Can we please get a replaacement model for the Blight Fiend?

[Slashimus]

I'm really hoping that with the new QoL features coming with the new expansion that someone can allow for an alternate looking version of the Blight Fiend. The thing is just ugly in a bad way.

My best friend and I have been playing GRim Dawn for a long time and we both never use that pet. I end up substituting the Hellhound because at least it looks cool. The Blight Fiend looks like a living amalgamation of turds and tongues and does not fit thematically with the Necromancer at all. None of the necros you fight in the base game summon these.

I don't mind the poison and rot theme but at least let it be a blight lich or maybe a skeleton bishop or priest. I'd pay money to have the illusion system include pet skins right now.

[Unicarn]

How does it not fit thematically? It's a monster made of corpses. We already have skeletons.

A skeletal lich wouldn't make sense, since a lich would be too powerful to be controlled, and why would a necromancer summon a bishop or priest?

Also it looks like an Abomination from Warcraft 3 http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/106157.jpg

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Unicarn:

A skeletal lich wouldn't make sense, since a lich would be too powerful to be controlled

Is that something that's been established in GD lore?

[Unicarn]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Originally posted by Unicarn:

A skeletal lich wouldn't make sense, since a lich would be too powerful to be controlled

Is that something that's been established in GD lore?

Not Grim Dawn specifically, but in general liches are extremely powerful sorcerers/necromancers who seek immortality and achieve it—to an extent.

So I'd say you'd have to be very powerful to be a lich.

[Gus the Crocodile]

I just don't think it's particularly healthy for all fantasy settings to be beholden to rules and definitions established in larger, more popular works like D&D etc. Those works already have enough clout without us treating them as authority.

[DarkestLight]

Originally posted by Unicarn:

How does it not fit thematically? It's a monster made of corpses. We already have skeletons.

A skeletal lich wouldn't make sense, since a lich would be too powerful to be controlled, and why would a necromancer summon a bishop or priest?

Also it looks like an Abomination from Warcraft 3 http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/106157.jpg

Don't D2's Flesh Golem, Guild Wars Bone Horror/Flesh Golem, etc, etc. Death isn't pretty, and the same goes for skills themed around death and decay. Honestly I think Blight Fiend fits the Necromancer theme quite well.

[Slashimus]

You had a pet lich in Titan Quest. Made by the same folks.

[Astasia]

I think the only reason they didn't do a lich summon in GD is because they did one in Titan Quest.

I'd love a pet cosmetic system though, doubt it will happen, but it would be great. I'm actually not playing PoE right now because I'm waiting for the new golem skins to hit the store and I want to make a golemancer using them (that and bestiary is more like worstiary). I wish GD would have more minor DLCs for some of the stuff people want and would be willing to pay for. I'd pay $5-10 for a DLC that just transforms necro pets into a vampire harem.... I mean coven.

[Unicarn]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

I just don't think it's particularly healthy for all fantasy settings to be beholden to rules and definitions established in larger, more popular works like D&D etc. Those works already have enough clout without us treating them as authority.

Liches date back far before D&D.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Unicarn:

Liches date back far before D&D.

Hence 'etc'.

[Unicarn]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Originally posted by Unicarn:

Liches date back far before D&D.

Hence 'etc'.

Yeah but we've determined what liches are and it's stayed the same for over a century, why change it now?

[Gus the Crocodile]

As others point out, there was a lich summon in TQ, and I don't recall gamers being confused as to how that made sense. I see quite a lot of games coming up when I google the phrase "summon lich", actually. I don't think "we've determined that liches are too powerful to be controlled" is a particularly sound argument.

I'd say nothing has been determined (it's fiction, after all). Rather, some authors have repeated an idea. Which is fine, they're allowed to do that. But other people are allowed to not do that, too.

[KG]

Exactly how many of Crate's current 13 employees actually worked on TQ? We keep saying "they" as if the TQ dev team was just transplanted whole into a new business - I wonder if this is why noobs get confused about who's who?

[Unicarn]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

As others point out, there was a lich summon in TQ, and I don't recall gamers being confused as to how that made sense. I see quite a lot of games coming up when I google the phrase "summon lich", actually. I don't think "we've determined that liches are too powerful to be controlled" is a particularly sound argument.

I'd say nothing has been determined (it's fiction, after all). Rather, some authors have repeated an idea. Which is fine, they're allowed to do that. But other people are allowed to not do that, too.

Well, Grim Dawn doesn't need to include a lich summon just because it's in other fantasy games. Also, most people probably don't realize how powerful a lich actually is.

Also yes, you don't have to repeat those ideas, but generally it's not good to take an already-established idea and change it when you can simply make your own idea.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by KG:

Exactly how many of Crate's current 13 employees actually worked on TQ? We keep saying "they" as if the TQ dev team was just transplanted whole into a new business - I wonder if this is why noobs get confused about who's who?

Crate started as just 2 developers, both from Iron Lore, including the lead designer, getting help from other ex-Iron Lore employees, and buying and using the Iron Lore codebase and TQ engine. I believe after they got rolling they hired those other ex-Iron Lore employees full time, I don't know if the total is 4 or 5 at this point. Then they expanded more hiring devs from various other backgrounds.

I've been following and invested in the game since those earliest of days so I'm always going to think of Crate as the new Iron Lore, regardless of how accurate that might be at this point.

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Unicarn:

Well, Grim Dawn doesn't need to include a lich summon just because it's in other fantasy games. Also, most people probably don't realize how powerful a lich actually is.

Also yes, you don't have to repeat those ideas, but generally it's not good to take an already-established idea and change it when you can simply make your own idea.

Oh they don't need to, no. I'm not arguing that they need to, or even that they should.

There is no "how powerful a lich actually is", because there is no actual lich, nor even a standardised definition of a fictional lich. What you're talking about is "how powerful the liches of certain other fantasy stories are", or some general concept of a lich across the gaming population - but again, I don't think there has been any confusion about summonable liches in games before, so I don't think it's "not a good idea" here. To me personally, my general concept of a "lich" in fantasy is basically "fairly powerful/intelligent/magically-capable undead creature".

It's entirely normal, especially in fantasy, to take existing ideas from older stories, put your own spin on them and use that result in your setting. GD does this all the time. Hellhounds, fiends, dimensional rifts, gods, necromancers, shamans, magic crystals, snake people, and on and on.