It feels like the days of rinse and repeat farming have past

Preface: This is a just a thought that crossed my mind after looking at drop chances for double rares, no underlying intentions in mind. Also the opinion is baseless, it’s more of a feeling of where the industry might or need to be going towards.


Diablo 2 popularized the gameloop of farming: going through the same content over and over, pulling the trigger to gamble your time for loot.

It might be my age acting up but it feels that this gameloop is loosing its grip on the players. Modern market is very saturated for entertainment and people have progressively higher demands for dopamine per hour rates.

As such, with the evolution of the entertainment market the aRPG gameloop has to evolve too. First it was “I don’t want to kill Mephisto for 500 times, i want to kill Superduperformidable Mephisto of Vitality 5 times with +7000% chance at good loot”.

And maybe the industry is due to the next step. But what’s the step gonna be? I’m not a gamedev to have the answer but as a tryhard myself i see a big opportunity in rewarding skillful gameplay with better loot: you play very well = you save a lot of time farming. Not a little. A lot.

Imagine the progression curve that tends asymptotically to some plato of absolute power level, but the highest challenges are a leap above that plato, you can’t trump them with raw stats, can’t follow the bestest build by the book and have an algorithm to victory and best loot layed out for you on the fresh and shiny game.wiki.ogr

You can say it’s a blend of aRPG and roguelike. I recently played Hades 2 where there is no endgame farming. To my understanding the game is already a massive success just in EA. And i really didn’t feel that big of a gap in gameplays between Hades 2, the rogulike, and GD, the aRPG. I really want to see future aRPGs incorporating more skillbased challenges as endgame, or making other drastic changes to this slots gameplay loop that overstayed its welcome. You have to compete with AI sexbots somehow.

What do you guys think?

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IMO this already exist in PoE. Uber Searing Exarch or Uber Maiven where dodging near one shot fireballs or avoiding beams while playing memory games.

I have not done the Uber variants but have finished all the base bosses. The issue is, they eventually become boring/tedious and very much not worth the time (typically).

Granted, your idea of rewarding skillful playing is great. PoE doesn’t do that because there is too much bloat so RNG rules your life, forcing people to farm currency to buy what won’t drop for them.

Running the same boss or mob over and over isn’t bad so to speak. It’s what the path there looks like.

If you are just ignoring everything to get there, then it (for me) can become a slog pretty quick. However, if there are lots of fun stuff on the way…that’s different.

If most of the shit being sold didn’t suck, PoE’s Ritual mechanic was one of those that was really fun to me. Increasingly harder totems for currency to buy loot.

Non modified delirium maps are fun because you are racing a timer and dropped jewels that allowed better pathing on your skill tree. Further more it dropped fragments for another event.

Events or objectives along the way could be part of the puzzle but it cannot go the route PoE did with inflated loot pools/affixes.

The loot doesn’t have to be S++++ tier or better then what normally drops. It just has to be worth the player’s time with interesting side grades, more build enabling items, etc.

If the journey to the boss is fun/rewarding then I don’t see much wrong with the formula. That’s not to say it can’t be changed or made better.

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I’m a ‘casual’ player with a limited experience in the genre compared to most of the veteran on the forum, but in my opinion the most important thing to have nowadays is variety of end-game content with increasing difficulty.
The problem of D2 was that it had basically no end game, the endgame was running the same boss over and over, faster and faster.
A game that can offer different content (with increasing difficulty and rewards!) is already doing a great thing to capture it’s audience.
GD is somehow already doing this with SR, cruci, and Celestials, with the problem that except some boss there are not enough incentive to run Celestials because the only reword is the right to brag.
A nice thing to have would be run SR to farm a decent build, then move on a first tier of bosses with their unique loot/rewords, and the move to the next tier of Uber bosses, and so on.
The great thing would be that each step would require to study and reshape the build based on the reword and the next fifth, at least that are the part that I enjoy the most in an arpg.

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Did it? I was always avoiding repetition and preferred making do with what I found. It seemed more fun to me than extorting random generators. More difficult too.

I agree that players are getting ever more spoiled and demand the rewards NOW! They find unfun ways to play games, pick unfun games in the first place, treat gaming as a chore and blame games for not delivering entertainment. It’s all backwards.

Thankfully, chance-based games are not going away. They may simply be losing some popularity, which is a good thing. Let the masses infest something else. Players who choose to farm and then complain about farming will move on to other genres. People who enjoy not finding what they wanted most of the time will keep on playing.

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A game is an experience and it’s right to comes to an end, at some point. This means good design. Games designed to be endless, with seasons and whatever to keep people playing year after year are usually bad designed and became decent at best just for short period.

A game so good that keep you playing it even without new contents every 3 month, where is the community of players itself who create their own seasons, it’s a masterpiece in his genre.

And a masterpiece doesn’t force you to make some contents to keep playing or to get reward to be stronger.

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To me, the more interesting progression systems are not the ones tied to “random items with random affixes from semi-random monster”.

For example, I liked the Nemesis/Bounty system from modern Assassin’s Creed titles.
There are powerful foes, many way stronger than you, who roam the land - sometimes they hunt you, othertimes you hunt them.
If you kill them, you will rank up and receive unique rewards, which unlock craftable affixes on your gear.
So you have an incentive to challenge “bosses” way out of your league, to skip ahead and obtain items you want. Only works if the combat is mostly skill-based though, if it’s 90% stat-check, 10% skill, then it would probably fall apart.

In the same vein, I also liked the PoE-challenges, except for their seasonal nature.
Having a checklist of thing to do, all of it optional and sometimes far out of reach, but yielding unique rewards - that would be an interesting way to reach “max level” and unlock items, creating a balanced character for all content on the way.

I don’t know, I think in the days of battle royales and extraction shooters, there seems to be no shortage of people enjoying repetitive content.

At the end of the day, games are entertainment, and it’s either entertaining to play them or it’s not. If you are having fun, then you are probably not thinking too hard about whether this was your 3rd time or 100th. The best thing a game can do in that regard is to offer variety in how rewards are acquired, so that everyone can find something they enjoy doing and so that you are not forced to repeat the same thing ad-nauseum but can switch it up. This is of course the most expensive thing to do in terms of development costs. Making stuff takes time/money after all.

There is also something to be said about the dopamine hit of finally getting that very rare thing you’ve coveted. Diablo 4, personal views aside on whether you think it is a good game or not, intentionally implemented Mythical items that are extremely rare (one might say with mixed success as they are still making changes to their acquisition 6 seasons later) because they wanted to provide that dangling carrot on a very long stick. Clearly it still has its appeal.

The concept of rewarding skill with greater rewards sounds nice on paper, but you have to remember that the vast majority of players are not in fact all that skilled. One might even say that roughly 50% of them are outright bad at a game (by simple averages). Not to mention that the most skilled players, by virtue of being better at the game, are going to experience a faster acquisition of rewards. By concentrating highly-demanded rewards on the highest skill level, you’re essentially double-dipping for that audience, meaning they run out of fun/motivation that much sooner, and discouraging the other end because they will never attain such efficiency.

Consequently, that’s why my philosophy towards ultra challenges like super bosses is to reward cosmetic, niche, or side-grade items, rather than them giving out some pinnacle rewards everybody wants/needs to complete their build.

I think there is definitely a place for big challenges. They offer goals to aim towards and a sense of accomplishment. But when they become mandatory to long-term success, the narrative quickly changes and they can actually be a source of frustration instead.


There are definitely good things that have emerged in ARPGs in the last decade, such as giving players more agency over how and what rewards they get. When you feel like you get more of a say in the end result, the inherent RNG stops feeling like such an adversary to your fun.

From a developer perspective though, it comes down to a careful balance of ensuring that the fun (ie. the rewards you want) comes at a steady pace such that it’s not so fast that it stops being exciting, but not too slow that it becomes frustrating. I’m not sure there is a silver bullet solution to that, but the formula is always shifting. But I do not see farming for loot going out of style any time soon.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

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Thanks for the insight from a developer prospective instead of a consumer one.

I agree with the sentiment overall, because giving player challenges too difficult and locking stuff behind them only increase the FOMO sentiment killing creativity; but I think that the idea of a “completed” build is extremely subjective and offering some improvements (not drastic ones) doesn’t harm. Some people are fine with their levelling gear, some players don’t even reach level 100, other people are satisfied with they legendary set, other ones are not happy until they have their perfect rolled double rare MI.

That’s said, I am not a game designer :sweat_smile:

But I would loooove to have more Celestials level bosses with their niche rewords.

Thank you for sharing your insights and taking the time (as well to @banana_peel ) to address your thoughts on the current system.

Speaking for myself (someone who never gamed much, but playing GD for 7 years since I want to feel comfortable in a game instead of moving one game to the other) I am really happy that the celestial exclusives don’t make or break your build in case of dropping OP items. What you’d get, is someone like me copying a build from forum to get it, which misses the many opportunities the game offer in terms of diversity in char building.

That left aside, noone may forget that chasing cruci times for one, another may be happy to finish cruci at all. Even with identical builds. Just because of… skill

I definately understand @banana_peel why you want additional benefit/challenge more in terms of skill, but I’m not really understanding what this reward could be. We all have 50 Barbaros Pants :wink:

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Yeah, this sounds like the right approach. When you “beat the game” there is not as much of a universal use of power loot, but rather smth interesting and possibly smth to boast about.

And of course you need to have an apparent and accessible rewards structure for everyone. What i meant was that maybe you can introduce some big shortcuts to these rewards that require some extra effort. While keeping all regular routes in place. And these extra effort routes would enrich the game’s universe. For casual and new players they would act as a random Shadowbeast when you took a wrong step at the start of Gothic 2 and got obliterated. This feeling of the dangerous paths that exist right next to you is very world-expanding, IMO.

What if when you farm Bargol you can toss a Bottle of Tryhard into him, worth 100.000, that turns him into 5 shattered Bargols and the last one standing drops 10 maces with 5x chance at double rare each. I feel like i’m missing the feeling that extreme dangers with high rewards are just there, because the night is dark and full of terrors.

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Maybe those pants, yes we do have a few, but it’s also a mistake to think everyone has or will have all the legendaries.

This is basically how I feel. Well said.

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please please make defeating calla, ravager, nemesis on Ascendant mode drop little mean non-combat pet versions of themselves :drooling_face:

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Celestials are not for you to toy with, mortal.

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This topic has given me a nice opportunity to reflect on how much I appreciate Grim Dawn and what Crate has done with it. Thanks OP.

There are complex conversations to be had about what constitutes “skill” or “fun”, how they are related or expressed in gameplay, difficulty vs. reward, and which players enjoy which kinds of content. Each topic is deep. My opinions on them are, of course, subjective.

One-shot kill patterns that need to be memorized, or games that require fast twitch reflexes, are just one kind of fun and one kind of skill (difficulty) which don’t appeal to everyone. Action RPGs can be expected to involve reflexes. However, I believe most fans of the genre, including me, don’t like too much of that. For ARPGs, the skill and fun don’t only come from reactive gameplay, but also from progressively improving a character: i.e., having cool abilities, planning a build, goal-setting, rolling alts.

A game could require skill and be fun if it purely requires reflexes and the RPG elements didn’t matter; or, it could be fun if the game is 100% a spreadsheet simulator with 0% execution. However, neither of those games would be much of an ARPG. Any game that could be reasonably called an ARPG is going to involve both. Even if the future of ARPGs involves reactive twitchy unforgiving gameplay, it still needs RPG elements; and high-stakes unforgiving games just aren’t for everyone.

About grinding. Loot tables and loot randomization are part of ARPGs not just because Diablo did it, but because it is the easiest way to implement progressive character improvement. For one, it helps devs get more mileage out of game assets. Additionally, because players don’t always get the item they need, they are encouraged to spin the wheel more times, and spinning the wheel is fun. Giving players ways to modify the wheel - spinning more wheels or better wheels - doesn’t eliminate grinding, it just reshapes it. It’s surely better to give players those options, so I agree with OP and Zantai about that. I think grinding’s here to stay.

Moreover, I wonder whether ARPG buyers will be interested in big deviations from the formula. I can imagine an ARPG where every Groble has a personalized backstory, behaviour, and loot with perfectly balanced progressive scaling (in other words no randomized loot, no grinding, no screens filled with hordes). However, I think a lot of people really expect a pew pew, screen splodey, kill 5000 goblins in 100 dungeons, kind of game in an ARPG. It’s also possible that an item such as “Arcanor, Blade of the Luminari” at 1/10,000 drop chance Diablo-style is actually just more exciting than “Frank Groble’s Slingshot of 1% Improvement” as a 100% drop. Meaning, grinding can be more fun in some ways.

(Actually, all this writing has me thinking about alternative game designs… maybe one day. :smiley:)

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I might have already said it elsewhere, but I’m not sure the impact of Grim Tools has been fully acknowledged.
Sure, there’s always been “build guides” and people trying to get a specific item so they can follow the “guide”, but in the “old days”, farming was mostly about seeing what you got, and turning the occasional “oh nice!” into a new character.

Not so much with Grim Tools. You plan your character first, and then try and get the gear for it.
When the missing piece drops, it’s not “oh nice!”, it’s “at f@@ long last!”.

The famous “dopamine hit” has been replaced by a mere frustration relief.

The latest gear affix changes (removal of phys res, removal of random skill affixes), which may or may not have been justified otherwise, have had the side effect (for me at least) that the last “oh nice!” opportunities (Overseer on a MI helm, +3 DM on a medal…) are now gone.

The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that some aspects which have become staples of the genre should actually expurgated from it. And “Farming” is definitely on that list, either through removing monster respawning, or randomized loot, or both.

Concerning hardest content and rewards… It feels intuitively correct that the hardest content should yield the best rewards.
And yet… it’s actually a fallacious and even dangerous (from a game design POV) idea. The “best rewards” are what helps deal with the hardest content. So they need to be available beforehand! If players can get to the point they can “farm” the hardest content to get even more powerful, you get started on the deleterious “endgame loop”.

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I fully agree about the “Ah F@*& at long last!” part. I just always wonder what would I ever do when I get there? Like, you get all the things you need, and then it’s “Guess I make a new character?”
I did like the roguelite elements that GD introduced, especially in the later stages of Ultimate. You don’t always survive, and you may need a certain build just to be able to achieve that goal, but it just doesn’t feel worth it at that point. In the end bragging rights is all it really is, even if it is cosmetic or a pet.
For me it was always having builds to mess around with in the first place. If there was a way to somehow unlock level caps in the higher tiers, and even have a third class combination. Then porkers like me would line up and dream up all sorts of crud for thousands more hours, and the later in the game this is possible the better! Imagine getting through all the Ultimate rogue runs the first time and you unlock that L100 and a third class? It would feel like the start of the game somehow, it would be insane. I would throw my keyboard out the window out of excitement. Especially if I didn’t see it coming.
Honestly, I wouldn’t know what else I could suggest to really pump life into that grind for gear. It’s not exactly a forte of mine, but I hope more in terms of role play and less emphasis on loot. Give me 10 ways to beat the game, and you bet your tush I’ll beat it 10 times with 1 character, and then repeat that same thing with another 10 characters at the least!

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I’ve recently farmed out around 100 Blaze Heralds on a self found character. I have thoughts.

The problem with farming in Grim Dawn is that to get a Blaze Herald(or other MI) with exotic affixes will take you 1-1000 hours of killing literally just 1 monster. You can look at the odds and calculate how long it will take in advance. Then you get to decide if you will invest, say 50 hours, to get the item you want, or will you use any old Blaze Herald. There’s no surprise here, nothing to discover. It’s just: throw away time, get item. Personally this makes me want to go outside and touch grass.

I think the way to solve this is with crafting. If you kill Blaze Herald twice, then you should be done. And the way you get the affixes you want on your Blaze Herald is by finding them on rare items, and crafting them onto your Blaze Herald. This should be a bit costly. Maybe to craft a rare+magic affix on your MI you sacrifice a full blue 94 set, and for double rare, it’s a full purple 94 set.

On that character that farmed those Blaze Heralds, I also used Soulare’s Helm. And obviously I wanted that 30% conversion on it. The helm is pretty cheap to make, except for 1 item: Kilrians Shattered Soul. After making my first helmet, I decided I never want to farm Kilrian ever again. I think it’s fine to use annoying ingredients like that to make an item, but you should be able to reroll it without farming literally just 1 monster.

Rare items should be able to be “ascended” to a higher level. If I find a godly double rare at level 20 while leveling a new character, I should not have to discard it just because it’s low level. There should be some crafting method to level it up, all the way to 94.

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The most fun I had with GD’s items was a looong time ago, using GD Stash to simulate such a system.
I sent all rares to the stash, and to “craft” an item, I needed 3 : the base item, on of the same family for the prefix, one of the same family for the suffix. Once the new item was crafted, all three “source” items were deleted from the stash.
Now, that was before Totems and the various drop changes, so rare items didn’t rain all over the place at the time.
Also, I was playing the “one-pass playthrough” style (meaning no farming because no revisiting areas unless absolutely necessary for a quest, in which case I’d just run through). No shop-farming either, obviously.

It combined a limited-supply (so choices and tradeoffs to be made) with flexibility.

Unfortunately, wouldn’t work now: way too many drops. Even with those rules, the supply wouldn’t exactly be “limited”.

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I like your idea of leveling up MIs, for instance. Although I find crafting requiring rare ingredients only a little less tedious than farming 1 monster.

I’m very glad components aren’t partial anymore…

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