End Game Content - Some Ideas

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

This post is meant for the developers of the game.

I love the game as it is, its a long time ago since I was playing a game with such an enthusiams like GD. I’d like to put in some ideas how to make the game’s end content more interessting an bind players to GD:

It is just some brainstorm stuff, but perhaps you find one of the ideas interessting enough to think about:

Remove a charakter level cap to keep the charakter development ongoing.
You could add a new category of skill points, kind of ascended point (AP), that work like that: For each level you get 1 ascended point, you can spend these like that:
Spend 1 AP = rise attributes (pys/cun/spi)
Spend 2 AP = put one point in one of the skills
Spend 3 AP = put one point in any of the devotions

In this way you can develop your charakter further but you want reach any cap too fast. It would take you many many levels until you theoreticaly have all skills / devotion unlocked, and the you could still endless rise up attributes…

Regarding the idea above, it is obvious that we need as well strong items. I would love to see items that are level 85+, so with new content you could add some super strong items that require higher levels.

Sure if you want to have the stuff above working you need ongoing content addition, but you could pick up an idea that was already in disussion:
The endless dungeon, that means an area that gets harder and harder the longer you play in it and it will never end, so you can have a easy possibility to grind.

Further I think it would be cool, if players can compare the strengh of their chars. That brings me to a small but perhaps meaningfull add-on:

PVP arena: A simple 1vs1 / 2vs2 / 4vs4 combat mode area, where people can fight eacht other (all potions are disabled of course) - that combined with some ladder or a chart were you can see the players with the most wins.

Just some ideas from my side :rolleyes:

2

End game content to me: make another character.

3

That as well :cool:

4

no please. I dont like. this is same d3. no please no

5

End game mentality and build-based games are not really compatible with each other. End game focus leads to content dependency and players funneled to the end. What CDQUINT said.

6

I’m really hoping that Crate or a community member develops something like the very well received Synergies Mod created by Salan for Torchlight 2.

This mod has many great features and is a collaboration project by a small team of community members. It features lengthy end game progression dungeons that scale in difficulty with the number of players in the game. The system works much like raiding in many MMOs today, where loot that drops from one tier is used to progress in the next tier. The mod also provides additional difficulty options, classes, items and side content such as endless dungeons.

The addition of this as a mod to Grim Dawn would create continuous progression for the end game PvE oriented community while allowing input from players who are drawn to this sort of game play.

7

There will undoubtedly be a number of full overhaul mods made. Titan Quest, Torchlight, even Elder Scrolls games, this is par for the course and to be expected.

As for if they will be similar to Synergies, remains to be seen.

You could always try to message Salan and see if he plays GD and is interested in modding it in the same vein as Synergies.

When it comes to modding, the more hands on deck, the merrier.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

8

Good god above, please do NOT bring infinite level scaling into Grim Dawn. It’s exactly why I bought the game in the first place. It’s completely unlike Diablo 3 in many respects. That’s why its so good.

9

I like it. :slight_smile:

10

For many people, the motivation goes downhill extremely fast after reaching the level cap. That´s because accumulating experience points is a big part of the… erm… experience. Many games nowadays try to get rid of artificial level caps. A recent example would be the Bethesda games where Fallout 4 removed the level cap.

Of course, this would not work well with Grim Dawn. But there are other incentives to keep the experience points flowing in after reaching the level cap. The original poster described a system that is very similar to the paragon system of Diablo 3 where the level cap is reached very quickly and you start gaining “another kind of levels” that can be used to alter your character stats in tiny increments.

Other ideas include:

  • gaining a level after the cap grants you precious items instead of a real new level
  • experience after the level cap is used as currency to buy rare stuff
11

If this is implemented, I, as a casual player, would never in a million years reach any kind of cap. And i think the incentive to reach the cap would be lost.
How about instead try out other kind of builds? E.g. a reflect build, or an auramancer. Or make some challenges for yourself. E.g. only use magic items, or beat the game just by using the default attack.

12

agreed, removing the cap also removes the incentive to reach it. Even if there is one, but it is close to impossible to reach (TQ) I simply treat it as no limit and stop whenever I have reached the end boss and possibly farmed a little

Having no cap is also awful from a balancing perspective.

Finally, do we have any data on what percentage of players even wants this ? D3 is dead, despite 20M sales and Paragon, so it cannot be that many :wink: Any numbers for Fallout or Skyrim (I know they did it there too, I never borhered with it however) ?

13

Somewhat off-topic, but if you really really want the devs to read your topic, then there’s always the No-reply Feedback Section.

14

They read it here as well, the only difference is that in the no-reply section no one can reply to his post…

15

As another casual player, I concur. Infinite caps just make the game too competitive for my taste and it becomes impossible to reach any kind of sense of accomplishment and closure because everyone is already at level 1000 or w/e.

I mean, Paragon levels are essentially “whoever plays longest wins” in the most boring manner possible.

16

I see the arguments against any open level cap. But I’m a casual player as well and I’m asking myself what is the motivation to play any charakter again once I’ve hit the level cap and got the best possible equipment available?

There is no reason other than farm any equip for other chars, but that will end up in the same situation sooner or later -so then the only way to keep me playing an Levlel 85, will be new content. But on a realistic view, the developer can’t deliver new content fast enough to statisfy even casual players, that want to continue playing their level 85 char.

So beside if my proposal is good or not, what will be the long term motivation to bind the players onto the game, if there is no kind of competitive purpose to give them the feeling, there is still a target to reach or get better in any way?

17

This sounds like an interessting approach for me.

18

You’re failing my casual player detector. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’d be pretty annoyed if I could never reach closure on anything. I’d want to at least define at some level that there is such a thing as best equipment for a given character.

I believe games like Grim Dawn are optimized for building many, many characters, not building one and then trying to make him as OP as possible. Given that, I’d very much prefer a game where I would be able to achieve a finish on a given character and say that they’re “done”. I don’t think that will even happen, though, I’ll much more likely juggle characters and trade stuff between.

Casual players and content locusts are not groups that really cross. Casual players don’t really “run out of content”, that’s an issue of a very tiny segment of the gaming population. They’re much more likely to be bored, annoyed at the game, struggle with something, and quit for some random weird reason. I don’t see a casual player saying they have nothing left to do because that’s not a problem casual players ever have.

Casual players will most likely be quitting the game at level ~50 because they “beat” the game, and, as far as they are aware, that’s all the content. Some subset would run through the game on all 3 difficulties potentially and then stop there. Ultimate would be very difficult, if not impossible, for casual players, so I believe that will be sufficient binding drive. For a lot of people, doing the same thing over and over again for shinier loot is not actually content. Because it isn’t. You will never get away from the content problem.

Furthermore, Grim Dawn doesn’t exactly run with a monthly fee or something. People who quit the game when they beat it and then buy expansions and quit when they beat those are essentially the perfect audience for it. And, honestly, this is pretty normal. Playing the same game nonstop is a bit of a new trend and it’s mostly limited to the semi-hardcore and hardcore audience.

If we’re worried about casual player retention, trust me, Grim Dawn has bigger issues on that front.

19

very limited, not sure why that is a bad thing though :wink:

The Paragon system would not keep me any more interested than a fixed cap…

So beside if my proposal is good or not, what will be the long term motivation to bind the players onto the game, if there is no kind of competitive purpose to give them the feeling, there is still a target to reach or get better in any way?

I fail to see the need to bind players to the game by playing the same char for 100s of hours

Either you try a different build, you try a mod, or you move on. All are much more enjoyable than grinding one char in minuscule increments over weeks.