Some thoughts about the visual changes to the game

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Hi everyone!

First of all, I would like to start by saying that I have immense respect for the Crate Etertainment team; I think their communication and responsiveness to player feedback are exemplary, and should be a measuring standard for the gaming industry as a whole. Secondly, their passion and dedication to this game are also extraordinary, and I am amazed by the amount of free content they seem to be pushing out constantly. It really puts asctions by some other developers into perspective.

With that said, I would like to offer some constructive criticism, or maybe some suggestions.

Like many, I was very plesantly surprised several months ago when Crate started making visual changes to the game, specifically, when they introduced changed visual effects for item skill modifiers which convert damage from one type to another. This is really a remarkable step, one that enhances immersion in the game significantly. Since then, there were a number of visual changes to the skills in the game. Some of them are fantastic, in my opinion - Maiven Sphere for example, and Blackwater Cocktail. I also think that the new Blade Spirits and Ring of Steel are great.

In this last patch, a number of changes were also made. The new Sigil is really beatiful, very spooky and very fitting for an Occultist. However, there are some changes which I find somewhat unsuccesful. What I have in mind are Thermite Mines and Trozan Sky Shard. Thermite Mines are much bigger now, it seems, which is not that big a problem. But they seem to be spewing these little fiery fragments, which honestly looks somewhat worse than the pure flame jet before. I do like the new flame jet part, thought, but these fiery fragments at their base are too dense (even with partilces set to low) and when an enemy is on the mine, these fragments often obscur the view of the target.

Trozan’s SkyShard is even stranger. I have to be frank, and say that the new appearance is much, much worse than the old one (to me, that is). Before we had a comet, an now we have shards of ice. While the new visuals might fit the name of the spell better (although the skill icon still reminds me of the old effect), these shards are somehow overly rough on the edges, very rectangular (sorry if this is not the right word, English is my second laguage) and overall it looks like a downgrade in visual quality, compared to the previous look. Let me use this comparison - this new effect reminds me of situations when you have to downgrade the image quality of the game because your computer is not powerful enough to run it smoothly. I think that’s a shame, especially when the previous animation was so beautiful.

I am sorry if my post sounds overly aggresive or negative, but I am really curious to see what other members of the community think about this.

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Many of us are don’t like this new TSS, it is now 100% cold of visual looking, and this is are not right represent of the skill (TSS half a cold but half a lightning)

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Utility wise TM is a bit better now: borderline acceptable that is but boy the look did downgrade a bit. Looks like volcano lava spewing out of the ground but I guess I can live with it.

TSS though I have a mixed feeling about it. Although I got used to it. Im not sure how it differentiates itself to the new Blizzard fx. Its either we change blizzard or tss. I dont mind if we lose the old tss fx but at least put a differentiating factor here.

I have yet to test other skills but so far Im well impressed at the changes especially to panetii which arguably now has become the best looking skill in game especially during nighttime:star_struck:

4

I agree with this, especially with the Trozan Sky Shard part.

From the patch notes, and from what the devs repeatedly said in recent months, their big concern was to reduce blowout, which as I understand the term, is when bright and colored surfaces overlap and then produce bright white areas. That was a problem, indeed, and I think their interventions in the graphical side of the game has helped in mitigating it.

However, I think that the interventions were less than optimal in a few cases. Thermite Mines now, with the mini-volcano at their base, actually obstruct the view of monsters and environment more than before.

The case of Trozan’s Sky Shard is the most controversial, in my opinion. It is the last in the trend of ‘‘sharpening’’ interventions in the game, previous ones being Phantasmal Blades and in the last patch, Pannetti. By giving the projectiles these long, sharp, clear trails, they reduce the visual quality. Trozan’s seems the most radical change, and it looks kinda like you’re playing some very old game. I think the change of projectiles from comets to shards makes thematic sense, but I would certainly suggest some changes to the trail of the projectiles. Maybe making them a bit less dense, or less sharp and regular, anything so that they don’t appear so straight and clearly cut around the edges.

I think @Pareto suggested a couple of days ago that the thing might look better if they tweaked the explosion when shards impact the ground, maybe adding more splinters to make the effect look more rich or something similar.

In any case, yeah, I think those were not great changes.

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The cold fire it had before was more lightning somehow?

You’re going to have a hard time convincing me to have the artist revise Sky Shard because I think the new one is beautiful and very fitting of the skill.

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The new FX is much more distinctive. I say give it time. Also, it might be wise to share our graphics settings along with our opinions (I don’t know if and how that affects the FX).

To clarify, my objection was functional more than cosmetic: the splinters spread out in a much wider area than that of TSS. I’d prefer something that doubles as a rough visual indicator of the actual area of effect. Beyond that, yes, I wouldn’t say no to something a bit more dramatic.

As for blowout, I share the concern, but TSS is casted at most once per second, and a short flash of something wouldn’t contribute all that much. Lasting ground effects tend to be much more problematic. I mean…

iskandra-procs
iskandra-procs.jpg1920×1080 552 KB

Fixing VFX one by one is such a lot of work! Maybe we should just add a sunglasses illusion. :P

7

Besides the controversial TSS, the cold version of Devastation looks uglier than the old one, I think. The shards and their explosions fx seem not fit together.

8

Oh I agree that the new effect is distinctive and fits the skill better than the old one. It’s just that I don’t find it pretty.

Actually, I don’t think the shards themselves are the problem at all. I think what contributes to the overall poorer presentation quality than before is:

  1. The ground explosion basically consists of a few sharp lines going criss-cross.

  2. The shard trails are very simple, sharp surfaces.

I think the effect could be vastly improved simply by enriching the ground explosion in some sense (but yes, not exaggerating, we don’t want blowout issues again) and introducing some kind of variation in the trail of the projectiles. The shards themselves could remain untouched.

Exactly this. This new effect looks a bit underwhelming for a nuke spell like TSS.

Also, as was already mentioned, I find it a bit unfortunate that the Blizzard devotion skill was changed to look almost identical as TSS now, whereas before they looked differently.

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Thank you everyone for your replies.

I too agree that the new visual appearance of the skill better fits the description, but I don’t think it’s as aesthetically good as the older one.

@krell_154, yes, those were my thoughts exactly. For example, if the projectiles’ trail was a bit more gappy, or if there were some fine particles there, it would look much better. And it would be true to the skill, since comets often have ice tails, quite literally.

@Zantai, thank you for commenting in this thread. I understand your decision, and that is of course your prerrogative. Thank you for making Grim Dawn so great.

I have another question, but I understand if it is not appropriate for this forum section. I will gladly move it to another category of the forum. And that is (several questions, actually):

  1. Would it be possible for me to, relatively easily, modify the game files, so that I swap the new TSS animation with the old one? (keep in mind that I am not familiar with modding games, but I can follow simple instructions and generally know the basics of finding my way around the files on my PC). I am not asking for those instructions here, I am just wondering whether something like that is possible.

  2. Would I ‘‘break’’ the game somehow? I am not interested in multiplayer, I play solo exclusively. Is there a possibility that, because of such tampering with skill effects, something bad happens to the installation of my game (presumed I do the file swap correctly; I know that if I mess something up, it can break the game)?

  3. Could I do that to the files of the main game, or is it only possible to do that in building a mod? Because I would like my character to have access to the shared stash.

  4. If I managed to do that correctly, is it something I would have to repeat after every patch?

I would be very grateful if anyone could help me with very short answers to these questions (’‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’). In any case, thank you all for your time!

10

I really like the new Trozan Skyshard visuals, fits the skill so much better. In fact, the new look is the main reason why I started leveling up a fresh Arcanist with TSS as main skill. I never used TSS before, mainly because I disliked the old visuals which looked like yet another generic Meteor skill.

The trail is fine too, the one thing I don’t like as much are those 3 mini-shards flying to the side from each impact. It just looks weird. They look like extra projectiles that would deal damage, but they won’t.

In my opinion an effect like shattering glass would look much better. Kinda like this:


Change the impact fx to a glassy explosion like that and it’s gonna be perfect.