(Suggestion) Stream Line Damage Types

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
21

Yes, they are. Why wouldn’t? Enemy having high resist meaning more time to kill, leading to more time that you could get killed. Then there’s stuff like vitality having trouble killing Kubacabra and he’s one of the most obnoxious enemies in the game because he can heal others.

Then there’s Aether, Pierce and Chaos lacking a Dot equivalent, meaning having higher flat damage but it means they can’t kite. Yes, other flat damage type builds can kite because the DoT equivalent is usually in the same skills and it leads to a significant portion of the damage.

22

Roll Fire/Lightning/Cold into the singular ‘Elemental’ but portray it as all three elements aesthetically (e.g., throwing ice at shit for Elemental damage, throwing fireballs at shit for Elemental damage, etc.).

Remove Pierce/Bleed.

Merge Aether/Chaos and give the result a DoT. Call in Planar damage or something, to reflect the stylistic lore reasoning of the types being of a different Plane from the material Cairn.

Result:
Physical/IT (maybe rename IT to bleed because it’s more intuitive)
Acid/Poison
Elemental/Something-burn. Lightning is the only damage that doesn’t “burn” stuff.
Vitality/Vitality Decay
“Planar”/Something

GD does need fewer damage types. Adding new content/masteries in has shown off how hard it is to reasonably represent the multitude we’re presently afflicted with - looking at you, Chaos and Acid.

With fewer damage types it’d also be easier to define ‘mechanics’ to each one to separate them further, akin to how PoE does it and as has been an oft-requested feature of GD. For instance, hitting with high Physical could slow enemies, hitting with high Elemental could automatically apply an Elemental DoT, etc. Right now, the mechanics of GD Damage types aren’t mechanics at all, they’re just differences in the statistical averages of numerical values.

On a different but somewhat related subject:

Reworking Armor would be nice too. I’d hate to see the stat vanish completely, but I’d like to see it applied in such a way that it wasn’t exclusive to only one Damage type. Unless, maybe, that is to be Physical’s ‘mechanic’ as described above, in needing to contend with enemy Armor alone. But with fewer damage types it becomes harder to justify a Physical DoT bypassing Armor, so I’d prefer to see a different approach taken.

Look all I’m saying is GD2 better fucking separate Hit Chance and Crit Chance and lose the OA/DA system.

Actually, keep the system, but remove the Miss Chance from it and let OA/DA solely scale Crit Chance.

23

Are you struggling against certain enemies because of their resistances? An enemy having higher survivability is only relevant if it is dangerous to you if not slain quickly.
Just imaging every enemy having 10 times the hp, does this make the game more difficult? For the most part, it wouldnt, it would only prolong the game.

As long as you are able to easily tank or evade all attacks, higher survivability does not increase the difficulty.
If dodging is hard or enemies kill you quickly, than this would make the game actually harder as you would have less fault tolerance.

The other point could also be applied if the damage types were absent. Just imagine having an attack thats deals 1-10 physical damage, another one dealing 5-6 physical damage and another one dealing 3 physical damage with a secondary effect. You dont really need different damage types for these kind of differences.

Still I actually like the flavor of all those different damage types, at least animation wise and what mechanics I can expect from them, like you describe. Thinking about it, I am not really against different damage types, I am actually dissatisfied by the resistance system and that maxing resistance is king because of broken percentage wise scaling.

Edit: And of course being heavily restricted on choosing which items to equip because of so many damage types.

24

Yes, it would. Grava living longer would mean he can use his null more times, Aleks can spam his Meteor more often, Kubacabra can exist for far longer, Mad Queen would heal herself more times and so on. This is one of the reasons why some enemies get nerfed on their health, because they are usually strong enemies and them living longer increases their threat level, i.e Kubacabra.

The more time they are alive the more chances they have to kill you and the more chances for you to slip because even if you know an enemy from top to bottom, you will eventually do a mistake and you can die. So the longer they are alive, the more chances for you to slip up.

That’s why high dps is the number one thing in these types of games, you want to kill enemies as fast as you can, and they can’t deal damage if they are dead. And their health and resistances counters high dps.

25

This heavily depends on being able to tank them. If you have a game with high range unavoidable damage, dps is not the number one thing because you will get killed before dealing any damage. Actually dps is always just second, because if you are dead you wont deal any damage. Nobody in lategame will skip maxing res just to do a few % more damage. After not dying, you put everything in damage (killspeed) obviously.

I just watched the first video on youtube killing mad queen and he actually facetanked her. So increasing or decreasing her hp wont make her more or less difficult. Lets be serious, most enemies in Grim Dawn are gear checks, and do not pose a motoric or cognitive difficulty. Most attacks arent telegraphed and arent slow enough to dodge. And with all ARPGs where movement and attacking arent seperated, tanking and attacking is most of the time much faster killspeed-wise than dodging and attacking in between.

I think most hp nerfs are actually to make fights less tedious and not to decrease the difficulty.

26

GD does need fewer damage types. Adding new content/masteries in has shown off how hard it is to reasonably represent the multitude we’re presently afflicted with - looking at you, Chaos and Acid.

With fewer damage types it’d also be easier to define ‘mechanics’ to each one to separate them further, akin to how PoE does it and as has been an oft-requested feature of GD. For instance, hitting with high Physical could slow enemies, hitting with high Elemental could automatically apply an Elemental DoT, etc. Right now, the mechanics of GD Damage types aren’t mechanics at all, they’re just differences in the statistical averages of numerical values.

^This. For GD2.

(Imho)
The current variety of damage types only means that:

  1. Crate has a harder time trying to balance stuff
  2. GD for the player is:
    -pick class
    -sort through and pick gear. Focus on RR
    -pick a few skills the are supported by the gear bonuses and try to max a related damage type skill
    -pick devotions mostly related to the damage type (and some offense/defense/resists)

It never varies, regardless of the damage type. Except for monster resists, which can be as arbitrary as the gear bonuses.

27

Good thread. I wanna touch on much of what’s been said so I’ll allow myself to forego quoting.

  1. Of course, even a smallest change mentioned in this thread (like pierce and bleed) in GD would require dozens if not hundreds of work hours redesigning every aspect of the game. Let’s assume we’re talking about the potential shape of GD2.

  2. I totally don’t understand most arguments for decreasing the number of damage types except that it’s less work for devs. What was said above that “it doesn’t matter which dmg you do because they all do the same thing: deal dmg” is d3-contaminated mentality. Of course it matters. It probably the most important choice that dictates all other choices: playstyle, masteries, skills, devotions, gear, procs, etc. If the number of choices is inconvenient for devs and some players…well… whenever we choose convenience over variety we’re one step closer to the soulless, oversimplified landscape of Diablo 3 - likely the biggest disappointment in the history of the genre.

As for decreasing the number of damage types in order to give them better defined mechanics/identities, I don’t think this is the way to go about it. I think dmg types are quite well defined in GD already.

  1. “Zantai might have said there won’t be aether and chaos in GD2”

If that happens it won’t be Grim Dawn anymore. It’s feedback section so I’ll just say it: if GD2 is stripped of the two most important lore-wise dmg types, and the two most intriguing playstyles - then I’m not buying it.

  1. Enemy resistances directly translate to survivablity. Most of current GD meta is based on “kill ‘em faster than they can kill you.” Enemy resistances is one of the things that defines dmg types - look at pierce vs. vitality vs. phys.
28

not what they do, but which skills and items work well together. Just having the damage types ‘flat’ and ‘DoT’ would make things mind boggingly bland and trivial

What it does, is making itemization more frustrating, because many interesting items cant be used in conjunction with your favorite spells because they support other damage types.

as in you actually have to pay attention / think about it instead of every decision being a complete no-brainer.

We can discuss if there should be a couple less types, but scaling it down to two is utter nonsense

29

I don’t see how having fewer damage types would change that at all

30

I never said that there should be only two types, I said that Grim Dawn has only two mechanically different types at the moment. And as I already said, I like the damage types animation and flavor-wise. Doesnt change the fact that they dont differ mechanically.

If an item has +X% to fire damage as its primary stat and I use mostly lightning damage, then this is also a no-brainer to me.

You only need to think about the itemization if you would benefit from equipping each of the choices. Now for someone not using fire damage, my example item actually decreases the needed thought process.

Let me make another example. Assume you deal primarily burn damage.
Which item do you pick?

  1. +100% to poison damage
  2. +100% to burn damage
    This is, what I would call a no brainer, because one benefits you, the other doesnt. Not much of a decision.
    Now lets exchange the raw stats for more mechanically oriented values:
    Which item do you pick?
  3. +150% to burn duration
  4. +100% to burn damage
    This time your decision actually depends on many factors, on your playstyle, the challenge and others like:
    How much of burn duration do I already have? Has my burn skill a cooldown that is longer than its duration? Do I need the extra time for more dodging? And so on.

In the first example I compared two damage types and in the second one I compared two different aspects of one damage type. To me, it doesnt seem like having differently named damage types increases itemization complexity.

31

Do you really pick a build by damage type? I dont know about others, but I pick my builds around skills that sound fun and interesting. Playstyle also depends on the skill mechanics, not the name of the damage type.

Just because a game you dont like has a certain aspect, doesnt mean that aspect isnt preferable in another game. A game is a complex system of many aspects, some are more and others are less preferable for different people.

Still, I dont see how making damage types more consistent and interesting turns Grim Dawn into Diablo 3. (Little hint, Diablo doesnt have interesting damage types either)

How are they well defined? Secondary effects come from skills, not elements. And apart from the flavor and the animations, they only differ between instant damage and damage over time.

Didnt he mean to remove them from the players arsenal only? So lore-wise they would remain in the game, but only for enemies.

Firstoff, you wouldnt even know the resistances of enemies if nobody had datamined them. Secondly, enemy resistances arent telegraphed in any way while playing the game. And third, maybe we are playing a different game, but I never needed to kill a certain enemy so fast so it wouldnt kill me beforehand. Please give me an example of such an enemy. Though a higher killspeed is obviously always preferable.

32

It wouldn’t, if you did nothing else. In context, the suggestion is -> force fewer damage types, make them more functionally unique.

Basically this. I rarely say “I want to do AETHER DAMAGE today!” It’s more like, “I want to use these skills together, what would be the best conversion option and how would my Devotions look?”

Damage compatibility mattered a lot more when Conversion wasn’t in the game. Even then, because Magical->Magical conversion happened much later after the initial release of conversion (which was really only Physical -> Magical), damage typing was still very important and highly selective. However, now that Magical->Magical conversion is so prevalent (which has, for the record, been something I’d been pining for) the lines between damage typing have been blurred and they really all just kinda mix together in a grey, amorphous mass.

Eh, even in the Dark Ages before Grimtools, when we were all on grimcalc and gracefuldusk, we knew that
Burning Dead were immune to Fire
Cold Ones were immune to Cold
Chthonic Leeches were immune to Vitality
Chthonic Harbingers were immune to Chaos
Aether Crystals were immune to Aether (this is no longer the case, THANK GOD)
Skeletons were immune to Bleed
Shar’zul had very high resistance to Fire, if not immunity
Mogdrogen was immune to Lightning
etc.

33

Sorry to quote like that. I might have added something you weren’t actually explicit about due to poor paraphrasing. I’m on mobile and editing is a pain.

Dmg types are mostly irrelevant. It’s the skills builds are all about. And skills are all about dmg types they do. So, logically, builds are about dmg types. It’s customary that dmg type is the first or the second word in a build title - self explanatory.

Mechanics-wise, there are only two dmg types, direct and DoT, and all the rest is just a flavor, different color. I strongly disagree. Dmg types in GD have a distinct identities due to what possibilities are offered within the groups of masteries, skills, items and devotions they represent. This is their function. Limiting the number of dmg types will only make the game poorer in this aspect.

Chaos and aether. Removing them means removing arcanists and occultists. Now, supposed there had been plans not to include aether and chaos in original GD either, you can see now how much poorer the game would be without them.

Enemy resistances are bogus. You wouldn’t even know about them if it wasn’t for grimtools. Yes, I would. I would see that I deal less damage to Kubacabra with my vitality caster and that it takes forever to kill Shar’Zul with a Firewave build.

Example of getting punished for not killing fast enough. Crucible.

34

Um, what? Yes we would and yes, they are telegraphed. When i see something called the Cold One, i know by its design that this enemy is highly resistant to cold. Then you have bleed and Undead, which by design are supposed to be highly resistant to it (makes more sense to be immune to it but it would make Bleed useless against half of the second act). Exception being Moosilauke and Nemeses are outliers when it comes to resistances (at least one resist they have is tied to their damage type though).

I’m not gonna deny some resistances are random, like Aleksander high poison res and Grava having 0% chaos res when he’s the Voiddrinker, but saying we wouldn’t know enemies resistances is absolutely silly and nonsensical. Just the fact any human being able to notice the struggle when he/she notices the damage is unusually low just says to the player this enemy is highly resistant to the damage type.

35

somethingsomething cruciblebalancedoesn’tmatter

Z8NRQEE.png800×600

36

For lategame builds, its not suprising to concentrate on only a few damage types to maximize your killspeed. So having your main damage in the description or the build title isnt really suprising either.
My assertion was that people create builds by combining skills and just accept the main damage type which results from the skills they picked.
So having the main damage type in the title is a consequence rather than the explanation how people create builds.

Lets think for a minute, if we remove all damage types but keep all possibilities items, devotions and skills offer, how does this make the game poorer? I agree that this would definitely make the game poorer on a cosmetic level, but mechanics-wise, not really.

Again, think about having all the same skills with the same mechanics, just with other damage types. How does that make the game poorer? Though I really like the aether colors.

I just scrolled through some monsters in the grimtools database and many of them have quite arbitrary resistances and yeah I give you that many immunities are somewhat telegraphed through the model or the name, but do you argue that those really affect your playstyle? For me at least, it didnt for 99% of the game.

This is what I was refering to:

I asked you about an enemy that is actually a threat to you, that needs to be killed fast and you argue about the score multiplier timer? The timer is no threat to you, its just less rewarding to kill slower.
Maybe I missunderstood you, did you mean the current meta is having as much killspeed as possible without dying? If yes, then I have to say that I dont see your point, because this is just standard ARPG philosophy and has nothing to do with resistance mechanics.

37

  1. I’m not trying to tell anyone how to make their builds or what’s most important when doing it. What I’m trying to say is LESS DMG TYPES IS A BAD IDEA FOR GD2.

  2. If you remove dmg types than it defeats the purpose of buildcrafting. It doesn’t make sense if you can combine every skill with every devotion and every piece of gear. If you want two dmg types that fit in every slot you can go and play Tic-Tac-Toe.

  3. Example of a single enemy who you need to kill fast or you die: Reaper. Stackable rr, charging attack and low-chance high-power wps. Every second you let him live makes it harder to survive. Also: Grava and Alex (the latter especially for pets). You don’t wanna let them use their power attacks cause every time they do you can die easily.

38

It matters! It matters to me and the rest of the 0.000001% player base who killed Theodin on Ultimate! :smiley:

39

Do 30-80% resists really matter when we have 100+% resist reduction for most damage types? 110 is considered “low rr”, and 210 vit rr is what valguur ritualist runs around.

Having 9 identical flat and 6 identical dot damage types isn’t variety, and isn’t interesting. it’s bloated. With conversion, any uniqueness of a skill in one or two (transmuter) damage types is erased when you can just convert it to the build you want to make. Storm Box mechanics? combine with beronath reforged and you have phys/it lightning.

Elemental Word of Pain? You can make into acid or vitality.

or physical.

Cadence? I found it in anything except for the acid variety.

And you have to provide decotion, item, etc. support for all the types and all the skills, which takes enormous time only to have the forums in uproar cause one build takes 3s longer to kill mad queen than pre-patch, or crucible takes 6:30 instead of 6:15.

I think you get my point.

40

That seems a bit dramatic. I think there’s a point where too many damage types actually hinders buildcrafting. It makes class synergies more complicated and more difficult to parse for the typical player. It also means that each damage type doesn’t feel as unique.

To combat that to a degree, we’ve leaned towards having damage pairs that are frequently seen together (ex. Chaos and Vitality, or Cold and Lightning). Conversion helped as well.

I’m not convinced that culling some damage types would hurt build diversity. I think it would make your choices feel more meaningful, which is why if there is a GD2 some day, it will definitely be a step we will be taking. Most certainly you would see flat and dot damage share modifiers. Elemental would likely be removed as it only complicates things and requires additional explanation.