Hello and welcome, Travelers to another exciting entry of Making Last Epoch. Today we have the pleasure of hearing from Anna Lyon, the Senior Technical Quality Assurance Tester for Last Epoch. She will be walking us through the Bug Fixing Process and how the team prevents Bugs from entering the live build of Last Epoch.


Bugs are collected through our In-Game Bug Reporting tool which players use to tell us when they’ve found something that isn’t as it should be. Alternatively, Bugs are caught internally and we make Bug reports through our studio communication. Then automated tickets are made within our task tracking system in order to better organize the severity of the situations.

How to decide what is a Bug and what is a local issue.

• We have a couple of ways. One is that local hardware problems would be more rare. It would be a problem that looks strange and only comes up 1 in 1000 reports. If it’s serious enough, we will make a ticket trying to reproduce the Bug ourselves and attach these reports together to do an investigation when we have time. Another comes down to experience most of the time. In this line of work you see it all, and slowly form connections between Bugs present to roughly understand where it comes from, whether it’s a visual, mechanical or hardware problem, gets easier.
  
  
• The other is just trying to find a reproduceable case. If it’s a local problem you will most likely not run into a solid reproduction; or cases where players are able to reproduce the issue but our teams are not able to do so on our internal builds. Localized problems can even happen internally, this is why we always have more than one QA go through the same written steps to eliminate every possible difference to make sure the cause can be narrowed down to hardware.

Looking at our In-Game Bug Reports

• QA will go through the list of Bugs and either filter by day or a specific problem. For example if we are looking for skill related issues, we might look for issues where players called out skills like “warpath” to help narrow down the list.
  
• In Game Bug Reports, which are sent from the community, have all sorts of valuable info attached to them as well as any details the player offers describing what the problem is. The more detailed the report, the better everything goes for us. Some of the information automatically added to these reports includes: game graphics settings, server logs, player logs, zone name of the place they are in, a screenshot of the location, etc.
  
• A good source of information outside of what the player is describing in the issue, is looking at their player logs which include client specific errors (errors related to any visual loaded into the scene) and server logs (anything loaded in on the server). If there are clues to the problem here, which most of the time there are, we use this to update the internal report to point to a specific problem that is called out.

The next step is reproduction of the problem. This is a complex step which takes a lot of trial and error using context clues from the error messages, screenshot, and what the player has mentioned in the report. From there we try to piece together what happened and try to recreate the problem. If we can, we record the reproduction steps in the report, before it gets passed to our internal tracker of issues ready for devs to take a crack at. What I want to stress is just knowing there is a problem is not enough to fix it, being able to reproduce the problem is what helps development handle Bugs quickly; reproductions are extremely important. If we cannot reproduce an issue, two things can happen:

• If it’s serious enough it might go to a dev to investigate what a possible source might be. This can be a very long and taxing process when we have very limited information to guide us. A developer could spend that time to fix Bugs we have reproduced reliably.
  
• It gets placed on-hold until we get reports of it again and reassess the details of the report to see if we can make a reproduction case with the new information. No bugs are ever forgotten and we do occasionally go through our On-Hold list to see if we can make any headway.

From there the issue is tagged by management with appropriate labels such as “skills”, “error” or “UI” and filtered to a specific team that would handle those problems. Managers task out these to individual devs when they get dropped off. The developer then fixes the problem.

The Steps:

The steps and time it takes to solve the issue varies dramatically, based on the complexity of the issue and how many other objects the Bug is affected by.

Once a developer has resolved the problem it is sent back into our QA queue for testing. This could take multiple iterations where we test if the Bug is no longer present using our reproduction steps. It might be sent back multiple times depending on if there are side effects to the fix or if it’s not fully resolved.

Once we give a Bugfix the green light, it is processed and patched to our main branch. From there it is tagged for Production, to be a candidate for a hotfix, and cycled into patch releases.

***

We'd like to thank Anna for taking the time out of her day to show us what it takes to bring down the pesky hoard of bugs that threaten our time in Eterra. We hope you've enjoyed this look into Making Last Epoch, and we will see you all again very soon!

Welcome Travelers to the Eterra Monthly December 2024 Edition!

We hope everyone had a happy holiday season and fantastic new year! Another month has passed, and we’re here with our boots on the ground to bring you the latest from Eterra!


Our team has heard that the Cartographers have released a new map detailing the Road forward to better aid intrepid travelers on their journey. Our field reporter journeyed out to get a first hand look at what travelers can expect to find in the wilds of Eterra, let’s hear from them!

"Setting off from The Surface, I followed my usual rambling route towards Shrouded Ridge to get a look at these Dungeon Improvements! Through Lightless Arbor, then a quick hop, skip and waypoint from Corrupted Lake to Risen Lake, I made my way to through the Soulfire Bastion giving a quick nod to the Gambler before popping out at Kolheim Pass to poke my nose into the Champions Arena. While there I used that waypoint to pop over the Ruined Cost, said hello to Ortra’ek before giving the Temporal Sanctum a once over! All in all, they’re looking good!

After a good ramble round Eterra, I always take a break in the End of Time. While there I got to spy on some Monolith of Fate Improvements! I overheard talk about Woven Echoes, and something to do with Tombs and Cemeteries though it was difficult to get specific details as the workers kept getting drowned out by loud growls and rumblings. I was informed that new Champion Enemies had been seen roaming around, rarer and more formidable, these enemies should be handled with care. For travelers delving deep into the Monolith of Fate, warnings of New Endgame Bosses have been posted too.

That would explain what I saw the Sentinel preparing for. I spotted them testing some skills on the Training Dummies, they very kindly informed me that it was a ‘completely re-created Volatile Reversal skill’ - they seemed very proud of it! They also let me know that what I was seeing was also down to new Endgame Crafting Additions they had discovered.

These changes will be easier for travelers to find as the Seasons change, though for now there is a superb summary of what travellers can expect here - Season 2 and Beyond - Closer Look[forum.lastepoch.com]."




“Taxi!!” - A great plot device for media set in New York, though not something you’d want to hear over and over, even in text form.

We’ve heard you though, and will be implementing a ‘Waypoint Unlock’ for The Bazaar and The Observatory. These will not act as ‘Campaign skips’ however as players will not be able to travel back to Maj’Elka from these locations.


The team has been pushing hard on Controller Improvements, and that includes an overhaul on how targeting works for all skills - even node transformations! Currently many skills can default to ‘Max Range’ but the team is working on fine-tuning specific targeting methods for each skill based on what the player is likely actually trying to accomplish.


In Season 2, we’re adding some QoL features to the UI. One of these is making it possible to open the In Game Bug Reporting Tool with F8, allowing players to share screenshots of UI issues for reports. It will also give a small preview of the screenshot being sent to us, to the left of the IGBR tool.

You will also be able to change the input option for keyboard, mouse and controller to better suit your needs.


As we mentioned in the Roadmap earlier this month, the team is tackling our ‘bug debt’ - the long standing bugs that have persisted through patches. While a portion of those issues are being addressed as part of larger changes we’ll discuss in larger posts, we can share some issues that have been confirmed as fixed by our dev team.

• Fixed a bug where Kermode’s Cage did not give your Werebear Form white fur in Online.
  
• Fixed a bug where Reaper Form did not switch its model visuals to poison, cold, or blood themes based on conversions allocated in the skill tree in Online.
  
• Fixed a bug where Werebear Form did not switch its model visuals to lightning based on conversions allocated in the skill tree in Online.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spriggan Form and Swarmblade Form did not switch their model visuals to cold based on conversions allocated in the skill tree in Online.
  
• Fixed a bug where Overlay Map Opacity would sometimes reset when re-opening the settings menu.
  
• Fixed a bug where Transplant’s Bone Armor started on cooldown when allocated.
  
• Fixed a bug where Upheaval did not move its melee, area, and physical or cold tags to minion tags when Upheaval Totems is allocated.
  
• For example, Apogee of Frozen Light’s +3 to cold and necrotic minion skills will now correctly apply to Upheaval when Upheaval Totems and Glacial Cascade are allocated.
  
• Fixed a bug where Lightning Blast’s Halo Effect was unable to create Spark Novas.
  
• Fixed a bug where Explosive Trap would not create additional traps up to your maximum traps if you allocated Blast Rain and No Man’s Land.
  
• Fixed a bug where leech provided by skill trees could ignore Boulderfist’s “cannot leech” affix if the player had no other sources of leech.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Coordinated Fade node would not provide stacks of Silver Shroud when the ability occupying the designated slot is a combo ability.
  
• Fixed a bug where using both Unbroken Prayer & Homeward on Healing Hands makes it so the ability is never actually cast while still going through the animation and consuming mana.

We know not everyone has the time or time zone to join Mike on Twitch for streams and can miss out on some of the fun teasers and news that gets shared. We’ve collected all of the latest one here for you!

11-29-24

Mike seemed to be making up for a teaser light November - we had some new Sentinel nodes for Paladins and Void Knights, as well as a sneak peak at a new mob! The Marsh Beetle Queen!

12-06-24

On the first week of Christmas, Mike bequeathed to meeeee… nothing, Mike took a week off. Rude.

12-13-24

On the second week of Christmas, Mike bequeathed to meeeee… 2 new Sentinel Nodes and an existing node with something missiiiiiiing

12-20-24

On the third week of Christmas, Mike bequeathed to meeeee… Nada, they were taking a well deserved break to be with their family during the Holiday season. We all eagerly await their return to Eterra and hope they bring even more, exciting stuff for us to talk about!


This months Community Build Spotlight spells trouble for Aberroth, shattering their HP and Ward down to nothing in just a few strikes!

If Spellblade builds have ever caught your interest but the ‘glass cannon effect’ has put you off, look no further! While using the same Skills as the Amarathy Maxroll Shatter Strike Guide[maxroll.gg], SnoWyz focuses on improving their Dodge via Dexterity points, Ward retention via Intelligence and Cold Melee Damage via gear and idols to hit hard while avoiding hits themselves. You can see just how effective their build is in this video of them facing off against Aberroth.

While last months Build Spotlight was light on the Uniques, this one leans quite heavily on them. A key role in this build appears to be the +8 levels to Shatter Strike gained from various gear affixes, the main source being the crafted T7 ‘+4 to Level of Shatter Strike / 142% increased Cold Damage’ hybrid affix as part of their Kestrel Body Armour[www.lastepochtools.com]. Luckily this Unique drops from Level 1 making it one of the easier items to farm to get the crafting juuuuuust right. On the opposite end of the scale though we have the Red Ring of Atlaria[www.lastepochtools.com], as this is an extremely rare drop it’s worth keeping an eye out for good alternatives while you hunt this one down.

The other Uniques such as Eye of Reen[www.lastepochtools.com], Boulderfists[www.lastepochtools.com], Blood of the Exile[www.lastepochtools.com] and Siphon of Anguish[www.lastepochtools.com] are easier to find, though to reach this builds full potential crafting T7 affixes onto them is recommended so try to farm them when and where you can.

You can check out the full build breakdown here on Last Epoch Tools[www.lastepochtools.com].



Hi Mike! Let’s start with who you are and what your role is in EHG!

I am a Senior Technical Game Designer. My role at EHG has evolved a lot over the years. I started out as a Game Developer but we all had so many roles back then.
Senior Technical Game Designer is a hell of a mouthful! How did you join the team?

On August 1st, 2017 I found a post on the D2 subreddit from Judd called “Creating a ARPG - Skill System Planning”. I was a recent university grad and was struggling to find a “real” job. So I was fixing computers as I had done for over 10 years at that point and had been working on a mobile first person pacman game with a friend. I still want to remake it someday as I bet it would take me a weekend to recreate 6 months of work. It would also run probably 100x faster. I was really just looking for some enthusiast project to have some fun with and Judd invited me to the Discord to chat and hang. I had a functioning early version in my hands by the next week. The character was a textureless knight. You had a handful of abilities at most. I think Leap Slam, Summon Wolf, Fireball and Cleave were what you had to work with. It had a handful of zones in a swamp setting. There might have been a basic equipment system but I don’t remember. I was already hooked. About 18 months later I quit my “real job” that I had ended up finding after all to work on LE full time.

Here is a link to my unedited, first contact with Judd: https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/comments/6qr9mk/creating_a_arpg_skill_system_planning/dl0q0wa/

That’s pretty awesome! Now you’re with EHG, what do you do day to day?

I mostly split my time between coming up with cool ideas, discussing game design topics, and implementing individual skill nodes or items. I also have a few other responsibilities like doing the weekly dev Q&A livestream. I’ve managed to scale back the departments that I work with over the last couple years which has been really nice to be able to focus more and more on design elements. Making new skill nodes is my favourite part of the game to work on. I have been working on a future feature for the last couple months so I’m less directly connected than usual to the implementation of the upcoming patch. I still pitch in on random bugs here and there as needed too.

Is there anything you have worked on that you’re really proud of or just want to talk about more?

There have been a lot of systems that I was really proud of at the time over the years. Most of them have been replaced at this point but I think a few of them were really key in getting us across the line for a few patches. I implemented the first full inventory grid and equipment system that we used in the Kickstarter version. I brought the ill-fated passive web to the game that we initially used, shout out to my buddy who pitched a much more complex version of that. I still want to incorporate into a game at some point in the future, it was just a touch too complex to flow smoothly for Epoch. I remember the initial Blessings design and implementation came right down to the wire. We were late night working on that before the patch and that system has survived very well. I built a lot of the world map functionality and it has a some neat little behind the scenes scripts that do some pretty boring things but I think are cool.

The part I’m most proud of though are all the skill nodes that do cool stuff that we’ve made. I can’t really take individual credit for many of them as it’s a very collaborative process but as a member of that team, I’m really happy with what we’ve been able to make.

What influences the choices you make for Last Epoch?

I feel like everything does. I have a tough time turning off the part of my brain that is looking for game mechanics everywhere. I do a lot of gaming related things in my free time so the influences come from all over the place. I get lots of influence from ARPGs and other games like D2, PoE, Zelda and Civ but it doesn’t stop there - I’ve found myself taking mental notes while playing Magic, board games, escape rooms or even watching shows like Taskmaster. Seeing what challenges people and the way they tackle those challenges is really interesting to me.

If you had unlimited resources, what would you add to Last Epoch and why?

Omega tier cinematics because having an “LE Movie” built into the game would be really cool and it’s the most expensive thing I can think of without cheating with something like 5 new base classes or 10 new end game systems and I don’t think “the best servers free forever” is a very exciting answer. But free game servers forever would let us do some pretty sweet stuff.

What do you think makes a game truly memorable for players?

Moments of Triumph. And I don’t just mean winning, I mean that one time you overcame your greatest challenge after struggling against all odds. I think this might be why many of us have such strong memories of games when we were kids. I’m old enough that fact checking Jimmy on the playground that punching a van thousands of times wouldn’t spawn a Mew wasn’t an easy thing to do. So, many times when you got stuck in a game, you were stuck for a long time. These long struggles made the Moment of Triumph so much more special. So next time you think you’re stuck in a game, I suggest avoiding asking uncle Google for help for as long as you can.

It must be fun being the Face of the Last Epoch Twitch account, how did you end up doing that?

My first time in front of the camera for Last Epoch was during the Kickstarter video. I was there mostly just because I was willing to do it. Then the first Dev Stream was in 2018, shortly after the Kickstarter. Almost nobody was there and I was actually streaming working on the game itself, not playing it. I think I was working on early passive web nodes (yes it was a web back then). At some point I got nervous of showing so many behind the scenes things and we shut it down. Probably lasted about 10 streams over a month at most. Then as time went on, I became to default person answering questions in the Discord “ask-the-devs” channel.

When we had a social team and were looking for new things to try out, I think word got around that I had streamed in the past and I was asked to try it again but this time just playing the game and I’ve done some 3? 4? years of them now. I’m not actually sure how long we’ve been doing those. We are planning on having more guests come on with me to be able to give different perspectives and talk more knowledgeably about the disciplines that I just don’t know well enough. Let us know if there is a specific discipline you would like to join me.

Final question - Why IS Teal’c better than O’Neill?

Because it must be opposite day. Teal’c is fantastic but O’Neill’s banter is what gives the show so much of its charm. Favourite episode: Window of Opportunity (the groundhog day episode). Specifically for the bit when he does all the things he has always wanted to do. Honorable Mention 1: Wormhole X-Treme! for the part when Vala pitches her and Cameron’s previous show Farscape to the director and he doesn’t recognize it. Honorable Mention 2: Moebius for the part where Sam makes fun of her own cringy opening scene from the first episode. Ah crap, now I’m just rewatching SG1 again.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?

If the sun vanished, the earth would be orbiting an empty point in space for about 8m20s because gravity travels at the speed of light.



We’ve been following this for a while now and it’s coming along nicely but they still won’t tell us what the final version will be! Is this how players feel when we tease features but won’t elaborate?


No matter what you celebrated during the holidays, Gregory was there to wish you a happy holiday in his own festive way. Our Grole Intern of EHG donned his holiday hat and joined the Discord for your entertainment, hoping to spread some holiday cheer this season. While Gregory believes the holidays never end, they have agreed to return to their work uniform barrel hat by the twelfth night. However, due to a misunderstanding, they believed this to be January 12th. In the spirit of the holidays, EHG has agreed not to argue the point. Please enjoy your time with our festive intern for a while longer.


And the writing is in the Forums! While we all wait for more news around the exciting changes and updates in Season 2, the Community Team is working on other changes such as updating our Forums! Part of that is new Profile Icons and new Wallpapers, on which we would like your input.

We have a post for each feature, so please let us know what you’d like to see!

• Wallpapers - What would you like?[forum.lastepoch.com]
  
• Forum Player Profile Icon Overhaul - with contest![forum.lastepoch.com]

As we all return from the Holiday Break, our teams will be diving back into their work for the upcoming Season 2. Between now and then we will continue to keep you updated via Eterra Monthly, let you see behind the curtain with our Making Last Epoch Blog Posts and, when the time is right, Season 2 Hype Posts!

This has been Eterra Monthly; a report on the happenings and changes in the world of Last Epoch. We hope you have enjoyed this month’s report and will see you all again soon.