This is the continuation of My honest as fuck opinion about GD and comparison to TQ
Now that I think of it, there was one time when I thought “Maybe Grim Dawn is actually better than Titan Quest?”, and after I thought that, I was getting bored of GD, Crate started to make changes I don’t like, and overall, I wasn’t liking the game as much as before. Then new TQ DLC came out, played a little, thought about GD again, and I felt that I never really liked anything about GD that much. Sure, combat stuff was interesting, conversions, skill modifiers etc, but when I thought about it deeply, I realized that it is not healthy for the game at all as it limits build diversity and doesn’t allow us to make some other fun builds because it’s either too weak and your build is becoming bad or doesn’t allow you to do what you want.
I never really liked the areas of GD, the story, soundtrack or itemization, but I kept playing this game for 776 hours thinking I’ll beat it and like something more about this game. This never happened, Crate started to implement weird changes, started to ignore regular players and listened to players that squeezed builds to the limits to beat Crucible etc. Game balancing was getting worse and worse thanks to Crucible racers.
QoL changes were forced by Crate even for people that didn’t really like them. Balancing was left out, some masteries were/are bad for months. Game started to feel like Crate doesn’t really care anymore and only wants to please the players that squeeze builds to the limits and give stupid feedbacks based on squeezed builds, rather than regular builds.
What did THQ Nordic do with TQ? They added QoL changes that can be chosen by the user how THEY like them, listened to every feedback, are still listening to them. Try to do their best to make the game better. They basically revived TQ and made it a better game overall. It really feels like Crate is burying their game into the ground. Maybe preparation for the City Builder? Maybe for GD2? But the changes that are happening to GD basically please the vast majority of players, but destroy the fun of other people. A game should be built around everyone, not around the vast majority.
I don’t feel like coming back to GD anymore. The recent “QoL” changes basically threw the game to the trash can, at least for me. During the past month, I felt like playing TQ as I was burnt out of GD and knew the new changes are coming, so I wanted to forget about GD already. Played TQ for about 10 hours, maybe a little more. I thought that I really want to play it again, so I jumped from 54 hours to 241 hours and I still feel like I do not have enough. Feels to me like back when I picked GD for the first time, where then it felt to me like I picked TQ for the first time. Hopefully the chain will loop instead of developing an end.
GD felt kind of boring to me after 400+ hours. Sure, I still had much fun leveling my characters, trying out new builds etc. While playing TQ, farming, I realized that this is another factor that killed GD for me. Farming is not rewarding at all for me, if it comes to GD. It’s basically pointless because from literally checking out a build I was getting enough materials, legendaries and other important stuff that farming was literally pointless. I really enjoyed farming in TQ, back in the day, in GD I loved Nemesis hunting, but Nemeses were just made and forgotten - Crucible and SR gave way better loot, could drop nemesis MI and effectively had way higher chance to drop a double rare MI because of how many items dropped. I even did a feedback thread about Nemesis monsters, but apparently they’re supposed to be only to be beaten by level 94 finished builds and don’t give anything for killing them, because my feedback was posted few months ago and nothing changed since then.
GD has lost everything that was fun, became a racing game and no one cares about if a build is fun to play, weak, strong or OP. It’s all about which build can do Crucible 150 - 170 in less than 8 minutes. Your build can’t do Crucible 170 because you only wanted it to farm components and be fun as fuck? NOPE! YOUR BUILD SUCKS, YOU SUCK, STOP POSTING BUILDS! I actually felt to that trap once and I also commented on someone’s build that they could do it better. I didn’t realize that until I did that twice or thrice, then realized that this game, Grim Dawn, is not about having fun anymore, but about who is better. Someone copied someone’s build, gave credit to someone completely different to troll people, then GD players showed that this game is not for fun, it’s who’s better and that “we have thieves in this forum”. GD became a serious racing game. Fun doesn’t apply anymore.
Anyway, I wanted to thank Crate because they taught me something. They taught me that you should never join any forums about offline games, and that you should not pick up games that were already made years ago. There’s nothing bad about the second lesson, because it just says that if you’ve played a game that looked similar, then even though it’s better, it doesn’t actually mean it is better. The game might look newer, better, but in reality copied games develop or revive nostalgia, which takes you back to the days where you played the “previous version” and had tons of fun. If you really enjoyed those times, no matter what happens you’ll always come back to the old “trash”, because even though the graphics are no longer top tier, the gameplay is way better.
I’ve always been saying that newer games will never be as good as the old ones, because the old ones were made to give people fun, entertain, suck you in, while the new ones are only made to get some money. I thought it’s not the case with GD, and, frankly, it was not at all, but in the end it seems that Crate doesn’t actually care anymore about everyone, but about some.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Thank you Crate, because you did a great job, maybe not with GD, as for me, but in general. Making a game is not only about being appreciated for the game, but also for what you teach. Also, thank you to everyone that was not a miserable landlubber and that I made friends with.
If you didn’t read the whole essay, do not even comment, please.
