First and foremost, I am enjoying the game very much, and I appreciate how communicative and responsive the development team are on Discord and here in the forums. The devs seem very involved and pursuant to improving the game for the playerbase. So, up front, cheers and thanks for that.
With that said, my suggestion here is to, somehow, improve the sense of “achievement” after character level 75 or so. I am not campaigning for immediate gratification or constant reward, but, to me, it seems that the feel of progression locks up around this point. The game becomes less of a game and more of a task or job… the proverbial grind. Granted, with ARPGs, the grind is expected (perhaps madatory when seeking optimal gear,) but therein is my concern. The “return” when playing at/past level 75 diminishes so rapidly, one is not seeing (good) gear, mats, skills, passives, perks, levels et al. often enough to give the sense of accomplishment. It seems to be… a slog. Loping through molasses only to repeat the process over and over until a level or a base with potential or that elusive crafting mat or… whatever occurs.
A point toward passive progression at level 75+ probably won’t make or break a build, but, to that point, the earning of that point is quite laborious. That sweet base that one finds can disappear in a moment if a low percentage fracture occurs just as one is investing in it (woe unto you that suffers the 95% success fracture) which means back to the (RNG) drawing board in the hopes of finding that clean slate once more. Crafting materials, unlike shards, are also more difficult to come by (and, given the value of solidly crafted gear, with good reason) but they too can feel wasted if a fracture (or, as of this post, a glitch) consumes/loses them all too untimely.
Full disclosure, I have not played all character types to this level and, even so, my max character as of this post is 80. I am not a min/max player although I do tweak-and-test to get the function from my build as suits my play style (read: capacity to play.) I am, for all intents and purposes, a filthy causal with a ton of time on his hands.
Last Epoch is a game I enjoy, want to play and want to progress on invested, higher-level characters, but I feel as though I should punch into a time clock first when a character reach the 70s. The game, its mechanics, the direction it seems to be heading and its development team are good, great even… I am definitely not saying otherwise. I know, too, that it is only just recently into beta and will evolve over the next year before its full release (when I am sure it will continue to grow and improve.) There is also the fact that the game, in its current state is neither complete (storyline) nor finalized as to what the “end game” will actually be (I believe the current monolith and arena implementations are more works-in-progress than absolute implementation.) I am simply putting forth that currently, at the higher levels, something is missing to make the playing of the game as rewarding as were those levels leading up to that point. The enjoyment/satisfaction train wanes… drastically.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a solid suggestion on what might improve the experience that would necessarily work. Reducing the parabolic XP curve at higher levels? Increasing the accessibility of base items at any time via the vendor relative to one’s level? Increasing the drop rate of crafting materials to allow more risk/experimentation? Adding in passive and/or skill tree diversity options, based on where a character is within a level, to add nuance to one’s build? I don’t know. I can only hope that the conversation occurs in the community (presuming I am not an island alone on this perception) and at the dev team table so as to acknowledge, address and resolve/remove the seemingly Sysiphean mantle that occurs when leveling/advancing past level 75.
Cheers all!