The problem with Path of Exile is that it is far too intimidating for me to get into as a new player who doesn’t want to pour in tons and tons of hours to learn it. This not being as complex or not having enough to last more than a couple dozen hours is actually a huge selling point for me, but that’s obviously not the same for everyone.
Yup, POE you also cant just figure stuff out. Nope. POE if you try to "figure something out" you can brick an entire character. LE its basically impossible to not end up with some cool build. POE is great if you wanna use guides and basically just do what your told.
Ultimately this is the space that it is made to fill, and it likely will allow it to reach a more wide range of people because of it. I would say that if you want something that you will never run out of things to do or learn POE is great but the initial investment is pretty high if you're only looking for something you play for a couple hours a month. That investment being time of course because game is free.
@@timothykeller9419 I would note that if you want the fastest experience that's the way to play but you can and in my opinion to enjoy the game should learn how people build and put things together and make your own. I've done custom league start set ups for most of the leagues I've done and the build creation and planning is half the fun. I absolutely agree though that the ability to brick a set up and lack of ease of access to customization (orbs of regret and unmaking) makes for an overall worse experience that I do wish would be addressed in the future.
@@JohnWhitneyTheFourth Yeah man, I thought Last epoch looked fun as hell after a video I watched of it. It looked like diablo 2/3 and I like those games. It also didnt look too complex like Path of exile was, I played that game for like an hour and it wasnt for me.
And that's absolutely fair. I also know Woolie did a couple streams running over basic POE concepts for people so that can be a good source of info for beginners. I will say that if you're willing to put yourself through that initial learning curve then POE is one of the most rewarding ARPGs on the market right now, but I can also absolutely understand not wanting to.
It feels like the ideal middle-weight ARPG, which is a niche that desperately needed filling. Satisfying but not dizzying complexity, and good build variety with distinct flavor and feel. Takes only a few hours for you to get a taste of initial synergies coming together and your character beginning to feel powerful. I dunno, to me it feels like an ARPG that values your time and is designed to meet you where you're at
Yea Im loving this game because I like playing other games and cant just play one game, I know u can casually just go blind in poe and shit but the game just isnt fun when u aren't constantly learning and taking a good amount of time getting accustomed to the systems
I think the itemization is FAR better than diablo 3/4. It's good to have simple modifiers. I love having simply "fire damage" instead of Diablo 4's garbage "Damage to bleeding enemies while it's raining on a tuesday". The multiple defensive layers also is great for itemization. For suffixes I am constantly juggling resistances, health, armor/dodge, endurance/threshold, and block/effectiveness, glancing blows, etc etc. Poe has those same mechanics, but to get them from rare items instead of a keystone or unique is wonderful. In Poe I just get life+res on all rares. The unique/set situation I agree with tho. I've only used 3 for purely stats not really changing anything, Ruby Fang Cleaver (1h-axe with good fire damage/poison resist), Isadora's Belt Binding (GREAT armor belt), Sunwreath (Fire/ignite damage ring).
I’m cool to have an Arpg that I get to a point in the endgame where I feel like I’ve experienced everything and can uninstall without needing to put hundreds of hours in.
I mean not every game has to be infinitely replayable, especially one aiming to be a bit more middle tier on pricing and such as this. Also there’s other classes and such so it’s not like it loses all replayablitity any more than Diablo or something. I just like when you can get a feeling of accomplishment sooner rather than hundreds or thousands of hours later. There’s other games for you if you want that
I tried getting into PoE but it has two key issues that keep me from enjoying it. 1. Incredibly complicated progression with a very punishing respec system. This means that you can’t just experiment around and figure things out. You basically have to use a guide unless you want to have a garbage build. 2. Skill gem system that encourages one button builds. Because support gems all support the active skills on the same gear piece, you’re basically encouraged to super buff up one skill and then use that skill for everything. Early on in PoE I had a few different active skills that I used for different situations, it was fun. But once I got further, I just had one damage skill that took care of everything. Any other skills I had were utility. It’s just kind of boring gameplay wise to always be spamming the same skill.
This is exactly why I got bored of PoE so fast, it seems like PoE will change this quite a bit, multiple 6 socket skills with different attributes in the tree which you can hotswap. I am looking forward to PoE2 so much. One button skill from start to finish just doesn't do it for me anymore.
"Mash a single button and then use a couple extra ones occasionally for movement or buff purposes" Oh you mean like exactly how PoE plays? Edit: If people want a better review of the game and its mechanics I would recommend watching Zizarans first impression video and/or Mathils video.
The thing about last epoch is that you can build your character how ever you want without having to follow a specific guide to be able to play the game and have fun. It’s fun to make different builds and try all the characters
but its shallow in complexity, the only way to make money in this kind of games is attracting die hards fans with his complexity. thats why i say that making it a live service is bad for them. people who (LIKE YOU) want to try thing out and just finish the game and never touch it again till the next cicle, but if people leave the game for its shallowness at 10 days cuz they have no more content to run the game will die.
@@marianocarusso932if people buy the game and skins they don’t need to keep playing non stop until the next season starts for them to make profit… it’s not that deep. A $35 solid ARPG for casuals that will likely be recommended for time to come isn’t a bad thing. I’m new to ARPGS so for me the game feels complex. I don’t even know what resistance does. Assuming everyone is some POE grinder and is watching video essays on how to build characters is wild.
@@marianocarusso932It is complex without it telling you constantly that is. Like D2, it has its underlying complexity that sits just there if you decide to dig into it. If you get to a point where you have the knowledge to understand the games mechanics and inner doings all of a sudden it strikes you when you get for example a specific item that lets you think differently and discover cool intertwinings of mechanics enabling new playstyles or builds. Thats the beauty of it.
With all due respect, there's a lot I disagree with in this video but 4:30 takes the cake as an unnecessary comment that shows your bias the most. Yes they have been cooking the core game mechanics for 5 years, and they are absolutely fantastic. The skills, the crafting, the trade/ssf factions, etc. are all wonderful and PoE could learn a lot from them. They have also gone on record stating that the next cycle/league or two will be entirely dedicated to fleshing out the endgame. Obviously no review can be completely unbiased, but this video is not it. Not everyone in this community will get the reference, but it reminds me of the way Genshin stans act whenever a new gacha game comes out like Wuthering Waves with its recent CBT.
I can’t take this seriously. It’s entirely biased towards PoE. Don’t get me wrong, I play PoE too. Just a bit disingenuous to say “it has way less content than Poe and it will never get there” when PoE itself started with significantly less content than it has now, and I’d argue less content than what is available in LE at launch. Will it ever have as much content as PoE? Maybe, maybe not. This would be like comparing PoE now to PoE when it launched. How does that comparison make any sense? Glad you have your main game. But either learn how to judge a game objectively or don’t bother judging it at all. Didn’t need a whole video just to say “my game is my favorite game and other games don’t compare”.
Been a long time sub, love your content. POE is only fun to those that have 1000s of hours in it and know it in and out and can experiment. LE, you can go in blind, theorycraft a build and be happy. POE has always had an awful new player experience and 10 years of bloat to add to it that make it probably the least approachable game in the genre. Where as with LE, you can know NOTHING about AARPG and have fun.
I've gotta say, I played Diablo 3 a bunch and I've had a lot of fun playing Last Epoch That said, I am so fucking tired of hearing about Path of Exile. I tried it and got like 60% of they way through the campaign before I got tired of it. It really feels like the things I'm doing aren't rewarded, the crafting system is arcane and infested with RNG, and it has some of the most elitist fans I've ever seen.
A game not having enough depth to be your new main game doesn't necessarily mean it isn't great, and feels like kind of a disingenuous thing to base a review on. A lot of people specifically stay away from PoE because of how much more planned, involved, complex, and time-consuming it is as far as buildcrafting and itemization goes. Where Last Epoch lacks for you, it provides a wonderful middle-ground between what D4 and PoE offer to many. Last Epoch, a game made by ~50 people in 5 years, could never realistically compete with PoE which has been in development for 14 years by a significantly larger team. The game isn't "not great" just because it can't live up to your impossible standard that PoE sets for the genre. No other ARPG can either, and even PoE2 might fail to do so.
To be fair he starts the review by immediately calling it a worthwhile, good experience and a consistent 7/10 (a solid above average rating) then pivots into "is it main game material." anyone looking to see if the game is good should be satisfied by the first 30 seconds.
I'm comparing it as an ARPG to other ARPGs on the market. I stated within the first 30 seconds that "it's a solid 7/10 experience worth $35" funny, you claiming LE could never compete with PoE is actually disingenuous as PoE started with an equally small team competing against a LARGER product in Blizzard's Diablo. and PoE surpassed Diablo in-terms of content long, LONG ago...
@@Woolie That's true, PoE did leave Diablo in the dust a long time ago and also started with a smaller team, but having "more content than Diablo" is like saying you beat a 2nd grader in a fistfight in this genre where almost everything is a cut above it. Diablo 3 was the Diablo game that PoE was "competing" with up until last year, and it didn't even have a proper seasonal model or actual content updates outside of one paid expansion and couldn't even properly be classified as a live-service game. So yeah, of course PoE held the reigns on that a long time ago, Diablo 3 was never real competition for them, because Grinding Gear Games were actually trying to make a live service title with regular proper content updates and an actual functioning seasonal model and they succeeded. So it isn't JUST team size that matters, it's also intent of the developers. Obviously D3's staff were mostly moved on to other projects like D4 while D3 was on life support for a decade, so it's kind of ridiculous to hold that over as some kind of gotcha, as if Blizzard was even trying back then. Not that D4 is doing much better, but even if it was it'd still be eons behind PoE as they've had 14 years of devtime to perfect their game.
@@Muramusa723 If you're going to bootlick a videogame you could at least try to be coherent while doing it. Your rant about how D3 wasn't good or whatever has literally nothing to do with this
it was worse. the end boss was Piety and that was that. after that Dominus. after that they made maps that never dropped for anyone who didnt play 24/7 and monster stats there were so inflated that only 24/7 people could do them. that was for years iirc
endgame for sure is fair. d3 itemization, on second thought, should def be 1 point lower. I forgot how lousy the base items are, as everyone just runs full uniques & sets in that game, anyway.
@@Woolieyou're comparing d3 and Poe current end game to a game that just released a week agos end game. D3 and Poe launch endgames were garbage and this blows both out of the water at release.
I'm gonna be honest here, It feels like you've sort of been blinded by PoE at this point with it hindering your ability to accurately review an ARPG. PoE can be as in depth as possible, it's never going to be a 9/10 or 10/10 because new players can't get into the game lol. Not every gameplay loop/endgame of every single ARPG needs to be a PoE clone. Every time you talk about ARPG's at this point you're doing some direct comparison to PoE, which just go play PoE if that's what you want out of a game. Games aren't going to be 1:1 clones of each other lol.
LE not only fills the gap between content of other games rn, it gives players (specially new) the posibility to play without the need to check out other sites or guides just to understand how your toon can be played. The end-game content wise is low but with the complexity AND accesibility that the crafting systems gives you can only hope to get new content and items, not just mechanic after mechanic stack on each other like PoE. This barebone of a game has so much potential, just need more content.
I just can't play through the campaign anymore I almost fell asleep the last time I did in PoE. In Last Epoch I go through 3 dungeons and skip the entire story takes like 2h with 0 effort at most. I can perma reroll and theory craft without being completely punished by the game.
@@jonaseriksson3782 Complexity means more freedom, which means more longevity, which means more replayability. It's not better for people that can't be arsed with any of the above.
As a POE veteran I disagree completely. Itemization is way better than POE, crafting is fun and engaging. Offline mode is amazing. I can play Stress FREE and not be penalized for not playing trade. I am having so much fun in LAST EPOCH. It totally has the D2 vibe that POE never really gave me but was best ARPG at the time. For me LAST EPOCH is my new #1 rank ARPG. I don't think I can even go back to playing stock market trade economy in POE ever again after playing LE. So I might never play another POE league ever again.
what a stupid fken comment the game was out in 2018 and early access around 2021-2022 and still clusterfk poe was done back in 2012 and yeah as most games are crap at the start and takes years and legit last epoch had 6+ years and still ends up the same from when they first released it@@Justin-gz4xg
Woolie, Ive been subscribed to you for about a year now and I like your videos, but I think this is a bad take. You gave it a 7/10, which I agree with you, I am only 30hrs in, but I would agree it is slightly above average. Maybe an 8/10. but you spend the whole video being very negative about the game. You obviously hold POE on a massive pedestal. Its your favorite game and you have thousands of hours in it... I got it... but your bias is showing. I think it would be an all-around better video, and less off-putting to everyone that isnt a massive POE stan if you just spoke on LE and gave the pros and cons without bashing it against POE with every single point you make.
there is no such thing as an "unbiased review" lmao. the entire point of something being good vs something being bad is to directly compare it to OTHER things. why in the world would I NOT compare an ARPG to other ARPGs on the market? if there exists a product that does things better than the one being reviewed... of course I am going to talk about that other product
@@WoolieI mean... if you give a game a 7/10 and spend 8min shitting on it and fanboying over POE. it doesnt speak well of your credibility reviewing ARPGs. Theres no reason to even watch your reviews then. If I see you post a review of an ARPG I know to just skip it since this is what I can expect. Literally the only good thing you said about the game is that its a 7/10 and worth getting. Then you spent 8min talking about how awesome POE is. If you dont see the problem with that, then Im not going to convince you to do anything different.
@@colejo6764 "Literally the only good thing you said about the game is that its a 7/10 and worth getting." I mean this with as much respect as one can manage with the comment, this perspective is why reviews are a joke now. Wanting every game to be fellated and given an IGN 9/10 does nothing to advise us on the quality of the game.
@Xohslol that's not the point I was making. Saying something is 7/10, but give nothing positive means the game should actually be 5/10 or 4/10. How can you say it's 7/10 but have nothing good to say about it? I dont get you saying I'm calling for it to be 9/10... I said nothing like that. I saw a woolie review of last epoch, I knew he likes ARPGs sp I tuned in to hear his opinion, but all I get was 8min of him talking about how anyone playing arps should just play POE...
I think ssf in LE is by far better than poe, especially with CoF. Im hoping they continue adding interesting content to the game because I feel incentivized to play ssf
This game is way better for people with less free time compared to PoE. I don’t need to spend 100 hours figuring out the basics then another 100 getting to end game and beating all content.
I completely agree. I am very tired of basement dwellers claiming that complexity and being able to spend 1000 hours is what makes an ARPG objectively good.
The time argument is so stupid, really. Just because you have limited game time per week doesn't mean you can't use it on a more complex game. It's the equivalent of saying just because you have long working hours you can only eat fast food.
@@janniknielsen9292 Its really not a bad argument because the person with limited time might not even reach red maps nevermind beating all the content in a league. Maybe they don't want to spend a bunch of time theorycrafting and farming for expensive crafts. PoE is very much not a time friendly game.
@@janniknielsen9292 it really is not a bad argument and clearly others agree. Some of us dont want to spend the time reading and watching videos for dozens of hours just to figure out how to make a build/ game mechanics. Feels like you are not even playing at that point. I work 50-60 hours a week and dont want to spend another 10-20 on the weekends just learning for months on end before I can even get to that end game/satisfying part of the game.
Imagine if someone reviewing PoE was like "well I got to Yellow Maps and figured it was all gonna be the same shit for the next 100+ hours so I just stopped playing"... I mean I understand that if you find it boring its not worth pushing but at the same time the core of your dislike is simply "It's not PoE". PoE has spoiled us rotten when it comes to ARPGs. Path Of Exile is a 10+ year old game and I don't like when other ARPG game reviews become framed around the content of Path of Exile. Last Epoch (or any newer ARPG) DOESN'T NEED TO COMPETE WITH POE... it's just needs to fill it's own space. I want games that aren't just rip-offs of PoE to exist... Lets face it there probably won't be a game that will ever beat PoE in the next decade outside of you know PoE 2... I wish these types of reviews were simply done in a bubble instead of a direct comparison to the current LITERALLY UNBEATABLE KING OF THE GENRE. How long would this review be if you cut out every section where you talk about PoE? Also you didnt mention the Faction system once... it's such an awesome take on trading vs ssf and it's a shame you left out discussing some actually innovative mechanics for ARPGs.
I had already spent 70 hours in the game before the 1.0 update. that, plus seeing what other content creators were doing is how I reached the conclusion on endgame. why in the world would I NOT mention games in the same genre as the one I'm reviewing in order to extrapolate on my points? and I gave my thoughts "in a bubble" in the first 30 seconds of the video. I was unimpressed with the SSF Faction - haven't looked into the trading one much (mainly due to server issues rendering it largely irrelevant.) SSF one was essentially "grind more in order to grind more." block the two pieces of content you aren't doing & spam re-roll into gear pieces that you're looking for. rinse & repeat.
One of the fundamental aspects of a thorough review of any product is to compare and contrast the product with other products. If PoE is the current leader in the market, then all other products in that market are framed around competing with PoE. A review cannot remove itself from the reality of other choices that a consumer has access to, in the same way that one might moan and groan about going to a restaurant they dislike (because they prefer other restaurants!). Without comparison, you miss out on a huge portion of an effective critique. So let PoE spoil us! If the competition can't keep up with a 10 year old game then that is their own fault! As time passes, you would (and should) expect newer products to iterate and improve on successful products of the past. Can't hide in a bubble, or else you miss out on all of that for good or for worse.
@@gahfwa3541i'm going to go ahead, and say the point is moreso that poe sure as shit didn't start out as the game it is nowadays, hence the 10 years in developement part, and why its not a very fair comparison directly
@@gahfwa3541 Nothing wrong with comparison unless it's the entirety of the review in my opinion. There's plenty of very relevant and informative information about Last Epoch that was barely touched on or not touched on at all in this review. I disagree with the idea that other games need to "keep up". What you're saying is game dev studios should be expected to match 10+ years of almost constant content development within less than half that time, including the time it takes to develop the backend and mechanical systems. It's literally impossible. Its like expecting a TCG to release with 15 Sets.
@@Woolie It just seemed like you talked way more about PoE than Last Epoch in the review and didn't really go in depth about anything in the game. The video may as well have been 5 seconds long with you just saying "Last Epoch is okay but Path of Exile has more content and a better item system". That's just how it came off to me. The Trade and SSF Factions are a pretty big selling point that has gotten a lot of attention lately. I think it's important to inform people of it's existence in a review even if it isn't your cup of tea. Just as a "heads up you may like this feature" type of thing. "SSF one was essentially "grind more in order to grind more." block the two pieces of content you aren't doing & spam re-roll into gear pieces that you're looking for. rinse & repeat." I mean that's the spirit of ARPGs isn't it? I'm sure you could break down parts of PoE into a sentence like that too... "Grinding for Atlas Tree Passives points is just grinding to grind more" Etc etc. The SSF System is a build-your-own-loot-explosion mechanic. It's very powerful and satisfying. I don't see why it's being dismissed, it seems like a huge deal to me in terms of core mechanics.
Is man really going to compare 1.0 LE to the how many years of built up content that is PoE and say that it just doesn't compare and that it lacks in comparison. Not to mention just not doing empowered monoliths is akin to not doing t16 or red maps. I find this to be a woefully ignorant take about the state of the game.
I never said I didn't do empowered monos? I had 70 hours in the game before 1.0 but you're right bro - just let em cook. surely they will nail endgame the sixth revamp
@@Woolie But I thought this was a review for 1.0 not 0.8 or 0.9, you have no idea if they changed anything because you didn't play it yourself, big L Woolie
Man... I can't disagree harder haha. Your only criticism against the combat is that its just the same as everything before it, but then give it a lower score than the ones before it? I found the combat to be insanely good, mainly just because of how impactful it is. (Personally I think both PoE and LE have better combat than D3, I never understood people who said that D3 had the best combat...) Assuming Itemisation includes Crafting then I don't understand why you think PoE is the gold standard. PoE's loot is a RNG filled confusing mess that is pretty much impossible to understand without a guide, it's only upside is that the average player can get by without crafting at all. Whereas on the flip side the crafting in LE is extremely intuitive, it's not super punishing if you make mistakes, and its integrated into the core experience so that you feel compelled to craft even as a new player in order to improve your character. Regarding modifiers, I don't really understand what makes you so excited about PoE modifiers compared to LE, you spend most of your time thinking about life and res, although I agree that PoE does have the better uniques. I'm assuming that based on the fact you gave both D3 and LE the same score for loot you consider them to be on par with each other, on what planet is Diablo 3's itemisation anywhere near as good LE? In D3 the unique and set system is setup so that every class is completely railroaded into playing about 2-3 builds. Not even mentioning the ancient and primal ancient system. This is a subjective review but I honestly feel like the points you make about the end game are straight up insulting. For one, you mock the game for taking only 4 hours to complete the end game content, then immediately afterwards say you didn't do all the end game content... It's a fair criticism to say that you found it so boring you couldn't complete it all, but you can't in good faith along side criticise the time it takes to do it. You then go on to say that you have little faith in them actually ever delivering a fun end game because they've already had 5 years to develop one...? what? For one, they haven't had 5 years to deliver an end game, they've had 5 years to make a game period. For comparison, PoE was in development for 6 years before it launched and it launched with maps. Not exactly exciting. The actual end game mechanics themselves are, IMO, FAR better than maps. Just like the crafting system, the maps in PoE are a confusing RNG mess, yes the content of those maps is more interesting (after 10 years of iteration and development) but the actual core mechanic of maps is just... uninteresting. And it absolutely blows whatever stupid shit D3 had out the water, I don't know how you can put it on the same level at d3 again, when all d3 had spamming rift after rift after rift after rift, with the occasional greater rift. You don't even talk about the trading, or the skill trees :(
You are basically basing your subjective objection upon you haven't figured out different concepts in PoE and find them confusing. That is essentially just ignorance. Needless to say, if you find a more streamlined concept more approachable, there is also a consequence to that streamlining which is limiting. You can only compare yourself to the current market. A game launched a decade after another will have all that information handed to them on a platter. If their end game content is limited vis a vis another, that is what it is, until that is changed.
"Your only criticism against the combat is that its just the same as everything before it, but then give it a lower score than the ones before it?" Correct....if you re-released Quake 2 in the modern day, its gameplay would be lower received than Quake 2 Prime. Why? Because we've already seen it before, and it hasn't made innovations to the recipe we know and love today. Same reason games which produce sequels every year or every two years get so much flak.
I'm pretty mixed between agree and disagree here. I definitely think that the endgame still needs iteration but I'm hopeful that it will improve. I started ARPGs with D3, and one of my favorite things playing that game was the ability to sit down, even as a new player, and create my own build. I haven't picked up Last Epoch yet, for a combination of reasons that mostly boils down to wanting to see how the live service aspects shape up and the predictably bad servers on launch. But I am excited to try a game where I can make my own builds, from scratch, without sitting down for hours of research. I've been playing PoE since Crucible (I tried it years ago, but got intimidated at the time and was only willing to really take the plunge and study up last summer), and I definitely still don't feel ready to just kind of mess around and have a good time with a character. Adding in QoL stuff that PoE is (was?) firmly against, like the ability to skip campaign with new characters and easier respecs, and I have real hope that Last Epoch will end up better than PoE or PoE2, particularly if they hang on to some of their takes about game friction that I consider to be over the top. Yes, creative mode in minecraft isn't fun long term, but I think they are too far in the opposite direction in a lot of cases, and Last Epoch has the opportunity to steal their crown if LE can match the level of continued support that PoE gets and PoE refuses to adapt to player demands.
actually surprised to see him give diablo 3 such a high combat score. I completely agree with his ratings of the games, and its cool to see that someone isnt just sweeping d3 under rug and thinking d4 is somehow better lol
@@Woolie that's a 180 compared to my take, D4 has the better combat feel imo. Impacts feel powerful and monsters dynamically react to being hit and defeated in visceral ways. Even after 1.0 LE feels lack luster, monsters barely still flinch and all have canned death animations. PoE is floaty to me because of how spammy and zoomy it is, though I know that's your thing. The feedback from a Shockwave empowered Pulverize, an Ancients assisted Charge or a Overpower Hammer of the Ancients is some of the most satisfying in the ARPG genre. I liked D3 but imo it's itemization made it's gameplay feel suffer. Builds got too crazy and zoomy like in PoE for my taste. There comes a point in D3 where I'm on auto pilot and barely paying attention to the combat as it's become secondary to clearing as fast as possible. For the aforementioned builds in D4 they can still melt in the higher levels but maintain their gameplay fantasy of giga hits and even lots of small hits with Rogues Penetrating Shot builds and say Druids Stormclaw 'D3 Shenlong Raiment' like build. Itemization and end game scores are fair imo.
So far I'd play D3 over both D4 and POE any day, but this one so far honestly is a good contender. POE is pretty good depth wise, but smth about it just puts me literally to sleep, every damn time lmao
I gotta throw the b.s flag out. P.O.E used to be great until they nerfed everything into the ground and only allow 6 skills to reach end game plus it took poe years to become great like it will take last epoch to compare these games is just crazy. Everyone is hoping POE 2 will save the game and you know it so how can it still be great. Chris Wilson vision has drove away a lot of people away with him taking big loot drops out the game and never fixing melee skills, never really nerfing bow skills and slaughtering minions then throwing everything people need for minions deep into the delves mine. You should not have to run super juiced maps for loot or pay 1 or 2 devines for a tabby lmao its sad when a tabby becomes rare to find. You can't even get leveling uniques to drop while leveling nomore for the most part 😂The game is seriously unbalanced but the 1% who benefit off the unbalance love it and praise Chris and his game. But everything you said is far from a honest review brother.... POE doesn't nerf things just because of the power they also nerf things by how many people play it and by that metric alone there shouldn't be bow build left 😂
I dont think anything you said is wrong and i have 600hrs in the game. I think the best thing to look forward to is the base game is complete and it will look like modern day POE in 5yrs (just as POE took 10 yrs to get where it is) Im happy to get to play both games and POE2 in alternating leagues.
I find the combat rating weird. There are actually builds with significant synergies/ interactions in LE between skills and builds that actively use 3-5 skills. POE on the other hand really is mashing 1-2 buttons pretty much across the board because of the way gems work which is something GGG very much tries to adress in POE2. The 7/10 vs. 8/10 rating doesn't seem right, should be switched if anything. The itemizaztion and endgame ratings are more subjective. That being said, i significantly prefer the LE itemization/ crafting system. It is accessible while still offering enough deepth to leave room for chasing items and optimisation. I agree that there could be more interesting uniques and set items are, for the most part, completely irrelevant. But lets stay fair, 90%+ of uniques in POE are also completly booring and only exist to increase the loot pool so you don't only dropp the 10% that might actually be useful. The legendary crafting system in LE on the other hand can make even boring uniques an exiting find if they have enough legendary potential, quite a nice idea actually. Overall i think this ascpect heavily depens on the target audience making an objective and universally representative rating pretty much impossible. What i also really don't get are the "monoliths are boring statements", they are, essentially, POE mapping. Mapping is what you do to kill hordes of mobs and dropp loot which is kind of the whole ARPG game loop? Yes there could be more alternative activities like bossing options and so on, but well, new game? We will see where the journey goes in terms of content and regular content updates. POE is obviously in the lead here, and it is not even close. But i actually kind of like the "uninterupted" mapping experience. Many of the POE league mechanics simply don't integrate well. I enjoy the back to the basics experience, at least for now.
Not sure if he touches on it, but you can't compare current PoE to LE fairly. A fair review would be comparing LE to PoE on the day they launched. They also stated in a news post from the game director that their primary focus is going to be end-game. They have plans to add "Pinnacle" bosses in 1.1, which is the first content upate in the 1.0 cycle. So I say play until it's not fun, and then wait. Once LE has 10 years of updates like PoE does, then we can talk.
Im a poe fan fr but last epoch made me realize that i hate how meta slave poe is. Its a breath of fresh air to be able to play anything and have a good time and be reasonbly strong. I hope poe 2 can improve on it. And ofc quality of life
Last epoch is a game you can jump onto when you get home from work and enjoy yourself, POE is a mindless grind with a never ending skill tree that takes hours to learn efficiently if you want to not just copy builds over and over. I would 100% choose to main last epoch over POE any day
I should have stopped at 0:54 when I saw you rated LE and D3 6/10 itemization. Just nuts. D3 has no itemization. Its not even in the same league with LE. Combat I would agree. Good but poe does it a bit better overall. Obviously they cant compete with the sheer number of activities that poe has amassed over the years. Which was the worst part of the video. The lack of respect and lack of information. PoE was already 3 years in development before it was announced in 2010!! Officially released in 2013. So they had way way way more development time. The last 6 acts came with 3.0 in 2017 etc... So yeah if poe didnt have an edge over any other arpg it would be strange. They started developing 12 years prior to LE.
Last Epoch is perfect for players who dont have that much time, who dont want to invest too much time into researchng stuff, who dont want to lose stuff, who dont want too much randomnes in crafting. Last epoch is very generous. Time will tell how that approach works. Personally i like LE but prefer PoE.
I've played every ARPG, as im sure everyone else has. D3 was fun but too simple, D4 was OK but even simpler, while POE was fun but got too complicated to the point of being a chore to play. Last epoch to me, like others have stated, is a nice middle ground. You said LE wasn't a main game pick but i think it would have came off better if it was said differently. Main game pick for POE enthusiasts, definitely not. Main game pick for people wanting something with less impact, for sure. Last epoch is the perfect game for me. I've put 1000's of hours into POE, its not the hamster wheel i want to be on anymore.
I can get by in terms of combat and endgame but... I cant understand how you gave same score for Itemization for D3 and Last Epoch. D3 itemization is the most shallow in the genre and legendary mods and sets are designed in a way that you do 100000% dmg or 0% with a skill. Affixes on items arent great either - main stat + 3 dmg mods (as/cc/cd/ad/skill%) if possible on each piece. I would even argue that D4 did it a lil better actualy.
Poe is way, way,way too complicated for the average gamer. If i wanted to learn everything about poe economy i would just learn everything about our real economy because its equal amounts of work and thats essentially what poe is. work. Youre also comparing a brand new game to one that has added content for a decade. Brain dead take.
How is the itemization and gameplay in poe better than LE? I might only have 100h in poe, but from what I've felt playing it, most items are dogshit unless you spend a fortune crafting on them or you just buy the items that you want. I've played a lot of the endgame and it's really fun, but I don't think I've changed my gear or picked up something interesting in like 20+ hours. And from the 2 builds I've had none felt has fun/impactful has the one I have on LE (That I made myself without the need of a guide). But that might be the fact that i'm not really a fan of skills being available to everyone and not class specific. But hey, it's just an opinion. A game opinion. For all their own!
@@maskettaman1488 yeah. I understand what you mean, but like I don't like the fact that after 123h I'm still considered new and have stuff I dislike that others praise. The itemization in LE is simple enough for me to grasp and pop off when something drops but complex enough to craft and enhance them.
him giving items in poe 10/10 is wild. I love how LE itemization is designed around playing solo with high variance for the highest tier of loot. Where POE loot is balanced around everything being tradable. Feels amazing making my own stuff without relying on RNG poe crafting or buying it from others.
Itemization being ranked 5/10 has to be a joke. There’s a reason why GGG is on the record for saying they have things to learn from LE. And as far as end game goes… do you remember where POE’s end game was on their 1.0 launch? Here let me remind you - they had 4 textile sets, no end game bosses to chase(it took them quite a while to get Atziri into the game) and they had only half a story even complete😂 Woolie your EXTREME bias is showing. I give you a 6/10 on your rating video.
The moment you compared it to DIII it was hard to take you seriously. "Modern Diablo III" I cannot think of a more absurd statement. PoE homer syndrome = brain rot. I've played it for 2k hours and had plenty of fun, but its the most bloated video game ever created. And deep endgame is "one shot everything and don't get one shot while holding right click". Should scrap this and redo it. Your opinion is valid, but you never went into the reasoning as to why PoE's maps are so much better, or how this is similar to D3. I could absolutely be wrong, but I really got "PoE fanboy" vibes here man. Its a game I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, with four 100's as well as all pinnacle content done (not on SSF or HC thought) but its beyond bloated at this point. I think even they realize that, and I'm glad they ended up making PoE 2 a separate game. Needs a hard reset.
One of the criminally underrated things about LE is how easy it is to read the affixes on items. Try to read that shit in d4 or d3 and you will go blind from squinting Also I’m not sure what your criticism is with the combat? EVERY arpg is what you described LE’s where it’s movement skill, damage, and go. I’ve only played d3 post reaper of souls, but the combat in that game is extremely arcadey and the only skill with feedback is corpse explosion
Nah dude, PoE turned into mindless slot machine. Set up Atlas, juice up S-tier yellow map - and run like you've just burned your eye for massive loot slot machine session - rinse and repeat. That's all there's left to PoE. Not to mention build diversity is abysmally low considering how versatile game mechanics are and how many skills there are available - it's almost at it's all time lowest while I remember still the days when you could do all the content with hipster builds (if you understand how to build around given skill) - and it was even pace comparable - sure, bit slower, maybe bit more effort than FotM builds, but not light years behind as now if you compare top builds to pretty much everything else. A game with decade of market presence and experience has like 80% of people play same 5 builds that are best to spin that slot machine driven mapping experience - like wtf, how is that king? The only helping factor are league content at which GGG is pretty good, but gameplay went down the drain into some braindead mindless slot machine loot grinding. It's so mindless, that auto-play feature wouldn't be completely stupid here, lmao.
after a decade since release, of course PoE is in a much better state. you cannot directly compare 2 products and not give that a fair shake. last epochis an excellent middle geound between PoE and diablo and i would entirely recommend it for 80% of arpg gamers over PoE and i have played PoE since open beta and thoroughly enjoyed my thousands of hours spent in it. i have also enjoyed the few hundred hours i have spent in LE so far. graphically aswell, LE is a far cleaner game
Glad to hear your take on the game @woolie Cheers for taking the time to share and explain. Agree on the Unique's not feeling very 'diverse' really need to put my thoughts together still but this helped for sure :)
I see being negatively compared to PoE as a selling point, it tells me the game respects the player's time and attention, and that it's intended to be played organically like an actual video game, not a second job.
People always overestimate PoE when comparing with other games, I agree that PoE is the absolute best and love the game, but sometimes I just wanna play a game without being a hideout warrior or use 100 external tools to play the game properly. PoE has some major issues that LE was able to cover, and I hope PoE 2 takes inspiration from it. LE has some amazing potential knowing that the game just released.
i tried 830+ hour POE and still dont know tons of mechanics. if i know all the mechanics , there is another barrier that expensivness of the items that i need. yes POE is masterpiece but its too complex for me.
This sounds more like a comparison between a 10 year old game vs a game that just released. Thus, it's not really a review nor a fair comparison. But hey, maybe i'm just weird.
@Woolie how much would you give to POE when it just came out? lol comparing game 10y old with something new is ridiculus but then again its hot topic and this is how you get views i gues
You compare games to the market. And those that make newer games, will look at the market and try to build on that. You can't just time machine a game from today and compare it to a game a decade ago.
First time I've disagreed with a Woolie take. LE does need more to do in the end game. It does need more creative items. However I find it tremendously more fun than POE has been since Heist.
I have the utmost respect for PoE players and PoE enjoyers but it’s just not for me. I have a hundred or so hours of trying to enjoy PoE and the skill gem system is just incredibly boring to me for whatever reason. It just didn’t click. Diablo 3 is my personal favourite RPG, and I think that statement in itself explains a lot of why I don’t like PoE and I completely understand that lol. Last Epoch is really filling the void that putting D3 on the shelf left behind. Nothing against PoE, objectively it is an incredible game; but it’s not for everyone. Last Epoch is approachable, has enough content and build variety to keep you experimenting for many hours. It’s the perfect middle-ground ARPG. Also, I want to specifically touch on your point about monoliths vs. Maps. What is it about maps that you think is more fun than monoliths? Enemy variety? Density? I’m interested to know. I’ve seen a LOT of maps be completed and I just can’t really wrap my head around why you would think they’re so much better. Cheers woolie!
Rating D4 combat lower than all the others is WILD. If theres one thing D4 does well its combat. Its got weight and impact and the enemies dont feel like they are made of paper. Zooming around with everything melting around you gets old real fast.
Combat is better now but it still feels like a mobile game and no distinct features of normal, magic, rare, and random unique mobs (except for actual bosses). But it's better now. Itemization is good. But still can go for more. Hopefully we can get the PoE2 itemization treatment where it makes sense like weapons don't get resistances, helms are for a bit of defense then affixes using your head like stats (int,str,dex,att,vit), +skill level, and so on. Affixes are all over the place but still, it's really good. Runes, glyphs, shards? Can't complain and it can only be better. End game? I think it's fine as it is since it just launched. PoE was like D2/D3 back then with repeating campaign and increasing difficulty. Dungeons are great since it provides better experience in getting the loot you need but could be better. All of the rewards it offers can be done in monolith too, except for legendaries of course. I hope there are soulfire bastion and lightless harbor specific items in the future as i won't go to these dungeons since random monolith mobs can do that for me. But the same thing, it can only be better. If PoE is 10, LE is 7 and it's ok to be in this state for now. We even compared PoE to D4, why not LE? And PoE started with only D2 in mind. LE started with D2, D3, D4, and PoE in mind and of course it was able to put out a better game at launch than PoE but that doesn't make it a better game overall, yet.
Great now give it a fair review compared to path of exile at its launch. That is a fair review not comparing it to a bloated game that has 10 years of content and development. Also understand PoE is a niche game played by few.
Don't really disagree too much, but I've definitely enjoyed LE and the differences with itemization and skill trees as compared to PoE. I hope that they can continue to add interesting content to the endgame to give more incentive to play longer each cycle. As for now I'm enjoying learning the game and will probably play 2-3 different classes/builds before wearing out on the grind.
I get why the review compares it directly to PoE since it's your favourite game and objectively the most deep and complex ARPG, but when reviewing games and comparing them to the other ones on the market you should also consider what the consumer wants. Over the years PoE has accrued an ocean of content - which is great for people who have either followed along throughout its history, or people who want to dive into a monster of a game. PoE is my all-time favourite ARPG, and I've farmed many a mirror in my time - but I can also recognise that it fails to deliver a product to people who just want to chill out blast. Even I don't have the the time or patience to play every PoE league, it's a once a year experience for me. Last Epoch fits the perfect middle ground between PoE and D4 (which are the 2 most modern ARPGs) and that's absolutely fine, it doesn't need to be directly compared to PoE - its target audience is primarily the more casual player. Even amongst PoE players, not everyone is blasting T16 maps every league, the vast majority of players don't have the time to drop on pushing PoE to its absolute limit, and this game will feel great for them. As a content creator you naturally play the game a lot more than most other people, so if a game doesn't have adequate depth/endgame to hold your attention over thousands of hours then it will obviously score lower in your eyes. NB: Criticising it for its 1 button + utility combat doesn't really make much sense. Every argb plays like this (including PoE), I do agree that a dodge roll would feel nice though.
Yeah sorry this comes off as a huge PoE bias review. I don't have a clue how you came to the conclusion you did about itemization unless you have barely scratched the surface of it. You talk about PoE being the "gold standard" of loot when a LOT of PoE's loot does not matter at all (this is not counting the chase for things like Headhunter ofc) besides finding a good base to craft on. You talk about mods not being interesting by highlighting the less interesting mods in LE but lack to mention the plethora of class specific affixes that can be build enabling (also experimental affixes). You also failed to mention one of LE's flagship features of Legendary Potential where you can put mods from an exalted item on top of a unique which by itself I think makes the itemization so much more interesting for a lot of people. While I think it is fair to say the endgame is lacking, the "they had 5 years" argument is disingenuous. The game has more endgame than most other ARPGs had at launch. Look at PoE at launch, it grew into the behemoth of an endgame it has now after TEN years. LE has plenty of time to grow and expand upon endgame, which has been confirmed to be the focus for the first few updates. The monolith was designed with the intention to expand upon it for many updates. EA was spent making the game as a whole feel good and polished, from new skills and classes to campaign chapters and new systems like dungeons. They had a lot of other things to work on other than more endgame. edit: I will be clear, I do think PoE is the best ARPG on the market currently, mainly because of the vast amounts of things to do. However, I think LE is #2, not only because of where it is, but from it's room to grow even further. But hey, at the end of the day, you are allowed to have your opinion. I just don't think it's a fair one.
@Nevieth Lots of real PoE content creators give LE way more credit than that. Nobody says it's a prefect game, but most of them are being pretty fair with their review without just comparing it to PoE. This guy is just completely delusional, I mean look at his PoE 2 video, it's the same thing where he shits on PoE 2 while praising PoE 1.
100% agree, I also had a 7/10. I would add the skill tree and building your character as another pillar of ARGP's. I think Last epoch does combat and items good. But the skill tree, although better than D4, is worse than POE. The endgame has the same problems rifts had in D3, getting a higher number to do a higher number echo is not fun. Now all D4 players have a good game to play, that is easy to get into. But I think Path of Exile players won't see an equal in this. Overall, Eleventh Hour games, made a great game! Last Epoch being their first game, it is very impressive!
I didn't like path of exile because I like playing arpgs how I want to play them, so I built my character how I wanted to and so did my friend I was playing with. At first it was all smooth and dandy, not so hard, some stuff was kinds challenging but I did enjoy it for like a week and then.. the difficulty ramped up after we beat the campaign and went through for the second time. And our builds were so fucked that we were pretty much stuck halfway through. And we both quit the game. Around level 50ish. I don't want to watch a tutorial of how to build my character as I am just starting out, it ruins the whole game for me.
its pretty obvious watching this that you play alot of poe. personally, i like poe. i think its fun, and the end game cannot be beaten right now. not even close. but to get to the same level of enjoyment as i get on last epoch, id have to have put hundreds, if not even thousand+ hours. every time ive went to play poe during a new league, i keep realizing there is SO much more to the game. every time i learn a little bit more and its starting to really make me overwhelmed. even when i try to just tell myself i dont need to learn it, the thought is in my head "you're missing out on part of the game". the complexity of poe really kills it for me, and i think LE does a great job of being fairly complex whilst not being confusing to understand. i have already enjoyed last epoch much more than ive ever enjoyed PoE simply because i understand more of the game, whereas in poe i dont even really understand most of the things im doing because im following multiple guides because otherwise i would be failing at every aspect in the game over and over and bricking entire characters nonstop.
to further put it into perspective, ive played proably 8 leagues now. and honestly? this last league (affliction iirc) looks to have been the coolest league, as in shit tons of loot spouting out and probably would've been the best time for me to really wanna enjoy a build or two. and yet all 3 times i thought about playing, i was immediately thrown off because i realized i needed to get an item filter, need to find a build, need to understand the build, need to update and figure out my POB, need to update my trading app, etc. and then i realized all the chores i need to do just do begin playing the game, and then realizing i needed to do the campaign again... i stopped playing before i even played, even though i know i had plenty fun when i would be maping in my other runs. LE just isn't like that at all to me. i even enjoyed the campaign, which i can not say about poe at all.
Poor take. For those of us who work for 8+ hours a day, LE is a vastly superior game to PoE. If you have a dozen+ hours a day to play video games, then this take becomes more relevant. Unfortunately, that accounts for
considering you main Risk of rain 2, i'd suggest you guys take this dudes review with a huge grain of salt lmao. As soon as he said you click one button and occasionally click others as like a negative that's where I just clicked off. I guess PoE and Risk of Rain isn't like that Only thing I can agree is endgame and everyone who enjoys this game also says the same. Devs have said they are now 100% focused on end game now that 1.0 is done and have a pinnacle boss releasing literally next patch and isn't just them adding a boss they said it's the start of something bigger
Funny thing is PoE is exactly like that, with the exception of a few builds (as is the case in LE, too). You pretty much have a main attack, a few utility skills (movement, curse, "oh shit") and you reserve 95% of your mana on auras to buff the everliving _shit_ out of your character, abusing mana cost reduction or EB to deal with the mana cost of skills. End result is you zoom around the map right clicking groups of mobs, occasionally cursing or using secondary attacks on rares/bosses or packs of blues.
Is this a LE review or a POE review? Because nobody cares about POE. Nobody plays it except for the couple dozen rabid fanboys that won't shut up about its 3 trillion systems that you have to spend years to learn. Aint nobody got time for that!
poe map system can burn in hell. for example the things I find pointless time wasting in that system: -rolling map mods -corruption system that is also rng and can make maps unplayable -voidstones even thought its better now -picking up maps leading to storage issue with stash tabs that you need to buy to play and filtering map drops as you go -rng progressing due to random drop chance of wanted maps -all of the micro managy map modifying items that are also droped and need to be filtered and stored just so they can sell more stash tabs aka scarabs sextants fragments etc -the fact that now there are 100+ maps players need to do just to complete the atlas to even start playing the end game that is just map system. then there is the issue that nothing ever drops for your build and you can either use a bunch of 3rd party websites to try to craft something and/or are forced into trading which is the worst thing I have ever experienced in any game.
nah cant agree. Last Epoch is waaaay more approachable than PoE and I speak as a massive PoE fan too. But being approachable by a much wider audience makes it defacto a bettrer designed game
Damn, itemization a 6/10. I think that’s a bit rougher than it deserves. Smart crafting, end game chase items. That alone deserves at least a 7, I’d personally argue 8. I think uniques could be more fun, but with the legendary chase it does add that endgame loop.
Woolie as much as i absolutely love your content and you as a person this was sorta sad. You seem to be like everyone else and have put PoE on a ridiculous pedestal that you're holding above everything else. Dont get me wrong PoE looks wicked, personally i dont have the time to invest into it to do what you do or half the players do. You essentially just made a video shitting on LE and little to no positives. You glanced over the ratings with little information as to why you generlized a lot of the topics. Id personally like to see a proper break down on your thoughts of each of the categories you covered. You love PoE so much because you have the ability to invest the time into it to achieve these amazing goals and feats, however most of us that love AARPGS wont go near PoE just due to the sheer dedication to get where we would like. Im not saying your opinions were not valid im just saying you should be more constructive of why, anyone can say something is done poorly, or somwthing is wrong, incorrect, but wheres the constructive critisim/feedback?
mistaking this as a message/solution to the devs seems to be a common issue in the comment section on this one. this is a notice to the consumer, whether that consumer agrees or disagrees.
Honestly, maps in PoE are much more boring, because for optimal strategies you will end up playing the same or just 3-4 maps for the whole season. But yes LE is missing a lot in terms of end game options, and probably will take them at least a couple of years before it gets interesting, if they continue at this slow pace.
I dont think poe is the golden standard for arpgs, it's just far too daunting for new players. Diablo is maybe too simple for seasoned players, so LE is perfectly positioned.
I think it's pretty disingenuous to imply that they didn't cook up something great over those five years of development in EA. It's improved a great deal. They weren't ONLY focused on the end game content for that timeframe. That's why players say that you should let them cook in their upcoming cycles, because now that the game is more polished & can be sold as what the devs consider to be worthy of a finished 1.0 version product, they can focus on adding more content and end game systems, rather than creating subclasses, finishing off the story, polishing everything up to make sure that it's ready to go for the 1.0 release. Do you think that whenever Path of Exile came out that they had boat loads of vast end game content systems? PoE is so good because people did let them cook up something great over the years by adding new content with every new league and expansion. It definitely didn't start out that way. Crazy that the tone of this video is doubtful of EHG, because we've already been shown that they do listen to their player base & want to create something fun and long lasting.
I cannot take seriously the opinion of anyone that enjoy PoE. they complain about stuff in other game that is present in their own game. We will not agree when it comes to arpg.
You need to include a rating for casuals as well... Rating PoE as having 10/10 itemization and endgame is baffling to me. ARPG's aren't a genre of games meant only for basement dwellers who have 10000 hours and a fundamental need to min/max everything. To me, the Diablo IV end game is more fun than PoE by a lot, simply because I can figure it out as I go and complete a season in less than 50 hours.
To state the obvious, this review is incredibly biased. That is absolutely no issue, it is good to get the perpective from a hardcore PoE player and I can respect opnions on systems or design even if I don't necessarily agree with them. But I find the comparison to PoE end game quite dumb considering PoE has had 10years of post launch additions and they themselves launched with half a story and basic maps after 6years of pre-launch development. Comparing and critiquing how core systems are implemented or designed to what is on the market is one thing, but comparing content from a 17 year old game and a 6 year old game is a bit ridiculous and does not belong in a review IMO.
A lot of real hardcore PoE players/content creators have been able to make that distinction and actually gave a fair review of LE without having to mention PoE every 10 seconds.
Honestly you're right about a lot of stuff, but PoEs itemization is ok at best, they just give you 1000s of drops which 99% are worthless, and the crafting is pretty ok. Last epochs crafting was WAY better than PoE, but the drops were subpar. PoE gets WAY too much praise for stuff thats pretty mediocre. And jesus man, lay off the red bull or whatever you're like the energizer bunny, gotta calm down lol, talk slower.
I just wanna say I'm happy you made a balanced review of Last Epoch. I have seen so many lukewarm takes and people making apologies when really it's time to take the kiddy gloves off. The game is fully released, we SHOULD be allowed to level criticism where it's due. Like you said, it's a good game with the potential to be great.
I'm a little more optimistic about LE than you are, but broadly I agree with the criticisms. Right now it's fun enough to progress a character up to 1-2 LP on most slots for me, maybe push up to like 600-800 corruption, but the monotony of monoliths is really starting to wear thin so I'm probably not making another character this cycle. It really does drive home how massive the gulf is between PoE and everything else in terms of both endgame content variety and itemisation. Especially considering the pace at which GGG can put out new content. One aspect of this that I haven't seen discussed much is how the core mechanics of PoE (different damage types, importance of resistance, different defences) are itemised in such different and creative ways - LE's are much easier to understand, but end up feeling much more formulaic in how you scale them. That said, I do think there's a solid foundation here for further work. While the pace of development in early access felt slow, I'm more than willing to come back every cycle or two and see how the game continues to develop. I've had a really fun time so far and I look forward to doing so again in future.
Faming monoliths for specifc T7 exalted items and LP uniques sucks, I seriously do not understand how people are praising the crafting system. Yes the early/mid game deterministic stuff is cool but the end game crafting is complete garbage compared to PoE After all the aRPGs that have come out since Path Of Exile hit its stride, it just becomes more and more obvious how genius Chris and his team were when designing PoEs systems
Do you think POE released with those systems? POE was dogshit on release, an absolute mess. The only reason it got to where it did was because “people let GGG cook”😂
The gem system, crafting system, currency system and idea that every item should be tradable wasn't there since the games release? really? That's literally the core philosophy the entire game has been designed around for the past 10+ years
@@itsJets The end game crafting system was not what it was on release. I don't know if you played POE in 2013 but it was not as in depth as it is now. They didn't even have Vaal orbs on release. They released with only 3 acts, didn't finish the story for 5 years, had zero end game bosses and only like 4 textiles of maps. You mentioned end game yet their end game was non existent on release.
@@K0rium I think you are combining my points when it's more of a point + seperate observation in general about the genre. My first point is that current Last Epoch endgame in general is lacking and I especially don't like the end game crafting since the BIS items will essentially NEVER drop (seriously some of the drop rates for LP3 and 4 uniques may aswell be drop disabled) and that Path of Exiles current crafting and endgame systems are miles better in my opinion. I'm not interested in comparing a version of a game from 10 years ago with a game that just released last week, especially when current PoE is a playable product. I'm sure my opinion on Last Epoch 10 years from now will be different but I would never take that into consideration when talking about how enjoyable the game is right now. My second part was just pointing out that Path of Exiles design philosophy in general, regardless of how much it has been built upon and added to like you said, has proven to be insanely solid and has stood the test of time. For a comparison Diablo 4 is already completely reworking their item system not even a year after launch. I think once the honeymoon phase is over for a lot of new players they will quickly realize that doing the equiv of white map boss rushing in search of a super rare LP unique + T7 exalted item just to slam them together with the chance for arguably both items to brick, isn't as engaging as it's being made out be. This is where I'm currently at and it feels closer to D4 nightmare dungeons than anything else.
@@itsJets And my point is that if you weren't around for POE's release than you really aren't aware of the potential of Last Epoch. POE's crafting system is almost strictly RNG based. The one time they gave us deterministic crafting(Harvest through ritual) they gutted it because they didn't want the players to have access to that power. Last Epoch has a stronger base game on release than POE ever had. That's why POE old school players like Ziz and Ziggy are so hyped about the game because Last Epoch has all of the same ingredients to end up a power house like POE did. A strong core fundamental game, developers who are passionate about it and a sense of direction.
The problem with Path of Exile is that it is far too intimidating for me to get into as a new player who doesn’t want to pour in tons and tons of hours to learn it. This not being as complex or not having enough to last more than a couple dozen hours is actually a huge selling point for me, but that’s obviously not the same for everyone.
Yup, POE you also cant just figure stuff out. Nope. POE if you try to "figure something out" you can brick an entire character. LE its basically impossible to not end up with some cool build. POE is great if you wanna use guides and basically just do what your told.
Ultimately this is the space that it is made to fill, and it likely will allow it to reach a more wide range of people because of it. I would say that if you want something that you will never run out of things to do or learn POE is great but the initial investment is pretty high if you're only looking for something you play for a couple hours a month. That investment being time of course because game is free.
@@timothykeller9419 I would note that if you want the fastest experience that's the way to play but you can and in my opinion to enjoy the game should learn how people build and put things together and make your own. I've done custom league start set ups for most of the leagues I've done and the build creation and planning is half the fun.
I absolutely agree though that the ability to brick a set up and lack of ease of access to customization (orbs of regret and unmaking) makes for an overall worse experience that I do wish would be addressed in the future.
@@JohnWhitneyTheFourth Yeah man, I thought Last epoch looked fun as hell after a video I watched of it. It looked like diablo 2/3 and I like those games. It also didnt look too complex like Path of exile was, I played that game for like an hour and it wasnt for me.
And that's absolutely fair. I also know Woolie did a couple streams running over basic POE concepts for people so that can be a good source of info for beginners. I will say that if you're willing to put yourself through that initial learning curve then POE is one of the most rewarding ARPGs on the market right now, but I can also absolutely understand not wanting to.
It feels like the ideal middle-weight ARPG, which is a niche that desperately needed filling. Satisfying but not dizzying complexity, and good build variety with distinct flavor and feel. Takes only a few hours for you to get a taste of initial synergies coming together and your character beginning to feel powerful. I dunno, to me it feels like an ARPG that values your time and is designed to meet you where you're at
100% agree, this game strikes a really nice balance, between accessibility and complexity, that rewards you!
My thoughts is that it's great. Its the game to play for people that love ARPGs but can't no-life POE.
Yea Im loving this game because I like playing other games and cant just play one game, I know u can casually just go blind in poe and shit but the game just isnt fun when u aren't constantly learning and taking a good amount of time getting accustomed to the systems
I think the itemization is FAR better than diablo 3/4. It's good to have simple modifiers. I love having simply "fire damage" instead of Diablo 4's garbage "Damage to bleeding enemies while it's raining on a tuesday". The multiple defensive layers also is great for itemization. For suffixes I am constantly juggling resistances, health, armor/dodge, endurance/threshold, and block/effectiveness, glancing blows, etc etc. Poe has those same mechanics, but to get them from rare items instead of a keystone or unique is wonderful. In Poe I just get life+res on all rares.
The unique/set situation I agree with tho. I've only used 3 for purely stats not really changing anything, Ruby Fang Cleaver (1h-axe with good fire damage/poison resist), Isadora's Belt Binding (GREAT armor belt), Sunwreath (Fire/ignite damage ring).
Exactly. Itemization is one of the best things in LE.
I’m cool to have an Arpg that I get to a point in the endgame where I feel like I’ve experienced everything and can uninstall without needing to put hundreds of hours in.
tip! check mobile arpgs then you right with what you want!!
It takes just as long to get to "endgame"
@@marianocarusso932lol yeah no thanks, no mobile games for me
Yeah. I love paying for games that lose most of the fun after the first playthrough
I mean not every game has to be infinitely replayable, especially one aiming to be a bit more middle tier on pricing and such as this. Also there’s other classes and such so it’s not like it loses all replayablitity any more than Diablo or something. I just like when you can get a feeling of accomplishment sooner rather than hundreds or thousands of hours later. There’s other games for you if you want that
I tried getting into PoE but it has two key issues that keep me from enjoying it.
1. Incredibly complicated progression with a very punishing respec system.
This means that you can’t just experiment around and figure things out. You basically have to use a guide unless you want to have a garbage build.
2. Skill gem system that encourages one button builds. Because support gems all support the active skills on the same gear piece, you’re basically encouraged to super buff up one skill and then use that skill for everything. Early on in PoE I had a few different active skills that I used for different situations, it was fun.
But once I got further, I just had one damage skill that took care of everything. Any other skills I had were utility.
It’s just kind of boring gameplay wise to always be spamming the same skill.
In LE i only use right click for 99% of the time and im in late game...
This is exactly why I got bored of PoE so fast, it seems like PoE will change this quite a bit, multiple 6 socket skills with different attributes in the tree which you can hotswap. I am looking forward to PoE2 so much. One button skill from start to finish just doesn't do it for me anymore.
"Mash a single button and then use a couple extra ones occasionally for movement or buff purposes"
Oh you mean like exactly how PoE plays?
Edit: If people want a better review of the game and its mechanics I would recommend watching Zizarans first impression video and/or Mathils video.
Funny
@@DeputyFish But not entirely wrong.
Ya woolie is so damn biased and this review video is a reflection of that.
Lmao this is facts, I have watched some endgame builds for poe and its literally always.. hit one skill, delete the whole map and run at 300 mph.
Yes, that's what he said. Exactly like every other ARPG before LE. It's not necessarily bad. Just kinda all the same.
Sorry I don't want to get a PhD to play POE.
Just say your bad at video games
The thing about last epoch is that you can build your character how ever you want without having to follow a specific guide to be able to play the game and have fun. It’s fun to make different builds and try all the characters
but its shallow in complexity, the only way to make money in this kind of games is attracting die hards fans with his complexity. thats why i say that making it a live service is bad for them. people who (LIKE YOU) want to try thing out and just finish the game and never touch it again till the next cicle, but if people leave the game for its shallowness at 10 days cuz they have no more content to run the game will die.
@@marianocarusso932 go back to PoE
@@marianocarusso932 It's hardly shallow
@@marianocarusso932if people buy the game and skins they don’t need to keep playing non stop until the next season starts for them to make profit… it’s not that deep. A $35 solid ARPG for casuals that will likely be recommended for time to come isn’t a bad thing. I’m new to ARPGS so for me the game feels complex. I don’t even know what resistance does. Assuming everyone is some POE grinder and is watching video essays on how to build characters is wild.
@@marianocarusso932It is complex without it telling you constantly that is. Like D2, it has its underlying complexity that sits just there if you decide to dig into it. If you get to a point where you have the knowledge to understand the games mechanics and inner doings all of a sudden it strikes you when you get for example a specific item that lets you think differently and discover cool intertwinings of mechanics enabling new playstyles or builds. Thats the beauty of it.
With all due respect, there's a lot I disagree with in this video but 4:30 takes the cake as an unnecessary comment that shows your bias the most. Yes they have been cooking the core game mechanics for 5 years, and they are absolutely fantastic. The skills, the crafting, the trade/ssf factions, etc. are all wonderful and PoE could learn a lot from them. They have also gone on record stating that the next cycle/league or two will be entirely dedicated to fleshing out the endgame.
Obviously no review can be completely unbiased, but this video is not it. Not everyone in this community will get the reference, but it reminds me of the way Genshin stans act whenever a new gacha game comes out like Wuthering Waves with its recent CBT.
I can’t take this seriously. It’s entirely biased towards PoE. Don’t get me wrong, I play PoE too. Just a bit disingenuous to say “it has way less content than Poe and it will never get there” when PoE itself started with significantly less content than it has now, and I’d argue less content than what is available in LE at launch. Will it ever have as much content as PoE? Maybe, maybe not.
This would be like comparing PoE now to PoE when it launched. How does that comparison make any sense?
Glad you have your main game. But either learn how to judge a game objectively or don’t bother judging it at all. Didn’t need a whole video just to say “my game is my favorite game and other games don’t compare”.
Been a long time sub, love your content. POE is only fun to those that have 1000s of hours in it and know it in and out and can experiment. LE, you can go in blind, theorycraft a build and be happy. POE has always had an awful new player experience and 10 years of bloat to add to it that make it probably the least approachable game in the genre. Where as with LE, you can know NOTHING about AARPG and have fun.
Oh man, you mean a game that I can play and meaningfully progress in on my full time job and parent schedule? Count me in!
exactly
I'm sure poe will fix melee. It's only been 34 leagues, surely they'll get right on the 35th one.
I've gotta say, I played Diablo 3 a bunch and I've had a lot of fun playing Last Epoch
That said, I am so fucking tired of hearing about Path of Exile.
I tried it and got like 60% of they way through the campaign before I got tired of it. It really feels like the things I'm doing aren't rewarded, the crafting system is arcane and infested with RNG, and it has some of the most elitist fans I've ever seen.
How to break a build, rinse and repeat, play no life POE. How to enjoy any build all the time and still have a life, play LE.
A game not having enough depth to be your new main game doesn't necessarily mean it isn't great, and feels like kind of a disingenuous thing to base a review on. A lot of people specifically stay away from PoE because of how much more planned, involved, complex, and time-consuming it is as far as buildcrafting and itemization goes. Where Last Epoch lacks for you, it provides a wonderful middle-ground between what D4 and PoE offer to many. Last Epoch, a game made by ~50 people in 5 years, could never realistically compete with PoE which has been in development for 14 years by a significantly larger team. The game isn't "not great" just because it can't live up to your impossible standard that PoE sets for the genre. No other ARPG can either, and even PoE2 might fail to do so.
To be fair he starts the review by immediately calling it a worthwhile, good experience and a consistent 7/10 (a solid above average rating) then pivots into "is it main game material." anyone looking to see if the game is good should be satisfied by the first 30 seconds.
Poe....just not my thing the way it does things is just not my cup of tea and prefer a more traditional style arpg
I'm comparing it as an ARPG to other ARPGs on the market. I stated within the first 30 seconds that "it's a solid 7/10 experience worth $35"
funny, you claiming LE could never compete with PoE is actually disingenuous as PoE started with an equally small team competing against a LARGER product in Blizzard's Diablo. and PoE surpassed Diablo in-terms of content long, LONG ago...
@@Woolie That's true, PoE did leave Diablo in the dust a long time ago and also started with a smaller team, but having "more content than Diablo" is like saying you beat a 2nd grader in a fistfight in this genre where almost everything is a cut above it. Diablo 3 was the Diablo game that PoE was "competing" with up until last year, and it didn't even have a proper seasonal model or actual content updates outside of one paid expansion and couldn't even properly be classified as a live-service game. So yeah, of course PoE held the reigns on that a long time ago, Diablo 3 was never real competition for them, because Grinding Gear Games were actually trying to make a live service title with regular proper content updates and an actual functioning seasonal model and they succeeded. So it isn't JUST team size that matters, it's also intent of the developers. Obviously D3's staff were mostly moved on to other projects like D4 while D3 was on life support for a decade, so it's kind of ridiculous to hold that over as some kind of gotcha, as if Blizzard was even trying back then. Not that D4 is doing much better, but even if it was it'd still be eons behind PoE as they've had 14 years of devtime to perfect their game.
@@Muramusa723 If you're going to bootlick a videogame you could at least try to be coherent while doing it. Your rant about how D3 wasn't good or whatever has literally nothing to do with this
I understand your endgame sentiment but wasn't path of exile in the same spot at its 1.0 10 years ago
it was worse. the end boss was Piety and that was that. after that Dominus. after that they made maps that never dropped for anyone who didnt play 24/7 and monster stats there were so inflated that only 24/7 people could do them. that was for years iirc
Aint no way you gave Last Epoch same score for itemization and endgame as Diablo 3.
endgame for sure is fair. d3 itemization, on second thought, should def be 1 point lower. I forgot how lousy the base items are, as everyone just runs full uniques & sets in that game, anyway.
@@Woolieyou're comparing d3 and Poe current end game to a game that just released a week agos end game. D3 and Poe launch endgames were garbage and this blows both out of the water at release.
@@Woolie please don't ever do a review again
I'm gonna be honest here, It feels like you've sort of been blinded by PoE at this point with it hindering your ability to accurately review an ARPG. PoE can be as in depth as possible, it's never going to be a 9/10 or 10/10 because new players can't get into the game lol. Not every gameplay loop/endgame of every single ARPG needs to be a PoE clone. Every time you talk about ARPG's at this point you're doing some direct comparison to PoE, which just go play PoE if that's what you want out of a game. Games aren't going to be 1:1 clones of each other lol.
LE not only fills the gap between content of other games rn, it gives players (specially new) the posibility to play without the need to check out other sites or guides just to understand how your toon can be played.
The end-game content wise is low but with the complexity AND accesibility that the crafting systems gives you can only hope to get new content and items, not just mechanic after mechanic stack on each other like PoE.
This barebone of a game has so much potential, just need more content.
I think its fair to say PoE is better than LE. However, I also think most people will enjoy LE more.
I just can't play through the campaign anymore I almost fell asleep the last time I did in PoE. In Last Epoch I go through 3 dungeons and skip the entire story takes like 2h with 0 effort at most. I can perma reroll and theory craft without being completely punished by the game.
PoE is more complex than LE (or D4 obv) but that doesn't mean better.
@@jonaseriksson3782 Complexity means more freedom, which means more longevity, which means more replayability. It's not better for people that can't be arsed with any of the above.
give it less then a month its the same shiit since early access
As a POE veteran I disagree completely. Itemization is way better than POE, crafting is fun and engaging. Offline mode is amazing. I can play Stress FREE and not be penalized for not playing trade. I am having so much fun in LAST EPOCH. It totally has the D2 vibe that POE never really gave me but was best ARPG at the time. For me LAST EPOCH is my new #1 rank ARPG. I don't think I can even go back to playing stock market trade economy in POE ever again after playing LE. So I might never play another POE league ever again.
Is he complaining that the gameplay is too simple? While playing hammerdin paladin????
A game that’s been out 11 years has more end game than a game out for less than 2 weeks wow shocked I tell ya, shocked.
This guy..
Right? I didn't play poe until 2020 but I assume it was in a similar state at launch in terms of content
@@rainesaysdie863 if I remember correctly, Poe 1.0 launched with 3 acts and maps. Last epoch has 9 acts in 1.0 and has map equivalent with monoliths.
what a stupid fken comment the game was out in 2018 and early access around 2021-2022 and still clusterfk
poe was done back in 2012 and yeah as most games are crap at the start and takes years and legit last epoch had 6+ years and still ends up the same from when they first released it@@Justin-gz4xg
Woolie, Ive been subscribed to you for about a year now and I like your videos, but I think this is a bad take. You gave it a 7/10, which I agree with you, I am only 30hrs in, but I would agree it is slightly above average. Maybe an 8/10. but you spend the whole video being very negative about the game. You obviously hold POE on a massive pedestal. Its your favorite game and you have thousands of hours in it... I got it... but your bias is showing. I think it would be an all-around better video, and less off-putting to everyone that isnt a massive POE stan if you just spoke on LE and gave the pros and cons without bashing it against POE with every single point you make.
there is no such thing as an "unbiased review" lmao. the entire point of something being good vs something being bad is to directly compare it to OTHER things.
why in the world would I NOT compare an ARPG to other ARPGs on the market? if there exists a product that does things better than the one being reviewed... of course I am going to talk about that other product
Woolie always has bad takes when it comes to reviews
@@WoolieI mean... if you give a game a 7/10 and spend 8min shitting on it and fanboying over POE. it doesnt speak well of your credibility reviewing ARPGs. Theres no reason to even watch your reviews then. If I see you post a review of an ARPG I know to just skip it since this is what I can expect. Literally the only good thing you said about the game is that its a 7/10 and worth getting. Then you spent 8min talking about how awesome POE is. If you dont see the problem with that, then Im not going to convince you to do anything different.
@@colejo6764 "Literally the only good thing you said about the game is that its a 7/10 and worth getting." I mean this with as much respect as one can manage with the comment, this perspective is why reviews are a joke now. Wanting every game to be fellated and given an IGN 9/10 does nothing to advise us on the quality of the game.
@Xohslol that's not the point I was making. Saying something is 7/10, but give nothing positive means the game should actually be 5/10 or 4/10. How can you say it's 7/10 but have nothing good to say about it? I dont get you saying I'm calling for it to be 9/10... I said nothing like that. I saw a woolie review of last epoch, I knew he likes ARPGs sp I tuned in to hear his opinion, but all I get was 8min of him talking about how anyone playing arps should just play POE...
I think ssf in LE is by far better than poe, especially with CoF. Im hoping they continue adding interesting content to the game because I feel incentivized to play ssf
Why are you incentivized to ssf?
This game is way better for people with less free time compared to PoE. I don’t need to spend 100 hours figuring out the basics then another 100 getting to end game and beating all content.
Yep, this is a good ARPG for people living the 9-5 jobs
I completely agree. I am very tired of basement dwellers claiming that complexity and being able to spend 1000 hours is what makes an ARPG objectively good.
The time argument is so stupid, really. Just because you have limited game time per week doesn't mean you can't use it on a more complex game. It's the equivalent of saying just because you have long working hours you can only eat fast food.
@@janniknielsen9292 Its really not a bad argument because the person with limited time might not even reach red maps nevermind beating all the content in a league. Maybe they don't want to spend a bunch of time theorycrafting and farming for expensive crafts. PoE is very much not a time friendly game.
@@janniknielsen9292 it really is not a bad argument and clearly others agree. Some of us dont want to spend the time reading and watching videos for dozens of hours just to figure out how to make a build/ game mechanics. Feels like you are not even playing at that point. I work 50-60 hours a week and dont want to spend another 10-20 on the weekends just learning for months on end before I can even get to that end game/satisfying part of the game.
Imagine if someone reviewing PoE was like "well I got to Yellow Maps and figured it was all gonna be the same shit for the next 100+ hours so I just stopped playing"... I mean I understand that if you find it boring its not worth pushing but at the same time the core of your dislike is simply "It's not PoE". PoE has spoiled us rotten when it comes to ARPGs.
Path Of Exile is a 10+ year old game and I don't like when other ARPG game reviews become framed around the content of Path of Exile. Last Epoch (or any newer ARPG) DOESN'T NEED TO COMPETE WITH POE... it's just needs to fill it's own space. I want games that aren't just rip-offs of PoE to exist... Lets face it there probably won't be a game that will ever beat PoE in the next decade outside of you know PoE 2... I wish these types of reviews were simply done in a bubble instead of a direct comparison to the current LITERALLY UNBEATABLE KING OF THE GENRE. How long would this review be if you cut out every section where you talk about PoE?
Also you didnt mention the Faction system once... it's such an awesome take on trading vs ssf and it's a shame you left out discussing some actually innovative mechanics for ARPGs.
I had already spent 70 hours in the game before the 1.0 update. that, plus seeing what other content creators were doing is how I reached the conclusion on endgame.
why in the world would I NOT mention games in the same genre as the one I'm reviewing in order to extrapolate on my points? and I gave my thoughts "in a bubble" in the first 30 seconds of the video.
I was unimpressed with the SSF Faction - haven't looked into the trading one much (mainly due to server issues rendering it largely irrelevant.) SSF one was essentially "grind more in order to grind more." block the two pieces of content you aren't doing & spam re-roll into gear pieces that you're looking for. rinse & repeat.
One of the fundamental aspects of a thorough review of any product is to compare and contrast the product with other products. If PoE is the current leader in the market, then all other products in that market are framed around competing with PoE. A review cannot remove itself from the reality of other choices that a consumer has access to, in the same way that one might moan and groan about going to a restaurant they dislike (because they prefer other restaurants!). Without comparison, you miss out on a huge portion of an effective critique.
So let PoE spoil us! If the competition can't keep up with a 10 year old game then that is their own fault! As time passes, you would (and should) expect newer products to iterate and improve on successful products of the past. Can't hide in a bubble, or else you miss out on all of that for good or for worse.
@@gahfwa3541i'm going to go ahead, and say the point is moreso that poe sure as shit didn't start out as the game it is nowadays, hence the 10 years in developement part, and why its not a very fair comparison directly
@@gahfwa3541 Nothing wrong with comparison unless it's the entirety of the review in my opinion. There's plenty of very relevant and informative information about Last Epoch that was barely touched on or not touched on at all in this review.
I disagree with the idea that other games need to "keep up". What you're saying is game dev studios should be expected to match 10+ years of almost constant content development within less than half that time, including the time it takes to develop the backend and mechanical systems. It's literally impossible. Its like expecting a TCG to release with 15 Sets.
@@Woolie It just seemed like you talked way more about PoE than Last Epoch in the review and didn't really go in depth about anything in the game. The video may as well have been 5 seconds long with you just saying "Last Epoch is okay but Path of Exile has more content and a better item system". That's just how it came off to me.
The Trade and SSF Factions are a pretty big selling point that has gotten a lot of attention lately. I think it's important to inform people of it's existence in a review even if it isn't your cup of tea. Just as a "heads up you may like this feature" type of thing.
"SSF one was essentially "grind more in order to grind more." block the two pieces of content you aren't doing & spam re-roll into gear pieces that you're looking for. rinse & repeat."
I mean that's the spirit of ARPGs isn't it? I'm sure you could break down parts of PoE into a sentence like that too... "Grinding for Atlas Tree Passives points is just grinding to grind more" Etc etc.
The SSF System is a build-your-own-loot-explosion mechanic. It's very powerful and satisfying. I don't see why it's being dismissed, it seems like a huge deal to me in terms of core mechanics.
Is man really going to compare 1.0 LE to the how many years of built up content that is PoE and say that it just doesn't compare and that it lacks in comparison. Not to mention just not doing empowered monoliths is akin to not doing t16 or red maps. I find this to be a woefully ignorant take about the state of the game.
I never said I didn't do empowered monos? I had 70 hours in the game before 1.0
but you're right bro - just let em cook. surely they will nail endgame the sixth revamp
He doesn’t remember farming docks because he wasn’t playing. Shitty review.
@@Woolie But I thought this was a review for 1.0 not 0.8 or 0.9, you have no idea if they changed anything because you didn't play it yourself, big L Woolie
They've been on it for years already
Why are you being so tribalistic, it's kinda disgusting lol. With such a lack of arpg games in the space, that's sad to do@@Woolie
Man... I can't disagree harder haha.
Your only criticism against the combat is that its just the same as everything before it, but then give it a lower score than the ones before it?
I found the combat to be insanely good, mainly just because of how impactful it is. (Personally I think both PoE and LE have better combat than D3, I never understood people who said that D3 had the best combat...)
Assuming Itemisation includes Crafting then I don't understand why you think PoE is the gold standard. PoE's loot is a RNG filled confusing mess that is pretty much impossible to understand without a guide, it's only upside is that the average player can get by without crafting at all. Whereas on the flip side the crafting in LE is extremely intuitive, it's not super punishing if you make mistakes, and its integrated into the core experience so that you feel compelled to craft even as a new player in order to improve your character.
Regarding modifiers, I don't really understand what makes you so excited about PoE modifiers compared to LE, you spend most of your time thinking about life and res, although I agree that PoE does have the better uniques.
I'm assuming that based on the fact you gave both D3 and LE the same score for loot you consider them to be on par with each other, on what planet is Diablo 3's itemisation anywhere near as good LE? In D3 the unique and set system is setup so that every class is completely railroaded into playing about 2-3 builds. Not even mentioning the ancient and primal ancient system.
This is a subjective review but I honestly feel like the points you make about the end game are straight up insulting. For one, you mock the game for taking only 4 hours to complete the end game content, then immediately afterwards say you didn't do all the end game content... It's a fair criticism to say that you found it so boring you couldn't complete it all, but you can't in good faith along side criticise the time it takes to do it.
You then go on to say that you have little faith in them actually ever delivering a fun end game because they've already had 5 years to develop one...? what?
For one, they haven't had 5 years to deliver an end game, they've had 5 years to make a game period. For comparison, PoE was in development for 6 years before it launched and it launched with maps. Not exactly exciting.
The actual end game mechanics themselves are, IMO, FAR better than maps. Just like the crafting system, the maps in PoE are a confusing RNG mess, yes the content of those maps is more interesting (after 10 years of iteration and development) but the actual core mechanic of maps is just... uninteresting.
And it absolutely blows whatever stupid shit D3 had out the water, I don't know how you can put it on the same level at d3 again, when all d3 had spamming rift after rift after rift after rift, with the occasional greater rift.
You don't even talk about the trading, or the skill trees :(
You are basically basing your subjective objection upon you haven't figured out different concepts in PoE and find them confusing. That is essentially just ignorance. Needless to say, if you find a more streamlined concept more approachable, there is also a consequence to that streamlining which is limiting.
You can only compare yourself to the current market. A game launched a decade after another will have all that information handed to them on a platter. If their end game content is limited vis a vis another, that is what it is, until that is changed.
"Your only criticism against the combat is that its just the same as everything before it, but then give it a lower score than the ones before it?"
Correct....if you re-released Quake 2 in the modern day, its gameplay would be lower received than Quake 2 Prime. Why? Because we've already seen it before, and it hasn't made innovations to the recipe we know and love today. Same reason games which produce sequels every year or every two years get so much flak.
I'm pretty mixed between agree and disagree here. I definitely think that the endgame still needs iteration but I'm hopeful that it will improve. I started ARPGs with D3, and one of my favorite things playing that game was the ability to sit down, even as a new player, and create my own build. I haven't picked up Last Epoch yet, for a combination of reasons that mostly boils down to wanting to see how the live service aspects shape up and the predictably bad servers on launch. But I am excited to try a game where I can make my own builds, from scratch, without sitting down for hours of research. I've been playing PoE since Crucible (I tried it years ago, but got intimidated at the time and was only willing to really take the plunge and study up last summer), and I definitely still don't feel ready to just kind of mess around and have a good time with a character. Adding in QoL stuff that PoE is (was?) firmly against, like the ability to skip campaign with new characters and easier respecs, and I have real hope that Last Epoch will end up better than PoE or PoE2, particularly if they hang on to some of their takes about game friction that I consider to be over the top. Yes, creative mode in minecraft isn't fun long term, but I think they are too far in the opposite direction in a lot of cases, and Last Epoch has the opportunity to steal their crown if LE can match the level of continued support that PoE gets and PoE refuses to adapt to player demands.
actually surprised to see him give diablo 3 such a high combat score. I completely agree with his ratings of the games, and its cool to see that someone isnt just sweeping d3 under rug and thinking d4 is somehow better lol
d3 annihilates d4 in most aspects but ESPECIALLY combat. I still think d3 has the best-feeling combat of any ARPG on the market
@@Woolie that's a 180 compared to my take, D4 has the better combat feel imo.
Impacts feel powerful and monsters dynamically react to being hit and defeated in visceral ways.
Even after 1.0 LE feels lack luster, monsters barely still flinch and all have canned death animations.
PoE is floaty to me because of how spammy and zoomy it is, though I know that's your thing.
The feedback from a Shockwave empowered Pulverize, an Ancients assisted Charge or a Overpower Hammer of the Ancients is some of the most satisfying in the ARPG genre.
I liked D3 but imo it's itemization made it's gameplay feel suffer. Builds got too crazy and zoomy like in PoE for my taste.
There comes a point in D3 where I'm on auto pilot and barely paying attention to the combat as it's become secondary to clearing as fast as possible.
For the aforementioned builds in D4 they can still melt in the higher levels but maintain their gameplay fantasy of giga hits and even lots of small hits with Rogues Penetrating Shot builds and say Druids Stormclaw 'D3 Shenlong Raiment' like build.
Itemization and end game scores are fair imo.
@@Woolie I would love you to elaborate as to why you feel this way? What specifically makes you feel D3 combat is best? I am genuinely curious.
So far I'd play D3 over both D4 and POE any day, but this one so far honestly is a good contender. POE is pretty good depth wise, but smth about it just puts me literally to sleep, every damn time lmao
I gotta throw the b.s flag out. P.O.E used to be great until they nerfed everything into the ground and only allow 6 skills to reach end game plus it took poe years to become great like it will take last epoch to compare these games is just crazy. Everyone is hoping POE 2 will save the game and you know it so how can it still be great. Chris Wilson vision has drove away a lot of people away with him taking big loot drops out the game and never fixing melee skills, never really nerfing bow skills and slaughtering minions then throwing everything people need for minions deep into the delves mine. You should not have to run super juiced maps for loot or pay 1 or 2 devines for a tabby lmao its sad when a tabby becomes rare to find. You can't even get leveling uniques to drop while leveling nomore for the most part 😂The game is seriously unbalanced but the 1% who benefit off the unbalance love it and praise Chris and his game. But everything you said is far from a honest review brother.... POE doesn't nerf things just because of the power they also nerf things by how many people play it and by that metric alone there shouldn't be bow build left 😂
I dont think anything you said is wrong and i have 600hrs in the game. I think the best thing to look forward to is the base game is complete and it will look like modern day POE in 5yrs (just as POE took 10 yrs to get where it is)
Im happy to get to play both games and POE2 in alternating leagues.
I find the combat rating weird. There are actually builds with significant synergies/ interactions in LE between skills and builds that actively use 3-5 skills. POE on the other hand really is mashing 1-2 buttons pretty much across the board because of the way gems work which is something GGG very much tries to adress in POE2. The 7/10 vs. 8/10 rating doesn't seem right, should be switched if anything.
The itemizaztion and endgame ratings are more subjective.
That being said, i significantly prefer the LE itemization/ crafting system. It is accessible while still offering enough deepth to leave room for chasing items and optimisation. I agree that there could be more interesting uniques and set items are, for the most part, completely irrelevant. But lets stay fair, 90%+ of uniques in POE are also completly booring and only exist to increase the loot pool so you don't only dropp the 10% that might actually be useful. The legendary crafting system in LE on the other hand can make even boring uniques an exiting find if they have enough legendary potential, quite a nice idea actually.
Overall i think this ascpect heavily depens on the target audience making an objective and universally representative rating pretty much impossible.
What i also really don't get are the "monoliths are boring statements", they are, essentially, POE mapping. Mapping is what you do to kill hordes of mobs and dropp loot which is kind of the whole ARPG game loop? Yes there could be more alternative activities like bossing options and so on, but well, new game? We will see where the journey goes in terms of content and regular content updates. POE is obviously in the lead here, and it is not even close.
But i actually kind of like the "uninterupted" mapping experience. Many of the POE league mechanics simply don't integrate well. I enjoy the back to the basics experience, at least for now.
Not sure if he touches on it, but you can't compare current PoE to LE fairly. A fair review would be comparing LE to PoE on the day they launched. They also stated in a news post from the game director that their primary focus is going to be end-game. They have plans to add "Pinnacle" bosses in 1.1, which is the first content upate in the 1.0 cycle. So I say play until it's not fun, and then wait. Once LE has 10 years of updates like PoE does, then we can talk.
oh well hot take of the month
Im a poe fan fr but last epoch made me realize that i hate how meta slave poe is. Its a breath of fresh air to be able to play anything and have a good time and be reasonbly strong. I hope poe 2 can improve on it. And ofc quality of life
Last epoch is a game you can jump onto when you get home from work and enjoy yourself, POE is a mindless grind with a never ending skill tree that takes hours to learn efficiently if you want to not just copy builds over and over. I would 100% choose to main last epoch over POE any day
I should have stopped at 0:54 when I saw you rated LE and D3 6/10 itemization. Just nuts. D3 has no itemization. Its not even in the same league with LE.
Combat I would agree. Good but poe does it a bit better overall. Obviously they cant compete with the sheer number of activities that poe has amassed over the years.
Which was the worst part of the video. The lack of respect and lack of information. PoE was already 3 years in development before it was announced in 2010!! Officially released in 2013.
So they had way way way more development time. The last 6 acts came with 3.0 in 2017 etc...
So yeah if poe didnt have an edge over any other arpg it would be strange. They started developing 12 years prior to LE.
Last Epoch is perfect for players who dont have that much time, who dont want to invest too much time into researchng stuff, who dont want to lose stuff, who dont want too much randomnes in crafting. Last epoch is very generous. Time will tell how that approach works. Personally i like LE but prefer PoE.
I've played every ARPG, as im sure everyone else has. D3 was fun but too simple, D4 was OK but even simpler, while POE was fun but got too complicated to the point of being a chore to play. Last epoch to me, like others have stated, is a nice middle ground. You said LE wasn't a main game pick but i think it would have came off better if it was said differently. Main game pick for POE enthusiasts, definitely not. Main game pick for people wanting something with less impact, for sure.
Last epoch is the perfect game for me. I've put 1000's of hours into POE, its not the hamster wheel i want to be on anymore.
Poor PoE fanboys, keep telling yourself this stuff, get a hug and you'll feel better :)
Poe fanboys way better than LE fanboys. Atleast we have a good game and not some boring nobrain grind game with 0 creativity.
@@konicironman8191 thank you, it is appreciated that you went to such effort to prove my point.
@@tacca4720 Im sorry to break your dream but LE is just gonna be a filler between poe leagues for many people.
I can get by in terms of combat and endgame but... I cant understand how you gave same score for Itemization for D3 and Last Epoch. D3 itemization is the most shallow in the genre and legendary mods and sets are designed in a way that you do 100000% dmg or 0% with a skill. Affixes on items arent great either - main stat + 3 dmg mods (as/cc/cd/ad/skill%) if possible on each piece. I would even argue that D4 did it a lil better actualy.
Poe is way, way,way too complicated for the average gamer. If i wanted to learn everything about poe economy i would just learn everything about our real economy because its equal amounts of work and thats essentially what poe is. work.
Youre also comparing a brand new game to one that has added content for a decade. Brain dead take.
How is the itemization and gameplay in poe better than LE?
I might only have 100h in poe, but from what I've felt playing it, most items are dogshit unless you spend a fortune crafting on them or you just buy the items that you want. I've played a lot of the endgame and it's really fun, but I don't think I've changed my gear or picked up something interesting in like 20+ hours.
And from the 2 builds I've had none felt has fun/impactful has the one I have on LE (That I made myself without the need of a guide). But that might be the fact that i'm not really a fan of skills being available to everyone and not class specific.
But hey, it's just an opinion. A game opinion. For all their own!
Totally agree.
What you're describing sounds like a general unfamiliarity with PoE's itemization which is totally fair and expected for a newer player
@@maskettaman1488 yeah. I understand what you mean, but like I don't like the fact that after 123h I'm still considered new and have stuff I dislike that others praise. The itemization in LE is simple enough for me to grasp and pop off when something drops but complex enough to craft and enhance them.
him giving items in poe 10/10 is wild.
I love how LE itemization is designed around playing solo with high variance for the highest tier of loot. Where POE loot is balanced around everything being tradable.
Feels amazing making my own stuff without relying on RNG poe crafting or buying it from others.
@@GabKaulem Most people appreciate games with depth. Diablo 4 might be a great option for you though if "simple" is all you're looking for
comparing this to d3 is laughable
Arpg elitist cries that you don''t need to get a divorce in order to play Last Epoch. Ok bro.
Itemization being ranked 5/10 has to be a joke. There’s a reason why GGG is on the record for saying they have things to learn from LE. And as far as end game goes…
do you remember where POE’s end game was on their 1.0 launch? Here let me remind you - they had 4 textile sets, no end game bosses to chase(it took them quite a while to get Atziri into the game) and they had only half a story even complete😂
Woolie your EXTREME bias is showing. I give you a 6/10 on your rating video.
The moment you compared it to DIII it was hard to take you seriously.
"Modern Diablo III" I cannot think of a more absurd statement. PoE homer syndrome = brain rot. I've played it for 2k hours and had plenty of fun, but its the most bloated video game ever created. And deep endgame is "one shot everything and don't get one shot while holding right click".
Should scrap this and redo it. Your opinion is valid, but you never went into the reasoning as to why PoE's maps are so much better, or how this is similar to D3.
I could absolutely be wrong, but I really got "PoE fanboy" vibes here man. Its a game I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, with four 100's as well as all pinnacle content done (not on SSF or HC thought) but its beyond bloated at this point. I think even they realize that, and I'm glad they ended up making PoE 2 a separate game. Needs a hard reset.
One of the criminally underrated things about LE is how easy it is to read the affixes on items. Try to read that shit in d4 or d3 and you will go blind from squinting
Also I’m not sure what your criticism is with the combat? EVERY arpg is what you described LE’s where it’s movement skill, damage, and go. I’ve only played d3 post reaper of souls, but the combat in that game is extremely arcadey and the only skill with feedback is corpse explosion
Nah dude, PoE turned into mindless slot machine. Set up Atlas, juice up S-tier yellow map - and run like you've just burned your eye for massive loot slot machine session - rinse and repeat. That's all there's left to PoE. Not to mention build diversity is abysmally low considering how versatile game mechanics are and how many skills there are available - it's almost at it's all time lowest while I remember still the days when you could do all the content with hipster builds (if you understand how to build around given skill) - and it was even pace comparable - sure, bit slower, maybe bit more effort than FotM builds, but not light years behind as now if you compare top builds to pretty much everything else. A game with decade of market presence and experience has like 80% of people play same 5 builds that are best to spin that slot machine driven mapping experience - like wtf, how is that king? The only helping factor are league content at which GGG is pretty good, but gameplay went down the drain into some braindead mindless slot machine loot grinding. It's so mindless, that auto-play feature wouldn't be completely stupid here, lmao.
after a decade since release, of course PoE is in a much better state. you cannot directly compare 2 products and not give that a fair shake. last epochis an excellent middle geound between PoE and diablo and i would entirely recommend it for 80% of arpg gamers over PoE and i have played PoE since open beta and thoroughly enjoyed my thousands of hours spent in it. i have also enjoyed the few hundred hours i have spent in LE so far. graphically aswell, LE is a far cleaner game
No ARPG was released with so much content. Also I can't see how itemization is not 10/10. I guess we disagree. Still, 7/10 is not bad.
Glad to hear your take on the game @woolie
Cheers for taking the time to share and explain.
Agree on the Unique's not feeling very 'diverse' really need to put my thoughts together still but this helped for sure :)
so easy to get burnt out on poe. last epoch is a great fresh break and is tons of fun now that its playable.
I see being negatively compared to PoE as a selling point, it tells me the game respects the player's time and attention, and that it's intended to be played organically like an actual video game, not a second job.
Try not to comapre every game to POE challenge (Impossible)
People always overestimate PoE when comparing with other games, I agree that PoE is the absolute best and love the game, but sometimes I just wanna play a game without being a hideout warrior or use 100 external tools to play the game properly. PoE has some major issues that LE was able to cover, and I hope PoE 2 takes inspiration from it. LE has some amazing potential knowing that the game just released.
You mean you don't like excel simulator when gaming?
i tried 830+ hour POE and still dont know tons of mechanics. if i know all the mechanics , there is another barrier that expensivness of the items that i need. yes POE is masterpiece but its too complex for me.
This sounds more like a comparison between a 10 year old game vs a game that just released.
Thus, it's not really a review nor a fair comparison. But hey, maybe i'm just weird.
@Woolie how much would you give to POE when it just came out? lol comparing game 10y old with something new is ridiculus but then again its hot topic and this is how you get views i gues
You compare games to the market. And those that make newer games, will look at the market and try to build on that. You can't just time machine a game from today and compare it to a game a decade ago.
First time I've disagreed with a Woolie take. LE does need more to do in the end game. It does need more creative items.
However I find it tremendously more fun than POE has been since Heist.
I have the utmost respect for PoE players and PoE enjoyers but it’s just not for me. I have a hundred or so hours of trying to enjoy PoE and the skill gem system is just incredibly boring to me for whatever reason. It just didn’t click.
Diablo 3 is my personal favourite RPG, and I think that statement in itself explains a lot of why I don’t like PoE and I completely understand that lol. Last Epoch is really filling the void that putting D3 on the shelf left behind.
Nothing against PoE, objectively it is an incredible game; but it’s not for everyone. Last Epoch is approachable, has enough content and build variety to keep you experimenting for many hours. It’s the perfect middle-ground ARPG.
Also, I want to specifically touch on your point about monoliths vs. Maps. What is it about maps that you think is more fun than monoliths? Enemy variety? Density? I’m interested to know. I’ve seen a LOT of maps be completed and I just can’t really wrap my head around why you would think they’re so much better. Cheers woolie!
Rating D4 combat lower than all the others is WILD. If theres one thing D4 does well its combat. Its got weight and impact and the enemies dont feel like they are made of paper. Zooming around with everything melting around you gets old real fast.
Combat is better now but it still feels like a mobile game and no distinct features of normal, magic, rare, and random unique mobs (except for actual bosses). But it's better now.
Itemization is good. But still can go for more. Hopefully we can get the PoE2 itemization treatment where it makes sense like weapons don't get resistances, helms are for a bit of defense then affixes using your head like stats (int,str,dex,att,vit), +skill level, and so on. Affixes are all over the place but still, it's really good. Runes, glyphs, shards? Can't complain and it can only be better.
End game? I think it's fine as it is since it just launched. PoE was like D2/D3 back then with repeating campaign and increasing difficulty. Dungeons are great since it provides better experience in getting the loot you need but could be better. All of the rewards it offers can be done in monolith too, except for legendaries of course. I hope there are soulfire bastion and lightless harbor specific items in the future as i won't go to these dungeons since random monolith mobs can do that for me. But the same thing, it can only be better.
If PoE is 10, LE is 7 and it's ok to be in this state for now. We even compared PoE to D4, why not LE? And PoE started with only D2 in mind. LE started with D2, D3, D4, and PoE in mind and of course it was able to put out a better game at launch than PoE but that doesn't make it a better game overall, yet.
Great now give it a fair review compared to path of exile at its launch. That is a fair review not comparing it to a bloated game that has 10 years of content and development. Also understand PoE is a niche game played by few.
Don't really disagree too much, but I've definitely enjoyed LE and the differences with itemization and skill trees as compared to PoE. I hope that they can continue to add interesting content to the endgame to give more incentive to play longer each cycle.
As for now I'm enjoying learning the game and will probably play 2-3 different classes/builds before wearing out on the grind.
The bias here with PoE is craaaaazy. I cannot stand the overcomplication of PoE
Just say your not high iq and are bad at video games
I get why the review compares it directly to PoE since it's your favourite game and objectively the most deep and complex ARPG, but when reviewing games and comparing them to the other ones on the market you should also consider what the consumer wants.
Over the years PoE has accrued an ocean of content - which is great for people who have either followed along throughout its history, or people who want to dive into a monster of a game. PoE is my all-time favourite ARPG, and I've farmed many a mirror in my time - but I can also recognise that it fails to deliver a product to people who just want to chill out blast. Even I don't have the the time or patience to play every PoE league, it's a once a year experience for me.
Last Epoch fits the perfect middle ground between PoE and D4 (which are the 2 most modern ARPGs) and that's absolutely fine, it doesn't need to be directly compared to PoE - its target audience is primarily the more casual player. Even amongst PoE players, not everyone is blasting T16 maps every league, the vast majority of players don't have the time to drop on pushing PoE to its absolute limit, and this game will feel great for them.
As a content creator you naturally play the game a lot more than most other people, so if a game doesn't have adequate depth/endgame to hold your attention over thousands of hours then it will obviously score lower in your eyes.
NB: Criticising it for its 1 button + utility combat doesn't really make much sense. Every argb plays like this (including PoE), I do agree that a dodge roll would feel nice though.
Yeah sorry this comes off as a huge PoE bias review.
I don't have a clue how you came to the conclusion you did about itemization unless you have barely scratched the surface of it. You talk about PoE being the "gold standard" of loot when a LOT of PoE's loot does not matter at all (this is not counting the chase for things like Headhunter ofc) besides finding a good base to craft on. You talk about mods not being interesting by highlighting the less interesting mods in LE but lack to mention the plethora of class specific affixes that can be build enabling (also experimental affixes). You also failed to mention one of LE's flagship features of Legendary Potential where you can put mods from an exalted item on top of a unique which by itself I think makes the itemization so much more interesting for a lot of people.
While I think it is fair to say the endgame is lacking, the "they had 5 years" argument is disingenuous. The game has more endgame than most other ARPGs had at launch. Look at PoE at launch, it grew into the behemoth of an endgame it has now after TEN years. LE has plenty of time to grow and expand upon endgame, which has been confirmed to be the focus for the first few updates. The monolith was designed with the intention to expand upon it for many updates. EA was spent making the game as a whole feel good and polished, from new skills and classes to campaign chapters and new systems like dungeons. They had a lot of other things to work on other than more endgame.
edit: I will be clear, I do think PoE is the best ARPG on the market currently, mainly because of the vast amounts of things to do. However, I think LE is #2, not only because of where it is, but from it's room to grow even further.
But hey, at the end of the day, you are allowed to have your opinion. I just don't think it's a fair one.
@Nevieth Lots of real PoE content creators give LE way more credit than that. Nobody says it's a prefect game, but most of them are being pretty fair with their review without just comparing it to PoE.
This guy is just completely delusional, I mean look at his PoE 2 video, it's the same thing where he shits on PoE 2 while praising PoE 1.
I hear someone say PoE is better, I play the game. PoE is the worst dungeon crawler lol.
100% agree, I also had a 7/10. I would add the skill tree and building your character as another pillar of ARGP's. I think Last epoch does combat and items good. But the skill tree, although better than D4, is worse than POE. The endgame has the same problems rifts had in D3, getting a higher number to do a higher number echo is not fun. Now all D4 players have a good game to play, that is easy to get into. But I think Path of Exile players won't see an equal in this. Overall, Eleventh Hour games, made a great game! Last Epoch being their first game, it is very impressive!
I didn't like path of exile because I like playing arpgs how I want to play them, so I built my character how I wanted to and so did my friend I was playing with. At first it was all smooth and dandy, not so hard, some stuff was kinds challenging but I did enjoy it for like a week and then.. the difficulty ramped up after we beat the campaign and went through for the second time. And our builds were so fucked that we were pretty much stuck halfway through. And we both quit the game. Around level 50ish. I don't want to watch a tutorial of how to build my character as I am just starting out, it ruins the whole game for me.
its pretty obvious watching this that you play alot of poe. personally, i like poe. i think its fun, and the end game cannot be beaten right now. not even close. but to get to the same level of enjoyment as i get on last epoch, id have to have put hundreds, if not even thousand+ hours. every time ive went to play poe during a new league, i keep realizing there is SO much more to the game. every time i learn a little bit more and its starting to really make me overwhelmed. even when i try to just tell myself i dont need to learn it, the thought is in my head "you're missing out on part of the game". the complexity of poe really kills it for me, and i think LE does a great job of being fairly complex whilst not being confusing to understand. i have already enjoyed last epoch much more than ive ever enjoyed PoE simply because i understand more of the game, whereas in poe i dont even really understand most of the things im doing because im following multiple guides because otherwise i would be failing at every aspect in the game over and over and bricking entire characters nonstop.
to further put it into perspective, ive played proably 8 leagues now. and honestly? this last league (affliction iirc) looks to have been the coolest league, as in shit tons of loot spouting out and probably would've been the best time for me to really wanna enjoy a build or two. and yet all 3 times i thought about playing, i was immediately thrown off because i realized i needed to get an item filter, need to find a build, need to understand the build, need to update and figure out my POB, need to update my trading app, etc. and then i realized all the chores i need to do just do begin playing the game, and then realizing i needed to do the campaign again... i stopped playing before i even played, even though i know i had plenty fun when i would be maping in my other runs. LE just isn't like that at all to me. i even enjoyed the campaign, which i can not say about poe at all.
Poor take. For those of us who work for 8+ hours a day, LE is a vastly superior game to PoE.
If you have a dozen+ hours a day to play video games, then this take becomes more relevant. Unfortunately, that accounts for
Doesnt matter if LE is vastly superior to you , LE is still a way worse ARPG than poe. Sorry to dissapoint you buddy
@@konicironman8191 thanks for your concern mate
I dont agree with the starting statement, PoE is boring AF
considering you main Risk of rain 2, i'd suggest you guys take this dudes review with a huge grain of salt lmao.
As soon as he said you click one button and occasionally click others as like a negative that's where I just clicked off.
I guess PoE and Risk of Rain isn't like that
Only thing I can agree is endgame and everyone who enjoys this game also says the same. Devs have said they are now 100% focused on end game now that 1.0 is done and have a pinnacle boss releasing literally next patch and isn't just them adding a boss they said it's the start of something bigger
Funny thing is PoE is exactly like that, with the exception of a few builds (as is the case in LE, too). You pretty much have a main attack, a few utility skills (movement, curse, "oh shit") and you reserve 95% of your mana on auras to buff the everliving _shit_ out of your character, abusing mana cost reduction or EB to deal with the mana cost of skills. End result is you zoom around the map right clicking groups of mobs, occasionally cursing or using secondary attacks on rares/bosses or packs of blues.
Is this a LE review or a POE review? Because nobody cares about POE. Nobody plays it except for the couple dozen rabid fanboys that won't shut up about its 3 trillion systems that you have to spend years to learn. Aint nobody got time for that!
poe map system can burn in hell.
for example the things I find pointless time wasting in that system:
-rolling map mods
-corruption system that is also rng and can make maps unplayable
-voidstones even thought its better now
-picking up maps leading to storage issue with stash tabs that you need to buy to play and filtering map drops as you go
-rng progressing due to random drop chance of wanted maps
-all of the micro managy map modifying items that are also droped and need to be filtered and stored just so they can sell more stash tabs aka scarabs sextants fragments etc
-the fact that now there are 100+ maps players need to do just to complete the atlas to even start playing the end game
that is just map system.
then there is the issue that nothing ever drops for your build and you can either use a bunch of 3rd party websites to try to craft something and/or are forced into trading which is the worst thing I have ever experienced in any game.
nah cant agree. Last Epoch is waaaay more approachable than PoE and I speak as a massive PoE fan too. But being approachable by a much wider audience makes it defacto a bettrer designed game
Damn, itemization a 6/10. I think that’s a bit rougher than it deserves. Smart crafting, end game chase items. That alone deserves at least a 7, I’d personally argue 8. I think uniques could be more fun, but with the legendary chase it does add that endgame loop.
Woolie as much as i absolutely love your content and you as a person this was sorta sad. You seem to be like everyone else and have put PoE on a ridiculous pedestal that you're holding above everything else. Dont get me wrong PoE looks wicked, personally i dont have the time to invest into it to do what you do or half the players do. You essentially just made a video shitting on LE and little to no positives. You glanced over the ratings with little information as to why you generlized a lot of the topics. Id personally like to see a proper break down on your thoughts of each of the categories you covered. You love PoE so much because you have the ability to invest the time into it to achieve these amazing goals and feats, however most of us that love AARPGS wont go near PoE just due to the sheer dedication to get where we would like. Im not saying your opinions were not valid im just saying you should be more constructive of why, anyone can say something is done poorly, or somwthing is wrong, incorrect, but wheres the constructive critisim/feedback?
mistaking this as a message/solution to the devs seems to be a common issue in the comment section on this one. this is a notice to the consumer, whether that consumer agrees or disagrees.
@Xohslol nah bro he is clearly giving his report card to the developer, that's why he needs to be completely unbiased or something lmao.
@@PrincessGamecube I don't know how you could possibly think this is aimed at the devs.
Honestly, maps in PoE are much more boring, because for optimal strategies you will end up playing the same or just 3-4 maps for the whole season.
But yes LE is missing a lot in terms of end game options, and probably will take them at least a couple of years before it gets interesting, if they continue at this slow pace.
I dont think poe is the golden standard for arpgs, it's just far too daunting for new players. Diablo is maybe too simple for seasoned players, so LE is perfectly positioned.
I think it's pretty disingenuous to imply that they didn't cook up something great over those five years of development in EA.
It's improved a great deal. They weren't ONLY focused on the end game content for that timeframe. That's why players say that you should let them cook in their upcoming cycles, because now that the game is more polished & can be sold as what the devs consider to be worthy of a finished 1.0 version product, they can focus on adding more content and end game systems, rather than creating subclasses, finishing off the story, polishing everything up to make sure that it's ready to go for the 1.0 release.
Do you think that whenever Path of Exile came out that they had boat loads of vast end game content systems? PoE is so good because people did let them cook up something great over the years by adding new content with every new league and expansion. It definitely didn't start out that way.
Crazy that the tone of this video is doubtful of EHG, because we've already been shown that they do listen to their player base & want to create something fun and long lasting.
I took one look at the POE skill tree and noped out.
Skill issue
I cannot take seriously the opinion of anyone that enjoy PoE.
they complain about stuff in other game that is present in their own game.
We will not agree when it comes to arpg.
You need to include a rating for casuals as well... Rating PoE as having 10/10 itemization and endgame is baffling to me. ARPG's aren't a genre of games meant only for basement dwellers who have 10000 hours and a fundamental need to min/max everything. To me, the Diablo IV end game is more fun than PoE by a lot, simply because I can figure it out as I go and complete a season in less than 50 hours.
To state the obvious, this review is incredibly biased. That is absolutely no issue, it is good to get the perpective from a hardcore PoE player and I can respect opnions on systems or design even if I don't necessarily agree with them. But I find the comparison to PoE end game quite dumb considering PoE has had 10years of post launch additions and they themselves launched with half a story and basic maps after 6years of pre-launch development.
Comparing and critiquing how core systems are implemented or designed to what is on the market is one thing, but comparing content from a 17 year old game and a 6 year old game is a bit ridiculous and does not belong in a review IMO.
A lot of real hardcore PoE players/content creators have been able to make that distinction and actually gave a fair review of LE without having to mention PoE every 10 seconds.
Nice PoE Review, thx bud.
Honestly you're right about a lot of stuff, but PoEs itemization is ok at best, they just give you 1000s of drops which 99% are worthless, and the crafting is pretty ok. Last epochs crafting was WAY better than PoE, but the drops were subpar. PoE gets WAY too much praise for stuff thats pretty mediocre. And jesus man, lay off the red bull or whatever you're like the energizer bunny, gotta calm down lol, talk slower.
Blah blah blah this is opinionated take what he says at a grain of salt play what you like
I just wanna say I'm happy you made a balanced review of Last Epoch. I have seen so many lukewarm takes and people making apologies when really it's time to take the kiddy gloves off. The game is fully released, we SHOULD be allowed to level criticism where it's due. Like you said, it's a good game with the potential to be great.
I'm a little more optimistic about LE than you are, but broadly I agree with the criticisms. Right now it's fun enough to progress a character up to 1-2 LP on most slots for me, maybe push up to like 600-800 corruption, but the monotony of monoliths is really starting to wear thin so I'm probably not making another character this cycle.
It really does drive home how massive the gulf is between PoE and everything else in terms of both endgame content variety and itemisation. Especially considering the pace at which GGG can put out new content. One aspect of this that I haven't seen discussed much is how the core mechanics of PoE (different damage types, importance of resistance, different defences) are itemised in such different and creative ways - LE's are much easier to understand, but end up feeling much more formulaic in how you scale them.
That said, I do think there's a solid foundation here for further work. While the pace of development in early access felt slow, I'm more than willing to come back every cycle or two and see how the game continues to develop. I've had a really fun time so far and I look forward to doing so again in future.
Combat is better in PoE than LE? Hahaha
Faming monoliths for specifc T7 exalted items and LP uniques sucks, I seriously do not understand how people are praising the crafting system. Yes the early/mid game deterministic stuff is cool but the end game crafting is complete garbage compared to PoE
After all the aRPGs that have come out since Path Of Exile hit its stride, it just becomes more and more obvious how genius Chris and his team were when designing PoEs systems
Do you think POE released with those systems? POE was dogshit on release, an absolute mess. The only reason it got to where it did was because “people let GGG cook”😂
The gem system, crafting system, currency system and idea that every item should be tradable wasn't there since the games release? really? That's literally the core philosophy the entire game has been designed around for the past 10+ years
@@itsJets The end game crafting system was not what it was on release. I don't know if you played POE in 2013 but it was not as in depth as it is now. They didn't even have Vaal orbs on release. They released with only 3 acts, didn't finish the story for 5 years, had zero end game bosses and only like 4 textiles of maps. You mentioned end game yet their end game was non existent on release.
@@K0rium I think you are combining my points when it's more of a point + seperate observation in general about the genre. My first point is that current Last Epoch endgame in general is lacking and I especially don't like the end game crafting since the BIS items will essentially NEVER drop (seriously some of the drop rates for LP3 and 4 uniques may aswell be drop disabled) and that Path of Exiles current crafting and endgame systems are miles better in my opinion. I'm not interested in comparing a version of a game from 10 years ago with a game that just released last week, especially when current PoE is a playable product. I'm sure my opinion on Last Epoch 10 years from now will be different but I would never take that into consideration when talking about how enjoyable the game is right now.
My second part was just pointing out that Path of Exiles design philosophy in general, regardless of how much it has been built upon and added to like you said, has proven to be insanely solid and has stood the test of time. For a comparison Diablo 4 is already completely reworking their item system not even a year after launch.
I think once the honeymoon phase is over for a lot of new players they will quickly realize that doing the equiv of white map boss rushing in search of a super rare LP unique + T7 exalted item just to slam them together with the chance for arguably both items to brick, isn't as engaging as it's being made out be. This is where I'm currently at and it feels closer to D4 nightmare dungeons than anything else.
@@itsJets And my point is that if you weren't around for POE's release than you really aren't aware of the potential of Last Epoch. POE's crafting system is almost strictly RNG based. The one time they gave us deterministic crafting(Harvest through ritual) they gutted it because they didn't want the players to have access to that power. Last Epoch has a stronger base game on release than POE ever had. That's why POE old school players like Ziz and Ziggy are so hyped about the game because Last Epoch has all of the same ingredients to end up a power house like POE did. A strong core fundamental game, developers who are passionate about it and a sense of direction.
Not every game needs to be a forever-game you play for 2000 hours