I was warned and the masses were right

I had farmed the Court if the Magi 50-60 times to no luck of what I was looking for…went for it and downloaded GDstash.

Made a ridiculous character 9999 all stats skill points and devotion!! It was fun and made me laugh.

Went back to the grind of farming ugdenbloms and seals to make components, back to playing normal SR 75/76. Over and over again no dice finding items for other builds.

So what’s the difference in tweeking a character with another vs just gd stash it all it’s faster anyway… done builds complete. Cool build worked out pretty good now yawn bored.

Have deleted all my characters save for one I deemed 100% legit. But why go through the slog again?

Maybe because I have 3000 hours in grim Dawn but gd stash I think finally had made me happy to love on to other games I’ve been meaning to play.

So now I too will warn those who want to cheat the game. It’s fun and will make you laugh but it will also make you see the game in a different light…what’s the point? I’m convinced that all the multiplayer crucible games were face ranked by cheaters so has my whole experience been false?

Not like cheating isn’t anything new, owned a game genie, konomi code, idgod etc etc. just with a hack n slash feels different.

Anyone else have opinion on it?

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Not condoning it one way or the other but this is totally personal taste. Some people thrive at theory crafting, gd stash is probably great for people like that. Some like immersion in the world, probably NOT great for that. And everything in between.

One person’s fun is another’s nightmare.

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In Grim Dawn you can only cheat yourself out of satisfaction of the game so better think it through and if you do, set some rules. If you don’t know yourself, you’ll end up like OP - confused and unable to enjoy the game anymore.

I mix things up - I have some totally GDStashed characters. Have characters where I cheat minor things like augments (zero regrets because I know whether something will ruin the game for me or not), don’t like giving myself endgame gear. Pretty sure I’ll start a full legit save file when I’m bored. Separate from the theorycrafting one.

Some people on forum do a full wipe once in a while and start from scratch.

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GD stash is when you’ve seen all and want to make pure optimal gear for Crucbile/SR/Superbosses. If you do it too early you may lose interest in the game. But GD stash is great for us builders.

I use GD stash for all of my builds, only legit thing are my leveling chars, which are meant for beginners guides and are purely self found.

Some players like @Maya started GD stash very early in their game experience and are still around or if you don’t have time but it’s rarity.

Usually you should treat this tool with caution and use it only if you’re 100% convinced you want it.

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I haven’t used GD Stash yet, but I am considering doing so for two reason, both of which I think the game could improve on by enabling more in-game resources:

  1. Say I have an idea for an interesting build with a class I don’t yet have? Is it worth to spend 30 hours leveling a new char, finishing the main caimpaign, getting reputation and materials to check whether the build was, in fact, garbage to start with? It is a lot of repetition. I would be nice if the game allowed for rotations once a month or something. And yes, I know that there are ways to skip normal/elite, but still a lot of time investment to simply theorycraft.

  2. Well rolled items. This is a little mind bogling to me. I think it very fair to have items that are rare drops and difficult to find (e.g. the Sethris ring), but then, even if you drop one, it might have garbage stats. I can’t think of many people who would enjoying farming it forever. Also crafted items. You currently need to spend >50M to have a chance at a decent double rare that will fit your build. Allowing for item re-rolls (say one of the affixes, while locking the other) would go a long one in discouraging cheat-like mods.

It’s close to 1300 hours now, I bought the game in February 5th and covid-19 lock downs gaved me to opportunity to play like absolute lunatic so 6 months and 1300 hours it’s almost I played atleast 8 hours every day till this month, because for a month it’s 35-40 C here and my computer already overheating so I can’t really play but I’m still enjoying the game and the theorycrafting without any tools and add-ons.

So I never used GDstash, probably never will either. I like leveling, hardships etc. I really enjoy farming especially when I found some good rolled MI because everything is legit, I keep them for future characters. I also do a lot of theorycrafting and it got worse since I can’t properly play due to heats so I do more theorycraft instead. Well I know that if I use GDstash I can optimize my builds, I can make it work a build normally perform poorly thanks to gdstashed items. But it’s cheating in my opinion, cheating yourself especially since it’s a single player game. I did some editoring in other games in the past ofc and I also enjoyed but this game is kind of different.

Finding everything on your own, being lucky or unlucky, utilize what you have and try farming what you don’t. This is the motto of this game. And leveling, yes sometimes repeating yourself can be boring but still when you play legit, every playtime gives you the opportuny to loot something useful, farming reputations, killing monsters, exploring areas etc is still fun because you can get something useful even the ultimate MC isn’t that challenging anymore because you now know all the mechanics. But all those fun depends on playing with just the features that game provides. If I GDstash all chars, all items lol so I only play to test something interesting? Then what? Well, good it works, bye… Testing your build in End Game Contents isn’t the main goal of this game. Some people has the ambition to being best in game etc, this is not WoW, being best DPS Warlock etc might matter there but not here. It’s the consumer culture I guess, everyone wants to accomplish everything fastly and go to the next…

The only thing I really hate doing is to craft relics to get the completion bonus I need with good rolled stats, it’s annoying. I wish devs somehow provide an option the reroll completion bonuses in inventor’s transmute section. For example you want Korvaak’s Deception, you need both %4 OA and DA bonus and Hellfire Mine bonus at the same time, how many times do you need to craft the same relic to get that kind of roll? The only thing is too much bother to me is this, relics already costs too much…

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In my view it isn’t even anything “different” with a “hack n slash”. Any game you do any kind of extensive cheating is going to feel this way. Sure, it can be fun/funny at first but, in most cases, it won’t be long before you’re like “OK. I came. I saw. Now it’s boring. Cya.”

The only thing I use GD Stash for is to help other people figure out how to use GD Stash and occasionally I might use it to make a name change for a character and MUCH more rarely to give my character some item or the other if I just want to test something out quick.

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…Anyone else have opinion on it?

I have ruined to many games by using cheats. They just abrubtly stop being fun, when I use that code/cheat/mod/ect…

I’d imagine the perspective is different, if you are showcasing something specific. I’m thinking youtube or streaming, where you ‘just’ laugh with an audience.

For me, the fun in games isn’t really about getting all the cool stuff, but more the grind and ‘hard work’ I put into it. Stuff somehow feels cooler, if I got it legit, even if we are talking about pixels on a screen.

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HighlanderDM: First, there can be… only… ONE! Second, I haven’t used any mods or cheats for Grim Dawn, but I did with D2. Granted I played that game to death and back and only used Jamella (sp) Editor for OFFLINE games, but it did make me look at it in another light. Yes I could do all kind of crazy things and make classes with spells or items that proc’d spells that could not be used by that class, but it took away from the magic that was the original game. Even playing online wasn’t the same. Lucky for me WoW came along when it did, haha. D3 provided some much needed down time from that game.

Even after 1,000’s of hours of enjoying Grim Dawn to NO END, I can’t bring myself to do that again. It wasn’t the first time either. Y’all remember Game Shark and Game Genie for the console games? Same concept. No, the only thing I will do will get content that will increase the game experience. It could be another expansion pack, DL content, or maybe some game content from the modding community once Crate has washed its hands with Grim Dawn.

Remember Doom and Doom 2? Same thing really. I didn’t cheapen it at all, but I did get ‘additional’ content that provided extra levels and many more hours of shotgun (YES THE BFG TOO) blasting those demon buggers.

Good times. I hear yeah and second the motion. Don’t mess with a good thing. Enjoy it for what it is. This is a damn good game too.

ah… the wonders and curses of cheating in video games.

reminds me of the golden 2000 psx era, where cheat codes fly in the air like they own the world.

that era is my childhood. and as a child, i really like becoming overpowered and finding secret stuff through cheat codes (and occasionally gameshark. which is more like a tool for game techies). some games are too hard for me as child, so i used cheat codes to beat those games. it was fun.

in my teenage age, i started to use cheat codes mostly only for seeing silly broken stuff in games. i don’t like hacking stuff in online games. thats a whole different topic than cheating in single player offline games. also, some hackers sells all my high lvl char items in RF when i’ve just starting to enjoy mmorpg… makes me hate hackers and cheaters in online games. also kills mmorpg for me.

now as adult, i see cheating tool as just that… a tool that can be used for right/wrong things.

*right way to use cheat tool in games:
-when you want to test gameplay mechanics to its limit
-when you want to find secret stuff in games
-when you want to challenge yourself by adjusting rules in the game that can only be changed by cheat tool
-when you want to make silly/dramatic videos for online viewers
-when you want to ease/speed things up in lvling chars in offline single player games
-when you’ve farmed for hundred or more hours for that specific item in offline single player games, but that item never drop, and RL knocks on your door constantly

*wrong way to use cheat tool in games:
-when you want to do criminal stuff in online games.
-when you want to imitate the 3 witch gods’ wicked witchiness IRL.
-when you want to do whatever you want in many of your games, without limits. and without caring for the fun you get for beating game challenges within rules.

cheat tool like gd stash are ultimately, a tool. use it to enjoy gd. not to remove the fun from gd.

i myself, just use gd stash for stashing. even with gd stash, sometimes i forgot which items i already got and which items i haven’t. gd is very generous with its drop rate. unless you’re looking for a very specific stat roll on a very specific item only obtainable from a very specific source…

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I only cheat when it doesn’t really feel like cheating myself. For example I get easily annoyed by Grim Dawn’s crafting menus, so I just GDstash that mythical relic. I know I already farmed all the mats for it anyway. It doesn’t feel like a cheat, more like a means to keep the game being fun.

But I’d never use GDstash to make a level 100 character from scratch or craft MIs with perfect affixes, that’s the point where it would definitely feel like cheating to me.

I think it’s important to know where that sweet spot is for yourself, so you can avoid “helping” yourself too much. It may take away all the fun you had without that help.
It can fun to play around with GDstash, GrimInternals, AutoHotkey and whatnot, just be careful when you peek into the rabbit hole :wink:

Have you checked out the numerous mods for Grim Dawn yet? I know that’s what I’m gonna do if I ever lose interest in the vanilla game.

Take a break until all the hotfixes for v1.1.8.0 are out and make it 4000 with some fresh new ideas for builds and more content to explore :smiley:

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I’m going to put a different perspective on this since I’ve used GDStash and also TQVault for Titan Quest for many years. I’ve been using TQVault for about 12 years and the Stash for around 5-6. Yes, I dup items out of both for my games, mostly relics for GD since I can’t be bothered with crafting/farming for stuff. I have a couple of characters where I’ve GDStashed the heck out of them, but that’s all. Does doing so spoil my enjoyment of the game? Nope. Do I still get pleasure from finding a new item I don’t have? Yes. In no way does using these tools spoil my enjoyment of either game. Farming for stuff is nothing but a chore to me and if I had to do it I’d enjoy the games a lot less than I do now. I’m not a mini-maxer either; I use whatever comes my way for most stuff in the game. For me they’re not “cheats” since both are single player games and I’m glad that both games are moddable, allowing for such tools so players can play the game how they want - which is what the devs intended.

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kukuhimanpr & medea_fleecestealer: I just found a really nice level 90 relic blueprint yesterday that can be used by either of my level 100 characters. I agree, crafting them is a pain. I hate having to pop through all my alts just to find mats. Even if I did play it smart and place all my mats in the transfer stash so all my characters can access them, I will always be missing something. If I don’t know where to get it, I have to do some research online. At that point, it’s farming till RNGzus blesses me with what I am looking for. Yeah, I really don’t look forward to crafting relics. I would rather stick to the last relic I made, even if it’s still level 25. Crafting anything else, even the purple set items, are actually fun and rewarding.

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This might be of some use to you, it’s a little old but I believe still accurate.
https://items.dreamcrash.org/ComponentAssembler?record=d113_relic.dbr

This game is hack & slash and it’s basically based on farming.

And being able to create or duplicate whatever the item with whatever the rolls suit for you with unlimited amount is not the same with being moddable. Altering different aspects of the game is a whole different thing; changing maps, environment, monsters, classes, skills etc. Being able to modify the game is a good thing and I guess proven by good and creative mods even though I never tried any of them, they look solid.

But GDstash mostly give the player the opportunity to create things unachiavable with legit playing which is in my opinion cheating. But since it’s a single player, any player’s business is his/her own until they start to brag about their crafted builds etc in public places like forum/youtube/twitch. It’s basically deception.

Im 100% with @Nery on this topic- I will not experience GD stash until I have gotten all the gear I want, and achieved all the goals I want to achieve in the game (beating it classless HC on Ultimate, optimizing and Completing all my builds).

Once my goals have been achieved, i will be free to go crazy.

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If you have to farm certain items to complete the main campaign then that’s not the game for me. Thankfully neither TQ nor GD are like that. So long as you can find reasonable gear you can complete the game.

Thing is you can’t do one without the other when it comes to modding. Don’t allow something like GDStash to be possible, then you’re gimping the modding community since many mods alter items in the game and even add new ones. As for idiots who brag about their builds, that’s their problem and they’ll get called out on it sooner or later.

In any game like GD, any player wants to more than just completing the game, they want their character to improve with the gear they find while farming. They want to push their characters withing the game’s mechanics.

And yes I’m aware of that, creating the possibility of modding always brings the possibility of being able to abuse it and GDstash is that kind of tool.

And just because people want to make best of their builds, they GDstash everything to optimize every item, some even do that to the mechanics. It’s just self-deceiving but it’s my opinion, I don’t and won’t use it and can’t say anything to the users except my opinion on the matter. And here we’re in this thread, expressing our opinions about GDstash.

For example, let’s say I just find an MI with a good roll after 1k hours, and made a build around that item. The value of this build is determined by the farming/rng within the game’s mechanics. But any player can create such item instantly with GDstash, and that way the value will be diminished since the situation lacks playing within the game’s rules. It’s like a man in real life created a tool to remove gravity for himself and starts to flying and shouting I’m Superman now. Well, he is no longer limited by human anatomy and the physics of the universe so anything he accomplish is out of reach for any other human being without that tool.
It’s the same with GDstashing in Grim Dawn. It’s just unrealistic when you consider the game’s mechanics.

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I don’t think this is what it mostly does.

As to things unachievable, I find someone crafting 1000 or so green pants for a specific combination of affixes and if it does not come up, copying over an old savefile that still has all the mats needed and giving it another go just as much cheating, just a whole lot more inconvenient.

I also remember TQ mods in which each unique item lay on the ground or a vendor selling only MIs with double rare affixes.

My point is, people will always find ways to cheat and the option to do so will always exist. Whether you make use of it is entirely up to you, whether GD Stash offers it or not.

and someone else finds that item after 20 minutes (of farming for it) instead of after 1000 hours. That is RNG for you :wink:

I am not interested in spending countless hours farming for an item. If this is your idea of fun, by all means keep doing it.
I see GD predominantly as a SP game, so play it however it makes the most fun to you, no matter how that is. For MP I recommend sticking to legit play though.