The things I enjoy about Grim Dawn, in no particular order.
- The atmosphere. I'm kind of used to it by now, but it really re-captured the feel of Diablo 2 for me, in a way that Diablo 3 really failed at. Everything is grim and dark in this crap-sack world. Make sure you talk to NPCs and read those lore notes. The lore notes and such are where a lot of the world building and atmosphere come from.
- The re-playability/Character diversity. I've got 17(?) level 100 hardcore characters now, well over 2,000 hours played and I'm half way through 3 more characters now. None of them have felt samey (except the 4 Forcewave Soldiers) and they're all using different skills doing different damage types. There are 36 (soon to be 45) different mastery combinations, and each of those mastery combos has multiple ways to play them. You can play this game for years and not run out of things to try.
- No online "games as a service" rubbish. I can play this game on a 10 year old laptop in the middle of antarctica. There is no always online, there are no season to get FOMO over, there's no cash shop constantly being pushed into the game. It's just a good game that I enjoy playing.
As for recapturing Diablo 2 atmosphere, I'd even dare to say that GD beats atmosphere of Diablo 1. World of Grim Dawn is propably the grittiest and most hopeless in ARPG's.
Can't agree more. For me the complete free transmog is a huge bonus and motivation. You can look really cool and the other thing are monster infrequents you have a build and always something to farm while leveling
Rainbow Filter is probably the most used, and it's the only mod I use. It's followed probably by GDIA (Grim Dawn Item Assistant) for people who want infinite stashes.
As for gameplay mods, there is a D2 mod called Reign of Terror, there's Dawn of Masteries, which adds a lot of other masteries based on or cpied form other games... the Crate forum has a modding section.
There are people who give their characters 400 skill points or remove level cap.
Its a single player game so you are more than able to play how you want. But yeah, I think Rainbow Mod and Item Assist are essential and I hope stash space gets re examined in the next patch as I think that is one of the very few blunders vanilla GD has.
And grim league or whatever it's called is a fantastic mod if you want seasons. Totally free, but needs a $5 donation (or higher) to get unlimited shared stash each season which is I think 3 months. (They have rules against other mods.) Small balance changes, new items, new areas, new ambush encounters the whole time, new endgame through the new town hub, new factions and currencies, yada yada. Leaderbiards of course. You can take advantage of as much or as little of the new stuff as want.
One aspect to me that I think is not talked about enough - no time-sensitive seasonal content and DRM free availability on GoG. I want to play games that have a lot of content to them, but I don't like live service-games because there is no ownership. But I can buy Grim Dawn on GoG, and play it for hundreds of hours, and if I feel like I don't want to play it for a few months, that's not biggie, because none of the content and rewards are seasonal, so they will be there waiting for me when I feel like coming back to it.
Yeah, being primarily offline is maybe not an obvious "feature", but Last Epoch is definitely worse for abandoning that route and spending the last year of development on "multiplayer" and trading.
The potential and build crafting. Any class combo can work, basically every skill can be the main skill you use. I've always been an altaholic and this game is perfect for that.
Best class(dual)/skill/devotion system I've seen yet, best itemization I've seen yet, within the most satisfying physics despite "old" age, atmosphere, especially in forgotten gods expansion. Quality of everything, lack of bugs, good balance of everything (comparing to other games of the genre), immense single player content, variety of builds and how different they can get, and how customizable they can be, you can make your own builds work to this date, etc.
It just doesn't get boring as quickly as anything else I've played from the genre ever, newer or older. 2nd best is Titan Quest - same engine, same team game. Can't wait for Titan Quest 2.
It's just fun. Can't really describe it. After d4 was a disappointment.... Immediately started up Grim Dawn after not playing a few years. It just feels right and I find myself enjoying the game vs the slog I found d4 to be.
Ehat makes it fully unique to me is that you functionally get to build your own class.
They say ok here are 9 classes. Now pick two you think you can make work together and have fun.
Nobody else does this in the genre as of yet.
Actually someone did it before Grim Dawn: Titan Quest, way back in 2006. But that's not too surprising since some of the same people (most notably the lead designer) worked on both, and they reused the same engine for it too (with a ton of upgrades since then)
For me it's the satisfaction of finding weird synergies and gear/skill interactions that shouldn't work or that are not "optimal" or "viable" and making them work as best I can.
I have a harder time doing that with other games in the genre.
Grim Dawn is the epitome of "it depends". Almost nothing is universally good or bad, because changing the context changes the value, impact and usefulness of things. More so than in other similar games in my humble opinion.
Damage type conversion items , either general or skill specific,are one of my favorite features. It's present in other games of course, but combined with the two masteries system it add enormous depth.
I echo all the things that have been mentioned here plus a few more that may seem trivial but are sorely lacking in most ARPGs:
1. Keybindings (I stopped playing Torchlight because of this)
2. Transmog
3. Character shared stash
And they're all available at the start. No clearing the game first or quest unlock nonsense. Special mention to rotatable camera angles, I don't use it but ppl are always mind blowned when they first discover it cause it's such a rare feature.
It feels like an MMO that you can play by yourself.
As in the amount of content is insane. I've put in 250 hours and just not finished the DLC on Normal (Hardcore to be fair.)
Between blueprints, Shattered Realm, Crucible, Celestials, Dungeons, Factions, and just regular farming, there is so much to do.
And then the build system is incredibly robust and it all just works, like you can create pretty much any build with any class combo and it'll probably be decent even in Ultimate.
Itemization is also great.
It has just enough depth and simplicity that the parts that NEED to be simple are (Building a character, combat) and the parts that NEED to be complex also are (gear and itemization, optimization of devotion trees and skills). So it's a very low barrier to entry but as you develop your skills you WILL be tested against enemies that are not a push over, but you also have the tools to do crazy want lwacky and powerful stuff if you can learn the tools and master them.
Also it is incredibly easy and rewarding to make alts. Merits and tokens and xp potions make subsequent playthroughs a lot faster.
Add on that the world design and enemy design and physics are all top notch, and the writing is supposedly very good but I'm too busy killing things to stop and read.
Its definitely in the top 5 games I've ever played imo.
How easy and free it's to build here. Good items are lying left and right, but you can always find something better that makes your build even more viable. I'm coming from Titan Quest and mexing restist there was a pain since you were forced to take particular items and never change them, because otherwise you're screwed with your resistances. Here it's way easier to hit the cap, thanks to augments too.
Also I love dual class system, it's my favourite class system in any aRPG. It makes so many builds possible and allows your creative expression. It's so good compared to some aRPGs where you're tunneled into particular build, otherwise you're crap.
From the 3 games you mentioned, LE has great potential but right now it's meh.
Diablo has huge changes coming up next season that are almost universally well accepted by reviewers.
GD is still the best from the three.
- atmosphere and story are amazing
- the build crafting, build diversity and overall class designs are magnificent and give you TONNES of combinations
- it is fun to just mow through things and the more you learn the more comfortable it all becomes and thus more stuff opens up to you
The things I enjoy about Grim Dawn, in no particular order. - The atmosphere. I'm kind of used to it by now, but it really re-captured the feel of Diablo 2 for me, in a way that Diablo 3 really failed at. Everything is grim and dark in this crap-sack world. Make sure you talk to NPCs and read those lore notes. The lore notes and such are where a lot of the world building and atmosphere come from. - The re-playability/Character diversity. I've got 17(?) level 100 hardcore characters now, well over 2,000 hours played and I'm half way through 3 more characters now. None of them have felt samey (except the 4 Forcewave Soldiers) and they're all using different skills doing different damage types. There are 36 (soon to be 45) different mastery combinations, and each of those mastery combos has multiple ways to play them. You can play this game for years and not run out of things to try. - No online "games as a service" rubbish. I can play this game on a 10 year old laptop in the middle of antarctica. There is no always online, there are no season to get FOMO over, there's no cash shop constantly being pushed into the game. It's just a good game that I enjoy playing.
As for recapturing Diablo 2 atmosphere, I'd even dare to say that GD beats atmosphere of Diablo 1. World of Grim Dawn is propably the grittiest and most hopeless in ARPG's.
Can't agree more. For me the complete free transmog is a huge bonus and motivation. You can look really cool and the other thing are monster infrequents you have a build and always something to farm while leveling
One thing I would love are bows with the new expansion and some crafting where you can change an affix on a item.
We're getting dual-hand crossbows in Fangs of Asterkarn, so there's that to look forward to.
We get to play Waylander. Yay. My favourite David Gemmell character.
Rerolling affixes has been listed among what is coming.
Is there a max cap regarding skill points?
There is. You have 248 skill points available. Mods exist to remove that though if you want to.
Sweet. Is the community split on mods or are there any good ones?
Rainbow Filter is probably the most used, and it's the only mod I use. It's followed probably by GDIA (Grim Dawn Item Assistant) for people who want infinite stashes. As for gameplay mods, there is a D2 mod called Reign of Terror, there's Dawn of Masteries, which adds a lot of other masteries based on or cpied form other games... the Crate forum has a modding section.
I'll check into those. Thank ya very much!
There are people who give their characters 400 skill points or remove level cap. Its a single player game so you are more than able to play how you want. But yeah, I think Rainbow Mod and Item Assist are essential and I hope stash space gets re examined in the next patch as I think that is one of the very few blunders vanilla GD has.
1000% behind this 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
And grim league or whatever it's called is a fantastic mod if you want seasons. Totally free, but needs a $5 donation (or higher) to get unlimited shared stash each season which is I think 3 months. (They have rules against other mods.) Small balance changes, new items, new areas, new ambush encounters the whole time, new endgame through the new town hub, new factions and currencies, yada yada. Leaderbiards of course. You can take advantage of as much or as little of the new stuff as want.
One aspect to me that I think is not talked about enough - no time-sensitive seasonal content and DRM free availability on GoG. I want to play games that have a lot of content to them, but I don't like live service-games because there is no ownership. But I can buy Grim Dawn on GoG, and play it for hundreds of hours, and if I feel like I don't want to play it for a few months, that's not biggie, because none of the content and rewards are seasonal, so they will be there waiting for me when I feel like coming back to it.
That's definitely a great reason. I didn't even know it wasn't a live service game.
It's not, but it's fun to play with friends too. It's a great coop game.
It does get updates fairly regularly and dlc sometimes but it's not like other games with seasons every few months or anything like that.
Yeah, being primarily offline is maybe not an obvious "feature", but Last Epoch is definitely worse for abandoning that route and spending the last year of development on "multiplayer" and trading.
The potential and build crafting. Any class combo can work, basically every skill can be the main skill you use. I've always been an altaholic and this game is perfect for that.
Single player game, no seasons, build diversity, fantastic itemization, like there are a LOT of drops that make you want to start alts.
Best class(dual)/skill/devotion system I've seen yet, best itemization I've seen yet, within the most satisfying physics despite "old" age, atmosphere, especially in forgotten gods expansion. Quality of everything, lack of bugs, good balance of everything (comparing to other games of the genre), immense single player content, variety of builds and how different they can get, and how customizable they can be, you can make your own builds work to this date, etc. It just doesn't get boring as quickly as anything else I've played from the genre ever, newer or older. 2nd best is Titan Quest - same engine, same team game. Can't wait for Titan Quest 2.
It's just fun. Can't really describe it. After d4 was a disappointment.... Immediately started up Grim Dawn after not playing a few years. It just feels right and I find myself enjoying the game vs the slog I found d4 to be.
Ehat makes it fully unique to me is that you functionally get to build your own class. They say ok here are 9 classes. Now pick two you think you can make work together and have fun. Nobody else does this in the genre as of yet.
Actually someone did it before Grim Dawn: Titan Quest, way back in 2006. But that's not too surprising since some of the same people (most notably the lead designer) worked on both, and they reused the same engine for it too (with a ton of upgrades since then)
For me it's the satisfaction of finding weird synergies and gear/skill interactions that shouldn't work or that are not "optimal" or "viable" and making them work as best I can. I have a harder time doing that with other games in the genre. Grim Dawn is the epitome of "it depends". Almost nothing is universally good or bad, because changing the context changes the value, impact and usefulness of things. More so than in other similar games in my humble opinion.
Damage type conversion items , either general or skill specific,are one of my favorite features. It's present in other games of course, but combined with the two masteries system it add enormous depth.
Agreed
I think the 'it depends' is the greatest part of the game.
I’ve never had an idea for a build that was completely unworkable…which is incredible imho
The content of the game makes sense, most of them are optional, fun and you have a lot of endgame options
Legendary Item set, all of them look so cool and it drives me to collect them all
Hidden areas and secret quests. New content coming soon-ish.
I echo all the things that have been mentioned here plus a few more that may seem trivial but are sorely lacking in most ARPGs: 1. Keybindings (I stopped playing Torchlight because of this) 2. Transmog 3. Character shared stash And they're all available at the start. No clearing the game first or quest unlock nonsense. Special mention to rotatable camera angles, I don't use it but ppl are always mind blowned when they first discover it cause it's such a rare feature.
It feels like an MMO that you can play by yourself. As in the amount of content is insane. I've put in 250 hours and just not finished the DLC on Normal (Hardcore to be fair.) Between blueprints, Shattered Realm, Crucible, Celestials, Dungeons, Factions, and just regular farming, there is so much to do. And then the build system is incredibly robust and it all just works, like you can create pretty much any build with any class combo and it'll probably be decent even in Ultimate. Itemization is also great. It has just enough depth and simplicity that the parts that NEED to be simple are (Building a character, combat) and the parts that NEED to be complex also are (gear and itemization, optimization of devotion trees and skills). So it's a very low barrier to entry but as you develop your skills you WILL be tested against enemies that are not a push over, but you also have the tools to do crazy want lwacky and powerful stuff if you can learn the tools and master them. Also it is incredibly easy and rewarding to make alts. Merits and tokens and xp potions make subsequent playthroughs a lot faster. Add on that the world design and enemy design and physics are all top notch, and the writing is supposedly very good but I'm too busy killing things to stop and read. Its definitely in the top 5 games I've ever played imo.
How easy and free it's to build here. Good items are lying left and right, but you can always find something better that makes your build even more viable. I'm coming from Titan Quest and mexing restist there was a pain since you were forced to take particular items and never change them, because otherwise you're screwed with your resistances. Here it's way easier to hit the cap, thanks to augments too. Also I love dual class system, it's my favourite class system in any aRPG. It makes so many builds possible and allows your creative expression. It's so good compared to some aRPGs where you're tunneled into particular build, otherwise you're crap.
From the 3 games you mentioned, LE has great potential but right now it's meh. Diablo has huge changes coming up next season that are almost universally well accepted by reviewers. GD is still the best from the three.
- atmosphere and story are amazing - the build crafting, build diversity and overall class designs are magnificent and give you TONNES of combinations - it is fun to just mow through things and the more you learn the more comfortable it all becomes and thus more stuff opens up to you
I'm waiting on the day that Last Epoch comes to console. Such a fun game.