Hopes/Expectations for end-game in the Xpac

Grim Dawn General Discussion
1

Hello all,

I wanted to make a thread to share hopes/expectations for endgame in the upcoming expansion.

So far virtually no end game content has been spoiled. And what has been spoiled IMO is clearly aimed towards new players (transmog, necro). Medierra basically confirmed this back in a thread in Feb:

This to me is awesome, as I personally know two people who will finally play this game with me due to the necro (They are d2 fanboys).

That being said do you think Crate will add any endgame to the xpac?

I think it is safe to assume there will be new nemesis baddies/skele key dungeons. And maybe even some updates to crucible to include those new baddies.

Judging from medierra’s post it seems unlikely to me that there will be new types of endgame content, due to the way GD makes money. This to me is not only disappointing, I think it is a mistake. I think if periodical “content packs”, similar to the port/hidden path were put behind a paywall, I would happily pay! Just like the crucible.

There has been so much groundwork laid in terms of character progression, there is a demand for good end-game! And I believe those who love this game would happily pay to see this game in active development beyond two expansions. Split the expansions up into smaller/more frequent updates, charge something reasonable (the crucibles price was very reasonable, IMO). People will happily pay. This would also serve as a substantial selling point for new players. More so than say, transmogrification.

This is one of my favorite games ever, the feel, flavor and the character development are world class. However the game feels lopsided, its like having all these gourmet ingredients and nothing really to cook with them. Sure, gathering the ingredients is a journey in itself and an absolute blast, but give us something to cook!

Further, Lore wise the world that has been created is amazing, it deserves to be fleshed out. There are so many places to go.

I understand that from a business perspective not adding new endgame makes sense, but from a game perspective it is what the game is building up to and sorely needs. And perhaps if more endgame is there, more players will go for it. There are more ways to interpret the 3.2% ultimate statistic. And it seems to me the endgame model I’m suggesting is clever compromise between business/game. Perhaps The Crucible was not as profitable as I think, although it is not quite an addition to the world of Cairn.

TLDR; What are your hopes/expectations for end game in the xpac? Although I’m hoping for new types of endgame content, I expect that not much focus has been given to the endgame. However I think there is definitely a demand for it, and I would happily pay for it. Would you? :smiley:

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Expectation: more of the same, i.e. new Nemeses, new rogue dungeons, new regular bosses

Hope: I do not really like to grind as the endgame, never cared for PoE maps or D3 rifts (greater or otherwise). When I am done with the campaign I might farm a bit for better gear, but not for all that long and no in-game hamster wheel (Paragon levels) will keep me running.
With that in mind, I hope they meet my expectation and leave it at that. I’d rather have more campaign than endgame.

As to Crate selling small DLC packs, I would not mind that… bundle 25 new epics, 25 new legendaries, 10 new prefixes, 10 new suffixes and a smallish new area (1/3 of an act or so) with some new assets, side quests, a few new monsters and bosses and I will buy it :wink: Basically a mini-expansion…
Or one new masyery with uniques and affixes as DLC, works as well for me… heck, even just a pack of new uniques is fine by me (but I prefer the other two options)

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Couldn’t agree more, More hidden areas and lore please :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Curious what people mean be end game.

I could guess as D3 and PoE have their own version of extended playtime with high level characters - however I want to know if anyone has a different outlook on the term.

5

We know there will be a new faction choice, meaning two Nemeses there. Also a Beast Nemesis. I’d guess at one new Key dungeon.

As for hopes… I don’t really value the endless grind idea. The only thing for end game I might like to see them add, though I never expect it… is like a 100 Floor super challenge key dungeon. Like Edge/Mog level challenge at the bottom, and it just gets higher as you go. Partly because I’d like that as is, partly because I’d really like people to using the Crucible DLC as a measure of builds. Not everyone likes Crucible, guys.

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To me endgame represents an extension of the main content that encourages players to keep grinding to achieve max level or max wealth or max ladder reputation.
This adds to the games perceived prestige and longevity.

My suggestion years ago was similar to mambas in this thread, at the time medierra said he would probably do something like that. Paid dlcs that release quarterly and price between 5-12 US$ and add a reasonable chunk of content would be a great way of extending the games’ relevance and longevity.

This is not necessarily what people would consider end game content but it is a strategy that PoE has used effectively to keep the game relevant with it’s existing constituency and attract perspective customers. This was what they originally stated as their “10 year” plan for the game.

The modding community could be another source of endgame content. Crate could monopolize on community creativity by holding a community judged endgame modding comp and including the winners content in a Crate endorsed expansion or dlc. Food for thought.

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I guess what I mean by end game is things to do at the end of the game with your nearly (basically) complete characters.

What I do not mean is copying PoE’s map system. Although I think its incredibly clever and awesome, I’m not sure how well it would work in GD, and I am aware of engine limitations that make it impossible anyways. And TBH I don’t even know what Diablo “end game” is but i imagine its something similar to PoE.

What Grim Dawn “end game” looks like for me is basically routes to check for nemesis, sometimes they take me through skele key dungeons, and crucible. Crucible seems to me to be the most challenging and also best way to get loot, which is unfortunate because it gets incredibly boring. Oh and sometimes I kill Ikrix and reset a bunch of times.

So when I say “end game” I mean Crate coming up with fun and interesting things for near complete characters to do, that would stay fun and interesting. Not sure what form this would take, it would take some creativity and cleverness, which Crate definitely has. They just don’t seem to be focused on it.

An idea I have would be to have a new zone (or even entire difficulty beyond ultimate) where basically there are many set points where a random dungeon from a pool can spawn. Lets say you have 7-15 dungeons, and each dungeon has 2-3 bosses, so you actually have to fight through the dungeon to see if its the boss (and his or her monster infrequent) you were looking for, instead of just resetting the map.

I think this would work well because Crate could keep adding dungeons to the pool, and a few items, and charge little bits of money for them, and everyone would live happily ever after.

Obviously the idea would need a lot of fleshing out and there are some obvious questions.

Instead what I see is a focus on drawing in new players, and the expansion sort of being talked about as a one hit (just maybe two hit) wonder money wise, which does not sound nice to me as a somewhat dedicated player who wants to play this game for a long time and would happily pay to do so.

And if you are on this forum you are probably like me, a somewhat dedicated player who would be more than willing to pay… yada yada yada.

I think there is a lot of love for Crate on these forums (which is deserved because the game is amazing) so overall people have been fairly civil about the xpac previews. But the goal of the xpac seems to be to draw new players more than to please the old. Which is disappointing to me and dare I say I feel as though money-wise I’m being taken for granted?

And for all this talk of Crates next project, I want more of this game, damnit! :stuck_out_tongue: perhaps Crate is a bit bored with GD as well. But that is for another topic.

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I missed your post while writing my novel, you summed up a lot of my thoughts more succinctly. And by 10 year plan you mean Crates 10 year plan or Poe’s? I was not aware Crate had a 10year plan.

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Another roguelike has been confirmed via dev streams.

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I am fine with the way things are at the moment

There are just way too many builds to craft for me

The only new additions that i am not looking forward to are Aetherial Vanguard and Beast Faction


We already have aetherials, so why is the vanguard a separate one?
Beasts barely have any sense of order, Bloodfeast was the only one who managed to gather the beastking under him and even his army wasn’t big enough to be considered an entire new faction

Btw, would expansion mean they’d change Edge of Reality’s map as well? To add pieces and monsters of new areas?

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Pretty sure my expectations are in line with what we will get because the devs have been pretty transparent about what is coming.

As to the question of “hope”, my opinion on the subject is probably straying off topic, but Sun gave me an in:

My time in TQ with modding tools might be estimated at around 3000 hours playing and another 3000 hours modding, this was before steam, so I really have no clue, but Steam says I have already clocked >2000 hours in GD and I still feel that I played TQ way longer than that.

BUT, if TQ had the best endgame ever imagined but no modding tools, my total time in TQ would probably have capped at 400 hours.

The better question might be how to get the players playing mods instead of steamrolling content in max level, fully geared toons and then coming here asking for features from the always-online genre of games as a form of MOAR content.

The xpac will bring so many cool features that will make their way into the mods, warranting multiple complete replays of the vanilla campaign followed by complete replays of the new, revamped mods that take advantage of the new tech.

We already see evidence that some modders are having extreme success with the map editor too, so a year or two from now, we should be seeing some completely new content to play as well.

GD: the gift that just keeps giving (excluding cost of replacement mice (clicking) and dead space bars (health pots)).

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Doubtful. EoR is a reference to Early Access.

And Aetherial Vanguard is what I’m most hyped for. ._.

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Yeah i keep forgetting that, oh well. It still is my favorite area and has my second favorite boss fight after Shar’Zul

I hope Vanguard being separate from the main faction makes some sense when they reveal it

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PoE stated this back in closed beta. They had planned for the games active life time to be ten years during while they would periodically release more chunks of content to keep the game interesting and the community alive.

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I did a good amount of searching before I made the topic, and found little in terms of Crate discussing “end game” plans, beyond medierra’s post in Febuary. Are you referring to the dev streams? There is always the “and much more features!” at the end of Crates xpac previews, I am hoping some of those are more end game stuff. And I thought maybe the reason they hadn’t been publicly previewed was spoilers, which the dev streams seem to contain.

I don’t think a request/discussion about end game content is unreasonable from the community, by any means. I also don’t think that “end game” implies always-online. I love my pause! It seems to me that PoE’s system is so successful that people immediately jump from end game discussions to “I want PoE endgame”. I don’t think a desire for more end game necessarily means a desire for PoE endgame. Wanting more GD is not a bad thing, its such a fascinating world and we seem to have barely scratched the surface.

This I agree with. I think part of the reason the mod scene hasn’t really caught fire is because people want to wait and see more crate funkiness. But there must be some type of clever endgame model that is compatible with a healthy mod scene…

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if we beat the last boss and eliminated all threats to Cairn. end game should be all about rebuilding and promoting world peace…expecting things like farming, raising kids… setting up a wine shop at Burrwitch, micromanaging blue collar workers:rolleyes:

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Generally I assume that, since it was an Invasion by the Aetherials, that they set up in a semi-military fashion. If that’s correct, then presumably the ‘Vanguard’ would be a separate section, presumably trained differently. Lore wise, we already know something went down in Malmouth, related to Aetherials and preparations for the invasion, so lore-wise, it makes sense that as this was done by a ‘Vanguard’ force, pre-invasion, that that ‘Vanguard’ was also still in charge of it, and thus there, in Malmouth. Such is my understanding, at least, of the little lore bits we have about Malmouth, and some of the various tidbits we’ve heard about the expansion.

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Sometimes i think there is a prejudicial attitude when “end game” words are pronounced.

To make it clear :

-no i don’t want “fake” content which just artificially extends gameplay (mmo style)

We all agree on that. Now in GD an “endgame” already exists and it’s called crucible, personally i never loved it because i found it a bit boring.
I would like something similar (with chests which drop everything including MI’s) but in form of a dungeon.

Sure i love to roll new chars (i think i have 12 active and few lost in Cairn) and yeah roguelike dungeons are ok but i would love to have some different shores to bring my maxed chars sunbathing.

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On second thought, I misspoke, I should have said “very transparent if you live, eat and breathe Crate.” You are right, the information is not easy to obtain, you basically have to stalk the devs to get it all. But, provided you do not mind having no life outside of GD, they do tell us quite a bit about what is and is not possible and what they have planned.

Also thanks for clarifying, these threads typically lead to a d3/poe vs gd/tq style-debate. It is really a double-edged sword, so to speak. Some kind of random map, in small doses, would be fine by me, but I really enjoy the beauty of the hand-crafted world, monsters and items that GD presents. But if you have seen Grava making maps on stream, you realize that for GD, an “endless” dungeon translates into at least forever and a day of Grava working with the editor.

However, WareBare has made some strides in this regard with his DGA mod: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?p=402071 https://github.com/WareBare/Wanez/blob/master/README.md.

Writing this post, I start to see that maybe there is demand for a GD mod that is designed for max level toons. Too bad I am at work, or I would link you to the test mod I made the other day where everything is Loghorrean. Literally, every proxy spawns one log instead of what they normally spawn. Complete craziness right across the bridge from DC. Sure, as a mod it is stupid, but as proof of principle, it opens the door for a lot of different challenge-mod ideas.

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I want a lich