terrain'
  
• Transition times between scenes can be quite long.
  
• Rarely disconnecting immediately after connecting to a new server.
  
• Sometimes, your player model is duplicated after entering a new scene and the camera gets stuck. Portaling out to another server usually fixes this.
  
• Rune Prisons can rarely fail to spawn an Exiled Mage.
  
• Enemies in Arena and Monolith often do not animate properly.
  
• Certain abilities failing to hit enemies correctly.
  
• Swapping loot filters can cause the loot filter interface to bug out.
  
• Textures can pile up on the ground as you load more monolith echoes, causing strange visuals and increased memory usage.
  
• Item name lengths are now Long when they should be Normal.
  

Changes

• Fixed a bug where using a Rune of Research could not create a Glyph of Insight.
  
• Fixed a bug causing projectiles to be destroyed early in the Ritual Lake echo layout.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Frostclaws Glamdring node to scale with increased and more melee damage stats.
  
• Fixed a bug where submitting a bug report when your Log File was too large could crash the game client.
  
• Submitting a bug report now also includes the Log File for your previous session as well.
  
• Fixed a bug where Adanais personal item dropped as a Staff instead of a Dagger. This fix will not retroactively affect existing items.
  
• Fixed a bug where Frost Claw did not have localized text.
  
• Fixed visual issues with Frostclaws Fire and Lightning conversions.
  
• Fixed visual bugs with the Rogues appearance when creating a new character.
  
• Fixed a bug where players would stand completely still after certain skill animation ended, rather than returning to their idle animation.
  
• Summon Spriggan
  
• Upheaval
  
• Default Attack
  
• Ice Thorns
  
• Summon Scorpion
  
• Earthquake
  
• Updated animations for channeled Flurry when using a polearm or two-handed axe.
  
• Updated sound effects for Immortal Eye enemies.
  
• Fixed footstep sounds being incorrect for players.
  
• Replaced the very old sounds on Divine Bolt and Volcanus shard ability with newer ones.
  
• Fixed various minor environmental audio issues.
  

• Transition times between scenes can be quite long.
  
• Rarely disconnecting immediately after connecting to a new server.
  
• Sometimes, your player model is duplicated after entering a new scene and the camera gets stuck. Portaling out to another server usually fixes this.
  
• Rune Prisons can rarely fail to spawn an Exiled Mage.
  
• Enemies in Arena and Monolith often do not animate properly.
  
• Certain abilities failing to hit enemies correctly.
  
• Swapping loot filters can cause the loot filter interface to bug out.
  
• Textures can pile up on the ground as you load more monolith echoes, causing strange visuals and increased memory usage.
  
• Item name lengths are now Long when they should be Normal.
  

Changes

• Added chat channels for Korean - this was an oversight. You can select what language chat channels you connect to on the Login screen.
  
• Various logging improvements to aid troubleshooting.
  

• Transition times between scenes can be quite long.
  
• Rarely disconnecting immediately after connecting to a new server.
  
• Sometimes, your player model is duplicated after entering a new scene and the camera gets stuck. Portaling out to another server usually fixes this.
  
• Rune Prisons can rarely fail to spawn an Exiled Mage.
  
• Enemies in Arena and Monolith often do not animate properly.
  
• Certain abilities failing to hit enemies correctly.
  
• Swapping loot filters can cause the loot filter interface to bug out.
  
• Submitting a bug report with a log file thats too large can crash the client.
  
• Textures can pile up on the ground as you load more monolith echoes, causing strange visuals and increased memory usage.
  
• Item name lengths are now Long when they should be Normal.
  
• The Rogues visuals look incorrect when making a new character.
  
• Certain skills cause the player to not properly return to their idle animation.
  

Runes of Power, Patch 0.9.2, is coming Thursday, Sept 7th, 2023 at 11:00 AM CT!

Welcome everyone to the Patch Notes for Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power! Over the last week weve been going over some of the major features to expect in this patch including the new Runemaster Mastery, Localization, Frost Claw, Item Caches, and Rune Prisons. This update brings with it a whole new way to play with the Runemaster, alongside new content with random encounters, and many more improvements!

Last Epoch Beta Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power will introduce:

• Mage Mastery: Runemaster, including 5 new skills!
  
• New Base Mage Class Ability: Frost Claw
  
• One-shot Caches, and Lost Caches
  
• Localization
  
• Monolith Improvements
  
• In-game Bug Reporting
  
• New Models and Animations
  
• Twenty-one new Unique Items
  
• Balance Changes and Bug Fixes
  
• And more!
  

Welcome to the final Pre-Patch Blog Post before the release of the full Patch Notes for Runes of Power!

Today were going to be looking at another new encounter mechanic were adding to Last Epoch in just three days! As mentioned in the Rune Prisons blog post, we wanted to improve the moment- to-moment feeling within the Campaign, as well as within Echoes. To bolster this, were adding two types of caches to the game: One-shot Caches, which can be found during the Campaign, and Lost Caches, which can be found within the Monolith of Fate.

One-shot Caches

Have you ever thought to yourself I love exploring, but sometimes I wish there was something just a little bit more to find while exploring? Well, we have, and so were introducing One-shot Caches!

These Caches are hidden throughout various Campaign zones. You wont find them on the beaten path either, so if you want them, make sure to put your exploring boots on. When you begin to approach a One-shot Cache, you will be able to see the cache appear as an icon on your mini-map to let you know that treasure is near.



One-shot Caches, as the name implies, can only be opened for their specific rewards once per character, but when opened provide greater rewards than a normal chest and always have a guaranteed drop of either a Personal Item or other helpful leveling items. Personal Items are hand-crafted items which once belonged to another entity that left them behind. They have fixed stats on them, and boast special Personal Affixes. These Personal Affixes cannot drop naturally, define the name of the item, and can be identified by their pale yellow color. Personal Items also cannot be crafted, so youll need to find the cache that has the personal item for you.



To prevent missing out on One-shot Caches when playing in a party, the Cache will only be opened for you by another player if you are also nearby. If youre further away, it will remain safely closed for you to explore it yourself when youre ready.

You can always find the same One-shot Caches in every playthrough: so once you know where to find one, containing a particular item to help you through the campaign, youll know where to go. This also provides an opportunity for more experienced players to find different routes through the campaign for different characters, depending on which One-shot Caches they may want to nab.

Lost Caches

Lost Caches are similar to One-shot Caches, however these will randomly appear in Monolith Echoes and dont have any limits on finding and opening them. Our goal here is to improve the feeling of each potential echo by adding random events where you can find fun little rewards - perhaps stumbling upon them, or for the avid explorers out there, a reward for your efforts. Do keep in mind, not all Echoes will contain a Lost Cache.



When found tucked away within Echoes, Lost Caches will grant a bunch of powerful items themed around the specific Lost Cache. There are many types of Lost Caches to find, as well as several Tiers of each type of Lost Cache. For example you may find an Explorers Cache which hoards keys, a Lost Thiefs Cache which contains jewelry, ranged weapons, and daggers, or perhaps a Thief Lords Cache which contains a greater version of the rewards from the Lost Thiefs Cache.

Monolith of Fate Improvements

Alongside adding new mechanics and things to find in Monoliths, were making some changes to Echoes themselves to improve the experience. Our goal here is to make Echoes feel more consistent in navigation, feel better when clearing, add a bit more variety, and reduce the feeling of getting a bad map.

With the performance improvements weve been making, were feeling confident about this first change being made: increasing mob density. On average, this works out to about a ten percent increase in mob density. However, in combination with adjusting mob spawner locations, we believe this can help with the feeling of density, without too much of a performance impact. This is just a first step towards better balanced endgame monster density and this will be an ongoing effort.



The second change were making is adding more possible player spawn locations. This was a quick change which can help to make maps feel more variable by creating different routes around the maps.

The third change were making is to maps with a lot of dead ends either removing many of the dead ends, or adding additional connections to make these maps less punishing on path choice and reduce backtracking.

The final change is were reducing the sizes of some of the larger maps. This means Alpine Halls is now about one third the size it previously was.

Patch Notes Soon

Thank you everyone for joining us for the final Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power! With One-shot Caches and Lost Caches providing more reward to exploration, and general Monolith of Fate Improvements keeping the feel-goods coming, we hope everyone enjoys Runes of Power and Runemaster as much as weve enjoyed creating it. So get your theory-crafting juices flowing, and your plans set, because Runes of Power releases in just three days on September 7th!

Keep your eyes open tomorrow for our final post before the patch, containing all of the juicy patch notes, coming soon!

Happy Sunday, Travelers! Welcome to the 0.9.2 Pre-patch Blog Post covering the new Rune Prisons and Experimental Items coming this Thursday in Runes of Power!

An area weve felt is in need of improvement with respect to Last Epochs endgame system is the moment-to-moment gameplay of completing Echoes. This isnt something we feel can be fixed by any single change, however were still looking to improve this aspect of gameplay piece by piece. By introducing more random events that can happen in an Echo, it can help to reduce the sameness of each Echo, and feel like a much more dynamic experience. The first random encounter were introducing this Thursday is Rune Prisons.

Rune Prisons

Rune Prisons are a special type of encounter you can find in any Monolith Echo, as well as most campaign areas. While making your way through the world and Eras of Eterra, you may find yourself coming across a large floating prism held in place with chains. The intermittent shudders betray the power that lies within these prisons.



By clicking on a Rune Prison, you will unleash the Exiled Mage held within, who will become immediately hostile to both you and any enemies in the area. These Exiled Mages will spawn with a random set of abilities, so you never quite know exactly what you will be facing when you break them out - but always be ready for a fight.



If you manage to defeat this Exiled Mage, you will be rewarded with an Experimental item, and potentially, at higher levels, a Rune of Research.

Experimental Items

Experimental Items are a new class of items being introduced in Runes of Power. These are items which at first glance may appear to be a standard Magic, Unique, or Exalted item. However on closer inspection youll notice they come with a very special affix. These Experimental Affixes cannot by crafted or found through normal means, and are typically only found on items dropped by an Exiled Mage.



These experimental affixes can even roll exalted, as well as the potential for other affixes on the item to roll as Exalted. This means that yes, you can in fact craft a Legendary Item using Experimental Affixes!

At higher levels, you may also find a very special crafting item dropped by an Exiled Mage: a Rune of Research.

Experimental Crafting

Successfully defeating an Exiled Mage above level 70 has a chance to drop a Rune of Research. This Rune will seal an Experimental Affix on an Experimental item. This obeys normal Sealed Affix rules, in that an item can only have one Sealed Affix.



When sealing an experimental affix through the use of a Rune of Research, you have a chance to receive a particularly powerful crafting item, a Glyph of Insight. When this glyph is used to upgrade a normal affix, it will change it into an Experimental Affix. This process is deterministic based on the item.



This means if you have two of the exact same item, it will always produce the same Experimental Affix. Determining what exactly an item needs for each possible Experimental Affix however is something that may require a bit of experimentation.



One-shot and Lost Caches

Thats all for todays Pre-Patch Blog Post taking a look at Rune Prisons, and we hope everyones excited for this entirely new type of item and crafting mechanic coming in just four more days on September 7th.

Join us again tomorrow for a look into One-shot Caches, Lost Caches, and some general improvements for Monolith Echoes coming in Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power!

Welcome Travelers to the third Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power!

Today well be taking a look at some of the new Unique Items, visual improvements, and quality of life features coming in Patch 0.9.2 on September 7th. This post is going to be quite a visual feast, so make sure you have your eyeballs ready for the images ahead!

Campaign Levels Visual Updates

With the recent complete overhaul of Chapter 1, we wanted to go back through some of the mid-game areas and apply our new tech and design principles. All zones in Chapter 6, most zones in Chapter 4, and several other hand-picked zones have had significant visual upgrades made to them.



Many of these areas have had completely new assets created for them such as siege weaponry for Osprix War Camps and new soul storage devices for the Immortal Empire. Many of these items not only improve the visuals of the area, but also work to create additional immersion as each of these custom crafted items also have a purpose and intent.



These changes help us bring Eterra as a whole up to our latest standards in preparation for 1.0. Our goal with many of these changes is not just to beautify these areas, but also to help bolster the unique distinctions between both different Eras and Zones. Time travel is a core part of Last Epoch, and so its even more important to have distinct visual traits and variety to help reinforce the difference between the Eras. These visual updates make many of these areas feel like entirely new maps to play through.





Enemy Updates

Alongside Zones, a number of enemies are getting visual updates as well in 0.9.2. For those that keep close track of our teasers on our weekly Dev Streams, we teased this duos art a while back, and theyll be two of the new Enemy Models arriving in Runes of Power!

[h2]Soul Cage[/h2]



[h2]Soul Warden[/h2]



[h2]Dont be so shy you two![/h2]



Quality of Life Updates

[h2]In-game Bug Reporting[/h2]

One of the most frequently requested quality of life features is a way to be able to quickly and easily report bugs and provide feedback in-game. As of September 7th, this ability will be added to the game! On the Character select screen, as well as in the main menu, you can find a new Report a Bug button.



When you submit any bugs or feedback through this feature, you can automatically include a screenshot of your current game view, as well as your log files, for comprehensive review. Were quite happy to finally have this feature in players hands, both to make it easier and more friendly for you to report issues. Were looking forward to receiving more info and feedback on a range of issues so we can address them more quickly and efficiently with this new tool!

[h2]Town Functionality[/h2]

Earlier this week we re-enabled Town functionality live on all servers, allowing players to encounter other Travelers throughout Eterra in Towns. With this Town functionality, youre able to connect with other players, form parties, or socialize, show off your latest legendary, and talk shop.

To make interaction in Towns a bit smoother, with Patch 0.9.2 were also adding the ability to right click players in Town to be able to interact with them. Using this interact menu, you can start a direct conversation, add to your friends list, send them a message, or if the need arises, block them.



New Items

Beta patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power is going to be adding twenty-one new Uniques to Eterra! With a new Mastery coming in, many of these will be aimed to support the Runemaster, however we havent completely forgotten other characters for this patch. Heres a look at a few of the new Unique Items coming in just five more days! You can also find a few more Unique teasers by keeping an eye on other news such as from our Dev Streams, and videos.



More to Come

With continuing visual enhancements across all of Last Epoch, as well as improving quality of life features, were making our way ever closer to 1.0. While still making sure we continue to add new ways to build and theory-craft in Last Epoch with an ever-expanding roster of Unique Items. In Last Epoch, gameplay, quality of life, and visual fidelity are held in balance to continue making the game as enjoyable as possible for everyone in our great community.

Thank you for joining us for Saturdays Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power, and well see you all again tomorrow to talk about Rune Prisons, Experimental Items, and Experimental Crafting!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to the Pre-Patch Blog Post for Frost Claw!

Frost Claw is being added as a new skill for the base Mage class. This is in addition to the 5 Runemaster skills, meaning there will be a total of 6 new skills being introduced in Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power!

As we were developing Runemaster for the Mage, and began receiving early feedback, one of the most common responses was was the lack of a spammable cold skill, particularly for use in generating Heo runes early. When we reviewed this feedback, we agreed that there needed to be an earlier access for the Runemaster to generate runes, as well as correcting the lack of a fast usage cold spell alongside Fireball and Lightning Blast. Because of this, we decided to address the gap within the Mage class in tandem with the release of Runemaster. Frost Claw helps to provide support for more elemental build options, supports all Mage Masteries, and is just plain fun.

Frost Claw



Unlocked at level 12 for all Mages, Frost Claw fires three piercing cold projectiles in an arc, dealing damage to any enemies they pass through, and converging on the targeted location to create a burst of area damage on impact. With Fireballs focus on damaging single enemies, and Lightning Blasts ability to target multiple enemies, this left a space in between for an area damage based ability. As such, not only does Frost Claw take up the missing element, it also fits the middle ground between playstyles, adding a greater element of accuracy rewarding picking the right spot to deal damage to a number of enemies.

With its versatile design and ability to be quickly cast at high speeds with low cost, Frost Claw offers opportunities to be used by any of the three masteries. It can be specialized into Fire or Lightning in addition to the base cold, it can gain Melee Damage as Spell Damage, and can even be triggered automatically by melee attacks allowing even further spell synergy with the Spellblade. Depending on how Frost Claw is specialized, it can also be set up as a zero cost skill, making it useful as a generator for other abilities.



Lets take a look at a couple of the Transformative Nodes you will find on the Frost Claw tree!

[h2]On Through the Snow[/h2]



With On Through the Snow, you will enable Frost Claw to recast from the target location a second time behind the targeted location. This recast can hit the same enemies hit by the first cast, producing both increased targeted damage, as well as expanding the total area of effect of the ability as the new projectiles can also hit any enemies along their path.



[h2]Volley of Glass[/h2]



Looking for greater single target damage out of Frost Claw? Volley of glass removes the Area of Effect blast damage at the target location, but staggers each of the projectiles, allowing a single enemy to be hit by each one. This also lends Frost Claw to some very exciting ailment builds, so options are very open here.



New Items and Visual Updates

Frost Claw is a perfect example of the importance and value of listening to feedback from the community. We want to provide a big thank you to everyone who helped us arrive at introducing Frost Claw to fill a much needed vacuum in the Mage Class, and provide an additional skill for everyone to enjoy in Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power! With a total of six new abilities, with five in a completely new mastery coming to Mage in just six more days, it should be a great patch for theory-crafting builds!

Join us again tomorrow well be taking a look at some of the new Unique Items, continuing visual improvements, and quality of life updates coming to Last Epoch next week!

Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power releases in just 7 days! Over the next week we'll be going over all the big new features coming in Runes of Power leading up to the Patch Notes on September 5th. We'll be covering the next mastery to reach Eterra: The Runemaster, a new Base Mage Skill, Rune Prisons and Experimental Items, One-shot and Lost Caches, a new Crafting Mechanic, a peek at some new Unique Items, and more progress in our ongoing efforts to improve Last Epochs visuals!

Gamescom

We're exhausted. The good kind of exhausted that only whirlwind adventures can provide. In case you missed the news, last week we traveled to Cologne, Germany for Gamescom - the biggest stage in gaming. We were excited to introduce the Runemaster, who is featured in today's blog post, on that stage. For many of us it was the first time attending a convention of this scale and meeting each other face to face. We experienced the joy of those playing the game for the first time, we spoke in great depth with existing fans, and even strengthened our bonds as a team. We were honored to work (and play) alongside Maxroll ( Lonestar_McFluffin, Terek, and Lizard_IRL), Aaron ActionRPG, and Rhyyker. With their help we were able to show off Last Epoch to a whole new audience. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to them for making it a memorable Milestone in our history. We wish it could last forever, but the ephemeral nature of time is what makes those moments so special. Now with our eyes on the future, we are incredibly excited to bring you 0.9.2 - Runes of Power.

Localization



Seeing so many amazing fans show up to our booth in Germany is a perfect segue to our first feature to mention coming in Runes of Power - Localization. Patch 0.9.2 will be releasing translated into eight languages in addition to English: Simplified Chinese, French, German, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish!

We wanted to get localization into our community's hands before 1.0 so we could have time to get feedback from our global player base on it, and get it as clean as possible for 1.0. We are happy to say that we will be including this feature in patch 0.9.2. Our community has been the biggest part of what makes Last Epoch what it is from its very beginning, so being able to support an even larger community across the world is an amazing milestone to reach, and we're super excited to see all the new players joining the fray in Eterra.

We know there are a lot of intricacies in an ARPG where wording is critical and we want to make sure that comes across as much as possible for everyone in our community. We have been working closely with translators over the last year to make as many translations hit the mark as possible. We also know no one could know the subtleties and nuances of game mechanics better than our own players, and we look forward to continuing to improve localization in Last Epoch with help from all of you!

The Runemaster

Of course, what were all excited about since the reveal at Gamescom - the Runemaster! The third and final Mage Mastery, and the latest Mastery to join the ranks, the Runemaster provides the greatest opportunity for customization and skill expression to date with Runic Invocation. With the Runemasters mastery skill, Runic Invocation, you will passively gain Runes each time you use an ability: Heo, Rah, And Gon runes, representing Cold, Fire, and Lightning respectively. At any point you can invoke these Runes using Runic Invocation to cast one of 40 different invocations based on which runes you have active, and in what order they were generated. The Runemaster also has the ability to generate, benefit from, and consume runes with other abilities depending on how you choose to specialize. The new Passive tree continues to build upon our latest passives designs with threshold nodes, and even new mechanics such as dynamic defensive stats.

As a savant, weaving the power of the raw arcane, infusing magic into offensive and protective wards, we wanted to create a class which could deliver a large depth of mechanical play. We felt this was a playstyle ripe for exploration within Last Epoch. One where in combat, each decision and ability used could impact the course of the fight individually, and create large payoffs for active decisions on controlling enemies and choosing how to approach a fight. With this in mind, the Runemaster offers several methods for area denial and enemy control with Frost Wall, Glyph of Dominion, and several of the available outcomes of Runic Invocation.



When we originally envisioned Runemaster, we had also looked at Golems as part of the Mastery, and we dont want to leave out mentioning them. These werent to be traditional minions, but rather arcane constructs which could be invoked by the Runemaster. When designing the specific interactions and diving into the gameplay of Runemaster, we made the decision that the focus should be on the Runes and Area Control. With the amount of depth, and complexity already offering such a strong playstyle for Runemaster, we found having pseudo-minions muddled the gameplay of the mastery too greatly. That being said, we also didnt want to leave out the theme of arcane constructs entirely, so you can still find ways to generate constructs as a Runemaster. Rune Bolt can create Runestones which automatically cast Runebolt for you, and the Hydrahedron Invocation creates a construct which lobs balls of molten fire at nearby enemies. These constructs act as an extension of yourself, scaling with your own stats rather than with Minion stats.

The goal with the Runemaster is to be easy to approach, and have a large amount of depth to master and power to wield. While Runemaster is designed to offer great depth in mechanical play opportunities, we also want to make sure that every mastery is still approachable and easy to get into. A good example of this is the Runemaster spell Rune Bolt, which casts piercing elemental projectiles. This spell supports being used to manipulate specific rune generation, while being powerful and versatile enough to be a primary ability on its own in a low cost spam setup. Whether you just want to quick-cast single elements for three of the same Rune, establish a specific pattern of Runes, or adapt your Rune usage on the fly to get the absolute most out of the Mastery, The Runemaster has you covered.

[h2]Runic Invocation[/h2]

[previewyoutube=YfAE8Uc6haU;full][/previewyoutube]

The Runemasters Mastery Skill, gained the moment you gain your Mastery, Runic Invocation is at the very heart of the class. By invoking Runic Invocation with any number of Runes generated from other elemental abilities, Runic Invocation will consume your current runes to cast one of its forty corresponding invocations.

Generate three Rah (Fire) Runes, and unleash Aergons Greater Fireball, creating a massive fiery explosion, dealing fire damage, and applying spreading flames to all enemies hit in a large area. By generating Rah, Gon, Heo (Fire, Lightning, Cold), you can invoke an Antipode of Mesembria, a rune stone which destabilizes over time eventually pulling in surrounding enemies followed by a massive explosion. Or perhaps a more defensive move is in order? Generate Heo, Rah, Heo (Cold, Fire, Cold), and surround yourself in an explosive shell of regenerating Ward with Reowyns Frostguard.



[h2]Flame Rush[/h2]

Flame Rush adds a new Traversal ability to the Mages Toolkit. Available to all masteries via the Runemaster passive tree, Flame Rush turns you into a hurling ball of fire, gaining damage reduction and exploding at the end of the movement. Channel the ability to its fullest and youll gain up to 150% increased area and damage when you release the ability.

As a Runemaster, you will generate Runes while channeling abilities, making you ready for the next Invocation once you arrive at your destination. Flame Rush can also be specialized to automatically trigger your invocation at the end of the traversal for a very impactful arrival. Flame Rush can also be converted to either Lightning or Cold, matching the elements you need for your build and giving the Runemaster greater control over Rune generation.



[h2]Frost Wall[/h2]

Frost Wall is the second ability you can unlock in the Runemaster tree, and alongside Flame Rush will be available to all Mage Masteries should they chose to invest in the Runemaster Tree. Frost Wall erects a sheet of chilling winds, freezing and dealing Cold Damage over Time to enemies which cross it. With Frost Wall, we aimed to reinforce the Runemasters ability to control enemies and aid allies with thoughtful positioning.

Frost Wall can be further specialized to apply beneficial effects to allies, or even to other spells passing through them. You can also convert Frost Wall to either Fire or Lightning to match your elemental style and provide their own positive effects, such as more damage over time. Frost wall offers extensive ways to control enemies and provide great payoffs for positioning.



[h2]Rune Bolt[/h2]

Rune Bolt is the Runemasters bread and butter spell. Rune Bolt allows you to steadily fire piercing projectiles of Cold, Fire, and Lightning, rotating through the elements. We wanted to offer all Runemasters a skill which was easy to get into, and fill the role of something that was spammable. With a low mana cost, ability to generate resources, and ability to generate all Rune Types, Rune Bolt provides a go-to ability for the Runemaster.

Within Rune Bolts Tree you can modify the ability to focus on its own projectiles - adding additional projectiles, making them home in on enemies, and even explode on contact dealing area damage. Alternatively, specialize Rune Bolts ability to generate runes and resources to make it a supporting skill for a larger build setup. Rune Bolt gives Runemaster many ways to control the flow of combat.



[h2]Glyph of Dominion[/h2]

The final skill unlocked as a Runemaster is Glyph of Dominion. Placing a growing rune on the ground, dealing damage over time, culminating in a large explosion dealing damage to all enemies within it, Glyph of Dominion allows you to punish enemy positioning. With Glyph of Dominion, we wanted to focus on the area denial aspect of the Runemaster.

To accomplish this, Glyph of Dominion can be specialized into taking greater advantage of enemies within it - dealing more damage to enemies that have shredded armor or are slowed, or adding a chance to stun enemies each second they are within it. You can also specialize to make Glyph of Dominion a haven for yourself and allies, offering defensive benefits such as ward generation, resistances, and even an additional 30% cast and attack area of effect while being dangerous for enemies to approach.

Our goal with this ability is for Runemasters to be able to either take advantage of enemies positioning, or empower their own positioning. With the Runes of Disintegration node you can also generate ward per second and gain more damage to Disintegrate for those wanting some more laser beam action.



[h2]A new Mage Skill?[/h2]

Were extremely excited to get Runemaster into everyones hands on September 7th. With a whole new level of opportunity for mechanical play, we cant wait to see what kinds of builds everyone manages to come up with. Alongside the new Mastery, making Last Epoch available to so many more players in their native language, means we have an opportunity to get feedback and continue building on Last Epoch for an even wider community!

Tomorrow well be back looking at another, as yet unmentioned Mage Ability, which is going to be arriving with Patch 0.9.2 - Frost Claw! Until then, may Eterra watch over your travels.

Changes

• Made some configuration changes in advance of the Server Maintenance scheduled for tonight.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug introduced by 0.9.1d which sometimes caused loading into Imperial Era Monolith Echoes to fail. Verifying game files did not fix this.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a race condition introduced by 0.9.1d which caused players to sometimes be disconnected after loading a zone.
  

Changes

• Improved how dynamic Solar Invaders (archers) are in combat:
  
  • Increased how much and how frequent they move between attacks.
    
  • Added another short fleeing state that can happen more often, not just after taking a lot of damage.
    
  • Reduced their kick damage by 25%.
    
  • Reduced their arrow damage by 11%.
  
  
• Majasas Blood Pools tick 4 times per second from 5 and deal 10% more damage per tick (resulting in 12% less damage per second). The ticks now always show damage number and hit vfx, so that it's clearer that they're dangerous
  
• Immobilized enemies no longer start using movement skills (immobilizing an enemy will not interrupt a movement skill in progress).
  
• Improved internal performance telemetry to assist our server optimization efforts.
  
• Overhauled the mechanics and visuals of Soul Cage and Soul Warden enemies.
  
  • Added new on-hit particle, hit flash and death flash visuals for Holy Fire, Holy Lightning and Blood abilities.
  
  
• Previously these visuals would look the same for all abilities of a given damage type. Now a Physical ability can use Blood visuals instead, for example.
  
• Added new loading screen art for Lake Liath zones, Divine Era Majelka zones, and various Imperial Era zones.
  
• Updated frozen breakables in the Tomb of Morditas.
  
• Added new emerging sound effects for spider enemies.
  
• Updated the vocal sounds for all Osprix enemies to match the new sounds added for the Chapter 1 rework.
  
• Added new sounds for Basic Attack that change with weapon type.
  
• Updated the Game Guide to add region selection and the Sanctuary of Eterra.
  
• There is now a confirmation prompt when purchasing a cosmetic with Epoch Points.
  

• Fixed the game stuttering when spawning new enemy types in Arena starting in the second Arena layout of the run.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Sanctuary of Eterra window did not close after being used, allowing it to be used several times and causing it to block the screen.
  
• Portal cosmetics now apply to the portals you open after completing an Echo.
  
• Fixed a bug where item visuals and cosmetics would sometimes disappear after transitioning to a new zone.
  
• Fixed a bug where visual effects could project on top of some cosmetics.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some "when landing" effects in Fury Leap's skill tree such as Frenzied Onslaught, Wings of Endurance and Battle Bloom to not apply to Maul with Werebear Form's Skull Crusher allocated.
  
• Fixed a bug where Earthquake's Aftershock did not scale with strength, and also incorrectly said it receives 40% increased damage per point of strength. It receives 4% increased damage per point of strength.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spirit Thorns did not apply ailments to enemies hit by more than one Spirit Thorn.
  
• Fixed a bug where when using Avalanches Precision node, the skill appears to not properly cast at the location of the Player's cursor after the initial cast.
  
• Fixed a bug where the visual for Lightning Blast and Lightning Smite would appear twice (once in its previous cast location).
  
• Fixed Bone Golems leap attack having a firey ground effect visual.
  
• Fixed Manifest Armor not having an outline in Online mode.
  
• Fixed a bug where lightning wolves' unique appearance would be reverted to the regular summoned wolf visual when they were hit.
  
• Fixed rare Void Despair enemies not having a visual effect for changing their triple projectile attack.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Ice Breath from Frozen Wolf enemies cast in the wrong direction in Online mode.
  
• Changed the positioning of off-hand weapons for Sentinels to prevent clipping.
  
• Fixed Humming Bee uniques facing the wrong direction when in your Offhand, and being invisible when used as an Offhand for Mages.
  
• Fixed a bug where quest item drops in the Council Chambers would happen for all players present in the zone, but would only happen once. If a player joined the zone later and tried to turn in a quest, they wouldnt get the item.
  
• Fixed a bug where players could rarely be in 2 parties at the same time, causing various buggy behavior with party functionality.
  
• Added a quest progression failsafe for the first Blood, Frost and Death quest echo: you can skip talking to the first Wengari if needed.
  
• Fixed the world map showing that the Fortress Gardens has a waypoint, when it does not.
  
• Fixed a bug where there was no quest pulse leading you to speak to Balthas in The Summit.
  
• Fixed a bug where Orians entrance animation could sometimes play while hes off screen in The Summit.
  
• Fixed the world map not fading nicely when switching between eras.
  

• Chat sometimes re-enables itself - also it says Chat is Disabled when it actually isnt.
  
• Rarely, a failed attempt to transition to another zone can become completed after loading a different character.
  
• Summoned Spriggans dont gain the Cold Minion tag when cold converted.
  
• The Journey To Majelka quest does not advance when talking to the Nagasa in SorethKa. You can move to the next zone without talking to them, however.
  
• You can get stuck in place if you join the Sanctum of the Architect after the fight starts.
  
• Further Ambush encounter and Chapter 1 enemy scaling changes.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Item Linking not working. Press ctrl + right click to link up to 3 items in a chat message. Open the chat window and hover over a linked item to view it.
  
• Fixed a bug where Weaver's Will items upgrading caused a performance stutter.
  
• Fixed a bug where parties would sometimes incorrectly use US East for their server region rather than the desired region.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Burning Daggers created by Cinder Strike's Firebreathing were not affected by the Pillager's Gold unique.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Increased Chance to Find Potions affix had no effect. This stat only worked when provided by the unique affixes of The Scavenger and Melvern's Writ or by passive tree nodes. This bug also impacted the Pillagers Gold unique.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spirit Plague's Rotten to the Core node could not be allocated.
  
• Fixed a bug where Cinder Strikes area of effect was not increased by its Blast Wave node.
  
• Fixed a bug where Volatile Zombie's Necromantic Fervor also gained the benefit of the Vital Ward node without allocating it, and Vital Ward still gave the health gain from Necromantic Fervor when allocated.
  
• Fixed ground visuals projecting on top of Storm Crows.
  
• Fixed a bug where The Shrouded Plateau was missing terrain in some areas.
  
• Fixed the prices for Epoch Points in the store always displaying in $USD, rather than your local currency in Steam.
  
• Fixed the polearm visual variant of Multistrike and Vengeance being rotated incorrectly.
  
• Fixed a visual issue with Voidtouched Archivists Ice Mortar and Voidfused Armors sword attack.
  
• Fixed Wraith and Volatile Zombie minions from party members having minimap icons.
  

• Improved AFK detection: interacting with the UI, pressing buttons, etc. will prevent you being flagged as AFK. The time before being kicked has also been increased to 20 minutes.
  
• Because the Increase Chance to Find Potions affix was having no effect before, we're being cautious with the total amount that it can give. The maximum value at T5 has been reduced to 60% (from 70%) and the maximum amount at T7 has been reduced to 120% (from 140%). Additionally it can no longer roll on rings and any existing potion drop rate affixes on rings have been changed to armour affixes (the armour affix can still not roll on rings naturally).
  
• Reduced Bolroth Stomp hitbox size especially at the sides of the Bolroth.
  
• Bolroths now stop turning (finalize target) 0.35 seconds into their Stomp attack. Previously they could turn right until the end.
  
• Regular enemies in Monolith Ambushes gain 15% more health (from 10% more damage and 5% less health).
  
• Bosses in Monolith Ambushes gain 5% more damage and 5% less health (from 10% more damage and 5% less health)
  
• Minibosses in Monolith Ambushes gain 20% more damage and 150% more health (from 40% more damage and 150% more health)
  
• The Osprix Monolith Ambush contains 1 fewer lightmage.
  
• Added final 2d art for Pillager's Gold, Ambitions of an Erased Acolyte, and Gambit of an Erased Rogue.
  
• Improved the quality of the preview images for the Soul Eater cosmetic armor set.
  
• Updated the Game Guide and tooltip for Corruption to mention the Sanctuary of Eterra.
  
• Baby Scorpions no longer have minimap icons.
  

• Thank you for continuing to report bugs; we keep an eye on everything that comes through the Forums. Heres much of what were currently working on fixing or improving:
  
• Chat sometimes re-enables itself - weve found that this is caused by joining or leaving a party or town server (because this joins/leaves a chat channel).
  
• Rarely, a failed attempt to transition to another zone can become completed after loading a different character.
  
• Further Ambush encounter scaling changes.
  
• Adjusting new Chapter 1 enemies that are problematic when scaled to Endgame.
  
• The window for reducing corruption in the Sanctuary of Eterra does not disappear after being used.
  
• Maul with the Skull Crusher node is not affected by some when landing effects in Fury Leap.
  
• Shield Bash fails to cast sometimes when you have increased attack speed.
  
• Summoned Spriggans dont gain the Cold Minion tag when cold converted.
  
• There isnt a quest marker prompting you to walk to Balthas after defeating Orian and Emberwing in the Summit in Chapter 1.
  
• Cosmetics and armor visuals are sometimes invisible (usually fixed by re-equipping or going to the next zone).
  
• Echo Completed portals dont use equipped Portal cosmetics.
  

Changes

• The waypoint for Crumbling Ruin now unlocks as soon as you complete the Shard quest in the Keepers Camp, allowing you to continue the campaign even if the transition to Crumbling Ruin fails.
  
  
  
  • If you have a character that got stuck at the end of Chapter 1, going back to Keepers Camp should unlock the Crumbling Ruin waypoint in the Ruined Era, allowing you to proceed.
    
  
  
• Fixed a bug where making quest progress in a Town, then creating a new offline character could have the quest progress of the new character fast-forwarded to the quest state of the old character.
  
• Fixed a bug where Hardcore characters that died in Arena were not forced back to the Character Select screen.
  
• Fixed a bug where Hardcore characters that have died were still posting results to the Hardcore Arena leaderboard.
  
• Hardcore characters now connect to Standard chat channels after dying.
  
• Fixed a bug where Weaver Uniques did not immediately apply their newly gained affixes to the player when added or upgraded by the Weaver.
  
• Fixed a bug where creating a Weaver unique with a Rune of Ascendance could cause it to have 0 Weavers Will.
  
• Fixed a bug where stationary minions such as totems would stop attacking if given a move command via the A key.
  
• Fixed a bug where Lethal Mirage's Rending Darkness would cause mirages to sometimes target the player that cast it, accomplishing nothing.
  
• Fixed Stashes in the Keepers Camp not having minimap icons.
  
• Fixed some of Graels voice lines not playing in The Burning Forest in Online mode.
  
• Fixed sounds for Lethal Mirage not playing in Online mode.
  
• Fixed footstep sounds not playing correctly for summoned Bears.
  
• Adjusted some music and dialog mixing for Chapter 1.
  
• Added final 2d art for Dedication of an Erased Primalist and Code of an Erased Sentinel.
  

• Item Linking is not currently working - there is a configuration issue between our testing environment and the live environment that we need to resolve
  
• Weaver Uniques being upgraded causes a lag spike.
  
• Rarely, a failed attempt to transition to another zone can become completed after loading a different character.
  
• The window for reducing corruption in the Sanctuary of Eterra does not disappear after being used.
  
• Missing terrain visuals in the Shrouded Plateau.
  
• There isnt a quest marker prompting you to walk to Balthas after defeating Orian and Emberwing in the Summit in Chapter 1.
  
• Cosmetics and armor visuals are sometimes invisible (usually fixed by re-equipping or going to the next zone).
  
• Echo Completed portals dont use equipped Portal cosmetics.
  
• Epoch Points are always shown as costing USD in the Shop, rather than local currency (the correct price is used when purchasing).
  

Rising Flames, Patch 0.9.1, is coming Thursday, May 25th, 2023 at 11:00 AM CT!

Welcome everyone to the Patch Notes for Beta Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames! Over the last week weve been going over some of the major features to expect in this patch. With a completely recreated Chapter 1, Last Epoch now starts off the experience adventuring in Eterra on the right foot. With new zones, creatures, and improved tools we draw ever closer to our 1.0 release.

Last Epoch Beta Patch 0.9.1 - Rising Flames will introduce:

• Complete Overhaul of Chapter 1
  
• New "Weaver's Will" Item Type
  
• New Uniques
  
• New Ambush Monolith Activity
  
• Online Arena Leaderboards
  
• Town Functionality
  
• New Models and Animations
  
• New Enemies
  
• New Music
  
• And more!
  

Welcome Travelers to the final day of the Pre-patch Blog Post Hype Week!



One of our biggest goals closing in on our 1.0 launch of Last Epoch is getting existing content up to our latest standards. These improvements have been coming in across the board: Models, Animations, VFX, and UI updates. Over the years, weve been adding additional chapters to Last Epoch, and with that constant pushing of our standards for the campaign, our oldest chapters needed to be brought up in quality. With Rising Flames, we are pushing those standards even further with a complete overhaul of Chapter 1!

Reimagining

Some of the most common feedback weve gotten regarding the campaign and story is that its hard to track why youre embarking on a journey with the shard of the Epoch. In overhauling Chapter 1, we are setting the stage for the epic adventure the Traveler is about to embark on. In the revised Chapter 1, you, the Traveler, will now cross multiple zones, meet key NPCs, and explore multiple new and fantastic areas, as the story of the Epoch and the land of Eterra start to unfold. No longer just a few zones, Chapter 1 will now take you from level 1 to level 9 with chapter 2 and onwards being adjusted accordingly.



With the update to Chapter 1, the Traveler will know a world of peace as they begin their journey during the Divine Era. Learning about the plights and problems of the people of the time, and ultimately watching the destruction that war has brought, and the ushering of end of the Divine Era.



Rahyehs Warpath

In the new Chapter 1, you will face off against Rahyehs forces as they begin their invasion of the Ulatri Cliffs. Along the way youll be introduced to essential story characters, including the Hero of Heoborea, Grael. Fighting your way through both flora, and fauna, you'll have the chance to interact with these characters and learn more about the world of Eterra.



After learning of the reason for Rahyehs invasion, you will make your way through his forces to reach The Keepers Vault, where this gods true objective lies. While whats kept safe within may be unknown, what is known is that if this war-mongering god is willing to go to such lengths to get to it, it must be kept from him.



Evolving Design

The newly redesigned Chapter 1 pushes our design standards even further with improved lighting, shaders, textures, assets, and more. Using these new technologies and tools, we are continuing to enhance Last Epoch's visual design to be more distinct and beautiful. Before the void corrupted everything, the world was full of vibrant colors and stretching vistas. With Rising Flames, we are bringing that vision to life. Wed like to share a few screenshots of just a few of these new areas youll encounter in 0.9.1.







Applying Lessons

While the addition of a new Chapter 1 was a big focus for this patch, we plan to apply the lessons we learned and the tools we developed to other scenes, both old and new, in upcoming patches. Here are some examples of the updated scenes that will be included in this patch.



One of our main goals for our existing scenes is to improve the overall quality of assets and lighting. Additionally, we aim to increase the readability of the character models and monsters by reducing the complexity of ground textures.



By applying these new systems, even to existing scenes, we continue to provide more distinct visual identities between the different Eras.







Towns

Beta Patch 0.9.1 will also introduce our first iteration of Towns, starting with the first town in Chapter 1: Keepers Camp. Towns are non-combat social spaces found throughout the campaign, including the End of Time. Towns feature major amenities, such as a Stash access, and a Vendor allowing you to take care of your out-of-combat needs.



Upon entering a town, you will be able to see other Travelers making their way throughout Eterra, be able to meet and form parties with strangers, then continue on your journey with renewed force in allies. There is also dedicated town chat channels allowing you to connect with other users in the area, or perhaps even just hang out.


(note the view in this capture has mini-map icons for each player. In 0.9.1, only party members will have mini-map icons)

The first iteration of towns is mainly technical in nature (making the server process of being placed on a server with non-party members, leaving the area to be assigned different servers, and all that good backend stuff). In future patches, we will be continuing to expand town functionality with more to do in towns, and empower the social aspects offered with a physical connection to other Travelers.

Server Selection

While somewhat related to towns and perhaps a little off-topic of the Chapter 1 Rework, we felt this note still demands higher attention than being relegated to just a patch note.

While we continue to work on improving automatic server selection and server performance, weve heard your requests for the ability to manually select a server region to connect to. Even with perfect automatic selection, there were many good arguments made for being able to manually select a server region, such as wanting a middle ground for playing with friends in distant regions.

As such, we are happy to say that with Beta Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames, you will now have the ability to manually select your server region!



You can do this in three places. From the main login menu, in the settings where you can select your preferred server region that will carry over between sessions, and when in a party, you can go into the party screen and select a server region to transfer to and it will take effect on the next transition.

Best Foot Forward

With Beta Patch 0.9.1, Last Epoch has taken a significant leap forward in terms of visual design standards. The new patch brings about numerous improvements, resulting in environments that are more striking, memorable, and immersive than ever before. From the stunning vistas to the vibrant gardens, everything feels more vivid and alive than ever before.

Were excited to see everyone get their hands on this brand-new experience in just a few days, and well see you all again tomorrow for the Patch Notes for Beta Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames!

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

For todays post, were going to be taking a look at some of the new enemies and models youll be encountering in Beta Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames.

Enemies

[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 were 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]
Rahyehs forces are also getting a facelift in 0.9.1. Today were 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 were 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.



New Models
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. Whos 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 weve been familiar with for so much time without them.

[h3]Storm Breaker[/h3]


[h3]Acidfletch[/h3]


[h3]Soul Bastion[/h3]


A day of Rest
Thats all for todays look at new Enemies and Models coming in Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames. Well 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!

Introduction

Travelers, as you are likely already aware, yesterdays announcement has given us another chance to earn our reputation as the community-driven ARPG, and the studio that listens. Weve 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. Were here today to say we hear you, and want to answer that challenge.

We are making three immediate changes.



How We Got Here

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 were 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 arent here because they want something thats 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
  

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

Hello Travelers and Happy Friday!

If you happened to read yesterdays post, you may have caught todays topic at the end, Weavers Will. Like any good cliff-hanger, well be continuing that conversation in todays episode of Pre-patch Blog Post Hype Week!

Weavers Will

Weavers 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 Weavers 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 Weavers Will value. These items will always drop with Weavers 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.

New Uniques

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 Weavers 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, were excited to see what kind of builds everyone comes up with!

Well 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 youve been waiting for your chance to put a little extra shine on your favorite hero of Eterra then todays announcement is for you - Rising Flames brings the beta launch of Last Epochs 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 cant 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. Weve been saying this from day one, and it wont 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 wont 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]

Supporter Packs

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.

Cosmetic Shop

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 youre looking for, and provide you a large view of those items while browsing.

Its 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)

Epoch Points

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)

Last Epoch and MTX

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 todays blog post, as we get ready for Patch 0.9.1 Rising Flames, and well be back tomorrow to talk about Weavers 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

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!



The Week Continues

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.

Hello Travelers, and welcome to the first day of the Pre-Patch Hype week for Patch 0.9.1: Rising Flames!

Over the next week and leading up to the May 25th Rising Flames patch, we will be revealing and talking about most of the major features coming in patch 0.9.1. For todays post, were going to be covering Ladders!



Ladders

Ladders help provide a sense of progression and accomplishment. Whether its competing with other players or just setting benchmarks for yourself, ladders offer the opportunity to create a tangible mark within Eterra.

With the launch of patch 0.9, and the addition of multiplayer, we needed to change how ladders worked as the data they were working with had changed quite a bit, and we also wanted to support new and better features with our ladder system. In patch 0.9.1 we will be introducing the first version of the revised ladder system. In Rising Flames, you will be able to track and share your progress through the arena, marking your highest arena wave achieved either solo or as a group. One of the biggest things we wanted our new ladders to support was improved integrity. As such, Ladders will only be available for online play.

Features

The new ladder will feature several categories for being able to track your progress against other players, and groups. While participating in the Endless Arena, each time you successfully complete a wave, your record will be entered into the ladder. The ladder is split between Softcore, Hardcore, Account Found, and Group Size. This means when comparing your progress against other players, you will always be looking at equal footing. You can also filter the ladders by Class to see how you stack up and see what skills others are running. Though to keep competition alive, full builds are not currently revealed through the ladder, so things like passive trees, skill trees, and exact gear setup can be kept as competitive secrets by participating players. With all these new ladders available, weve also redesigned the Ladder UI to help make it easier to navigate.



The full list of ladders that will be available with the launch of Beta Patch 0.9.1 is as follows:

• Softcore
  
  • Solo (Account Found)
    
  • 1 Player
    
  • 2 Players
    
  • 3 Players
    
  • 4 Players
  
  
• Hardcore
  
  Solo (Account Found)
  
  • 1 Player
    
  • 2 Players
    
  • 3 Players
    
  • 4 Players
    
  
  

Dungeons

• Likely fixed a bug that caused players to be unable to enter the Boss Room of Dungeons.
  
• We have spent many hours confirming this fix so were pretty confident its resolved but arent totally certain since the bug didnt happen 100% of the time. Please let us know if this bug still happens for you after updating.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could enter a Dungeon without consuming a key in some situations.
  

• Fixed a bug where echoes could fail to spawn enemies, including bosses or quest objectives, if Ring of Shields was active while loading the echo.
  
• Emperor of Corpses' Soul Bomb now deals less damage the further you are from the center of the ability.
  
• Fixed a bug where monolith modifiers could be duplicated. If a timeline had an impossibly high number of mods, those duplicated mods will be removed the next time you enter an echo in that timeline.
  

• Fixed a bug where using traversal skills while you had certain other skills on your bar (including Summon Skeletal Mage) caused a stutter to build up with each use, resulting in a game freeze after enough uses.
  

Gameplay

• Fixed a bug where Temporal Shift could sometimes cast a second time after being used once, resulting in getting sent back to the era you were originally in.
  
• Fixed a recent bug where targeted abilities such as Lunge or Smite could fail to cast if they were the first ability you used in a scene.
  
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to target enemies that had yet to emerge with Lunge. Doing so would result in being unable to move after using Lunge.
  
• Fixed a recent bug where offline characters would have 0 potions when loaded rather than their maximum amount of potions.
  
• Fixed a bug where some breakable objects in various scenes continued to obstruct movement after they were destroyed in online play. This also sometimes caused players to get stuck in place, unable to move. The fixed scenes include The Majelkan Catacombs, The Rustlands, The Altar of Flesh, The Dragons' Grotto, and The Rotting Hoard. Please make a Bug Report if you still run into this.
  
• Fixed a bug where enemies could be pushed around in Online by walking into them.
  
• Fixed global conditional damage properties not working (except for unlimited damage per stack of ailment effects, which already worked). These effects are fixed:
  
  • More Spell Damage to Ignited Enemies on Soulfire
    
  • More Throwing Damage to Bosses and Rare Enemies on Bo's Anarchy
    
  • More Fire Hit Damage to Ignited Enemies on the Arcane Flames node on the Mage passive tree
    
  • More Void Damage to Stunned Enemies on the Shifting Power node on the Volatile Reversal tree
    
  • More Melee Damage per Bleed (up to 30 stacks) on the Wounded Prey node on the Summon Bear tree
    
  • More Damage per Poison (up to 30 stacks) on the Envenomed Prey node on the Summon Scorpion tree
  
  
• You can no longer type in the chat windows when you have chat disabled.
  

• Base Skeletal Mages now use a new ability called Dread Bolt rather than a version of Hungering Souls.
  
• Normalized the damage and cast speed of Skeletal Mage projectiles. Previously the Hungering Souls used by regular Skeletal Mages was much slower and weaker, while the attacks from Cryomancers and Pyromancers had hidden modifiers to cast speed and damage which made it difficult to understand their power.
  
• Dread Bolt: 30 base damage and 150% damage effectiveness, 50% chance to apply Damned on hit, no longer applies Possessed (which had a stack limit and could overwrite a player's stronger Possessed ailment). Dread Bolt now also has a higher projectile speed and does not have homing.
  
• Cryomancer's Ice Shard: 30 base damage and 150% damage effectiveness (previously 12 and 100%, with 90% more damage).
  
• Pyromancer's Fireball: 34 base damage and 170% damage effectiveness (previously 25 and 125%, with 40% more damage).
  
• All three now have the same cast speed, slightly slower than Pyromancer's Fireball used to be.
  
• This should result in close to the same DPS for Fireball and Ice Shard, and much higher DPS for Dread Bolt.
  
• Increased the projectile speed of all Skeleton Archer projectiles.
  
• Fixed a bug where Rampage's Intimidating Cry did not require Roar to be on your action bar in order for it to trigger Roar. The description of this node has not yet been updated to specify that Roar must be on your bar.
  
• Fixed a bug where Void Knight's Void Well passive had no cooldown. It now has a 3 second cooldown (from 10 listed, none actual) and sets you to 30% of max mana (from 20%).
  
• Fixed a bug where Sacrifice's additional chains from Catalyst of Horror and Sanguine Libation were not additive with each other, resulting in 2 fewer chains than intended while any points were invested in Sanguine Libation.
  
• Fixed a bug where Sacrifice consistently chained to 1 fewer minions than intended (this is in addition to the other fix).
  
• Fixed Bow Puncture snapping to targets more intensely than other bow skills.
  
• Fixed a bug where Arcane Momentum's stacks displayed were incorrectly. This is only a display change.
  

• Fixed a bug where Fragment of the Enigma gave 2 Lightning Damage for Spark Charge per 10 max mana instead of the stated 2 Lightning Damage for Spark Charge per Intelligence.
  

• Updated the visual effects for the Mortar abilities used by Skeletal Mages.
  
• Updated the visual effects for fireballs cast by Pyromancers (Skeletal Mage).
  
• Updated the visual effects for all Skeleton Archer projectiles.
  
• Fixed various visual bugs with the poison cone attack used by Scalebane Casters.
  
• Updated the indicator visual on the ground for Soul Spire attacks.
  
• Fixed broken particle effect visuals in Soulfire Bastion.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused part of the visual effects of some skills, notably Lunge, to play at an incorrect place (usually offscreen).
  
• Fixed visual effects applying to item models on the ground.
  

• High Speed and Crit Chance Until approach monster mod changes
  
• Fixed a bug where the mod's vfx were invisible online.
  
• This mod's effects and vfx now start when the monster is engaged rather than when it spawns
  
• Fixed a bug where the Less Damage Taken From Distant Enemies monster mod's vfx were invisible online.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Shade of Orobyss's blood orbs did not visually seek out targets in online play, causing them to hit players unexpectedly.
  
• Fixed the Void Amalgamations melee attack visual appearing further away from itself than intended.
  
• Improved the visuals of the Void Amalgamations melee attack.
  
• Fixed a bug where Voidwings could be invisible in Online mode.
  
• Fixed Cremorus weapon appearing solid white.
  
• Fixed the Void Fiend not having an outline and being visible before emerging.
  
• Reduced the chance for larger splatter visual effects when hitting rapidly, but made that decreased chance fall off sooner than previously. This will result in fewer large splatters when hitting rapidly, but more large ones when having multiple seconds between hits.
  

• Fixed a bug where Arcane Ascendance with the Acuity node could cause severe latency problems while on your skill bar.
  
• Greatly improved the performance of these minion projectile abilities:
  
  • Skeletal Mages now use Dread Bolt which performs better than Hungering Souls
    
  • Cryomancer (Skeletal Mage) Ice Shards
    
  • Pyromancer (Skeletal Mage) Fireballs
    
  • All Skeleton Archer attacks
    
  • Thorn Totem Thorns
  
  
• Fixed a bug where When-Hit VFX were playing more frequently than intended, causing some performance issues.
  
• Improved the performance of Spire abilities.
  
• Improved (reduced) how much RAM game servers use.
  

• Dungeon boss doors not always working (we apologize for this taking so long)
  
• Monolith Echoes occasionally breaking when playing as a Forge Guard
  
• Using a skill you dont meet the weapon requirements for locking you in an animation
  
• Rubberbanding, latency and performance problems
  
• Monitoring for any other ability use problems
  

This update fixes a regression in Spirit Plague, addresses a pre-existing bug that could affect the Emperor of Corpses fight, and improves our performance data collection. Were still working on bug fixes and general improvements as mentioned in out 0.9i post. Thanks for continuing to make bug reports and participate in our community.

Changes

• Fixed a bug where players could push enemies in Online mode by walking into them. This could cause positions to get out of sync between the client and server, for example in the Emperor of Corpses fight.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spirit Plagues Rotten to the Core node could not be allocated.
  
• Improved performance data collection on servers to aid in optimization efforts.
  

This update fixes a few regressions that were introduced by 0.9i. We are monitoring for any other bugs that are new to this update, and otherwise our priorities are the same as in our last post. Thank you for your patience and for reporting bugs.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where channeled abilities did not work in Offline if they were not assigned to the first action bar slot (Q by default).
  
• Fixed Disintegrate being invisible when converted to Fire or Lighting (the default visual worked).
  
• Fixed a bug where items that dropped while item labels are hidden (Z / Alt-Z) would still be hidden after turning item labels back on.
  

Monolith of Fate

• Restored The Rotting Hoards boss arena to its original size so that the Emperor of Corpses Soul Bomb attack can be avoided properly. Additionally, the damage of Soul Bomb has been increased back to the very painful amount it used to be.
  
• Fixed a bug where leaving a completed monolith echo via a town portal created before completion would grant rewards without applying the modifier from that echo. It now applies the modifier as well.
  
• Fixed an issue in Fallen Harbour echoes where one spire could spawn slightly out of bounds, making it unreachable for some builds.
  
• Fixed an issue in Boreal Forest echoes where two spires could spawn right next to each other which looked and felt weird.
  
• Fixed the shop inventory in Echo of a World never refreshing/refilling.
  

• Changing the behavior of the left mouse button now properly works in both Online and Offline mode.
  
• The attack used for breaking barrels is now distinct from the regular basic attack. It is faster by default, does not scale with attack speed, and uses a more appropriate animation while you have a bow equipped.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused certain damage multipliers based on ailments to not grant their damage bonus. The affected nodes and items were:
  
  • Abyssal Echoes's Embrace the Darkness
    
  • Arcane Ascendance's Chronoclasm
    
  • Firebrand's Inferno
    
  • Hungering Souls's Inspired Hunger
    
  • Summon Sabertooth's Snow Stalker
    
  • Summon Scorpion's Shock and Claw
    
  • Volatile Reversal's Food for Wyrms
    
  • Warcry's Horrifying Cry
    
  • Firestarter's Torch
  
  
• Fixed a bug where when continuously using an ability all uses after the first would be delayed slightly on the server based on your ping. This caused the creation of their visuals to be slightly out of sync with the animation.
  
• Fixed a bug where in both online and offline if you clicked to use an ability then clicked again to buffer another ability use, but clicked to move before that second ability use started, it wouldn't cancel that second ability use.
  
• Fixed a bug in online where if you held down the move button and then used two abilities in succession, where the second was a reactive ability such as teleport or snap freeze, the second ability would be instantly canceled by movement, but would still go off on the server.
  

• Updated many base skill icons, skill tree icons and passive tree icons throughout the game. This should create a higher quality and more thematic experience of browsing through skill trees and passive trees.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused skill levels and available skill points to display incorrectly in many situations when the player had a source of additional skill level from items.
  
• Fixed the elemental conversion / damage type icons in the skill trees window not showing in Online mode.
  
• Fixed a bug in online play where Druids could not switch the abilities on their action bar while transformed.
  
• Fixed a bug where moving to a new zone in online mode would cause a previously summoned Abomination to be resummoned as if it had not consumed any minions.
  
• Fixed Tempest Strike having a missing texture (pink blocks).
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Forgemaster node in Forge Strike to not spawn axes.
  
• Fixed a bug where Rip Blood's second Blood Splatter could apply Bone Curse through Cursed Limbs when triggered by Crimson Enlightenment.
  
• Static Orb's baseline effect of more damage and increased area based on distance traveled now also applies to Charged Ground.
  
• Fixed a bug where the area increase from Static Orb's Storm Burst node did not apply to Charged Ground.
  
• Charged Ground now has the area tag, and its description states that it benefits from Static Orb's damage and area bonus per distance traveled.
  
• Improved Blood Splatter's hit detection, fixing problems where it would sometimes not hit targets it should have.
  
• Updated the visual effects for Thorn Totems Rotten Core node.
  
• The Pillars of Heorot node for Thorn Totem now converts 100% of Physical base damage to Cold (from 50%) and increases Freeze Rate to 30 (from 15).
  
• Removed Thorn Shield's slight priority for targeting players over minions, and mobile minions over immobile minions, which we introduced in 0.9g. This was removed to avoid the negative impact it had on builds that target minions with Thorn Shield.
  

• Fixed a bug that prevented some players from entering Dungeons. The key was consumed and you could access the lobby, but the transition into the dungeon itself did not appear.
  
  • We are aware that players can sometimes not interact with the boss door at the end of Dungeons (the window to continue does not appear when you click). This seems to be more likely to happen to players that are by themselves. If this bug happens to you, joining a party should fix the problem. Otherwise, relog and try again. We are working on a fix for this.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause Julra to fail to drop a boss-specific unique item or exalted item.
  

• All loot now has an animation when it drops to the ground.
  
• Updated all loot models on the ground. They are more performant and look better.
  
• Added a generic bag model for small items such as jewelry, relics, and belts, and an idol model for idols.
  
• Updated all visual effects for items and gold on the ground, i.e. the vertical colored beams.
  
• Exalted items now have their own visual effect, rather than using the effect for rare items.
  
• Added a visual effect to potions on the ground to make them more noticeable in combat.
  
• Updated visual effects for all chests being opened.
  
• Added a special visual effect for the chest in Echo of a World.
  

• Fixed a bug where item effects that relied on switching to or from a moving state didn't work in multiplayer. This fixes mods on the following uniques:
  
  • Stormtide
    
  • Transient Rest
    
  • Flight of the First
  
  
• Orchirian's Petals and Ashes of Orchirian now sell for 144 gold, from 250. If you know, you know.
  

• Fixed a bug where the time rift to The Ancient Cavern would not re-open if you returned to The Precipice.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused multiple you are here markers to show at once when zoomed out on the Imperial Era world map.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause players to be unable to start the wave fight in The Risen Lake if another party member completed the fight while they were not present.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could still talk to Rouj Zabat after he died.
  
• Added a work around to prevent Chapter 7 quests being uncompleteable if you skipped around during party play (the quests will be completed when moving on to Chapter 8).
  
• Fixed a bug where the sidequest in Etendell could get stuck on the Defeat Winged Fire objective if you killed the Siege Golem before the Winged Fire.
  
• Adjusted the Sirens and Sailors and To Shell With It quests to prevent situations where killing the enemies available in the zone was not enough to complete them.
  

• Fixed a bug where if you left a form while walking your character would slide in human form instead of playing a walk animation.
  
• Fixed a bug where if you left a form while using a 2h weapon your character would hold it like a 1h weapon and use 1h weapon animations.
  

• Fixed a bug where the indicator for Haruspex Orians stab attack wasnt always lined up properly online.
  
• Fixed a bug where the indicator for Argentus' ice spear stab wasn't always lined up properly online, and the skill itself was not shown.
  
• Updated the visuals and sound for Bitterwings ice breath attack.
  
• Fixed a big lightning particle effect being left on screen when Meruna Ogres died.
  
• Fixed a bug where Void Horrors that spawned from Beacons didn't have hit or death flash.
  

• Unique, Set, Exalted Legendary Items and high rarity crafting materials now have new drop sound effects.
  
• All other items now have revised sounds for when they drop.
  
• Monolith chest now has new looping and open sound effects.
  
• Updated ambient sounds throughout Chapter 3.
  
• Fixed the wrong music playing in The Courtyard.
  
• Fixed Admiral Hartons voice lines being too loud in the Immortal Citadel.
  

• Fixed a bug which could cause an LE-51 error during login, preventing access to the game for some players.
  
• Increased the character limit for entering an email address when starting the game for the first time.
  

• Improved the performance of Volatile Maws explosions.
  
• Improved the performance of Meruna Ogre abilities.
  
• Improved the performance of Bitterwing enemies.
  
• Improved the performance of Upheaval.
  
• Reduced the file size of some textures, slightly reducing the games install size.
  
• Fixed a small memory leak, improving the performance and stability of long game sessions.
  

• Improving server and client performance. Poor performance on either side can lead to some types of lag, among other problems.
  
• Maintaining game server and service stability.
  
• Monitoring for any data loss. We are confident that our online systems have stabilized but were still looking out for it.
  
• Fixing gameplay and systems bugs. We read through reports from you, the community, and we are also constantly doing our own testing.
  
  • This includes the dungeon boss door bug mentioned above.
  
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where deleting a stash category could cause some stash tabs to become inaccessible, making it appear like the items were lost.
  
• Added a check to automatically fix any stashes that were affected by the above bug.
  

• We have fixes for reordering transform abilities, Abominations losing abilities on transition and Tempest Strike visuals.
  
• We have a fix for changing left mouse button behavior in testing.
  
• We have a fix for the Dungeon entrance bug and it has passed our initial testing. Since the problem does not affect everyone evenly, we are doing more testing to confirm.
  
• We are also working on a fix for Dungeon boss rooms sometimes being inaccessible, and Julra failing to drop her specific unique items.
  
• We are still actively working on client and server performance. This includes CPU, memory and network optimizations and should help improve situations that feel laggy.
  
• We are aware that unexpected server region / high latency issues are still occuring and are working on ways to improve this. Its a somewhat longer term effort than individual bug fixes.
  
• We are continuing to monitor for indications of save data loss, and things have looked good this week. We will investigate any reports thoroughly.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug introduced in Beta 0.9g which caused save data loss in Offline. If you returned to Login/Character Select by using the Leave Game button and then loaded any offline character, any updates to that character or the stash would not be saved.
  

Gameplay

• Fixed a bug which caused rubberbanding (being moved backwards) when using movement abilities or the Temporal Shift ability in the Temporal Sanctum.
  
• Significantly reduced instances of Lunge and similar abilities getting stuck in their animation, which prevented movement until another ability was used.
  
• Players can now respawn at the end of a Dungeon boss fight without being kicked out of the dungeon when the boss is defeated by other party members.
  
• Players can now choose to Abandon a dungeon or arena run if they dont want to wait until they can respawn.
  
• Fixed a bug where the main combat floor entrances in Soulfire Bastion had invisible reverse transitions. If you walked backwards into them it would reload the zone (ending your dungeon run).
  
• Fixed a bug where your character model was sometimes duplicated after transitioning to a new zone. The camera would remain locked on the copy, while the other one could move.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spires could attack players that were in Echo of a World.
  
• Fixed a bug where the western moon fragment altar in the Moonlit Shrine could sometimes become uninteractable.
  
• Fixed quest objective pulses not updating properly in The Fall of Ledria.
  
• Fixed some Osprix Vanguard enemies using an incorrect ability.
  
• Fixed the Initializing screen showing after login even when the queue system isnt active. This makes getting to character select slightly faster.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Leave Game button took you back to Login rather than Character Select.
  
• Fixed another rare server bug which could cause save data loss. We are monitoring telemetry to find any other causes that need to be addressed.
  

• Thorn Shield now has a slight priority for targeting players over minions and mobile minions over immobile minions.
  
• Fixed a bug where Shifts Deadly Ambush and Braskulas Hesitation nodes were applying to all non-channelled attacks, not just the next non-channelled attack after Shift.
  
• Fixed a bug where Meteors Cycle of Fire only granted its ward and mana for 4 seconds after gaining Craterborn, rather than for the full 6 second duration of Craterborn.
  
• Fixed a bug where Teleports Comet Rush did not refresh the duration of an existing Haste.
  
• Fixed a bug where your Vengeance tree sometimes affected an allys versions of Riposte and Iron Blade instead of yours.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Fulminating Caw node on the Storm Crow tree sometimes caused an allys increased lightning damage to apply to your crows instead of your increased lightning damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where the nodes on the Ballista tree that caused your stats to apply to your ballistae sometimes caused an allys stats to apply to your ballistae instead.
  
• Fixed a bug where the on-use sounds for some instant cast abilities would not play on the client of the player using the skill.
  
• Fixed the trails behind Acid Flasks, Hammer Throw hammers, and Axe Thrower axes in mid-air stretching incorrectly.
  
• 
  

• Fixed a bug where chat channel selection could be reset in some situations. This could cause chat to turn back on after its been turned off.
  
• Fixed gameplay messages that are shown in the chat window (i.e. Loot Filter Disabled) being hidden when Chat is disabled.
  
• Fixed commands for replying to your last whisper (/r) and changing channels (i.e. /party) not working.
  
• Added a /lfg command to switch to the Looking For Group channel.
  
• Fixed a bug where Whisper and Party chat messages could sometimes appear to be from the wrong channel.
  
• Fixed new chat messages sometimes being cut off halfway vertically.
  
• Added a sound effect for receiving direct messages.
  
• Fixed the friends list scroll view being shorter than intended, causing fewer friends to be visible at once.
  
• The Add Friend and Block Player pop-ups now auto-select the input box so you can type right away.
  
• Fixed sections in the friends list re-opening when they should remain collapsed.
  
• Fixed a bug where adding a friend could cause an existing friend to disappear from the list for a while.
  
• Made a few small improvements to the visuals of the friends list.
  

• Cindersong now also grants +1 to Fire Spells. Also improved the clarity of its tooltip.
  
• Unused dungeon keys are now returned back to your inventory when closing the dungeon entrance window (if you have space).
  

• Fixed a bug where the water in Ritual Lake echoes would cause visual effects to become invisible.
  
• Reduced the overall brightness of Imperial Metropolis and Snowbound City echoes to make it easier to see.
  
• Updated the visuals for Drain Lifes poison explosion.
  
• Updated the visuals for abilities used by Profane Flesh.
  
• Fixed the visuals and damage for Profane Flesh sometimes not lining up with its animations.
  
• Fixed Profane Flesh snapping to face new targets rather than turning.
  
• Fixed Ruby Nagasa not animating properly on death.
  
• Fixed Infernal Husks not animating properly.
  
• Fixed Apophis sliding at the beginning of the cutscene in MajElka Upper District.
  
• Fixed Liath having glitchy animations in Island Battlefield.
  
• Fixed the Timeline Conduit in the Shade of Orobyss arena having a red outline.
  

• Fixed a bug causing memory usage to go up on the client over time, particularly in Monolith. We tested the fix by playing through 10 campaign zones and 10 echos, and found that the fix reduced memory usage by more than 1 GB at the end of the test.
  
• The visual assets for enemies were not being properly unloaded when moving to different zones.
  
• RAM usage definitely still goes up over time, and we are currently investigating this further.
  
• Replaced several lightning visual effects with new ones which are much more performant.
  
• Improved the performance of death visual effects for various enemies.
  
• The ice projectile ability used by Ice Elementals is now pooled, which mitigates FPS drops caused by this enemy.
  
• Updated the Wengari Axe Throw abilitys visuals to be more performant.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause unnecessarily large patch downloads. Unfortunately, the fix cant help the download size of this patch, just future ones.
  

• Deleting stash categories causes items to go missing (weve confirmed no items are being deleted)
  
• Players sometimes being unable to enter dungeons (this doesnt affect everyone evenly which makes it harder to track down
  
• Changing left mouse button behavior (i.e. move to attack)
  
• Re-ordering skills while transformed
  
• Abomination forgetting what minions it consumed after moving to a new zone
  

Gameplay

• Fixed a rare bug which could lead to large online save data rollbacks. Were still working on identifying any other causes of rollbacks and fixing them.
  
• Fixed a bug where Druid Transform builds could sometimes end up with scrambled action bars, with incorrect and mispositioned abilities, which also caused the Human Form action bar to become blank.
  
• Fixed a bug where traversal skills such as Lunge would consume more than 1 charge of the ability when used, and also consumed more than 1 charge of other traversal skills that share a cooldown.
  
• Fixed a bug where an uninteractable reward rock could sometimes appear in Echo of a World, preventing interacting with the real reward rock.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused ability use to be prevented if you were holding down a key after using a movement ability. This caused Dancing Strikes to be used much less frequently when holding the button than when rapidly pressing it.
  
• Fixed a bug where quick selling items was not blocked on the client while gambling. This could cause the client to become out of sync with the server, with items appearing to be duplicated or lost. This was a visual/clientside bug; no items were lost or duplicated.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Liath and Thetima quest could get stuck on the Speak with Yulia in Thetima objective.
  
• Fixed some skill, passive and affix typos.
  

• Fixed a bug which caused LE-51 errors to be shown if a problem occurred while picking a display name, rather than an error message that tells you what went wrong (i.e. name already in use, invalid characters, invalid length, profanity filter).
  

• Fixed a bug where some Void Despairs would have an outline appear after killing them.
  
• Fixed a bug where some Void Despairs didn't have a health bar.
  
• Fixed a bug where Void Despairs would sink into the ground immediately upon dying.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Void Penance didn't have a top of screen health bar in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed a bug where the indicator and animations for the Idol of Loathing would not re-time properly when it was chilled.
  

Quests

• Fixed a bug where the portal to return to Thetima would not appear after killing Lagon. The waypoint to SorethKa is unlocked however, so that can be used to progress without redoing the fight.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Saving Last Refuge quest could become uncompletable in some situations. Talking to Gaspar again should fix the quest if its bugged for you.
  
• Fixed a bug where the interaction to jump over the railing on the Dreadnoughts Deck would not appear if you left the zone after speaking with Alric.
  

• Fixed a bug which caused your item visuals and account name to fail to display and would display the default account label (usually fixed by moving to a new zone). This fix may take a little while to be fully in effect.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Minion icons (top left of screen) to sometimes disappear.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Shade of Orobyss' concentric ring explosions could occasionally deal damage a second time, 2 seconds after the first.
  
• Fixed a bug where leaving a dungeon via a player portal could sometimes cause other players to be unable to portal to you (LE-70).
  
• Fixed LE-67 errors occurring if you clicked a dungeon door after someone put in a key and clicked Enter, but did not select a tier.
  
• Fixed a bug where hardcore characters that had died still showed as hardcore in some parts of the UI.
  
• Added tutorials to the start of the game for joining a party and re-assigning skills. We have other tutorial changes in progress.
  

• We are monitoring issues with logging in and connecting to servers (i.e. being able to at all, and the speed of doing so). These issues are typically addressed on our backend, which happens separate from client/server releases.
  
• We are continuing to investigate reports of progression rollbacks and improving our telemetry to diagnose causes.
  
• Weve identified the cause of skills on the actionbar being scrambled/un-set when playing Transform build and are working on a fix.
  
• Weve seen reports of Lunge causing the player to get stuck but havent found a consistent way to cause the behavior. Any details you can add in a bug report (types of enemies, location onscreen, recordings) would be helpful.
  

Gameplay

• The Death Recap screen (you were killed by X with Y damage type) now works in Multiplayer.
  
• Fixed a bug where offline characters could not unlock empowered monoliths at the timeline catalyst. You can go back to the catalyst on existing characters to unlock it.
  
• Fixed a bug where a reward rock could incorrectly appear after completing a Quest Echo in offline (Quest Echoes dont have echo completion rewards).
  
• Fixed a bug where return portals did not appear in the Council Chambers or Outcast Camp after taking a town portal to those zones.
  
• The following interactions now require a click rather than happening when you hold down the left mouse button and hover over the object:
  
  
  
  • Using the Town Portal (both to town and from town)
    
  • Open the Stash
    
  • Talking to most NPCs
    
  
  
• Defeating the following chapter bosses now unlocks the first waypoint of the next chapter, in case you logout or disconnect before continuing:
  
  
  
  • Admiral Harton
    
  • Spymaster Zerrick
    
  • Harton/Zerrick Rematch
    
  • Lagon
    
  
  

• Fixed a bug where the skill tooltip incorrectly displayed when opening a skill tree.
  
• Fixed a bug where channeled skills kept recasting in multiplayer, causing casting vfx and sounds to play repeatedly.
  
• Increased the basic melee attack range of Assembled Abomination by around 100%.
  
• Fixed a bug where Flame Reaves Rhythm of Fire could not gain stacks from any source.
  
• Fixed a bug where using Fury Leap at a very long distance could cause you to get stuck in an animation pose until you used another ability.
  
• Fixed a bug where Lunge would lock you in place when targeting destructible objects.
  
• Fixed a bug where Rip Bloods Coagulated Blood was not affected by increased area.
  
• Fixed a bug where Swarmblades Locusts sunk into the ground and did not animate.
  

• Fixed a bug where offline characters could be overwritten when creating a new offline character after deleting one.
  

• Temporarily massively reduced the damage of the Emperor of Corpses Soul Bomb. The arena for this fight was made smaller in the lead up to 0.9 without the boss abilities being changed to account for this. We plan to return the arena to its original size soon.
  
• Void Worms have a less intense visual effect when they die.
  
• Fixed a bug where Infernal Fleshs abilities would sometimes indicate in the wrong direction in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed Spymaster Zerrick not having a boss-style healthbar when hovered over.
  
• Fixed the stone blocks in Liaths Sanctum not having a sound.
  
• Updated the emerging sound for Void Despair.
  
• Fixed the Hollow Druants Entangling Roots skill not having sounds.
  

• Fixed The Throwing Damage and Mana Cost affix incorrectly showing that its damage had a physical tag.
  
• Fixed the Travelers Backpack not appearing when equipped. Were still working on granting this cosmetic to all players.
  

• We are investigating other reports of data loss associated with online characters. While these reports are fairly uncommon this remains our top priority. This build introduces some additional logging that will help us investigate.
  
• We now know what is causing characters to sometimes appear without their armor and the default display username ( ) to appear which is a failure to load this data and are working towards a fix. This is only a visual bug that is usually resolved when switching to a new zone.
  
• We will continue to monitor your feedback and put out additional hotfixes as necessary for skill bugs, multiplayer systems, and so on.
  

• Fixed a bug with the chat system that caused a hugely excessive amount of calls to our backend services (this shouldn't change anything on the player side).
  

The Convergence, Patch 0.9, is coming Thursday, March 9, 2023 at 11:00 AM CT!

Welcome everyone to the final day of our Pre-Patch Blog Post Hype Week! Over the last year, we have been working on a very large number of improvements for Last Epoch alongside the addition of the Multiplayer Beta. With all these changes stored up, we have a lot of notes and changes ready for you to look over. Because of the sheer number of these notes, we've decided to release them a few days earlier than we usually would in order to provide a chance to read through the areas you might be interested in and prepare for patch day!

In preparation of the launch of the new client on March 9th, we will be taking the current log-in servers offline approximately 4 hours before the patch launch in order to migrate accounts to the new servers. (This will not transfer any characters, or other progression, just getting everyone set up to be able to log-in to the new servers).

Last Epoch Beta Patch 0.9 - Convergence will introduce:

• Multiplayer!
  
• New 3D models for new and existing Uniques
  
• New Armor sets for Acolyte, Mage, Primalist, Rogue, and Sentinel
  
• New Unique Items
  
• Balance Changes, including almost every skill in the game
  
• Performance Improvements
  
• New Music & Sound
  
• New Player animations, and skill VFX
  
• New Bone Golem and Manifest Armor models
  
• New Enemies
  
• Reworked Zones
  
• New Monolith Maps
  
• Bug Fixes
  
• And more!
  

Hello, Travelers!

Its officially the start of Patch week, with only four more days to go until 0.9! In todays blog post, were going to be getting a bit technical. Performance and Optimization has been a major goal for us over the last year and something weve made a lot of improvements regarding. We also know this is a very important topic for many users, so we want to talk about all the things weve been working on. In short form, Performance coming to patch 0.9 has improved considerably, and well continue to improve it! If youre interested in the extended version with how were accomplishing that? Well, lets dive into that.

Over the years, our team has been busy building a content-rich and fun game. With regular updates, we provided a lot of new content often. While we always had performance in mind and tried to keep performance in check or improve it over time, we were never as focused on improving performance as we have been and continue to do so. Many things affect the performance of the game, and today we would like to share more about the visual effects optimization improvements we have made for patch 0.9.0 and beyond.

Visual effects (VFX) are present in every corner of the game. If you are casting fireball, throwing magical hammers, getting hit by void enemies, seeing flickering torches in the dark dungeons, or just standing in the rain, there are almost always several visual effects playing on your monitor. Over the years, weve added thousands of visual effects to the game, and as we are now also adding multiplayer functionality, we understand we need to have the performance in a good place, and VFX can and does affect the performance in moment-to-moment gameplay.

We have been going through every single visual effect we have in the game, benchmarking it, and making sure it is up to our standards both from visual and performance perspectives.

Runtime Instantiation and Pooling

Every time an ability is used by the player or an enemy, the game has to create and initialize a visual effect associated with that ability in addition to other effects, such as hit effects. This Instantiation and initialization can be quite performance costly. Multiple things can cause players to experience more and more stuttering, such as the number of enemies increasing, players using skills more often, or those skills spawning more projectiles and effects.

The solution to this problem is Pooling. The game creates all the effects we expect that will appear in the scene in advance, as such, the majority of the instantiation and initialization costs will be paid during the loading, and these effects will exist in the scene - in the pool but are disabled. When the game needs to display the requested visual effect, instead of creating a new one, writing it into memory, and initializing it, it will just take one from the pool and play it instead. After the visual effect is played, it will return to the pool and will be reused later.

This solution reduces stuttering caused by VFX creation considerably. For patch 0.9.0, all player abilities VFX will be pooled. In addition to player abilities VFX, we are also pooling the most frequent visual effects - such as hit effects or ailments. We will also be continuing to add more visual effects to the pool.

Shaders, Overdraw, and Rendering Paths

Another aspect we are looking into is optimizing our shaders. A shader is an underlying code that decides the color of the pixel appearing on your monitor. Pretty much every pixel is calculated on the shader level, no matter if we are talking about UI elements, terrain, models, or visual effects. For VFX, we are using a wide variety of shaders to achieve different visuals - a smoke effect is using a different shader than liquid or blood, for example. Some of these shaders can be quite simple, but sometimes calculations to achieve a very specific look can be incredibly complex. Using our new internal tools, we identified several performance issues caused by our previous shader configurations. Since 0.8.5, we have been working on adjusting and even re-creating our shaders to improve from these issues resulting in a smoother and more performant experience.

[h2]Overdraw[/h2]

Overdraw is when a pixel on the screen has to be drawn multiple times to achieve the final result - ideally, you want the color of the pixel calculated just once, but it is not always possible. This is mostly caused by transparent materials and effects. If you have a nice semi-transparent smoke effect, the engine needs to know what is behind the smoke to calculate the final color of the pixel, so in this case, everything that is behind the smoke needs to be calculated at least twice. If multiple particles or particle systems are using transparent materials, you can see how this will start to stack up.

Overdraw is not an easy issue to fix, as well some level of overdraw is typical in modern games, but there are some options to mitigate the impact of overdraw or reduce the amount of it. to achieve this, we developed internal tools to measure the amount of overdraw caused by our visual effects. We have been going through all of our visual effects, searching for patterns or systemic issues we could fix by adjusting the shader or manually fixing the biggest offenders.

We identified specific shaders which do not benefit from being transparent. Instead, we are converting them to something called alpha-test. Alpha test shader pixels are either fully visible or fully invisible. This allows the game engine to calculate the pixel color just once. This primarily applies to liquid/goo/blood effects with minimal or no visual impact.

For cases where reworking the shader is not an option, we have been going through each element of the visual effects, adjusting them to reduce overall overdraw: sometimes switching elements to be alpha-tested instead, sometimes redesigning certain elements such as distortion, and sometimes redesigning the visual effect completely. Over time, we developed guidelines that help us minimize the performance impact of visual effects, and we are applying lessons we learned across the game.

To demonstrate the impact of reducing overdraw, the Ancient Dragon encounter is a good example. In the current version, Ancient Dragon attacks can cause significant frame drops - in this example, frames drop to mid-40s.



After reducing overdraw for its attacks, the framerate curve is much smoother and hovers around 100, and there are still further optimizations planned. You will also notice higher average fps even before attacks, which is a result of other optimizations that we have been working on.




[h2]Rendering Paths and Visual Effects[/h2]

Rendering Path is a term not used commonly, but it is essential for the overall optimization of the game. A rendering path is a series of operations the engine uses to gather and calculate geometry, lighting, and shading. There are two common Rendering Paths used in modern games - Forward and Deferred. Both rendering paths have their advantages and disadvantages, and it depends on the game and art direction to determine which is the ideal rendering path for that specific game.

Last Epoch is using the Deferred rendering path, and the main benefit is that using multiple lights doesnt negatively impact the game performance since lighting is calculated and rendered all at once (while in forward rendering, each object has to be rendered once for each light). We decided early that we want to use dynamic lights for our skills or environment design, so Deferred rendering was a logical choice - but there is a catch.

Modern engines can combine both rendering paths into a single frame; they can render certain elements in the Deferred path and others in the Forward and combine them into the final image. Shaders decide what rendering path they will use based on features and operations they need for calculations - specific calculations are possible just in Forward and vice-versa. We are using a wide variety of shaders, and many of them need to be rendered in a Forward rendering path - which can cause performance issues, especially if there are multiple light sources in the scene, either from the environment or emitting from skills.

To demonstrate the importance of having shaders using the correct rendering path for the situation, here is an example from testing the difference between Forward and Deferred shaders in the test scene using 16 lights and a couple of particle systems emitting blood-like particles. As you will notice, the FPS difference in this specific scenario is enormous.





So to solve this issue, we are going through all of our shaders in the game, not just for visual effects, and we are making sure that all shaders, where we need to have lighting calculations, are rendered through the Deferred rendering path. We still want to have some Forward shaders in the game because they can provide different visual effects, but we are making sure that all Forward shaders we are using are not using performance expensive lighting calculations. We still have a few cases we need to clean up, but when we are done, this will allow our visual effect and level design teams to use lights more artistically, increasing the fidelity and visual depth of the game in addition to overall better performance across the board.

We took all the knowledge mentioned above and created a demonstration with the proposed changes. The necrotic explosion caused by Volatile Zombie skill was one of the demonstrations.



This is our current live version of Necrotic Explosion. As you can notice, spawning multiple explosion causes noticeable stuttering, you can see the profiler graph jumping really high, which means both CPU and GPU takes a lot of time to render out these frames.






This was demonstrated with proposed changes applied - reducing both overdraw and shader rendering path fixes. Even multiple explosions have minimal impact on the performance, as you can see on the profiler graph, keeping a smooth framerate without stuttering. Please note that this video does not show the final version of the Necrotic Explosion. This is just a demonstration that helps to guide the visual effect team to improve both performance and visuals of VFX.

Projectors and Trails

During visual effects benchmarking, we noticed several patterns causing performance degradation, which lead us to investigate other systems we are using for VFX, namely Projectors and Trails. Projectors are tools that can project textures/decals on any surface. Projectors are very useful for both level design and visual effects, used either as temporary marks on the ground and other elements by skills or as permanent visual elements in many scenes. We moved from using default Unitys solution for decals to a custom solution, which is considerably faster, and you should see a considerable improvement in skills such as meteor or avalanche.

Trail is a system that creates a nice smooth trail behind some projectiles, such as Hungering Souls. But as we found out during our benchmarking, our current solution can cause significant performance degradation, especially if skills have multiple projectiles. We are actively working on replacing the current solution with a better-performing one.





Working around engine limitations

There are a lot of things that can negatively impact performance in the game. We already talked about some of these issues, and sometimes the visual effect does not perform well, but the underlying issue is not immediately apparent. In these cases, we need to dig deeper into the engine and code itself, find out how the engine works, what limitations it has, and what is causing performance issues. Quite a few operations are happening under the hood on the engine level, like how game objects are structured, their hierarchy, and their timings, with each of these having a potentially significant impact on performance.

One example is the hit effect. Hit effects are relatively simple visual elements, yet we noticed a performance drop in specific scenarios. We were able to optimize the game object itself, bringing performance to acceptable levels without impacting visuals in any way.

Below is a video showing several dummies periodically spawning physical hit VFX. Our current version of that VFX was causing a significant performance drop which impacted fast-hitting and summon builds the most. This was an important issue to solve before the open multiplayer patch was released since up to 4 players in one game significantly increases the number of hit effects.



Improving scene baseline frame times

To ensure that Last Epoch is running well even on lower-end machines, we knew we have to improve our scenes baseline frame times. We developed new internal tools to benchmark our scenes and identify performance issues. Now we are benchmarking our scenes once per week to make sure our performance improvements are hitting their targets and we are not introducing more performance issues.

There are a lot of factors affecting scene frame times, including inefficient geometry, shaders, number of draw calls or shadow casters, reflection probes, etc. We did several global changes, including adjusting our graphics settings, and changing shaders or even vegetation, which helped bring frame times down in general. Now we are targeting each scene separately to fix scene-specific issues.

We still have a lot of scenes to chew through, but we are working hard to make sure our scenes have baseline frame times as low as possible. In addition, we are learning valuable lessons and are preparing guidelines for our future scenes to be performant out of the box.

These images show just a few of our improvements between patch 0.8.5 and 0.9.0. Frametimes were captured using the reference PC (GF 1650 4Gb, i5 - 11600K, 16GB RAM) on medium settings.

These graphs represent a grid layout of their respective scenes. Each of the circles of the graph represents a spot on the map where a player can travel, and so our tool captured an image of load times from that location. Basically, think of this as the tool walking through the map like a player and placing a circle each time it has a look around. Each square on the graph represents a physical square of the scene and how long it took that section of the scene to load.

In the first graph below, were having a look at one of the more open Monolith Echo zones, which happens to be one of the Imperial Era maps. Here, because its a more open area, the tool captures many points next to each other in order to graph the complete scene evenly as different players may traverse different parts of the map. Wherever the circles can be found is the walkable area of the map.



In the second graph, were having a look at one of the early Ruined Era cavern scenes from the campaign. Since this map is a winding cavern, theres a more linear route for players to travel, and so the capture points reflect this.



We are not done

Performance optimization is an ongoing process, and even as we continue prepping for patch 0.9 and beyond, we have already identified areas where we can continue to improve. We are getting much better at collecting data, identifying sources causing performance issues, tracking them, and ultimately fixing them. We are also working on several guidelines to ensure that all our future content will be as optimized as possible on the first release. While we cant promise that every single performance issue will be fixed in the upcoming patch 0.9.0, we believe we are on the right path to give you the Last Epoch you deserve and can enjoy a smooth and fun experience.

We hope you all enjoyed this deeper look into performance optimization in Last Epoch! Well be back again tomorrow with a particularly large post, which we think one or two people might be interested in potentially.

Goodbye for now Travelers, and well see you all again very soon!

Hello Travelers, and happy Saturday!

The weekend may have arrived, but that doesnt mean the Pre-Patch Blog Post Hype Week has been paused! In todays post, were having a look at a few of the new enemies youll encounter in Eterra, as well as a few of the new high-level armor designs youll be able to find during the Convergence in Beta Patch 0.9.

New Enemies

So far, weve discussed level design and skills, and yet something still needs to populate these levels and provide something for these skills to be wielded against.

With patch 0.9, weve updated and replaced many of the enemies which youll encounter with entirely new models, and a lot of focus is on some of the earliest enemies youll encounter in the game. These enemies feature completely new models, animations, attack patterns, and distributions. The enemies were going to be sharing today may be small or may rely on swarm tactics; however, being some of the most populous enemies makes it quite crucial for these enemies to be distinct and memorable.

[h2]The Void Grub[/h2]
The first new enemy were meeting today is the new Void Grub. This relatively large, almost ball-like creature of the void may not be very nimble on its feet but has identified other methods of locomotion to be wary of. Using its sharp tongue, it can also lash out at deceptively long distances.



[h2]The Void Drone[/h2]

The second creature were taking a look at today is the new Void Drone. A swarming enemy, Void Drones can often be found in packs. Their flower-like appendage can allow them to camouflage into the environment, and you should be wary of approaching a pack of Void Drones unaware, as in a group, they can pose quite a threat to you and your party.



[h2]The Flying Void Worm[/h2]

The final Void creature on our list today is the new Flying Void Worm. By introducing a flying enemy alongside ground units, we provide more significant variation within enemies and provide players with a greater variety of targets to choose from. We felt that the previous Voidfused Bats did not accurately represent what a flying void enemy should look like, so we have replaced them with this impressive new model. Additionally, these new enemies are larger, allowing players to fully appreciate their striking appearance and beautiful face.



These are certainly not the only new creatures to be found in patch 0.9. Some much larger and more dangerous foes are said to wander the world, though no one has yet been able to survive bringing back information on them.

Updating Armor Sets

Patch 0.9 - Convergence continues our goal of having unique visual appearances for each tier of gear in the game. This update will include new armor set models for all five classes. For todays post, were showing off some of the new highest-tier gear for the Primalist, Acolyte, and Mage coming in patch 0.9. We are excited to see players discover these updated sets, and perhaps, even more can be found in the land of Eterra.

[h2]Primalist - T60[/h2]

Fur, feathers, animal skulls, antlers, leather, and various adornments make up this high-level Primalist gear set. A very technical armor set for 3D design, this gear set tends to lean more towards the shaman side of the Primalist, offering greater defensive capabilities and an increased level of intimidation compared to earlier sets. The use of fur and feathers helps to create a more natural, organic appearance, while the incorporation of animal skulls and antlers adds a touch of menace and power.



[h2]Acolyte - T60[/h2]

This high-level acolyte set leans into its use of luxurious and more exotic materials. Embroidered cloths, intricately gilded and enameled armor pieces, and a delicately carved masquerade mask make up most of this armor set. While the addition of several horns, chains, and cuffs helps to tie us into the Acolytes style firmly, it also elevates our class above it.



[h2]Mage - T50[/h2]

Playing into the regal background of the Mage, this high-tier armor set crowns him as the preeminent master of magic. Implementing gold and royal purples with complex fabrics and materials, this set distinguishes the Mage as someone to fear and respect while also offering more protection. Being a set tailored for the mage, there is, of course, very little pocket space, but it does offer some clasps for scrolls as well as several other ornaments of power.



And Another One

Thank you all for joining us for todays look into some of the enemy and armor improvements coming to Last Epoch in Beta Patch 0.9! Well be back again tomorrow with a much more technical post as we take a dive into some of the performance and optimization improvements weve made to make for a smoother experience coming in just five days on March 9th!

Farewell for now, Travelers, and well see you all again tomorrow.

Good day Travelers!

Welcome back to another day of the Pre-Patch Hype Week Blog Posts! Today were going to be taking a closer look at some of the skill updates and changes coming in Beta Patch 0.9! Skills are the topic that most often tends to take the spotlight in any ARPG. Whether youre slicing through enemies with vicious heavy swings of a weapon or calling down meteors to destroy swaths of enemies in a single act, skills play one of the most defining roles in the experience of an ARPG. Thats why for 0.9, weve revisited many of our skills to improve their combat feel.

In some cases, this can mean mechanical adjustments to better allow a skill to fulfill its fantasy. In others, it may mean visual changes to convey the impact behind it better, and sometimes, it may mean both. With 0.9, weve gone through and adjusted over 90 skills to some extent, and in todays blog post, were going to be covering a few examples of different skills which received some changes, and what those changes bring to the table!

Manifest Armor


Manifest armor is an example of a skill that mechanically was quite sound. The skill tree was fun to build around, it was mechanically interesting, and it had a good amount of power to it (even perhaps a bit too powerful in some cases). However, it was a skill where the visuals were certainly in need of a big update to really fulfill the fantasy provided by the skill. The old model, a transparent sentinel model with a couple pieces of armor slapped on it, wasnt really doing the job of conveying the idea of a war-ready magical construct created by a character thats out to slay a god such as Rahyeh.

As an existing skill, Manifest Armor started with some restrictions around the design of a new model. It needed to be able to support having a shield, a weapon, a flame thrower, and be able to go without them depending on how the skill is specialized. Working within these constraints, our design team set to work creating a number of concepts undergoing review, and adjustments until eventually a design was chosen.



Here we can see the original concept that would be turned into the eventual model for the new Manifest Armor minion, created to be modular to support the skill as it existed. Some of the goals of the design were to capture the forged essence of the entity by having an intangible body, armor plates which float upon a summoned body of furnace fire and designing the armor plates to mimic the grates of such a furnace. However, theres more to it than just a model. An example here is the summoning and idle animations for the summon. By having it emerge from a pool of fire, it helps to reinforce the nature of its construction, making summoning the Manifested Armor onto the battlefield a more tangible experience. By giving it idle animations, such as performing a familiar motion and slamming the flat of its blade against the shield to intimidate enemies, it also helps reinforce this minions presence in the world with a bit of personality.

This newly re-envisioned molten companion of fire and steel is yours to command if you so chose as a Forge Guard in Patch 0.9 - The Convergence.



Bone Golem



The Acolytes iconic Bone Golem was another example of a minion skill with a model which was in strong need of a new model. While perhaps not as much as Manifest Armor, with the finished result, I think we can all agree the update was certainly well worth it. With something like a large undead Golem, theres a lot more leeway in how such a creature can be designed, and some of the earliest concept art of when we started looking at the Bone Golem goes to show just how many different ways a creature of this origin could be created.



As the Bone Golems central place in the Necromancers army is that of the Tank, we wanted to make sure the model really enforced the idea of a heavy, front-lining creature. While at the same time, we wanted to ensure it was very distinct from the Primalists minions, such as the Primal Bear, and matches the undead and necrotic theming of the Acolyte. After some discussion, a decision was reached on the first concept art, which would become the Bone Golem.



Skeletal hands grasping spears and chains arising from its back, layers of bone armor protecting its core frame, and several ever-watching heads adorning its mantle, its hard to mistake the nature of this beast. A nature most certainly not approved of by the College of Welryn. Also, like Manifest Armor, an update to such a minion needs more than just a model, which is where animation steps in. Even in idle animations, its important to convey the mass this creature represents with its swaying, as well as the unnatural state of its creation with its many faces constantly peering and moving in different directions, even down to the momentum of the chains hanging from its body.

Unlike Manifest Armor, however, Bone Golems skill tree wasnt in quite as great a place as it could have been. While it had a couple of builds that saw common use, much of the tree was rarely seeing use or provided enough variance to the skill. As such, with this visual update, we are also changing up the skill tree with balance adjustments, adjusting the paths available on the tree, as well as a completely new node allowing for the creation of a Deathchill Golem.



While the Golem tree itself can support having up to two of these behemoths of undeath at your command at once, weve heard some rumors there may be a way to obtain at least twice as many in the Convergence. Will your Bone Golem serve you by shielding you from blows or by crushing your foes?



Rive


Rive as a skill is another example of a bit of a different case than our previous examples here. This Sentinel skill has been a strong standby for many players. Able to put out fairly strong damage as a primary skill, fill a support role as a mana generator, and providing a strong area of effect for a zero-cost melee skill. At a glance, it seemed like Rive was already in a really good place, being flexible and robust. However, we werent quite happy with Rive; while it felt good as a combo skill, it could still, at times, feel a bit generic. For 0.9, we wanted to revisit Rive to not only make it more visually distinct as a skill but to make the tree reflect the role it fills as a base Sentinel skill.

One of the ways we wanted to do this was by providing the skill more feeling of specialization. As a master of arms, the Sentinel has a strong tie to many individual weapon types, and we wanted that reflected within this skill. One example of this is the new Foe Cleaver node which can be found on the Rive tree. Doubling the effect of Damage Stats and Ailment Chance provided by a two-handed weapon, Rive is provided more flexibility for choosing raw damage over speed, making those hits with a large two-handed weapon really land with high impact.



Another example of a new node Rive has seen introduced for 0.9 is the new Weapon Specialist node. This node reinforces the Sentinels Mastery of Arms by building for specific weapon types. With this node, youll be required to build for specific attributes alongside the weapon, but in doing so, gain more of the powerful added damage stat with each attribute point gained.



If you live by the adage You do not have me surrounded, you have merely placed me in a target-rich environment., perhaps Rive will be the skill of choice for you during the Convergence.



Lightning Blast



This is an example of one of many skills which have yet to receive changes as extensive as Manifest Amor or Bone Golem, but instead as part of our overarching goal of improving Combat Feel throughout Last Epoch. Lightning Blast is an iconic skill for mages of all kinds. With that in mind, weve made a revisit to Lightning Blast. While mechanically, its been a very sound skill and sees a lot of use, we felt it could see a considerable improvement in combat feel with even just a few adjustments.

Our goals with these changes were to make the skill match the iconography of Lightning. The old Lightning Blast, in this regard, felt a bit too predictable and concentrated. While it may have a set discharge point, theres so much energy in the bolt that some of it gets discharged along the way. As it travels to its target, it also has some variations in its pathing as it finds the path of least resistance through the air itself. Weve taken these concepts and re-applied them to Lightning blast to give it a stronger visual, better matching the idea of lightning and providing more impact to the blast as it finds its path to its target.



Arcing bolts of lighting to multiple targets, chaining lightning between groups of enemies, or perhaps creating a repeating conduit to a single target: If you seek to control the power of high-voltage electricity to destroy the creatures of the void, the Mage awaits you at The Convergence.



And so many more

Many more skills than those listed above are coming to patch 0.9 with visual improvements, sound updates, balance changes, or even new interactions. We cant wait to see what kinds of builds and combat styles everyone manages to come up with, both solo, and synergies in parties, with the much anticipated Multiplayer Beta on March 9th!

Farewell for now, Travelers, and well see you again tomorrow for another look into another set of improvements coming to Last Epoch in only six days with the Convergence!

Hello Travelers,

The Pre-Patch Hype Week continues! In todays blog post, were going to be covering some of the improvements in level design. Everything from the lighting, assets, and layout of the area youre fighting (or dying) in has a very significant impact on not only the gameplay feeling itself but also immersion. These visual aspects can convey a lot of feeling and emotion behind the meaning of a scene and help establish it within the world, making each scene feel unique and impactful.

The physical layout of different areas is also quite crucial in an ARPG due to how the camera angle works, how movement works, and how players interact with it. As a quick example, ever notice how most maps like to go up and to the right? This is because you have the most visual area in the top of the screen, as well as for many people reading left to right leads to a natural tendency to go right first. Of course, there are exceptions to provide uniqueness, but there are many small rules that go into making maps for an ARPG. But today, were going to be covering some of the improvements weve been making since 0.8.5, and showcase some of these improved scenes!

Updated Scene Assets

Assets are one of the fundamental aspects of any level design. This may be plant models, surfaces, textures, and a whole host of other things. Weve been updating scene assets accross Eterra for both better visuals and better performance. Just because something looks better, doesnt mean it needs to impact performance; this is the balance weve been striving for. Assets can also introduce a consistent theme, with specific lighting and atmosphere, areas can be tied together thematically.

For todays example, were going to be looking at Lagons Temple. As a key area housing one of the Gods of Eterra themselves, this beautiful temple has had a lot of attention provided to it with new assets, lighting, and terrain tools. Our level design team has used our newest terrain tools to achieve localized wetness and blend dirt texture into the floor to make the area more distinct and stand out as a whole new experience.







New End of Time Zone

The End of Time is one of the most important zones in Last Epoch. Its where you achieve one of the largest turning points of your character, its where the primary endgame system is housed, and it is, as the name implies, where everything ends up. Previously, The End of Time was not as visually distinct of an area as we would have liked, given its importance in story, gameplay, and as the primary central hub in Last Epoch.



Here weve gone through the End of Time, giving it the visual distinctness warranted by its importance. The background as a key part of The End of Times identity, which really helps drive home how final it is. Weve kept the core of it while adding some more fractured elements with islands of reality in the environment to put on display the existence of this place outside of reality itself. Following Patch 0.9, this area will also become one of the primary town hubs, where youll be able to encounter other players traveling through their own timelines or yours if you chose to share your timeline with them in forming a party.





Volumetric Lighting

Its hard to see all the beautiful textures and assets without lighting. However, just having a skybox light and some reflective surfaces doesnt make an area very engaging. This is where volumetric lighting comes in. In the past, we have used volumetric lighting, but in a minimal way. Weve improved our tools to be able to use volumetric lighting more globally, keeping visuals consistent no matter where you are in the scene. Instead of having localized god rays, we are now setting volumetric parameters for the whole scene, where light sources can properly react with these volumes, creating more believable fog and atmospherics.

Volumetric systems can also work together with particle systems, like rain, to achieve a dramatic look where the rain is illuminated by other light sources or even thunderstorms. This is a much cheaper (performance-wise) way to create these types of effects compared to having lit semi-transparent particles. For todays showcase, were showing off some of these new volumetric effects, which are in high use on Admiral Hartons Dreadnaught, where the scene takes place on open water in the middle of a thunderstorm.



Volumetric systems can also work together with particle systems, like rain, to achieve a dramatic look where the rain is illuminated by other light sources or even thunderstorms. This is a much cheaper (performance-wise) way to create these types of effects compared to having lit semi-transparent particles. For todays showcase, were showing off some of these new volumetric effects, which are in high use on Admiral Hartons Dreadnaught, where the scene takes place on open water in the middle of a thunderstorm.

We can also use volumetric properties to create visual effects, such as in this ravine. Having thick fog volume illuminated by glowing void assets.



Vegetation Shaders

In the past, we have used several different vegetation shaders for different vegetation assets, but this was causing a number of issues. Consistency between different assets was not great, as they had different shading models, different motions, or even no motion at all. With this, it was hard to maintain and create great-looking environments.

We ended up creating our own vegetation shaders to unify all vegetation in the game. These shaders are optimized for our renderer and how we want to use vegetation now or in the future. Because this is a solution we made for us, the system is less expansive and focuses more on what we need. Meaning vegetation not only looks better, but also generally resulted in improving performance of these shaders across the board. It also means vegetation is now consistent with the same shading and lighting models.



This also gives us a set of unified controls that allow us to achieve new effects previously not possible! This means we can have rolling winds, gusts, gales, light breezes, and everything in between able to affect all the vegetation consistently. Imagine tiny grass, tall trees, and bushes all able to be controlled by in-game wind. Its very exciting, and you will see many of these effects coming in patch 0.9!



A new view

With new scene assets, volumetric lighting, and vegetation shaders at our disposal, were bringing the world of Eterra to life in a much more immersive way. Patch 0.9 will bring these improvements and more to many zones in Last Epoch during the Convergence update on March 9th, and you can look forward to more scenes receiving these improvements on our road to 1.0.

Farewell for now Travelers, and well be back soon with another hype week blog post for our next look at our upcoming Multiplayer Beta - Convergence!

Hello Travelers,

We are officially on the road to Last Epoch: Convergence, which means its time for Pre-Patch Hype Week! In the coming days, were going to be covering some of the major updates coming alongside our Multiplayer Beta in Patch 0.9 - Convergence. While the main feature of this patch is, of course, the new Multiplayer environment, we also want to highlight many of the other improvements coming in Convergence.

In todays blog post, were starting off in the world of sound, covering some of the fantastic new SFX and music that the team has been working on. Sound plays a critical role in any game, from Combat Feel to atmosphere; sound design can immerse you in the experience or take you out of it. Of course, our goal is the former, to create sound and music which emphasizes the gameplay. For todays look at Sound in Patch 0.9, weve got some direct insight to share from our team members who breathe life into the audio-world of Eterra.

To really dive into some of the sound reworks, weve brought in our sound designer John, to talk about their experience in creating a few of these new sound effects, their ideas behind them, and some details regarding what goes into making a sound effect for an ARPG. Then for Music, weve brought in our Music Composer, Erik, who weve shared insight from before, to once again share their insight regarding some of the new tracks, which help set the tone and atmosphere in Last Epoch. So without further ado, Lets let John take it away!

Sound Design

Hi everyone! Im John, Sound Designer at Eleventh Hour Games. Lets go over some of the cool sound design projects that Ive worked on in the lead-up to 0.9 as part of a teamwide effort to improve the feeling of combat in Last Epoch.

[h2]Meteor SFX Rework[/h2]

Meteor is one of those skills that need to feel great and powerful when you use it. Since the original sound effects were made, the visuals for Meteor have been massively upgraded, so I thought it was only appropriate to bring the sound design up to standard!

Ultimately, the intention was to make Meteor sound big, crunchy, and powerful. Initially, I went through a few designs, which went a bit TOO hard on the crunch and power. Considering that this is a skill that can be spammed, should the player decide to craft their build that way, I had to make sure Meteor sounded bigger and better whilst not being too overwhelming in the mix.

For the design, I utilized the sounds of fire, rocks, and jet engines (believe it or not). The final result is a set of sound effects that I feel better represents that the player is literally wrenching a meteor from the sky and slamming it into the ground.

[previewyoutube=Y00fubwzWpU;full][/previewyoutube]

[h2]New Bone Golem Vocals[/h2]

Bone Golem got a total overhaul recently. It looks and moves so much better now, so naturally, the sound design needed an upgrade also, particularly the vocal sound effects.

Before starting the design, I split the visual aesthetics of the Bone Golem into three categories: Monstrous, Necrotic, and Bony. I took those concepts and approached the Bone Golem updated sound design with those in mind.

The monstrous elements were achieved using a lions roar and several layers of hog and duck callers being blown into slime and other weird textures. Necrotic characteristics were added to the vocals using human screeching sounds and squeaking friction on glass. And lastly, because the Bone Golem is made of well, bones I made sure the vocals rattled with pitched-down growls.

[previewyoutube=Ep-4hYCsIaE;full][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Void Knights Echo SFX Rework[/h2]

Not unlike the other examples, Void Knights Echo recently got an awesome new visual upgrade. This was an excellent opportunity to get those sounds feeling better. For those who dont know, an Echo is a passive effect thats received when selecting the Void Knight mastery in which some of your characters attacks will be repeated by an echo of yourself.

The old sound was very whispery and a little boring when compared to these great new visual effects. I thought it would be fun to have the sound be more reminiscent of a player splitting through the space-time continuum to deal a blow to the enemy and then zipping straight back out. To achieve this, I used synthesized and weird, wobbly layers to match the creepiness of the Void and really sell the idea of time travel.

[previewyoutube=tYDSoT7UWgI;full][/previewyoutube]

Thats all of the sound design updates we could squeeze in for this post. It was pretty hard to round it down to just three examples because there have been MANY things updated in the soundscape of Last Epoch over the past year. Some of my other favorites include the new sounds for Snap Freeze, Idol of Ruin, and the new Bull Groles - but maybe well leave that for the next blog post.

New Music

Hi, I'm Erik, the composer for Last Epoch. I'm excited to share some of the music I've been writing as an update for the Ruined Era in Patch 0.9.

[h3]Ruined Era Music[/h3]

Most of the other music for the game has a natural, acoustic sound with more traditional instrumentation. This era focuses on synthetic sounds and acoustic instruments that have been warped - almost beyond recognition. Themes that are played at other times in the game come back but are altered in both sound and rhythm.

[h2]The Ulatri Cliffs - Ruined Era[/h2]

[previewyoutube=6ZlY89CGIjI;full][/previewyoutube]

This piece starts off with an explosive, destructive sound, similar to the sound of a large stringed instrument breaking. This is the first time in the game that the players travel to the Ruined Era, so this sound sets the tone; were far from the more peaceful place where Last Epoch begins and far from it in time!

The high-energy string parts become manipulated and warp and break down over the course of the piece, much like how the world breaks down to bring us the Ruined Era of Last Epoch.

[h2]The Council Chambers[/h2]

[previewyoutube=ppSv376GjDs;full][/previewyoutube]

This music creates the feeling of being in a large cavern where the council has set up and is trying to hold back the forces from the void. A feeling of anticipation of upcoming battle is overlaid with a feeling of subtle calm. The familiar Last Epoch theme comes back, but its played by guitars and in a different rhythmic setting from the other times that you hear it.

[h2]The Ritual Site[/h2]

[previewyoutube=Y5JbHF3W3Fo;full][/previewyoutube]

A gang of cultists have created a resurrected version of one of The Brotherhood, and this music helps create the mood for his insidious plot as you battle. The melody is played using an Ebow on a distorted electric guitar. It uses an electromagnet to vibrate the strings, this helps to give it an unfamiliar, cello-like sound. This is one way that the guitar was warped to sound unconventional.



And thats all of the featured music examples for the 0.9 patch.

An exciting week ahead!

A big thank you to both John and Erik for taking the time to provide their direct insight! I know I had put them in a hard spot trying to only pick a few of their works for this post, but on March 9th, well see everything theyve been working on over the last year.

Thats all for todays look at a few of the new SFX and Music improvements coming to Last Epoch in patch 0.9 - Convergence. As mentioned previously, We have a bunch of these inside looks coming up, so keep an eye on our Discord, Twitter, Forums, and other socials for more inside views on updates and changes coming in our next major patch.

We hope youre as excited as we are, and well see you all again soon Travelers!

Hello Travelers,

Weve heard you and we have some exciting news to share with you today. You may recall back in December we released our plans for Item Gifting in Last Epoch. Since that time, weve been engaged in an ongoing conversation with the community about Trade. Many players expressed they were excited by our decision to champion finding loot, and many others have voiced their disappointment, letting us know that they were sincerely looking forward to trading their treasures in Eterra.

Weve made it clear in the past that we want Last Epoch to be a place where you can come to slay monsters and find great gear upgrades, and it still will be. However, it is equally important to us that we remain a studio that listens and is grounded in our community.

In short, we want Last Epoch to be the ARPG that rewards you for hunting items the way you most enjoy, no matter which side of the trade conversation youre on. So, weve been hard at work discussing, debating, and consulting with some of our trusted community members, and were happy to present you with the following:

[h2]Item Factions[/h2]
We are pleased to introduce you to an early peek at the feature design of our new Item Factions System in Last Epoch. Inside, you will find two powerful factions - The Merchants Guild and the Circle of Fortune, ready to accept and reward your allegiance in Eterra.



Along your travels in Last Epoch, you will encounter factions of Eterras denizens and may choose to align yourself with them. Aligning with a Faction will allow you to gain both Reputation to improve your rank within that faction, and Favor to spend on that factions services and rewards. Climbing ranks within a faction will unlock their unique perks, services, and rewards.

The Merchants Guild and the Circle of Fortune are the first two factions that well introduce in Last Epoch, and your choice of allegiance will determine the way your character obtains and exchanges items in the endgame. Each character can only represent and gain reputation with one of these factions at a time, enabling their exclusive benefits.

Characters may swap between factions at any time. Equipping items found while in the Circle of Fortune will require ranks in that faction and equipping items purchased through trade while in the Merchants Guild will require ranks in that faction. So, switching between them is more akin to respeccing your character rather than something youll want to do routinely.

Details:

• You can have different characters in the same Cycle in different factions
  
• Faction reputation is shared account-wide
  
• Faction reputation resets each Cycle
  
• When a Cycle ends and characters are transferred to the permanent non-Cycle environment, their Faction progress will be carried over
  

[h2]Thank You to Our Community[/h2]
Thank you for all the passion and constructive criticism youve shown in these conversations. Weve been listening carefully, collecting your feedback and creating a solution that champions the diverse nature of our players. We are building Last Epoch for all of you, with all of you, and as ARPG gamers ourselves that came together to make this game, we value your ideas and opinions.

We are very excited about introducing Item Factions and invite you to continue the conversation with us. Its worth noting that these systems will not be included in Patch 0.9, but we will be aiming to get them into subsequent patches this year. Resonances may be added sooner than Factions on account of their smaller scope.

[h2]Still have questions?[/h2]
Check out our FaQ over on our forums!


Thank You,
Last Epoch Team

Hey Travelers!

Signup for Last Epochs Free Multiplayer Beta Playtest is now live on Steam!

If youve been waiting for the right moment to introduce your friends to Last Epoch, there is no better time than right now. You dont need to own a copy of the game; all you need is a Steam account. Head over to our steam page and hit the sign-up button!



When can we sign up?
Right now!

When can we play?
Thursday February 23rd @ 10am CST through Monday February 27th @ 10am CST

What the Free Multiplayer Beta includes

• First Look at the upcoming 0.9 Patch
  
• Play for free with up to 3 friends in your party!
  
• Adventure through the first 4 chapters
  
• Access to 12 Class Masteries.
  

Hello Travelers!

Yesterday we announced our 500,000 units sold milestone, and today we present to you a gift from the entire Last Epoch team!

Introducing, the Travelers Backpack.

This exclusive gift is our way of thanking you, and commemorating our shared journey with all of you who were with us from the start and those of you who are joining us just before we step into the world of Eterra together.



Spoiler Warning - Below is a list of each item on the backpack itself.

[expand type=Spoilers]


Starting in the Top Left, and going around clockwise!

Orians Eye - Always watching you. Waiting. :slight_smile:

[/expand]

If you happened to notice either in the game or watching someones stream, we had a sneak peek at this item during our last 2 events.



The Travelers backpack back slot cosmetic will be given to ALL owners of Last Epoch who own a copy prior to the Multiplayer Beta Patch 0.9, coming on March 9th, so there is still time to get the game and the backpack!

If you are thinking about jumping into the world of Eterra there is still time to also get the original supporter packs, but those will be going away during our March 9th release, and a new set of supporter packs will become available. The price for Last Epoch will still remain the same, so you dont need to worry about a price increase when the launch happens.

A note about current supporter packs and upgrading:
[expand type="A note about current supporter packs and upgrading:"]

If you purchased the game through our website, and would like to upgrade your supporter pack, you can have this done through a support ticket to the link below.

If you purchased the game through Steam, or via a Steam Key, and youd like to upgrade your supporter pack to a higher tier pack before 0.9, we cant technically do an upgrade. However, since your purchase on Steam is already considered the Ardent Gladiator supporter pack, and you wish to upgrade to one of the other packages (only available until March 9th), we can offer an additional 350 cosmetic coins as we cannot refund Steam purchases in any way. We can do this for you by submitting a ticket to the link below after purchasing the desired pack.

Link: https://support.lastepoch.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=1260808459030

[/expand]

Thank you to everyone who has helped us on this incredible journey and we look forward to seeing you all showing off your Backpack!

Thank You to everyone,
Last Epoch Team

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!) were 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 dont 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 (were 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.

What were working on

[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. Were already well along on a fix for this which should greatly help reduce that performance hit, and while it wont be in place for Thursdays event, it will be in place shortly after. There are other hidden things were working on (like excessive server logging); however, we think this was one of the more visible issues, and so wanted to make sure were 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 were acting on as well. For the next event, were 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, were 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, were going to be bumping up enemy health scaling for the next event. Were doing this in smaller increments, so we dont over-correct, as many of these players are highly experienced players, but well 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 were hoping to have in for this Thursdays 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 cant be gifted again. Being unable to gift it further caused a couple of negative experiences during the event, so in response, were 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. Theyre correct! In response to feedback from both previous blog posts, and event feedback, were 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. Were 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 were 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 wont be able to farm stability once as a group, then chain bosses with each party member. While this change wont be in place for Thursdays event, we wanted to acknowledge that we do hear this feedback, and are actively working on it!

Onward to 0.9!

There are, of course, many other things were continuing to work on, and with our next pre-patch event in only a few days, were hard at work on getting everything ready for this Thursdays 10k Multiplayer Beta week-long event. Were really excited to get everyone in the community into the experience, as well as the big Pack the Server party, where well ask everyone to help us break things on Saturday. Theres 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 youre not a big multiplayer enthusiast, theres still a lot to see and check out in this patch.

If you havent 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
-
- 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 youve 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