Playing Grim Dawn, questioning online nature of PoE

I think the underlying problem is that you guys might believe there are 'enough' viable builds, but players like me and many others are just bored of POE.

We try different builds out, many of them don't work. Like, the VAST MAJORITY of them don't work. They're just not good. You get punished hard for not following what's meta in POE. You clear slow, you die fast, and your mechanics/QOL are really awful to play.

POE has many options, but many of them aren't good options.

PoE is panic balanced by people who don't play the game, Grim Dawn has been groomed with a fine tooth comb by people who cared about it.

I'm surprised at this thread. These are 2 completely different games with different models. It is very hard to compare one to the other, they are really nothing alike. Some thoughts:

PoE is f2p with a focus on continuation which I will agree, hurts the experience somewhat because GGG are forced to be forward looking in order to make steps to guarantee their future revenue. They are also afraid of change due to their model and now have to manage 2 different set of player expectations with their Xbox release. Their business to customer relationship is naturally much deeper as they are providing an evolving service. A lot of resources and energy are spent here.

With Grim Dawn, no such layer exists, the model is simple and oldschool. You bought the game and that is where the relationship ends. You are free to do with Grim Dawn what you wish. It's offline, go crazy.

GGG wants a model and game that is going to be around for years to come. The drop rates are based around trading. Everything is marketable. Min-maxing is extreme. Ultra rare items are actually ultra rare, you may never see something in a lifetime of play ala a real, raw ARPG. As such, time investment, efficiency and pushing the curve is heavily rewarded. Upgrades aren't "obvious" meaning i'm not comparing a plethora of stats and choosing whats greater, I'm actually thinking about opportunity cost and things deeper than that to evolve my build mechanics or maybe tackle a certain scenario.

"Terrible" economy vs. no economy. Take your pick. Personally, I prefer the former choice. Your time has a value, you gather resources and trade them for other resources you have a use for. You aren't a sheep being forced to grind 1 zone for a sub 1% chance drop at a set item. You still progress in someway when you don't if that makes any sense. There are 1000 ways to make currency in PoE and 1000 more that people haven't figured out yet. There are market inefficiencies, crafting opportunities and farming strategies that just can't exist in offline games.

Also it is paramount to understand that 95% of people that play this game cannot make their own build. This is not meant to be negative, it is just the honest truth. This leads to inflation of certain core items with everyone copying forum builds or FOTM skills. This is where game knowledge comes in to make smart choices or find alternative ways of achieving the same goal. You are rewarded for thinking for yourself in this game. Not every build should be able to succeed and everyone doesn't win. There are choices and you can make bad ones or make better ones.

Balance is definitely FUBAR with PoE, they acknowledged this with Ascendancy, the options that were added are just extremely strong and offered a lot of options for abuse that they knew they couldn’t continually handle effectively in most cases. They fumble around this aspect and do leave a lot of players unhappy if you are not open minded with the changes. I don’t think the community can really fault them for this though, because at least in my opinion, the game is much more fun post ascendancy, but alas a balance nightmare. TQ was extremely well balanced, GD seems like it is to but understand that these games have NO WHERE NEAR the level of different interactions with items / passives / procs / enchantments that PoE does, the itemization pushes these interactions to the extreme and it is only going to get deeper as time goes on.

To me Grim Dawn is a laughably boring cheese filled experience. It basically plays like a single player MMO would play if there was such a thing. Imo, PoE is atleast 2 echelons above what Grim Dawn will ever be in terms of content, options for progression, player choice, itemization, the whole shabang.

You wrote a nice big wall of statements, but nothing to actually back them up.

Most glaring of flaws in your arguments: do you really think making a game that is based around trading and then making (and leaving it that way for years) a terrible trade system is better than a game that is made with no trade in mind?

Trade is not a simple feature you add to the game. If you decide to balance the whole game around it, you better make it work. GGG did not. Not only that, but they actively refuse to.

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Perq wrote:

You wrote a nice big wall of statements, but nothing to actually back them up.

Most glaring of flaws in your arguments: do you really think making a game that is based around trading and then making (and leaving it that way for years) a terrible trade system is better than a game that is made with no trade in mind?

Trade is not a simple feature you add to the game. If you decide to balance the whole game around it, you better make it work. GGG did not. Not only that, but they actively refuse to.

Yes, because games with trading and economies outlast those that don't.

Especially looter-based games. At some point those trinkets and items dropping lose value to you. You play and grind them simply because they hold value to someone else. Do you really think PoE would still be around in this popularity if it was an offline-based game akin to something like Torchlight? Look at D3. Its a shell of its former self. I bet if it still had some form of trading, some form of online-economy, it would still be more popular.

Lets look at Borderlands compared to Warframe. Warframe still booming. Has an online economy. Borderlands just another one of those great games that fell by the wayside because it doesn't have an economy.

I'd argue that an economy is more important than the game itself, for long-term longetivity and popularity. But if you are trying to argue short-term fun, its debatable.

But since you are questioning the online nature, it seems like you are arguing lifespan. Because we know full well this game wouldn't be anywhere near as popular right now if it didn't have such a booming economy, regardless of the shitty way that GGG treats it. D2 was the same way. It's not like Blizzard did anything to help. Hell, they created rune words that you could only use if people duped for god's sake. You didn't even have currency and had to find your own standards, like SoJ's and Runes.

Look at it this way; are you still going to be playing Grim Dawn and praising it 3-4 years from now? Probably not. Meanwhile you will still be playing PoE. Just because its nice and fresh to you now doesnt mean it has everything right. Its off-line nature will eventually wear thin.

Finding loot just to find loot will run its course. It will have no value at some point. Thats why games WITH an economy outlast all those offline ones that don't have one. And, for facts, the proof is in the pudding. PoE still alive and flourishing. D3 was still big even as shitty as it was with AH/RMT/all that. It was still a massive game until they went SSF. Warframe is still massive with an online economy? Where is Borderlands? Relegated to Game of the Year deals? Where is torchlight? Same thing? Grim Dawn will be the same.

At some point loot has no value except to other people.

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joebagz wrote:

Also it is paramount to understand that 95% of people that play this game cannot make their own build. This is not meant to be negative, it is just the honest truth. This leads to inflation of certain core items with everyone copying forum builds or FOTM skills. This is where game knowledge comes in to make smart choices or find alternative ways of achieving the same goal. You are rewarded for thinking for yourself in this game. Not every build should be able to succeed and everyone doesn't win. There are choices and you can make bad ones or make better ones.

Balance is definitely FUBAR with PoE, they acknowledged this with Ascendancy, the options that were added are just extremely strong and offered a lot of options for abuse that they knew they couldn’t continually handle effectively in most cases. They fumble around this aspect and do leave a lot of players unhappy if you are not open minded with the changes. I don’t think the community can really fault them for this though, because at least in my opinion, the game is much more fun post ascendancy, but alas a balance nightmare. TQ was extremely well balanced, GD seems like it is to but understand that these games have NO WHERE NEAR the level of different interactions with items / passives / procs / enchantments that PoE does, the itemization pushes these interactions to the extreme and it is only going to get deeper as time goes on.

To me Grim Dawn is a laughably boring cheese filled experience. It basically plays like a single player MMO would play if there was such a thing. Imo, PoE is atleast 2 echelons above what Grim Dawn will ever be in terms of content, options for progression, player choice, itemization, the whole shabang.

Even those who CAN make their build from scratch (and with PoB, it isnt so hard, even), quickly realize how much imbalance PoE still keeps. A large number of skills are simply inferior to few "best ones", same for large number of items, passive tree choices, etc.

Balance aside, general gameplay in PoE's endgame doesnt feels really good. Player is supposed to kill enemies too quicly and in too large numbers. Enemies (and bosses sometimes) dont have a chance to react and fight, even! They just die instantly. And if player delays for a while, HE dies instantly because enemy damage is way too high as well. I play PoE with the TANKIEST builds, and i feel like playing a build with averaged defence and offence. Anything else feels like a glass cannon, that dies from any sneeze in its direction.
Gameplay should be like that! If i want a slow-killing, safe, tanky build, game should ALLOW me to do so. PoE doesnt allow that. The best defence in PoE is offence, the best way to survive is to kill enemy before it reacts. And picking up 99.9% og loot isnt worth it because times spent to pick up loot will be a lion's share of time spent for farming. And you even cant see large part of good loot before you pick it up (hey, is that 1000th Jeweled Foil a 500-pdps monster, or just another 100 pdps junk?) It's NOT ARPG playstyle. There are tons of arcade games and FPS shooters with that playstyle, so if i want it, i'll chose them.

And you think TQ was well-balanced? LMAO! Both PoE and GD have much better balance than TQ had.

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Destructodave wrote:

Look at it this way; are you still going to be playing Grim Dawn and praising it 3-4 years from now? Probably not. Meanwhile you will still be playing PoE. Just because its nice and fresh to you now doesnt mean it has everything right. Its off-line nature will eventually wear thin.

I still play GD and praise it. And if it had the same level of endgame content as PoE has (labyrinth, maps, etc), i assure you, i'd seriously considered to stop playing PoE at all!

Sure, online nature help longevity a lot. But it isnt enough! There are tons of online games. But only few of them reach success. Why? Because online nature wont save game from failure due to poor design choices and boring gameplay.

best defense is offense stems from very low monster hp which barely got touched since game inception yet player dps went from like 100k with bis mirror gear to 10+ million with bis mirror gear

the thing is, old poe endgame was nothing like today's poe endgame

back in the day invasion bosses scared players shitless. players couldnt just erase bosses instantly.

today the player is the one who scares the boss. they are the one who knock. t16 abaxoth with two damage mods and vuln? Lul leech tanked in under 3 seconds

d3 is a pretty weak arpg and a disgrace to Diablo name, but the Uber they added initially were probably more engaging than any poe fight with few very circumstantial exceptions

is there a boss poe players can't skip that still scares them? unlikely. beast nemesis in GD makes a lot of HC players shit their pants.

regarding the mob HP it's true, PoE is lacking in this aspect, but it might be outcome of different issues

D3 - linear scaling with "rift" difficulty - this is great option any way you look at it

GD - in general bigger health pools & some "buffs" that increase resilience of mobs (like those ass skeleton priests) which makes you use a bit of a strategy. I think mobs are more "resistant".

PoE - there were couple waves of dmg increases (ascendancy mainly, weapon bases etc) which were not caught up with other content balancing teams. Problem is the huge differences in certain skill performances making you slide through content, one shooting blues and rares with some, being unable to kill regen rare by others (git good, hehe).
Argument for mapping is that you can make your map as hard as you want, but well...

being online game, you can ask for help, in GD you have to intentionally play on multiplayer if you want to get help like that, D3 also allows instant game opening for party play.
Just because of this aspect, i would expect PoE to be a bit harder and slower. It's not the case now, 1 guy can carry 6man party in T15-16 without much effort.

what are these huge differences outside of the tip of the iceberg endgsme?

one doesn't see the gap in skill power until t15s, and I'd argue really t16s. beachhead are a joke and most t15 bosses still don't have enough health imo

the offense is best defense mantra can take any skill and make it work as long as you stack damage - and that's too easy since ascendancies - very long into the game. take something generic like a berserker with vp get some hp pool, maybe go mom. take almost any skill, profit.

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grepman wrote:

what are these huge differences outside of the tip of the iceberg endgsme?

one doesn't see the gap in skill power until t15s, and I'd argue really t16s. beachhead are a joke and most t15 bosses still don't have enough health imo

the offense is best defense mantra can take any skill and make it work as long as you stack damage - and that's too easy since ascendancies - very long into the game. take something generic like a berserker with vp get some hp pool, maybe go mom. take almost any skill, profit.

Through my glasses, this is not true for skills that need to counter reflect. And that is a lot of them. This league, I went meta (RF zerker), my friend did not. I had to reroll maps so many times, because he "could not do reflect, could not do no regen, could not...". That really opened my eyes.

So I think by saying "there is a gap between meta skills and the rest of them" we need to consider not only pure DPS output, but the whole quality of life, so to speak.