Player experience evolution

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Hi all. I know this thread is probably going to come across as me complaining about Grim Dawn. I am going to try to avoid that, because for me Grim Dawn significantly raised the bar for quality ARPGs, leaving the weak attempts that are Diablo 3 and Path of Exile far in its wake.

First my ‘human’ existence needs mentioning for reference - I have a full-time job and a family, so I can’t put more than an hour or three into GD each day (even on weekends) but I always get that time somewhere and therefore have racked up around a thousand hours on the game. This alone should tell you how much I enjoy it. I have more than a dozen toons, two of which are level 100 (both of which use the new expansion classes and have been mentioned in threads on this forum in the past [not going to Zarnath them here]), and 5 or so that either completed the original content or were in Act IV Ultimate when the expansion was released.

The peculiar thing that has occurred to me as a player is that the expansion seems to have thrown the character progression for a bit of a loop. Because I can’t throw hundreds of hours a week at this game, my progress in terms of loot is pretty slow, I never replay content areas, I never visit a bounty table and, depending on difficulty level, I skip quests in order to get to Ultimate (but don’t skip the Malmouth chapter). However I have taken to doing “full clears” of Veteran of late (every area, every quest etc) but am strongly considering abandoning this due to the drop rates. I seldom play Crucible because the key there is survivability of the toon, which conflicts with my general hatred of melee classes. My level 100 toons can both clear Aspirant, but that’s hardly an achievement in my book.

Suffice it to say, that with my current play style I clear Veteran around level 65, Elite around 85 and hit 100 long before the content is finished. What is worse is that at no point does the character feel ‘finished’ or ‘optimal’, so throughout the game I feel like I’m chasing some phantom build that I cannot achieve and am left with the expansion content on Ultimate to complete without any real goal in mind (already at max level and unlikely to find the gear I know I’m missing with that character). This makes it quite hard to pick up the character “next time”.

One of the issues I have is that the old, top-end sets are almost impossible to collect now (for me anyway - ymmv). My stash is full of purple, non-mythical sets where I have 2 or 3 of the items (some duplicates!) but zero completed sets. I don’t even have all the possible blueprints, with the chained chests given me a purple component around 40% of the time and an item of rare or higher rarity next to never - I don’t even waste dynamite on them in Veteran any more. Given that to my knowledge the only way to farm these sets is running SoT or Fabius on Elite (and Fabius requires mindless hours of killing a sect that exists in only one area of the game), it’s very hard to not become disillusioned about the state of the character between levels 50 and 94, especially given that the level 82 and 84 items (most of which are Mythical versions of the strong level 50 purples) are even harder to find due to the short period of time the toon is in the ‘character level sweet spot’ when these items can drop. Crucible doesn’t even help here because the mobs are always at or above the toon level - I would have though Aspirant could assist here by lowering enemy level (or at least capping it) rather than just making them super weak.

This is one the reasons I’ve barely played the toons I had at 85 before the expansion hit. They were not wearing full purple sets, and will not only have to live with that until level 94, I’ve not found the Mythical upgrades yet because I’m not a pro-streamer with 10 hours a day to burn on the game. My ‘best’ toon, at level 100, is wearing the full Mythical Corrupter set for the Necromancer - a set I’ve completed many times. But full sets of mythical legendaries? Not a chance! There isn’t a set like that where I have even a second item.

My current toon is level 88, using a 3/4 Clairvoyant’s set (cos I haven’t found the weapon), and looking ahead to level 94 where I only have the mythical robe. I’m honestly staring at the prospect that this character will receive no “primary set” upgrades between now and the end of Ultimate without me taking one of the 100s farming, and I’d rather ‘adventure’ than ‘farm’ with my time. I love the expansion, the content, the new classes, even the new components even though I’m yet to find simple things like the blueprint for Seal of Annihilation. But the last 15 levels of experience are starting to feel like 15 levels too many, especially when you can hit level 100 long before Malmouth just by doing the quests. The character only gains significant power through gear at this point (55 Devotions can be done before you hit Ulitmate, for eg), you need to be lucky to find level 75-84 gear with the toon you’re playing, and the ‘meat’ of mythical legendary sets can only be found by specialist farmers, presumably in Gladiator Crucible (which I can’t reach).

So what am I supposed to do? The game is losing it’s shine for me despite how incredibly well Crate have done absolutely everything. I honestly can’t bring myself to criticise the game because it’s that good and this circumstance almost certainly only applies to me because of the time I can invest in the game, but I’m struggling to see how I can get maximum enjoyment out of only playing half-finished characters all the time. Just trading for items has never sat well with me personally because I get a bit of a hollow feeling using an item I never found (never mind an entire set - part of the allure of ARPGs is the item hunt, but when your most common ‘regular’ legendary drop is Crimson Spike and your most common Mythical is ALSO Crimson Spike then something is wrong).

I look at those “Slightly” good builds on this forum whenever I want to see how this game is properly played, but I can’t get close to building them. I feel that someone who has played this game as much as I have should not have such a feeling of disappointment.

Anyway, if you got this far, thanks for reading my tale of “woe”. I’m not going to stop playing the game - it’s far too good for that! - but I’d prefer if a character’s progress from level 72 to 100 were not so dependant on time invested by other characters in farming items in a DLC mode one can only play with a character that is already close to perfect gear-wise (somehow!).

2

I will say that gear dependency (and consequently luck with drops) is a common issue with ARPGs (some would say it’s a feature and not a bug). That said, I find that GD is definitely not the worst about this and a lot of faction/vendor gear can carry you through campaign depending somewhat on your build. Certain builds can coast on faction/vendor offerings (my Bleed Warder did pretty well with that for a long time, completing Ult AoM with only one BiS item - the weapon), others are a bit more needy. Also, GD’s drop rates are among the more generous I find, and not needing to augment a Magic Find stat is a huge boon.

3

I absolutely agree with all that, Tycho. My toons don’t have “trouble” completing the content - sometimes issues are down to the player not the character, after all. :slight_smile: I just feel that the level 72-84 legendary sets have fallen off the cliff and can’t realistically be completed any more. Prior to the expansion these were all you could collect, but now you’ll find the odd piece occasionally (for eg my current toon didn’t drop a single legendary set item in that level range, though obviously legendary items in that level range did drop - most of them duplicates [some of which were better than those I had]). So while I’m not criticising drop rates and so on (which you correctly state are part of the game and genre) I feel like a piece of the gear puzzle has suddenly gone missing. I would be a lot happier if I could find the Clarivoyant set weapon and at least get the full set bonus from here to level 100 - but I can’t, not without wading through trash mobs doing SoT on Elite or starting another toon and hoping to get lucky while it is in the 75-85 level range. This is what I mean about playing ‘unfinished’ characters - never able to equip a full legendary set at any level.

If I had a toon that could Zerg Gladiator I’d just ignore the standard legendary sets and play onto until 94 and don the mythical version, but I can’t do that either.

4

I will say that if you look at the build sections, and post for feedback, things will seem frustrating, as everyone there expect you to have every set and piece of gear. But if you play this game self found, you just won’t have everything available. Those that post all those builds, they either traded for their gear with others, or flat out cheated their gear with GD Stash. So my advise is to either ignore the forums, or just take ideas from these builds. Try recreate what they built is not going to happen without trading, or cheating.

As far as getting gear faster than you do, even Aspirant up to 150 will give good loot, better than in game. Especially if you choose extra spawns.

Just try and enjoy the game with the gear you do have. I also found that once get a character that can easily farm Challenger, you’ll start to find a lot of sets and everything speeds up.

5

Thanks for the reply, bystander.

As it turns out I don’t build whatever is on these forums. I set out with a basic plan and if it happens to align with a build on here (highly likely given that many people will hit on the idea before me or will complete the build before me) then so be it. My current toon (level 88) for eg is a Deceiver using Flames of Ignaffar with Blood Orb of Cth’thon in order to go full elemental to Chaos conversion, even though there is no Mythical version of the Blood Orb (to my knowledge) because that’s just what I wanted to do. Sheet DPS is around 95k, even though I know the tooltip isn’t perfect, so it melts face fine, just fine, even without set completions, Seal of Annihilation etc. It certainly isn’t a build I found on here. :slight_smile: Ditto my level 100s - I wouldn’t have started threads on them were they copies of existing builds.

I’m not trying to compete with the Joneses, but it would be nice if could have the satisfaction of wearing the full Clairvoyant set and seeing whether the full set bonus provides an improvement over the other legendary weapons I have available (using Mythical Grim Fate atm, not because it provides the best DPS but because I enjoy the triggered ability). Of course, if I had an alternative set that boosted % and flat Chaos damage I’d try that out as well, but Clairvoyant’s is doing the best job so far even though it’s more suited to a different class.

As for Aspirant, you have a good chance of a legendary drop for clearing 150. The rest of the loot outside purple components is irrelevant imo. I’m a decent player, but I make mistakes and don’t complete it every time as a result - time investment for a chance at a legendary that is linked to my character level doesn’t help me find a level 68 legendary set item with a level 88 toon (and I have no idea how a level 65-70 toon completes Aspirant without being special - I’ve certainly never come close!). So that doesn’t work for me.

EDIT: I know I said I looked at the “Slightly” builds. I do that because those builds are clearly incredibly well thought-out and researched by the author, whose work I respect. However, I know exactly how specific the builds are, and also that these will often only really work out once one has all the gear, not just at level 94 or 100 but along all the steps of the way there as well. I know my collection of items pales by comparison, so I when I see how it needs to be done to be truly effective, and I see that the gear requirements are well beyond me, then I simply decide to never try that build/strategy. For eg, I know that Flames of Ignaffar can convert its own damage to Chaos/Vitality without needing the Blood Orb, and I can play a Deceiver as a pure elemental build, but those things have been done (or refuted!) on here, so I’m doing something different on purpose. Maybe this path is harder because I know that I will discover there are items I need that I probably should have had in my stash before I even started (eg Clairvoyant’s Wand), but hey - this is just how I roll. :slight_smile:

6

Comparisons to other games don’t change the fact that farming should never be the strong point of any game, of any genre.

We are designed to feel good when overcoming difficulties, problems, learning, etc.; out brain is designed to get “bored” when we are not doing so, and especially in western modern society the “natural difficulties” are not enough and we even have a lot of free time. Thus we have hobbies, which are nothing else than artificial and controlled small “tasks”, difficulties, etc. to keep our brain balanced in regard to NTs, etc. and avoid boredom.

Now, keeping in mind that we play videogames because of this, do you think “farming like a rat, running for some cheese” is a good reason to play? Is that the kind of “difficulty” we want to overcome when playing videogames? Focus on the part “running” in the analogy. Not the part of “cheese”. Anyway it’s about getting a reward, so we actually do a task for “some cheese”. But the question is: why does it need to be something as simple as repetition…?

I would rather say the reward is much greater when you overcome something that requires a more “intelectual” approach than “repetition”. Creativity, skill, refined learning, etc. should be the requirements. Not raw “patience” for repetition.

The more “intelectual” part of these games is experimenting builds, combinations, adjustments, etc. Skill, in the sense of studying patterns, developing reflexes, etc., in such games is usually minimal. Yeah, there is some “positioning”, but it’s in most cases about gear, builds and observing some hints to avoid the strongest attack that could kill you in 1 hit. The rest is click-click-click and observing Cooldowns. Or not even that if you can spam the button while auto-attacking.

Keeping this in mind, you can’t even test some builds without some sets because the sets themselves are build/game changers. So if the drop-rate is s***, or not specialized, and requires you to waste days and days of farming, the “hobby” gets pretty mediocre.

I think all this genre should change the standards and mindset of “hey, let’s not put the drop-rate too high, or specialized, because it would kill the longevity of the game”. Longevity should never depend on something as mediocre as that.

Diablo 3 had many flaws for me, and Blizzard even banned me permanently for simply testing a glitch that was in the game without using any third party program or whatever (and gave me a minimal advantage)… so never again a game from them; BUT there was something really good in D3. Once you were in end-game, let alone competing in leaderboards… Farming anything was really quick, because the drop was specialized for your class. And if you had the previous best set… you could farm pretty quickly the new “best set” (yeah, I know the top builds depending only on the recent buffed set is not something very intelectual either).

In Grim Dawn, while the drop-rate is relatively generous for legendaries on Ultimate, you are actually forced to play other classes if you want to break the grinding… And forcing the player to play other classes to have more fun is not a good way to increase the longevity. It should be an option, not something forced. Let alone getting a new char to max level.

7

Maybe the answer for you is to play some mod with increased drop rates?

8

here’s how i play the game now i’ve realised i could not invest the time needed for endgame (for similar reasons).

  1. design my build in grim tools
  2. create the character complete with gear in gd-edit
  3. go play content with character until bored or get a new idea for build.
  4. repeat

this method has eliminated farming frustration and allowed me to enjoy what i love about the game–theory crafting. i’ve played the game for many more hours than i otherwise would have thanks to gd-edit. note:i use the tools to create chars which stay within the limits of the game, not to break them.

9

I’d say Gladiator at the Challenger level up to wave 150 is a super fast way to get legendaries once you can do it…but of course the item pool is massive in this game so it could take quite a few hours to have a good shot at getting what you want. You definitely will find lots of inspiring gear at this point for other builds at least. Might be able to play in a multiplayer game with someone on this difficulty until you can fly solo…MP crucible with shared auras and all the banners/buffs is absolutely nuts anyways and something everyone should try once lol.

All I can say aside from that is I think a lot of builds you see in the forum don’t truly rely on having every or even most of the listed pieces to function well. try to look at just a few of the few essential ideas behind what the build does (high DA, maximum over capped level of ‘X’ skill, or conversion from this 1 piece, etc.).

Seriously consider picking up some rare items that catch your eye or subbing in decent alternative items. I really like the idea of using the best rares you can find because it makes your setup unique to everyone else using the same skills. Also makes farming more interesting when you are on the lookout for good green affixes imo.

10

Loads of great feedback, everyone - thank you!

Drop-rate mods: I was not aware these existed, though now that it’s been mentioned it suddenly seems obvious that someone would have done this sooner rather than later. I might explore this option, though not just yet. Like Moon Trees I’m not so interested in breaking the game as trying out different things, and this might be the best approach that still forces me to find the items. Kinda like a 50% cheat mode, if you like. :slight_smile:

GD-Edit: Back when I played Diablo 2 I had all the time in the world to play, and I successfully farmed every single item in the game. When I played Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, however, I couldn’t invest the same time, and while I did build quite a few end game toons there were a lot of top items that I simply never found. In the end I resorted to an item editor. But what I found out was that having the power to build any toon I liked by ‘making’ whatever item I needed killed the game for me, which is one of the reasons why I now avoid trading. Obviously this is not something that will affect everyone, and its effect on me was unexpected. But now that I know myself a little better, I would rather grind the items than risk losing interest in the game because it’s become too easy.

Rare-only builds: This is an interesting idea! The rare sets are almost trivial to collect once you’re into Ultimate - they have huge drop rates by comparison. As I mentioned, my Necro toon is level 100 powered by a rare set (with a rare two-hander, though the jewellery is all legendary) - being the first toon I played after the expansion came out these items are all self-found as well (rather than twinked). Although not as powerful as my Dual-Wield Purifier it is a toon I find very satisfying to play simply because it is both effective and quite “budget”. I think I will definitely try out this idea, Stentron! Thanks!

11

@MartinG: You make a number of points that mirror my feelings on drop rates, so I’d like to add to what you have said. One of the most important aspects is that it appears to me that without 1 end game set a toon is doomed to fail in some way. Consider my position with my Deceiver:

I’m missing the weapon of a level 68 set that not only has a major bonus to my character’s primary damage type as an ‘on attack’ trigger, the full set bonus is pretty incredible. I strongly believe that this level 68 set is sufficient to complete the content, though obviously it’s not going to be a cake-walk in certain areas but I accept that as part of the challenge.

However, I cannot realistically farm for this item. As a level 68 there isn’t a great chance it will even drop in Elite SoT, and Crucible is just as pointless because the loot is linked to the character level and you only get 1 legendary on Aspirant (and good luck clearing 150 Challenger with a level 65 toon!). I basically just have to hope it drops some time on some other lower level toon while levelling - that’s a bit weak.

By contrast the level 94 mythical set is much easier to find because there are no items of higher level, and therefore they will eventually drop to any end game character, whether in Crucible or in farming runs. I would suggest it’s easier to collect the mythical set than the normal one, especially since a level 100 toon in crucible is unlikely to drop any items of level 84 or lower, so all those legendaries are immediately excluded from the drop-pool. This doesn’t seem right, does it?

Which gets back to my point about there being a piece of the gear puzzle missing. My toons have a mishmash of raer and green gear up to 50 (most of the time I just run self-found and don’t bother to twink outside the really cool sets like Marauder or Perdition, and even beyond 50 stick with, say, Sharpshooter). Hitting 50 gives access to a number of really good item upgrades, many of which come from quest rewards, but once past 58 I find that I’m reliant on crafting or part sets until 94 (aka more mishmash), where one can finally reliably farm top gear and look for an end-game build. So for me I’m not “playing a build” from 50 to 94 - I’m just making do through the vast majority of the content, holding off seeing whether or not it really can be as effective as I hope. Until you can strap the stuff on you just don’t know whether or not you’ve wasted your time. I find this dissatisfying.

I don’t know if this is a flaw with the genre or just a flaw in us humans thinking we have a right to use every item in a game set in a fantasy world where characters have little right to see more than a handful of them during their lifetime. I would suggest that part of the problem is that heroic storytelling always has the protagonist find the items needed, but ARPGs do not have the same linearity about them despite being set with the same heroic undertones. I’m not sure how to resolve this, but I’m sure that the genre needs some kind of fix to address it, much like D3’s drops being class-specific rather than for totally random classes, leading to a sense of inevitability about getting the items you want, even for niche builds. D3 also has a far deeper crafting and gambling system than GD. Its problem is that, while items are easier to “find”, D3 pales by comparison to GD as a compelling PvE game, particularly with regular nerfs and buffs utterly altering every class every few weeks or months. Heck, why not have certain quests where the player can choose an item as the reward (limited by level, game region or whatever) rather than simply hoping to not get yet another duplicate and being disappointed when you do.

The same goes for blueprints - I was under the impression that you couldn’t find a blueprint you already had. However, this does not apply to the quests that reward blueprints, and I get the same stuff over and over instead of the dozens of blueprints I’m missing. Also the chained chests just don’t drop blueprints for me, even though I got them at a tremendous rate when I first started playing the game, to the point where I don’t hit them in Veteran, and always wonder whether 2-3 dynamite is worth an Ancient Heart for the rest of the game - I thought these were supposed to be good chests rather than ones where the loot is always just iron bits and components.

There’s a lot more to this than “just play more, n00b”. :smiley:

12

I personally almost never use a set while leveling. It is only when I get to level 94 that I start using sets, but until more recently, I had no completed sets at level 94 either. Sets do make the game easier, but by no means are they necessary. There have been a number of noob builds posted in the build section recently that have no set pieces and pretty much no legendary items.

The sets are great, but by no means necessary, unless we are talking about Gladiator. Even then, I have a couple Gladiator 150 capable characters that do not use set pieces.

What I’m trying to say is to not get discouraged. You do not need sets to perform. However, finding the new level 90+ crafting recipes will help greatly in filling out your basic OA/DA/resist needs.

13

Rare only builds would be pretty funny, but what I meant was rare-supplemented build. Still I kinda like your idea lol

14

@bystander, I get what you’re saying, and am quite impressed that you have the mindset of not needing sets to get by prior to 94 - I could learn from that. From a neutral perspective even the build I’m “complaining” about is pretty solid - not had a character death in Ultimate yet and only died once in Elite Malmouth outside the final boss (where it took a few attempts to stand in the right place to not get nuked by his 1st phase ‘balls of death’ thing). So it’s not a rubbish build where I can’t see how I make it to the next waypoint. However, it’s pretty clear the build could be significantly different with Clairvoyant’s Wand, and could even allow me to change my skill point allocation or play style with the 10% chance of 0 cooldown. I might become enamoured with that aspect of the character and reallocate my devotion points to take the hourglass constellation, or perhaps get inspiration for a new character build. The only way to discover these things is to collect the level 94 set though, because I can’t realistically search for 1 level 68 item, and that doesn’t sit well with me. Why should I need to complete the content with a farming toon and a second ‘test’ toon just to discover whether a third, as yet unmade toon, could be viable? Maybe I’m just an ARPG addict with insufficient time to play as much as I want, and it rankles. :smiley:

My argument is not so much about drop rates or hating having to look for items, although I fully understand if that is how I’m coming across. I feel that it should be possible to ‘hone’ one’s search in some way rather than trusting entirely to luck for the 8-10 levels that a character can find an item that is not in the highest tier of drops for a difficulty level that has a reasonable drop rate (ie not Veteran).

15

lol. This is how inspiration works. :smiley: