My thoughts haven’t really changed since release and that’s when I gave it a positive review, I love the dlc quite a bit. Even if the game never got an update again it would still be incredible (though obviously those are super appreciated )
But in the theme of the thread, what I love most is the vibe probably. The lore notes, the new gorgeous areas, the enemies we face, it comes together to actually make me feel immersed in the area, which is an usual aspect for Grim Dawn historically, I may say. I really love it.
One more thing. I really loved that you guys designed a unique model for a boss that 99% of the player base will never interact with. That fucking dedication deserves a salute. You designed this really cool thing but know that most people might never see it. Wouldn’t have been an easy decision, I’m sure.
The Beaver’s model is easily my favorite boss model. I’d place it ahead of even Korvaak and I fucking love Korvaak’s model.
Fantastic initiative Banana!
Indeed humans psychologically are much more prone to express their negativity than the positive things around them.
The simplest way to share what I like about FoA is - almost everything!
The Art - be it environment, boss / enemy models, GFX, ITEM ART/ICONS - it is just among the best there is in the ARPG genre for me
Visuals and fidelity of the detail everywhere - despite the engine`s ancient age you guys make me feel Cairn is a living and breathing world! There are so many small touches of intricate detail everywhere - most people would miss that probably but if you stop and look around - it is there and it brings a world to Life!
Music - enough said I regularly put up all of GDs soundtracks while I am driving etc
We just need MOAR
Ascendant Mode - amazing finally you can farm efficiently while doing the whole world which is truly Big!
Altar - amazing idea but quite undercooked at the moment - it has truly groundbreaking potential and I am certain Crate will iterate upon it as we go forward
Alternate Character Progression - it just needs ability to transfer within a hard limit asc affixes between items <3
But would probably be Awesome to get like a few unique skills per character combo - some unique Skills like 1-3 per combo maybe replacing/alternating Exclusive Mastery skills?
Like a BladeMaster`s Execution could function in a different manner like some spammable Pierce AoE or whatever, or in the case of a Mystic, Possesion could increase your Crit/Give OA but reducing your Absorb %?
Ambushes! - Dread is fucking magnificent idea, it needs to be build upon much more imo!
Nemesis ambushing you is also such cool idea why we didnt have it in vanilla no idea.
This is what endgame ARPG needs outside of the grind for resources - random unexpected very challenging encounters!
Personal favorite is when i got locked in Ilgor`s cage and the Dread spawned
Secret places across the world - really that is also pinnacle of gaming - there are sooo many and I cant stop enjoying them - we just need MOAR secret quests/bosses!
I would personally happily pay whatever money for much smaller DLCs for GD going forth as long as we continue to get chunks of content until GD2 shows up (unless wink we get XP4 down the road ).
This is by mo means an exhaustive list of the things that I love about FoA, but these things stand out to me more than the rest.
1: Opening up the engine to push things forward.
The number of innovations the game received is staggering. From WPS bonus, to mods to secondary skills (deadly momentum for example) to the various “chance on block/attack/etc. to reduce cooldown blabla”. The wereforms, onslaught stacks as a mechanic. All of this takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. Crate could have played it safe, and just rehash a bunch of the stuff they already knew how to balance… but they didn’t.
2: Cranking the visuals to 11
The new maps are gorgeous, the wereforms are wicked cool. Some of the scenes are the kind of screenshots you sell a game with. The new transmog, the floating torsos. New enemies, the weather effects, the final boss… the game got a really nice fresh coat of paint, and it’s really fun to see.
3: Ascendant mode: Campaign is alive!
The one that means the most to me. I’ve always preferred to play campaign over crucible and SR, but I’ve always felt like I was “missing out” and that I should be “farming SR” instead of just wandering about. But wandering about is the fun part! The game has so many cool areas that you kinda play through once during campaign… then you either do SR or run the few bosses that have relevant drops… so you run the areas that are just before those bosses… Returning to deadman’s gulch or Darkvale was sort of a waste of time. Not anymore!
Now I can enjoy the best of what this game has to offer to my heart’s content and get the same outcome out of it as if I was putting my nose to the grindstone. It’s liberating. I have not even really touched the altar yet, I’m just running around in ascendant, finding new chests, fighting the dread and the jack-in-the-box Chtonics and it feels like a proper difficulty by itself.
The only thing I wish was added to my last point, was the possibility of resetting your campaign progress in ultimate, so you can play through the campaign again and again (Borderlands 2 did that and it was very fun)
Conclusion:
Thank you Crate for putting what appears to be a capstone on the experience, and making it live and breath again.
There’s a lot I love about FoA, but the things that stand out most, for me, are:
The mountain scenery in Act 8, from the fallen-tree bridges at the start to Yulgir’s Overlook at the end.
Ascendant dungeons as an endgame activity.
The Dread and the new nemesis bosses.
The Kurn and the Bloodbound. If part of the point of the expansion was to drum up interest in Kurn lore and the coming RTS, it has succeeded in my case.
The fact that Berserker is so synergistic with Nightblade, which is my favourite mastery.
Ascendant items, because they increase the time needed to finish a build, if you are motivated.
I could name many things, some of which have been already told by others.
But for me its the attention to detail here that is unmatched. Because what has now become my favourite obsession is the custom animation for a werewolf using primal strike. When you think primal strike already had the best tactile feedback in the game, you havent tried werewolf with primal strike yet, especially in my current running build where the werewolfs animation of an overhead smashdown with his fists just results in a huge annihilation around him. The timing and combination of animation/sound/vfx/resulting damage make this probably my most enjoyable GD experience so far.
Whoever did this animation deserves a raise asap.
And there are many more examples for this attention to detail - think Faldis Werewolf visit dialogue
What a great thread. Since Z recommended DLC reviews, I wrote one on Steam:
“FoA showcases the superpower of the Crate team, which is doggedly persistent iteration. They’ve pushed the elderly Titan Quest engine to embody something beyond recognition, in a positive sense. This opens up a chimeric new space in ARPGs chock-full of the best bad poetry. It’s bizarre, frantic, and so, so loveable. Grim Dawn is now a sprawling concatenation of 24 factions and 45 classes, with item tooltips that take up a quarter of the screen, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
That’s one of the great things about the whole game. There are so many examples. My theory is that it’s the result of the game being made by such a small team, which probably allows each individual’s ideas to be expressed to a greater extent than would be possible in a team of two hundred. Because that Faldis dialogue that you mention must absolutely have been something that came into one person’s head. Little thing, just a trivial detail, but there it is in the game and I can’t believe that it doesn’t make everyone smile when they first see it.
Video games are works of art born from human creativity.
I’ve been replaying the whole game with a European stranger I met online, this time taking a purposefully slower approach, discussing lore as we find it, NPC dialogue, constellations, everything.
The amount of detail is what I love so much as well. Her mind is blown by the amount of secret areas I’ve shown her that she’s missed over the years of playing. Her arguing lore with me has made me realize how much I forgot or skimmed over all these years. My goodness are some of the lore notes dark!
Honestly I think it has the best lore of any ARPG I’ve played. Diablo 2 is classic but the amount to uncover is much smaller.
I like to play this game and have fun. I hit enemies with weapons and skills. Sometimes they go flying, which is fun. There are many enemies and I hit them.
The 2-class combination bonuses in FoA are super sick. So far I’ve played through as Stonecarver Thane and Rimethorn Battlemage. Basically every one of these look like fun; it also seems that many of them also happen to be Actually Good. In addition to being fun (which is important) they also seem like a nice way to provide targeted bonuses for underperforming 2-class combinations - I think this will age well.
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