Allegedly, it is possible to “dupe” items in Last Epoch – to simply multiply them. Players are said to have found a way to exploit this and have provided evidence that duplication occurs frequently. The problem could cause massive damage to the economy, as Diablo 2 already showed 24 years ago.
What kind of problem is this?
- “Duping” is a known exploit that occurs in all sorts of genres: Players create exact copies of their items through glitches.
- Especially in games with player trading, duping is a problem. Here, exploiters use such bugs to amass huge amounts of money.
- Now players have supposedly found a way that such a duping exploit works in Last Epoch.
Why is this such a big problem? Duping sustainably destroys the economy in a game. The best example, directly from the genre, is Diablo 2. At some point, there was so much gold that players traded in items instead.
The famous “Stone of Jordan” became the currency that was nearly endless on the market due to duping. Eventually, Blizzard had to take the rings out of the game for a quest. They were needed to summon Uber-Diablo, but by then it was already too late.
In other games, like New World, the developers introduced new servers and conducted wipes to remove duplicated gold. The consequences and measures were not particularly pleasant for all players.
The core of the problem is allegedly the item factions:
“People exploit the Merchant Guild to generate gold”
In Last Epoch, there is only one way to trade items for gold: You must be a member of the Merchant Guild. Then, you can offer items at the bazaar and sell them to other players.
Here, players have noticed that they sometimes find identical items (via Reddit). This is actually nearly impossible, as Last Epoch has so many possible affixes and ranges that the same item appearing twice on the market is extremely unlikely.
Other players confirm in the comments that they have also found glitches with which they could duplicate items: “I reported it, then it was ignored. I’m not risking my account for gold that won’t be worth anything in eight weeks.”
The problem has been ongoing for weeks and is even due to several bugs. Some are frustrated with the developers, who apparently ignore this issue. However, as Diablo 2 and New World show, the fight against dupers is not easily won.
Moreover, dupers are apparently not the only dishonest players: Fans warn in Last Epoch: Don’t trust the best builds on the leaderboard, they are all lying
