This game is slowly turning from potential top tier ARPG to a disappointing product

(Attention: This is a very long post)

Sorry EHG, I love you guys but I have to speak out my opinions that have been in my mind for a long time seeing how the game grows from 0.7 Rogue release to current patch 1.1. I play the game since patch 0.7 with 700+ hours record so far based on Steam.

Last Epoch is really an amazing game that you can easily put 300 hours in the game when you first play the game. Skill tree is fun and innovative, Crafting is solid, Itemization is great but obviously needs improvement, Good visual to recognize different damage types and boss attack pattern thanks to the colour scheme and indicator, End game monolith is fine imo but needs expansion for sure, Lots of good QoL features such as free stash tabs, loot filter, inventory sorting etc. The game brings out different kind of gameplay/tempo which is fun as compared to competitors such as POE and Grim Dawn. The faction system is also genius to cater both trade and SSF players.

But after all the excitement and freshness, I start to see a lot of problems and some of them have been existed for a long time without getting improved or fixed. All these problems have kill my interest to play the game. I can't play more than 15 hours in patch 1.0 and 1.1 because I feel disappointed and get annoyed again and again. Here are the problems I hope EHG can really look into and take some priority to fix them.

1. Ward vs HP - This is the most crucial issue to solve in current patch right now. I know EHG has rework the Ward formula to tune down OP amount of Ward that can be generated, but it doesn't solve the issue that HP still sucks as compared to Ward. HP build can work, but requires a lot more investment meanwhile Ward build can easily push over 300 corruption with a relatively bad build and minimum investment. Please consider to buff Endurance / Endurance Threshold because endurance is a must for HP build. Simply increase their stat and giving more accessibility in gaining them so you don't need to slot in Endurance / Endurance Threshold in every piece of gear just to bring the defensive power more in line with Ward. On the contrary, Ward only requires 1 or 2 specific Unique item / some investment in passive and skill points to give you the same amount of EHP. This is just bad balancing. I always want to build a HP build character but this issue kill my interest to do so. Either you go Ward build or suffer the high corruption monolith.
2. Melee vs Range - This is also a very crucial issue to look at. I know in video games Range is always superior than Melee in most cases simply because the fact that Melee need to take the risk to approach enemy meanwhile Range can just clear the screen at a safer distance. But in this game the gap between Melee vs Range is just too big, just like POE. POE is having the exact same issue but they are improving Melee by buffing all Melee skills in recent patch 3.25. POE 2 gameplay showcase also shows some Melee skills have integrated movement that will move you to the direction you facing, giving some mobility so you don't stuck at a place too much. Also they make Melee requires less accuracy rating in POE 2 so you can invest in other stats.

Please look at Grim Dawn. Grim Dawn has excellent balancing when comes to Melee. Melee weapons do more damage than Range weapons generally. Grim Dawn combat also designed to be slower so you can't screen wipe the mobs easily with 1 or 2 buttons. This means you will be regularly forced to fight in close to medium range because the mobs will approach you. This makes Range characters in GD needs some tankiness as well even you actively kiting enemies. You can't be full glass canon and outperform Melee in terms of damage and safety. GD also have WPS (weapon procs skill) that is integrated in Melee skills which is powerful. Thanks to the game design GD has excellent Melee playstyle, some even argue Melee is superior than Range.

1. CoF vs MG Factions - The item factions is innovative and genius to satisfy both trade and SSF players. But in fact MG has a lot of problems especially the gold exploit issue. And now suddenly you want to release a mid cycle event that reset everything to bring a fresh economy because you failed to solve gold exploit issue when this cycle starts. This sounds bad tbh. I don't care how exciting the Imperial event is, but resetting progress in mid cycle doesn't make sense at all. You name a Cycle as Cycle for a reason. Cycle is meant to be new content, fresh economy, new game mechanics/event = a new start for every player.

I personally think CoF is in a pretty good state. Nothing much to complain. But due to the issue MG faction has, I see no reason to play MG right now. CoF is always a better choice imo and this is not good when we talk about CoF vs MG balancing.

1. Classes and Skill Balancing - Overall it is fine. However, some old classes and skills really need overhaul to better match the power of newer classes such as Warlock and Falconer. I know 1.1 brings a balancing pass to many skills especially Shaman skills, but honestly it is not enough. I know EHG will continue to bring more balancing but the process needs to speed up a bit. It doesn't feel great when playing your favourite class just to find out it is underperforming. I am not asking a perfect balancing / everything has to be Meta build, but please narrow down the power gap among all classes. A good class balancing will benefit the game design in future as well.

2. Bugs Fixing - I know EHG is always actively fixing bugs. But some bugs have been existed in game for a long time. What I can recall now is, for example, Rogue's Umbral Blade Precision Cut node still don't make you land the blade precisely at your cursor if you take Cacophony of Steel to make your blade spinning in place. The situation is even worse when you having bad ping and latency which is the next point I want to bring out. This makes me doubt a little about EHG capability in fixing bugs.

3. Online gameplay and Server Latency - It is already patch 1.1 the online latency is still bad. I don't have perfect Internet but I have no issue in playing online PvP games like Dota 2 and Valorant. Meanwhile in Last Epoch, I can feel my input is delayed sometimes or the game randomly stutter for 1-2 seconds even the game shows me I am having 16 ping. It is playable, but it is obviously not butter smooth as compared to Offline. For those who wonder, please try both Offline and Online mode you will realize how Offline mode is shockingly smooth as compared to Online.

4. Optimization - The game has improved over the years in terms of optimization. Thanks EHG for putting effort but it still have rooms for more improvement obviously. The game runs fine overall but my FPS can dip down to below 60 FPS in some scenes / when some mobs appear or casting specific skills. Unfortunately I don't remember them because my playtime is less in recent patches so I can't make report to EHG. I am playing at a mixture of Very High / Ultra settings at 1440p on 4070 TI Super if someone wonders.

Sorry for the long post. This is my genuine opinions and feedback to EHG. I hope EHG will take time to read this post and make some improvements based on the issues mentions. I love this game I hope Last Epoch can be a top tier ARPG that able to compete with other strong competitors especially POE 2 which seems really promising so far.