This is the Archive Only for the current post please refer to:
9-4-2020 I came across a great wall extending as far as the eye could see. There was a small opening with 2 statues lingering over. This place wasn’t like any other I had traveled. I could hear things moving from within. This place doesn’t give me a good feeling, but I must explore it.
What I saw inside…
UPDATE PREVIEW coming Tuesday!!!
8-31-2020 Grats to me on level 31 
Things are cooking and another successful weekend brought a lot of new content to the World. Creating Rift Teleport locations is proving to be quite difficult in comparison to other games, but it’s in process along with respawn locations. A specific land graphic is being used to identify respawn locations throughout the world.
Skill modifications and adjustments have been made for smoother game play. Specializing in specific skills allows for a great deal of customization.
Forcewave
Skill Point Cap (250) will be extended later
Increases Physical Skill Damage
Increase Success Rate of Stun
Increase Stun Duration
Increase mana cost
This is a simplified case as many skills have a lot more factors. If you apply a lot of points to this skill it’s stun effect will be a lot more effective along with the damage. This can also be used in conjuction with Frailty (A skill moved from another class into Soldier) to lower the resistances improving the stun chance.
Many of the original skills would have a limit such as 12 skill points. So you would simply dump 12 points into it and be done. With the option to spend 100’s of skill points, there is more variety. It feels like the base game relies more on skill synergy and stacking percentages to get results while this allows more focus improving skills by applying more points.
It’s more akin to Path Of Exile where damage isn’t everything. Without the ability to mass leach HP for example, it’s very important to increase Intelligence and improve health regeneration passives. Survival is a key aspect to a strong build and resource management.
Whatever happened to that building under construction? It’s a region called Paliside. It’s looking great, but it’s not quite ready to reveal yet. I personally like the region as it stands out as a very unique setting and look forward to expanding it into a very large area full of atheistic architecture.
8-28-2020 A few new textures have been implemented.
This one is subtle, but it does help give new and unique artwork.
Snow Yeti
8-27-2020 Every day this Mod is improving. New creatures, tweaks, terrain, skill modifications, and more. The build time is highly efficient and quick for routine procedures.
Is there anything you can’t Lava?
8-26-2020 New Artwork!!!
While the box set contains a reasonable amount of artwork and animations it’s always nice to be able make modifications. While that is not always an easy task with wire frames, mesh, textures, and 3d modeling it is possible with the Grim Dawn tools.
Lava Example (Demo location for display screen shot only)
Rock Texture
Terrain Example
Half Troll Skin
8-24-2020 Major Progress!!!
World Overview (A snippet of the game world)
Applying the height aspects of the game engine
What happens when you apply a Stone Texture to Skeleton Model?
(Left Skeleton is the default) (Right is with the texture applied)
Soldier gets a classic Pet??
Lineage II and other games gave Tank classes a Pet to assist them. In this fashion the Chimera has been added to the Soldier Skill Tree. While this is in a testing phase, here is the outline.
Pet Scaling
Base Pet - The base skill ONLY increases the casting efficiency. This does allow for a specific build to be Pet Focused. Raising this skill increases the summon duration, lowers mana cost, and reduces the recast time.
Pet Passive - This skill would be the primary scaling for Pet damage.
8-19-2020
A few notes on what to expect when this Mod is first available
Class Selection - As every single skill needs to be highly modified to conform with this mod the Soldier is the only class being played at the moment and still needs many skills modified to be available. Depending on the release date this may be the only option or possible 2 during “early access/testing”.
Pet Classes - This posses a real problem. I LOVE pet classes!!! However, they are very difficult to balance and not become abusive game play. I’m not certain at this point I will attempt to make Pets available or they may be very limited.
Projectile/Ranged - Another core issue. The AI may not be sufficient to allow fully range based classes. It’s simply to easy to ruin game balance by kiting creatures. Ranged attacks may be more limited, not spamed, and used more for CC effects.
This is a preliminary evaluation and will be evaluated in depth later on.
8-18-2020 How does it play?
I find myself always feeling weak. Wanting more Health, Damage, to hit more often, heal faster, mitigate more damage, and consume less mana. PERFECT I slowly creep up to creatures trying to aggro just 1 knowing 2 is sometimes to much. THIS is a very different game experience than mashing your way through POE, Diablo, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn.
I encounter creatures I am not supposed to fight until much later on mixed in throughout the game. I look for optimizing farming routes, but sometimes I just wonder around in all directions.
I keep grinding until I am able to push the boundaries and slowly keep venturing out further and often kill more creatures in farming routes as I get stronger. Grats to me on level 21
Cracked the Code!
Physical Damage Equation --------------------- (physicalDamageDV + (strengthDV/2))
Magic Damage Equations ---------------------- (magicalDamageDV + (intelligenceDV/2))
physicalDamageDefenseEquationDGP------ ((sumProtectionDV * (1 - sumAbsorptionDV)) - (dexterityDV/12)) + (physicalDamageDV – sumProtectionDV)
Life Regen ------------------------------- ((charLevel/5) + lifeRegen + (intelligence/15)) * elapsedTime
Mana Regen ---------------------------- ((charLevel/7) + manaRegen + (intelligence/10)) * elapsedTime
Global Armor Bonus Added
For every 12 points of dexterity the damage will be reduced an extra point regardless of the hit location. Adding more purpose and value to dexterity. This mechanic is important to help balancing the value of leveling vs equipment. It’s also helpful in allowing the player to obtain levels to overcome challenging areas when their equipment is fairly optimized and they can’t improve much in the current location from gear alone.
- Pain Ghoul, Clawed Devourer
- 7 New Armors & Weapons
- New Map Grid & Detailing
8-17-2020 - Showcase Video
The progress has been going amazingly well. The Soldier’s skills are being modified to scale appropriately with the mod. You will be able to apply 100’s or potentially 1,000’s of skill points to each skill.
Skill Modification/Future Expansion
The database has a very simple yet powerful way to handle this. The scaling can be customized for nearly anything.
Fighting Spirit
- On Hit Activation (5 - 0.4) (Default / Scaling)
1 5.08
2 5.12
3 5.15
4 5.175
This scaling means every time you level the skill the activation rate will slightly increase with diminishing returns. So you could level this skill up to 200+ without breaking the game. When designed properly increasing the skill slowly improves the mana efficiency, duration, activation rate, bonus stats, etc. This IS already done for most skills in the base game. The modifications just finely tune skills for a much wider range and include concepts like reducing the mana cost to improve a skills efficiency.
Mandatory 99% Armor Absorption
The default Armor Absorption has been updated for balancing and testing purposes. The 70% default is problematic because you will always take near 30% damage regardless of your Armor Value. When testing equipment, formula, or incredibly powerful creatures it’s much easier to get a proper assessment when you can mitigate nearly all damage.
- Stone Tusker, Skeleton Archer, Earth Worm, Desert Mosquito, Skull Priest
- +3 Rusty Sword, +1 Speedy Boots, +1 Basic Helm, +1 Endurance Belt
- Soldier Skill Modified: Fighting Spirit
8-12-2020 A Daily Progress Report
Congrats to me on achieving level 12
- +1 Artic Gloves
- Brown Spider
- Ethereal Zombie
- Skeleton Guardian
- General Balancing
- Map Detailing
8-10-2020 Massive Progress!!!
Over the last few days great strides have been accomplished in making the Mod into a very playable game as development continues.
Unique Game Experience
This Mod DOES NOT play like other ARPG’s. The constitution system has been removed and you may always find yourself fighting to stay alive and needing to get stronger. Many of the enemies are not in packs as they would often be far to difficult. The concept is not to simply walk over everything as you plow through the game world.
Already in early testing I find myself avoiding a lot of mobs than I could defeat because I determine they would consume to many resources. I find myself really making use of the Soldiers Will skill (activates under 33% HP) to restore health to fight certain mobs.
This is the intended design. I am not avoiding these mobs because they are not worth doing. (A common problem in various games). Rather I am choosing to avoid them until a point at which I can more reasonably handle them.
Limited resources is a thing. Farming Health Potions to be used on stronger creatures is a valid strategy. This is NOT a Mod in which you will run right through all the content. It’s meant to challenge the player and be a little bit of a struggle.
New Equipment System
(Rank ~ Suffix ~ Weapon)
+7 Precision Axe
+1 Health Regen Ring
The Rank is essentially the same as an item level. It’s predetermined by a formula that creates values for each stat.
The New Prefix’s simply state what type of bonus is applied. Some prefixes would account for multiple bonus’s. Murder’s Axe for example may always have a Strength & Human Damage bonus.
The Rank also applies to the prefix. So in the case above a +1 Health Regen Ring will always have a back end value of 4 for the HP regen rate. NOTE: The variance is still applied to the actual drop meaning this ring may have +3, +4, +5 Regen Rate.
Loot
The distribution of loot is quite different in this mod.
- Finding equipment is infrequent. One of the defects of many ARPGS is simply WAY to much loot. To the point that loot filters are necessary to block it out. This mod seeks to clean that up and make the player want to inspect every item right from the start.
A lot of the loot is creature specific. Each creature is assigned very specific drops and does not rely on master tables. However, obtaining the best loot from each creature is quite a task. There is still a variance to every Prefix and creatures may have “rare drops” even if they are not distinguished by color.
Game Overview:
- Unlimited Leveling
- New massive game world
- Reworked all Stats/Formula’s
- All new Equipment
- Static Leveling (Creatures have a set difficulty - no scaling)
8-7-2020
Video Tutorial Created: Adding Creatures
Potions added (Drop Rate / Restore amt / reuse timer)
More Maps!!! (Map detailing and additional northern areas)
8-6/2020 Update
Map Expansion extending to the Northern Region.
8-5-2020 Update
Physique/Strength - Increase Physical Damage
Cunning/Dexterity - Increase Offense\Defense
Spirit/Intelligence - Increase HP/MP & Regen Rates
Combat Formulas - Updated