Innate weapon basic attack modifiers.

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Just an idea I was thinking about, could each type of weapon get it’s own unique “modifer” to it’s basic attack paragrim? Shotguns would shoot a burst of hits, like as if every shot was similar to Phatasmal Blades, with modified attack damage (Say 5 pellets at 25% weapon damage each), Rifles could either have innate piercing, like the Vortex of Souls or significantly boosted attack rate at reduced damage, Crossbows could be slower, but significantly more powerful, hits, perhaps with an innate chance to penetrate resistances.

Swords could be middle of the line attacks, with a chance to hit an extra target (2H swords having the potential to hit 3), with maces having a chance to “bash” stun a target, scythes just innately having ADCtH (Mostly matching what most Scythes currently have anyway in game), and Axes having a high chance of rending armor.

It shouldn’t be hard at all to code in adjustment wise at least for the default attack, you just have to make every class of weapon have a skill that replaces the basic attack with it’s specific class of weapon skill.

Obviously this is probably too high scope to even think about in the current Grim Dawn as anything other than a major balance reworking mod, but might be a good way to help really differentiate the weapon types in say a Grim Dawn 2 or whatever sequel Crate might give GD, as for the most part they all feel the exact same except for a few specific weapons with insanely unique modifiers.

2

Yeah, I generally favor the notion.
“Hellgate London”, or “Hellgate Global” respectively, was not a big success but it had weapon mechanics that I absolutely loved.
Being an ARPG you had the usual loot hunt, but you didn’t just choose your weapon according to it’s numbers, weapons also had completely different modes of fire, each with it’s own weapon range and mechanics.
One would be your usual pistol or rifle, another would be an assault rifle or a gatling gun, but then there also were completely different weapons like lasers, flame throwers, or ballistic rifles that shot a grenade over large distances, creating a field of napalm fire at their point of impact.

Some things like that would probably fit into the world of Grim Dawn, but just setting some of the weapon categories in the game more appart would already be a good thing in my opinion.

Alas, as you also already said, this would probably be too much for even an expansion, as you wouldn’t only have to redo all weapon stats, it would probably also need lots of work on the game engine.