We're working on new boss fights to add more variety to our endgame content and once again raise the standard of our boss encounters. A couple of these feature particularly impressive models which you'll hopefully enjoy seeing as much as we enjoy designing them!
As we're not ready to begin showing these off just yet, we were inspired to look at some of the creatures we've added previously, and their journey from initial concept to implementation.
Only the most powerful of Necromancers can create such a foul construct.
In Patch 0.7.9 we implemented the Assemble Abomination skill for Necromancers. Already a large monstrosity, its appearance varied depending on which minions were unfortunate enough to be involved in its dark summoning ritual, rendering it one of the most complex models to have been created for Last Epoch to-date. Let's explore its ideation!
Designing The Base Model
Initially we did some exploratory concept art to help us decide what kind of shape and size we wanted this minion to be. Sergey produced a variety of different designs - some focusing on the horror of multiple minions being stitched together, others iterating on the idea of a lumbering brute, and others still exploring the idea of a large devourer of bodies.
Our preferred fantasy for this minion was to have a large behemoth ponderously approaching enemies, visibly in a state of undeath but not completely losing the idea of a menacing beast descending upon its prey. With this decision made, we began refining the idea.
As our designs consolidated towards a single concept, Sergey worked on increasingly detailed sketches to further flesh out the minion. Details such as asymmetric limbs, a visible rib cage, and the minion's palette began getting locked in at this stage.
We then began creating other art for the minion, such as this material reference sheet which is created to help the 3d artists better understand the vision for the model. While mostly referenced by our modelers, these can also help our animators.
Designing Minion-Specific Appendages
With a firmer idea of what the abomination itself would look like, it was time to focus on how the model would change to reflect the 'ingredients' used in its construction. There was minimal iteration needed here - the first round of designs were very popular internally.
We hope you found this post interesting! We look forward to being ready to start talking about the contents of Patch 0.8.2 in detail later in its patch cycle. We currently anticipate this update taking a couple of weeks longer than most of our content patches.
Nearly a year ago, we posted the concept art for the Nagasa; creatures that serve the will of the desert goddess Majasa. It’s particularly important to us that the so-called ‘god races’ look impressive, and today we’re excited to share with you some of the Nagasa we’ve created!
Want another look at the concept art? Find it here.
Emerald Nagasa
Diamond Nagasa
???
Note: We do not presently expect the Nagasa to be available in Patch 0.8.2.
Missed the Patch Notes for Beta 0.8.1? Read them on our froum.
Arena
Fixed a bug where Arena layouts were not properly selected at random. This caused the Desert Arena and Solarum Arena to be more common than the others.
Endurance
Aims
Bring Endurance more in line with other defenses, by making it more difficult for endurance threshold to be close to or exceed your maximum health, which would overcome its balancing factor.
Reduce how much the effectiveness of Endurance varies with maximum health.
Changes
All characters now have endurance threshold equal to 20% of their maximum health (from 40 + 2 per character level).
Reduced the value of endurance threshold affixes (by up to 30% at higher tiers).
Root Shields grant 45 to 70 endurance threshold (from 70 to 100).
Reduced the value of endurance threshold on blessings by around 33%.
The Druid’s Hideskin node now grants 15 health, and 1% of maximum health gained as endurance threshold (from +15 health and 3% reduced stun duration).
Skills
Minions
Fixed a bug where Increased Size effects did not apply to minions.
Fixed a bug where minion names granted by nodes (i.e. Thunder Totem) or random chance did not work.
Fixed a bug where Arek’s Flesh did not have animations.
Death Seal
Fixed a bug where Death Seal's wave upon release was not affected by the skill's base 20% more damage per second. It now deals more damage than before.
Adjusted the functionality of Doomcall: 10% more damage per stack of Damned, does not scale with points allocated (from 20% per point). +1 stack of Damned on you each second per allocated point (unchanged). Can have up to 5 points allocated (from 4).
Detonating Arrow
Fixed a bug where Detonating Arrow's Arcing Blast node could trigger even if Detonating Arrow's damage was converted.
Firebrand
Fixed a bug where Galvanize did not convert sources of ignite chance on Firebrand’s tree to shock chance.
Frenzy Totem
Fixed a bug where Eterra's Blessing triggered by the Healing Pulse node did not use Eterra's Blessing's tree or scale with the player's healing effectiveness.
Infernal Shade
Fixed a bug where triggering Blaze Shade could cause Infernal Shade to instantly expire in some cases.
Fixed a bug where Blaze Shade caused the area of Infernal Shade to be reduced rather than increased.
Fixed a bug where Blood Shade was not converting the skill’s base fire damage to physical damage.
Fixed a bug where Legion would not cast Infernal Shade on additional nearby minions if the Devour In Flames node was also taken.
Fixed a bug where Shifting Doom combined with Devour In Flames did not damage the subsequent minion that Infernal Shade attached to.
Lethal Mirage
Fixed a bug which caused several nodes for Lethal Mirage to not work.
Rebuke
Fixed a bug where the buffs granted by Rebuke never persisted after channeling if you had channeled for the full duration.
Shield Throw
Fixed a bug where Spiked Plates and Rygar's Fury did not grant their damage bonus.
Surge
Fixed a bug where Storm Battery granted a stack of Dormant Energy even if you did not hit at least one enemy with your melee attack.
Tooltip DPS
Fixed a bug where negative ailment chances (caused by certain skill tree nodes) would prevent all other ailments from affecting tooltip DPS.
Focus now displays tooltip DPS when taking the Energy Overflow or Energy Battery nodes.
Added tooltip DPS for the Spark Charge and Lightning Wave sub-abilities.
Improved tooltip DPS support for Shatter Strike’s Icicle subability.
Fixed a bug where Detonating Arrow's tooltip DPS did not account for conversion in some cases.
Items
Added new 2d art for Valdyr’s Chalice and Raindance.
Increased Physical Damage can now also roll on belts.
Fixed a bug where the Critical Success bonus for crafts would not be saved in some situations.
Fixed a bug where the "+x Levels to Sacrifice" Affix granted more levels than intended. It is now the same amount as other affixes.
Fixed a bug where Smite's damage was not increased by the Wrathful Large Rahyeh Idol (increased damage with Vengeance and Smite).
Fixed the model for Dreamthorn being positioned incorrectly.
Fixed a bug where the Mage would hold Staves incorrectly in some situations.
Fixed a visual issue for Primalists wielding two-handed swords on the character select screen.
Passives
The Druid’s Hideskin node now grants 15 health, and 1% of maximum health gained as endurance threshold (from +15 health and 3% reduced stun duration).
Fixed a bug where the Void Knight's Null Velocity passive could trigger from an ability use that leaves you above 0 mana.
Fixed a bug where the Paladin’s Shield Wall node granted maximum health instead of health on block.
Fixed a bug where the Bladedancer’s Cloak of Shadows node did not grant Dexterity.
Renamed the Gladiator (block) node in the Sentinel tree to Protector as the name 'Gladiator' was also in use on the dual wielding node.
Visuals
Overhauled all visuals for Swipe, including:
Base visual effect
Lightning conversion
Spirit Wolves node
2D icon
Revised the visuals for Holy Aura.
Monolith / Campaign
Increased the health of the Pyromancer miniboss in Ash Covered Maj'Elka.
Frigid Hinterland now also appears in the Blood, Frost and Death timeline.
Fixed a wall blocking the camera in Sealed Archive.
Fixed some targeting issues near the waypoint in the Immortal Summit.
Fixed Alric’s voice acting in The Immortal Citadel cutting off other voice acting.
Fixed some rocks falling upwards in the Council Chambers.
UI
Skill tree nodes now have square borders. “Key Nodes” are still hexagonal.
Adjusted the description for Endurance and the highlight colors in the health globe tooltip.
Fixed a bug causing damage numbers, particularly for critical hits, to look different than in previous patches.
“+X Other Shards” notifications now appear last in the list of shard notifications.
Fixed a bug where an erroneous “+0 Other Shards” notification would appear in some situations.
Today we've posted some of the new item art recently added to the game - and we want to hear from you! We'd like to hear which are your favourite, what you like most about them, and any you mightn't like as much (and why!).
We know there's recently been a trend of us not posting content here on Steam directly - that's just been due to the content we've recently posted. For example, today's post is very image-heavy and the formatting options available to us here are somewhat limited compared to the game's official forum.
We hope you'll check the post out, and we'll see you again here soon!
Developer Blogs are when members of the team take a deep dive into a particular aspect of Last Epoch's design, explaining not just changes that will be made, but the reasoning behind those changes.
Unlike most of our posts, Developer Blogs are only available on the game's official forum. We sincerely hope you take the time to check out the post and leave us your feedback. We'll see you there!
Today we're excited to share Patch 0.8.1 with you.
Unfortunately, our content patches long ago became too big for us to fit our changelogs inside posts here on Steam, so instead we've prepared a table of contents that links to each individual section.
As you know, in Patch 0.8.1 we’re introducing 5 new Arena maps!
A prepared Traveler is a successful Traveler, so today we’re sharing some screenshots of each of the new Arenas so you know what to expect ahead of time. Safe journeys, Traveler!