• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Grim Dawn |OT| It's always grimmest at dawn.

Do you care about 'seasons'? That's what keeps most people I know hooked on POE. Personally I don't care about that sort of thing and POE grew tired 'quick' (as in after a few hundred hours) with its gambling mechanics.


It could be the seasons and also i followed some youtubers who played the seasons. They talked about winning and losing characters. I thought it was all i needed at the moment. I had so much fun.
 
I think it still does pretty well on steam etc, but yeah around here its kinda depressing. I've mentioned a few times how sad a 13 page OT in nearly a year, is for this sort of game on Gaf, but whatever...

If its eligible, which it should be, then I'll likely give a vote for Gaf game of the year when the thread goes up as well. Its easily my most played game this year. 900 hours or so, and I only bought it the day it was announced content complete earlier in the year.





Ahh. Wolcen. I grabbed the early access to that a few months back. Seems like its got some really cool ideas, and the graphics are really, really good for this genre. Two probs for me at the moment, is its still a little bare bones (at least when I last tried it) and I think I need to upgrade my graphics card. I was really struggling to run it, even on pretty low settings. Hopefully as development continues, it will be further optimized as well

Oh and my ratio of GD to PoE is sort of opposite to yours. A lot less PoE though

Yeah wolcen is very very early. It will be another year before it's gonna be good for playing. Now i just check the updates and play a little bit and stop.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I don't play much anymore but i agree. It's a very good ARPG. I just don't know why it doesn't hold my attention like POE did.

I got 1300hrs in Grim Dawn but over 2200hrs in POE.

Next up(when it's done) WOLCEN.

I have tried so hard to get into POE, but the system is just so odd to me. It's built in such a way that it doesn't feel like your class matters. And I was never a fan of the "all choices are permanent" thing. Fun game with cool concepts, but since I have to do SO much research on my build, I can't just dive in and enjoy it.

The fact that stat points are the only permanent thing in Grim Dawn is fantastic. It encourages playing with your build, and I LOVE that.
 
I And I was never a fan of the "all choices are permanent" thing.

Yeah that's the other thing that drove me away from POE. I felt with my limited time I couldn't really experiment, so I ended up just following some cookie cutter build. Also when I played it was just 'go for max HP' and the rest was seemingly worthless in comparison. Not sure if it's better balanced these days. Still though the ultimate turn off was the currency and gambling mechanics. Like I wasted literally days of playtime trying to get a 6S. It's the exact sort of design that encourages me to just trade real money for gear. Like just an hour of OT at work would have saved me dozens of pulling a lever.
 

Cracklox

Member
Yeah that's the other thing that drove me away from POE. I felt with my limited time I couldn't really experiment, so I ended up just following some cookie cutter build. Also when I played it was just 'go for max HP' and the rest was seemingly worthless in comparison. Not sure if it's better balanced these days. Still though the ultimate turn off was the currency and gambling mechanics. Like I wasted literally days of playtime trying to get a 6S. It's the exact sort of design that encourages me to just trade real money for gear. Like just an hour of OT at work would have saved me dozens of pulling a lever.

Haha. Bolded is about my jumping off point. When I read the odds of getting a 6S, it basically sapped my will to play. Extra layers of rng, with number and colors of sockets on top of good affix rolls, on top of getting something good to drop, on top of a good combination of all the above was pretty draining.

Despite that, I wanna give it another go at some point. There was plenty to like as well
 

Maledict

Member
My issue with PoE was always the fact the unique loot was garbage. Not only was none of it any use to my character, the only items that were useful were low level uniques for other specs. Running a tier 6 map and getting an item intended for a level 20 character is just shit design no matter which way you cut it.

PoE just has too much randomisation in its loot system to be fun for me.
 
Everything you guys are saying about POE are true and for some reason i just love the game.

Maybe it was de community around it.. I don't know.

Grim Dawn is also a fantastic game though and i have played it for more then 1000hrs so no complaints here.
 

Cracklox

Member
Grim Misadventures 108

Oooh this is a good one!

Ok, here it is. We are pleased to announce that Grim Dawn’s 7th Mastery is going to be: the esteemed Inquisitor!

attachment.php
 

Cracklox

Member
Hmm, an artifact user is an interesting idea for a class. Really wanna see a Necromancer though...

Surely it has to be. There a lot of cold/vita damage gear in the game without a real use. Cold/vita would fit a necro perfectly. Plus the update did say we've already met both classes in game so its either that or a cook ;)

The only real issue would be the lore implications with a Necro deciding to join Kymons Chosen

edit - 1.0.07 good to go Yay for a new dungeon! Boo for lots of green aether floors!
 

Cracklox

Member
Ok so maybe the patch wasn't that good to go. The OA scaling that wasn't supposed to creep into ultimate did, and now everything crits you more often. Worse, is that life steal is broken on bosses and heroes and doesn't work at all. Oh, and they made some 'adjustments' to the lighting, and now everything looks mega washed out and a whole lot less grim.

Good news, is all these things will be addressed in a hotfix apparently. My Callidor Sorcs attempts to beat Gladiator crucible will need to wait.

I liked the new dungeon though. Its the most visually appealing of the 3 at least. However my game hard locked on me right around the equipment vendor after scouring that place for like an hour. If its like the other 2 dungeons then the equipment vendor isn't far from the boss, so I was pretty annoyed and haven't retried.
 

Cracklox

Member
Ya hotfix is out. 2 of them actually. Above mentioned bugs are gone. Lighting is still a bit different, but way better then what it was originally changed to before the hotfixes
 

Purkake4

Banned
Some tidbits from today's DD.

What’s next?
Grim Dawn’s first expansion is sure to be a treat. Along with a new chapter of the story, an increased level cap and two new masteries come new Devotion constellations to unveil with an increased Devotion cap, several new features, hundreds of new unique items and monster infrequents...

As I’m sure the first question on everybody’s mind is just when will you get to experience it all for yourself? We are not quite at a point where we can announce an exact release date, but the current range puts us in Q1/Q2 of 2017. No matter when it releases, you can be sure that it will arrive posthaste.

 

Cracklox

Member
Don't really have proper internet access right now but seeing as none of the other 2 people in this thread have posted this yet

Grim Misadventure #110: Something Stirs Within the Pit...

Not much. Just some info on some new Cthonics to murder, presumably while we save Ulgrim. Still no confirmation of second new mastery
which is totally gunna be an Outcast witch like Anasteria or that girl you can save (or burn) in the Bloodgrove.
 

Cracklox

Member
Yeah, 1.0.0.8 release has caused some controversy. It was originally scheduled as hotfix 3 for 1.0.0.7, but the size of the changes grew too big, and they announced they would do 1.0.0.8 instead. That was at the beginning of Jan. They released some preliminary patch notes soon after, that instead of addressing the massive OA monster increase from 0.7, nerfed quite a few things (Blast Shield, Markovian set, Mark of Divinity amongst them) and caused the community to wail, gnash teeth etc.

So those patch notes were revised, which were then received a little better, but people still weren't totally happy, so they got revised a total of 2 more times to what we have now.

So, for better or worse, thanks to community feedback these changes have been delayed at least a few weeks. I dare say the dev's are pretty busy with xpac stuff though, so I can cut them some slack. I'll also save final judgement on weather the delay was worth it when the actual patch releases.
 
I am playing Path of Exile right now, but I've heard good things about Grim Dawn. As someone who has played a ton of Diablo II, what do I have to look forward to?

Also, is there a spell like Diablo II's Hydra? :)
 

Cracklox

Member
I am playing Path of Exile right now, but I've heard good things about Grim Dawn. As someone who has played a ton of Diablo II, what do I have to look forward to?

Also, is there a spell like Diablo II's Hydra? :)

I.... don't think I've admitted this to anyone on Gaf, but I..... haven't played Diablo 2. I played 1 a bit as a teen and a bunch of 3 more recently, but was pretty strictly a console gamer for the early/mid 2ks when D2 was at its peak. Probably one of my main regrets in gaming missing that.

Anyway, the games a spiritual successor to Titan Quest so if you've played that you should have a good idea what you're in for. I've also heard alot of people also say 'it's the sequel D2 deserves' and a large part of the community seem to have come across from it.

As for what to look forward to, it has insane depth with how you can build a character, with the ability to combine 2 classes, the devotion system, and some great supporting itemization. Want to wield a rifle and shoot lightening at everything, while lightening storms go off everywhere. Check . Want to dual wield pistols and build around that. Check. Want to make an assassin type character that zips around the map murdering everything with poison. Check. Sword and board. Check. Caster that shoots out all kind of magic out its arse. Check. You get the idea. While, maybe not quite as deep as PoE can get, it also doesn't require the same amount of absurd rng to get useful things, so its a little better on the self found front.

They've also done away with random level generators, and instead opted to build a well thought out hand-crafted world, that actually has a bunch of cool hidden stuff to find. Makes actually exploring the maps far more rewarding.

Tied to that, the lore in this game is actually really good. I ignored most of it at first, but upon further inspection its really well done. Its sort of the whole 'battle between heaven (aetherials) and hell (cthonics)' with the world you inhabit as the battle ground. But there's some really cool twists on that formula and totally worth paying attention too. Its very dark and brooding of course, but it has its moments of levity.

Also, as these game tend to go, 'the game doesnt really start until you hit Ultimate' (3rd difficulty). I'd argue it probaly really starts in the second difficulty as thats when you should see legendaries start dropping (level 50 and up monsters can drop them) and they of course change the way you play in some pretty significant ways.

Plus the the devs did this once.. Probably the coolest thing I've seen a game studio do. It wasn't the fact that they did it per se, but if you look at the timing of the posts, it was acted on in around half an hour. So cool

As for a Hydra power, checking the wiki, the closest things would probably be lightening totems, which while kinda cool, probably aren't as rad as a fucking Hydra.

-edit- forgot to mention there an expansion due Q1/Q2 this year that adds 2 new classes, a new act of the story and a whole bunch more, so there's plenty to look forward to as as well.
 
I am playing Path of Exile right now, but I've heard good things about Grim Dawn. As someone who has played a ton of Diablo II, what do I have to look forward to?

Also, is there a spell like Diablo II's Hydra? :)

What do you have to look forward to? Everything; it's the Next Big ARPG.

There spells aren't as cool as D2, though. No Hydras, no Frozen Orbs, and no shapeshifting.
 
I.... don't think I've admitted this to anyone on Gaf, but I..... haven't played Diablo 2. I played 1 a bit as a teen and a bunch of 3 more recently, but was pretty strictly a console gamer for the early/mid 2ks when D2 was at its peak. Probably one of my main regrets in gaming missing that.

Anyway, the games a spiritual successor to Titan Quest so if you've played that you should have a good idea what you're in for. I've also heard alot of people also say 'it's the sequel D2 deserves' and a large part of the community seem to have come across from it.

As for what to look forward to, it has insane depth with how you can build a character, with the ability to combine 2 classes, the devotion system, and some great supporting itemization. Want to wield a rifle and shoot lightening at everything, while lightening storms go off everywhere. Check . Want to dual wield pistols and build around that. Check. Want to make an assassin type character that zips around the map murdering everything with poison. Check. Sword and board. Check. Caster that shoots out all kind of magic out its arse. Check. You get the idea. While, maybe not quite as deep as PoE can get, it also doesn't require the same amount of absurd rng to get useful things, so its a little better on the self found front.

They've also done away with random level generators, and instead opted to build a well thought out hand-crafted world, that actually has a bunch of cool hidden stuff to find. Makes actually exploring the maps far more rewarding.

Tied to that, the lore in this game is actually really good. I ignored most of it at first, but upon further inspection its really well done. Its sort of the whole 'battle between heaven (aetherials) and hell (cthonics)' with the world you inhabit as the battle ground. But there's some really cool twists on that formula and totally worth paying attention too. Its very dark and brooding of course, but it has its moments of levity.

Also, as these game tend to go, 'the game doesnt really start until you hit Ultimate' (3rd difficulty). I'd argue it probaly really starts in the second difficulty as thats when you should see legendaries start dropping (level 50 and up monsters can drop them) and they of course change the way you play in some pretty significant ways.

Plus the the devs did this once.. Probably the coolest thing I've seen a game studio do. It wasn't the fact that they did it per se, but if you look at the timing of the posts, it was acted on in around half an hour. So cool

As for a Hydra power, checking the wiki, the closest things would probably be lightening totems, which while kinda cool, probably aren't as rad as a fucking Hydra.

-edit- forgot to mention there an expansion due Q1/Q2 this year that adds 2 new classes, a new act of the story and a whole bunch more, so there's plenty to look forward to as as well.

What do you have to look forward to? Everything; it's the Next Big ARPG.

There spells aren't as cool as D2, though. No Hydras, no Frozen Orbs, and no shapeshifting.
Damn, no Hydra OR Frozen Orb? What's with these Diablo clones missing some of the coolest ideas Diablo II had?
 

thenexus6

Member
I am thinking about getting this game when its next on sale. The only game i've played like this is Diablo 3 (PS4) and I guess Baldur's Gate (PS2 - does that count?)

Just looking for opinions for a newbie like me.. Would like to ideally play coop with people.
 

Cracklox

Member
I am thinking about getting this game when its next on sale. The only game i've played like this is Diablo 3 (PS4) and I guess Baldur's Gate (PS2 - does that count?)

Just looking for opinions for a newbie like me.. Would like to ideally play coop with people.

Hmmm. This is one of my favorite little games of the last few years so I'll try not to be too biased. The short answer though is, just get it, it's great.

Taking what you say into account though, the games not as newb friendly as something like D3 in the arpg genre.That game sort of shoehorns you into playing with one of their pre-designed sets, where Grim Dawn allows for a lot more freedom. There are sets, and some are very strong, but they're not the be all and end all. It can also take forkin forever to find all of the pieces to them.

That said though the initial difficulty on your first playthrough is pretty easy, and most anyone can do it with most any build. It's not until the second and 3rd where you need to start paying attention to things like defensive resists etc. Like most of these sort of games have a 'dps check' at some point, Grim Dawn has a lot of points you could consider 'defensive checks' because you will get totally murked if you've ignored them. The second and 3rd difficulty introduce an xp loss on death (some of this can be recovered if you get back to your grave, Dark Souls style) which makes gaining xp pretty damn hard if you get one shot every time a monster looks at you. That basically happened to me in the second difficulty on my first playthrough, before having to suck it up and go back to the drawing board, and learn how the defensive mechanics work.

So I guess what I'm getting at is, a lack of experience in the genre wouldn't affect you too much playing through on normal. Its a fun game with a good story and excellent lore that should take around 15-20 hours to get through, which should warrant a purchase by itself. If you want to go deeper though, and take some time to learn the ins and outs and build characters that are able to steamroll Ultimate difficulty then there so much more on offer too.

As for multiplayer, it does exist, but the games not really designed around it like D3. No matchmaking or servers.You can set up and host a non private multi player game and hope someone joins, but without any sort of matchmaking the odds would be pretty low. Its mostly there so friends can play together I believe.

Shit, that's two long arse rants about Grim Dawn this week. I need the patch godammit! I'm going crazy over here
 
Titan Quest is US$4 on steam this weekend. If anyone is on the fence about getting Grim Dawn then maybe pick that up (which you should anyway because it's great) and see how you like that. GD basically takes many of the same elements and mechanics and just places them in a new environment with some updates and changes.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I am finally about to finish the game for the first time. I found a build in enjoying and it's been a blast. It has me wondering about new builds...

Anyone play a pet build, 2h ranged weapon, or a life steal reflect damage build? My big hurdle is figuring out where 2h ranged beats dual wield, and also if life steal damage reflect is even possible.
 

Cracklox

Member
I am finally about to finish the game for the first time. I found a build in enjoying and it's been a blast. It has me wondering about new builds...

Anyone play a pet build, 2h ranged weapon, or a life steal reflect damage build? My big hurdle is figuring out where 2h ranged beats dual wield, and also if life steal damage reflect is even possible.

As above pet builds are pretty gear dependent. In my 1200 or so hours I'm still yet to complete the main supporting set, so my conjurer is on hold until I do.

I've got a couple of 2 hander builds that are pretty good fun, and although not fully optimized, can handle ultimate difficulty no problems. Though both use sets as well, but are a little easier to aquire. The first is chaos based Pyromancer and uses the Harbringer set, which is real strong for a 3-piece. The second is a commando using Valduns, while prob not as strong is pretty good fun. I like the idea of running around in this world full of crazy magic, and just wrecking everything with physical/pierce damage, without resorting to many fancy tricks. It's a nice change of pace from some of my other guys.

Also if you can get your hands on a Vortex of Souls its probably the best 2 hand ranged option in the game right now, and doesn't need too much other gear to wreck shit. The innate piercing on every shot is a powerful mechanic, especially if you combine it with a skill, like say, brimstone from the demo tree. It can get pretty outta control.

These are good too. A level requirement of 50, and +2 to all skills is a nice holdover to you hit the level requirements for some of the other stuff.

I tried a retaliation warder but have since re-specced him. I just found the going a little too painfully slow so can't help much there sorry. I do know that life steal doesn't apply to retaliation damage (just weapon damage) though so I'm not sure the idea would work.
 
How many pets do you have in a good pet build? Ever since City of Heroes shut down, I've been trying to find something to fill the Mastermind shaped hole in my heart... A slew of different and interesting minions would be great, I didn't realize that was a thing in GD.
 

Cracklox

Member
How many pets do you have in a good pet build? Ever since City of Heroes shut down, I've been trying to find something to fill the Mastermind shaped hole in my heart... A slew of different and interesting minions would be great, I didn't realize that was a thing in GD.

Per above my pet builds pretty much on hold at the start of ultimate but I believe it favors less, stronger pets over armies of weaker units. Aside from the 4 you can summon from class skills there's some items and devotions that can allow for perma or temp summons as well. Off the top of my head

Scourge (black scourge weapon) - temp, small uptime but proc often
The Harbinger (Salazar's blade) - strong summon with about 30% uptime
Chillmane yeti (from leg amulet) - perma who I've played around with and is pretty stonk
Stormhound (savage relic) - mid tier relic perma. Good mid game, but doesnt scale too well into Ult
Revenant (og'napesh book) - perma havent really tried
Ghosts (Necromancer deathgrips) - temp, similar to Scourge
Skeletons (revenant devotion) havent really tried, but buffed recently
Eldritch Hound (Bysmiel's Bond devotion) - havent tried, low uptime and apparently not real strong

There's likely others as well. The main porblem in making a good pet build work that I've run into, is like your character, your pets have resistances to worry about as well, and die really quick in Ult without them. This is where alot of the good summoning gear really helps. You can also get pet resists out of devotions, but it creates an extra layer of management that is tough to deal with with out really good gear.

Just bought this on sale.

What do I need to know before starting my first character?

I'm just gunna be a little lazy here and copy and paste this response from elsewhere on the interwebs. Its pretty spot on.

- Half-expect your first toon to be imperfect and entirely replaceable. You will make irreversible mistakes. It's like DII, it doesn't hold your hand.
- Don't be afraid to invest all your points into one single skill early on (you can respec in town).
- Rotate the camera often.
- Certain locations are designed to be revisited at a much higher level. If something is inaccessible to you, move on and come back later.
- The game rewards those who wander the world instead of rushing through it.
- Read all the dialogue and notes, there is a lot of lore, backstory, and even secrets to be discovered.
- Your decisions matter: chose your dialogue options wisely.
- You don't have to pick up a 2nd class at level 10 if you don't want to.
- Normal/Veteran difficulty are the same when it comes to progress, one offers a slightly greater challenge and increased quality of drops. Beat either mode to unlock the next difficulty.
- Collect all the Orange reagents... every single one of them. You will need them.
- Don't bother to grind for reputation. Just play the game and you will earn more rep as you progress through each difficulty mode. You can do a little grinding at the end to hit cap.
- Your toons are the same characters that are played online or offline. Don't hesitate to keep playing even when your friends are offline.
- Invest the time into a dedicated main so that you can afford to expand your shared vault. This will make collecting and storing items for future alts much easier.
- Personal choice: put potions on your right click, twitch-saves will save lives.
- Some classes are designed to be squishier than others so don't let that dissuade you. Forge ahead, it will get better.
- Just when you think you have it all figured out 400 hours in, you will still be finding new secrets.
 
Welp I bought this game on GOG and downloaded and installed it (without the client).

When I try to launch it, all I get is a large black square in the middle of the screen and the game won't start.

Help.

Windows 10.

EDIT: Fixed it I think!
 

Nymerio

Member
I started playing this again yesterday and went with a new character, I'm impressed at how great this plays with the steam controller. I didn't actually play anything that required pin point mouse accuracy but I was still impressed. The whole thing with actions on the controller worked great and for everything that didn't have an action defined by the game I could still just assign a key on the keyboard to the controller. Played it again on my desk today with kb/m and didn't miss a beat. Went with a Spellbreaker btw.
 

Nymerio

Member
I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with my spellbreaker... I'm in act 2 at level 30 and I'm pretty happy with my skill build, but I have a lot hoarded stat points and no idea where to put them... You still can't respec attributes, right? I'm kind of reluctant to just assign them without a way to respec. Is there at least a mod tool available to reset them?
 
Huh, I thought Grim Dawn had kind of boring armour, but the Transmog stuff is looking great

Good addition. Gotta slaughter in styyyyle.
 

Cracklox

Member
I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with my spellbreaker... I'm in act 2 at level 30 and I'm pretty happy with my skill build, but I have a lot hoarded stat points and no idea where to put them... You still can't respec attributes, right? I'm kind of reluctant to just assign them without a way to respec. Is there at least a mod tool available to reset them?

Act 2 at level 30! You been farmin good...

Correct, you still can't respec attribute points. You can with skill points and devotions. That said, its almost always best to go physique for survivability. You get DA and HP, both of which get more and more important the further you go. DA especially can be tricky to get ahold of. Cunning will give a small bump to OA (for crits) and physical DOT duration. As a spellbreaker you should have access to alot of OA through Inner focus, anatomy of murder, and then gear and devotions. Spirit? Well spirit isn't really great unless your running a build like aether ray that gets really heavy on energy consumption. It only gives a fractional bump to elemental damage types, that even with a lot of investment isn't worth it. It does help energy consumption though, but you need a reasonable investment for it to make a difference. Spellbreakers by there very nature are a little squishy anyway, so any extra defence you can get from physique will help.

As for mods, I don't use them personally but I hear DAIL is pretty good.That, and others can be found here
 

Nymerio

Member
Damn right, I've been farming! I've been playing in short spurts and I always kill everything I can find whenever I revisit an area.

I just put everything I had into physique to survive a bit better.

Another question though: If I have one Cold Stone in each of my weapons, do the buffs stack if I activate both?
 
Top Bottom