This might sound weird, but I like ugdenbloom farming.
…Okay, hear me out. I like it in theory. One of Grim Dawn’s greatest strengths, to me, is the cohesive game world, where maps and enemies aren’t entirely interchangeable. Things like MIs, components, nemesis bosses and other unique spawns play into that, and ugdenbloom especially so. It’s a very important resource that’s always in demand and only reliably found in the bog, so when you need it, that’s where you go to find some. It forces you to head out into a particular part of the world that you might not otherwise have gone to, which is good!
The issue I have with it though, is that it’s really just ugdenbloom and nothing else. With bad luck it can take several farming sessions to afford even a single component, and that gets tiresome when it’s always the same old ingredient, in the same old area, from the same old enemies and stumps. I was really hoping that this would’ve been shaken up a bit with Forgotten Gods, though it’s understandable that you didn’t want to throw a lot of new components into the mix.
My suggestion is, add at least one or two more ingredients to act as equivalents to ugdenbloom, and replace it as the ingredient in a good amount of the current high level component blueprints. Not only would this diversify the farming a bit, making better use of the incentive to head out into the world, but it could even be specifically directed towards areas that don’t have as much of a purpose right now. Make it so once in a while when my latest character hits 75+, I sigh to myself and head on out into like, the barren highlands or something. Even if you’d want to keep it to just AoM, there’s an entire other half of it that’s just begging for an aetherial-themed ingredient. Just saying, it would make more sense for crafting living armor than a flower!
Right now, using all the components I want on a character usually costs about 80 blooms which equates to about 2 hours of dedicated farming, for every character… Granted, I also get a chance at some nice MIs on the way, but spending that much time on a stroll in the forest to pick up some flowers is not really what I’d expect from a game called Grim Dawn.
I’d really like to see some relevant alternatives to the farming, like maybe add a botanist npc in the conclave of the three that would trade 1 Celestial Lotus for 5-10 Ugdenblooms.
Every new build needs ~100blooms and ~25 battered shells oh and chthonic seals. I don’t even know what else they need (apart from some aether crystals and some purple mats for crafting a helm & relic) as those three are the only ones missing…every…single…time…
Would’ve been nice to diversify some endgame component recipes with the introduction of FG. But I also understand that is kinda impossible as almost all good endgame components are from the AoM xpac and thus can’t be changed to need e.g. FG mats instead. Maybe if another area to farm blooms, shells or seals would’ve been introduced it wouldn’t be as bad.
Battered shells & frozen hearts do actually drop quite a lot in FG areas, but nowhere close to the density inside the dermapteran hive. For seals it’s Tomb of Korvaak followed by a Karroz run and for blooms there is just the one ugdenbloom route (and some AG). It’s hard to introduce new areas for this though as there are basically no chthonians in act 7 and with ugdenblooms it’s in their name that they can only Spawn in the ugdenbog. And the devs can’t change recipes to need FG mats instead.
So only thing that could be changed is changing the recipes to need different vanilla mats instead. Which ones would you suggest to take the place of blooms/frozen hearts/battered shells on some of the recipes? Maybe more manticore eyes instead of blooms? More “light yellow”/“rareish” mats instead of frozen hearts/shells? Dense furs? Consecrated wrappings? Idk…
Edit:
You can make up to 100 blooms per hour, if you are fast and a little lucky.
Maybe add a quick exit back door to the Sylvarria dungeon to make ugdenbog -> barrowholm rift one continuous run? It would be a nice QoL and would be consistent with most (all?) FG dungeons + most vanilla dungeons having back doors.
Yees. Ugdenbloom. The one recource that is always missing due to the fact that every high end component needs it.
I personally see two possibilites to resolve it:
reworking of the recipes, for example instead of costing 8 Ugdenbloom, it becomes 3 Ugdenbloom + Blood of C’thon
introducing new components. create some kind of counterbalance, that don’t need any Ugdenbloom but something else.
Generally, I would prefer the first option, since it would curb the dire need to run multiple Ugdenbog runs for each Char you play - since even with new components, it may happen that you need exactly the Ugdenbog ones.
This is actually a very very good thread that highlights a problem that’s been in the back of my mind for a while. A handful of components are disproportionately required in important recipes. I love this thread and addressing some of its points would definitely improve the quality of life of crafting.
I tried to frame it as something other than “please nerf ugdenbloom requirements” because well, that sounds like I just don’t want to have to head out and farm at all and that’s not it, I genuinely like interacting with the game world. But yeah, the issue is that almost every single time I’m missing an ingredient it’s the damned flowers, and if not it’s one of a tiny selection of repeat offenders. It’s really lopsided and I feel like it’s gotten worse over time, like a reverse incremental mechanic. As I level more efficiently through exp boosts, stashed gear and more familiarity with the game, I spend proportionally more of my time wading around in the bog, following my own footsteps for the umpteenth time so I can pay the AoM component tax. It just doesn’t feel good.
Basically, and I think this was sort of the intent from the beginning, crafting should be a matter of figuring out what ingredients you need (if any), then heading out into the world to hunt them down. As of right now, you don’t have to check what you need because it’s ugdenbloom, and lots of it, turning what could be a fun personal side-quest into nothing but pure tedium and repetitiveness.
It was not only the intent, @boldly but the practice as well. However, Ashes of Malmouth kind-of destroyed it. Bak then it was Chthonic Seals, Aether Crystals (Or shards) and even scrap, a variety of materials for a variety of components, each with more or less use (except for the starter level ones).
Right now it’s ugdenbloom for almost everything.
Either reducing the cost, or replacing some with tainted brain / Ancient Heart / Blood of Chthon will do us good.
Forgotten Gods faces the same issue with Celestial Lotus. All the new sets require celestial lotuses to get crafted, and it’s so tiring farming the same route of Okaloth>Kymon>Korvaak over and over again with the hope of the mat dropping; this is made worse by the fact that the drop chance isn’t too generous. So yeah, it’s a +1 from me. Either diversify the materials required for crafting endgame items or allowing us to convert some mats into others with a reasonable price.
Well, Lotus, at least, has a decent drop rate in SR…
Farming Ugdenbloom & Chtonic seals is really boring. Why dont make Ancient Grove drop more Ugdenbloom (even at the cost of increased difficulty)? It’s a rogue dungeon, after all! Also why dont make some Bloodsworn rogue dungeon with abundance of chtonic seal drop?
As for frozen hearts - their droprate isnt even funny. Some crafts require tons of them, as if they’re sold at bulk discount. In reality, though, they drop very rarely, no matter what you farm. Attuned Lodestone also could have a higher drop rate…
The usual ugdenbog route (Take ugdenbog rift and then proceed back south towards coven’s refuge) was always and is still the fastest… Yields 85-100 blooms per hour.
