Stash overhaul (or how to make GD an even better ARPG)

Grim Dawn General Discussion
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[AN OLD KNOWN “PROBLEM”]

The stash size limit is a popular reoccurring topic since before GD was released for a reason. The endgame drops (especially with the 1.2 loot quality improvements) provide the player with lots of potential build-makers - legendaries, MI’s and sets and many uniques. Combined with the flexible build system (builds can be made based on a skill, skill combinations, class combinations, item, item combinations) that the game offers, it creates a situation where there’s simply more valuable drops than your stash can fit. You don’t need to be a hoarder to have this problem (just an alt-holic :smiley: or a player who enjoys tinkering with builds and unveiling the item potential). I get at least 10+ valuable drops from 20 minutes of ugdenbloom farming (valuable means end-game viable) and that’s just regular campaign clearing and not SR, skeleton key dungeons or target MI/boss farming. To put it simply - good drops drop all the time and frequently.

The stash size and UI is great for a single character. But for many (10+) characters - it could be better.

The shared stash is simply way too limited for a long-time player. Yes, you can create mules, but it’s a workaround which has been outdated for over 20 years. Mule-ing sucks and is a big unnecessary thorn in the butt which makes the game less enjoyable.

A cross-character search/filter/move function would be a decent solution. At least it would somewhat ease the tedium of manually switching between characters and main menu, finding the needed item, placing it in the shared stash and picking it from there. But it still would require to create mules and fill them, which is as enjoyable as having a stamina bar in Diablo 2 on early levels.

[A MUCH DESIRED SOLUTION]

Crate, our beloved, you’ve made so many improvements and QoL’s. Please reconsider your stance on stash size and make it more enjoyable for the absolute majority of the players.

Make it functionally something like the Item Assistant mod - infinite space with easy to search/filter the needed item. It provides a much more enjoyable experience. It doesn’t stress the player to sell a valuable item or to do the tedious busywork of dealing with mules. It makes sense.

Most recently you have updated the relic crafting or replaced the healing potions with permanent ones or made the toggleable skills auto-toggled for the same reason - they are essentially unnecessary busywork. The game feels better with these changes. And compared to the stash size problem, for the player they are tiny QoL’s (the relic crafting is huge, alright). It’s time to address the biggie = rework the stash.

[ON MEDIERRA’S OLD POINTS]

Will the infinite stash devalue items? Maybe…? But not really…? Let’s say I got 10 Warborn set pieces stashed. First I would keep them and eventually create a build around the set (death knight). Then I’ll keep the rest for another Warborn build (warlord). If I’ll get more of the same - I’ll keep them for more experimentation. Until I will have my Warborn potential satisfied - the items will be valuable to me. Considering how robust the build options are - even a 50 set pieces wouldn’t be enough to devalue them. The beautiful thing about GD items is almost all of them have multiple builds potential. I wouldn’t worry too much about devaluing. Especially when the game drops you 10+ solid drops within 20 min gameplay. Does the 1.2 streamlined relic crafting devalue the relics? Maybe a tiny bit? Not for me personally. You can craft more relics with less resources and efforts and it is a lot more enjoyable now. I don’t see anyone complaining. :slight_smile:

Will infinite stash create clutter? Sure it will with the current interface. Which is why it would need an overhaul with emphasis on searching and filtering. Like the Item Assistant. For most players, who play the game for a single playthrough, the infinite stash can have a “display all items” checkbox checked by default - thus, working like your classic stash UI. But there is always an option do disable it for when the loot amount would become too large. Then the search/filtering works like a charm. Quick, efficient, effortless.

Is it immersion-breaking? Maybe…? But it’s not an issue of the multiple versions of the same legendary item. It’s an issue that these items dropped. And even then, it’s not really an issue. Imo, the drop rates are fine, the item quality is at great spot. The player only needs more stash space to keep all the good stuff and that’s it :slight_smile: .

Why not use the Item Assistant? You absolutely can… but it’s a mod. Whenever a new patch comes out, the mod needs an update. Whenever you change your OS or PC - you need to reinstall and configure the mod. You need to backup the saves, you need to make sure that cloud save wouldn’t erase it. In other words - the mod is a wonderful solution, but it’s a 3rd party solution and not official part of the game. It would make more sense if the game just had it by default.

[ASK YOURSELF]

Here is another angle: keep the current stash as default and implement an infinite stash with the search/filter UI as an option (you can turn on) and ask yourself - how many players would not turn this option on (knowing about it)…? :wink: Would it make the game less tedious and more enjoyable? Also, in retrospective, would players remember the limited stash as a positive or a negative?

The community season mod team has a cloud stash - you may ask them for the data - how many % of players did use it and how many didn’t.

[TIME FOR A CHANGE?]

I love GD and Crate have delivered more than anyone deserved and expected. I also respect your stance on the stash size. But I think it’s time to re-consider. I am 100% sure - a well-crafted infinite stash would be overwhelmingly appreciated by pretty much every player. And, my beloved Crate, you know it too. Maybe “It is time the hammer was passed on.” :wink:

If my points are not convincing enough - here’s a suggestion. Create a poll here or on steam asking whether an infinite stash would be a welcome change or not. But I know it, you know it, everybody knows it - players wanted it for years. :slight_smile:

With love and respect <3

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GDStash and GDIA are tools, not mods, so don’t really need updating. Usually just need to import the database again to make sure everything’s up to date. v1.2 did mean they needed updating because it made some major changes to the game, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to trust my stashed items to cloud saving so it would need to be something you could opt out of in the game’s settings. Cloud saving screws around with the game’s saves too much for me to trust any cloud saving system I’m afraid.

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I stand corrected, thank you. I don’t use them because I’m anxious about screwing up something, also becoming tool-dependent in the long run.

And yes, the cloud save should remain optional, as it is.

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You have laid out some very nice points and I do agree with you. I have read countless threads about this and I really think they should just have a poll about this topic. My perspective (as a game dev) is give people OPTIONS, in the gameplay settings of the game have an option of Enable Infinite Stash OR you can have an actual gameplay mechanic, defeat certain Nemessis bosses and collect these quest items to unlock Infinite stash, it could be a secret quest like Lokarr or Crate. There are many ways to implement it and make it OPTIONAL, as there are players who prefer having the limited storage. I do use GDStash and I hate having to use it, it just isnt as convenient as in game Stash.

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The devs have given options - allow player created mods and tools that people can create to change the game as they like.

The stash discussion has been done to death and beyond. :slight_smile:

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Mods arent devs giving players options, its players creating options the devs didn’t give them. Mod tools are devs letting players create those options more easily

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I wonder how would you even start to implement “infinite stash”, let alone have it as a toggle and/or unlock. It also appears that 99% of the people don’t even comprehend what actual infinite stash means. Like how the hell are you gonna sort through thousands of pages, each of them filled to the brim with items? And do you realise the file size for the stash will be growing constantly, up to the point it would start increasing load times? And will become more prone to file corruption? As a game dev?

I mean, I play original Diablo 2, right? Whoever played it knows the size of its stash is pretty damn small (and ridiculously tiny in non-LoD D2). So I got myself PlugY, a mod that adds some QoL features and such. It also allows for “infinite stash” (or 2^32 pages, to be precise). And you know how many pages am I using? Ten. Plus ten shared pages, because that’s a-plenty.

But yeah, GD has more and better loot than D2, but even if they made 50 pages it would be practically infinite space, unless you are a real hoarder like me, he-he. I wouldn’t mind having a few extra pages (like 2-4 more) myself, but that infinite stash thing you people go on and on about is kinda bullshit to be honest.

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there are only two things ‘truly’ infinite in this world: human stupidity and perhaps galaxy.

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Well infinite in this case i dont mean truly infinite, but rather a much larger stash than what we currently have. As many of you are saying there are tools, and with GDStash it is pretty much infinite as it just keeps adding items to a DB. And for those of you who keep saying “There is an option” meaning tools like GDStash (which I already use). It is NOT a good option, as someone who plays on both PC and Steam Deck GDStash is not convenient to use, having to transfer DB file every time you switch and good luck using GDStash on Deck in general as it is a huge pain in the a$$.

All in all, just increase the Stash cap, it doesnt need to be INFINITE, but it needs to be increased, I like storing items and I like having the option to store them conveniently without the hassle of having to use 3rd party tools

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I used to think that I needed an infinite or bigger stash, because I had the tendency to stash absolutely every epic and legendary item I found. When I ran out of space, I downloaded GDStash and started hoarding absolutely everything in there. Then I realized that I didn’t use like 90% of the things that I had stashed in my personal stash and GDStash, so I decided to change to a happier mentality.

Now I don’t even bother keeping most epic and legendary items. If some of them are useful for my current character, “cool, I’ll use it until I get a better one”, otherwise I sell them or dismantle them for components and stuff. What I stash now are mostly mythical items, ignoring some that are obviously trash. I don’t bother too much with keeping set items because I know I can get the blueprint for the head piece, craft multiple copies of it and reroll them with the inventor to get the full set. It’s definitely easier that getting the whole set through drops.

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I have started to only pick the legendaries and epics with the best rolls, everything else gets blown up.

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Like Lihvar said, I thought it’s obvious that I didn’t mean the truly infinite stash which you won’t be able to fill within a lifespan, but rather an effectively infinite stash. Means that the player can store thousands of items without discomfort. I don’t think I myself even reached a thousand items yet over all years playing since early access.

I already described the UI in the original post and it will handle the navigation through large number of items efficiently. Of course you can play the devil’s advocate and bring up some astronomical examples (like thousands of pages), but that’s just unrealistic, unless someone deliberately would mass duplicate their stash thousands of times. For that, I imagine there should be some sort of limit (to file size, item count or something) that would keep the stash files safe and the game’s performance stable.

My whole save file folder is 15 MB, which includes 40 GD and 7 Reign of Terror characters. Don’t think a few thousand items would make it drastically bigger or noticeably affect the performance. Maybe some tinkering will be required, but it’s all feasible.

Looking at the infinite stash realistically, it’s not that big of a technical miracle, I imagine.

If anything, players requesting for a much larger sized stash is a proof that the game’s build, loot and replay values are at the great spot. :wink:

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My guess is that you are not a programmer. I’ve seen your answer (or someone else’s that said exactly the same thing) before and I still don’t understand from where this “it would increase load times” point begins when we’re talking about such small file types.

I don’t know exactly how is the system used in Grim Dawn and the language I use at work is most used for mobile apps, but programmers works with infinite lists in a lot of things, for example the infinite scroll of videos on instagram.
If you load a certain number, stash it, and keep loading in the background while you are scrolling through a list and removing the one’s that have been loaded some ‘pages’ ago, you can keep the memory usage low (RAM).
You would give some work for the ssd/hd to load the list it already has, but as the other guy said, given the small size of the save files, it’s minimal (provided the game already had it downloaded before you play, what I think it does because the moment you select the character seems to me it reads the data in the save file and makes some checks)

A new type of stash with an updated UI, making the items appear without visuals, could be given by a quest - for example a follow up quest in Guyver’s Mill regarding the repair of a certain building, placing there a NPC who will bulk store items for you and provide this new UI for shared stashes (imagine he or she is the manager of the mill storehouse) and bingo, we have a new stashroom. Personally I would make this stashroom only available in person, and provide the ability to send the items to there via the common stash guy via a button on the common stash UI.

Just some thoughts. I’m not one of the developers and not a modder so I don’t know how cluttered the game files / systems are to be able to code this. It’s theorycally possible, though.

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One of the simplest form of save files in today’s day and age is JSON format, which can store so much data in such a low file size that yeah the argument that even truly infinite storage would cause save files to be big is really dumb, the save file isnt storing 3D models of items, its storing strings of text.
I genuinely cannot fathom why the stubbornness around not increasing storage size, unless it’s an engine limitation which I can understand because from my understanding GD is running on the Titan Quest engine, but even that doesnt seem likely to be the reason. I just wanna have easily synced large storage between my Steam Deck and PC, thats it.

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I’m fine with the fact that Item Assistant is a separate tool and not built into the game itself, but I find it strange that it is a fan-made tool and not an official one. As the OP explained, the game strongly relies on that tool, so it’s forever at the mercy of an outside modder.

I have a hard time imagining scenarios where the game works without IA - the most realistic probably is a player who has decided from the start that he will never have more than one character.

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GDIA isn’t the only stash tool, there are several other ones people can use.

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devs said it’s part technical part deliberate design decision. The technical aspect they could no doubt “easily” overcome if invested enough manpower/effort into it, but the design aspect is also very deliberate for not having “infinite” storage.
Then the argument have turned to “ok if not unlimited then just expanded” - and then it always becomes a semantics debate about “how much is enough”, some feel just 1-2 more tabs would be fine, counter arguments being they’d fill those up in second anyway, and others have the “give us dozens”, and then in all roads lead to rome style leads back to “infinite”/massively expanded storage anyway.
And devs have said they don’t want to incentivize players to hoard “everything” in vanilla, that item choice should be some sort of choice in terms of what you keep or not, and that for hoarders or larger loot aficionados they then advocate for mods/tools - “but even if ex Zantai uses GDstash himself” he also still doesn’t think infinite storage would fit or be good for the game design wise.

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One thing I forgot to mention. The logic of the limited stash forcing the player to make more deliberate choices of what to keep instead of keeping want the player wants falls short if you consider that the player can always mule all the stuff (as far as I know there is no character limitation?). You can unlock all bags and stash tabs for your mules quite easily. So we can have our infinite stash, wrapped in a very crude, primitive, inelegant disguise. The price of satisfaction of having the new potential builds in store is the tediousness of mule-ing.

I also think it’s a bit unfair to bring up the hypothetical image of hoarders to argue against the infinite stash.
Firstly, wanting to keep valuable MI’s, set items, or legendaries is one of the main appeals of a loot driven ARPG. Any such game wants the player to want the loot. And if players want to keep a lot the loot it means the game does great in the item department. Throwing a shade at ARPG (of all genres) players for wanting to keep the loot is pretty nonsensical.
Secondly, I am pretty sure that given an infinite stash, players generally won’t flood it with everything anyway. They will still sell junk, unnecessary loot and extra copies of legendaries that they will feel like aren’t needed anymore.

The point being, this issue should be viewed realistically. Extremes exist, but they don’t represent.

It’s pretty much a historical fact at this point: the infinite stash has always been desired. There can be pro and counter arguments. But would bringing the infinite storage to the game really mean negative affects that would outweigh the positives? Realistically speaking, how would it affect the players everyday experience? Would it be so bad if the part of players who want to have the infinite stash - would have it without 3rd party tools? Imo, realistically speaking, the infinite stotage’s positives will vastly outweigh the negatives and will be overwhelmingly welcomed by most players.

I just hope Crate will bring this topic to (yet another) discussion and maybe will make decision to change the stash this time. Imagine the community’s reaction. Along with 1.2 update and the upcoming expansion, the stash overhaul would just add to the momentum! Not for headlines, but for the regular players who given hundreds or thousands of hours to the game. :smiley:

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I’d rather they put all their effort into the game’s content into an infinite stash, where they then want advanced filters for their stash, which would hinder the expansion’s progress.
Also, Zantai already explained why an infinite stash is not implemented.

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If you want to get a clearer image, just talk to me. I don’t use stash tools, but I have multiple characters. How does this work?
I enjoy gradual upgrades and earning every item that I wear. One time I collected a set with one character and put it on another, but it felt like cheating, like this character started playing from level 65. After that I sold all stashed sets and never wanted to do it again. I don’t care if GD gets infinite stash, though, because even current stash is too big for me.

Of course. We can’t protect players from themselves. But it is true. You’ll only learn which item you prize higher when you are forced to lose the other.