are you choosing a class once you hit level 2? because if you don’t then it does get a lot tougher, but if you choose a class and put some points in early skills, then mobs remain easy, I done the early levels quite a few times now without any issues, so I suspect your not choosing a class once you hit level 2, as it is hard going without one
Probably within the next month. The major work on it is done but we have some loose ends we need to tie up and a few new bugs to fix that were introduced by some of the changes.
I don’t really get the problem of difficulty in the beginning.
I find, if anything, it to be rather easy to level up to level 6-7 without choosing a mastery at all.
I can provide you with more information on that… my son (who is under age 10) easily made it through the first levels and only really started running into difficulty about half way through the game (level 14 or 15 Commando).
Yes, I’m quite experienced with other ARPGs. In fact I play little else. The last few years I’ve played through Titan Quest and expansion, all three difficulties, five times, to try each of the 9 main skill classes. Also played the huge Lilith mod some user made. In between, and after, I played Hellgate: London, most recently with some user made modifications. Most recently I’m on Diablo 3, having been a fan of the series since it was first introduced in 1995. I’ve also played some Dungeon Siege 2 and Torchlight for shorter periods of time. So I’ve a fair share of experience I dare say. But enough about that.
Back to the issue at hand. When I started this game you were at build 8, which had some serious bugs. I died about 10 times in the first 6 or 7 player levels, to pretty much anything. Most of the deaths I seem to recall happening in the jail level. To be fair, quite a few of the deaths happened because skills didn’t have auto target yet, so I was just hitting skill buttons that did nothing while monsters were dealing very real damage to me… Quite frustrating. But that should be fixed now, right?
I was playing a Demolitionist, and had selected various skills since I could, as well as using whatever best gear I could find. I was using a melee weapon and shield in one of the slots and ranged in the other for now.
The previous time I loaded it up it was with this build, and I ran out to around Hallowed Hill or Wightmire, being level 9, and got killed by the most basic creatures out there. A couple of times I died because the character didn’t react to my attempts of escaping. A run button mapped on the keyboard would definitely help in this regard… After a few more deaths and spending more time running back to my gravestone than killing stuff, I shelved the game again.
Next time I go back I’ll start over with a new character, and see if it works better progressing without the really bad bugs that were instrumental in several of my death the first time. I’m hoping for the best…
The main problem of Titan Quest, as far as I’m concerned, was not the fact that the monsters didn’t scale on the spot. Rather, it was introduced with the expansion. The monster levels in the expansion worked fine as a continuation of the difficulty of act 3 in the normal game, but once you were done with it and moved on from act 4 (expansion) to act 1 on the next difficulty, the monsters were suddenly a whole lot easier, because they hadn’t been properly scaled on top of the expansion. First towards the end of act 1 did any level of challenge reenter the game, unless you were already in deep water with your character…
Most games I’ve played limit the monster levels of an area to a couple of levels; any scaling beyond that and you have to go to the next level. That’s what I’m used to, and in my experience it works fine. Which is why I was a bit surprised the last time I fired up Grim Dawn, to find level 9 monsters just outside town, where they had been level 2 or 3 the previous time I was there… And since I was obviously already in over my head, it didn’t really help me. Rather the opposite.
I agree, though, that all games of this type needs monster scaling, but there should also always be place you can run back to if you find yourself in deep water. In an open world game that might be more difficult to achieve, though.
I definitely see the predicament. But maybe the areas closest to town could be toned down a bit? Like having the monsters be your level minus two or three, and then when you get a bit further away the monsters are at your own level (as they are now) or even own level plus one or two for the areas that are supposed to be challenging…
I’m that sort of player who explores and clears everything! I hate seeing unexplored parts on the map. If I rushed to areas far out in the world I would expect the monster levels to be high and get killed. That reminds me of the TQ mod I mentioned above; Lilith. I remember venturing into an area of that world that was meant to be found further down the road, and my single level character got into some deep dodo when running into a pack of level 20 or so monsters. But I digress. Being the sort of player I am, I am more used to fighting monsters below or at my level, than above. Which also made my surprise at this game’s difficulty from the get go all the higher.
But like I said; I’ll give it another go with a fresh character, in a new build with fewer bugs than last time, and hope to finally get into the groove…
Ah, interesting… Ironically, it sounds like your significant ARPG experience may actually be contributing to the difficulty since you’ve come to expect certain command behaviors that weren’t functioning properly or didn’t exist. We had to do a little work to upgrade the command scheme from TQ to be more in line with what people expect in 2013. The auto-target has been added in since B8 but there are still a few changes I think we need to make.
We’re going to revert the mouse controls to a more standard scheme by default where you need to specifically click on an enemy to attack instead of being holding the mouse to run and then having it automatically attack an enemy if the cursor moves over it. It seems this was making it very difficult for people to retreat in crowded areas. There was also a bug early on where holding shift-attack to remain stationary would sometimes fail if you clicked over a piece of loot during combat, potentially causing you to run into a group of enemies. The long cool-down on potions and unfamiliarity with the ooc regen system could also be a tough transition for experienced players. That and the difficulty within the first 5-6 levels was higher back in B8/9.
The main problem of Titan Quest, as far as I’m concerned, was not the fact that the monsters didn’t scale on the spot. Rather, it was introduced with the expansion. The monster levels in the expansion worked fine as a continuation of the difficulty of act 3 in the normal game, but once you were done with it and moved on from act 4 (expansion) to act 1 on the next difficulty, the monsters were suddenly a whole lot easier, because they hadn’t been properly scaled on top of the expansion. First towards the end of act 1 did any level of challenge reenter the game, unless you were already in deep water with your character…
Yeah, the transition to the new area in IT and also epic difficulty was not well balanced. We’ll try to do better this time. We didn’t get much time to balance TQIT before it went out the door. Some of the changes to the way enemy stats and skills level in GD should help reduce the potential for this sort of scaling issue.
Most games I’ve played limit the monster levels of an area to a couple of levels; any scaling beyond that and you have to go to the next level. That’s what I’m used to, and in my experience it works fine. Which is why I was a bit surprised the last time I fired up Grim Dawn, to find level 9 monsters just outside town, where they had been level 2 or 3 the previous time I was there… And since I was obviously already in over my head, it didn’t really help me. Rather the opposite.
I agree, though, that all games of this type needs monster scaling, but there should also always be place you can run back to if you find yourself in deep water. In an open world game that might be more difficult to achieve, though.
I definitely see the predicament. But maybe the areas closest to town could be toned down a bit? Like having the monsters be your level minus two or three, and then when you get a bit further away the monsters are at your own level (as they are now) or even own level plus one or two for the areas that are supposed to be challenging…
We did jack up the scaling range a lot for alpha to keep people entertained since there is a limited amount of content. The first few areas in particular should not scale so much in the final game.
I actually think we currently have a problem where it is somewhat difficult to run ahead and get to areas significantly above your level because players are able to efficiently level for so long in each area due to the wide scaling. It is sort of the opposite extreme from TQ.
But like I said; I’ll give it another go with a fresh character, in a new build with fewer bugs than last time, and hope to finally get into the groove…
I think you’ll find the controls are probably more in line with what you expect now but we’re still working on some additional changes. I’ll be interested to hear your feedback.
Does that include a key to move without attacking? I played a little d3 for the first time in a long time and such a key is the only thing d3 has that I really miss in GD.
Please don’t revert it, I like it! I like it a lot. It’s a wonderful mechanic and more than worth the (rare) occasion where it makes it difficult for me to retreat.
If you have to revert it, can you make it an option so those of us who like it can keep it?
Yeah! please add this! :):)
We’re going to revert the mouse controls to a more standard scheme by default where you need to specifically click on an enemy to attack instead of being holding the mouse to run and then having it automatically attack an enemy if the cursor moves over it. It seems this was making it very difficult for people to retreat in crowded areas.
Thank you!
Yes, although I’m not sure whether that will be in B12 or some later build.
Wonderful news :D. If it’s at all possible to have the option to assign this key to left click, as in path of exile as well as a keyboard key that would be amazing.
I just did a 3 hour session with a new character, which is being skilled as a Pyromancer (Demolitionist as main mastery). It was certainly a more enjoyable and satisfying experience this time. I’m at level 11 with 3 deaths, which is a huge improvement on the first experience. So things are certainly moving in the right direction, and the difficulty and rewards seems a lot more balanced than it was in build 8.
I’m still not quite satisfied with the reaction level of skills from the skillbar. The skills assigned to mouse buttons works reasonably well, but I still found myself hitting skillbar skills over and over without anything happening, even when they weren’t on cooldown, and even if I felt that was aiming properly at monsters. I’m not going to blame any of my deaths on this, but it is a returning cause of frustration in the heat of battles. So I hope this functionality will still receive a lot of improvement before the finished game.
I also find it somewhat annoying that skills meant to give your character an offensive of defensive boost, like Blast Shield - the only one I’ve unlocked so far, requires you to aim your mouse on your character to cast. Such skills shouldn’t require aiming, they should just boost you automatically. I don’t have any pets yet, so if those skills are meant to work on either you or pets, and not both, then I suggest that the skills should autoaim on you if you cast it during battle, and that to cast them on a pet you need to hold your mouse pointer over the pet avatar for it to apply there.
In any case, it was a much more satisfying experience this time around, and made me a lot more optimistic on the future of this game.
Thanks for the additional feedback. Glad to hear the latest build is playing better for you. Things should continue to improve as we release further refinements to the controls and balance.
I’ve also noticed skills not going off when I felt that they should. I plan on looking into this further to try to identify exactly what’s going on.
Another thing I’d like to request for the future is a bigger inventory screen, that is; same proportions as now, just larger. Having it larger would be very helpful for combining reagents. Some of them are quite similar in appearance, and with the small resolution of the current inventory screen it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference. Plus, it would better show off the details in the textures I’m sure you’ve put a lot of work into. 
Clicking the sort button puts the components you want to combine next to each other.
I know that, but I’d still like to have it larger, both for comfort of viewing and for appreciation of details. And besides, the automatic sort function rarely sorts the items the way I like them, so I try not to use it unless I really have to.
Hi Grim Dawn sometimes my game just got freeze and even i pres–ctrl+alt and delete to close the game didn t work.i need to restart my pc to play again.i realy hope that will be fix in b12.TY.
Now that I just finished killing The Warden for the first time, I feel it’s time to readdress the rewards situation of the game. The last time I addressed that issue I said that it felt better in build 11 than in build 8, which at the time was true.
However, the past 6 hours of continuous game play felt anything but rewarding. Without exaggeration I looted a whooping 1, count them; ONE, green item, no blues and no purples. That does not include The Warden himself, though, and the area just outside his room. Just before I entered his room I got a green item from a boss monster, and The Warden was kind enough to leave me one green as well, as well as a very good yellow weapon that could just as well have been green. Still 3 greens and no higher tier items in 6 hours of game play does not feel very rewarding.
So, after 11.5 hours of total game play and about 4500 monsters killed, the grand total of loot was 0 purples, 1 very bad blue, 5 or 6 greens and a reasonable number of yellows. In my opinion that’s just weak. Especially boss monsters dropping an orb should have a guaranteed green or higher item drop, if you ask me…
Seeing as purple items only drop in higher difficulties, I’m hardly surprised that you got 0 purples. :rolleyes: That aside, it’s all up to chance, and your character level. I didn’t find a single blue throughout my original playthrough of alpha, meaning levels 1-16 just following the main questline. However, when I reached level 25, I can now do a run of any one of the three max level areas in alpha and almost always get a blue to drop. Give it a few more levels, and trust me, you’ll see the good stuff dropping.