Having observed many of Grim Dawn’s monsters recently, I’ve noticed that many are actually designed to look very cool and beautiful.
Lately, I’ve been using the Eye of Dominion to control some monsters. The controlled monsters can follow the player, allowing for close observation and fighting alongside the player. (Currently, Grim Dawn has only this one item that grants the ability to control monsters.)
THIS IS INCREDIBLY FUN !
Here’s some screenshot when playing with monster control:
Control massive numbers of weak monsters to my monster legion ! Of course because Eye of Dominion can control an area by 3.2 meters. (Only by 49 seconds and they are weak by the way)
Control two Korvaak’s Chosen servant, and they are COOL as hell.
Walking aroud with my monster teamates.
Control a manticore champion from SR-84 floor and make it 1v1 combat with the False god Korvaak……and win the battle ! ( It has 16.9 million Hp and can deal 475K damage on crit lol )
…However, it’s a shame that the control lasts only 60 seconds. Considering the Ultimate difficulty has an 18% default mental control resistance, the actual control time is just 49 seconds, and it only works on low-tier monsters! Only normal and champion monsters can be controlled, and their level must be below 106.
With 4,100 hours of gameplay (and 2000h on grimtools bd calculator) , even after such a long playtime, I never really had the chance to closely observe Grim Dawn’s monsters before, as they would always attack (which is understandable), making it hard to obeserve their details.
It wasn’t until recently, when experimenting with mental control skills, that I noticed how cool the monsters’ skill sets are and how impressive they look.
Therefore, I think adding more equipment or mechanics to support monster control in future game updates (or DLC) would be a great idea !
This would give players more opportunity to observe the excellent monster designs up close (ensuring they don’t go to waste), study the monsters’ skill sets more thoroughly, and greatly expand the gameplay depth and variety !
Also reminds me of the Diablo II: Resurrected Sorceress class, which also introduced monster control gameplay—the Sorceress can permanently bind a demon-type monster, adding a lot of freshness to the game.
However, let me point out that Grim Dawn had already thought of this monster control gameplay long ago ! Searching through the item database, we found that the Eye of Dominion was added as early as the beta B29 version !!
Moreover, in terms of monster design, Grim Dawn’s designs are undoubtedly more refined and thoughtfully crafted!
—No offense, I’m not being biased toward Grim Dawn or anything; I’m making this judgment based on facts.
I meticulously reviewed the skill sets of all normal and champion monsters (i.e., all targets that can be controlled by the Eye of Dominion) in the monster database ! The game has 429 types of normal monsters and 568 types of champion monsters. Most of them have 2–3 skills, and some even have 4–6 skills ! —Even though they’re just normal/champion monsters, the so-called “cannon fodder.”
Such meticulous monster design deserves players’ attention. Therefore, I suggest that in future versions, by adding more skills, equipment, or game mechanics related to monster control, players can naturally pay more attention to the various fascinating creatures of Cairn and appreciate the excellent skill designs while experiencing the fresh gameplay of “monster control.”
For example, permanent monster control could be introduced, removing the time limit, or controlled monsters could become invincible player-scaling pet, following the player like guardian spirits. —Of course, how to design it balanced and interesting, I believe the designers surely have countless ideas to make this gameplay incredibly Fun !!