DLC Feedback (level 90+ hero, 40 hours of play)

[tao2911]

Overall I've played Grime a few times, the last run was a hero with almost level 100 and 100% map, 40+ hours, etc.

The game is great, the style is unique and it is a good "grind". Looking forward to the NG+ mode to actually give it another go.

With that said there are a few things regarding the recent DLC and overall replayability that are significant and should be considered.

ITEM ORGANIZATION:
Armor is absolutely ridiculous right now to choose between various armors and keep them organized. There is no way to do this effectively and I hate having to squint my eyes to see what armor I'm looking for. There has to be a better way to organize the items, I'm thinking like the old FF games,

ARMOR BONUSES:
Adding armor bonuses was a good attempt at giving various builds but this point will be repeated: the build variety in this game is sub-par and clunky. Armor bonuses are honestly meaningless. There are a few that you can use, but less than a handful. Wakebone for example if you're doing a resonance build for the damage, or other similar things. Goldgrowth has massive practicality and it is what I ended up using because you can upgrade faster.

With that being said the DLC armors are extremely underwhelming. The benefits themselves are good ideas because they actually give a flat bonus (ie. lifesteal, reduced damage, etc.) However the bonus amounts themselves are relatively meaningless. 12% damage reduction is nothing, it should be at least 25%. The lifesteal at 2.5% is way too low to be meaningful. Remember, you are sacrificing a whole armor set to get this bonus and that's really nothing considering there are other ways to heal. Lastly the Prickly Traveler (like horned traveler, I forget) didn't even display its bonus, so I have no clue what it does. Overall very underwhelming.

A final point about armor bonuses is again that the abilities they boost are overall very underwhelming. To give 20% or 30% bonus to something that already doesn't boost THAT high is not something worth grinding all those resources and time and scouting for. Bondling is a useful skill, for example, but 30% of an already limited ability is meaningless in practice for an entire armor set buff. There's no unique playstyle that that creates, it's just a glorified placeholder.

This brings me to my next point.

SKILLS
There are two problems with skills. Half of them are useless because of the low percentage of benefit they give and the second problem is that the upgrade costs get ridiculous for final tiers. In the final build I had, I was using Chisel Nails and all dexterity. Just damage. I barely had a few skills upgraded, I think maybe 6 or something, but the cost in points to get them maxed out gets way too high when it costs like 6 or more points to upgrade. There is no way to farm upgrade points. If that was the case then this would not be a problem, but since it is not the case then your skills are too expensive.

Skills themselves are also mostly meaningless. There is only two ways to play this game: resonance build and cheese everything with repels, absorbs and lantern or a damage build. With chisel nails at my level I was doing over 400 damage with special in 3 quick attacks, better than any other weapon in the game.

The lackluster build diversity and meaningfulness of skills is why armor also sucks. Skills need to tempt you to change your build. They need to be powerful. Outside of resonance, there is no other build except to get health, force, some healing and boost of damage with ardor. Damage or resonance. There is no "thorns" build, no defensive build, nothing super interesting and therefore nothing worth replaying to enjoy again.

WEAPONS
The final point has to do with weapons. The change to let us use weapons should have been in the first iteration of the game. Good move, but a day late and a dollar short. Nevertheless, there are several issues with weapons unfortunately. The scaling is confusing and impossible to predict or calculate, which makes it very tedious because you have to actually put points and try it yourself to see how much damage you will get. This should be less confusing and easier to calculate. Even when you put the weapon on, and you have the damage on your sheet, the actual damage you do doesn't match up. So this is really stupid to me because it makes comparing and min-maxing a real chore.

There are very few weapons that are worth it. Chisel Nails is the most OP in my opinion, or one of them. The damage and speed is incomparible to any other weapon. At this point the only "style" or "build diversity" is the aesthetic. The new DLC weapons have some interesting twists like poison damage or lightning stacks, but these are ridiculously underwhelming. The poison damage is like 1 or 2 damage. Really? What is the point when you can do 400 in 2 seconds? The lightning on the spine sword or spine axe is a cool idea, but the timing expires by the time you swing the weapon once which makes the mechanic stated pretty useless. The missile weapons are also an interesting mechanic, but again fairly useless in practice because of low DPS.

At the end of the day it is about damage. If you have low damage you have to have high utility somehow. If you have super high damage it comes with high cost. These things everyone knows but in practice there is right now a high aesthetic variety of weapons with probably a handful of them that are actually useful to finish the game or be OP or whatever, especially for a NG+ if that's the plan.

Weapons should be tweaked and made to where they can synergize with skills, armor, etc. and create different builds. Otherwise there is no point to having so many varieties of basically the same thing, which in the end is a simple conclusion to come to at the cost of massive amount of time and resources to "check" due to clunky comparison and calculation mechanics.

Game is great and has a lot of promises but these kinds of things make it even more frustrating because it does have promise. My two cents.

[Yarden]

I appreciate you taking the time to give us all this feedback. Unfortunately there is very little of this we can change this late into GRIME, with systems simply not being in place for making these kinds of alterations without breaking anything. But I'll definitely take your suggestions into consideration for any future project we'll hopefully get the chance to develop. :)

[Ace_Kuper]

Originally posted by Yarden:

Unfortunately there is very little of this we can change this late into GRIME, with systems simply not being in place for making these kinds of alterations without breaking anything.

This might sound like a stupid question and one you can't actually answer since it would be spoilers, plus it's probably still in a planning stage. So what this two statements from the Patch Notes are supposed to mean then? "The next DLC in the works will be our very ambitious NG+ mode. It will rework and modify ALL of the enemies and ALL of the bosses in the game, as well as add bunch of new content."

If you said you disagree with the statements made by OP or it would be to much work for little return i would get it. Looking at every weapon\armor and rebalancing them isn't a small task. But makes "systems simply not being in place for making these kinds of alterations without breaking anything" no sense.

Essentially OP asks for


1. Equipment sorting can be obviously done, since it's one of the most requested thing and one of the Patch notes did add auto-sorting and "better sorting for the inventory (Sets will now be placed next to each other rather than in order of pick up". Might be a mess on your end so not wanting to add to it might be understandable. But various sorting options should've really been a thing in this type of game from the start.

2. Check and try to rework Armor Bonuses - A ton of work and not exactly easy to do, so understandable if you don't do it. But makes no sense there is no system for that.

3. Maybe increase actual numerical values to bonuses\stats on equipment to make certain items worth it - Significantly easier and makes even less sense with "no systems to do it".

4. Upgrade costs of skills being ridiculous - Shouldn't be hard at all to reduce cost of upgrades and\or give farming for upgrade points.

5. Making scaling less confusing - Would be great, but even something like Elden Ring still lies about scaling. So understandable if still regrettable that you don't make it super clear.

6. Upping stats on DLC weapons - Again shouldn't be hard, especially if their intended function is indeed underwhelming.

6.1. "The lightning on the spine sword or spine axe is a cool idea, but the timing expires by the time you swing the weapon once which makes the mechanic stated pretty useless." - Making an ability last longer if it's indeed underwhelming shouldn't be hard at all.

Only the last sentence of "Weapons should be tweaked and made to where they can synergize with skills, armor, etc. and create different builds." - seems that it would take a whole game rework and makes sense that you wouldn't want to do it But i can't see how other stuff can fit into the "Systems simply not being in place for making these kinds of alterations without breaking anything".

[Mr.NoNa]

I'm not sure how long has OP been around here, but given that it sounds they knew that armor didn't have stats before, I'll assume it's been since release as well. If that's the case, I really don't understand some of the unnecessary condescension in this post. It makes me a bit sad that people still don't get that GRIME is trying to do it's own thing.

- First of all, you seem to be forgeting that armor having stats, and even bonuses per full sets, is just an unintended nice little addition that the devs added later down the line (because of people's feedback). It was never meant to be integrated into a "builds" system, but purely cosmetic. Nothing else. So I'd rather be grateful that it has become more than that.

Thus, you are not sacrificing anything by wearing this or that set of armor, because it wasn't taken into account to begin with. It's just a FREE extra boost for those who want to use it. I've been using Otherwhere Plox for the entire game and I didn't feel the lack of armor stats was hindering me in any way.

I don't know what's this 12% damage reducing armor (Is there something I still haven't found?), but that alone would be huge. If you pair that with Boulderhead trait, which gives a small window to reduce incoming damage when you missed a parry (up to 70%), you'd basically be untouchable because you can even get reduced damage from unparriable (red) attacks.

- While I agree letting the player organize the inventory would have been a much better design option, saying that "it's absolutely ridiculous" right now is over exaggerated. Armor is always organized by sets IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. It's not like they scattered the pieces all over the place...

- Regarding traits, please, pray tell me. What is this "half of them are useless"? Half of them might be useless to you, because of the way you approach the game, but others prefer to take a slower, safer pace.

Bondling, as you mentioned, being too low of a benefit to matter, can negate the damage some regular enemies do, when it's maxed and paired with the set that improves the trait. How is that useless? What else do you need? To be able to negate even bosses' damage with just one trait?

And, for goodness sake. You already have 50 hunt points to spend. Why would they need to lower the costs for the traits? Why, instead, don't you spread your points a bit instead of maxing a few selected traits? Some of these already give a nice enough bonus even at level 1.

I do agree, however, that the game could benefit from a bit more diversity in traits.

- Finally, regarding weapons... Was it really necessary to start your argument with such a patronizing comment? They could have opted for not including such a feature despite the feedback, but they didn't.

If your the sheet states that a weapon does 154 with a regular attack, it will do 154 with a regular attack. It is true, though, that some weapons work a bit differently with combos, like Chisel Knives. The second, and subsequent hits, seem to be cumulative, thus why you see you are doing more damage. Finishers for slower weapons tend to do a bit more damage. Attacking certain parts of a boss also changes the damage done. The head takes more damage usually, and the back less. Also, aerial attacks tend to deal less damage. There are instances that the third hit will deal less damage than it should, but I'm not sure if that is because of the enemy hitbox or why.

No idea what you find so confusing about scaling, so I can't say much other than saying: better proficiency = higher gains and the higher a stat = reduced gains.

Your lightning and poison arguments are simply not true. Unless it's been changed in the last patch, the lightning for both spine weapons lasts for at least 4 or 5 swings, depending on what you are doing. Not just one. And poison doing 1 damage? Did you meet the requirements for the weapon? (and reequipped it, as the damage debuff wont go away until you do). It seems to work just fine for me.

To end this wall of text, I'll say that yes, some weapons get obsolete because you find a better version (like in many other games out there), and some others need a bit of a boost in my opinion (Searing Sickle is underwhelming compared to the Chisel knives). But there's at least one weapon of every type that deals good damage.

Chisel Knives are OP, yes (perhaps they need a nerf, cough cough). They're comfy to use, even for newcomers, and deal insane damage. Might be why they got boring so quickly for me. Some people enjoy using Scythes, some people enjoy using glaives, and others, like myself, enjoy using str weapons. Because, you know, at the end of the day, this is not just about damage. This is about having fun while playing a videogame.

As for replayability, this is not one of those AAA games which offers multiple ways to play. Still, there's at least 3 playthroughs that anyone can come up with. Str, Dex, or Resonance builds. If you are willing to try and spice things up, you can even go for mixed builds and use different types of weapons. But, of course, if you really care about min/maxing, you'd think there's only 2 ways of playing the game.

[Yarden]

Originally posted by Ace_Kuper:

Originally posted by Yarden:

Unfortunately there is very little of this we can change this late into GRIME, with systems simply not being in place for making these kinds of alterations without breaking anything.

This might sound like a stupid question and one you can't actually answer since it would be spoilers, plus it's probably still in a planning stage. So what this two statements from the Patch Notes are supposed to mean then? "The next DLC in the works will be our very ambitious NG+ mode. It will rework and modify ALL of the enemies and ALL of the bosses in the game, as well as add bunch of new content."

If you said you disagree with the statements made by OP or it would be to much work for little return i would get it. Looking at every weapon\armor and rebalancing them isn't a small task. But makes "systems simply not being in place for making these kinds of alterations without breaking anything" no sense.

I think anyone taking the time to put this much effort into giving their thoughts and feedback is worthy of appreciation and respect from us, as they clearly did this out of care for our game.

I obviously don't agree with every single suggestion anyone gives, be it from a production or a design standpoint, but I appreciate it none the less and look for what can be learned from it. I don't think it would be very productive of me to take feedback posts and simply point by point explain why I disagree or why it would be too hard to implement.

As for the amount of work there is to do something... You may be surprised. I know I was and still am surprised to discover just how complicated seemingly simple things can end up being, especially on a finished, already launched product that is at the hands of people and with its foundations already in place. A change can easily cause a cascading avalanche of bugs or other balance issues.

At the end of the day we are just 3 people who have worked on this DLC, the next one, and these patches. And I need to think how to best use our time to improve the experience of the vast majority of our players.

I definitely agree with the Item sorting issue for example. However, and as you can tell the sorting we implemented post launch is not very in-depth, and this is because we only had 2 options, to make it as it is now or not at all.

I'll give another example. My philosophy is to always allow players as much freedom as we can afford to give in tailoring the control scheme to their comfort. However, as much as I want to, supporting keybinding for additional mouse keys (beyond 1-3) is incredibly complex using the system/plugin we have in place. And will more than likely result in even more controller/kbm bugs.

[Ace_Kuper]

Originally posted by Yarden:

I don't think it would be very productive of me to take feedback posts and simply point by point explain why I disagree or why it would be too hard to implement.

Man, no matter how i put it in text i would probably sound like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I'm honestly on your your side here, but is till think your wording of "systems simply not being in place for making these kinds of alterations without breaking anything" is extremely poor. Even the small amount you mentioned about NG+ DLC shows that you are actually making some of the changes OP asked for. Otherwise the stuff said to be planned for NG+ would be heavily contradicted by "systems not in place" statement. If you truly want the things mentioned for DLC there is no avoiding breaking stuff.

Originally posted by Yarden:

As for the amount of work there is to do something... You may be surprised.

Nah, i wouldn't be. As i said i perfectly understand how changes would take time and in case of the trying to make a Synergy system that would be an enormous investment. Armor sorting is probably hard to implement, cause if armor stats\set bonuses were a later addition you don't have a system that reads out said stats, so you can't sort by them or UI itself doesn't sup[port a placement change initiated by User.

Originally posted by Yarden:

A change can easily cause a cascading avalanche of bugs or other balance issues.

True, but again i think you are too focused on the big Synergy changes OP mentioned.
It would actually take a ton of resources. So unless you guys were personally invested into it or thought the game desperately needs it that would be a huge resource investment for little to no gain.

But at the same time I'm pretty sure individual adjustments of percentages are doable, since it's literally a part of the latest quick patch with "- Pincer Glaive adjusted: More damage on special per stack but lower stack gain per hit." It would take physical time, but as i said "systems are not in place" is a poor wording that grabs me from your response.

Originally posted by Yarden:

At the end of the day we are just 3 people who have worked on this DLC, the next one, and these patches.

True again. But you shouldn't say this, cause in reality you don't want to bring out comparison of your game to other games in this genre. Not because it's bad, Grime is good. But because there are literally multiple example of teams of the similar size doing reworks of everything mentioned here.

Vigil The Longest Night - did equipment adjustment, added new moves and added armor sorting because of feedback.

Death's Gambit - Took at ton of time and made a huge rework of everything with their Afterlife Update.

Dark Light - did and still does adjustments after their full release from early access. Making better controls is one of them.

Ghost Song - Small changes, but one of those is adding mouse support when there was none and i think that's a 1 dude project.

Those are just ones that i remember. But all of that isn't meant as "Do changes now" for ME. I know that it took a lot of work for those games and takes a lot of work from you. You guys are doing good work and your game is enjoyable. It's just when someone is hard into your game and into this genre, which i'm pretty sure OP is, it's pretty easy to see when you are given a publicity response, so to speak.


For the actual point by point stuff

1. Sorting, 2. Armor Synergy Bonuses and 5. Scaling confusion - is a lot of work and not something you can easily do.

3. and 6. Weapon Stats - is a thing you can adjust and literally did.

4. Upgrade cost of skill, skill farming - Unless for some reason you decided to not allow refighting enemies and getting more points again in the upcoming NG+ DLC is kind of solving itself.

[breversa]

I love how civil this feedback thread has started… and goes on. :)