That’s not true imo. Rare affixes are very plentiful. Take farming derma slicers as an example. You can run the hole in the ground (can’t remember the name cause no coffee yet 
) 10 times and you will see at least one or two sinister and heart piercing prefixes, and the same for rare suffixes. Just not aligned. So having a system where you could potentially combine affixes onto a single weapon/item would be amazing.
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My point is that rare affixes are so prevalent nowadays that the “hard choices” / “tradeoffs” wouldn’t be present.
You’d be guaranteed to get the affixes you need / want for every slot.
The fun part for me was precisely that I could not get BiS combos everywhere.
Or, to take your example, if I have a Sinister affix drop, do I craft immediately a Sinister of Alacrity, or do I drudge on and hope for an Of Heart Piercing to drop too ?
Such a decision wouldn’t have to be made nowadays because I’d be guaranteed to get it very soon.
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Ah I see. My bad, I misunderstood ya. Still, having more options isn’t a bad thing. I’ve spent a lot of time farming to get double rare (or even single rare copies) of MIs I need, as have lots of legit players trying to make their build the best they can. Would really appreciate the option to combine affixes.
An option to combine affixes is just that, an option. You don’t have to use it. Just like you don’t have to play SR, CR, etc…
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SR timer chest is that, but in light.
You have to take into account the player base of this game being a bunch of boomers mostly though. Not sure if being overly punished for playing “bad” (aka slow) is the right call. The only other way I can see differenciating between “good” or “bad” play is introducing mmo-style mechanics to boss fights that, if completed, grant extra loot. Usually this means stuff like “stand in green circle during phase x” or kill “sideboss y before killing main boss” or “solve this really not complex (but somehow still too complex for most gamers) puzzle while fighting the boss that ultimately just feels annoying to do”. I personally am not sure if any of this design has a place in GD apart from one time secret challenges (“hidden paths”).
Also you already get rewarded for playing a fast build in a fast way anyway due to getting better loot/min.
Imagine the outrage on the forums if you get -1chest in SR everytime you get sundered. 
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As for legendaries & epics I feel like this is fine as it is. This also includes the Magi rings and Alkamos rings for example - drop chances might be rather low but they are generally really good and if you get them once you probably are not going to need a lot more of them (unless you wanna play every single cold autoattacker nightblade-combo in the game 
)
For greens I feel like they are just too painful to farm. Very often I feel like I need an exact affix to truly make a build shine and more often than not it takes just too much time to get even just one of the two affixes right. I cannot imagine farming Bargoll right now with “Tyrant’s” for damage reduction and “Alacrity” for the Attack Speed. I took me several hours back when Vendor-farming was still a thing for the Bargoll weapons. If I did not do that back then, I would definitely not go for a build requiring that. Some affixes are just way too important to give up (Attack Speed, Cast Speed, Damage reduction, Flat resistance reduction, Phys res (shields)).
I just hope that FoA affix reroll system will fix this issue and that it will not be too expensive to do a reroll. If it will require like an ancient heart and 100k iron per reroll I am not going to bother with greens that need specific affixes
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Not responding to anything in this thread other than the OP. Just dropping my thoughts on loot(ing) in general.
Loot acquisition is something I’ve put a LOT of thought into over the years. It was SEVEN(oh god…) years ago that I made the Grim Dawn’s Loot Problem video:
From the description:
Things change with time, and ultimately much of my recommendations in that video have been implemented. I’ve always been an advocate for loot quality over quantity, and for giving a predictable cadence (“Ceno mentions cadence.png”) to loot drops, and for making those loot drops desirable. Working backward through that sentence, I mean
- I’ve wanted more target-farming in GD. MIs and set transmutation are a step in the right direction, but players should be able to seek out X Legendary item and find X Legendary item from Y source.
- I’ve wanted looting to interrupt game flow less. This is more of a Campaign problem, but can also be said to be a Loot Filter issue too. In SR/Crucible, the cadence of loot is very regular - you get it when you “cash out”. In Campaign, loot drops pretty irregularly, which can lead to a lot of stop-and-go gameplay which breaks the pace of combat and progression.
-
- If the Loot Filter was more expansive/customizable, this would be less of an issue, as you could better limit what you see only to what you are actually interested in. Farming for that specific Triple Rare or a Legendary with a minimum conversion %? You shouldn’t need to comb through every MI drop or poopoo conversion rolls.
- I’ve wanted less but better loot. We’ve seen the loot in Grim Dawn get better over time, with affix weighting and the like. But quantity hasn’t exactly dropped, so you can still get a screen full of stuff that needs parsing.
But these are all Grim Dawn-specific problems. GD is…old. And whether Zantai/medierra necessarily like the general looting in GD is irrelevant, as they can mostly only work with what they’ve got. But for the genre as a whole, we’re a good bit past the principles of mere target farming that I’ve strived to have in GD for nearly a decade.
I want to expand on what Zantai said here:
Again, one implementation of this would be stronger target farming policies/mechanics, and I’d love to see that. That’s sort of the impetus for my GrimArmory mod. But, again, modern ARPGs take things further than target farming alone.
I pitched an ARPG concept to my friendgroup, and we’ve begun working on it (dreadfully slowly) since then. Here’s an excerpt from the design document I pitched:
The means to customize the anticipated behavior of the game world, and the loot that drops within it, is the current “step” for loot acquisition in ARPGs. But there’s a warning to be given here, too. People pump tons of resources into “juicing” their “world spaces” in Path of Exile (we’ll go with “maps” instead of “world spaces” for simplicity, but it also applies to “contracts”, “logbooks”, etc.) and what they get in return is more resources, because that’s the way PoE works. You put in currency, you get out currency, and then you turn that currency into what you want through other convoluted systems (or trading).
But in a game system where you don’t have a definitive Resource → Item pipeline, as we presently lack in Grim Dawn, if the cost of world customization is too high, it will feel incredibly bad not to get what one wants out of that customization. The psychological lows of investing one’s material resources for no desirable return is crucially damaging to the longevity of such a system.
People rinse and repeat juiced maps in PoE without issue, because in theory you typically get out more than you put in and the process is therefore fairly self-sustaining (and profitable). Moreover, “juiced” content is still not predictable, even when it’s customized/tailored toward the same general desirable content. The enemy spawns/modifiers may vary, even if the expected loot may be configured to one’s desires. So, to respond to this from the OP:
The modern approach is “I want to kill any version of Mephisto my build can handle within the modifiers offered by the game for as lucrative/deterministic loot as I can manage.”
Yes and no. GGG has a very alienating approach to high end content, but alienating as it is, it’s also attractive to many. Their philosophy is that the pinnacle bosses with the best loot should not be completed by everyone - in fact, it should be only a slim minority of their population that’s capable of acquiring this loot, and only rarely at that. They want the best rewards to be given only to the best players.
But the belief is that this “aspirational content” will lure more players into playing the game to see if they’re good enough, or it’ll generate views of the game/play on media platforms (youtube/twitch/etc.) for free advertising. Everyone loves a good RIP, and to be there when X epic loot finally appears.
But I think we’re getting a bit away from the nature of the loot itself.
For the most part, while this works for GGG, I don’t think it can work for any/everyone and I don’t think it’s sustainable longterm. I share Zantai’s opinion in relegating only cosmetic, or otherwise non-BiS rewards behind pinnacle content. I’m not sure if an ARPG will ever be “mainstream” enough to catch a wide audience on e.g. a Fortnite level, but if ever it does, I don’t imagine it will do so by making its loot acquisition uber strict and behind a high skill floor.
I could ramble on about loot for hours more, but I think this post is long enough as it is, and I have to keep some stuff close to my chest in case I ever make that ARPG with my friends. 
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I like the idea of target-farmable items, like Mythical Heart of the Sand King.
I know where the boss is, i keep runnin and killing it until the item drops.
Agree with the notion that it is not “oh wow nice” anymore, it’s just “finally, at long last it dropped, next”.
MIs, for example, are different.
On one hand, during low levels you need an item with any combo of prefix/suffix and you move on on Campaign (like Pulsing Shard).
On the other hand, on level 94, you want the best possible affixes on the item, preferrably double rare (with %aether damage at least both on prefix and suffix) for more damage/covering up missing resistance, or you need “of the Abyss” suffix on Bloodsworn Repeater for the % reduced target’s damage and %reduced resistance, or “of the Wild” for +2 to Briarthorns, etc. Items with and without such affixes are very important to get the most out of your build.
I like the idea to transfer prefix/suffix from one item to another very much, it will eliminate the grind for the right affix on the right item and i will not have to spend time cross-checking all items cashing out on SR/Crucible runs.
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I don’t mind farming as long there is some progress even when you don’t get new good equipment, like you level up or get closer to your next level. Well, to reach level 100 in Grim Dawn is way too fast, but at least there are devotion skills levels and faction reputation to give that extra layer of passive progress.
What I don’t like is crafting. Relics are ok, because its just one slot and you can focus on the few that your character will need. But I dislike a lot having to craft components. It is just a boring chore. Specially, I hate that some items can only be crafted.
In the end, I am not a big fan of endgame. I find the leveling and exploration much more fun than to spend hours min/maxing a build. Although I have already beaten some celestials and the hidden paths, I think one character able to that is enough and I should have more fun playing non-optimized alts.
Personally, I think farming is repetitive and rather dull. I don’t want to do something bores me in a game.
If it were me I would do several things:
Make magic items less predictable and more random.
That way you discover a magic sword happens to suit you rather than go to spot X and kill Z 2000 times to get the best mcguffin you know Z will drop. You don’t start with a shopping list and frustration.
Items have numbers internally and stats vary so I guess any item you find has a list of effect and numbers. The name is presumably mostly there for display.
Introduce some randomised locations.
I was very surprised that wasn’t how they did shards.
There are already portals take you weird places.
Make some of those places weirder, not hand crafted masterpieces but instead randomly generated,
Make some holes in the ground random dungeons, cave systems or some such.
Add a completely randomised alternative world.
Sure stories are fun but most arpg players are barely reading the script and it’s necessarily rather one dimensional anyhow.
Punters want to kill things with interesting pretty effects. Lots of varied things. Let em.
Add magic item improvement.
You get your sword blessed by arch bishop wossname and it’s better at killing undead.
Go see the fiery magician and do stuff for him, he can make it better at fire stuff.
By making things less predictable you increase re playability and how long a player is going to want to engage with your game. More happy players means more recommendations and more sales.
I’d also offer a translucent map overlay option. Not doing so makes players pop up the map and then they’re not looking at any scenery at all. Fabulous as that scenery is. But that’s a different topic.
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My endgame play is usually farming items for my next char, because I don’t want an unfinished feeling when I hit lvl94.
However I wish I can improve my builds further instead of starting a new char.
Celestials look like that they are here to test if your build is above a certain power lvl. Some builds don’t have any chance of beating them whatever they wear. Unfortunately their rewards are not worth the trouble either.
PoE has it different in endgame rewards. You can kill uberbosses and drop an item like voidforge and be able to build around it. Beating endgame is not possible because not all builds can beat all aspects of the game. Making alts is necessary in case your main can’t compete with different parts of the game. Then again hitting lvl 100 is another challenge in PoE.
GD encourages building new alts, where PoE pushes your main to be more complete. MI Farming is all the endgame there is and its not challenging but only timeconsuming. Hopefully FoA will solve this problem and push chars to be uberchars.
I must confess that I prefer deterministic outcomes based on my own skill and choices rather than playing the casino and hoping for the best. Yeah, I’ve also developed less tolerance for farming.
Then please do something about Legendary MIs with less than 100% drop rate, like Alkamos rings, Outcast’s Secret, etc.
My suggestion is to offer them via guaranteed one-shot chests, similar to the way the Stormheart/Blazeheart/Chillheart daggers and Totally Normal shields are acquired. The ease of initial acquisition would be balanced with the difficulty of re-rolling the items because another character would have to be created and leveled, etc.
Maybe this is what the new “Ascended” Difficulty is going to address in the FoA expansion. I could imagine that you will be able to increase your game difficulty in order to increase drop chances - I just hope that drop chances can be increased significantly and not like 10% max. (e.g 3% drop chances only going up to 3.3% drop chance would still be lame…)
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I think farming is fine - as you as players are making some form of progress with each gameplay loop iteration.
Final Fantasy XIV is a good example - when you are not getting items directly because boss didn’t drop it or you lost lottery, you are getting tomestones - currency to buy 2nd BiS gear and tokens to exchange for BiS gear. It might take a while, but witch each run you are making progress.
In Grim Dawn that could be crafting materials to craft items and blueprints. In addition, more legendary or rare items should be craftable and there should be a chance to obtain blueprints (for them or items from the same set) when dismantling them.
So basically there is still RNG but there would be tiers to it (obtain item->obtain blueprint->obtain materials) as some sort of “bad luck prevention”. So getting items right away would still bring satisfaction and be rewarding but if you didn’t drop it, you’d still make some form of progress towards obtaining it.
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Sorry if this counts as a necro, but I wanted to add a thought. First a quote from Schopenhaur:
“I have reminded the reader that every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence. It follows, therefore, that the happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering — from positive evil.”
I quote that partly in jest, but it does ring a bell with the sense of relief given when you finally get the drop. Are we actually enjoying this, or are we just relieved it’s over?
I’ve farmed a lot in various games. Not so much in any one game, save perhaps Warframe. The biggest killer of my enjoyment of any game that has farming or RNG based progression is the moment I succeed. The raison d’etre of grinding is to get more powerful, but there will come a point when there is nothing to turn that effort towards. It’s exacerbated when more content is added. You realise you’ll reach that same plateau again, and the devs can (in theory) just string you along forever by making the numbers bigger.
I like the idea of skill based challenges, but I don’t think the best gear should be gated skill or grind. Rather these final skill challenges could exist to finally apply your full potential towards, with the challenge being one’s full mastery of the game. Keeping in mind, as others mentioned, skill means a lot of different things, not just hand-eye coordination and reflexes. Memory and game knowledge are two examples of skills applicable to this game.
Finally, there is like, 50 gazillion different things to experience in this world and tomorrow it’ll be 50 gazillion and some. Things do need to end eventually, even if it doesn’t feel satisfyingly concluded. Maybe you’ve found it for this?
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I second this. I used to play Tactics Ogre a lot, where a modder made all “rare items” have a 100% drop chance on “heroes” and “bosses” within optional grindy deeply-levelled dungeons (and fixed a ton of game imbalances), and imo it made the game so much more fun (the mod is called One Vision btw and it gave the ancient game a 2nd life).
Planning for builds felt more meaningful as you didn’t have to get stuck and frustrated blindly praying for a decent affix combination or 1 more piece of your set to finally drop after days of farming, for example. I knew where to go, and where to go after that.
As others have suggested, drops don’t necessarily have to be 100%, but visible progress towards obtaining your items would definitely be lovely, especially when it’s a risky grind run that requires skill. I am hoping that it would at least come with the implementation of the new Ascended difficulty, which imo would give the game a new fruitful feeling of excitement.
I’m old so I don’t know if the Pups consider quoting a 3-month old comment ‘Necroposting’ (not that I really care) But this is spot on. I saw complaints about ‘The game doesn’t have anything to offer’ after the 1,232nd Baalrun’, only a few years after D2 released. When D2: Resurrected released a few years back, it only took the community about 2.75 seconds to start making the same complaints.
I was 25 when the original Diablo released back in 1996. I’ve completed all the difficulties (Same with D2) I might at times do a few areas/levels in their entirety in a loop, but I don’t redo the Big Boss over and over and over and over and over and… Guess what? I can still occassionally pick up those games, invest another 30hrs and not want to puke. The ‘Fun’ has tapered off some, but it’s still there.
I’ve ‘only’ invested 500ish hours into GD & to date, haven’t repeated anything, except with new characters (And where I had to run through areas already done because I had to save & quit, obviously.) I only stopped playing in 2021 because the Team I played with fell apart for whatever reason. This recent update got my attention again. From the Normie view I would be considered ‘Hard-Core’, but I know what the truly Hard-Core are like & I’m not even close. Not in GD, not in Diablo, not in anything. But if that meant turning enjoyment into a chore, it’s a title I can do without.
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I’d rather argue, that times have changed in regard of overall gaming-population but also games as a market as a whole. If you look at Videogames like 20-30 years ago, Videogames were still quite niche. Nowdays pretty much everybody plays videogame, from the geeky nerd who invests, to the housemom, to fathers and the average joes and casuals. Obviously when the market grows in such a huge way with diverse set of people, it obviously changes the demands. So i’m not sure if it’s in it’s entirely correct to say it’s just players getting more spoiled, but rather you’ve just way more people to please. And that’s where certain Games and Franchises esp. from big AAA Companies fail, because they often try to throw the net too wide, but then lose focus and identity in their games. Like take D4 as an example, which just can’t decide what it wants to be, is it for casuals or is it for core players, in the end they try to please both and in both cases they fail because it feels halfheartly delievered. Sorry - going to offtopic so b2w:
Another thing which also effects this situation is, that we’ve in general just a bloat on good Games.You’ve old games, the indie market and as well AAA (even tho the past years they’re downspirale in terms of quality and stuff). If i think back in the early 2000’s while you had a good chunk on games, it’s not closely comparable to how it is now. They were much more far inbetween which means you had time to invest in these Games. I played D2 for closely 12 Years(on-off obviously) but that’s mostly for the lack of good alternatives, - there were just to few and the ones which existed where kinda their own thing. It took until Torchlight esp. Torchlight 2 that i had finally an Alternative for Diablo which resonated with me (don’t get me wrong, Sacred 1+2 and Titan Quest were good too, but they never had the same appeal as D2 to me…). Now in the last decade the amount grew much more, look at the ARPG in general, and i’ve aside Diablo also Grim Dawn, Torchlight, Last Epoch etc which i adore, and some rather niche, maybe not fully fleshed out alternatives inbetween like Chronicon or even Wolcen. And that’s just ARPG’s… now take into account any other Genre, if you are someone who enjoys playing a variety of games, by the mass of games we’ve it’s just impossible to invest as much time into games as back then in the early 2000’s. And if you then consider that people still want to have the old dopamine hit, it obviously effects that people want to get stuff in a shorter time so they can still have that experience but also move faster on to new games.
I honestly agree fully with that sentiment (as well the rest of your Post). People easily jump to blame it one repetitivity, but i’d argue if you narrow it down, most Games are rather repetitive. In th End it all comes down if it’s fun, and that can be very subjetive.
Also about the second half, i’d argue Grim Dawn does a pretty damn good job. I mean for me personally, in my subjective PoV, i’d love to have another type of mode which is more chill and laidback… i always liked Mapworks in Torchlight 2 or !normal! Rifts in Diablo 3 better, because i want a more laidback chill experience, were i’ve the choice to go at a slower pace, explore maps, and loot while killing monster, instead of the more hyperfocused efficient stuff like Grifts (or Shattered Realm) where you have to rush throw levels and kill mobs as fast as possible to be able to cash out at the end, or the Arena-Wave-Survival. But even so you’ve a much more rich endgame-loop than most ARPG’s i know off, because aside SR and Crucible which are already are two main Endgame Modes, you can do celistials/secretbosses, nemesis, Totems, Roguelike Dungeons, Farming-Routes and such also in. (and it’s fun, esp. due no smartloot, to level up new alts and try new builds).
But it’s even outside of that, Grim Dawn is right one of two games which comes into my mind, which has pretty much nailed Itemization and it’s looting. Most ARPG’s are super-linear if it comes down to rarity-progression that in the end you need to focus most on Legendary. You give rare and epic items still a purpose outside of legendary. And the way you aquire them is also rather interestingly done, aside of the RNG loot (which i guess still have some loottables?) that you introduced MI’s as a concept is a pretty genius idea. You really do a well mix between giving some items which you can highly target farm but also maintain the core-spirit of ARPG’s / Hack’n’Slay (like diablo) of having still randomized Lootdrops as well.
Good Philosophy in my book as well. Esp. Cosmetics (in these Days) can be a good compromise between still having some challenging rewards which people can looking forward too, but also doesn’t make it mandatory.
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One way of channeling frustration is definitely to let someone know they can work in a direction.
If I need to craft a helmet that takes 300k iron bits, a specific MI and a high end component, so be it. I’ll go grab the MI, do a few boss runs in areas that drop aether crystals so that crafting the component doesn’t deplete my reserves, and grab all the greens to sell them. It will be reasonably quick. (One exception: Kilrian’s skull. Screw him. Somehow his 1/3 chance of dropping doesn’t feel good at all.)
It’s very different from Alkamos where you know from the start that the rings have 2.45% and 3.06% chance to drop and you’ll need 50 runs on average to get them, but it could very well be 10 (100) runs if you are (un)lucky. I have never gathered them in 10 years. I have level 94 duplicates, I have level 75 ones too, but since transmutation is disabled and we can’t upgrade items, I didn’t bother running more. I’m not going to makes runs for a pair of nice rings for a duration equivalent to a brand new level 100 character. Having to play the casino x times is very different from working linearly towards a goal, in my opinion. For green MIs, we will see how affix rerolling works but hopefully it falls in the “work” category and is not entirely random. I am also hoping the ascendancy altar gives an option to make the game harder and the legendary MI drops more frequent.
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remembers a time when the droprate was 0.5% 
and yet it still pales in comparison to some other games’ 0.000001 “or less” drop rates, while people still gleefully praise them, (because trading or “something”)… 
for me it’s always been like a double edged blade, be fine enough to obtain, but also have some rarity that gives you that “jackpot” feel
With drop rates increasing i’ve been suggesting and hoping GD would add another item tier that then was back in the rarer end, but without needing to be too special in utilization.
Since i’m an “extensive” enjoyer of GD i’m kinda beginning to enter the realm of drops becoming “too generous” for some stuff, good for new players, less ideal for a rarity inclined.
I’ve absolutely 0 idea how to resolve that in a manner that would be proper palatable to both ends of the spectrum, one idea i had was have “meme” tier stuff, poop pants/puke helmet, be rare, or even non-combat pets. But there will probably always be some amount of people that would fall in the “want it” but "also respect my time"category.
I still think diablo did/do it the worst, can’t speak of PoE since i’ve yet to play it, but at a glance it’s basically the same, drop rates based entirely off MP trading existing and being “mandatory”.
I think GD has done it well, still does, and i’m overall fine with the status of Legend MIs and Alkamos rings now being a “huge” 2.5-3% chance, 10% legend MIs feel kinda too easy(imo), 5% seems like they are in a decent spot.
With FoA changes coming i’m both partially worried that somethings will feel too easy or “GDstashy”, but that’s not really based in anything substantial and just speculation. And even if somethings do become extra generousy it might ofc still not mean everything will, and GD has still pretty well always had that balance somewhat decently, also even as things became less infrequent.
I don’t think it’s bad if we consider giving some still low stuff, ex Alkamos Rings a final bump to par/eg 4-5%
But i do hope we can still have, or get added, something, a new tier, of that slight jackpot rarity. - just please, not the diablo/gacha super decimal type stuff, even that’s too stingy for me 
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I would definitely agree with this general sentiment; as a 2k+ hrs player myself (I know it pales in comparison to others on this board) I do indeed find the drops a bit too generous at times, to the point of dismantle/sell immediately without saving anything but the most well rolled legendaries.
At the same time, it is balanced out really well with MI farming and the abundance of affixes. Getting a nice single rare copy can take a really long time, even if mathematically it should drop often-ish. I think Alkamos rings are fine personally; SoT is a pretty quick run with Blitz/SS type skills. (Although I do have fucking 9 Touch of Anguish copies and not one Touch of Dread! 
)
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