384 hours in. Feedback + constructive (I hope...) criticism

Feedback and Suggestions
1

Ok, first of all, LE is certainly a good game, I wouldn’t waste nearly 400 hours of my life on garbage.

https://i.imgur.com/xTTYMhn.png

However, there are some things I’d like to mention that make LE - so far - behind my favorite ARPG of all time:

https://i.imgur.com/maP26Lq.png

And I hope to address them with this post.

I played all chars until about 60, after which I played only a Falconer and Druid, since I enjoyed them the most.

1. The game’s engine

This one is unlikely to change, and it’s a shame (until LE2, maybe?). But the Unity engine cannot do things for us like even the antiquated Titan Quest’s engine (which GD’s based on) or the modern Diablo4 engine. Specifically, physics. With Unity, the combat lacks a certain tactile response. No real ragdolling, and the enemies feel disconnected from the environment (so their corpses end up floating in mid air at times). This is not a “proper”, meaty 3D engine I’d love to see in a modern ARPG. However, to not leave things at just negatives, I feel that the sound effects, screen shake and “oomph” from many skills is just right and possibly at the very best of what Unity can provide.

The physics are important to me (unfortunately!) because I’m spending so much time in combat - I wanna “feel” that combat. I think Grim Dawn remains the champion here, with Diablo4 close second. PoE doesn’t really do things better than LE, so I won’t mention it. Anyway, when you crit a mob in GD and it just goes flying at 100 km/h and crashes into a wall… so satisfying. This is what I’m missing here, the joy of carnage is lessened (that being said, it’s not bad at all. It’s just not “complete”).

2. It takes a LONG time until you’re met with any sort of challenge

Let’s face it. The campaign is a faceroll. The monoliths (regular) are a faceroll. The only thing remotely challenging pre-empowered monoliths in this game is the Lightless Arbor when you’re out of light. Of course things spice up when you get to empowered monoliths, HOWEVER - this is a game meant to be seasonal. I really don’t enjoy the idea of spending another, uhh, 30-40 hours of boring faceroll until I finally get to the point when things gets interesting!

Solution: A “Veteran” mode, perhaps. Grim Dawn does this right. Of course, for twinked characters, it’s going to be easy no matter what, but I feel that untwinked chars (so: your first seasonal char each season) shouldn’t do a full faceroll this easy. The magic border between “pleasant carnage” and “so easy it’s boring” is very thin and I think LE crossed it. This discourages me from attempting seasonal gameplay as I would have to spend many hours on boring faceroll to get to interesting parts.

3. Very little defensive options

So technically we can blind monsters and stun them, sure. But it’s hardly “tactical” or worth it. Blindness, for instance, is really disappointing, I seriously can’t even say if it works as it barely makes a difference. And with gameplay this fast and zoom-zoomey, waiting 10 seconds to stun a group of mobs for 2 seconds feels… inadequate. The Primalist, for instance. All he gets is War Cry (at least when not transformed). And it works better as berserk and crit chance buff than a crowd control mechanism TBH.

I’d love to see more useful defensive skills, allowing for more tactics. Right now, either my gear holds (I pass the gear check) and I stomp, or I get oneshot somewhere once I stop paying attention for a microsecond.

Most ARPGs do better in this department. While Diablo4 regressed into heavy zoom-zoom from the initial, slower-paced tactical combat rather quickly (I guess this is what the market demands, to repeat Diablo3/PoE model?), it does offer a few defensive skills per class. Grim Dawn has plenty of buffs and defensive abilities. PoE too. I think gameplay lacks a bit of depth here, being so offense-centered.

I will not talk about things that are 100% certain to be added/fixed later on as the game matures (such as uber bosses, more varied endgame options, better class balance, more unique items/builds). I trust the developers here. I also really enjoy the itemization. I think it’s the best on ARPG market right now, it’s easy to get a working build, but getting those perfect 4/4 legs is a mission for years of gameplay. Which is good. Love me some chase items.

So it’s mostly the three things above that prevent LE from taking the throne. And since GD’s 3rd expansion is getting near, and Diablo 4 is slowly improving (maybe in 2 expansion packs it stops sucking, who knows), LE certainly has to develop as well to remain a great ARPG.

Cheers!

5 Likes
2

This made me quit the game. I cannot handle such long periods of brain off game
play.

The lack of defensive, utility or CC buttons is why I don’t like class design in this game. It’s very weird when other ARPGs do not have this issue.

3

For your second point, it’s just some hours, 6 maybe to do the campaign again ( with some leveling unique )
Also it’s probably the first time i read a good review about impact feeling on grim dawn, imo it’s the worst arpg on this point, follow by LE.

Otherwise i strongly agree with your first point, but yep it’s too late

1 Like
4

Imagine watching a series your friend just swoons over. You watch… and watch… and watch and it is really nothing special, mind-numbingly boring even! And then you ask him what the heck he enjoys about it because it’s so bad and he tells you ‘You just gotta watch on, at episode 50 it becomes great!’

Yeah, same situation, fuck that. It might get good but beforehand it’s basically solely wasting my time.
And that’s the exact same situation. ‘Just only play for 10 hours and it’ll become good!’ You personally don’t know if it holds true and why should you waste 10 hours of your life like that?

That’s why it’s important to have an engaging experience from the beginning. It’s a very viable point and a cornerstone of game development… or any entertainment medium in that case.

2 Likes
5

It’s not like the end game is different, at least you discover the class during the leveling.
Anyway i understand why people don’t like it, i just think it’s a secondary problem

6

Exactly how I feel! I even made a feedback post about it.

Personally, I don’t have much time to play even though I would like to… So it’s very important for the game to be good, fun, challegning from the beggning. 10 hours is the amount of time I have to play per week… having to wait that time to get to the “good part” makes no sense.

I just made the math here I would have to play Grim Dawn exclusively (and nothing else) for 8 years to get to 3000 hours of gameplay, like the original poster :rofl:

7

Actually… it is!
Not in the terms of play-style, but in terms of difficulty. As a new player (not experienced one, there it takes a lot longer) you’ll run into thresholds where you’ll need to rework or adjust pieces of gear or your character regularly.

During the campaign this is so ridiculously under-represented though, which is why the game needs at least difficulty options… solely upwards without giving you more rewards.

After Act 3 (End of the ruined Era) you should have it down how the basic itemization works. Hence how you put new affixes on gear, a few times scattering stuff for something you want. Switching out items with other base types.
You also should have down how passives and skills roughly work, as a new player. Obviously not in-depth but you get the ‘gist of it’ so to speak.

From Act 4 to the end of Act 8 you get literally ‘nothing’ new. It’s barely mechanical parts, nothing major you need to learn there. The difficulty of enemies is laughable unless you screw up, and then Lagon gets thrown at you and demolishes you utterly.

4 Acts of time to prepare you for that fight, instead you get mind-numbing boredom of ‘are we there yet?’ feeling. That’s the weakest part of the current game progression.

It’s a quite primary concern actually since it’s interfering with the experience of new players, a part which is mandatory to get to a decent level. Sure, they got the first parts done, are mildly invested in the game… but this area I’m describing is a worse detriment then a lack of end-game since it’ll make people frustrated.
The casual players get frustrated since nothing prepared them for Lagon and they fail… and fail… and fail without ever beating him → quit.
The people which are decent at ARPGs yawn 4 acts long with basically nothing happening. The story is not really engaging at that point, you’re just ‘thrown along the waves’ so to speak. ‘If that’s the game then it’s boring’ → quit.

We can always get more end-game or better mechanics… they won’t help if people come into the whole game with the utterly wrong expectations. It caters to casuals until Act 8 and suddenly it switches over to catering to mildly seasoned ARPG fans. That’s very bad marketing positioning.

8

You need to regrind corruption too.
It’s far too long, 6 hours us also enough time to watch star wars ep 4-6…thats absurd.

9

Yeah I didn’t think I would come back to play this game after release. Been playing the last few days Hardcore.

Yes, the game for sure is simple. And yes, both my first 2 HC chars died on Lagon in the Echos because I couldn’t tank his spray like I did the first time.

I think the issue there is the spray counts as a “damage over time,” while my Sentinels mostly had armor, which doesn’t affect DOTS. It is a clever design to then force me to find a way to mitigate dots, either through special stats or endurance, so I can’t just focus on one defensive stat, but it’s not something readily apparent.

I think the problem with skills, or defensive options, is that we are limited to 5. It’s worse than Diablo 3 and even 4. The stats system of this game, though, is genius. It only suffers from not having certain options available at this point.

Skills should be unlimited and bought into with a D2 skill system, which then adds a point to skills’ individual trees.

Yes, the Unity engine sucks. It’s a shame they used it, but possibly salvageable.

10

The lagon beam is supposed to be not tankable LE and you should avoid it at all cost. You are in control. Where the beam goes and to. Leave you enough room to complete avoid it.

You can tank it with some skill or builds, but that is the exception.

Like many other boss abilities you need to learn the patterns and learn how to avoid them.