Sup everyone? Anything I should know right off the bat about playing this alpha?
Dual Mastery System: level 1 you choose one mastery/class/skill tree and level 10 allows you to choose a second if you want.
Maximum level is 25.
Each level gives 3 skill points for use in the mastery/skill tree and 1 stat point for either Cunning (offensive use in physical/pierce/bleeding damage), Physique (defensive stat which increases health and less chance to be hit/critical hit) or Spirit (caster stat which increases elemental damage and energy regeneration/max energy).
Level design: areas are quite large when it comes to their width and less so when it comes to length. Finding the next riftgate/waypoint is quite easy if you follow main roads or using the mini map to see the purple dot/indicator of a nearby riftgate.
Quests: Can be confusing at times so pay attention to names of places or enemies you have to kill. Complete quests as they can give you really useful things that will make the gameplay better (like getting the “town portal” ability aka personal rift gate, or a later quest that helps take apart components (stat items that you add to your equipped items). Quests in Grim Dawn aren’t meant to be super obvious or having it feel like someone is holding your hand as you complete it, they take effort, exploration and some RNG in some cases.
Destructible items: pressing alt will not highlight all breakable items, mousing over some of these items will outline them. Bookcases, wardrobes, small shelves can’t be highlighted but can be destroyed using “shift” or hold position and attacking them - they can drop items. Again, not super obvious / hold your hand kind of thing. Finding some rare “Marked Rock” can be completely random but more rewarding when you DO find one by hovering the mouse over it and clicking it. Alt detracts the feeling of exploration and reward in finding these things.
Camera - can be rotated plus their is a zoom feature, check options for keybinding.
Secrets - their are two secret high level areas in the game, I’ll it to you to find/stumble upon them.
Enemy Scaling - enemies will scale with you to a degree in that their is a cap to how much they scale. As you level up you may notice new types of enemies showing up even in previous areas where their weren’t any, this is intentional.
Components - can be dropped in which you can stack them on top of the same type of component until the number of stacks is maxed out which also gives a bonus stat (so finding 6 mutagenic ichor and stacking them will improve their effect and when fully stacked also add a random stat). You can use components on certain items to have their effect come into effect - they can be removed from items (destroying the item) or the component can be destroyed (saving the item) later on once you complete a quest.
Game compromises of the first act and 3 mastery’s (full release will have around 3 acts and 5 mastery’s, expansions will add a lot more).
Crafting isn’t in the game yet (besides components).
Item quality from worst to best is - white having no affixes, yellow having a few affixes, green having more affixes and blue having set affixes but random rolls and can also be set items. Some item types are not yet in the game. Sorry if a bit vague lol.
That’s all for now.