Last Epoch is a really good Diablo-3 / POE mashup

If four years from now Diablo becomes a dead franchise, Last Epoch (steam store link) will be the game that stole all those players. 

This game is doing to Path of Exile what Blizzard-WoW did to Everquest.. taking the kernel of the best ideas and making it pretty and accessible for the rest of us.

If you want spoiler free, stop here, go buy it on steam, and try it out.

If you want some (minor) spoilers, read on....

Last Epoch has the "lite" versions of POE mechanics like class-ascendancy, mapping, and gear-reforging, and then added a mountain of quality-of-life that makes everything just feel *so* good as I play more.... My favorites are gear-modding *anywhere* (literally anywhere, you just open a menu), and an in-game loot-filter configuration UI! 

The new-player-experience has a bit of clunkiness to it, and the story and cutscene production value is pretty darn low, so it took me 2-4 hours to "get into it", but once I did, I got hooked. Their class/skill system is just such a unique blend of ideas from D3/D4/POE, and is such a neat balance between them. 

The monsters and world feel is very much like D3 (which is a great thing). 

The classes are like Path of Exile, where there is a base-type, and then just a short way through the campaign, you pick from three class-subtypes (which can not be changed!). This selection has a *much* bigger effect on skills and skill trees than it does in POE. (in POE it dictates ~12 ascendancy points, but in LE it controls the entire second half of the passive-skill-tree and what remaining spells you can choose from)

The skill and passive-tree systems are vaguely D3/D4 class-specific structures, with very *easy* respecing (though somst costs, especially for changing spells) -- I'm usually for D3 style free respeccing, but I also can see the value in there being *some* cost to respeccing, as it creates more consequence for choices. 

Which brings me to the the best part, the gearing and gear-upgrading system.... Last Epoch took a page out of minecraft, fortnite and "you're the crafter" model, and lets you modify or "disenchant" your gear anytime, anywhere. You are your own personal gear enchanting system, and the way it feels in the game is amazing, because...

In-game Loot-Filter! There is a really big gap from the Diablo world of no-loot-filter mayhem, and the Path of Exile world where loot-filters are created with outside software and imported into the game....

Enter Last Epoch, which has a really simple in-game UI for creating a loot-filter. It's not nearly as rich as what POE can do, but the in-game feel of being able to push a key, and make a loot filter spec at any time, is actually really great. This feels like the kind of thing Blizzard usually does to the competitors.. takes their ideas and just makes them accessible and great, but in this case, it's in a quasi-indie game.

There are some things I don't love... probably the biggest of which is that there are some unique-affix-bonuses on gear that are so powerful and pivotal, you get stuck with a crap piece of gear because you can't afford to lose that unique bonus (see highlighted bonus on the right). 

I think the D4's aspect system was an attempt to fix this (which is
pretty good in S6), but then they have unique gear with affixes you can't aspect-craft, and then you're stuck again, wearing that level 8 glove until level 60. However, this entire category of ARPGs has this problem, so it exists unless you go further away from the Diablo-subgenre into games like Warframe or VRising.

Every ARPG has moved to a quasi-seasonal model now, with content releases once or twice a year, and Last-Epoch is following this model. They've only release a few patches so far, so it's too early to tell how good this will go. Path of Exile sets the bar on this, so we'll see.

If you have some time to kill, give it a try.

Here are some excellent overview videos:

• Last Epoch Beginner's Guide - YouTube
• BEST CLASS To Play in Last Epoch? - YouTube
• Last Epoch Advanced Crafting... Make Legendary Items!!! - YouTube