KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Daedalos]

Lol go fuckurself. I have a much better computer than you got, probably. So that's not it. It's the game. i7 4970k 970gtx, kthx

Fucking broken buggy shit game. Eh. I want my relic, fuck this shit.

 

[Sykar]

Lol go fuckurself. I have a much better computer than you got, probably. So that's not it. It's the game. i7 4970k 970gtx, kthx

Fucking broken buggy shit game. Eh. I want my relic, fuck this shit.

 

[ArchAngel]

Lol go fuckurself. I have a much better computer than you got, probably. So that's not it. It's the game. i7 4970k 970gtx, kthx

Fucking broken buggy shit game. Eh. I want my relic, fuck this shit.

Then you got crappy components, or you downloaded too many viruses and malware with your porn.

 

[Daedalos]

Lol go fuckurself. I have a much better computer than you got, probably. So that's not it. It's the game. i7 4970k 970gtx, kthx

Fucking broken buggy shit game. Eh. I want my relic, fuck this shit.

Then you got crappy components, or you downloaded too many viruses and malware with your porn.

Nope, wrong again. The game is just buggy, that's all. It's okay, it's not AAA developer, it's an indie. So I will give them a pass. Relax, and keep on shillin'

 

[LizardWizard]

Nope, wrong again. The game is just buggy, that's all. It's okay, it's not AAA developer, it's an indie. So I will give them a pass. Relax, and keep on shillin'

 

[you know what time it is]

Should really be a fuckboi at this point

 

[Coma White]

Was a massive Diablofag back in the day and decided to give this a try once I accepted the fact there was no salvaging Diablo the third.

Grim Dawn is certainly better than Diablo III, but that's not saying much. The biggest issue I have with the game has to do with the weird way it handles itemization. Lots of item affixes which strictly alter specific skills and attributes specific to one build or another. It's also heavily proc-based, with the high level shit all granting insanely powerful damage procs -- some of which are actually more impacting than your actual base skills. It makes the combat feel jumpy and unpredictable at the later stages of the game, depending on your setup and what loot you've turned over.

IMO no ARPG has really nailed the itermization since Diablo II. It's really THE most important thing to these types of games, and I don't know why devs, indie or no, keep getting this wrong.

Aside: Yay, my first post. Have lurked for years -- finally realized my life has no value and registered.

 

[Sykar]

I think the itemization in GD is much more interessting than in D2 since you can get entirely new skills from components and certain items. D2+LoD detoriated into maximizing +all skills, resistances and health optionally max block. Mana leech or Insight was all that is needed for mana management. No-casters had to take care of to hit chances which is why casters had a big advantage early in each season since the to hit mechanics are retarded in D2.

 

[Hobo Elf]

None of the damage procs in Grim Dawn are actually gud. The only procs that have value are the ones that provide utility, such as decreasing movement / attack speed, or lowering resists and OA/DA.

 

[Sykar]

None of the damage procs in Grim Dawn are actually gud. The only procs that have value are the ones that provide utility, such as decreasing movement / attack speed, or lowering resists and OA/DA.

Mindwarp proc is pretty good for my aether/elemental build. My Grenados deal about 70%-80% more damage during that proc upping crits from around 11k to 18k.

 

[ArchAngel]

Was a massive Diablofag back in the day and decided to give this a try once I accepted the fact there was no salvaging Diablo the third.

Grim Dawn is certainly better than Diablo III, but that's not saying much. The biggest issue I have with the game has to do with the weird way it handles itemization. Lots of item affixes which strictly alter specific skills and attributes specific to one build or another. It's also heavily proc-based, with the high level shit all granting insanely powerful damage procs -- some of which are actually more impacting than your actual base skills. It makes the combat feel jumpy and unpredictable at the later stages of the game, depending on your setup and what loot you've turned over.

IMO no ARPG has really nailed the itermization since Diablo II. It's really THE most important thing to these types of games, and I don't know why devs, indie or no, keep getting this wrong.

Aside: Yay, my first post. Have lurked for years -- finally realized my life has no value and registered.

I don't agree, the itemization is at least one whole tier above D2. What is not better than D2 is character skills. They are mostly variations of each other and no cool or flashy ones like D2. And since I like to play mages the most in aRPG, GD mages are super boring, not even close to Sorceress, Druid or even a caster Necro.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Am I just shit at playing the shaman (a new character I started after a long break from this game) or did the last few patches crank the difficulty up to eleven? At veteran this guy from Depraved Sanctuary was basically unbeatable for me, must've died like 20 times before giving up. Also a lot of star-above-the-head spawns can just completely raep you, I really dread to think what happens on higher difficulty levels.

Regarding itemization - the shittest thing about it is that, at least on lower levels (max I reached was 40 with my demo) the item colors are really not indicative of the actual item quality, which in turn can make loot whoring really really unexciting. Again - my new shaman. I have two blue 2-h swords in my transfer stash, I gain levels and am kinda excited to finally be able to use them. Then like two levels before I reach the requirement for the first one I get some 2-h yellow hammer that clearly beats both of them in dps and I can use it already. Wat. Feck off.

 

[Coma White]

I don't agree, the itemization is at least one whole tier above D2. What is not better than D2 is character skills. They are mostly variations of each other and no cool or flashy ones like D2. And since I like to play mages the most in aRPG, GD mages are super boring, not even close to Sorceress, Druid or even a caster Necro.

What I find so interesting and elegant about the itemization in D2 is the fact that certain builds by their natures rely more or less on what you've equipped. The classic example is a summoner Necro, who can basically do the entire game naked. Conversely, something like an Avenger Paladin needs a bomb-ass weapon with the right affixes to really reach his full potential. Some builds are actually ENTIRELY item-dependent and impossible without specific setups. This is a genius system, because it encourages you to trade and generally just play the game MORE in order to play the game in ways you couldn't before. And it does this organically -- without resorting to higher difficulty settings, challenge modes, any of that nonsense.

In Grim Dawn, you find items that increase the damage of your choice skills and you just throw them on. Sure it makes sense. But it's an easy decision to make -- so much so that it isn't really much of a decision. By contrast, there are NO affixes in D2 which directly increase skill damage. There are affixes which increase skill ranks, but whether you equip those or not depends on a lot of things. Hell, there are cases in D2 where you actually prefer your skill ranks to be LOWER -- usually a mana consumed versus damage dealt scenario. And many builds can find much better things to do with their item affixes than just increase skill ranks.

 

[ArchAngel]

I don't agree, the itemization is at least one whole tier above D2. What is not better than D2 is character skills. They are mostly variations of each other and no cool or flashy ones like D2. And since I like to play mages the most in aRPG, GD mages are super boring, not even close to Sorceress, Druid or even a caster Necro.

What I find so interesting and elegant about the itemization in D2 is the fact that certain builds by their natures rely more or less on what you've equipped. The classic example is a summoner Necro, who can basically do the entire game naked. Conversely, something like an Avenger Paladin needs a bomb-ass weapon with the right affixes to really reach his full potential. Some builds are actually ENTIRELY item-dependent and impossible without specific setups. This is a genius system, because it encourages you to trade and generally just play the game MORE in order to play the game in ways you couldn't before. And it does this organically -- without resorting to higher difficulty settings, challenge modes, any of that nonsense.

In Grim Dawn, you find items that increase the damage of your choice skills and you just throw them on. Sure it makes sense. But it's an easy decision to make -- so much so that it isn't really much of a decision. By contrast, there are NO affixes in D2 which directly increase skill damage. There are affixes which increase skill ranks, but whether you equip those or not depends on a lot of things. Hell, there are cases in D2 where you actually prefer your skill ranks to be LOWER -- usually a mana consumed versus damage dealt scenario. And many builds can find much better things to do with their item affixes than just increase skill ranks.

This just means you got no clue what you are talking about. GD unlike D2 lets you combine any two classes. There are builds where you also need specific good items for them to work on highest difficulty. The amount of possible builds in GD is way above what D2 had.

 

[Coma White]

This just means you got no clue what you are talking about. GD unlike D2 lets you combine any two classes. There are builds where you also need specific good items for them to work on highest difficulty. The amount of possible builds in GD is way above what D2 had.

I was under the impression we were debating itemization. As opposed to build diversity. I never mentioned build diversity. I merely used specific builds to illustrate D2's item design in contrast to GD's.

If you'd like to change the subject though, I'm happy to oblige.

 

[Sykar]

I don't agree, the itemization is at least one whole tier above D2. What is not better than D2 is character skills. They are mostly variations of each other and no cool or flashy ones like D2. And since I like to play mages the most in aRPG, GD mages are super boring, not even close to Sorceress, Druid or even a caster Necro.

What I find so interesting and elegant about the itemization in D2 is the fact that certain builds by their natures rely more or less on what you've equipped. The classic example is a summoner Necro, who can basically do the entire game naked. Conversely, something like an Avenger Paladin needs a bomb-ass weapon with the right affixes to really reach his full potential. Some builds are actually ENTIRELY item-dependent and impossible without specific setups. This is a genius system, because it encourages you to trade and generally just play the game MORE in order to play the game in ways you couldn't before. And it does this organically -- without resorting to higher difficulty settings, challenge modes, any of that nonsense.

In Grim Dawn, you find items that increase the damage of your choice skills and you just throw them on. Sure it makes sense. But it's an easy decision to make -- so much so that it isn't really much of a decision. By contrast, there are NO affixes in D2 which directly increase skill damage. There are affixes which increase skill ranks, but whether you equip those or not depends on a lot of things. Hell, there are cases in D2 where you actually prefer your skill ranks to be LOWER -- usually a mana consumed versus damage dealt scenario. And many builds can find much better things to do with their item affixes than just increase skill ranks.

I do not see the "elegance". Most of those builds you mention were so shitty expensive and dependent on extremly rare runes that the average gamer never saw them and were part of the reason D2 got swamped with botters and cheaters in the first place. Also most of what you said about D2 applies to GD as well seeing that certain Nightblade builds are much more item dependant than for example most Arcanist builds.
Lastly you can actually get brand new skills from items while D2 offered only cross class skills with the items you mentioned for specific builds like Dreamer or Zeal Sorc.

 

[Coma White]

I do not see the "elegance". Most of those builds you mention were so shitty expensive and dependent on extremly rare runes that the average gamer never saw them and were part of the reason D2 got swamped with botters and cheaters in the first place. Also most of what you said about D2 applies to GD as well seeing that certain Nightblade builds are much more item dependant than for example most Arcanist builds.

I'll grant you the extremely rare runes point. Like I said, I was a huge Diablofag, which means my experience was probably more extreme than what many other players experienced. I engaged in a lot of trade -- unloading decent uniques for runes I knew would move more quickly, that kind of thing. But I don't think just because this aspect of the game was out of the reach for people with less time/lives/etc that it's somehow less valid.

But I'll also grant you that, while I clocked quite a bit of time in Grim Dawn, it was nothing compared to what was probably thousands of hours in D2 when I was younger. So I'm willing to concede that it could be a case of my simply not encountering the builds you are referencing (I haven't played Grim Dawn since it launched, and haven't played any of the updates). Like I said though, the main thing that bothered me about Grim Dawn were all the huge procs attached to many of the items I found later in the game. I felt it lent the combat an uneven pace.

 

[ArchAngel]

This just means you got no clue what you are talking about. GD unlike D2 lets you combine any two classes. There are builds where you also need specific good items for them to work on highest difficulty. The amount of possible builds in GD is way above what D2 had.

I was under the impression we were debating itemization. As opposed to build diversity. I never mentioned build diversity. I merely used specific builds to illustrate D2's item design in contrast to GD's.

If you'd like to change the subject though, I'm happy to oblige.

In a game like GD itemization and build diversity are one and the same. One does not work without the other.

 

[Coma White]

In a game like GD itemization and build diversity are one and the same. One does not work without the other.

But as I was saying: in D2, some builds are more or less reliant on itemization. Some don't even rely on it at all, while others are almost 100-percent dependent on it.

I guess I don't exactly understand what you mean. Can you give an example?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'm not really sure why you're using this "builds don't need equipment" as your main argument here. What you're basically saying is that itemization being completely pointless in some scenarios is what makes itemization great, which doesn't make much sense.

Personally I've never played a h'n's game for hundreds of hours, but I did play D2 and GD and fail to see a huge difference in equipment relevance between these two games, or any other classic h'n's, really. I can concede that there are builds which are exceptions to the rule, but in these games concentrating on dps only is usually a viable strategy on normal, but later survival becomes the main issue and that alone makes equipment important, since I cannot recall any h'n's in which "maximaze your resistances" doesn't become one of the absolute top priorities in later difficulty levels and you get res through, carefully chosen, equipment. What D2 does better for sure is making loot whoring exciting, since most golden/brown items in that game were actually very good at the very least and the game was very stingy with them. In GD blues aren't really that uncommon and so far aren't really that good. Lvl 50+ probably has some awesome shit, but I'm not really patient with these games enough and neither are many players.

 

[Coma White]

I'm not really sure why you're using this "builds don't need equipment" as your main argument here. What you're basically saying is that itemization being completely pointless in some scenarios is what makes itemization great, which doesn't make much sense.

Personally I've never played a h'n's game for hundreds of hours, but I did play D2 and GD and fail to see a huge difference in equipment relevance between these two games, or any other classic h'n's, really. I can concede that there are builds which are exceptions to the rule, but in these games concentrating on dps only is usually a viable strategy on normal, but later survival becomes the main issue and that alone makes equipment important, since I cannot recall any h'n's in which "maximaze your resistances" doesn't become one of the absolute top priorities in later difficulty levels and you get res through, carefully chosen, equipment. What D2 does better for sure is making loot whoring exciting, since most golden/brown items in that game were actually very good at the very least and the game was very stingy with them. In GD blues aren't really that uncommon and so far aren't really that good. Lvl 50+ probably has some awesome shit, but I'm not really patient with these games enough and neither are many players.

I'm not being clear enough. That's only half of what I'm trying to say. I'm using that as an example to illustrate the breadth of weight items have in relation to character builds in D2. Sure there are builds which require literally nothing to work fine. But on the flip side, there are builds in D2 which literally do not function without specific items. Because of this, the overall health and lifespan of the game is increased dramatically for those fucktards like me who played D2 for literally the better part of a decade.

As you say, neither you nor many players have the patience to reach that point (read: you're not a fucktard -- or a high school kid with a LOT of time on his hands). Which may in itself elaborate upon my perspective.

 

[Multidirectional]

Something weird started happening to this game. At least my copy. I can't select Veteran difficulty anymore nor can I join my gfs Veteran game. Join button doesn't work. Anyone experienced anything similar?

 

[Sykar]

I got no problem whatsoever selecting Veteran difficulty in single player.

 

[ArchAngel]

Something weird started happening to this game. At least my copy. I can't select Veteran difficulty anymore nor can I join my gfs Veteran game. Join button doesn't work. Anyone experienced anything similar?

If you are not sure who is responsible blame

 

[Hoodoo]

I played it for a while on Veteran difficulty (highest allowed for first playthrough) then on Elite and the game has serious pacing problems, akin to Path of Exile where you endlessly shuffle trash mobs.
I picked an Arcanist, put my points into AoE (forgot its name, some aether thing going into fire later on), put literally nothing in health, just magic damage (spirit) and haven't died once.
But I could have died to several creatures I stumbled upon that had nonsensically higher level than me to the point I'd get two shotted if I lingered. And they don't have aimed attacks so it's impossible to fight them because you have to get hit.

The story is okay but the low quality of the writing and cliche characters strongly clashes with the somber Lovecraftian nature of the game world.
It doesn't make use of the game environment to vehicle the lore and is presented in a traditional wall of text manners with journal entries and so on. Too much journal "mwahahaha let me tell you my evil plan" scraps lying around.

The art direction is pretty bad character wise, especially the way gear is done. There is zero incentive to play from aesthetic standpoint.

Oh and the reason it's impossible to die as Arcanist (except for mobs 10 levels above you) is because everything fucking dies when I cast my AoE. No balance at all in this game, Diablo 2 Sorc seems tame in comparison. It's very dissapointing when literally unkillable creatures turn you back for more grind of mobs that pose zero challenge.
It's very dissapointing when game causes severe memory leaks despite looking worse than Titan Quest. It brings zero improvement to the formula