On "Farming"

Grim Dawn Development Updates
601

I made this idea in the thread about stash, but will add here because people are talking.

It stands to reason to make ‘purging’ as easy as possible to get the stash back in shape. Make one or two button clicking such as ctrl+leftclick on an item make it delete or sell. This way if you get overwhelmed you can very easily
‘cut back the weeds’.

edit: it would still be a problem organizing ‘tabs’… so maybe you have 15+ (whatever you used) tabs to degrees of purgeness, but it is not too organized. but at least with ctrl + leftclick you could very rapidly delete uwnanted items.

602

I offered a solution suitable for both kinds of players here. It can be implemented easily without hard work and much coding. So I guess it is not that good reason :slight_smile: Just an artifical excusion. Anyway, we will have to take what we are given. I’m just sad about it.

603

The major problem that I have with farming is that it isn’t rewarding since there’s plenty of players who use trainer of save-file dupes to get items in a really fast way.

I enjoy farming followed by trading off the items I don’t want with other players. What I don’t enjoy is getting the feeling that the guy I’m trading with duped his stash a couple of times so he is able to trade out everything. It basically fucks (pardon my french) the farming system because there’s too many of X item going around due to duping/use of trainer.

So before you start worrying about farming I think you should add a mode that is only playable when your save games go into the steam cloud and NOT your own computer (to prevent duping items). Also getting rid of third party software like trainers is something I’d really like to see.

Once you have a “clean” game discussions about farming become viable but right now, not so much.

604

Different topic, different thread, different game. Not happening in Grim Dawn (until maybe post-release), so deal with it - literally.

Also, because the game is balanced around singleplayer and not multiplayer, discussions about the validity of farming do not have anything to do with trading, and so they are perfectly viable discussions to have.

605

Farming is kick ass

606

The major problem that I have with farming is that it isn’t rewarding since there’s plenty of players who use trainer of save-file dupes to get items in a really fast way.

There is a “legit item” trading thread where you can trade.

607

As a geriatric gamer (73) I have played a lot of games of this genre including D1, D2, D3 and both Titan quests plus Torchlight. In all cases farming is what I like to do, most of the fun in all these games, for me, is in trying to collect all the pieces of the various sets for the characters. My only regret in Grim Dawn is that you can’t find any set items for characters lower than level 20. The Diablo series is even worse, you rarely get set items untill you have played the game through at least 3 times, that is why I gave up Playing D3, I got bored! Torchlight is much better in my opinion, set items pop up very early in the game and do help character development.

I realy enjoy playing Grim Dawn and you Guy’s have done a great job in developing the game but can we please have some low level sets in the early stages of the game?

608

Totally agree about the great job by the devs, but not so much about low level sets. The early levels go very, very quickly so there isn’t a lot of use in grinding to find the parts of (for example) a level 10 set as you likely won’t complete it before it’s no longer powerful enough to use.

They could, perhaps, tweak it to have some sets start a few levels earlier, especially if these were smaller two or three piece sets that could be easier to collect/complete.

609

Hopefully this is still a thing and is related to potentially upgrading epics, though I’m not certain. Hopefuly something to make them more useful at later levels, becauase you are right, low levels move quickly.

610

IMHO, in a arpg, low levels doesn’t matter.
The goal is to reach the socalled “endgame” at which you start gearing up with the best gear available and building your character.

Instead of making lowlvl setes, i’d prefer to level faster, so that you can reach and enjoy sooner the endgame then start looking for your perfect build/set-gear and fighting the most challeging content with the others…
This is especially true in d3, where reaching top level is really easy to allow you to catch up woth the others and coop together at same level.

There is no sense in stacking rare gear at level 10-20 that you’ll trash soon; much better to get quickly to a level where any rare gear you drop really matters, even for your endgame.

A not-so-innovative suggestion: allow people to create a top level char from the beginning, so that you have no handicap in joining other top-level players matches and play together…in a sp+mp game the already low population is made even smaller by scattering people because of newgame+X, quest status, level, difficulty, etc…:frowning:
Its result is that anyone ends up playing alone, except if you have a friend that plays a character only when you are together.

611

I disagree.

Not that what you like and suggest is wrong, but because I have the opposite tastes. I think this is really impossible to create a game that fits everyone expectations. Every single player puts in the game his own fantasies and desires.

What I like about Grim Dawn is not what my friends like about Grim Dawn. I love korean leveling (like titan quest where it was sooo long to get a character lvl 75), and korean farming (items reaaaaaally rare, like fucking rare). But I know that a lot of people are bored with that kind of game design, and I think we should all be happy with everything we love about a game, and deal with the rest of it.

Because creating the perfect game is just an utopia. Even if we all love the same genre, and even if we all love the same game, we would all suggest a way to improve the game in opposite directions.

612

I have played the game for 260 hours found almost every blue item in the game, but come across things happening like having the same few resource drops over and over and them never seeming to change. I have not come across one single olerons blood drop and manticore eyes seem to be rare for a wide variety of people. Putting this much into the game “farming” is just another way for a player to release the games content. The blood drop can exist in the game, but it doesn’t exist (or really… usable) to that player until he has it available in his inventory.

Making rare drops easier to get would cause players who want that content farm less, but possibly play the game less and on the other hand it might give them time to create another character and do things they would want to do on it… possibly making them more entertained than having to be on the same character they could never find that olerons blood drop on and even perhaps deterring cheating.

One part of this game I have also found myself doing which has seemed impossible according to the number and length of acts and also the time at which events would happen… I found myself farming faction reputation… notably enemy faction. Seemingly by the final act if you had played the game without much farming even the friendly reputations would not be fully unlocked until the final act on the final difficulty and forget ever seeing a nemesis until Crate had released another 3 expansions unless you wanted to spend another 80 hours farming reputation.

This is not some complaint… I am pointing out that if there wasnt meant to be much farming, then it seems if the player wanted to unlock the majority of the games deeper content he would need to spend a lot of time farming… which doesnt make sense.

613

Craftable components drop seldom, especially the higher level ones.

614

I didn’t read the entire thread (62 pages…), but I think an important aspect comes down to “What do I feel like i -NEED- to do?”

If SoT has the best drops and almost guarantees two epics per run, I’m going to run this. It’s enjoyable, but after awhile I’d like to switch it up. I decide to go check out the scenery in East Marsh because I love this area, but after 2-3x the run length I can wind up with zero epics. This to me is where the design choice mentioned in the original post would shine.

The point is not to do away with farming -because at max level that’s the bulk of most loot based ARPs-, but it’s about not restricting players through the reward system on where they would like to farm. I agree variety is important, and at this point I’d love to be able to justify running some of the open world content for gear as a farming method instead of my same two spots over and over. Or one day feel like saying “Today I’m going to clear from Homestead all the way to the end again.”

This exploration should reward you the same as other content of this level. Loot tied to Exp is a great idea, and you can always make certain areas slightly more rewarding by making them high level/more difficult thus providing higher exp.

Interesting topic!

Edit: This is why I was hoping legendary items aren’t assigned to chest drops. I really don’t want to feel like I’m stuck in SoT farming the 4-5 incredible chests in there.

615

SoT-farming-runs are much overrated. I cant find any difference to other
areas and bosses. Especially since the new update is out.

616

The major benefit of doing SoT isn’t the bunch of “common” greens and a couple of epics which could be farmed anywhere, but the potential drop of high level specific items one can’t find anywhere else.

617

I don’t mind farming myself since it does have its uses but what i don’t like atm is the insane amount of useless loot that drops 90% of the time regardless of lvl that does’t work for most builds.
Like 1h swords with spirit other caster stuff on it but nothing that boosts the items basic damage…

Epics and rares with lots of stats seem to be the only items worth keeping on to but most of them are class or build specific, hence a overfull transfer stash.

Another thing that irritates me to no end is the fact that if u finally find a new crafting recipe 50% of the time its something u already have and thus useless since u can’t even trade it to your other characters since those are acount wide…
Plz devs if possible make it so that no recipes drop that u already have.

618

This is not Diablo 3. Plus, 1h swords with spirit ARE usefull for a lot of builds, in this game you can pretty much build everything.
Honestly, I prefer facing this true randomness than some scripted way to get better items.
If you don’t need an item, just don’t pick it, but you will find what you need soon enough in any case. Same with recipes.

619

Not only what hellcat mentioned, but I can finish SoT in ~15 minutes? Last run was 5 epics due to the multiple chests, densely packed heroes, & Chamber of Souls, also a ton of greens, a Vendor with great items, and many high level components. Alternatively I tried clearing from Homestead to the end which takes awhile, found greens and some mid range components.

It comes down to what’s effective (& fun) for the amount of time we’re able to invest.

Few ways to resolve are through adding more areas like SoT, removing the increased incentive from areas like SoT, or changing the way loot is distributed to make the rest of the content in this level range equally as rewarding. Variety, so important.

Probably easier to talk about the subject than to find an actual solution, I’m sure this has come up for most APRG developers :stuck_out_tongue:

620

I want to add my 2c to this, incoming wall of text.

I feel like a lot of the argument about farming in this thread is really one dimensional. Farming can be fun and can also encourage you to play ARPGs the way they are meant to be played - multiple characters and build experimentation.

One game that I think handles the idea of farming and endgame excellently is MedianXL - the absolutely fantastic mod for diablo 2 that is still getting updates and has players to this day. I do not believe Grim Dawn can hope to achieve the incredible robustness of this mod soon (median has been in development for many years after the groundwork of D2:LOD), but I think the devs should at least take a look at this mod’s endgame to really appreciate how excellent it is.

In case you haven’t played Median, after completing the regular 3 difficulties, there are end game bosses, dungeons, and levels. In addition to random drops, these areas/bosses can drop very powerful charms that passively improve your character, and these charms are specific rewards for completing that end game level or boss. Their difficulty ranges from easy to incredibly difficult (virtually impossible) and most of the difficult ones require specialized characters and gear sets. These end game levels have certain drop biases, some are better for set drops, gold drops, crafting item materials, runes, etc.

As a result, there is a ladder required for completing all the challenges in the game, and it is not something you can do in a weekend. You have to farm certain difficult areas for upgrades and the charms so that you have any chance of completing the more difficult endgame levels and bosses. You also need certain gearsets that cater to certain levels, some endgame areas require incredibly high resistances, defense, elemental damage, avoidance, move speed, etc.

It’s important to realize that the concept of sharing items and more specifically farming items for another character is paramount. You are creating an army of characters that work together, not a jack of all trades that right clicks the game to win.

Because of the mechanics of end game areas and bosses, there are certain levels that some characters dominate and some levels that a certain type of character simply has 0 chance of completing. You need to build more than one character to take on the full array of challenges that the mod has to offer. For example, you create a character that is particularly strong at farming one end game level because that level has a drop bias that increases the chances of great runes (used to create the best rune words in the game). You create another character that is great at farming Duncraig (end game level) because it has the best chance of dropping sacred uniques (best uniques). You farm these areas with those characters so that you can eventually build a specialized character that can take on the extremely difficult end game levels that offer even more powerful rewards, but this character would not be strong without those specialized items.

This encourages you to experiment with new characters and new builds, probably one of the most fundamental concepts in ARPGs.

In the end, this means you are farming, but you are farming for a purpose, so you can go up on the ladder of power. You have to create multiple characters that are specialized so that you can conquer all of the content in the game. The farming becomes more diverse with multiple characters and different areas and as a result it is more fun and less monotonous. The farming allows you to achieve new benchmarks of power that you can really feel. Going into the next end game area is fun and exciting, and you can’t do it without that farm.

I hope this made sense, I can’t write for shit.

EDIT:
I just want to add in that I just discovered Grim Dawn a 2 weeks ago and I am absolutely loving it, but I haven’t made it to the end game. So take this with a grain of salt and this wasn’t a call for specific changes or the like. I also realize that modding will hopefully make things that I’m talking about possible and hope myself to get into modding when it’s released.