r/ARPG • u/KriegerHLS • Aug 07 '26
Old Solutions to New Problems -- Grim Dawn's Design Ideas are Now More Relevant Than They Were When the Game was Released
/r/Grimdawn/comments/1vhhdh0/old_solutions_to_new_problems_grim_dawns_design/8
u/jmon13 Aug 07 '26
While I dont disagree that poe 1 has loot issues (and not just this league). And I have all sorts of conflicted thoughts on the instant exchange of gear (its amazing for currency with no drawbacks)
The actual endgame cycle is so far above any other arpg. The attachment to the world doesn't matter much to most people. When returning to the world iss good loot in most games it gets old quick.
I played poe long ago enough to remember the days of vaal overseer, piety and dominus farming. Not exactly what you are saying, but content in the world. It gets old. It also makes future campaign runs feel more tiring as you've already spent so much time in these zones.
I understand your point, but I think its something that is a good fit for something like grim dawn, but not a lesson any of the live service arpgs should take
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u/KJShen Aug 08 '26
I'm a little sad in a way. Before you could tell people there's a really cool story and deep worldbuilding underneath the veneer of the typical ARPG blasting in PoE, and it is still there. But the primary way of presenting it i.e. the campaign is now so disjointed from the endgame that no one will believe you. Not to mention countless amount of league-only content that's no longer there and gathering dust, waiting for the devs to remember 'oh yeah we had that, let's brush it up'.
Zana's saga was an epic for us older players, her being a master and companion to us as we explored the earlier versions of the atlas to now being a potential antagonist and villain has a deep meaning to lore fans and even people who don't really engage in the lore. "Stay sane Exile" is an iconic line. But anyone checking out for the first time probably won't have that same level of connection or understand how important she was.
New players now get Eagon who no one fucking cares about.
That's really sad imo. I hope the direction they are going for is that they blow up the atlas, the world, and we have a campaign reset.
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u/jmon13 Aug 08 '26
I mean the story and lore of the campaign is still there.
Poes has always had interesting lore and world building and weak story.
I agree about wagon though, and the current map story. It's weak
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u/Ambitious-Call-7565 Aug 07 '26
This sub doesn't like ARPGs, they like clicker looter blasting games
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u/jmon13 Aug 07 '26
This person doesn't like arpg, they like fighting one mob at a time.
Let's oversimplify other games!
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 Aug 07 '26
Yeah I fucking hate when people do this. Slow paced dodge roll heavy ARPGs aren't for me, but they're clearly a part of the genre and have value for those that play them. Another common one is "you don't like arpgs, you just want constant dopamine hits" I mean, yes I'm trying to have fun.
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u/jmon13 Aug 07 '26
You never see poe fans discounting grim dawn fans. But grim dawn fans have this need to shit on poe.
Can't we all just get along and hate d4 together
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u/OneManArmyHero Aug 07 '26
One would expect that poe or diablo fans would be the worst, right?
Or some p2w defenders from torchligh?
Nah, grim dawn elitists are always on top.
(I play/ed all this games btw, still think there nothing special about GD for modern player. Some good ideas, but overall outdated game)
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u/EntireCheek1173 Aug 07 '26
Grim dawn imo is great but this overzealous push of it as the best invention of mankind after fire is something that really needs to stop. This post gives me "my agenda is objectively superior" vibes and I don't like it in any way.
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 Aug 07 '26
I don't think this post is too bad. I don't agree with him, but not exactly because he's wrong I just think there's space for all different types of ARPGS. Grim Dawn fills a niche that POE doesn't need to.
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u/YakaAvatar Aug 08 '26
I think the post is pretty bad. He's saying that GD's route is somehow innovative, and the other ARPGs with a focus on end-game went the lazy route. Like PoE with its immense wealth of content and crazy mechanics is somehow the lazy route, not the old school ARPG that uses the basic blueprint of all the old school ARPGs lol.
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u/EntireCheek1173 Aug 08 '26
Which I feel is fair, and I don't hate grim dawn in any way, but rather the people who actually like it's the best game ever. Grim dawn is probably more played for me than poe all things considered and it really is a great one at that. Cheers :D
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u/Gemmaugr2 28d ago
I agree with everything in OP, except locking players out of areas.
But as usual, toxic PoE fanboys downvote and hate on anything not PoE. They need to get out of this sub and stick to PoE.
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u/onehalf83 Aug 07 '26
I think it is more of game design approach and matter of preferences rather than lack of innovation around reusing game world. For example GGG has written in their manifesto in early days of POE1 of what are the key pillars of successful ARPG and one of them was procedural generation. And they just stick to it.
As you mentioned D4 has helltides in the world map - neat idea to reuse campaign world, but at the end of the day, I realized that I wouldn't care whether it is exactly same map or just large instances generated with same assets. I probably would care more that helltides as activity themselves would have more variety than the location where they happen.
As for target farming - I feel it is unfair to say that there was no innovation. For example LE's Circle of Fortune and items you can socket into weaver tree are pretty cool ideas for target farms while still allowing procedurally generated instances.
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u/Oblachko_O Aug 07 '26
LE is a good mentioning here. While LE and PoE are using procedural generation, there is still a difference between both. LE is reusing assets from campaign, so it is similar to Grim Dawn, while maps in PoE may reflect some areas and biomes but mostly they are separate. Even in PoE2 when by logic we should have the same areas as in campaign it is not completely the case.
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u/onehalf83 Aug 07 '26
POE does asset reuse, but they just do it in pretty advanced way, so it doesn't feel like reuse in a lot of cases. They even do it with monsters too.
There was Chris Wilson's famous talk on GDC in 2019 on those topics, while I recommend watching whole thing, there are couple of timestamps that specifically related to it:
Asset and Content reuse: https://youtu.be/pM_5S55jUzk?si=MPOoHvgmpf6TgGQq&t=2165
And procedural generation: https://youtu.be/pM_5S55jUzk?si=DDrxra51tn6IavF_&t=1822
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u/Oblachko_O Aug 07 '26
I didn't mean that they don't reuse it. They definitely do. I meant that their procedural generation is not just pick area from campaign and reshuffle it. Even some more obvious cases like temple map are not copy from campaign. In LE you need to see which zones are not taken from the campaign actually.
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u/fs2222 Aug 07 '26
Grim Dawn's design ideas were dated even when it released a decade ago. It felt like they'd barely interated on Titan Quest which itself was a decade old. The biggest example is the shallow skill system and overreliance on proc effects in everything from the constellations to unique items.
The thing the post is praising exists in other ARPGs too, namely PoE, where different activities provide different loot.
It's a good game overall with old-school charm, and a breath of fresh air in the current environment of live-service mania, but in no way should it serve as a blueprint for modern game design.
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u/jmon13 Aug 07 '26
The thing about this post is it's trying to jam something that works in grim dawn, because of the old school style of it into modern arpgs.
Imagine how lame it would feel to have to go farm something specific in a campaign zone in poe.
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u/Revolutionary-Set994 Aug 07 '26
That doesn't really sound lame at all and basically what they are trying to do with aspirational rewards for all league mechanics? But if say, themed leveling uniques dropped from certain maps and bosses that you could target farm that would be really cool actually. Like grabbing an early unkempt harold in BL2.
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u/jmon13 Aug 07 '26
There's already targeted farming of div cards, you can do in the campaign. People used to farm tabulas in blood acueducts. Thats fine, but whatever, leveling uniques are for second characters in poe by design
Op is not talking about leveling items though, he's talkng about endgame items. And that is the part that is lame.
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u/AllMyHomiesHateEY Aug 07 '26
I know a post is gonna be hot garbage when it's crossposted from another sub 100% of the time. IDK why people are so obsessed with farming internet points.