People who visit a gaming forum are already on the ‘hardcore’ end of the player spectrum. Making builds and guides is another step above that, the most fanatical (for lack of a better word) of the forum population. The result is what you see here, and it has to be said, on pretty much any gaming forum.
Can’t do much about it. This forum is actually on the friendly end of the spectrum, I could tell you awful stories about others I have visited over the years.
You do not need to have the perfect gear to follow and play most build guides though, some posters have even gone out of there way to create and post ones that have easy to gather gear such as Nightmare’s Vitality Cabalist. Stupid Dragon has similarly also done a Beginner Elementalist and Tactician.
What it sounds like you want are more guide writers to suggest gear to use while levelling/farming. You could also always make a post on such topics to ask what to use if you are struggling to get the end gear in the meantime (due to time constraints as you mentioned).
I don’t quite get what exactly you wish for. During the leveling phase, my “character building” looks like this: I choose masteries and the skills I want to use. Then I’d try supporting those skills (or damage types) with whatever items I have or find. Especially the availabe items during this times vary so much that any sort of guide seems utterly pointless to me. You just go along with what you have. You can level the majority of conceivable builds like that (notable exceptions would be conversion builds that rely on high level items for said conversion).
Most of the builds posted here are builds that perform well in campaign endgame or crucible, or at least builds that perform better than the poster had anticipated.
If people feel their character is not performing well, they usually come here asking for advice. If it is perfoming well and fun to play, why bother with build posts at all?
What exactly do you need Stonehide boots of kings for at level 60? Never had any at those levels, never needed them.
All those best in slot items only matter once you have multiple good or great choices for those slots, which only a tiny fraction of players do.
Just enjoy the game and use what it throws at your feet, item-wise.
You said you are a casual player. Why are you then aiming for crucible Gladiator?
Casual players either finish veteran once and move on to the next build, or all 3 difficulty levels and move on.
Every class combo is capable of doing the above self found but you decide your own threshold.
TIL: I don’t work hard enough to be a casual Grim Dawn player
I mean, what else should people talk about on the forums? A sick new build that’s tearing it up on veteran?
If you’re looking for discussion of builds that are campaign-only/builds that cannot complete gladiator crucible, you will find plenty of those in the build forum. I want to highlight here, though, that this attitude advocates for limiting the rewards of investing more time into a game. I find this attitude baffling, especially considering you go on to talk about how Crate is a business that needs to make good business decisions.
For example, I would like to see more suboptimal builds on these pages. Fuck it, I don’t have any Stonehide stoneplate greaves of kings. I have some legendaries, some greens and even some yellows on my 60+ lvl char. I’m not revered with any faction, I’m only Nemesis with Beasts. I’d like to see some realistic builds like that.
How much have you browsed the build forum? There are plenty of builds that do not require stonehide stoneplate greaves of kings or any monster infrequents.
For those of you saying that evaluating skills makes sense only from an endgame perspective, I think you’re forgetting that Crate is a company which has to earn money. They have to cater to the vast majority of players who are casuals, some even more than me.
At the end of the day, one can easily shred through normal and elite in yellows you buy from the merchant without spending devotion points and without picking a second mastery. If that isn’t evidence against your hypothesis that the game needs to be balanced around casuals to make money, I’m not sure what is.
This was a very interesting chain of posts to read, though the topic kind of split from channeling skills to the difference within GD’s gaming population.
I’m actually seeing games like GD, POE, D2, etc. like sandboxes of many variations of builds to test out effectively, and see how far they get.
An example of a game that is beautiful but really poor at build variation that stood up on the higher difficulties are Diablo 3. Blizz’s solution? Chuck in crappy sets that limit you to 3 builds. That still makes me sick. Gd is on the other end of the spectrum.
To me personally, a wide build variation is the reason I play these type of games. To find exiting loot that may inspire a new crazy build, and then to test out how well it functions (and either be disappointed at the skill mechanics or dopamine-induced by the result). My goal is to get as many weird builds to level 100 and be viable on ultimate (and viable to me means, not dying more than once on bosses and being able to finish rogue-like dungeons).
I understand this ‘viability’ goal will be widely different for the gaming population. To some, it may be enough to finish Normal, and to others (many of whom come to this forum to perfect and share their builds) that goal is Gladiator Crucible or some of the more painful Nemesis bosses.
To cater to all of these ‘viability goals’, the scaling curve of all skills and skill combinations has to be taken into account. I’m sure that’s not an easy task, but I think GD’s done a very nice job on that so far, and they seem to continue to do so as the game develops.
So thank you GD team for the awesome game as a whole, and I hope you take the niche-feedback to channeling skills in the type of game environment you have into account. I have to say, Drain Essence is a nice spell-type face taking ability for a caster. It makes it more of a support skill than damage. AAR on the other hand should probably do vastly more for it’s costs. But again, that’s a niche feedback on an otherwise awesome sandbox.