Hello, Travelers!

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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



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





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

Last Epoch is using the Deferred rendering path, and the main benefit is that using multiple lights doesn’t negatively impact the game performance since lighting is calculated and rendered all at once (while in forward rendering, each object has to be rendered once for each light). We decided early that we want to use dynamic lights for our skills or environment design, so Deferred rendering was a logical choice - but there is a catch.

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

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





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

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



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






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


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

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






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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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



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




Performance optimization is an ongoing process, and even as we continue prepping for patch 0.9 and beyond, we have already identified areas where we can continue to improve. We are getting much better at collecting data, identifying sources causing performance issues, tracking them, and ultimately fixing them. We are also working on several guidelines to ensure that all our future content will be as optimized as possible on the first release. While we can’t promise that every single performance issue will be fixed in the upcoming patch 0.9.0, we believe we are on the right path to give you the Last Epoch you deserve and can enjoy a smooth and fun experience.

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

Goodbye for now Travelers, and we’ll see you all again very soon!

Hello Travelers, and happy Saturday!

The weekend may have arrived, but that doesn’t mean the Pre-Patch Blog Post Hype Week has been paused! In today’s post, we’re having a look at a few of the new enemies you’ll encounter in Eterra, as well as a few of the new high-level armor designs you’ll be able to find during the Convergence in Beta Patch 0.9.


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

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

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




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




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



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


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


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




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




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




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

Farewell for now, Travelers, and we’ll see you all again tomorrow.

Good day Travelers!

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

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



Manifest armor is an example of a skill that mechanically was quite sound. The skill tree was fun to build around, it was mechanically interesting, and it had a good amount of power to it (even perhaps a bit too powerful in some cases…). However, it was a skill where the visuals were certainly in need of a big update to really fulfill the fantasy provided by the skill. The old model, a transparent sentinel model with a couple pieces of armor slapped on it, wasn’t really doing the job of conveying the idea of a war-ready magical construct created by a character that’s out to slay a god such as Rahyeh.

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



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

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






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



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



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

Unlike Manifest Armor, however, Bone Golem’s skill tree wasn’t in quite as great a place as it could have been. While it had a couple of builds that saw common use, much of the tree was rarely seeing use or provided enough variance to the skill. As such, with this visual update, we are also changing up the skill tree with balance adjustments, adjusting the paths available on the tree, as well as a completely new node allowing for the creation of a Deathchill Golem.



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





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

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



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



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






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

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



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




Many more skills than those listed above are coming to patch 0.9 with visual improvements, sound updates, balance changes, or even new interactions. We can’t wait to see what kinds of builds and combat styles everyone manages to come up with, both solo, and synergies in parties, with the much anticipated Multiplayer Beta on March 9th!

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

Hello Travelers,

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

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


Assets are one of the fundamental aspects of any level design. This may be plant models, surfaces, textures, and a whole host of other things. We’ve been updating scene assets accross Eterra for both better visuals and better performance. Just because something looks better, doesn’t mean it needs to impact performance; this is the balance we’ve been striving for. Assets can also introduce a consistent theme, with specific lighting and atmosphere, areas can be tied together thematically.

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








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



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






It’s hard to see all the beautiful textures and assets without lighting. However, just having a skybox light and some reflective surfaces doesn’t make an area very engaging. This is where volumetric lighting comes in. In the past, we have used volumetric lighting, but in a minimal way. We’ve improved our tools to be able to use volumetric lighting more globally, keeping visuals consistent no matter where you are in the scene. Instead of having localized god rays, we are now setting volumetric parameters for the whole scene, where light sources can properly react with these volumes, creating more believable fog and atmospherics.

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



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

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




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

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



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




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

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

Hello Travelers,

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

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

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


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


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

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

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




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

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

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




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

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



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


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


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




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

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




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




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



And that’s all of the featured music examples for the 0.9 patch.


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

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

We hope you’re as excited as we are, and we’ll see you all again soon Travelers!

Hello Travelers,

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Details:

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

Below are a few reward examples you can expect when aligned with the Circle of Fortune:



Circle of Fortune is a mystical Faction that had banded together to seek fortune through arcane research and astrology. Aligning with the Circle of Fortune will grant you powerful benefits towards finding more and better items. You will also have the ability to purchase Prophecies with Favor which will bend fate to your advantage and help you find the specific items that you’re looking for.


Below are a few reward examples you can expect when aligned with the Merchants’ Guild:



The Merchants Guild is a prosperous organization that believes in prosperity through commerce. Aligning with the Merchants Guild will allow you to trade increasingly powerful items as you gain reputation and give you access to the Bazaar where you can browse and search for items that other players have listed and list items on the Bazaar yourself. All types of equipment, such as idols, uniques, and even legendary items can be traded with other players if you have a high enough rank, but crafting materials cannot.



The Bazaar will be a new trade-focused zone for players aligned with the Merchants’ Guild. Here you can gather, socialize, barter, and trade your wares throughout the market. Players will search through a variety of stalls for player-listed items, which you can buy and sell for gold with advanced searching functionality, no purchase delay, and no tax on the gold cost of the item.



We’ve heard from the community that sharing items with friends is important to their enjoyment of Last Epoch long term. We agree, and so we are continuing to support Item Gifting between friends and party play regardless of your faction choice. To this end we’re doing two things:

1. Item Gifting as experienced in the multiplayer tests and in 0.9 will remain. If you are with a player fighting enemies and an item drops you’ll be able to freely give your teammates that item if you wish.
   
2. We’ll be introducing a new item type called Resonances that drop when you’ve played alongside a player for a very extended period of time. Using a resonance on an item will enable it to be gifted to that player even if they were not present when the item dropped.
   

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

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

Check out our FaQ over on our forums!


Thank You,
Last Epoch Team

Hey Travelers!

Signup for Last Epoch’s Free Multiplayer Beta Playtest is now live on Steam!

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to introduce your friends to Last Epoch, there is no better time than right now. You don’t need to own a copy of the game; all you need is a Steam account. Head over to our steam page and hit the sign-up button!



When can we sign up?
Right now!

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

What the Free Multiplayer Beta includes

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

We are looking forward to seeing you in Eterra,
Last Epoch Team

Hello Travelers!

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

Introducing, the Traveler’s Backpack.

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



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

[expand type=Spoilers]


Starting in the Top Left, and going around clockwise!

1. The Last Epoch Logo Patch - This was the first version of the Last Epoch logo revealed during our Kickstarter launch.
   
2. The original Symbol of Eterra
   
3. Bee-Mike - A wonderful momento from our Dev Mike and his Bee-Themed streams!
   
4. In the map pocket on the right side - Map of Eterra
   
5. The Bedroll on Top - Our first support pack playmat from our Kickstarter.
   
6. Fools! Fools! - One of our favorite quotes from our resident disgruntled Mage.
   
7. Rahyeh’s Reserve Hot Sauce - created for the 2022 April Fool’s Day by team member Wick, and showcased in a special hot wings episode on the Weekly Dev Stream.
   
8. The Material of the backpack itself is 100% authentic grole hide. (All grole hide was ethically sourced
9. from a series of ones and zeros.)
   
10. Navigational Instruments - Every Traveler needs tools to read their maps.
    
11. Zizaran Campaign Mug - from our earliest campaigns to support Last Epoch!
    
12. Primalist Patch - The OG class icon to showcase the Primalist.
    
13. A Skullen figurine - Remembering the early times of Last Epoch!
    
14. Epog!
    
15. Where would we be without the ever-present reminder of Multiplayer When?
    
16. Orian’s Eye - Always watching you. Waiting. :slight_smile:

[/expand]

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



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

If you are thinking about jumping into the world of Eterra there is still time to also get the original supporter packs, but those will be going away during our March 9th release, and a new set of supporter packs will become available. The price for Last Epoch will still remain the same, so you don’t need to worry about a price increase when the launch happens.

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

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

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

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

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

Thank You to everyone,
Last Epoch Team

Hello Travelers,

First and foremost, we would like to thank all of you who participated in the Pack the Server Event Week. We understand it was a lot to ask to sign up for the event, and changing around branches on Steam to get involved, and we greatly appreciate everyone who took the time and effort to do so. This event was able to provide us with all sorts of great information from not only our backend systems but all sorts of feedback provided directly by all of you.

Bugs were encountered and squashed. The servers struggled and were improved. Over the course of the event, we released several hotfixes to improve and fix various issues brought to our attention, and eventually even released the last remaining endgame system to the event, the Arena, alongside a number of server-side improvements which made it possible.

One of the things we were able to test to great results was our ability to quickly develop and QA changes based on feedback, complete a build for the fix and release the build within a short timeframe. On the day the event started, the client released at 10:00AM CT, then only 6 hours later were able to release the first hotfix for several bugs, as well as adjust to feedback changing the beta disclaimer to only display once per account. Over the event, we also continued to get a lot of great feedback regarding the various performance, scenes, VFX, and SFX sounds, which were great to read and feel the excitement for 0.9. Overall, we were very happy with the results of the event.

As we continue to close in on 0.9 (less than a month away!) we’re focusing almost entirely on resolving the remaining bugs as all core systems for 0.9 are in place. That means all the little bugs regarding quest state tracking, channeling skills, controller adjustments, and continued endgame server performance are the items on our remaining hitlist for 0.9. Of course, we still have one more upcoming event on Feb 23rd, the Open Beta Event, in which all steam users are able to participate, even if they don’t currently own Last Epoch.

Over the coming weeks, we will be posting more information regarding the launch of 0.9 Convergence, some more specifics on some of the changes you all got to experience, and of course as we close in on patch day itself, the much-anticipated patch notes!

Thank you, everyone, we hope you enjoyed your time during this preview of 0.9, with the zone reworks, skill changes, and of course the early multiplayer beta allowing us to get the servers tuned for the much-anticipated release of the multiplayer beta on March 9th.

We hope to see you all there on March 9th for Beta Patch 0.9 - Convergence!

Hello Travelers!

This past weekend we held our first of multiple multiplayer events, the “Invitational”, which went exceptionally well. The aim of this event was to gather feedback, test our live operations procedures, and give the community their first full look at playing together with friends in Last Epoch. We were able to capture a ton of significant data and feedback to help us prepare for the multiplayer release coming with Last Epoch: Convergence on March 9th.

From what we observed, many of the participants thoroughly enjoyed the new and updated campaign zones, all the VFX, SFX, and music changes, which was fantastic to hear. We also received a lot of positive feedback regarding the ease of grouping up, and generally feeling great playing together for hours on end, outside of a few minor bugs (we’re on them!). Some issues that we are aware of and have been actively working on did rear their heads during this event, such as server-side performance in end-game activities and specific late-game team strategies that were providing too great of a bonus for groups. While we were aware of these kinds of things, from the event, we were able to get a better view of where these impacts are coming from, have made some adjustments to our priorities, and have already made some changes for the next events.

We want to go over some of this feedback and what kind of differences you can see between the Invitational event, future events, and Patch 0.9.



One of the last things we saw during the event, but one of the first we want to address, is some late-game activities server-side performance. While participants agreed that client-side performance has improved significantly with this release, we did encounter some issues with server performance for endgame builds that can spawn a lot of objects. As mentioned, this was something we were already aware of and actively working on for 0.9. However, the event was able to show us a few specific things that were leading to more performance loss than others.

One of the largest offenders we were able to identify was server lag encountered when groups would split up within an area to individually tackle different parts of the zone. This caused a number of issues, including many actors to all be activated at once, and the server needed to handle that data flow for each player. We’re already well along on a fix for this which should greatly help reduce that performance hit, and while it won’t be in place for Thursday’s event, it will be in place shortly after. There are other hidden things we’re working on (like excessive server logging); however, we think this was one of the more visible issues, and so wanted to make sure we’re addressing it here.

Another offender we saw with ‘lag’, was actually not performance at all. We found some participants who were experiencing lag were actually being assigned to incorrect server locations, such as European players being issued North American servers. This is something we immediately began investigating, and have some changes in place to help address incorrect server allocations which should help with many of these scenarios. In conjunction with the added ability to see server region with the latency tooltip, we expect this to help improve the experience when partying with various players, as well as being able to recognize reasoning for certain ping values.


Of course, there was a lot of gameplay experience feedback provided that we’re acting on as well. For the next event, we’re prioritizing some of the quickest improvements we can get in in time. Some adjustments are technically smaller things, like adjusting the latency bar to represent expectations with ping values better, and adding server information to the latency tooltip, however, this can have a much larger impact on user experience and received more feedback than we expected. As such, we’re working on adding these two items for the event this Thursday.

One of the more common areas of feedback we received during the event was that the campaign was made a bit too easy when in a full party. In response to this, we’re going to be bumping up enemy health scaling for the next event. We’re doing this in smaller increments, so we don’t over-correct, as many of these players are highly experienced players, but we’ll be continuing to monitor feedback on this and adjusting as well.

We also heard from participants that they really enjoyed the new online monolith experience with seamless transitions between Echoes and Echo of a World (the rest area in monoliths). For the campaign, though, the length of some loading screen times was a common topic. We have some adjustments already in the pipe to help reduce these loading screen times, which we’re hoping to have in for this Thursday’s 10k event.


Another common topic of feedback was item gifting and the user experience of it. While feedback noted that the interaction felt really good with gifting, and it was a strong addition to gameplay, currently, once you gift an item to a party member, that item can’t be gifted again. Being unable to gift it further caused a couple of negative experiences during the event, so in response, we’re changing this so that when an item is gifted, it retains its ‘giftability’ status and can still be gifted to all the same people who were eligible for it. While this does offer a bit more power to the gifting system, we want to prioritize a fun experience.

Many keen-eyed community members also called out that there seemed to be something up with item drop rates during the event, and that some things appeared a little more common than normal. They’re correct! In response to feedback from both previous blog posts, and event feedback, we’re adjusting some drop rates. In particular, this means making ‘rarer’ idols such as Smite on Throwing Hit not as rare, culling some of the lower level drops - converting them into crafting material drops, and adjusting the distribution of exalted items to make drops more exciting rather than all the focus being on echo reward nodes. We’re continuing to tweak this to reach an even better state in the looting and gearing experience in Last Epoch, and are actively watching feedback on this topic.

We also see the efficiency of boss farming in multiplayer talked about frequently. We currently have an active plan to bring this in line that we’re working on implementing. When you participate in a monolith boss fight in multiplayer, in order to get rewards you will need to have sufficient stability for the fight, and receiving rewards from the fight will cost your stability. So while you can participate in any boss fight, in order to get rewards you need to have, and spend the stability for it. This means you won’t be able to farm stability once as a group, then chain bosses with each party member. While this change won’t be in place for Thursday’s event, we wanted to acknowledge that we do hear this feedback, and are actively working on it!


There are, of course, many other things we’re continuing to work on, and with our next pre-patch event in only a few days, we’re hard at work on getting everything ready for this Thursday’s 10k Multiplayer Beta week-long event. We’re really excited to get everyone in the community into the experience, as well as the big Pack the Server party, where we’ll ask everyone to help us break things on Saturday. There’s a lot to see and explore with 0.9, including many new unique items, base item changes, updates and adjustments to almost every skill in the game, new zones, VFX, SFX, Enemies, and a whole bunch more. Even if you’re not a big ‘multiplayer’ enthusiast, there’s still a lot to see and check out in this patch.

If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to sign up for the 10k event, you can quickly and easily do so here: https://events.lastepoch.com/packtheserverparty. We hope to see all of you in Eterra in just a couple of days.

Until then Travelers, may the bees be with you!