Things I love about FoA

[banana_peel]

As pointed out by Zantai, the amount of negativity on the forums (and on the internet in general) increased over the past years.

Censorship is never the answer, if someone is frustrated they need an ability to express it. But the critique and frustration are always loud, and the positive thoughts and feelings people have towards the game are rarely expressed, which forms a scewed picture of community sentiment in written form.

In here I invite everyone who, as myself, was quick on the expansion and its updates critique but never took enough time to praise the things they do like.

New enemy models
Big one for me. Love the new chtonian and giant models. Beronath and Dread are exquisite.

Charges, chances to reset, extra chance to use
Very strong mechanic features adding new layer to build making and a lot of customization options in the future

Ascended mods
Some people dislike it, I think it’s a very cool feature, both for endgame customization and for more casual players who get wowed by this “…and here’s more” moment, when they think their build is finished

Ascendant campaign with Altar customization
Campaign got included into the hardest content which I find to be a very good example of a combination of modern design + back to basics

Distinct visuals and feel of the new region and faction
Operation of lore expansion was a success

Plethora of new items with a lot of distinct identity
Enormous amount of new items and mods. No matter what class you choose, you have so many possibilities to develop your character and then even to migrate it to another dmg type, there seem to always be an item that you can hunt down and alter your gameplay.

And the items look very cool as well
I’m not a big fan of transmog, I like the characters to look “as intended” by the items they equiped. And I find myself enjoying the looks of my chars more than I used to. The weapon design in particular went up a tier, IMO

Difficulty increase
Up until FoA the big difficulty remained as some distant thing for nerds that never enters the scope of the majority of players. But Ascendant mode with the Altar are organically ingrained into the game and give a very apparent incentive for farming leading more people into challenging content.

Melee is a thing
I play melee in every action game, if I can. GD is one of the few games in its genre that keeps melee as a playstyle of actually fighting enemies with your weapon swings at melee range, even if it means your ass gets pulverised

Continuous updates right after FoA release
As always, constant free updates to balance, itemization and content. Never ceases to amaze and is always appreciated

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Share your own lists

[FlamingX21]

Hell yea dud. I personally really like to fight dread and 3 nemeses at once while in multiplayer. Real doomslayer experience and I suppose campaign replayability as whole now that nemesis can spawn anywhere and multiple times.

[Serafim_94]

I like the maps. They do feel a bit too big, but they look good, feel unique an are fun to navigate. Every other expansion has an eye-rolling area for me - like Mourndale or the scorched docks. FOA doesn’t. And we seemingly do get new stuff and things to find in future updates, so that “too big” element will be sorted out.

I especially like the new void areas. Void has to be my most hated biome in vanilla game, and here it’s just outstanding, 10/10.

The music is fantastic.

I liked the first, blind exploration. Hidden secrets that felt worthwhile to find (well, by ARPG standards at least). Scorv camp, Nokturkari, Mammoth burial grounds. I like that stuff, it was fun on the first playthrough. Even that little quest you get with beast-momma horn.

I liked the quests (except you know, the one). Both for their stories and for little curveballs. The choices around the cold husband, the ability to kill the shield questgiver, the grobble contraband, just finding that dude who killed his family. The ability to steal the spirits as necro when sent to pacify them. The kids. You know the ones. It’s minor fluff, but I really dig that kind of fluff. FOA felt more RPG than ever.

I like berserker. With the first char i went for the most conceptually basic werewolf just to get it out of the way, and I still found it very fun. The rest should be even better.

I like new nemeses. Just wish there was a few more of them, and that one particular shit didn’t behave in Crucible the way he does.

I like the ascendant mode. Most of my “endgame” time on each char is spent getting through campaign anyway, and it’s good to have something meatier to punch in there.

I like new fashion and a lot of new items. The concepts are fun and I look forward to doing many of them, eventually.

I like Dread. Boss model and animations are phenomenal.

Beronath is also a really aesthetically pleasing boss. I still refuse to compliment her mechanics though.

I generally like the ascension. Just hope it gets further improvements down the line.

Overall I’d put FOA on par with AOM and above FG, both due to how good FOA is on its own and because I remember how relatively rocky things were back with other expansions.

Edit: one extra specific thing, the charges on Ulzuin chosen and Aegis. God it makes CD reset play so much smoother.

[RektbyProtoss]

rare wholesome banana

[RSnoomak]

Things that I absolutely love in FoA are:

• campaign and dungeons are bringed as endgame farming options
• epic items are actually viable to build around
• extra layer of customisation
• the fact that we can roleplay as Guts
• I like the new combo/reset systems bring some engage and dynamic to the gameplay ,also this keeps me focused on my CDs
• difficulty spike finally makes me loosing characters and makes me realise I took the difficulty for granted and become way too confident with my plays instead of paying attention

[moitoanhl]

I very much like that C’thonic finally got their time in the limelight. Base game started strong with Aetherial as main threat which then suddenly shifted to C’thonic in the latter half and their presence just doesn’t feel strong for me (though I always enjoy hearing the cultist going KILL THE NONBELIEVER, extra ironic if I’m running Dying God constellation). AoM is back to Aetherial with C’thonic presence just there, and FG also has almost no C’thonic enemies. FoA making them directly the main threat finally allow me to really feel their impact and see them as a major threat in the GD universe.

I also like what Ascendant difficulty and the Altar bring. The main deal for me here is it encourage visiting the world, and to also really learn the layouts to search for lootable objects for the C’thonic jumpscare. I actually want to search for the random stumps and corpses now, whereas previously I ignore even chests at times. I never really like endless dungeon, and by extension ARPG that make endless dungeon the endgame generally, just think it make the worldbuilding effort pointless. More options for endgame grind is always good.

The ability to reroll affix is also pretty neat. If I see a build with several double rares, I can now actually grind for it instead of going “yea that’s clearly a GDstashed build” (nothing against it but sometime I really just want to grind for things naturally). Rerolling stat is also pretty neat, if something like my resistance is off by a few % I can just spend some ashes to get a better stats instead of having to spend an augment or component just to patch a tiny hole.

There is buncha things I scratch my head over, but overall FoA is well worth it for me.

[SchnitzelTruck]

There is very little I do not like about the expansion. It adds more of everything I already like about the game/adds new ways for me to enjoy it.

I’m incredibly happy that more items have been added that override skill exclusions. I think half of my hours since FoA dropped has been spent on things like Fleshwarped Bulwark, Messengers Repeater, Serrated Spear, and the new Slithbane on playtest. It adds new ways to make a build that would have never been possible before. Nightblade gunners? Sure why not. I don’t even care that it’s mediocre, it’s cool!

Additional WPS chance on items is also high on the list of my favorite additions. I’ve always enjoyed attoattackers and no longer being forced to take a bunch of garbage unbuffed WPS just to fill up the pool is so nice. It also allows more functional AA class combos since pre FoA you were pretty much forced to take 2 classes that both have WPS. It feels better to play and saves a bunch of skill points. No more taking jaxxon rings on some of my gunners makes me happy.

I love ascendant mode. For the first time since AoM I’m actually putting some hours into the campaign map. Getting spammed with nemesis/dread/cthonic inquisition gives me little dopamine hits. It makes farming nemesis MIs so much nicer too.

Onslaught stacks are great! I like the DoT smack and kite playstyle that unfortunately has always been pretty crap in GD outside of a handful of builds. Seeing some proper DoT applications is nice.

There’s really only a couple things I complain about and ultimately they’re mild complaints. 1000 moving pieces have been thrown at a machine that has 5000 moving pieces. It’s gonna have some teething issues!

I really hope the devs have been able to take time off since FoA dropped. Crunch time/poor work-life balance plus online forums is not healthy. I don’t envy them at all.

[Superfluff]

To name just one of many, as it’s the most important one for me to keep me immersed:

Art style, be it a still icon or not, this gets me the most in any game and FoA has so much of that that.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

As someone that enjoys campaign mostly
FoA added bosses have been awesome.
I’ve almost revelled in seeing people complaint about some of them, because, as a scrub non dark souls skilled pilot, it then made me feel that tiny bit extra gamer "skill"ed smuck beating them. - i’ve even saved a version of the release "pre nerfHotfix"game, just to be a masochist and enjoy "oops wrong comma in dbr"scaled Prod slapping on Normal

Ascendant mode fixed the thing i always enjoyed the least, SR/Cruci endgame; i can do stuff in campaign now

Ascended affixes gave me chase items for vanilla, and filthy GDstash meme fun.

Pre-FoA one of the things i really loved was Gildam Arcanum style reset builds. FoA made this a native, (semi)normalized and viable thing.
“every build can be chaos shadow strike now”

Cosmetic pets, i’ve begged for this, i’ve asked to make it a paid loyalist cosmetic dlc, and now we get 3 right out the gates (who knows if more comes later? )

Dread and Voidmarked took the 1.2 dynamic Nemesis interaction and dialed it up with extra ambushes, i love it, i want more of it, being paranoid every other container feels great. Next step is clicking a sarcophagus and have Ixall, Underking or Shriek pop out of it, or Calla randomly descends while you’re busy with Bero , because you insulted the heavens knocking over another cairn.

I’ve loved traversing the new maps and trying to find every cave, tomb and nook or cranny without GT spoiling.
Seeing Maska get his Ice Defiler almost put a tear in my eye
v1.3.1 adding more tombs (even if some felt empty), just caters to my exploration heart’s desires left and right i almost feel bad from how much Crate gives “me”.

Wereforms, omfg, i don’t know who on the team designed the Raven, but i’ve not been this excited about a shapeshift visual in years, i feel like a badass simply for running around in those shimmering feathers while zapping things . And whoever did the werewolf snarls/growls, i was not among those that disliked their sfx frequency

Beavers, i don’t know why they get so much hate, i think they’re frickin hilarious. I’ve no clue how or why they ended up being the centre of so many jester shenanigans, but i’m board with it, tripling down on that joke is epic to my brainrotted mind.

Critters, what’s better than brutally murdering defenceless wildlife minding their own business while posing absolutely 0 threat? - it’s almost as if the team knew how a lot of my adventures’ time was spent in other games
*missed opportunity to not have something “extra” added there tho, like increased Dread spawn scaling for being a horrible person butchering the innocent (i genuinely believed that rumour on launch )

And while it’s OP as heck, some of the new potion modifiers are fun, like a lil extra freebie granted skill you can cast without being locked into a specific equip item. Potentis and Explosium is neat to click.

Too many items/stat changes/new modifiers to appreciate. I hate powercreep, but a lot of the new stuff is extremely fun regardless. Max speed increase is mentally fun to me even if it might not be the most efficient build increase in effect…
Charges really switches the feel of things up now.

FoA has brought so much nice, “too” much nice almost almost makes you worry post release additions will end up more than i can handle.

[Serafim_94]

@Gnomish_Inquisition

Critters, what’s better than brutally murdering defenceless wildlife minding their own business while posing absolutely 0 threat?

My first time was on inquisitor with censure, and… I guess all those bunnies were extra heretical. Nothing is innocent.

[TheNex]

Love the initiative! I think I’ve been mostly positive on the forum anyways, but I’ll gladly chime in regardless:

• I have a softspot for weird conversions and the amount of just entirely counterintuitive damage pairings the expansion delivered is so, so much fun to mess around with. Yeah, about 80% hardly work in any coherent build, but you can have Avalanche in Fire, Werewolf in Acid and Winds of Asterkarn in Vitality, what’s not to love?
• The ascend up the mountain before you enter the “actual” Asterkarn is so damn cinematic and immersive in an engine that I am almost entirely sure was not made for it, it’s mindblowing. You make your way up a narrow pass, the wind picks up, snowfall becomes more and more intense, you stumble upon corpses frozen so solid they act as part of the environment and then the dead start rising around you, before you finally stand at a blank cliffside, which suddenly comes to life… marvelous.
• Beronath is such an awesome final boss for the entire campaign. Yeah, Korvaak had great narrative tie in (and with the updates actually stopped being a pushover), but Beronath just feels like a creature worth slaying. And standing in the big glowing AoE indicator actually kills you! Love the need to interact with the boss’s mechanics. Also the moment when you make your way up to the summit and he flies past you? Incredible!
• The art is incredible too. GD’s loading screens have always been worthy of praise, and the new one really sells the character of Chieftain I-can-totally-remember-her-name and the Kurn as a whole.
• I personally love how much Skyrim the entire expansion feels. The werewolf model is very companion-esque, undead in the snow, the entire plot revolving around climbing a mountain named Roof(?) of the World to fight a giant black winged creature threatening humans that originally worshipped it… don’t want to presume there was too much direct inspiration, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there was the occasional hommage.

[BPFrosty]

To mention just a few off the top of my head:

• Love the Werewolf. Rip & Tear, until it is done.
• Love how big and epic the game world has become. Nothing nearly as cool or satisfying in this whole genre. It’s a KEY feature for me.
• Campaign becoming a pillar of the endgame was a dream come true

[Zephn]

Werewolf melee does feel really crisp, wereraven is fun too but werewolf takes it home for me.

[Zantai]

I appreciate the warm thoughts, haha.

Frankly, the biggest thing anyone could do for the dlc is to review it at this point. Positive, negative, neutral, whatever…say your piece.

Personally, I feel that the current score reflects the pain points we had when it shipped, not where it is today, or even where it’s headed with v1.3.1.

[Magipher]

As excellent as the Crate team is, it’s still a small team, and games like this are vast and complex to test.

We all know the efforts you guys make to polish everything as much as you can before you ship, and even with the cranky chirping of us needy customers, you truly can be proud of what you’ve achieved with the FOA expansion.

In no particular order, and laughably, incomplete, there’s SO MUCH I love. Also, in so many ways, the way that things make you feel are intangible and ephemeral and defy description or explanation. How do you describe the taste of lasagna to an alien, and why you love it? It extends beyond the intrinsic detail of the object and comes down to who you are.

1. I love the dranghoul models, I know these came in on pre-patch but shut up it still counts.
2. Loads of the armour looks sick. The blindfold with burning eyes, hell yeah #IllidanStormrage4Life.
3. Loads of neat new affixes open up lots of new possibilities. I can’t wait to see where the season gang take us with these mechanics
4. Crafting - being able to place a finger on the scale and guide rng in your favour is
5. Ambushes - love it in season, love it here. Scope to expand on it further and I love it
6. Vendor hub in Kurnhold omg yes
7. THERE’S STILL MORE TO COME
8. Music is ace
9. Game has been made harder. I like pain. Is gruldir’s double bounce attack still OP as fuck?
10. Aurora effect is nice
11. Banana_peel dead on with the Ulzuins Chosen charges comment. As soon as I saw that before release I was SO pleased. Make grenading so much slicker!

Bonus: I played doom bolt mystic as my first char with dual wield pistols, now THAT’S a power fantasy.

- YouTube

[Uncle_Mac]

+1 to everything already mentioned but in particular:

-The music really stands out. The Beronath & N’erf boss tracks are really epic.

-The new enviornments not only look great but the devs did a wonderful job creating a sense of scale which is something that is difficult to translate because of the nature of the isometric setting. I’m usually not one to rotate the camera very often but I found myself doing so in FoA to check out the views.

Also to spot the Mammoths hidden all over the place.

[Androdion]

I’m not going to lie, FoA was something that I’ve been craving since day one, and I’ve followed its development closely. I even bought it on the first minutes it went on sale. I don’t remember the last time I did that to be honest. And even with its rough-ish start and a potato PC, I was struck in awe at the “fairy pools” in Ulo’s Springs, and the northern lights in the ascent to the Roof of the World. Going down into the World Tear was a genuine Resident Evil moment, which is the best compliment I can give it. It felt gruesome and esoteric in a way that games many times fail to present.

And then I had to stop playing because my potato, which was already reaching its end of life cycle, decided to make it impossible for me to play the game. A month later and armed with a new PC, I’ve been having a blast running the game (finally!) stutter free. And you’ve guessed it, those spots only got better looking. One thing that I still stare every time I run through there is the scorched ground in the Springs. I remember that on the first playthrough I got the story about Beronath being wounded from Ygra, and in my head the image of a Celestial dragging itself and leaving that scorched ground marked as he passed by was truly evocative. It was a beautiful moment where lore meets level design, even if it’s just all in my head. Speaking of lore, there’s some brilliant stuff to be read. Almyra’s Envy in particular may rival Trip South in its brutality.

You may have now realised that I haven’t even spoken about the game itself right? But I guess that I just agree with the things written above, so I don’t want to spam it again. The new class is dope, the new enemies are cool, and the new gear is insane! I’ve actually spent time (again) just looking at MIs to check out off-kilter conversions. I decided to start fresh again, so I’m still on my first toon, but I have a feeling that Grim Dawn will keep being my comfort game for years to come. It already was, that game that I always come to again and again. Now it’s that but on a much higher level. And there’s still MOAR to come!

Thank you Crate, for being able to make this game. Thanks to the community for helping in polishing it. And thank you all for a rare moment of positivity online, it’s refreshing.

[Chthon]

I came back to the game after a long time. I posted my full thoughts on the entire game in a separate thread. I plan to revisit that thread after the upcoming content updates.

If we are to focus on just the positives -

1. Premise - I’m sucker for simple premises. Your reason for starting the game in Act 1 is to earn your keep in a settlement. Fangs of Asterkarn, despite being an expansion actually has a straightforward premise that involves us rescuing some Black Legion scouts. The premise gives us an excuse to explore a new region but keeps us in the dark about the gravity of the threat we are expected to face.
2. Scenery - I went into the expansion expecting nothing but beautiful snow-capped locations with occasional patches of greenery. Any amount of praises one can sing for the new snow locations isn’t enough. Yet somehow what truly mesmerized me were the Chthonic corrupted zones. The lands twisted as a result of the rituals of the Bloodbound stood out the most for me.
3. Enemy Design - The new enemies, especially the giants and wights look awesome. Also, whoever decided to turn Beavers into enemies deserves an award. It’s fucking hilarious seeing them try to attack you. The Heralds are my favorite btw. Easily my third favorite enemy design behind Rylok and Gargoyle.
4. Bosses - An extension of the previous point. The bosses are amazing. I especially loved Yurra, Gruldir (invincible wolves was a neat idea), Siff Icehowl, Glacial Defiler, and Beronath.
5. Boss Build-up - I love how you’ve stepped up your game with boss build-ups with each expansion. For the Loghorrean the build-up is the sight of numerous tentacles tearing through the floor as you descend the Necropolis, for Marcell it’s the suspense of what kind of abomination awaits the player after the player is made to witness the depravity of the Aetherials in the Fleshworks, for Korvaak we see the God in chains as we traverse the Eldritch Realm, for Beronath we see the beast fly by in really fucking impressive sequences.
6. New Mastery - I didn’t expect to explore anything except transformations but the pretty much everything in the new mastery is fun to play with. I’d even say that the Winds od Asterkarn is my favorite thing about the mastery, it’s such cool fucking skill.
7. Quest Design - Crate has always had an understanding of proper RPG quest design imo. Even simple quests in the base game had thematical relevance. For example, in FG the Cult of Solael asks you to cull the weak in their ranks. It’s mechanically a simple kill quest but the entire time it feels like a fucked up thing and it’s brilliant. Fangs of Asterkarn dials this up to 11, the hunt for Evernight and the retrieval of Kurn artifacts are my favorite quests from the expansion. Even the simple quest getting bird feathers to tend to the injured felt unique since it showcases the importance of the unique fauna of Asterkarn and how the Kurn have learned to make use of it.
8. The Dread - I love the lore, the design, and the mechanics. It’s very innovative and really fun. Also, giving people an option to turn it off is also very good design.
9. OST - Crate never disappoints here. IIRC, they’ve contracted Skew Sound for the tracks in the past. They pretty much put out bangers. I personally love the OST change after you defeat Beronath.

I’m not getting into the mechanics or Ascendant mode too much since I straight up don’t play as much as I used to. I often times forget to interact with the altar because I booted up the game after a long work day. I’ve been mindlessly hoarding items in different Stash files but haven’t played with a lot of builds yet. On that front, I’m really glad that GD is still an amazing stress-buster. I can hop on the game, kill a God or two and log off to face the horrors of reality.

Also, I haven’t been following the other thread too much. But I think I speak for majority of the player-base that we do truly appreciate the amount of effort that has been put in the game as a whole, and not just the expansion. The expansion is a great addition despite its flaws. I don’t think anyone is more knowledgeable about said flaws then you guys and that is reflecting in the latest Misadventure posts. I look forward to seeing what else you have in store for us in the upcoming patches. I hope that the 4th Loyalist Pack also sells well and the reviews for the expansion see a more positive trend.

[Gnomish_Inquisition]

@Uncle_Mac

Also to spot the Mammoths hidden all over the place.

ikr!
it makes me look for a way to get down to them every time

[Unsanity]

When there is new content, I like to explore everything. FoA really opened up the world of Cairn. Since, in my opinion, GD has massive replay ability… I still find myself exploring every area I can even after a few playthroughs in normal and elite. The fun thing? I am still finding little secret areas here and there. I really haven’t found any loot of note, but the ‘extra’ areas is a treat in itself.

The Bloodbound are a great addition to the game. I love that they yell ‘blood’ several times as they rush towards you to initiate combat. That great chaos explosion attack animation that the Birdmen do is friggen awesome. It gets me every time. There is nothing subtle about it at all. WHOA!!! Holy shit that was awesome.

The Werewolf is great. I am sure I have only scratched the surface of all the different builds it can do. Throwing poop was fun as a werewolf, but I really want to get into the other skills. Aegis of Menhir. Eye of Reckoning. Primal Strike. I have a few others on a list that’s set aside on my desktop. So. Much. Versatility. I haven’t even touched the Wereraven yet.

Of course, the new weapons. I forget the name of the green item, but it looks like you are holding onto a 2-handed lightning bolt. On my last character that had Oathkeeper as one of my classes, I put one point in Eye of Reckoning and did a little test run. WOW! The change to that skill is really nice and the animation for the lightning proc is crazy. YEAH!!! I will werewolf that and do a regular Lightning Damage Eye of Reckoning build. Hell, the lightning proc alone would be sweet for a Primal Strike build, especially with a ton of extra attack speed.

There’s more, but I would have to write a book, and my poor fingers can only take so much typing. Plus, other players will cover anything that I didn’t just type. FoA is amazing. It really feels like AoM + FG put together with extra stuff to have fun with. Like the AMPM convenient store, too much good stuff.