Announcing: Final Dawn - An endgame-mod

Grim Dawn Modding - Projects
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Edit: The Post has been modified to better distinguish between ideas that are planned / worked on and ideas which are subject to change / subject of discussion.
Introduction:

Final Dawn will be a collection of improvements/changes to existing systems in grim dawn, to improve the feel and playablilty of the “end-game”. The concept behind this mod will always be to keep charcters compatible with the main campaign and to only rework existing conent without adding (almost) no extra content. I’ll tackle these systems one by one, and I am open to feedback, in order to create a mod that provides end-game friendly systems.
Regarding Feedback: I’d really like to hear you feedback on things that are written in blue

The goals:

There are a few design principles that this mod will go by, the most important ones listed here:
-Full character compability: Add as little new items as possible (expection: blueprints)
-Less quitting / reloading
-A wide variety of viable farming options, for those who want to play casually
-An endgame that provides content for all types of geared characters, no system should be behind a stat wall
-Systems have loot specifications: There will be no system, that is “the best farming method for everything” - different systems provide different items

The current focus:
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Faction and [SIZE=3]Nemesis Rework:

[SIZE=2]Factions:
-Each friendly faction will have some predefined items/components which they’ll reward: so if you need for example Chipped Claws, doing for example Devils Crossing Bounties will be efficient.
-Bounties will be reworked: No more “item-bounties”; bounties will take longer and give better rewards as a result
-New: Trading option with factions: Each faction has a set of predefined trades which you can always do once you reach the required reputation (i was thainking about “revered”). These trades include trading components of the same “Tier”: Polished emerald for a scavanged plating and relics of the same tier: calamity for a ruination.
These features should solidify the faction quests/rewards as a reliable way to get the components you need.
Nemesis:
-Nemesis no longer automatically spawn once you reach “nemesis reputation”
-You may now challenge a nemesis by selecting that option in the bounty table of a rivalring faction to that nemesis. (For example: In Devil’s crossing you may challenge the aetherial nemesis in burrwitch and the inner labatory; from the fort ikon bounty table of the black legion you can challenge the aetherial nemesis in the plains of strive)
-The area in which the nemesis can appear is smaller -> less time spent looking for them
-There will be easier and harder nemesis, between which you can choose, depending on you gear
-Nemesis bosses will be rebalanced: The fights are less about high damage/high defense and require more skill: like focusing on summons, dodging powerful attacks.
-There will be either a forced delay before you can challange another nemesis (you lose infamy which you have to regain or need items to challenge a nemesis) OR no forced delay, making nemesis bosses much easier to farm
-The first option will result in an overall better loottable, since the nemesis per hour compared to the main campaign will be lower
-The second option will result in overall worse loottables, but keeping a focus on blueprints and nemesis MI, so that nemesis are a good way to get these items
-The difference between elite and ultimate rewards from nemesis troves will be increased; it will be much less viable to farm on elite as an ultimate-viable character

[SIZE=4]Planned system changes:

-Rogue Like Dungeons:
-Those should be the best place to get unqiue items from
-These dungeons promote a risk/reward playstyle: More kill-rooms
-A celestial smith like the one from tyrant’s hold will appear after killing the final boss: For only a resource gained throughout the dungeon, he is able to create random legendaries of a certain type
-This resource will be awarded by killing the final boss of the dungeon, completing kill rooms and maybe purchaseable from the merchant for a large sum of iron bits
-The difficulties of the dungeons will be ajusted (lowered, highered) so that SoT will be for “lower geared chars” and BoC for “well geared chars”
-Your suggestions

-Crafting System:
-Balancing crafting costs: components/items of similar strength should be equally difficult to craft
[COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]-Adding new blueprints/recepies for existing legendary/epic items

[/COLOR] Final words:[SIZE=2]

This mod will be BIG, not only in the time needed to make it, but also in file size, as the main map will be modified and is integrated in the files.

Please post your suggestions, feedback and questions here, as this thread serves the purpose of an early source of feedback.
In the future, this thread will be expanded/changed and even after the mod becomes available, please refer to this threat for balacing discussion and suggestions.

Hopefully i was able to explain all complicated concepts in an understandable matter.
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Some really good ideas around the nemesis and faction changes. Thanks for putting this together.

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Final Dawn: AnOTHER endgame mod

Jokes aside, I actually think this is an amazing approach and so very different from other “endgame” mods. Finally someone’s not trying to add (much) content, but rather make the current one better.

For your Goal 4, maybe you should stay in touch with Ceno and adoomgod?

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Thank you, I’ll defentity keep an eye out on conrnucopia, especially because it adresses the things that this mod won’t: items and skills. Once this mod is more finished (so maybe not the first release of it), i’ll start merging both of them.

However balance is something I still need to gather feedback for and is probably the last thing that’ll be finished.

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:undecided:

Not really a fan of the proposed Nemesis system changes. I like the idea of being able to ‘challenge’ a Nemesis but I dislike the idea of losing infamy upon succeeding. Doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense and, in the long run, it seems as though it would simply dissuade fighting Nemeses at all regardless of their rewards.

Also SoT is already the easier of the two RLDs. Would prefer to see someone saying they’ll make it harder. >.>

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While i can agree that losing infamy doesn’t make sense, I need to implement a way to stop the player from constantly fightning (exclusivly farming) nemesis bosses, without doing anything else. This is beacuse the time spent looking for nemesis bosses will be shorter than in the main campaign. One of these mechanics would be infamy, since it is already part of the character save files. Another one would be, that the player has to gain certain items to “evoke the anger” of the nemesis and challenge them to a duel. These items would be gained through similar means as reputation, like bounties and hero kills. However, such a change results in less character compability.
But this discussion comes down to the simple question:
Do you dislike the idea of delaying the time spent between nemesis or the way i want to implement it?

Actually i can partially agree on that: Outside of the “kill-rooms” the dunegon is not challenging enough. While i haven’t fully decided on the balance changes yet, i can definitely say that there will be more and in difficulty varying “kill rooms” to make the dungeon interesting.

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@Eregerog

Easier thank you think. Just worsen their drop rates on legendaries/epics considerably.

But then nobody will farm them at all? Not true, keep a decent drop-rate on their MI’s and make sure MI’s are actually good.

If you properly address their drop-rates, and the drop-rates of the over all game, you can get players do do a mix of Nemesis and other things instead of just nemesis… and you won’t need to clunkily force players to lose infamy.

Just an alternative idea, but it’ll take work and lots of tuning iterations… trial and error.

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Announcing: Final Dawn - Another endgame wannabe mod.

No jokes here. We already got a few of them here, why would your mod be special compared to the others already available?

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Thanks for the feedback, I’ll take that idea into consideration. Furthermore, I added it to the original post and want to hear the opinion of others, about which of the systems they like more.

I don’t see a mod that changes the systems that play a role in the end game, like nemesis, factions and rogue-like dungeons while esuring character compability. I also updated the original post to clarify, that this mod is more about improving existing systems than “tuning numbers” as balance changes in the end game.

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It’s not special. It’s just something he wants to do so he can not only have his vision for end-game but share it with others like himself… same as the rest of us.

Why wouldn’t you just behave like a kind person and not shit-post on someone putting in effort to share something with the rest of us?

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Okay, now you got my interest. Thanks for clarifying a few things, wasn’t in form yesterday.

Well, best of luck mate.

I thought it was a copy/paste at first, and if that was still the case (thank god it’s not) I wouldn’t have retracted my comment. There’s enough bullshit and stealing cunts around the internet to ask questions when in doubt. Aggressively.