Yet another bizzare restriction.

[Ceno]

I can concede that, i think I have once or twice already. I did try several versions of a commando rifleman though, and either it was a Demolitionist with few soldier buffs or a Cadence Rifleman, and someone said it works but i found it slow and painful. Effectiveness is easy enough to judge in that way. How close to death do you get before all the zombies are dead and how fast can you kill them?

I definitely would not recommend leveling through Veteran/Elite as a Cadence rifleman. Sounds utterly painful. That’s not to say it wouldn’t work later, as both Valdun’s and Harbinger builds could attest. But for leveling Fire Strike is almost undoubtedly better. The Burn Damage on Explosive Strike melts enemies (pun intended) and there’s good itemization for it at lower levels (Hellmaw Shotgun).

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I don’t presently know what the current course of the thread is, but I do feel an apology is in order on my front (and is a few days overdue). Unfortunately, I generally suck at making them.

I definitely overzealously singled out one of your side comments - though I still may disagree with it on a core, fundamental level - and haphazardly opened the door to a flame war. That’s on me, and I thank you for enduring it and remaining on the forums to discuss your ideas. I’m also greatly distressed by my comment about my mod; my intentions were as Zantai described, but using the project for argumentative gain or to construe it in such a way that may be interpreted as you had is highly unprofessional of me. For the above, I am sorry.

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Early on in my modding ‘career’ I came upon advice not originally intended for me.

Hello from the new, old guy.

1 - You’re often wrong when you’re convinced you’re right. I always fight for my own ideas, but I take other people’s ideas and opinions very seriously. I’ll often go off and obsess over them for days until I come to the realization that they are right (or sometimes wrong). This is something I learned from Arthur.
2 - (This is directly tied to #1) A designers job isn’t always to have the best ideas or the right solutions to a problem. His job is to develop the best ideas or solutions, which often means going out and finding them. New designers frequently feel like it’s their job to have all the answers and this leads them to assume they’re right all the time.

I’ve spent the last few days mulling over the above and the original notions of your thread.

On the topic of weapon restrictions, it’s a notion I’ve struggled with and argued over for several years now. Some such suggestions of mine have found their way into the game (Pneumatic Burst no longer has a Weapon Requirement). I once thought - and on occasion continue to think - as you do: that weapon restrictions are all arbitrarily defined and serve no greater purpose than to ward off player creativity. For what hand-of-god reason is my character functionally prohibited from using so-and-so skill with such-and-such weapon? There are some skills whose restrictions I’d like to see removed; Devastation and AAR chief among them (I really want to use 2H with both of those), or at the very least altered (I’d settle for them requiring a Caster Implement or an Offhand, rather than just an offhand).

Primal Strike is not one such skill that I have an issue with. I’ve been thinking about why I have this contradictory opinion.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are several reasons this conflict exists for me:

1. One reason is a bit personal: I (mostly) play melee. The vast majority of my time in Grim Dawn is up in an enemy’s face, and so I don’t understand the minutiae and points-of-view of caster players. This is not to justify Primal Strike’s weapon restriction, but instead serves to debunk my own argument for the removal or alteration of the weapon restrictions on Devastation/AAR. How can I reasonably provide feedback beyond a gut feeling or intuition about these abilities which I rarely find myself using? Answer: I can’t. Crate is better off ignoring me and listening to others on these fields.
2. I appreciate the uniqueness the weapon restriction creates. The skill can feel different from other skills because of the gear it imposes upon you, inherently changing the way your character plays and progresses. Primal Strike requiring a 2H weapon means that my character is going to be built for power, not speed (which is not a balanced tradeoff yet, but it can be eventually). It means I’m going to run into energy issues while simultaneously lacking the defensiveness offered by, say, a shield. Because of these sacrifices, the skill is allowed to possess more power, which greater augments the aforementioned power vs speed paradigm.
3. Not specifically to Primal Strike, but I appreciate that weapon restrictions in general can promote creativity. They can hamper it too, of course - e.g., arbitrary hand-of-god shit if such a restriction is misplaced or implemented poorly - but I think Primal Strike gets it right. Primal Strike creates problems - energy regeneration issues, lower defensiveness (see point 2) - but, in solving these problems, the creativity of a player is allowed to flourish. On the other hand, Devastion causes no problems for anyone and AAR only marginally does so - a bit of a defensive issue in needing to stand still to cast it - while creating a “setback” of high energy costs that a caster offhand happens to mitigate. I find AAR’s case particularly more egregious here because, ultimately, its restriction is in fact totally arbitrary, if mildly thematic (because something something casters read books right?).

Its the limited skill points that should restrict, not arbitrary barriers.

I agree with this too, but I think that in cases where barriers aren’t arbitrary as described in points 2 and 3, the two can work in tandem. Problems are created by some restriction, and players have a limited pool of resources to solve them. If they do, kudos to them! Well done. This is character development at its finest, hearkening back well earlier than the days of video games.

Edit:

Powbam not a smartass?