Grim Dawn - An ARPG from Crate (ex Iron Lore aka Titan Quest devs)

Games
1666

Diablo 1 had a little of this. I played as a Rogue, and not getting hit by enemies was one of the keys to survival. So positioning was key. And I remember there was one enemy who would charge you like a rhinosaurus, and you had to get out of the way and he would go past you. In Diablo 1, if you died, you had to reload a saved game, since it was game over.

Diablo 2 had some positional elements with the Amazon, but eventually you’d find yourself in tight dungeons where you found yourself surrounded, and then dead. And since I only played that game hardcore, it meant a permanently dead character. Luckily I finally found the solution to that. The Amazon had a skill called Valkyrie, which was essential in single player. So even though I love playing ranged character for that positional gameplay, you have to have a plan on what to do when the designers put you in that position where you’re overwhelmed.

In Diablo 3, I didn’t really get into it until I tried it on the consoles. When you play with the controller (which you can’t do on the PC), you can use the right stick to dodge, and the act of pushing the character into position and using skills using the buttons and triggers is immensely more satisfying than clicking a mousebutton or a keyboard shortcut.

In Grim Dawn, the adrenaline-pounding action is mostly achieved though sound effects and animations. It reminds me a lot of the new DOOM. Even though in the new DOOM, you’re just just moving your mouse and clicking the mouse buttons, the sound effects and the action you see on the screen, the way enemies get thrown back from the effect of your shotgun, the way the headshots make the enemy’s head explode, or the way you grab a weak enemy, throw them to the ground and stomp on their head to squish it make you forget that you’re just clicking a mouse button. Similarly in Grim Dawn, they’ve got these fantastic booming sound effects and animations. When you do a forcewave, and all your compounding +physical damage bonuses add up to mean that your forcewave actually kills things in its wake, it is so satisfying to see a distortion wave leave your character and annihilate the enemies caught in the blast as they get thrown back, the skin coming off their body as they melt away. Also, in order to survive, I did have to do some positional gameplay. There’s some pretty strong enemies that will last a long time, so if you just stand there and do your moves, you will die. Luckily I have some good damage over time effects with Internal Trauma damage. So I can do all my moves, and then before the boss does their big move, back off and run away and let the damage over time do its things. Running away and trying to stay away from the boss isn’t as satisfying with the physical action of little mouse-clicks as you try to click on a safer spot. I do wish Grim Dawn had controller support, it would be an even better game for it. But they’ve done enough with the physics and animations and best of all the sound effects that I feel the bloody satisfaction of the kill just like I do in DOOM. So for me, that satisfaction is what drives me forward, and really makes me want to make my character an even better killing machine. Because the less you have to click, and the faster the enemies die, the more satisfying and brutal the kill.

1667

It does have controller support and it works pretty good. I like the direct control for movement and so far in the early game haven’t had any trouble accessing my skills… I’ve been streaming to the Steam link and playing from the couch and it works really well.

1668

Oh nice! I tried their “gamepad support” and didn’t find any way to do things like moving and other things. And then it mentioned something about a steam controller, so I thought the game was only tuned for steam controller controls instead of my 360 controller. And I think one of the controls moved the mouse controller around or something like that. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll give it another try.

1669

I tried gamepad support this morning, it’s really weird to setup. If you try to assign abilities to the controller, you can’t do it using the mouse because that changes mouse abilities. So you have to assign abilities to the controller using the right thumbstick. It’s… really bizarre, but I did finally figure out how to do it. If anyone else is having trouble, let me know, I can post more details.

Also, I started farming for the first time in this game. I got my reputation with the Black Legion high enough to get the recipe for the second last item I need to make my Juggernaut Relic. Which just leaves me with one missing ingredient: A Mistborn Talisman. After going to every faction and not finding the recipe for sale anywhere, I finally looked it up on a Wiki. It turns out boss Troll monsters drop the blueprint for how to make a Mistborn Talisman. So I went to Smugglers Pass and killed the Troll boss at the end. I did this three times so far, and he hasn’t dropped a damned thing. I hope this doesn’t take forever! I really want that Juggernaut Relic. My mouth is just watering looking at the description. Surely that will make me into more of an unstoppable killing machine. Once I get that, I can concentrate my character more on survivability with the rest of my skill points after this.

1670

I think the controller is too much work. It’s not a game designed for it like Diablo 3, so it requires you to still fiddle with tetris inventory and handle parts of the interface by either using the right thumbstick like a mouse or to just switch to the mouse. I still haven’t figured out how to click on a portal and go through it using the controller. So going back and forth between the mouse and controller, I finally just gave up on the controller.

I finally convinced Homestead to send food to Devil’s Crossing. I feel like I achieved the primary objective of the game. All these other factions can deal with the rest of the happenings in this world. Am I right? You’d think the people of Devil’s Crossing would be more appreciative though. I’m still not an honored guest there like I am with two other factions. Maybe that makes sense though. In the opening cutscene, they did watch me as a zombie. It must be hard to trust someone after that.

1671

It’s up (or down) on d-pad, one of those. One picks up, one opens/activates.

1672

Ah ok, so it’s the same d-pad direction that picks up loot from the ground! That kind of makes sense. What a pain in the ass that is, by the way, picking up loot with the d-pad on the controller, trying to ignore the while loot by lining up just right. I know the Z key is supposed to filter out the white loot like in Titan Quest, but it doesn’t work for me Grim Dawn, never has, even though it’s still the Z key in the control configuration.

1673

Nono, it’s the opposite direction to loot pickup. One direction does loot, the other opens chests and activates things like portals. At least, that’s what I recall. :)

1674

I did a few more hours of trying to get that Mistborn Talisman recipe. No luck yet. I’ll try for another 12 hours or so, and then I’m DONE. No Juggernaut relic for me in that case.

1675

Does the troll boss in Smuggler’s pass retcon grey? If so, try with a different character or find a higher level one. Usually only takes a few tries. Of course, rng. I probably have a spare recipe.

1676

Aren’t you more likely to get it on higher difficulties as well?

1677

I got home just now, and fired up the game, and got it on my first run! Yee haw!

Of course, it looks like I don’t have all the ingredients to make the Mistborn Talisman though. I need a Troll Skullcrusher. Where the heck am I supposed to find that recipe?

For now I’ll try to go to all the faction vendors in the game first. And then if I can’t find it anywhere with them, then I’ll try looking it up on the internet.

1678

I believe that is a club dropped by a named troll in Smugglers Pass. Was pretty easy to get IIRC.

1679

The skullcrusher can be purchased from a vendor by the blood grove rift (have to go sw over bridge then circle around to right and wind up going North). The location is off the map.

Reload a few times until you find one that is relatively cheap.

1680

An update: I did get the Mistborn Talisman made and Juggernaut relic made. But then I figured it was time for a break from that character for a bit. He was a satisfying killing machine, but I was ready for a different speed yesterday.

So I went back to my pure Shaman who had been getting a little bit of everything, and got rid of his other abilities and poured them all into his Pet, the Briarthon, or something like that. Even with 16 points into him though, he’s not exactly a killing machine. I also went into Occultist as my second class, which eventually has some incredible bonuses to pets at the end of that tree. But my plan is to have both the Briarpatch dog and the hellhound following me around. And maybe the Spirit Animal at the end of the Shaman tree as well, and go for the abilities that help my pets.

I reached level 18 last night, and so far, I’m a little disappointed that I still do a lot of the killing. If I just leave my pet alone, he can kill little stuff, but he’s too slow in killing bosses. Hopefully once I can give him a Hellhound brother-in-arms the two of them can tear things up. I also separated all the unique items in my shared inventory with pet bonuses, and put it in this conjurer’s inventory. Once I’m high enough level to be able to wield that equipment, it should help my pets a lot. Also, the next shrine I find, I should also be able to get a devotion ability called Shepard’s Call (or something similar) that gives a nice big bonus to all my pets, so that will be nice to have too.

Even though I have to get involved in fights for bosses, this is a nice change of pace. Just kind of sit back most of the time and cast curses and let my pets do most of the work. I thought this class would be like the Druid in Diablo 2, but it reminds me more of the Necromancer, even though there’s no resurrection involved. I like it.

There’s just something about this game that makes it so much more compelling than other ARPGs I’ve played in the recent past. It’s almost Diablo 2-level addictive. I imagine if I was playing multiplayer with friends it would be Diablo 2 level addictive.

1682

They are pretty rare. I didn’t find my next one until Act 4 I believe. But, not all relics require Tainted Brain Matter either. Some of them require other main ingredients that you haven’t come across yet. Only the starting few relics that you can see require the Tainted Brain Matter, and you won’t see the brain matter again for a long time.

1683

I had to farm the Warden for Tainted Brain Matter. And he only seems to drop it 1 in 10 times or so.

1685

Those drops will be a bit more common later. You can also obtain some from faction quests. And, in Act 4, you will eventually be able to convert between TBM/Blood of C’thon/Ancient Hearts

1686

I leveled up my Pet class (Conjurer) a little by getting that one through Act 1.

Then I got my Nightblade through Act 1. That character has to chug potions faster than he uses skills, it’s kind of crazy. He is a killing machine like no other though. I was going to make his second class an Occultist, but since I have such trouble staying alive, maybe I should make the second class a Soldier for survivability instead. Or maybe I should keep going as a Nightblade. After all, potions are cheap, and I’m not actually dying, just getting perilously close all the time.

And then I went back to my Arcanist who got a little bit into Demolition. With that one I’ve maxed out Freezing Nova, maxed out Devestation, and maxed out the aura that enhances Devestation. Now I’m just putting points into the enhancing of fire damage in Demolition. I figure that’s better than putting points into Demolition, since I can always get these points back and do that later. I think I was aiming for Blast Shield, so I have to wait until I have enough points that I can reclaim from other skills once I have enough of them to put into Demolition so that I can get to Blast Shield. I still don’t really understand how getting Blast Shield is going to be so awesome, but I’m trusting you on this @Gendal.

I’m up to the point now where I’m asked to pick a side between the two factions. I was going to pick the opposite side than I picked with my Warder, but I looked up the two sides, and the Wiki says this:

[quote]The main reason for choosing one faction over the other is for the faction-specific equipment each offers. Kymon’s Chosen offers support for Physical, Fire, and Lightning damage builds, while Death’s Vigil equipment gives bonuses to Cold, Vitality and Pet damage.
[/quote]

That’s a little conflicting, considering this character build does both cold and fire damage. Though I guess the cold damage is just to prime them for the fire damage. So I guess I should pick Kymon’s Chosen again. My Conjurer and Nightblade can both pick the other faction.

1687

I haven’t been posting about this game recently, because I’ve been too busy playing it. I’m still obsessed. Currently all my characters except my Witchblade have finished Act 1. My two main characters, the Warder (Druid + Soldier) and the Sorceress (Arcanist + Demolitionist) are both level 52 and are both at the Necropolis.

My Stash is at maximum size and completely filled with ingredients and Blue Items. My characters’ chest inventories are also full for the most part. (The younger characters still have some room).

My Sorceress even has a full regular inventory filled with blue items on top of all that, so only her four “goody bags” are empty on every run.

This game desperately needs more room in the stash! I’ve gotten too used to my almost infinite room in Path of Exile. Especially after buying two Premium Stash bundles.