KickStarter Grim Dawn

[Zdzisiu]

Path of Exile must be the first aRPG you've ever actually liked, because none of the greats had skill gems you could buy off players (the only way to get them in quantity at a moment's notice) and take for a test drive.

There are disadvantages to the system, even if you prefer it. For example, a player who's actually completely new to the game can't look at a class or mastery tree and see the synergies there. The only way to readily know what skills are available and how they work is to use the Wiki. Progressing normally through the campaign offers occasional choices of skill gems, but those choices are laughably tiny compared to the variety of available paths in PoE by character level 10. Aside from that they're faced with a huge spiderweb of nodes that are all +this stat, +that stat.

I'm not opposed to learning curves generally (I played EVE Online for six years, and I've been playing the X space sim series since 2006; I know a thing or two about learning curves), but the amount of research and game experience necessary to plan ANYTHING as a new player isn't small in PoE. It might pay off 50 hours later once familiarization is achieved, but as with any game feature, there are benefits and drawbacks.

I would just like to point out that PoE recently made it so that you can buy all skill gems from a vendor. Except the drop only gems, which is like 6 of them, all completely non-critical to anyone.

Also, when you are buying gems from vendors in PoE, the gems come with experience already, based on your character level and the zone level you are buying them at. The max gem level you can get this way is L13 I believe, so no instant L20 gems to test the skill at the best possible level, but also no L1 shit gems that you need to level up to really see what they do later on.

 

[Blaine]

Sounds as though GGG have been making some common-sense quality-of-life changes to the game recently. That's good.

 

[ArchAngel]

Path of Exile must be the first aRPG you've ever actually liked, because none of the greats had skill gems you could buy off players (the only way to get them in quantity at a moment's notice) and take for a test drive.

There are disadvantages to the system, even if you prefer it. For example, a player who's actually completely new to the game can't look at a class or mastery tree and see the synergies there. The only way to readily know what skills are available and how they work is to use the Wiki. Progressing normally through the campaign offers occasional choices of skill gems, but those choices are laughably tiny compared to the variety of available paths in PoE by character level 10. Aside from that they're faced with a huge spiderweb of nodes that are all +this stat, +that stat.

I'm not opposed to learning curves generally (I played EVE Online for six years, and I've been playing the X space sim series since 2006; I know a thing or two about learning curves), but the amount of research and game experience necessary to plan ANYTHING as a new player isn't small in PoE. It might pay off 50 hours later once familiarization is achieved, but as with any game feature, there are benefits and drawbacks.

I would just like to point out that PoE recently made it so that you can buy all skill gems from a vendor. Except the drop only gems, which is like 6 of them, all completely non-critical to anyone.

Also, when you are buying gems from vendors in PoE, the gems come with experience already, based on your character level and the zone level you are buying them at. The max gem level you can get this way is L13 I believe, so no instant L20 gems to test the skill at the best possible level, but also no L1 shit gems that you need to level up to really see what they do later on.

Added Chaos Damage is required by many builds. So is Empower but that one is useless until level up so even when it drops you can basically level it up for future characters.

 

[Cyberarmy]

but also no L1 shit gems that you need to level up to really see what they do later on.

Well, that really fucked up my gladiator for a long time. Freaking lvl 1 CWDT didn't want to drop till I'm 70...

Also got our asses handed to us against some whirlwind leecher guys character in Hall of Grandmasters. He couldn't kill us but with couldn't even damage him...
So much for 120k dps...

 

[ArchAngel]

but also no L1 shit gems that you need to level up to really see what they do later on.

Well, that really fucked up my gladiator for a long time. Freaking lvl 1 CWDT didn't want to drop till I'm 70...

Also got our asses handed to us against some whirlwind leecher guys character in Hall of Grandmasters. He couldn't kill us but with couldn't even damage him...
So much for 120k dps...

lvl X gem + Regret Orb = lvl 1 gem

 

[Cyberarmy]

Wow...

 

[Blaine]

Heh, I knew that because I happened across it when looking up Orb of Regret mechanics yesterday.

The recipe system and the loot system, which are interconnected, is perhaps the primary thing that aggravates me about PoE. Let's say I start off with a new character. If I pick up all the loot I find in order to get some starting scrolls, then my inventory will fill up in about two minutes, because the inventory is grid-based (good) but the inventory size is small and items are fuckhuge (annoying). I then have to run back to town on foot, because if I use portal scrolls then I'm defeating the point of turning in junk loot for scrolls in the first place.

I'm already extremely annoyed at this point, but whatever. I guess I'll leave most of the loot on the ground unless it's rare or very small. Since there's a loot filter now, I'll probably download someone's customized settings from the Internet so that I don't have to spend four hours doing it myself, and plan on learning the ins and outs myself later.

So now I'm only picking up magics, rares, or commons with good socket configurations/quality/whatever. Now I only have to hoof it back to town by foot every seven to ten minutes, occasionally using a portal scroll if it's a particularly long way. I'm new to the game, remember; I can't just use portal scrolls like they're going out of style. But what's this? While trying to collect matching sets to turn in for valuable orbs, I need stash space. Stash space costs real-life $ (my closed beta account has 13 stash tabs, IIRC). Indeed, although PoE fans love to crow about how GGG only charges for cosmetics, in actual fact stash tabs affect gameplay, aren't cosmetic, and indeed they're the most frequently purchased items in the cash shop by far.

All right, I've got my stash space. Now I can start hoarding those rares in hopes of getting a Chaos Orb. They might be something I need, but I can't identify them to find out, because identifying them reduces their turn-in value. Oh, well.

To me, this entire system is more like fighting the shop, the inventory, and the UI than actually playing the game. I mainly want to fight monsters, explore, pick up loot, and customize and progress my character, not constantly worry about micromanaging my pile of crap. I guess the alternative is to leave almost everything on the ground and just subsist on found orbs that pop out of crates and so on? I don't know. It's an aRPG about not picking up loot! The best aRPG ever developed, folks!

Again, maybe this is all different now somehow, but beta sure as shit was a lot like that, except there was no loot filter.

 

[gestalt11]

You can respecc skill points and devotion points, so there is plenty of opportunity to change your build, you might not be able to switch from melee to caster but you can change inside the respective character archetype easily.
If you play HC and pumped Physique mostly you can easily switch any way you want.

So no, you do not have an easier time with respecs in PoE, considering that getting the orbs of regret is far more expensive and time consuming than farming aether shards and iron scraps.

Experimentation is a lot costlier in Grim Dawn if you just want to know what are the skills and how they play. You need to make multiple characters for that and level them, and if, like me, you just like to make one and experiment with it and learn the game as you go along instead of spending time to plan and choose a build / gameplay style before even starting to play the game and seeing how skills work, then you're fucked, like I was. PoE allows easy experimentation in comparison. You can try a dozen of skills before you commit any character build resources.

Character flexibility is also much higher in PoE, since classes don't lock you in a limited selection of skills.

Just use Grim Dawn Stash and edit your character's skills/devotions and/or add in whatever items you want if you want to experiment. Experimenting in GD is much easier than an online game like POD since its offline and your save files are quite simple and Grim Dawn stash is just an iteration of a tool that exists from a Titan Quest.

You can literally make any build and experiment with it in Elite difficulty in like 10 minutes if you wanted.

Alot of people use GDstash just to get around the annoying limited storage and not need to make mule characters, but it can edit most of yoru character stats too. Which is also nice since you can't respec attribute choices otherwise.

 

[gestalt11]

Ismaul If you really need/want to test extensively and frequently, then yes, the ability to quickly create any build you like using third-party tools is superior. You most certainly can't test a complete build in PoE without spending dozens or hundreds of hours playing first; but you don't need a complete build if you just want to test skills, which seems to be where you've shifted your focus now.

Now? I've been talking about trying out how skills play since the beginning, even before I responded to you.

And my attitude is to try the skills while playing, not cheat to try them all and then play. No point in playing then IMO.

Simple solution. Install GDstash. Make experiemntal build. Play it for 10 minutes. Delete character. Delete GDStash.

 

[Blaine]

THAT'S CHEATING!

 

[Sykar]

Path of Exile must be the first aRPG you've ever actually liked, because none of the greats had skill gems you could buy off players (the only way to get them in quantity at a moment's notice) and take for a test drive.

There are disadvantages to the system, even if you prefer it. For example, a player who's actually completely new to the game can't look at a class or mastery tree and see the synergies there. The only way to readily know what skills are available and how they work is to use the Wiki. Progressing normally through the campaign offers occasional choices of skill gems, but those choices are laughably tiny compared to the variety of available paths in PoE by character level 10. Aside from that they're faced with a huge spiderweb of nodes that are all +this stat, +that stat.

I'm not opposed to learning curves generally (I played EVE Online for six years, and I've been playing the X space sim series since 2006; I know a thing or two about learning curves), but the amount of research and game experience necessary to plan ANYTHING as a new player isn't small in PoE. It might pay off 50 hours later once familiarization is achieved, but as with any game feature, there are benefits and drawbacks.

I would just like to point out that PoE recently made it so that you can buy all skill gems from a vendor. Except the drop only gems, which is like 6 of them, all completely non-critical to anyone.

Also, when you are buying gems from vendors in PoE, the gems come with experience already, based on your character level and the zone level you are buying them at. The max gem level you can get this way is L13 I believe, so no instant L20 gems to test the skill at the best possible level, but also no L1 shit gems that you need to level up to really see what they do later on.

A level 13 gems is still not that useful if you want to try out a completely new build at high levels. It alliviates the problem but does not solve it. Not to mention that you have to waste up to a hundred orbs of regret potentially, depending on how far reaching the respec is.

"Cheat?"

Oh fuck the word "cheating".

I'd rather learn the game as I play and experiment as I go, that's how I have fun with aRPGs. I don't like planning how I'm going to play the whole game before doing so, as this removes the fun for me. The whole point of aRPGs for me is in the testing / trying things out as I play. I'm not trying to win an argument, just voicing a grievance that you guys seem to want to dismiss. You like it? Fine. I don't. I also didn't want to search for trainers, saved games and builds before even trying the game to see if it was fun before I invest more time in it.

And I do not like having to be filthy rich and constantly being on the lookout for sets, knowing the latest currency exchange rates, etc.

 

[Blaine]

Here we are, folks. My memory didn't fail me after all. I reinstalled PoE, have been playing for LITERALLY two minutes, and I already can't carry all the loot. Keep in mind, two of the pieces of loot I picked up went into empty inventory slots automatically, since new characters begin the game with only a basic weapon.

Path of Exile—the premier aRPG experience in which you DON'T pick up the loot! Google "path of exile tiny inventory" to witness the fanboy defense force in action for some laughs.

 

[ArchAngel]

Why would you want to collect basic white loot? I didn't do that in any aRPG.

 

[Blaine]

Why would you want to collect basic white loot? I didn't do that in any aRPG.

I tend to agree, but when first starting out in the typical aRPG, you at least have the option to grab everything and spend a little bit more time to make a little bit of extra currency, if that's what you want to do. PoE kindly chooses for you by making the inventory tiny and portal scrolls prohibitively expensive to use (when brand-new to the game).

Also, unlike in every other aRPG, you cannot ignore white loot entirely unless you want to miss out on some fairly valuable orbs (due to sockets, links, and/or item quality).

Even if picking up only magic or rare items, later on your inventory will still fill up relatively quickly, since it's so tiny and is never extended.

 

[ArchAngel]

I never had problems with identify or portal scrolls because I don't pick up white loot. You only need R-G-B white loot and 6 socket white loot until you get to lvl 80+ areas (or if you get a 5L or 6L white drop, both are super rare).
What you are complaining about, you are supposed to figure out within 1 hour of playing. I find it hilarious that you are complaining about this and want a simplified system when you are a big fan of Underrail where all the time you need to leave stuff on the ground because you cannot carry everything.

As for blue and yellow items, you only pick up small blue and only for a little while. You just get blue or yellow that are good for your slots, fill your inventory with the rest and only go back when a quest takes you back to town.

Also use the default item filter that now comes with the game, I found it good enough for average player.

EDIT: Chaos recipe is cool but you only do it once item level is 60+ so that means for most of the game you don't need to worry about that. Also most players don't do the chaos recipe but just play a lot and sell decent items that drop to other players for lot more currency.

 

[Blaine]

I never had an issue with inventory size or loot dynamics in Diablo, Diablo 2, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, and Torchlight 2. I wonder why I have an issue with them in PoE? Granted, D1 and D2 also had tiny inventories, but they didn't have an all-encompassing vendor recipe system either, and I feel some people have forgotten that loot didn't constantly drop every five seconds in the golden oldies (additionally, using portal scrolls reasonably often wasn't a massively big deal).

In Grim Dawn, white loot is absolutely everywhere and I filter it out, no problem.

Well done boiling my issues with the game down to "you want a simplified system," though. I'm not sure how being annoyed by the tiny amount of inventory space equates to a desire for simplification, but whatever. It's the only modern aRPG with such restrictive inventory space.

 

[ArchAngel]

I never had an issue with inventory size or loot dynamics in Diablo, Diablo 2, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, and Torchlight 2. I wonder why I have an issue with them in PoE? Granted, D1 and D2 also had tiny inventories, but they didn't have an all-encompassing vendor recipe system either, and I feel some people have forgotten that loot didn't constantly drop every five seconds in the golden oldies (additionally, using portal scrolls reasonably often wasn't a massively big deal).

Well done boiling my issues with the game down to "you want a simplified system," though. I'm not sure how being annoyed by the tiny amount of inventory space equates to a desire for simplification, but whatever. It's the only modern aRPG with such restrictive inventory space.

Titan Quest and Grim Dawn have huge inventories. TL2 has a pet that sells shit (I hate that shitty feature almost as much as I hate the rest of shitty TL2 features), TL1 I didn't try as it seemed too kiddy like after playing Diablo games.
As you said D1 and D2 had very restricted inventories and smaller stash space than PoE.

PoE goes by the good old school design rule: Throw it all into player face, let the player figure out what is good and what is not and how to play, they will feel better afterwards when they overcame the challenge. Compared to Diablo 3 that is just a casual simplified experience like 99% of modern games.
You are complaining you want that simplified experience but you defended Underrail from people asking for that shit in Underrail.

You are only frustrated because you didn't overcome this challenge yet but decided to complain first.

 

[Blaine]

You are only frustrated because you didn't overcome this challenge yet but decided to complain first.

Oh yeah, an amazing challenge that only the very smart and highly skilled can overco—

Oh shit a closed beta supporter who played for ~200 hours and had half a stash tab full of GCPs. But yeah, I never figured out the white loot.

 

[ArchAngel]

You are only frustrated because you didn't overcome this challenge yet but decided to complain first.

Oh yeah, an amazing challenge that only the very smart and highly skilled can overco—

Oh shit a closed beta supporter who played for ~200 hours and had half a stash tab full of GCPs. But yeah, I never figured out the white loot.

I am also a closed beta supporter except I never stopped playing and I got between 1000 and 2000h by now. And sorry but your above complaints and posts show that you didn't.

Unless you are not playing like you described and only are putting yourself into shoes of new players, where I agree they will have those problems but my answer is the same. They need to L2P instead of complaining and whining.

 

[Blaine]

Unless you are not playing like you described and only are putting yourself into shoes of new players

Gosh, do you think so?

In any case, fanboys can and will defend anything. Give me one good reason for the tiny inventory other than bogus realism arguments about encumbrance (realism in an aRPG? Please help me find my sides, they're gone) or having to make "meaningful choices" about loot (i.e. leave valuable loot behind, making the acquisition of currency X% more tedious).

You know what I like to do? I like to play for 20-30 minutes without leaving valuable loot behind and without returning to a vendor. That's what I like to do. aRPGs are NOT RPGs by any stretch of the imagination, so the systems employed aren't really comparable. There's no end in PoE, no storyline other than the typical very shallow aRPG story that's there for a bit of flavor; it's pure gameplay. You don't have to grind or farm for one single solitary second in Underrail. If you do choose to pick up everything, you'll just end the game with cupboards and cupboards full of unsold gear.

Thankfully Portal Gems exist, but they're of no great use on maps except perhaps to save you one inventory grid square.

 

[ArchAngel]

Unless you are not playing like you described and only are putting yourself into shoes of new players

Gosh, do you think so?

In any case, fanboys can and will defend anything. Give me one good reason for the tiny inventory other than bogus realism arguments about encumbrance (realism in an aRPG? Please help me find my sides, they're gone) or having to make "meaningful choices" about loot (i.e. leave valuable loot behind, making the acquisition of currency X% more tedious).

You know what I like to do? I like to play for 20-30 minutes without leaving valuable loot behind and without returning to a vendor. That's what I like to do. aRPGs are NOT RPGs by any stretch of the imagination, so the systems employed aren't really comparable. There's no end in PoE, no storyline other than the typical very shallow aRPG story that's there for a bit of flavor; it's pure gameplay. You don't have to grind or farm for one single solitary second in Underrail. If you do choose to pick up everything, you'll just end the game with cupboards and cupboards full of unsold gear.

Thankfully Portal Gems exist, but they're of no great use on maps except perhaps to save you one inventory grid square.

You gave a good reason yourself. Another is to make it so player are forced to learn early to give value to loot instead of picking up everything. Which also feeds into the system of trading with other players that PoE revolves around.

And Underrail is also mostly gameplay, so it is a good comparison. And you can grind if you want to (if you didn't take oddity xp system).

 

[PEACH]

I tend to agree, but when first starting out in the typical aRPG, you at least have the option to grab everything and spend a little bit more time to make a little bit of extra currency, if that's what you want to do. PoE kindly chooses for you by making the inventory tiny and portal scrolls prohibitively expensive to use (when brand-new to the game).

Also, unlike in every other aRPG, you cannot ignore white loot entirely unless you want to miss out on some fairly valuable orbs (due to sockets, links, and/or item quality).

Even if picking up only magic or rare items, later on your inventory will still fill up relatively quickly, since it's so tiny and is never extended.

Yeah, PoE definitely could use a larger inventory especially for new players/new leagues. Once you have the meta-knowledge, item filters and experience I don't find it to be too restrictive (albeit still annoying in maps or when farming dried lake for instance) but it's quite a timesink to get to that point.

The argument I think a lot of PoE players would make is that during normal/cruel/merciless there are very few instances where you should be doing anything other than progression anyway, but this requires the player to both be aware of that and capable of forwarding their build without doing so, which is pretty unrealistic. Design choices like those seem to be aimed at people who know how to finish all three difficulties in a few hours total, but it would be nice if there was a middle ground between the current amount of slots and having no considerations to make whatsoever.

Will say that something like NEversink's item filter (which has 5 variants for different levels of gear-scrutiny (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1246208)) helps a ton though. Saves untold amounts of time and effort trying to analyze every piece of garbage that drops in case it's, in fact, something useful

 

[Blaine]

You gave a good reason yourself. Another is to make it so player are forced to learn early to give value to loot instead of picking up everything.

You just turned one reason in two reasons, there. In any case, I disagree. The loot you have to leave behind does have value (and not insignificant value if you're late-game), you just aren't really allowed to cash in on that value without putting yourself out.

I understand perfectly well the concept of winnowing out only the most valuable/compact loot. A third-grader could understand the concept and I don't doubt there are custom filters available for download that would allow me to do it on autopilot.

That doesn't mean I have to like it. We're all entitled to our preferences.

 

[Ismaul]

Simple solution. Install GDstash. Make experiemntal build. Play it for 10 minutes. Delete character. Delete GDStash.

Thanks for the tip. I didn't know about it.

Still, and my goal is not to defend that PoE is better than GD, that doesn't stop PoE from having an easier way in-game to experiment with skills without recourse to 3rd party tools. For a new player, this is a legitimate concern. I'm not one to go right away to 3rd party tools to learn the game rather than playing the game itself.

 

[Blaine]

The reality is that both games are great in their own way. We're all arguing about complete nonsense.

I've continued playing PoE after deleting all my old characters without even looking at them (RIP), and the thing that's annoying me now is something I'd forgotten: The camera's maximum zoom is a lot closer to the character than any other ARPG in history. Most, if not all of the rendered true 3D ARPGs (that's virtually all of them post-D2) have suffered from the minor issue of reduced line of sight toward the camera, and extended line of sight away from it due to the quasi-isometric viewpoint.

Diablo, Diablo 2, Divine Divinity, Nox and so on employed orthographic projection, a concept in drafting and 3D modeling in which subjects appear to be 3D, but are actually 2D and distorted to present clean, angular views (of a car or ship design, for example). Orthographic projection allows for equal lines of sight both toward and away from the camera, because there's not a proper vanishing point nor any horizon line.

In PoE, not only is it 3D quasi-isometric, but the camera is practically up your ass. So if that necromancer boss is to your south, you won't see him until he's close enough to shake hands. I presume this was done A.) to show off armor more clearly and encourage microtransactions; B.) to make terrain modeling easier/reduce rendering overhead (the more the player can see, the more must be modeled/rendered); or C.) both.

I'm sure you get used to it eventually (I obviously did before), but being able to zoom out further and also rotate the camera 360 degrees freely as in GD is pretty much objectively superior, in my view... no pun intended, heh heh. View, get it? Fuck off.