Let us talk about mechanics in endgame, seriously

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

I very enjoy Grim Dawn and played it for a very long time, but as more I get into endgame the more I get disappointed. I do enjoy SR and cruicible along with rogue dungeons, the content is nice, the complaint is about how some mechanics end up working there. That is mostly evident when concerning bosses in SR final chunk, or multi-nemesis Cruicible wave.

The problem itself is that bosses became an unstoppable onslaught of disables and gap-covering. With several fully fleshed out endgame builds I experience serious issues, which seem to be totally of a random nature and not skill-dependent. Bosses do too many disables especially in SR if an unlucky combo is spawned, being stun-locked, trap-locked or similar ends up in an instant death on CR170 or SR60+. And here comes the mobility - these bosses become crazy quick, so sometimes even kiting does not work. While I imagine there are builds with well all-round defense that do such content, I find it mostly unpleasant, why the hell we have other, non-“optimal” builds in the game??? Why design so much uniques and especially sets that go straight into trash when concerning endgame??? To do, what, dungeon runs?, but we all know loot aint there, its a good midpoint in the account progression, not the endgame. I feel that no skill, kiting, knowledge of boss skill animation and patterns helps anymore.

I must put an emphasis on that Grim Dawn is NOT a multiplayer game with an economy like PoE, D2, insatnced mmos, etc, Or when builds have to be all leveled not to outperform drastically over others in end-game bosses (PoE) or GR (D3) to keep variety of distribution. There is no need to restrict players in power so that most of the builds just feel sad in the end.

For example, Grim Dawn there is simply too much resistances and especially considering many types of CC-resistances, like slow, stun, freeze, petrify, trap, sleep, depression, brainwashing, traffic jams, internet disconnects, death of the loved ones, PTSD, loss of limbs, FPS drops, game fatigue, alcohol, well I cannot scroll resistance page further, and one has to CAP all these to counter the random effects in the endgame. And what can we do to bosses? How about 100+% resistances to stun, life reduction, skill disruption, very high slow res, unremovable buffs? How about mechanics that we are handled by the game in form of skills, constellations, random items, uniques? - Get arcane blast from Grava in the face and insta-die because so many builds rely on defences from auras, thats how. Yes, these mechanics work on non-boss mobs, but these do not exist in endgame, they disappear almost instantly, only bosses matter. For what the history teaches us, this problem was already dealt with in D3 in which originally all CC did not work on bosses or elites, and gues what, it works now, not that effective tho, and its just fine, it is a part of build-planning. As cherry on top player can sometimes get so many debuffs, especially resistance penalties that incoming damage suddenly becomes untankable. Capping base damage resistances is already a pain, since so many items are BiS and you may end up like having 150% bleed overres , but still unable get that 2% ot aether res simply to cap it, and when resistance penalties kick in, you dead.

I will end my ramble with few points that I thing are cruicial to implement in Grim Dawn to make endgame enjoyable:

  1. remove the current effect of Arcane mob from the game entirely or rework it into energy-regeneration aura-like debuff or something. In endgame its simply an insta-kill.

  2. Make bosses be vulnerable to all CC-mechanics, they can be resistant or take that many off during specific time period, or have regenerating diminishing, like in D3.

  3. Make that if several bosses spawn that can disable-lock a character, their CC gets a severe penalty on duration, proc or cooldown

  4. Seriously reduce the speed of bosses in these encounters, so that there would be kiting and skill in play, instead of “nuke them faster than they come”, some bosses can have their trademak in speed, like maiden or few others, not just a screeching gank of 5+ balls of death closing on you like a ballistic missile.

  5. Nothing should reduce the resistances of players, as it very hard to build and chars have to be all-capped, due to random structure of endgame encounters, the specialization is impossible. CC, speed, OA, DA, crit multi, regen, leech debuffs are ok. Maybe replace some defuffs on players with buffs on mobs.

  6. Consider that the game still has hardcore ( I dont care personally, but I know some people do ), in PoE for a long time exhists a chunk of important end-game content that is simply ignored on HC due to uncontrollable death probability, such a sad joke, or just a few builds can do it reliably.

Well, thanks for reading folks, if you disagree I’m glad to hear the criticism, just be calm))

Lich

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You’re not the only one feeling like this. A lot of ‘end-game’ encounters are really unpleasant, especially endless gap closers/stuns and triple arcanes. Personally, I find it tedious so I usually don’t bother maxing out a character, just level to 100, play for a day tops and start something new.

If I ever need to run ‘end-game’ (i.e. farm iron for xp pots) I pick my shield guy, do some 150 cruci runs and go back to the fun part of the game (leveling) :smiley:

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Sets and purple gear are required for efficient end game play, it’s no secret. I have history in making low budget builds. Some of them can beat occasionally 170 and SR 50 or 60. But it depends how you build your char. Creating something out of the box requires knowledge of the game and even then probably will crumble. So game have sense of progress with more gear you collect and more builds become open to you. As always my advise is to play the gear, create your next char according to the items you have.

Leveling is fun, yes. I personally spent hundreds and hundreds of hours just leveling toons, without caring about end game. But after I got bored, switched to more end game approach.

About bosses, see your point. But the concept, especially in Crucible and SR is clear to see. You are gonna be surrounded with lot of CC , pools of effects, AoE, you need to be prepared for that. Imagine in 170 enemies to rely just on damage. How long you will last? Arcane mobs and strip of buffs is something I hate too.

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4

Well, I talk about strong end-game builds and even with optimized recipes (all those topics with 5-7 mins CR150-170) it doesnt work well. I watch a video how a guy just does it, I reproduce the build exactly (have really tonns of gear by now, including some really good greens) , train it, get used to its flow and, oh crap, it doesnt go all that smooth in reality, half of the times you might get a nasty combo or unlucky multi-nuke and bye-bye crucible. This is even worse in SR, where you can die multiple times, but bosses are waaaay worse.

Agree, that if you go to CR170, you should expect quite some whacking, but it should be manageble by maneuvering, popping skills in the right time, all that “git gud” stuff. I know all bosses well, and still when I farm cr170 it is still too unreliable and mostly, nerve wrecking and un-fun experience. My point is that if you do some strong builds, they should pay off so you can finally enjoy winning in the endgame, not whining))))

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Hmm, interesting. But see I know perfectly every single wave of Gladiator, yet if I reproduce build by Shoot or some other great pilot with piano build, will fail in spectacular fashion. Sometimes the skill level, the reaction, the timing matters, after all is ARPG game. If it’s just put your best gear and win it will be boring to most of the players.

So it depends of the build. But with very few exceptions, if you put end game set, you will have chance of beating 170 or SR 65 or at least 50. Of course it’s impossible all sets to be equal, just like it’s impossible all players to have equal skill level.

The randomness factor is there. In SR more than Crucible, but even in Gladiator you can have tough combo, which can crush even top tier build. But you need to adjust accordingly. If some mechanics don’t give your fair shot is bad. Luckily they are rarity and usually you can avoid the entire mess :wink:

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This is not meant to sound rude and I don’t play crucible so feel free to throw my opinion out the window and maybe I’m wrong altogether, with that being said I thought 150-170 crucible was supposed to be more of a bragging rights thing than it ever was for farming sort of like SR at 75+ or whatever. Like there are builds that can do it but every build shouldn’t be able to complete it with a high success rate.

7

This was the original intention. But the community’s interpretation…

SR60+ is not balanced and will never be balanced, but 150-170 Crucible is something that Crate has seemingly grown to be “OK” with the community farming.

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Maybe it’s me, but it’s like this whole topic gets kinda tiring / exhausting, because to break the whole issue down, than we aren’t talking about a “flaw” of the Game itself, but rather people still ignore, forget or simly don’t care the fact, that this whole SR75+ isn’t something which “crate” aimed for and the balancing is around(or even should), but a goal set by the community itself.

In Case of SR by it’s nature / type of mode, you can’t do anything about it anyway. Because if crate would consider balancing / adjusting SR75+ than a month or two later, the bar is raised higher because than the stronger builds / piloting skills would set another goal, and than the weaker player / weaker builds would complain again, and this whole “balancing” act ends running in cycle. The only way to fix SR would kill the mode / concept itself, and it’s RNG Nature, and that’s something which i wouldn’t want to happen, because that’s the whole appeal to me.
People need to learn to accept that SR75+ is a community goal for certain builds and piloting skills, if you can’t handle that, well then due the SR’s which are supposed to be done anyway.

And the same goes for Cruci 150-170…

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9

I agree with some of your points, specifically of how stressful and unfun endgame became due to constant difficulty bumps and player’s damage nerfs as well as continuing trend of an extreme debuff onslaught in Crucible and some unfair and frustrating mechanics of bosses in Shards, like Grava’s null/disrupt.

Unfortunately, we are considered to be a “vocal minority” and Crate’s position is that most players don’t care what happens in endgame and it’s their domain and “stop whining” “#deadbuilds” and all of possible ridiculing they can give you.

So I can only help you with the builds. If you are having problems with my builds, let me know, I will look into it.

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I can totally see your point about the SR, that devs cannot make ENDLESS mode accessible to wide spectrum of builds. Its like GR in D3 where the highest and fastest GR is claimed by ONE build and ONE person - number 1 in ladder. However, I complain already about 60+ SRs, which are much less challenging. The cruicible has a fixed cap and therefore can be cobsidered as a balance target.

PoE, for example, has a fixed difficulty bar in from of superbosses and top-tier maps, which is hard to reach, but many builds can grow above it with an expensive items and do it VERY reliably, which is an enjoyment earned by all that time investment one puts into build development. And there is an endless mode, where eventually everybody meets his demise. Well-balanced, I say.

As I said in op, I dont mind bosses being strong and being too powerfull and overwhelming a player during the progression of the encounter, bosses are bosses (and I must say that individually each boss in the game is very well designed) - I am against how a whole bunch of mechanics just became usless, and multi-boss battles became Indiana Jones type of running from the rolling ball style, or a Benny Hill show. Its ok that some level of content becomes a soft wall for the build, but not like this. I would appreciate a Dark Souls type of things, where the fight doesnt end right from the start, but it ends as a serie of chaining mistakes.

Someone in the thread said that high content is “Bragging rights”, but there actually is a part of the game dedicated to bragging exclusevly - celestial bosses, and there is bragging indeed, go kill that bs crate boss.

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I agree with points #2 and #4 because I get a little tired of every build feeling same-ish for the most part (just tank everything). The ability to kite bosses by making them more vulnerable to limited CC would be nice.

I don’t agree with point #5 specifically because bosses having thematic RR helps them feel more distinct from other bosses. The way their debuffs stack can be overwhelming, but that’s the nature of throwing like 5 endgame bosses at you at once.

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I feel this is accurate and there are achievements that support this. I see what you’re saying.

It seems crate is just drawing a line on what they consider balanced and that’s what we have to work with. I don’t agree or disagree with it. We do know the patches won’t keep rolling out forever.

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What is the purpose of content that’s supposed to be a challenge if it doesn’t stress test builds (demanding player knowledge of build mechanics) and the piloting skills of the player - which play a significant part in success rates/speeds of many builds?

Superbosses are a gimmick, overwhelming a generic build unless it lucks into the combination of defenses that is specifically geared against the superboss/isn’t a generic build and has the gearing specifically tailored to combat the superboss/is a naturally overtuned setup that is steamrolling content just as easily as the superboss.

I’d love to see some examples of these builds that aren’t living up to expectations.

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i consider passing crucible +150 and sr +50 to be relying significantly on lucky rolls of mutation and enemy combinations. player builds and skills also factors heavily in those end game challenges, but luck is still a strong factor. those end game challenges and superbosses can be considered bragging rights. since the loot drops from end game challenges right behind those ‘bragging rights mode’ is still generous and can complete many end game builds if you just have the patience to farm them.

for surviving end tier crucible and sr, you definitely need the capability to facetank mobs from all sides for several seconds. and keep reminding yourself that grim dawn doesn’t favor kiting and cc-ing in those end tier mode. its made for facetanker, adcth-er and people with lots of panic button invulnerabilities.

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I think the level of the endgame difficulty right now is pretty good. But i too don’t like a lot of endgame mechanics. They aren’t impossible to bypass, it’s just unfun.

I agree with all points except 3. First of all, bosses need to be vulnerable to CC in some way. Regular mobs are called trash in GD for a good reason. They don’t do anything (and that’s unfun). The game quickly becomes all about overcoming the boss gangs and when the most challenging game encounter (boss fights) takes out a whole layer of offense it doesn’t benefit the gameplay in any way.

Nullify and disrupt are both the definition of unfun. Also extra speedy bosses basically remove another layer of the gameplay - positioning - in half of boss encounters. And resistances, yeah. Imo RR (both for player and mobs) is a completely unnecessary mechanic. Just make all the res. lower across the board (i’m aware it wont happen at this point of the game development, just saying). It adds nothing to the game other than just another crucial stat needed to be taken care of, both offensively and defensively.

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Could someone explain what Arcane affix on monsters do?

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Agree, almost totally.

I played D3 for 4 years, POE for 1, and now GD for 3months. Won’t talk about others two anymore, but for GD, we have some mechanics to use (kiting, cheating off boss’ skills, etc) when we r level 10, lv 50, or even like, 70, 80, but when it goes to 100, and we try to climb SR, we do two things:

  1. make the char as tanky as possible, no matter by armor and res, or by skills
  2. we focus on attracting the focus of bosses one by one, step by step, carefully, in case of a sudden engaged by bosses, in the 4th part of every level, and then we stand there, fight to a death (ours or boss’, whatever), then restart up, the next one

there is no fun to play in this way here.

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They throw a slow projectile on an arch that removes your buffs. They are overblown to hell though and this is coming from someone that has played melee builds in later SR shards. They take 10 seconds to even decide to use the null projectile and they have very bright purple aura around them, giving away what they are.

I feel the people that complain about Arcane mobs in SR are the ones that bum rush everywhere without looking at what they are fighting, instead of actually paying attention to where they are going.

Really, the one null user that is dangerous is Grava’thul.

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Do you mean they temporarily turn off my auras and buffs from potions etc? So how do I counteract them? Quickly press Y and turn my auras back on one by one?

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You have plenty of time in SR to turn your auras one by one, when you die and come back near Mazaan :slight_smile:

In SR they’re so nasty, usually will die in a flash, impossible to notice them in pact. I play with graphics at low and there isn’t purple aura, just like MadQueen isn’t glowing in red. Sadly Garfunkel stripping of buffs is permanent, not temporarily.