Why is it good that GD isn't different than the rest? Yes, its maps are as empty and featureless as the rest, wohooo.
This really is such a stupid comment. Not only are you not even able to clearly define why or how they are empty, because they are not, but also fail to recognize that it is damn hard to make any improvements with the money, time and manpower they have. This is not a AAA team. This is a iirc 12 man team which has created a great game. There are for sure criticism to be made but what you come up with is utter nonsense.
For one this game is incredibly detailed. Things like abandoned fire camps, ruined caravans, etc. are all over the place. Villages like Burrwitch or Darkvale are almost fully explorable unlike in its compatriots where many houses are just there for the sake of being there. GD is vastly superior in that regard compared to TQ where houses for the most part are just a nicely dressed block. The insides of the houses in GD by contrast are lovingly designed with hand placed furniture, carpets, etc. You can clearly make out different buildings like villas, apothecaries, bath house, inns, etc. They also make sense to a functional degree for the most part.
So yeah, GD is already different. Far more detailed than even PoE.
And "featureless"? What the fuck does that even mean?
This entire argument is pure bullshit. Arguing like you I can make the same claim about games like BG (just flat maps with stuff hurr durr), Deus Ex (just dystopian landscape herp derp), System Shock (space station lolz), etc.
Somehow I keep getting the impression that you play Restricted Area and not Grim Dawn.
I got interested into trying the expansion... and... I remember why I gave up on Grim Dawn last time. Grim Dawn is pretty cool on some places, I liked the whole story of the aetherials infiltrating the Empire, their actions made sense on the setting, like they possessing the warden of Burwitch for having a big supply of bodies, I liked how the bandits double down on their sociopathy to the point of betraying humanity to get some scraps from the aetherials.
I liked how the aetherials decided to corrupt trolls and wildlife, using them as shock troops, I liked the whole story of old Arkovia, honestly, all this stuff could be good material for a real RPG some day, unfortunately, Grim Dawn is an ARPG. I think the pacing of the game unfortunately isn't that great, leading to burn out before you even finish the normal mode. You fight the Warden as the first real boss and the fight sucks, despite the cool lore behind, then you fight Daniel Crowley, another boss with a very cool backstory with a really by the numbers fight with nothing special, then it is a fucking LONG time for you to get to the next bosses and the aetherial amalgamation and the Cthulhu reject cultist boss and again, they are so so fights but with zero interesting lore behind them this time, the game only goes downhill when you get to the Necropolis.
I know, it is true that PoE and Diablo 3 make alot of asset re-use as well, but those games are alot more polished than Grim Dawn on a visual, animation and sound level, you guys talk alot about theorycrafting and how theorycrafting is all cool and superior on Grim Dawn, but theorycrafting isn't everything, you will use the same abilities for most of the game and kill thousands of enemies with them, they need to feel good, and most of the abilities on Grim Dawn are passives and many of the actives are underwhelming as fuck in terms of animations and effects. I tried playing a Demolitionist once and the quality of animation and effects on the explosions were disappointing. How a singleplayer game on 2017 doesn't allow for permanent or at least long lasting explosion marks with gore when this could be done on the Myth series so long ago? What is the fun of explosions if the enemies only fall on the ground and disappear like magic, even Diablo I had better death animations.
Let's say I have a ability that adds lighting damage to my sword, I don't only want a sword that does more damage but that can fry enemies to a crisp with it. Even Diablo I, when you used lighting nova, you had the feeling of using a dangerous electric spell with the cool crisping of electricity every time you used it and all enemies had cool and satisfying death animations and sound that were cathartic.
Another thing, where is the gore on Grim Dawn? I know that THQ fucked them up forcing them to make a kid friendly game on Titan Quest but they didn't have the same obligation this time, and still the game is gore free, the most I saw were enemies exploding but conveniently leaving no bodies and blood behind, it is really unsatisfying to kill enemies for them to just disappear right afterwards.
I feel I'm playing a bare bones, cargo cult, Diablo clone on a cool setting, that is it. They had the opportunity to do some crazy shit like a more polished Din's Curse, that would be truly awesome, for example but they gone full Diablo cargo cult without the money or know how, I dunno, Grim Dawn maybe has more options for theory crafting than the competition, I didn't play the game enough to get to know if this is true, but it is kinda of a moot point when you burn out of the game so fast.
Path of Exile? "Polished animations"? Are you fucking joking? One of the reasons I do not like PoE as much as GD is because of the floaty melee combat where you see the same fucking animation for your chosen melee skill over and over and over and the only thing that changes is the speed which gets so ridiculous that you get like what 30 attacks a second in double strike with multi strike?
The caster animations are terrible and the walking animations are atrocious, it almost looks like the are reverse moonwalking.
You can make an argument that spell effects look better but that is only partially true. Also PoE is all about one button builds for the most part. Or let us say two button build, main damage skill + movement skill. There are few exceptions at least but that does not change the fact that it is all about chosing one skill for your 6-link and everything else is build around it, preferably with as much automatism as possible like Curses with Blasphemy gem and binding IC to Cwdt.
And then of course the idiotic "skill gem" system does not make a lick of sense but hey at least it is highly customizable though respeccing is a complete pita.
As to D3, duh they have a huge team and budget in comparison. Then again the level of detail shown in GD surpasses that of D3 by a country mile. This is evident by the mere fact almost every building you see can actually be explored, be that in civilized areas or on enemy territory and these houses make fucking sense. D3 on the other hand? I have only one word to say for that comparison: Caldeum.
They reuse their assets "a lot"? Yeah no kidding their endgame is nothing but rehashing their assets over and over and over with just endless grinding until the scaling is too much for any gear in the game. Funny enough the textures are god awful and the colorful and cartoon style of the portraits are a grating contrast to the pretty gorey environments. It becomes even more grating by the fucking fact that every entrance to a cave is glowing huge bright blue or yellow for fuck know what reason.
Also D3 has deterioated so hard that you are not naturally chosing character->skills->items anymore but everything is now sets->skills->character.
And on top of that cherry is the fact that you cannot dodge many auto attack animations in D3 once the animation started because Blizzderp in their infinite wisdom were afraid that players could overcome gear gaps with skill.
Please defend this utter mediocrity of a game more please.
And you do not see gore? What are you using as a weapon, a tooth pick? I smash trash mobs into clouds of blood and gore on a regular basis on all my characters and if not that they fly all over the place.
You compare it to D1? You are aware that the enemies had the exact same death animations completely independent from what hit them, be that axe, bow or spell?
Comparing it to D1 is utterly stupid though. It offers a fraction of the content Grim Dawn has. The only area in which it can beat GD is in terms of atmosphere but it does that to all other Hack&Slash game anyway sans the Hive area in the expansion wich is fucking atrocious.
