Only thing that need to be merged is pierce + bleeding. Others are fine IMO.
For GD2, I wish for:
bestiary for every enemies we have defeated.
lore to every characters we have met.
more human main NPC.
more compelling quest and story.
GD Build mechanics and stuff is mostly perfect. Some adjustment needed maybe on shield. Defensive shield soldier is good, but other than that, shield is mostly a worse offhand.
About balancing thing. I actually enjoy it right now. I treat it as season, where shit item become good, good item become shit; shit mastery become good, good mastery become shit. I think it’s a way for crate entertaining us, long term player. It’s actually the thing that give me more reason to play GD.
That is true. Changes are needed to keep the game alive and rediscover it anew. But GD is kinda special. It takes more effort and knowledge to optimize a build. So you naturally have favorites and, so to speak, specialties. You become attached to concepts that you created or perfected. So seeing them go… not my favorite thing.
So I just can’t stomach all those unnecessary nightblade nerfs - especially when SR is on the rise and melee naturally sucks there. There should’ve been buffs to nightblade, not nerfs. Or the Anasteria helmet nerfs we talked about in Mad Lee’s sorc thread - completely uncalled for. Or the very fact that sorc is better than binder on Agrivix now? Jaysis Christ! Demo is better than necro for aether? Or the fact that due to enemy buffs across the board phys res is now the first prerequisite of viability, and concepts that don’t naturally have it go down the drain (my beloved Venomblade - I fucking spent hundreds of hours with that guy in crucible, and now I can’t even clear it more than twice in 10 tries without pharma unless I give up on my best dps ideas or pilot like a grandma). Or Octavius… it’s squisher than whichever SR set build you can cook up, seriously gotta kite like Pac-Man sometimes. It’s was already shit after the first warlord nerfs but there were like 2 or 3 more rounds of nerfing it and everything that was on the one setup I posted (btw Warborn mace and Spellscorge ammy is better now than The Pummeler and Beronath ammy- Pummeler was overnerfed and those mods are not worth it anymore).
So in principle balancing isn’t bad. It’s just tends offend particular tastes very often.
Lets not knee-jerk too much here. It’s quite a long road to go from removing 2 or 3 damage types to channeling the “D3ness”.
It’s one thing to streamline and improve aspects of a game on the next iteration and quite another to cut the Diablo completely out of the heart of your game (as they did in D3). My thoughts are that as long as Zantai has his hand in the pie we should be relatively D3-free in GD2.
Further to my earlier post here’s Medierra aka Arthur Bruno, founder of Crate Entertainment and Lead Game Designer for TQ/IT at Iron Lore, on his philosophy for the future of the company. This was posted back in November 2016, but the basis still holds true. He wants a broad range of games in the company’s portfolio so they’re not relying on just the one franchise.
"We do plan to keep working on Grim Dawn. How many expansions we produce just depends on how well the first expansion sells and how well GD itself continues to sell.
There is also a good a chance we’ll do GD2 at some point but, due to the age of the current engine, we either need to undertake some massive update work on it or start from scratch with a licensed engine, which would mean a massive amount of work writing all new gameplay code.
Given that we’re working on an expansion now, might do a second one and I’ve been working on ARPGs for 14 years now, I feel like I could use a bit of break before jumping right into GD2. Imagining exciting new features, systems and a whole new story arc take a lot of energy and passion. I’m happy continuing to work on and oversee content for GD but I feel like I need to recharge before I can give a whole new ARPG my all.
There are other genres of games I love and have always wanted to work on. I’d also like to work on something lower scope next, that requires less building of content and which won’t take too long to finish. I expect to be releasing this new project 12-18 months from now. Then after that, who knows, maybe it will be time for GD2. I won’t know until I get there. One thing I can say though is, I’d be a lot more excited to work on GD2 if we could get to a point where we had a lot more money to throw at it.
Someone mentioned that Banished / Anno town-builders were overcrowded but that looks like a wide open market compared to ARPG. Not only are there a lot of ARPGs coming out recently but players commit to a single one for much longer than games in other genres and it requires a ton of content and features to be competitive - more than almost any other genre of games. Then think about the fact that the ARPG genre has a franchise that is widely seen as “king” and is developed by one of the biggest, most well funded and widely respected companies in the industry. Everything is compared against Diablo and it’s hard to compete with a team that has virtually unlimited resources. Then Grinding Gear has around 5x the people we do and I doubt competing against a free-to-play game has helped our sales. Then there’s Torchlight (although it looks like their next game isn’t an ARPG), Marvel Heroes, Van Helsing, Victor Vran, maybe a TQ expansion or sequel from Nordic, Lineage Eternal (if that ever finishes), Wolcen and too many others to remember. Since the huge sales of D3, everyone and their mom seems to be making an ARPG these days. About the only thing worse would be deciding to make a MOBA.
Even with all that going on, I wouldn’t say it would prevent us from making GD2 but it certainly makes the level of competition in most other genres look a lot less daunting.
A big factor for working on something else though is that I don’t think it is good to keep all our eggs in one basket, as a studio. Our primary goal is to keep the company alive so we can keep being independent and making games. While it’s certainly possible to focus on one franchise and stay alive for a long time doing it, it’s riskier having all your future dependent on the continued success of one game property in one genre. Diversifying the types of games we can make and the IPs we own is a good way for us to better secure out future.
Beyond just branching out to work on other genres, it has always been a goal of mine to be able to work on concurrent projects. Not only do we not want to be pigeon-holed into one genre but I think it’s important for us to be able to work on multiple projects at time. That way, we’re not just counting on the success of a single big release to keep us alive, where if it under-performs, it could take years to course-correct and finish another project (years we likely wouldn’t have). This also helps to increase the efficiency of the studio, as we can shift people around based on the needs of a project at any give time, instead of having lulls at the beginning and end of a single project, where not everyone is needed at full capacity. Another factor is that people get burnt out working on one thing for too many years. When people get burnt out, they leave and look for something new. I feel like we have a great team and I want to keep them engaged with fresh new projects and not solely grinding away on ARPGs for the next 20 years.
Since we would like to keep making content for GD, we’ve brought on some new people for that, to keep up the level of energy and enthusiasm (or new old people in the case of Grava, aka Josh Glavine). We’ll keep making content for GD as long as it’s financially viable. GD2 is a definite possibility but whether / when that happens depends on how things progress in the ARPG genre and internally for us at Crate over the next year or two. We also have some ideas for GD related games that are set in that universe and will share some mechanics but are not quite ARPGs.
You’ll also be hearing about at least one totally new project in the next year though."
Bear in mind that Crate is still a small indie company, there are only 13 employees. And since Crate are always giving us more than they originally planned, it partially explains why that new project that was supposed to be releasing around 2017-18 is still being worked on.
I remember buying Grim Dawn in early access and seeing all of the areas added 1 by 1 and seeing constellations added.
One HUGE thing Crate should be proud of above and beyond putting out such a good game and a game that was actually READY for release (looking at you BL3), is that they are one of the few companies that actually take into account what their fan base likes and dislikes.
They are always listening to comments (and responding) and making changes. Sometimes we hate them and sometimes we love them, but they are always advancing the game, but not at the expense of their core player base (again, looking at you BL3).
In an age where game companies push out unfinished product or release a product and don’t try to improve it, Crate has literally raised the bar for every game company. Unfortunately, most other game companies won’t try to emulate what Crate has done so perfectly which is sad, but at least I know that if I buy a game from Crate it will always be perfect for those players that play it, even if it isn’t necessarily my type of game (town builder).
Personally i think of grim dawn as a very different route to that of diablo 2 just like titan quest was a very different rpg. I like the lore of angels and demons. But tbh i was also a bit done with it after diablo 2. Diablo 3 just did a terrible job on the story. The gameplay engame in diablo 3 the hp is just buffed up and damage beefed of monsters which imo truly makes for some boring assed gameplay. mutators like in grim dawn are better though i think could be tweaked a little. Storrywise i think grim dawn is just great. I think the factions are original and the lore is interesting plus it has some humor. Thats just comparing to diablo 2. I also like the mechanics of the game but i must admit that diablo 2 was a bit more crazy with the speed boosts and what not. Grim dawn just puts things in that help a little but arent completely op imo. I think some combinations in diablo 2 are just nuts and i cant really follow whats going on half of the time. In conclusion id say that diablo 2 is the turbo version of arpg and grim dawn is llike normal speed. Its apperent in the skills and items and caps to certain statts that it is ment to be played a certain way. In diablo 2 these boundries are quite a bit further.
Small things I would like to add to the discussion.
So in the best case we will have new story/lore content in several years. It suc*s but I guess it´s the right thing to do. I think the basic premise of all those indie games without big budget that eventually become masterpieces on its own is passion of team doing them. If team Crate feels burn about making another arpg right now, then I guess the decision of no making for now GD2 is good for them and for the franchise.
Also, I don´t think GD appeal to the exact same consumer as Diablo or PoE. Like I said, as exclusively single player gamer I loved Diablo 2 above all because grim story-lore-universe. Gameplay/build need to be satisfactory, but just that. Im not looking into manual how to make more powerful character. Im not playing 20 different builds. Im just having fun making character just like I feel. Im not saying its not important to me, simplistic character development was second reason I hate Diablo 3. But there are other things. Well, so there are no much game that appeal to my tastes in market, GD and that´s that. Diablo 3 is simplistic cartoon multiplayer oriented, PoE is even more multiplayer oriented. Those game not appeal to me at all. GD just covers niche within genre other games don´t. I don´t now if within comunity of arpg people like I we are enough to make those game profitable, but here we are. I love GD but I can´t stand 2 hours in Diablo 3 without sleeping.
Having more than one IP seems safer strategy too, hovewer having too much IP is worse I think. Because if no new content is added, the comunity of franchise isn´t growing passing years, opposite, is dying. If we suppose making game take 2-4 years, I just no see Crate having more that 2 alive IP at the same time.
This. I think that there are many people that come from PoE and D3 who have trouble grasping the concept that GD actually does fill in a niche in this particular market that neither of the other 2 do and not every game needs to do what other games are doing.
All comments from Crate upon these forums indicate it is profitable enough. The base game alone has sold over 2 million copies. If you do the math you can get a pretty rough idea that it’s proved to be profitable for Crate. They’ve managed to find a niche that GD fits into quite nicely and they’ve shown that there is a market for people who don’t need a game to be always online.
Multiplayer and always online might be “all the rage” these days but there is still a sizable group of people out there who prefer a game that can be taken offline.
Yup that’s definitely one of my favorite medierra quotes, by far. He scores big points from me for sticking to his guns and not being driven by greed with the decisions he’s making.
That’s actually a good question lol. At this point I can only imagine that Blizzard is paranoid as fuck over how next Blizzcon is going to go for them. They are now confirmed to be working on D4 and frankly I fully expect them to make it the centerpiece of the coming Blizzcon. Doing anything less at this point would be folly for them.
At this point nothing matter. Blizzard is sooo big, have sooo much cash, have sooo strong brand, that they during Blizzcon can literally get out and sit on stage, and still the company will make a wagons full of cash. It´s like MC´Donald, sitty food, but everyone eat there.
Beside, Blizzard is no more Blizzard from Diablo 2. For years. Other priorites, they search for other type of consumer. People freak out year ago with Diablo Immortal, but why? Mobile gaming is huge market, especially in casual players and in Asian markets… isn’t this what Blizzard has been in for years already? It´s a natural evolution that started in 2004 with WoW.
I don’t know how there can still be people waiting for Diablo 4 thinking about Diablo 2. This is not going to happen. You want old-Diablo experience, Grim Dawn. There are no more. Jesus, Grim Dawn have 1000x more diablish feeling, that Diablo 3.
The “why” is easy enough and actually isn’t solely about Blizzard making a mobile game. They freaked out because it was Blizzcon and the vast majority of hardcore Blizzard fans that attend Blizzcon are PC gamers and they fully expect to be witnessing reveals that pertain to PC gaming. They pay alot of money to attend these events and when you find out that the “big reveal” is a mobile game, well, how else do you think people are going to react?
With this knowledge it is easy to understand the “why”. Making a mobile game is one thing, most people even don’t care all that much if they make a mobile game. What they care about is that Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to make it the “big reveal”, the centerpiece if you will, of the whole event. And that is where they fucked up - leaving these people feeling that they had just gotten, essentially, ripped off for all the money they just spent to attend. For a chintzy mobile game most of these people could give a rat’s ass about.
The fact that they also were being driven to break into the Chinese market AND sub-contracted a Chinese 3rd party mobile developer that had nothing to do with Blizzard or Diablo also compounded matters and made this reveal worse.
Overall, Blizzard ended up handling the whole thing poorly at every step and left people convinced that they were out-of-touch with their playerbase. If Blizzard wanted to capture the Chinese market then they probably should have just revealed it primarily to the Chinese market - they should have understood that the Western market was not the right place at this time (and at Blizzcon no less). As an American I can think of noone I know that ever gets excited about a mobile game. Even my young son could care less about mobile games.
Well, I get what you saying, just for me that was no big surprise. Thats how I felt when realized than Blizzard kick out me from his consumer target, when turned grim dark mature Sanctuary Universe into sunday Cartoon Network experience plus with heavy multiplayer oriented. It just that, Blizzard went were the money was. Casual, younger.
So, until Blizzard will get ton of cash from PC comunity, PC gamers can sleep calm. The day when Blizz start to get more from mobile gaming, no matter how laud people will be screaming, the answer will be " Don’t you guys have phones".
Yeah, I´m a bit salty about them, I realize that, just they ruin one of my favorite franchise of all time, you have to understand me
