I was warned and the masses were right

Grim Dawn General Discussion
53

I started to use GD stash because I got so much items I can already make most builds, all it takes is leveling, farming reputation and ugdenblooms which bores me. I am more interesting in theorycrafting, checking builds limits, testing my owns limits and increasing skill.

I don’t treat GD as singleplayer game anymore too, it’s basically offline multiplayer - I post builds online and discuss with people, without GD stash it wouldn’t be really possible. I don’t want to farm hours for components then doing it again after changing some things in build.

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54

LoL really? If you said conservative, I would accept since my approach is even though I’m not as a person.

Yeah exactly, for example when I was 4-5 I played doom 1. My father thought me how to run the game on msdos so I played a lot, but it was a really hard game for the time; never progress further. Then started to use the immortality keys etc to finish it. Now I’m well aware of that playing with cheats is not the proper way, because I experimented back then now I can say that use only game provides you to increase the challenge.

And as a concept experimenting is one of the most important thing in human development. I did and do experiment in every aspect of my life but in games? Taking chains off? Really? For example if you create a character that can one-hit ravager what does it good for exactly? What will you learn from this experiment? losing chains is good only in real life.

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Some people feel this is fun. Some people don’t feel like they have to ‘learn’ something in a game. Who are you to tell them otherwise or to say they’re playing the game wrong, which is exactly what I meant when I said it ‘sounds elitist.’ The soul of the game being “FUN” allows everyone to find their own way. Your definition of the soul of the game seems to indicate to find their fun they must go down a narrowed (or conservative, as you phrased it) path to truly be ‘playing the game’. i.e. elitist.

I think we’ve both exhausted our points of view here. You feel one way. I feel another. Everybody else has variations in between or on the other side of either. The great thing about what the devs did with Grim Dawn and allowing mods and making it primarily a solo game is thankfully it can encompass ever style of fun. The soul.

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imo, crate wants gd players to “Do The Best They Can with What They’ve Got” (One of the famous lines of all gd blacksmiths). cairn’s future is bleak. its post apocalyptic dead end for cairn. so use all the rusty scraps & equipments you’ve got to beat all those end game challenges!

i recommend players to enjoy playing makeshift builds on the way to get their BiS items for their dream builds.

because, once you’ve farmed all the BiS for your dream builds, and you can beat all end game challenges easily with the minmaxed gears you’ve got… you’ll miss the time where you struggle beating difficult contents with rusty unoptimized items, and leap in joyful manner when the BiS you want dropped with good rolls.

tldr: try looking for ways to enjoy the game with unoptimized equipments while you’re simultaneously farming those contents for the n-th times to drop the BiS items. and remember, balance the farming session with real life schedules, and take breaks from the game occasionally to feel refreshed when getting back to gd after ‘mandatory vacation time’.

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57

That’s true. I like to share my builds, it will be massive loss of motivation to play if I can’t.

And GD stash allows you to test every wacky idea you may have in a flash.

But I have to say something to all people that are against GD stash and builders that are using it. Most builders have played tons of time without it and have post many builds self found. I’ve posted some of them in AoM era and they were self found. @mad_lee for instance played lots of time self found and even had online sessions giving up duplicated items for free, cause doesn’t need them anyway, so on.

But at some point it becomes difficult to realize your ideas/organize inventory without extra help. Or you have to level some class just to test your build. So that’s why most builders use it. But if I wasn’t going to post builds or be active forum member, probably wouldn’t going to use GD stash at all, to be honest.

I have seen other people also avoiding any external help during leveling.

Personally enjoy normal difficulty a lot. Not much pressure and you can try different offensive skills and gain knowledge on the game’s mechanics without getting butchered all the time. And elite/ultimate offers nice difficulty curve. So for smooth progress, I would still play all three difficulty levels.

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58

@Nery exactly everything what I meant. Sometimes when I make some build in GT it looks good on the paper but in game it’s total trash (in my expectations) and vice versa - average on the paper but doing everything way better than I expected. Without GD stash I would lose many hours. Leveling another class and then farming components in the same boring route takes a lot of time.

Without forum and contact with community I am sure I would play without it like before. Sometime ago I started from scratch on hardcore to get 100% achievements on steam and did it fast without any issue on the road so it does not satisfy me anymore.

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59

I agree 100% with this statement. The way I look at it is as if its a trading card game like MTG Arena or Hearthstone, and loot chests are like packs of cards, and the gear that you get from each chest is like the cards you get from each pack.

Ive noticed in TCGs like the aforementioned, once I have full playsets of all the cards I want or like, I lose motivation to play. This is why I dont put money into packs in those games, and the same reason is why I dont use GD Stash for gear.

This is just me though, and here is how I learned it would ruin the experience for me- I started my first Hardcore Character, and realized HC characters dont share the same stash and blueprints as SC characters, so I would have to build up my collection all over again. This actually excited me! Having unlocked pretty much all the blueprints in the game, id forgotten how thrilling the dopamine rush was to get blueprint drops!

The fact that this challenge to re-acquire everything excited me told me that I valued the grind and the struggle, the work you put into finding things makes those things more meaningful, like in life, putting in the work to reach a goal will teach you to value and appreciate the goal. The journey there becomes more valuable in itself, and thats a huge part of what Grim Dawn has been for me. Its how I know Ill always love the game and I could play it for years. So long as I dont use GD Stash, I will still be on the journey to meet those lofty goals;

  1. Beat the game on Classless HC Ultimate

  2. Optimize all my builds

Once those goals are realized, thats when I will allow myself to indulge in the sheer power and awesomeness of GD Stash. I look forward to it very very much, just as I look forward to finally getting a Stormrend, some Magi rings, defeating the Crate of Entertainment, and achieving my goals.

If I were to tap into the wellspring of GD Stash it would corrupt the experience for me and cause it to suddenly reach the end. With development winding down on GD, I am looking to prolong the achievement of my goals being realized as long as possible. Perhaps even until GD 2 releases. I do not want to be without GD in my life. Maybe this is subconsciously why I havent been playing much of it this year.

At the same time, I really REALLY value GD Stash for how its affected the community. I am glad for those who do use it, because I can get the advice from them on builds, gear interactions, how to optimize things, when I am otherwise at a loss and looming for insight I can trust. This forum is super great for that! I love seeing what people put together. Its inspiring.

I know as a new person it can be frustrating seeing all these builds that are top-end, BiS gear, level 100 with all faction rep maxed and optimized components and augments. When youre new it seems like these builds just saturate the forum. I know I remember getting frustrated every time a new build was posted and id be like “oh that sounds awesome! Let me go read about that i wonder how th… oh. Mythical legendaries and gear i have no idea how to get, and i only have 1 level 100 guy who cant even do crucible solo… great. Ill never have these gear pieces!”

Then, i redirected my focus to just having fun with the game, building whatever i felt like even if it sucked, just building because fuck it why not? Then after id played around with all the lower level stuff i wanted to (took a couple years!) I finally started really getting into reading about builds and participating, it was @Nery and @MikeHeydon who really got me into things here, asking questions and sharing ideas. Then (about 2000 hours of gametime in) I started following a beginner build for the first time, @Contragor’s immortal army build, a highly effective MC farmer thats also super fun. Then @Nery’s vitality caster conjurer, which has so far been my version of using GD Stash, for all intents and purposes. I have used that build to farm soooooo much gear. It was the first time I was able to do SR 75-76 on my own! Let me tell you WHAT an AWESOME experience that is, its like a whole new game! But only so long as theres always some gear to chase.

This reaches my final point. I guess over time, the reasons you play, and the things you may enjoy about the game, can change. If anyone is seeking the answer to whether they should use GD Stash or not, they need to ask themselves, because no one else can really truly answer that for someone else. And also, important to note the benefits of GD Stash, may not ruin the game for someone either, as many have said. Now the game changes and becomes a playground for testing the most top notch combos and gear setups. Sounds fun to me too!

This is way too long.

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60

You may be interested in this upcoming Mod

It’s being hand crafted for both hardcore and old school gamers that really like challenge and long term progress.

There will be some more videos soon showcasing the game world and early testing.

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61

Holy shit this sounds amazing.

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When I first GDStash it was because I sucked at the game and just wanted to be able to kill all the celestials for closure.

Then, before the last MI updates I used GD Stash a few times to create some double rare items that at the time I was positive I would never be able to get legitimately. Now farming items is fun and extremely rewarding for me.

Today, I only use GDStash for leveling my characters faster, because I honestly despise the leveling process in Grim Dawn. Specifically I hate being forced to play the game all over again in 3 difficulties. Once I finish the game in Normal mode I simply don’t want to start all over again in Elite. I’d love if Grim Dawn copied Path of Exile and made the difficulty increases dynamically as you progress in the game, so you only clear the campaign once, but it is what it is.

Also, enemies progression is not smooth. Everytime I’m leveling the same thing happens: at some point my character is steamrolling everything and all of a sudden BOOM, one-shotted by a boss because they landed a physical attack and there’s no way for you to get decent physical resistance mid-game.

So what do I do? Whenever I create a new character, I consume the merits, choose the first class, then go to GD Stash and edit my XP just so I can go instantly go to level 100 the next time I earn any XP. Then, I equip my endgame gear and start clearing shrines in Normal and Elite for devotion points. Then I farm faction reputation in Elite until I can get the augments I need, and then I start the game in Ultimate.

It still takes too much time if you ask me, but at least it’s bearable. I wouldn’t create new characters very often if I didn’t use GD Stash. Starting at level 100 removes the only thing I don’t like in the game.

So yeah, I agree with other people here. As long as you’re not using GD Stash to gain unfair advantages in any form of competition, then it’s not cheating. You only have to make sure that it doesn’t spoil the fun. If it helps you to enjoy the game better without ruining it for others, then you’re using it right. That’s what I think.

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63

I only use GDstash to store stuff and change completion bonuses, because life is too short to spend hours upon hours repeat-crafting relics to get +1 in a skill that you actually use.

Otherwise I just use the gear I find, and thankfully GD has a pretty abundant drop system, though I have farmed greens. I haven’t completed all the end-game content yet though, only the standard game storyline.

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In vanilla game I played only one character through veteran and put aside grim dawn for later. After AoM came I played for one year only on veteran and elite with many chars to just farm enough stuff to be able to do ultimate. When I had enough stuff then I first beat ultimate with 2H ranged primal strike build. After that I did ultimate with all of my characters. Sometime during this time I first started to use GDstash for crafting instead of NPC and then later for greens as well. I still farm epic and legendaries (it is easy and not time consuming).

After FG came out I started to play only on veteran and ultimate because I already started to hate the three difficulty runs. This year after joining the forum I started to play only on ultimate to be able to play as many builds as possible (because I have a file with over 100 links to grimtools chars and still theorycraft new ones almost everyday and I cannot play them as fast).

Also around a year ago I started to play SR beacuse it was needed to complete the quests and finish your char. At first I managed to get every of my chars to SR 50 and later after learning about aggro abuse everyone of them to SR 65 - I just do not like getting gang banged in SR). I do not see any point playing deeper SR. My main focus is still MC and SR is just for completing the char. Crucible seems just completely boring to me.

Without GDstash I would have lost interest in the game a long time ago. Farming one boss for an MI is boring unless it is like Ravager where you will get the helm after each kill. I like that. Epics and legendaries one gets easily through multiple MC playthroughs, totems and SR runs. Also crafting is meh and expensive in the game. I never post builds that are not achievable (unless it is one of my totally green builds that are just GDstash memes).

I think that Alkamos and Magi rings should drop more. Crafting relics should not need lower relics and you should choose the bonus. You should also be able to choose regular crafting bonus in game. I would also thin out the affix pool a lot more. It is still very bloated. Especially for rings, medals and amulets.

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taken: blacksmith, craft new boots for me. i really want the best green with the BiS double rare affixes.

blacksmith: when will you stop? cairn has run out of IRON!!!

taken: pfff then improvise. just use aetherial crystal. if iron is paper money, they’re gold bricks.

blacksmith: you’ve depleted all aetherial crystal in cairn too!!! the aetherial invaders have decided living high in cairn is too expensive and they resigned to go zombo forever in aetherhold!!!

taken: chthonian blood. slit their own wrist

blacksmith: so that’s it huh? soon were going to sacrifice people to craft some boots. maybe we should just go extinct already.

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Amen to that. I’ve got a Nightbringer to drop from Morgoneth but still haven’t a single f*cking ring drop. From Alkamos I got one Soulrend drop but none of the rings. And then you’ll find some builds here that use both Alkamos’ rings or 2 of the same magi ring. There’s no way in hell those builds were made without GDStash, unless the creators are sadists masochists who enjoy the pain of doing those dungeons over and over again, non-stop, for hours and hours, for days and days.

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at most that would make them masochists :wink: Quite possibly they actually enjoy farming and hoping for the right item to drop.

But yeah, I would not mind higher drop rates on unique items that drop from one boss only.

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68

Trading is an option you know :stuck_out_tongue:. While I was farming for a Shuroth, I had 4 Magi ring drops from the others and traded 2 away for the ones I want.

I mean, that’s just playing the game isn’t it? Sure at a certain point it gets tedious or tiring going through the same route and enemies but you’re not hard-pressed to spend more time than your body or brain can take, so taking breaks exist. Even if you spend for example 2 hours a day farming rings, you’ll start to see drops eventually over time, as well as other nice things you wouldn’t expect (like I got around 7 Morgoneth set shoulders and some good green Magi shoulders/chests whilst looking for rings).

It also helps to just throw on a video, stream, podcast, music playlist etc. while grinding something out.

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69

Oops… you’re right :stuck_out_tongue:

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Or accept the lack of these rings and play with something else. Why ruin your enjoyment if you don’t like farming?

71

OMG

I keep telling myself that I want to do that, then I remember how freaking long battles can take with no dps. I’m still working on saving up the gear though bc I’m a masochist though. :slight_smile:

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Its a lifelong goal for me. I wont put the game down until I have achieved that goal without using GD Stash or any mods at all. In other words, I will be playing this game for years.