1662

It’s likely not a cooling issue. When it fails, it’s usually around 62 C. It’s way warmer than that when I’m running stress tests and whatnot, and those don’t make it fail.

1663

I have grown to love their crafting system in this game. In order to craft the Juggernaut talisman, I need to first craft several other things. And those things need other ingredients to be crafted. And some of those need ingredients that need to be crafted. And in some cases, I just need to purchase the recipe for one of the ingredients first, but in order to buy the recipe, I need to first have a certain standing with that faction. And in order to have that standing with that faction, I need to kill certain enemies and do bounties for them. So yeah, I love that the crafting kind of ties it all together.

One thing I’m still leary of is their damned complexity. I think I counted 19 things you can be resistant to. On the front page of your stats they only show you 10 things you can be resistant to, but I kept coming across various items that raise resistances not listed in those 10. For that you have to go to the second page and third page of your stats, which then list a lot of other things, including those other resistances. So yeah, it’s tough to know what to prioritize in your equipment sometimes when there’s so damned many things to keep track of. So I just ignore most of it except for elemental and poison resistances, which serves me pretty well in normal difficulty. Until I got to Act 3/4 when Aether resistance suddenly became huge. The red blood resistance would be nice too, if I knew what that was called.

i don’t know, other ARPG keep it fairly simple compared to Titan’s Quest and Grim Dawn when it comes to types of enemies and types of damage, and I think are better for it. But I’m just enjoying Grim Dawn so much, it’s hard to get too mad at them for their overly complex systems.

1664

There are flat-out too many damage and resistance types. It makes the whole system (and gearing properly) more cumbersome than it needs to be. Having said that, they don’t become a big deal until the later difficulty levels (though can certainly help with bosses if needed) and it isn’t as bad as it looks. The approach I usually took is to use skills, gear, and crafting to cover the major bases with one big gap, then cover the gap with augments. I just found it easier that way.

1665

I have to say, playing TQ now, the fewer resistances to worry about is a pleasant change after GD. Except finding gear at all for some of them seems to be impossible early in the game.

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.

1681

The Warden’s Hidden Laboratory was amazing. I’m level 24 now, and just defeated the Warden, and yes ok I’ll concede that I’m now having more fun than I was with Titan Quest. That’s strong praise given how much I like Titan Quest. Curiously, the next area (after the bridge) reminds me a lot of TQ!

Anyway, how common are these Tainted Brain Matter? I’ve just got my first one, crafted my first relic, but wondering if I should have hung onto it for a bit longer.