As mentioned multiple times in various posts, Grim Dawn is looking to have its major expansion in Q3/Q4 of 2017 with the expectation of new loot and features. While hype is well-deserved for GDx, we must not only look into the future, for some of our current systems are in desperate need of a rework. The most notable of which is the crafting system, which as I’m sure many are aware, is very inconvenient to use as well as unnecessarily taking up players’ time even with all the materials. The upcoming expansion is a great opportunity for the implementation of a new, polished structure, for it might be ages before we get to see another chance.
My suggestion is modeled after the League of Legends in-game shop system, where after a player selects an item, a tree of all the required parts pops up, all of which are branching to the selected item. Here is what it looks like in League of Legends:
The point of this design is to give players transparency and oversight. With this hierarchical structure, players will be able to easily see and craft all the required elements of the final gear or relic with a single click (provided that they have the materials) and without having to frantically go back and forth between the tabs. Here is a very, very crude model I made in the context of Grim Dawn using paint:
Notice how there are limits to how extensive the tree goes—it will be too clogged for every single component to expand, so it might be more optimal leaving the compositions of the more basic parts only visible when hovered over. The exact configurations of this is best left to the developers.
I wouldn’t mind the current system if there were a better way to get the materials. Breaking down equipment below green often results in nothing at all, making dynamite is way too expensive for its intended purpose.
First, its 1k bits and 3 crystals to make one shard.
Then one aether shard, 2 tier 1 materials and 5k bits to make 3 dynamite.
Then, its a moderate low cost to break down the item for a random broken component (never whole components).
This includes components that you wouldn’t otherwise need to combine like Wardstones that I have never found as a split component, making the dynamite essentially wasted except for scrap, which is a semi-useless item except for the disappointing low-tier version of the gambling system. The special crafting components (hearts, brains, blood) are nice to get but if you need to trade them for another, its another 3-5k bits?
If dynamite were cheaper, or if there was a higher return, it might make blowing gear up for components a bit more favorable. I would just like to see the current system optimized for fun rather than tedium.
I would definitely like to see vendors selling whole components sometimes, perhaps on higher difficulties?
Whole 2/3 or half components dropping starting in Elite would make it less of a chore when you run out of that all important serrated spike / chipped claw / chain of oleron at level 75.
Faction general merchants should also sell items appropriate to their faction rather than just being another source of trash loot you’d never seriously buy.
Rovers should sell animal components, bristly, chipped, spike, shells, ichor.
Devil’s crossing and Homestead should sell components pertaining to their enemy factions.
Kymon’s and Order should sell components that compliment their chosen elements. I expected this the first time I walked into the sanctuaries and was thrown for a loop.
Fort Ikon could either be a random store or with bias toward whetstones, blood, armor plates.
+1. Being able to see all of the constituents you need in full rather than trying to piece them together via memory (or in my case, via notepad) is a boon.
There are many ways in which the system can be improved, but she is quite the beast to tackle in terms of development hours to overhaul from what I can see.
Smaller quality of life improvements could already be a good step towards a more accessible crafting system later on, which might come in a large patch deeper into the expansion.
For me, the automatic use of the shared stash in the latest patch (or was it earlier? I dont recall), was one of the best QOL improvements. I have placed all my character’s components in one of my shared stash tabs, where any of my alts can craft at their pleasure.
Another QOL improvement that doesn’t require a complete overhaul of the crafting system is autoloot all components when walking over them.
As for your crafting system suggestion, that would probably be the best approach.
Yes please, I was just crafting a mythical relic recently and it was a huge time waster.
Also when we are at it, please add some sort of filtering for components based on the equipment slot they are compatible with. Right now I have to use some third party tools (I’m glad I found them) to check my options.
-I think we also like to have is an extra storage only for cmponents and a button which transfers all components at a time instead of putting them over one after one.
-Another Idea is to have this Component Window open when u open the crafting window and every component u craft wents directly into that storage.
-I like components, but since the completion bonus was removed i think that having to collect pieces to form them to a component is somehow useless. Make them drop less but then as a complete component or that u can run over components and pick them up and they complete automatically in your inventory.
Was about to mention this. Ive heard it mentioned before about the crafting system but i am not sure I understand the fuss. Not sure when that patch was though so i might have only seen it improved. It does show what you need and like you said putting everything in the shared stash erases any need to fumble through components. But clicking on the shown required components to complete them would be nice. The display doesn’t even have to change, just tint it green if it can be completed and click it.
Biggest issue to me is how they are listed and sorted. Everything alphabetical, more often than not im wondering what gear it can be used for. I think it would be nice if they were sorted by gear type description and whether its partial or complete. In the inventory it becomes a random mess with partials next to completed and everything alphabetical.
And please make the weapon tootip stop appearing over the stash window. It completely obscures the highlighting feature that is supposed to help with identifying components for gear type.
Thing that got me yesterday was desperately trying to find an Attuned Lodestone, which I KNEW I had, but couldn’t find it because I was sifting through my components list (alphabetically ordered) in the wrong place.
Appearantly, rare components are sorted at their own alphabetical order, so my Lodestone was after my Unholy something, somewhere seemingly randomly in the middle.
Wouldn’t mind the dev’s allowing autosort alphabetically, regardless of component rarity, since the only time I need to manually find one is when I want to equip it in gear. But it’s a small thing now that I know where to look I suppose. :rolleyes:
That would be great. I mentioned this to I believe it was Zantai in one of the Dev streams, but he said that the expansion had no plans on implementing this feature (at least at the time). I do hope it will be implemented though, as like you said, it would be a huge QOL improvement while having very little work needed.
