Hello everyone.
I’m writing this post because I want to understand something about the Devotion system.
No, it’s not about the interface, I guess everyone already know it should be improved.
I’m talking about the way of using points and constellations, I’ve seen it in many builds:
pick a crossroad
fill low tier constellations for affinity bonuses
pick tier 2/3 constellation and get affinity bonus
remove points from crossroad (step 1) or previous low tier constellations (step 2), but keep the tier 2/3 (step 3)
use points on other constellations and profit
I’m wondering if this way of using devotion points was intended or it is a sort of “moral abuse” of a flaw in the devotion system.
Honestly? To me seems like an abuse of it and make people spend even more time on grimcalc.com or on grimdawn.wikia than on the game itself, which is ridicolous.
So I was wondering, why simply not reduce the number of singular stars by fusing them?
For example: Lion has 3 stars, can’t it be just 1 with all the bonus included?
Hawk, Rat, Sailor’s guide, Eel…
It would be something like:
Tier 1 Constellations: 1 star
Tier 2 Constellations: 3 stars
Tier 3 Constellations: 5 stars
Every point spent in a specific affinity constellation, gives you 1 affinity point.
And you would say “ok, but what about other affinities or mixed affinities?”.
Sure, then let’s change it not to “completion bonus” but to “points spent bonus”.
Ex.
You spend 5 devotion points in Order Constellations, you either get 2 bonus affinity points in either Ascendant and/or Primordial.
I don’t know the “vision” behind the devotions, what the devs were thinking or whatsoever, but I always thought it was a sort of “path”.
You are at a crossroad, you choose where you want to invest your points for further tweaks to your build.
You want defense? you go for Order.
You want magical power? You can go Eldritch or Primordial or Chaos, based on what your element is.
And the more you spend points, the more you gain access to higher bonuses/abilities without forgetting from where you came from.
That’s my idea, maybe I’m wrong and always have been until now, but I would like to hear other opinions about this “philosophy” of spending/removing points and ideas about it
In regards to removing points from other constellations/Crossroads: I don’t really see anything wrong with it, I’m pretty sure it was intended to function in that capacity (I can’t imagine Crate didn’t envision people doing that kind of thing when they allowed for the respec of devotion points in the first place).
It’s intended. You also have potions of Clarity that fully reset your devotions with no cost, they are pretty rare though. if devotion respec weren’t possible people would be pissed. There is a lot of experimenting with devotions as part of a build.
That is ok, I didn’t mean specifically the respec, but unlock constellations and then remove points from the previous ones.
You have a point.
My question is: was there really a need to come up with something so complicated in the first place?
I mean, it’s already a pain to navigate the interface and make a sum of the bonus you need, but taking in consideration the possibility to unlock stuff then remove the points used to unlock it, so you can unlock other stuff…
It’s kinda unsettling.
The other day I had to respec a character and remove his devotion points, the game said I couldn’t remove Manticore because I didn’t have enough affinity points, because I removed them without thinking of the ORDER I removed them… O_o
So I had to remember how I put the points, in order to remove Manticore… nah, I used the trainer and gtfo.
It was particularly dumb.
I’ll agree that it gets a bit tricky and convoluted at times to navigate the Devotion screen and juggle devotion points from constellation to constellation, especially if you just barely meet affinity reqs for constellations/have dependencies.
Complex character development is one of the few ways ARPGs can raise their skill cap. If you enjoy playing the optimizer game then you can spend hours poring over the star chart trying to figure out how to get one more point out of that build; if you don’t enjoy that sort of thing, then just copy someone else’s from the builds forum and be happy.
About remove points I agree with you. I think the game should check if the requirements are met only when the player tries to close the window. Gets really hard to respec builds with a lot of points (30+). When I want to respec a high level character I use trainer as well or hacked potion of clarity with the gdstash because I dont want to respec some points, close the window, pick crossroad, respec the rest, it takes time and add more cost.
TBH if this is intended, then completely remove any pre-requirements. It´s like enchanting armor with +8 stats gems only to equip a certain item and replace the gem afterwards.
Very inconsistent. Devotions need a check for requirements. 50 Points could be not enough but what´s the point of requirements when the abuse is intended?
After I red this yesterday, I was prety upset about this mechnic. I always asked myself how to get those nice Tier3 Devotions with other good picks for survivability/damage. Picked my lvl80 hero, tried this, laughed out loud how happy I was and like it now.
Current devotion system is perfectly fine if you ask me. No need to casualize it to the ground. And about respec - it’s fine as it is too. Of course you need to spend a little more aether crystals to reallocate some points but ffs just go to warden lab, you’ll get more than 10 in 1 minute.
I’ve been playing this game since B24 in EA and when Devotions came out, finding out that constellations can be self-sustaining made my day. This mechanic of Devotions is fun and entertaining because it makes players weigh out their choices and consider what constellations are useful and how to complete them and get the most out of them, adding more customization to your character. You know, that one thing RPGs are SUPPOSED TO GIVE.
