Grim Dawn Analysis
1 Overview
Ever since 1996, when the first Diablo was released by Blizzard, the ARPG has become a revered, beloved and also sometimes derided genre. Grim Dawn is one of the newer ARPGs, and was developed by Crate Entertainment and released on PC in February, 2016.
2 Formal Elements
Although the graphics and complexity of the action have of course improved since 1996, many elements have remained the same.
- 3/4 top-down isometric camera angle.
- The player controls a single character by pointing and clicking on the map, items, and characters. Number keys and hotkeys can be used to trigger abilities, or open/close menus.
- The player will battle dozens of enemies at a time, collecting randomized items, money, and weapons and armor.
- The player will navigate a 3D world with different buildings, caves, mines, etc to explore.
2.1 Players
The player’s character is a recovered ”Taken,” a human whose body was taken over by a being from another plane, called Aetherials, but then released. The player may choose a male or female character, and after reaching level 2, from one of six initial classes.
- Soldier: tanky and aggressive melee damage dealers
- Demolitionist: focuses on using guns and bombs
- Occultist: uses curses, summoned monsters, poison and acid damage
- Nightblade: dual-wielders, high DPS but low health,
- Arcanist: use powerful magic spells and weapon enchantments
- Shaman: high damage melee fighters, can also summon beasts and use lightning magic
After reaching level 10 a second class may be chosen.
The player controls the avatar as described above, by clicking on the ground, various objects, and characters. There is no direct control scheme, no dodging, swimming, or flying, or any other advanced movement options or controls.
Like most ARPGs, the player has several equipment slots for armor, accessories, and weapons. You will spend a large amount of time going over item stats, comparing them, and cogitating about which ones you should keep for later, sell, equip now, dismantle, etc.
2.2 Objectives
The avatar wakes up after the Aetherial has left your avatar’s body. Immediately, you are tasked with assisting nearby village of Devil’s Crossing by investigating what is causing so many living dead to appear. This leads to other tasks to help them out, then to help out the neighboring village, etc. These tasks will see the player slaughtering hordes of undead, insects, trolls, robbers, and religious fanatics, as well as gathering important items and materials to help out the settlements. Throughout these trials, you will come to know the threat posed by Aetherials in more detail, and essentially work your way up their hierarchy.
2.3 Rules
2.3.1 Areas
There are many areas that only unlock after a particular story point has been reached, and dozens that require materials, such as scrap or dynamite, to clear debris away and/or build a new bridge. The player may fast travel at any point, even during combat, to a previously existing portal somewhere else on the map. In general, the above ground area enemies scale to the player’s level within limits determined by the area itself. The opening areas of the game have a maximum level of around 20, for example, while mid-game areas max out around 40.
2.3.2 Combat
The combat revolves around using the left mouse button for your main attack /ability, right mouse button for a secondary ability, and the number and letter keys for others. There is no active dodge, but you can avoid certain enemy attacks by moving out of their area of influence.
If the player dies, the player will respawn at the closest main town, leaving a tombstone behind with some XP. If the player moves through to that area again, the monsters that have already been killed remain dead, but bosses regain some of their health. If the player can reach the tombstone without dying, they may regain some of the lost XP, but if they die before reaching it, it will be gone forever.
2.3.3 Stats and Leveling
The player has direct control over three main stats:
- Physique is the main influence on player health, health regeneration, and defensive ability. It is also one of the main requirements for armor, melee weapons and shields.
- Cunning is the main requirement for ranged weapons. It provides bonuses to physical, piercing, and duration damage.
- Spirit is the main requirement for spells and magical items. It gives bonuses to magical damage types.
When the player levels up, they will be given one stat point to invest in one of these stats, plus three skill points. Skills points may be invested either directly in skills or in increasing the level of one’s class. Your character has a particular level, which increases based on experience received from killing monsters, finding lore books, and completing quests. Your classes for that character also have levels, which are determined by how many skill points you invest in them. Investing points in a class gives bonuses in differing amounts to the three main stats above, in addition to increasing health and spirit. Besides these benefits, increasing your class level will also unlock further skills in that class’s skill tree at 5- or 10-level intervals. Once a skill has been unlocked, the player may use one of the three skill points to activate it or to increase the skill’s level. Depending on the skill, this could mean increasing the damage dealt, increasing the range of its effect, increasing the effect size or duration of the effect, or several other changes.
Besides your three main stats, player level also functions as a requirement for some items, so even if you have enough Physique to use a shield, perhaps you must be a level 20 character, but you are currently at 15. Tough luck.
Throughout the world of Grim Dawn, the player can find many shrines. Some of these can be repaired or restored by sacrificing items, while others have been defiled by monsters which the player must slay in order to cleanse them. Once restored or cleansed, the player will receive a devotion point. Devotion points make up the other main prong of the leveling system. The player may invest devotion points in constellations: groups of stat bonuses and skills which must be unlocked in a particular order. Each constellation belongs to a class:
- Ascendant: related to immense feats or reverence from others
- Chaotic: entropy and destruction
- Eldritch: wild forces of magic
- Order: harmony and balance
- Primordial: life, death, reality itself
and may have affinity requirements (for example, the tier two constellation Affliction requires the player to have 4 points of devotion in Ascendant, 3 points in Chaotic, and 4 points in Eldritch before it unlocks and becomes available to the player). As the player unlocks stars in a constellation, they will receive affinity bonuses with the class to which the constellation belongs. These may help to unlock more powerful constellations with higher affinity requirements. Some constellations have a special skill which may be associated with a class skill of the player’s choosing. For example, by completely investing in the Falcon constellation, the player may unlock the Falcon Swoop ability, which spawns a certain number of falcons that fly through enemies dealing damage based on the currently equipped weapon, plus a certain amount of bleeding damage over three seconds. This skill can be triggered by using a class skill. If you are playing as a Shaman, say, you could link the Falcon Swoop to the Shaman’s Wind Devil skill, which creates swirling tornadoes that deal damage to any enemies in their path. Whenever you use the Wind Devil skill, you will have a chance of also triggering the Falcon Swoop skill, increasing your damage across a broader spectrum of damage types. As long as you have Falcon Swoop it will gain experience as you do, gaining in power, duration and the number of falcons that come to your aid.
2.3.4 Reputation
Similarly to Din’s Curse and Depths of Peril, the monsters and human groups in the game have opinions of the player’s actions, and will even battle each other. The more monsters of a group that you kill, the worse your reputation with that group becomes. This will lead to more monsters spawning in, and more hero units will appear as well. For human factions, if the player has a positive relationship with them, this will allow the player to purchase items at greater discounts, access unique item crafting recipes, and a few other benefits that increase proportionately to your reputation with the faction.
2.3.5 Crafting and Inventory
Harking back to the ARPG oldies, Grim Dawn uses a grid based inventory system that inspires players to take up Tetris in order to better squeeze extra loot into it. Each item takes up a certain number of slots on the grid, from two-handed swords that take up 1x4, chest and leg armors which are 2x3, to general components and accessories which are 1x1. In general, equipable items do not stack, while consumables do. Over time, the player will receive extra bags that increase one’s inventory space, and there is a ”smuggler” character who serves a storehouse for items the player wants to keep for the long haul or to transfer to another character. Still, you will spend a large amount of time pondering whether a +3% Physique bonus outweighs a +3% attack speed.
Items come in five tiers based on value/rarity:
- Common: ordinary items, weapons, and armor. Provide no magical damage or protection.
- Magical: a common item that can have one magical prefix and/or one magical suffix.
- Rare: a magical item that has a chance of getting a rare affix (Magical Prefix+ Magical Suffix, Rare Prefix + Magical Suffix, Rare Prefix + Rare Suffix). Rare affixes provide more substantial bonuses.
- Epic: These items are unique: they have unique stats, unique art, etc, and are not based on the random generation of Prefix + Base Item + Suffix.
- Legendary: Legendary items are higher level epic items: they are unique, but just better quality. They do not start to drop until the player reaches level 50.
As the player travels around the world of Grim Dawn, they will kill thousands, possibly millions of enemies. These enemies will quite often drop loot, which the player will pick up because there was a nice jingle sound and they look shiny and special. The player must then sort through the loot. Besides equipable items, there are also materials or components that will drop. These are frequently based on body parts of the slain enemies, Ancient Armor Plate from undead enemies, or Vicious Jawbone or Bristly Fur from various animal or beast enemies. Collecting the required number of these components allows the player to create a complete piece of material which may be applied to an appropriate piece of equipment to give it a bonus, or used at a blacksmith to craft a new item. For truly high level legendary items, there will be a complex crafting chain: collecting X of material A, Y of material B, and Z of material C, then combining some of A and other materials to create a more advanced material D, combining B and something else to create material E, and possibly using a blueprint and still more materials to create a relic or other advanced item F, before finally combining it all together to get the item you wanted: AFT, which stands for About Fucking Time. Besides requiring the parts and level to craft these items at the blacksmith, you will also need enough ”iron bits,” the in-game currency.
2.4 Procedures
2.4.1 Leveling and Upgrading
Deciding how to level up your character is a recurring procedure the player will undertake. As described above, this involves three main choices: how to spend your stat point, how to invest your skill points, and finally how to invest any devotion points you received from cleansing shrines.
The second part is deciding on equipment, which will depend on your character build, skills, and what item upgrade materials you have available.
2.4.2 Exploring
The world of Grim Dawn is a large interconnected network of paths with some larger open areas. Throughout the world, the player can find numerous caves, mines, ruins, dungeons etc, which are of course filled with monsters and other creatures which the player may kill indiscriminately. There are also pieces of lore scattered around which tell a larger story of people fleeing their homes, good or at least neutral humans turning to crime and banditry, and many people being taken over by demonic invaders.
The player can also find secret hidden areas, areas not marked on the map that can only be accessed by destroying a particular wall or having a particular key. These often contain high level loot or even one-time chests, which one appear once per character on each difficulty setting.
2.4.3 Crafting
Crafting ties into many of the game systems: combat, in which the player may find needed components, the many faction-based shops and vendors which may have a critical item, and the faction-based reputation system which unlocks higher level recipes/blueprints and materials.
2.4.4 Boss-Slaying
The majority of game time will be spent moving from a hub to the next boss in the game, whether the boss is required to be killed in order to unlock the next area of the game, or is one of the ubiquitous bounties that the player may complete for the factions in the game. The bosses are typically higher level than the player (between 2-5 levels higher), and come with large health bars, powerful spells and attacks, and some unique abilities. Killing them will typically give the player XP, money, items, and a boost/deduction with several factions.
2.5 Resources
This section covers the resources in Grim Dawn.
2.5.1 Abstract
- Health: This will slowly regenerate over time given the right equipment and stats. If it goes to zero the player dies and will reappear at the last main town the player visited.
- Spirit: This is used for casting spells and using special abilities.
- Player Level: The player’s level will increase once enough XP has been acquired. Each level up increases the amount of XP required to reach the next level, and also provides +10 to both Offensive and Defensive Abilities.
- Class Level: Upon leveling up, the player will receive 3 skill points, which may be invested in skills or in increasing the player’s class level. Each class provides different bonuses per level to Cunning, Physique, Spirit, Health, Spirit Energy, Offensive Abillity, and Defensive Ability. New abilities also unlock at the 5, 10, 15,20, 25, 32, 40, and 50 marks.
- Player XP: Player XP is received by reading lore, killing enemies, and completing quests.
- Skills: Each class has approximately 30 skills, which about 2-5 new skills unlocked at each of the marks mentioned above.
- Skill Points: The player will receive between 3-1 skill points each time they level up their character. Until level 50, they receive 3 points, then the number drops to 2, again drops to 1 after level 90.
- Devotion Points: For each shrine which the player cleanses, you will receive one devotion point which can be spent as described previously.
- Celestial Power XP: Each equipped celestial power gains XP as the player gains XP. So, if you kill 10 monsters worth 100 XP each, each celestial power you have equipped will gain 1000 XP.
- Celestial Power Level: When you reach a set amount of XP for each Celestial Power, it will move to the next rank, which will increase its power.
- Stats: The stats described in 2.3.3 are all abstract resources, although they are effected by player level, class and class level, and currently equipped items.
2.5.2 Concrete
- Consumables: There are many different consumables, but the main two are health potions and spirit potions. Consumables have a cool down, so they cannot be spammed.
- Items: Items come in several different varieties: there are many types of weapons, some usable with with one hand, others requiring two; there are pieces of armor for each armor slot on the character; there are accessories, such as rings, amulets, relics, etc. These may be equipped if the player has the requisite stats, or they may be sold, dropped, or dismantled.
- Materials: The player can gather many materials throughout the world of Grim Dawn. These can be gathered from fallen enemies, received from dismantling items, or assembled from lower level materials at a blacksmith.
- Notes: The player can find dozens of different notes throughout the levels of Grim Dawn. These grant varying amounts of XP and tell the player extra backstory about what occurred.
- Blueprints: Blueprints and recipes are special consumable items that allow the player to assemble the item detailed in them at a blacksmith, provided they have the required materials and money.
- Pets: The player may only have one pet active at a time. This is usually a summoned creature that will accompany the player for as long as it has health. Pets may deal damage to enemies and keep them occupied while the player is dealing with others. They also have special abilities which increase their effectiveness.
- Money: The game uses iron bits as its cash. Chests and monsters sometimes drop iron bits, but they can also be received for completing quests, and by selling items. Money is required to purchase items from vendors, dismantle items, create items, and to respec the player’s skill and devotion points.
2.6 Conflicts
2.6.1 Stat Point Investment
The player only receives 85 stat points to spend, along with 220 skill points. This is not enough to max out your stats nor your skills, therefore, the player must choose carefully and consider which skills and stats will most benefit their class, equipment, and build.
2.6.2 Factions
The player cannot please each faction equally. While most quests and most human factions are neutral regarding each other, two in particular are diametrically opposed. Depending on who the player decides to support, the opposing faction will become your enemies.
2.7 Boundaries
2.7.1 Stat Point Investment
The player only receives 85 stat points to spend, along with 220 skill points, although these hard limits are extended in the expansion packs.
2.7.2 Level
The player may reach a max level of 85, but this is increased in the DLC.
2.7.3 NPCs
Most NPCs cannot be attacked or killed. However, their status may change depending on the player’s dialogue choices.
2.7.4 Map
Many areas of the map are initially locked to the player until they can either complete the requisite quests to unlock them, or until they can gather the needed materials to do so.
2.7.5 Inventory
The player begins with a 12 x 8 inventory grid, but will later acquire additional bags of 8 x 8 each.
2.8 Outcomes
There is one main outcome for Grim Dawn: the player defeats the final boss, a mythical creature that is attempting to bring an invading army of Aetherials into the mundane world. The player may continue to play at that difficulty to farm, or to finish any remaining quests.
3 Dramatic Elements
Grim Dawn has relatively strong story elements. The characters for the main quests’ main conversations all have voiced dialogue, but the rest of the optional dialogue and all the other characters’ dialogue is unvoiced. There are almost no scenes besides the opening one, and there are no cutscene or special animations during conversation.
3.1 Characters
The weakest part of Grim Dawn is in the characterization of the characters. They have very little personality, and will mostly only speak to the player about the mission at hand.
3.2 Story
The story begins with several people cornering an Aetherial that has taken over a human’s body. They hang the Aetherial, which then flees the body. The body is the player. You awaken after having been possessed, and are quickly given a task to help a nearby village, as usually happens when you almost die from hanging. The player will interact with the NPCs of the village, and even find survivors out in the areas now occupied by robbers and monsters. After completing the first task, it naturally leads to another, and then another; necessitating the player’s eventually departure to other settlements to seek help for the beleaguered Devil’s Crossing.
Along the way, the player will encounter other settlements and NPCs in need of assistance, and other factions. Upon reaching Homestead, the player will have the opportunity to choose between the Order of Death’s Vigil and Kymon’s Chosen. Whichever faction the player does not choose will become an enemy faction, and whenever the player encounters that faction’s units, they will be hostile.
After assisting Homestead, the player will fight their way to Fort Ikon. Rinse and repeat the previous steps.
4 Dynamic Elements
This section covers the game features that change in reaction to the player’s actions/game progress.
4.1 Day / Night Cycle
The game features a day/night cycle. As time passes, the lighting will change from day to night and back again. This seems done mostly for cosmetic reasons and does not affect the monsters or gameplay.
4.2 Enemy Spawning
The number and type of enemies that will spawn in is determined partly by the character’s level and also by the character’s reputation with the faction that they are fighting.
4.3 Faction Reputation
As the player helps out a faction, their reputation with that faction will naturally increase. Conversely, if you kill thousands and thousands of Aetherial monsters, your reputation with the Aetherials will be highly negative. A positive reputation gives the player discounts on items, access to special faction items, and even access to the faction quest table, which will randomly create new quests to help increase your reputation with the faction. A negative reputation leads to increase enemy spawns and more hero unit spawns, making that faction harder to fight against.
4.4 Patterns
This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.
4.4.1 Playing Style Reinforcement
As with many ARPGs, the player will receive tons of loot. This loot can give the player new abilities or powerful stat boosts, or even crippling penalties. The player can choose loot, stats, and skills that best match their chosen play style.
4.4.2 Dynamic Friction
Dynamic friction, like the stopping mechanism below, appears in several places in gameplay. Anything involving leveling in Grim Dawn makes use of this pattern. Experience requirements to achieve the next level increase from level to level, as do the number of points required to unlock the next tier of abilities in the class skill trees.
Faction-based bonuses and penalties require exponentially increasing values of reputation in order to receive them, and the number and level of enemies that spawn in is mostly controlled by the player’s level: most enemies will appear at or slightly above the player’s level, while hero and boss units could be at or 5 or more levels higher. Of course, the level of the enemies is also limited by the area: unless the unit is part of a randomly generated quest, the max level is determined by the area and the difficulty the player is playing on.
4.4.3 Stopping Mechanism
The stopping mechanism pattern is mostly seen in skill cooldowns: after using a skill the player must wait a minimum amount of time before being able to use it again. This time varies from skill to skill, and can be modified by skill point investment and item bonuses.
Another place is in the skill points received per level up. After reaching certain caps described above, the number of skill points decreases one by one.
4.4.4 Trade
The player may farm items and sell them for more cash at many different vendors.
5 Conclusion
Grim Dawn is a deep ARPG experience, with hours of gameplay in it. Although the story elements are not the most brilliant seen in RPG history, they are not laughable nor worthy of denigration. It allows the player to customize their character’s equipment, stats, and skills to produce varied and diverse character types and playstyles.
5.1 Potent Elements
Character customization and the lure of getting that one game changing piece of loot are powerful draws that will bring the player back again and again.
5.2 Areas for Improvement
Areas are always the same, making it somewhat more repetitive than necessary to farm for XP, items, or blueprints.
