The devs are fine with it, doesn’t matter what i’m fine with. lol
Sure. Just because the devs are fine with cheating still doesn’t mean it isn’t power creep.
Anyway, I think we’re done here. Have a nice day.
From what I read, you still need to actually play the game and farm the material and bits to do re-rolls. I see this being really beneficial for those off-meta conversion builds where it’s really hard to get non-bias affixes. Like I can finally actually enjoy making those builds knowing that I can reasonably actually complete it, rather than getting to a point where I would just be farming for months to get one or two ideal items.
Meta builds will be strong anyway, who cares if they’re now doing crucible in 4:02 instead of 4:05, it’s a not a competition anyway. The ‘concern’ around this, particularly with how it’s been implemented, smells a lot like gatekeeping rather than actual balance problems. GD isn’t PoE, a good physical roll on your weapon doesn’t triple your damage, and there’s no ladder.
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I have bad news for you about how GD is balanced.
GDStashed builds are taken into consideration, because while they may not represent the average experience, they do represent the upper-end, and that’s still valuable information.
It doesn’t help, also, that most builds on these forums are GDStashed, and ergo most of the feedback given is from the perspective of GDStashing builds.
In regards to power creep, no, rerolling affixes isn’t powercreep. Powercreep refers to raising overall power in the game, but that isn’t happening from this feature; average power will increase, but overall power will not, as rerolling doesn’t affect GDStashers and ergo does not affect their higher-end builds.
There will be power creep in FoA - new statlines mean more building possibilities, and new items mean more ways to minmax. Furthermore, potion customization is inevitably going to result in overall higher potency of characters.
But being able to reroll existing items simply narrows the gap between those that GDStash and those that do not, which really is a win-win for all involved.
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This. /10char
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Look, if we would go about this phrase non-related to this topic, i would argue that this phrase is at times a bit overused, or how to phrase it properly: I don’t like how abused it is at times. It’s like this “Don’t like it, don’t play it!” for certain modern entries of longlasting franchises, just to deflect any legit criticism, esp. from longterm fans.
I’d say if it comes down to this, there is a fine line where it goes from: That’s a fair argument. Some stuff shouldn’t have any impact on you, it’s entirely optional so just don’t use it, while for other instances it’s kinda stupid to throw that out. I mean by the logic Devs can do anything: (Fictional Example) Why not just handout after the first quest broken op items where you oneshot everything and can’t die? You don’t have to use it, why complain? ← Because i’d argue that in a Genre where a huge appeal is min-maxxing, it’s kinda anticlimatic and killing that you expect players to not use the best stuff. That’s why i always smh when i read people complain about balancing patches / nerfs…
Still in this case i’d argue in favor of “just don’t use it then”.
I’ve a few issues with that point.
- If we consider that Grim Dawn first and foremost is an Singleplayer-Game (and then at best → co-op with friends), and not a live-service online-only Game, i trying to wrap around why is it your concern how others or most people play the game, and i’m not even sure if Crate even cares, atleast to that extend, because otherwise they’d be against GD Stash and other methods to cheat from the getgo. If you are selfaware and mature enough, in that regard you really should know to play the game the way it’s best for you, and not being hung up by a feature which really is just geniunly an optional thing.
- I only could see this argument as a huge concern for a Live-Service Game where you potentially might do group content with other players. In such scenarios, even if you yourself would be mature enough, the overall flow of the game to keep up so you find groups to play with could effect how effective/efficient you wanna far. That’s why this for me it comes off you look at this whole scenario way to heavy in the lense of a live-service/mp/co-op Game not from a PoV where you play such games mostly alone or at best with friends.
- The Biggest Problem which i’ve with that argument tho is, that it lacks the point of how is it even implemented, instead being too heavily focused on it even existing in the first place. But if we go by this standards, i’d really love to know your point of view & concern on respeccing in Videogames. Did the fact that Grim Dawn have Respeccing in the game any negative impact to you?
Because i’d argue Respeccing falls under the same category as rerolling items. It’s a convinient features - which, in the worst possible scenario, can have an bad impact on the overall experience, by either being too generous, killing replaybility, class,- and character-fantasy, meaningfull-choices, or too harsh, killing the freedom of experimenting, fixing your builds, and for certain people also longlivety(because they won’t start over) → not to mention that the mindset can be on both ends differently - from too generous where people don’t care and don’t give any thoughts into their builds because they can change it anytime anyway meta-build-guides will come up anyway, to too harsh, where people just follow strictly meta build-guide because to scared too screwing up. So isn’t it kinda bad that Grim Dawn does have Respeccing?
I personally argue not, i’d even go further and argue Grim Dawn is actually one of the best iteration of the market, because it’s generous enough to invite you to experiement, while still maintain a meaningfull choice by your mastery-picks, encouraging to atleast in that regard maybe make another character, but for the classes you have picked and you really don’t want to start over, respeccing is fair/generous enough to give you that, while also still have enough friction that it still make sense to start over, even for the same class(because there is still effort involved, there is no loadout system, etc etc), if you have a different build in mind. It’s (IMO) the best of both worlds. And i’d argue that goes for a lot of other stuff too, like example the Game has freaking Exp Potions. I’d argue one of many cancerous things which was invented in ‘modern gaming’ are Exp-Pots, heavily monetized often and build with the mindset of selling them it also effects the pacing of leveling up, where they purposefully drag the level process painfully out so you buy them. Meanwhile GD i’d argue never let you feel that because it’s well implemented and a cool, optional feature if you want to optimize your level process for alts/twinks.
So i find if it comes down to this feature, the mainquestion here shouldn’t be “should this feature be in or not”, it should rather be “does crate implement it in a good way, so it’s an additional cool feature and not mandatory”.
This Argument doesn’t really make sense, because if there is an Item in - which just oneshots nemesis without any effort, this shouldn’t be a question about having an optional re-roll feature, but rather this should be an balancing concern. It just doesn’t become an issue only because you can faster acquire it due rerolling, it should already be an issue before that to have such items in.
So i dunno, while i find your Topic in itself good that we’ve this conversation, i find this is one of that parts of your argument where you’re just reaching. And you also go at it at the worst possible angle. Maybe you base it on other Games which comes to your mind, but you always go in under the assumpation that Crate will eff it up the same ways others, that balancing at the beginning s*cks thats why they’ve to change it later on and yada yada.
Which also is again, a concern about the implementation and the balancing of it, not a problem on a conceptual level. You assume that getting the item you need via rerolling is much easier than actually farming items, or - that it can’t be farmed alongside the traditional farming. Because so far the only thing we know (with the news today) it’s related to the ascendend mode as well having the option to also getting it via the altar thing for non-ascendend. It’s highly possible that effectively not really much change, you still will do your normal farming routes and stuff targeting for items, on top of that you get(occasionally) the crafting item to engage with rerolling.
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I’ve got to (partially) defend @Paikis here. I’ve seen first-hand how the toxic build gang creates these GDStashed builds that the game is balanced around. I’m not denying that’s the case.
But it is also true that they try to take into account what gear is realistically attainable by an honest-but-dedicated player, and aren’t literally testing theoretically perfect builds. So they generally don’t, for example, test builds that use rare/rare MIs. Because those are mostly not realistic to obtain. (There are actually exceptions, like the MIs that Hyram sells, but they generally still don’t use them.)
People aren’t perfect at judging how realistic a build is, but my spreadsheet has helped, and it is possible to do this well.
Affix rerolling makes good rare/rare MIs more common. This is true both if rerolling a magic affix can upgrade it to rare, and if rerolling a rare affix retains rarity. Now you only need one perfect affix to drop, and you can keep that fixed and just gamble on rerolls for the other.
We can’t know exactly how much more common without seeing the numbers in the FoA database files, but it’s going to make good rare/rare MIs more common, guaranteed. That may well mean that it’s more reasonable to test builds – yes, GDStashed builds – that use rare/rare MIs, because it’s more likely that an honest-but-dedicated player could attain such a build. I would wager this will be the case.
Anyway, I think
(1) Yes, there will be “power creep” from this – in isolation. Like, if you added this to FG, it would be power creep. But FoA is going to radically alter balance no matter what, and Ascended mode becoming the endgame difficulty might actually mean on average the strongest builds feel relatively weaker in the endgame. It’s silly to judge this re-rolling feature as if it were just being added to FG with no other changes. I trust Crate to get this right (with iteration).
(2) People way too often use “GDStash!” as a rallying cry to just shut down any discussion of optimized-build endgame balance without understanding what GDStashing builders actually do, and how that feeds back to Zantai and informs balance changes. This will change game balance and it will change what GDStashers do, because they care about how the game is actually designed, not just theoretically possible cheats and exploits that break the game (if these exist, they will discover them, report them, and get them fixed, because they also don’t enjoy a broken game).
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Fortunately the newly announced game-ruining powercreep has inexplicably and completely balanced out the game-ruining physical resist removal, so all is well once again.
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Last time I tried to get one of those it took 7 hours over multiple days… and then the chance for them to roll rare affixes was nerfed. I would actually say that this method is no longer realistic.
Yup. I didn’t even say that this powercreep was a bad thing. I was just saying that it IS powercreep.
Case in point: This thread. I say “this is powercreep” immediately told it wasn’t because GDStash.
Anecdotally, I have about a half dozen rare/rare Fleshwarped Archives in my Item Assistant, all legit. Some of those were acquired before the vendor rate was nerfed, but not all. This is the product of a little bit of reset farming, but mostly just checking Hyram for double rares every time I pass by, on any character (I have a lot of hours in the game and prefer the Steelcap base over any other NPC hub for crafting and stash access.)
But also, we don’t need to rely on subjective impressions and anecdotes! The chance of rare/rare affixes where both are pet affixes on a Fleshwarped Archive is 0.69% from Hyram. I haven’t figured out how to tell from the database what the expected number of Fleshwarped Archives in stock is, but in my experience I’d estimate it’s about 1.5 – and if we really cared, this is probably knowable. If we assume it’s 1 per visit (on average), you still expect only 100 visits to Hyram to see a rare/rare pet offhand. Since it only takes like 20 seconds to reset him (if you have a decent SSD) and a few more to check his inventory, if we call it 30 seconds per visit that’s still less than hour of farming.
Anyway, that’s really neither here nor there with respect to the subject of this thread, except as (yet another) illustration that it’s silly to just make hand-wavey assertions about how “realistic” a drop is when we can actually quantify the expected farming effort.
God forbid a game about build variety actually allows that variety. No, we should follow the exampled of greatest, like D4 or POE, and make some things completely statistically unobtainable. That’s great design and absolutely not cancer, right?
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I don’t comment often, but I want to add my grain of salt:
- affixes dilution :
With all extensions, there is more options for prefixes/suffixes. Some of them are really good for your build, but the rest is useless. So with each extension, you’ll add maybe 1 or 2 “good” option and dilute it with N “bad” options. Getting a “good” object is increasingly difficult, while getting a “perfect” one is out of reach for many. - stats rerolling :
Once you have a “perfect” item, you’ll need good rolls on him to min/max. Depending on your build, chances are that a “good” item will outmatch a “perfect” one due to sheer stats power. - new ascended items :
With this new feature, you’ll dilute even more the affixes pools. You don’t need a perfect item, you’ll need a double ascended perfect item.
All of those combined, one “perfect” item from the base game is now requiring exponentially more drops of the base item to make it good.
That’s why we had the “Monster Frequent” update which boosted the MI drop by a significant factor, to prevent 100+ hours of boring grinding of the same boss to get the perfect item (and 100+ was considered lucky for some of those old MI). Some complained about it, calling it power creeping too. But it’s just a balance, to restore the odds to a sane level.
And that’s why with the new expansion and the addition of ascended items, you’ll NEED a new way to restore the odds. Sure, they could have doubled on the MI drop rate to augment the chances, but we don’t want a waterfall of drops either. Only solution was to find another system to restore the odds.
A final note : I think you’re mistaken. items rerolls is NOT powercreeping. It’s a system to restore loot balance after dilution. The real powercreep in the room is the ascended items : those WILL augment the max power level by a significant margin (both of the farmed/GDstashed maxed chars and the casual solo self found ones). But there is a whole new difficulty to explore with those new powers, and that’s exiting ! I’m not a fan of crucible/SR, I want to explore the world.
Edit :
There is actually multiple ways to tip the ods in the extension. The altar is going to do the same. Let’s hope that they have taken this into account, and that the balance to drop will not tip to a point where loot is trivialized.
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I wasn’t waving my hand, I was recounting my actual experience. Also if you’re going to play statistics, then at least do it correctly. 100 visits only gets you a 50% chance to see any double rare. RIP if you happen to get a fire affix on your pet book… assuming you’re not part of the 50% who don’t see one at all. You’re also assuming that it’s being farmed by a robot who never takes a break, never takes 50 seconds to check again because the TV show on the other screen got interesting… There’s a lot of things that could slow this down.
Anyway, this whole thing was just “this is power creep” - “No it isn’t because GDStash” - The thread. I think I’m done here.
To be clear, MIs cannot be Ascended. Only Common (white) items.
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Just to be clear, my goal was never to start a debate / flame war or marginalize anything Crate is doing. I love Grim Dawn–it’s easily my favorite ARPG and one of my favorite games of all time. Crate has done a lot over the years to earn my respect and as such, goodwill. I plan on purchasing the expansion regardless.
That all said…
I’m not sure how anyone could reasonably believe it wouldn’t contribute to power creep. Since when have players ever been able to perfectly itemize their gear to the point that not a single affix is even partially wasted or change an item into something else entirely?
Depending on when it becomes accessible for a new character, it will undeniably provide a massive gain in power across the entire game as it is currently.
As far as I understand it now, the only unknown is Ascendant Mode–which also happens to be a big part of the reason I have a problem with it.
Plainly stated, I am excited for Ascendant Mode. I’m one of those weird players that really enjoys playing (and replaying) the main game and expansions. I love the story and lore (I’m really hoping we learn more about Ulgrim in FoA). IIRC, the whole reason I even registered on the forums was to make a lore discussion thread years back. For those reasons, as you may have guessed, my favorite end-game “mode” is running the rogue-like dungeons and attempting to tackle the Celestial bosses.
While I’ve certainly done my fair share of Crucible and Shattered Realm runs for gear and achievements, they’re not really something I find especially fun or care about. If I were to guess, I’d say that the Crucible and Shattered Realm probably contribute less than 5% of my total playtime.
Having provided the context, the problem is then how the ability to reroll items will inevitably affect Ascendant Mode. Simply put, it’s going to be a nightmare to balance, and considering how challenging a lot of the content has historically been, the ability to reroll will assuredly become a massive part of the challenge equation.
Whether or not people use GD Stash is a completely and utterly worthless argument and should be dismissed outright. Based on the extent of my own experience, it’s fair to state that the game has never been balanced around the player having to use GD Stash.
However, if something were added to the game that was comparable or even arguably superior, such as the reroll feature, it suddenly becomes a very real possibility and so, the entire meta of the game changes. This is especially true given how many new build possibilities the reroll feature could allow for. I’m not that familiar with GD Stash so I’m really not sure but does it allow you to change gear affixes or item seeds and make perfectly itemized pieces?
The truth is, I doubt anyone enjoys farming currency or materials for the sake of playing the reroll RNG slot machine, so if the justification for the reroll feature is GD Stash already does it, I suspect it’s only going to coerce more players toward GD Stash if anything.
But builds using GDstashed items are taken into consideration for endgame balancing because people use GDstash to spawn the items to be able to test the final state of the build.
Yes, you don’t have to use GDstash, but people are already testing builds with the optimal affixes and rolls because of GDstash.
“This argument I disagree with and am misinterpreting should just be dismissed!”
The argument is not about using or not using GDStash, it’s about what GDStash provides access to on an expedient basis, which is the ceiling of itemization power. This is an attainable ceiling today; you can well enough farm out a character to completeness, and it doesn’t even really take that long for some characters that may not need any MIs at all. And for those that require, say, Nemesis MIs, the new Nemesis system coupled with affix bias has made that farm quite fast.
Rerolling does not affect that ceiling in any capacity. It shifts the farming from getting multiple drops of the same item to getting currency items, which usually come from a wider array of locations and enemies, and thus can “spice up” gameplay by encouraging more diverse play.
Pretending that there is this mythical, unattainable power ceiling that only rerolling will make feasible is just that - pretending.
Do tell us how the reroll feature is superior to GDStash.
How often do you use the Legendary item gamblers? You know, those smiths that take some rare materials and spit out a Legendary item, any non-MI Legendary in the game.
For sufficiently high quantities of rare materials, they are already a form of rerolling. Yet I’d wager most players have forgotten about them.
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I do share the concern about powercreep. I have been saying since 2020 that drops have become too generous in Grim Dawn.
However, FoA will likely add hundreds of new items and dozens of new materials. I mean, you actually do have too play a lot to get all these things. And potential powercreep can easily be limited in two ways: make the rerolling appropriately expensive and buff the enemy mobs. I thinkk the first option is preferred, because if they start buffing enemies, at some point later on, they will probably buff the player chars if they go overboard, and then it can spin into ever increasing numerical values of player damage and monster health relation.
So, sure, make rerolling very powerful, but also make it very expensive.
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As I plainly stated, my idea of end-game is completion of the rogue-like dungeons and Celestial bosses. To me, gear is a means to an end, not the end. I have no interest in farming gear to completion, minimizing my Crucible farm times or pushing as far as I can into the Shattered Realm.
Why would I bother working up to and farming a piece of gear, experimenting with things or gradually improving my build around what I have when I can just magically reroll something into exactly what I need and skip that whole process altogether?
I’ve also used the blacksmith a fair bit and that comparison is laughable. There’s more than a small difference between changing the seed or specific affixes of an item and replicating the same exact item plus or minus a few points here or there.
If an otherwise good item has something I don’t need, such as Poison & Acid Resistance, blacksmith RNG isn’t going to help me, regardless if it rolls an unfavorable 15% or favorable 25%. Rerolling allows me to completely drop Poison & Acid Resistance in favor of something I do need.
If you’re willing to do this for every piece of gear, it undeniably adds up to massive gains. This can readily be seen in every other game in existence that has tried this.
In the three or four games I’ve played that have similar reroll features, every single one has been nerfed or had prohibitive costs or diminishing returns slapped on it.
It doesn’t sound to me like you’ll be engaging with the system enough to enable your fears.
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