I think many people within the community agree on two ironic points:
Itemization in Grim Dawn has incredible potential, and can produce some interesting combinations.
Itemization of Grim Dawn produces ~99% irrelevant items for the build which finds the item.
For example, I have a level 45 Witch Hunter. She hasn’t had an equipment upgrade for around 10 levels. Ten levels. Since APRGs are centered around the hunt for loot – and their increased power – I find it rather disappointing to go hours (in my case, multiple play sessions) without a drop relevant to my character.
So, I’m wondering if my idea has any traction:
Have Grim Dawn’s loot configuration algorithm recognize which class combination the player is, their average item level, what their corresponding stats are, and the skills they are using, and produce items which, on a regular basis, are better than the ones currently being worn.
Those who played D3 when it launched remembers the development’s team (initial) defense of “near misses.” It wasn’t fun. In GD, it’s not even that 99% of the loot isn’t a “near miss” – it rarely is even relevant to my build, or it’s just plain worse. What’s the point of having thousands of items drop if only 1 or 2 are interesting?
I’m not asking for hand outs, or for the game to become easier. I just think going hours, and/or multiple levels, in an ARPG without an item upgrade is missing the mark.
(I also have an 85 druid who experienced this same disappointing upgrade loop.)
I feel like an implementation of smart loot in Grim Dawn would have the unforeseen consequence of making the game supremely more difficult and turn off a wide portion of the playerbase.
Itemization when it comes to the large amount of prefixes and suffixes to me is rather bloated.
Diablo 3’s main issue is that the itemization was nearly all rng. Legendary items in D3 had a few affixes that are known and the rest are completely random (in Vanilla) while with Diablo 2 Unique’s had fixed affixes with just a range of how good those affixes are.
GD also has those complete random items while also having fixed items (like D2 or TQ) and NOT like Diablo 3 which released “Smart” Loot to fix their terrible itemization caused by a ton of RNG + forcing the different Mastery’s to focus on a single stat.
So to me Grim Dawn could use a bit more generous drop rates (depending on what item type) while also shaving down a bunch of the prefixes/suffixes in the game.
Ceno, you would need to demonstrate why an idea like mine would have negative consequences to the point of isolating a wide selection of the player base; that’s a rather extreme position.
I am not suggesting GD simplify their loot pool. I’m suggesting that they apply a filter while playing.
For example, my Witch Hunter uses X, Y, and Z skills and has unusually high A, B, and C damage multipliers. Let’s say the average item level of my character is 40. Therefore, the loot filter would churn out items that feature X, Y, and Z skills with A, B, and C damage types/multipliers at a rate which offers upgrade (+/- 2 item levels) at a reasonable place.
This wouldn’t inflate power creep. It would only smooth the ride from power A to B. Right now, upgrades are usually rather extreme (and very rare). It’s not unusual for an item to be upgraded by 10 or so levels each interval. Why can’t they implement a way so that more upgrades, which come less, are given? The same power would eventually be achieved, and high jumps would still occur (and be rare), yet the trek in between them would be reduced.
It could even be an option to be turned on or off, making it optional for those prefer having more upgrades (though not necessarily more powerful ones; just a higher frequency of feeling “I’m getting stronger”).
Because then the only loot that one could acquire would be of characters you’re presently using, meaning it becomes more difficult to gather gear for characters that are more gear-dependent because such characters likely can’t farm as well as other builds until they’ve been fully slotted.
Did you miss my reply where you could turn the feature off?
I don’t intend the result of this discussion to have a binary export; I think it’s cool to loot items that could inspire or aid other builds. The new formula wouldn’t have to be unrelentingly rigid. There could be a .01% chance (or some other arbitrarily low %) to drop items for other builds.
The issue that I’m highlighting is that the inverse of this situation is occurring. 99.99% of the time, I’m looting items for other builds, and not mine.
way too skewed for your current build. If everything that drops is for your build, you become way too powerful way too soon / constantly.
Not sure what the point of this is really, all you do is change the balance by having a lot bigger pool of items that work for you than the current balance requires / is meant for. So what if you have some items that are 10 levels lower than you, the game is balanced for that.
Pretty much what I think too. People also forget that item levels aren’t all that important and that items frequently drop that absolutely are powerful enough to last you quite awhile, which is why you can often see gear slots that you simply won’t find anything to upgrade it with for awhile.
I just don’t see what good will come of the game force-feeding you more powerful items constantly. What? Have it check and oh… lookie there, its been 2 levels gunna have to give this guy a similar item with better numbers than the one he’s wearing? Okee dokee, time to turn on the bigger numberator and poop this thing out?
I don’t see the value in having it as a toggleable option either. This is the kind of thing that is either set in stone or it isn’t. It’s too drastic of a measure to have as a toggle and would essentially equate to making Crate have different levels of difficulty for both modes if they did such a thing to compensate?
What I really don’t like about GD is that the loot/quest reward/random drops part of the game always feels exactly the same even when playing completely different types of characters. Most people say this is to increase replayabilty, because this way you are collecting loot for future characters, but this kind of zero control also increases frustration and actually decreases replayabilty at the same time, because in this respect the game always feels exactly the same, which is ultimately just boring. When people are playing some new build they want to experience new things, so some (only slightly) adapted drop mechanism would actually add to the feeling that a different build plays differently, giving you some additional incentive to try new characters and increasing replayability.
Consequently, adding a small portion of drops that actually fit your current build, would add a nice touch. Most obvious candidates for this would be quest rewards. There are only very few of these, so making them actually useful for your current build wouldn’t affect balancing and would also make quests a bit more meaningful and rewarding. (Honestly, in any game I never understood the design of NPCs giving you quests just to reward you with something obviously useless. This just feels wrong.)
It also wouldn’t hurt to make a small portion of the random drops (something like 10%) fit your current build, while leaving the vast majority of it completely random.
As with many things this is just a question of the right balance. Total randomness is bad because it is completely unfocused; total non-randomness is bad because it’s just boring. So you just have to find the right spot.
Randomly pulling off features of other games and mechanically implementing them here and there is rarely successful. It usually inflicts conflicts, as games differ in vision and design.
A Smart (lol) Loot function means simplification, fixed progression, and MMO-ish approach - it favors those who play a single character and never reroll, and restricts those who like the challenge in progression along with collecting items for other builds they plan.
BTW there are fixed items in game - faction vendors sell 'em. It’s designed especially for a certain type of players, and also to restrict the possibility of a player getting cockblocked by bad RNG. Smart, isn’t it.
As what you suggest is unlikely to happen, and switchable option would require too much useless work to please a narrow selection of players, I can help you with an advice - in GD you collect the items first, work around them later. If one still insists on the harder way - game will give him the certain items he needs, but it will require dedication and progression will be challenging.
You probably don’t realize, that if Crate implement a smart loot of a kind, a great portion of their player base will fuck out of here.
On a side note, I also support the idea to cut some of the useless affixes, and improve the quality of rare items this way. Further, quantity of drops is about balancing and up to developers.
this. it’s what’s fun in the game for me, and while most of the items i collect still don’t fit my chars that aleviates the problem somehow. which is fun isn’t only looting stuff, but more about how you collect it
It should be possible to slightly adjust drops in such a way that they are less frustrating for those who are playing a single (or two) characters only, without taking the fun out of the game for those who like to collect items for many more builds.
I don’t understand why, whenever people are coming up with any suggestions, people are treating them as if they were binary 0-1 decisions …
Besides abstract things like vision of developers and game’s direction, I’m fairly sure the technical aspect of such an implementation could vary from “impossible” to “requires drastic reworks”.
You may hope to catch Zantai in a mood, aside from his common working activity of nerfing stuff, and he may eventually tell you more on the subject.
Though, even if it’s technically possible, I dislike such an approach. Undoubtedly that means it’s wrong.
I am not suggesting GD rips D3’s loot system. Why this idea keeps resurfacing is beyond me. My comment about D3’s approach to loot was a contextual one; please don’t take my comments further than the language I provide for them. I liked how D3’s algorithm provided incremental upgrades for my character. There was a higher percent chance that when I found an item, I’d have an upgrade. I’m not suggesting GD follow in D3’s footsteps; I’m wanting to bridge what I liked about D3 to GD’s approach.
I’d like to know: honestly, who here likes having 99.99% of the drops being irrelevant for your build? That’s a lot of waste.
Does anyone agree that the loot structure could be more regular? Does anyone enjoy going 3 hours without an item upgrade?
I’d agree with the possibility of the notion, sure.
I mean…no? But I don’t not enjoy it either. And frankly I’d prefer going 3 hours without an item upgrade to getting an item upgrade after every mobpack…or some other non-exagerrative-but-comparably-short-span-of-time.
Why are you suggesting I want loot upgrades every mob pack? I didn’t say that. People keep extending my argument to extremes (straw man). I don’t want that either.
I just think going 10 levels, on average (again, once you hit level 20 or so), is too long. Why can’t the average be 1 to 2 upgrades per level? Or at least 1?
