FoA feedback - or, Can there be too much of a good thing?

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
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:// Disclaimer - within you will find opinions. I will not highlight them as such.
That does not mean I will not attempt to distinguish between ‘my taste’ and ‘quality of design’.

FANGS OF ASTERKARN ANSWERS THE AGE OLD QUESTION: CAN THERE BE TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

Spoiler alert, yes.

In this essay, I will…

Before I start, despite the preamble, let me say that I have really appreciated and enjoyed the latest addition to Grim Dawn. I also did not particularly agree with some of the sentiments (such as the act taking too long, or Noktukari being too well hidden) detracting from the overall perceived quality.

Keeping that mind, let’s first start with some of the additions to Grim Dawn that I particularly appreciate.

  • Expanding on the Grim Dawn universe and lore

We finally meet some of the characters etc. that have been referenced from base game pretty much. The lore is expanded upon with a genuine lore dump, via gameplay, quest lines, world building and lore notes. As someone who thoroughly enjoys that part of the GD setting, it’s very much appreciated. The Kastorran lore notes in particularly are appropriately gruesome. I very much like the Amatok’s Curse questline with the different outcomes depending on your decisions.

Speaking of…

  • The world design

is out of this world (pun fully intended). Ascending the peak in particular is great, with the northern lights playing across the mountainscape. I also like the overall flow, where it moves from a wide open area into a well constructed and defended city fortress, to demonstrating the encroaching corruption by the void before we move into an increasingly more narrow pathway up the mountain.

  • Expanding upon class combinations

With another class, the overall combinations you can make are increased by 25%. The Berserker also offers some completely new mechanics to the game (though I will go into greater detail later on.)

  • Expanding build options with a myriad of new MIs and sets

Much of the reason I still play this game, after well over 9k hours, is the variety of builds you can make with MIs. So much so I generally avoid speed levelling with Lokarr, as it occupies MI slots. Having more of them is one of the reasons I enjoy the community league, and I’ve even tried my hand at designing a couple of them for that mod. So, suffice to say that this was one of the single biggest selling points for me. It definitely doesn’t hurt that the design for these have been knocked out of the park.

  • Finally making blue items viable / valuable

Long overlooked and much maligned, but some of these new blue items are becoming build staples or offer another item to slot in. While I was hoping for more of them initially, there is an ongoing effort to convert more of the blue items into awakened versions.

And last but most definitely not least

  • The World of Grim Dawn

It actually feels like a world again in Ascendant mode. It has regained its relevance instead of mindlessly running Shattered Realm for your drops (or, I guess, if that’s your preference, Crucible). I can now actually go and do what I enjoy, playing the game, and get rewarded for it.

So, with all the above, why then do I say there can be too much of a good thing?

Previously, a character would be done in, give or take, 12 hours when levelling normally. Add a couple hours for the SR skill points, cleaning up any remaining bits of the campaign, running some of the dungeons (other than BoC, because screw that drab hell pit of nothing in particular) and then call it good. Move on to the next one, which would make use of one of the myriad of MIs you found along the way. Many of my characters wouldn’t even reach level 100, but are sitting on level 97-88 instead. Get a couple levels with the full kit and kaboodle, get a feel for it, move on.

That doesn’t work anymore. The game doesn’t actually start until level 100, as you can’t enable Ascended mode prior to that. If you want to ascend your gear, you will now also want to ensure you have got the perfect affixes. Rerolling costs ashes and iron bits, so many bits. If you “just” want to ascend the gear, that’s a ton of farming just to get a sufficient amount of soul echoes / shards. And more iron bits. If you actually want good affixes, it gets more expensive. If you want the perfect affixes, the costs skyrocket.

Where I’d previously be done after those 12 hours, a character now takes up to 2 or 3 days, with non-stop farming for the last part of it, just to put on the finishing touches. That is a lot of work that, instead, I could’ve invested in yet another character. It also makes one far more attached to a character, as you have invested so much more time and energy and makes me detest all the one shots (bug or intended) even more.

I’d have dozens of builds lined up I would want to play. Now, I ask myself if that particular build is worth investing the time, energy and resources equivalent of 4 other character runs, and find myself saying “no, it isn’t” far, far too often. If a meme build takes me 12 hours but I had fun for 10 of those before moving on, that’s different from struggling through the better part of a couple days and still wind up with a build that can barely stand its ground in Ascendant mode. It took me a while to settle on what I want to dedicate this much time and energy to, significantly stalling out on creating new characters.

Similarly, the cost for mats increased multifold. Farming Ugdenblooms and Aether Crystals was bad enough as is, with builds requiring around 80-120 of the one and about 200 of the other just to put on the final components or craft some parts of it. I’ve seen people report on builds that cost over 50M iron bits to perfect, and 100s of soul fragments (which, incidentally, also chew up other resources when ascending).

Some more gripes:

I, personally (see how I emphasised that here?), don’t much care for ascended affixes on white items. I think it’s gimmicky and to me it detracts from one of the greatest qualities of Grim Dawn, the monster infrequents. While I can see why it has been implemented and how it enables certain builds, I can’t appreciate how white items have completely superseded monster infrequents in some slots.

Furthermore, touching upon monster infrequents, the items added in Fangs of Asterkarn don’t all hold up to the renewed and revamped expectations that come for a build to be successful in Ascendant mode. Multiple items are underpowered, understatted, or - worse - designed for a class combo that can not deliver on its intended design due to the lack of resist reduction. At the same time, some archetypes that should be obvious are just completely ignored (fire stun jacks, for instance, seem like a no brainer). Other incredibly underwhelming skills are left untouched in a terrible state (Olexra’s Flash Freeze anyone, with multiple conduits dedicated to it? Or Amarasta’s Blade Burst which apparently is just not allowed to be good?). This is something I find rather disappointing.

I am similarly disappointed to see the disparity between the different playstyles for the Berserker. Wereraven has barely any support throughout the game, compared to Werewolf, compared to plain old Onslaught. Winds of Asterkarn appears designed for 1.1.9.8 with its static positioning and channelling and punishment for stopping the cast, rather than the DLC it came out in. At least let the winds linger for a couple seconds, or something.

While I like the addition of builder / spender as a gameplay pattern, and understand it’s not for everyone, I wish I could say the Berserker as a whole appeals to me. I find the Were’wolf’ design to be incredibly off putting, with how it looks like Jimothy the Raccoon walking around like Vince McMahon more than an actual Werewolf. The starting gameplay for the Raven is incredibly awkward with the lack of casting speed until it finally picks up by level 40-ish with skillpoints and items. I wonder if that was solely playtested using Lokarr speed levelling tricks, it’s that bad of an experience. The top row will always appeal to me, as a Nightblade main, but the class as a whole feels disjointed and underserved.

Much as I understand the clamour for more Frozen Asters (see also the above bit about farming materials), seeing multiple next to each other with them being a dime a dozen while they are constantly being referred to as ‘very rare and powerful’ is immersion breaking. I would have similarly liked for the frost pots you get as a quest reward at the Kurn Bonfire to actually protect against the environmental damage, as is hinted at in the conversation.

And finally, the two main detractors for me in terms of general gameplay:

  1. I loathed the pot system in Path of Exile. I have no idea why that could be considered something desirable to implement in Grim Dawn. Making people press buttons just to have them press buttons is not good gameplay. It’s just introducing another risk of RSI. The current implementation was not well suited to the overall gameplay and while the upcoming changes are promising, I am not sure they fix the core issue at hand.

  2. The gameplay as a whole has shifted away from what Grim Dawn was for a large part of its existence. I am not convinced that this point in its lifecycle is the right moment to do that. A huge group of people has gotten accustomed to what style of gameplay it presented, a cozy vibe for after work, rather than the Dodge or Die mechanics introduced in 1.2 which now have been ramped up even further. In my opinion, at some point a dev also needs to accept that a game now ‘belongs’ to the people playing it who seek a particular experience. 10 forum jockeys GD stashing and speed running Crucible complaining the game is too easy are not the sole audience of the game. I think this explains, in large part, the whiplash in balance changes as all of a sudden there was additional feedback from folk who previously had been happily playing ‘their’ game. I am also not convinced that GD, with its ancient engine and poor visual clarity, is the game to introduce that playstyle to begin with. If so desired, that would’ve seemed a better starting point for GD2.

Do note that in all of this, I have not touched upon balance. I expected that to shift and to be out of whack for a while. I also know that Crate will eventually bring it back to a good state. I don’t hold it against FoA that, right now, there is something left to be desired still.

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How doesn’t it work?

Can you not still do that?

Like, it sounds as if you never really went out of your way to max out characters before, never going to level 100 and not farming out perfected gear.

So why do you feel the need to do so now? Just because the option is there for players that do want to go beyond “Get a couple levels with the full kit and kaboodle, get a feel for it, move on.”?

It’s like SR. The option has always existed to push SR, getting more optimised builds and better gear to take on higher levels. Do you NEED to do that? No. If all you want is to put together a build, putz around a bit and then make a new character, you don’t need to do any of that.

Same is true for Ascended mode and affixes.

To be fair, that’s nothing new. Plenty of that throughout base game and both other DLC’s.

Which is why tweaks were made to some items to buff them (As well as the new Awakened items to make Epics better)

As far as awkward class combos… People like that sort of thing. Figuring out how to make quirky things work (Like Elemental Forcewave with Arcanor) is a major thing for some people.

My only qualm is it being shoehorned into everything.

Onslaught as a skill is fine and unique. Onslaught stacks being shoved onto everything as a bandaid solution to underperforming skills/builds is lame.

Same is true for the CDR proc mechanic. It’s cool and interesting… But it doesn’t need to be on literally everything…

My issue with the Forms as a whole is how irrelevant the “Form” actually feels.

It never really feels like I’m “Transforming” into something different… I’m just a normal character with a couple of extra skills and that’s it.

I can see why this is the case, being able to use any skill makes for more build diversity than being shoehorned into a singular form setup. But the end result is that it barely feels any different to a regular character.

Personally, my take on Raven is hating how awful energy management is at lower levels. Energy potions suck and energy regen bonuses are pitiful early on (Even with maxed out Battle Surge and heavy OA focus)

Always ends up being too costly do use Cold Snap at all, let alone the entire mechanic revolving around its CDR procs… Even just spamming Ice Talons can drain energy completely (Especially when soft capped on Raven itself)

Meanwhile, on Werewolf I forget the energy bar even exists because for some reason WD skills get to be essentially free while caster skills (That don’t get regular damage upgrades from equipping new weapons with higher base damage as you level) cost an arm and a leg to use…

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Yes, the time required to fully complete a char is much longer now. I’m not sure what I think about it yet. I don’t hate it. There’s part of me that relishes an epic SSF gearing grind. It will mean fewer chars and builds though.

Correct choice :slight_smile:

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I think there’s two ways to look at any ARPG, and most people will probably sit somewhere in the middle, leaning more one way or the other.

  1. So many options to try, want to try as many as possible, ergo need to make the time spent on each as short as possible. Skip a lot, speedlevel, get to the part where I can say I’ve “tried the thing” quick, don’t really spend time refining it, move on. For that, any addition of new content, extension of endgame etc is a negative, as it equals making the way you want to play harder, slower etc.

  2. Each option, each character is a world of its own to explore with great depth and lots of tinkering to be done. Each character is a project and the more content is added to test it against and the more ways to scale its power there are (e.g. ascends and rerolls) the more meat to each individual project there is. Any addition of new content and extension of endgame is a positive as it equals more material to measure the quality of your project against, broader options to find that can go into any given projects, more factors to consider.

From my perspective option 1 factors into how I level my characters. I already felt in FG that Elite difficulty is just meaningless, I enjoyed doing full exploration and quest completion playthroughs and as expansions have been added that meant I’d finish Veteran at a higher level and then Elite was trivial mostly until expansion content and harder enemies started slowing me down a bit. So Veteran was the “character building” part where you get most of your levels, Elite was a “this is how the character would feel if it was OP” and Ultimate was “how the character actually plays”. With yet another expansion on top, and with me having done full 3 difficulty playthroughs 40+ times, I felt like that levelling style has run its course with me and I’d rather just do one ultimate playthrough. And there I’m happy that I have this much content to go through, because even though I skip a ton and only really stop for quests, by the time I reach level 100 I still enough of the game to go that I also get to test myself against 5ashes Ascendant, fight the Dread a few times, do challenge dungeons and see what my character has become. And if something doesn’t turn out the way I imagined, I have all of these options in rerolling and ascending that I have the tools to turn the ship around and am not necessarily left with a bad build, it just becomes a matter of “do I have the funds to fix it”. And with the expansion of content, even if I have to go grind for those funds, I now have more places to do it in.

As for potions and Sunder dancing, I’m ok with it. I’m not necessarily a fan of Sunder itself, but I loved in Titan Quest the fact that resistances were often next to impossible to max, so some enemies simply had dangerous attacks that would one shot me if I was careless, so I had to dodge and read enemy telegraphs. The thing that GD does differently is that usually those enemies in TQ were a lone boss fight. Here it’s nemeses which often come with friends unexpectedly, or Crucible which drowns you in foes, or the Dread which can spring at you unexpectedly and probably still needs one extra telegraph for its blitz charge. But the reactivity is certainly better than the facetank simulator we had in the past, even if the specific mechanic that was used to implement it isn’t entirely what I would have chosen (and even if some builders still prefer to just outstat the sunder and facetank everything anyway, though I guess that’s also on the balancing that outstatting it is so attainable). Maybe I would be more annoyed with potion spam if I didn’t have side buttons on my mouse. I am often running out of fingers for my hotkeys on keyboard so having extras for potions would probably annoy me, but even mere 2 mouse side buttons have me covered.