Grim Dawn Review Part II: A Struggling Story

Whenever a story is told in an episodic fashion, it is important to ensure that each individual portion is it's own complete adventure while still contributing to the overall narrative arc. In this way the storyteller can continue building up momentum for the extended plot while continuing to give the audience a feeling of satisfaction. When it simply isn't possible to give a complete story to each installment, due to time constraints or what have you, it is important to always end with a sufficiently powerful emotional cliffhanger to keep the audience interested.

As much as I loath to compare everything to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back is a perfect example of how to pull this off properly. It is a complete movie in itself. You don't need to have seen A New Hope to fully enjoy it, nor do you feel dissatisfied at the end even though you know it's only part of a longer series. The individual story arc of Luke Skywalker being trained as a Jedi so that he can avenge his father's death, only to discover that the one he blames for his father's death is, in fact, his father is emotionally compelling. It's partner story arc of Princess Leia and company running from the Empire only to get captured and be used as bait for Luke, is also interesting and provides a romantic plot line that we would never be able to get from Luke himself. When the movie ends, we know that there is more to come: we wonder what Luke will do with his new found knowledge and we wonder how or if the companions will track down and rescue Han Solo, but none of this detracts from the satisfaction of knowing that our heroes have escaped and that the Empire's plans have been foiled, even if they are the films clear victor.

If The Empire Strikes Back is an example of how to do installment storytelling properly then Grim Dawn is The Matrix Reloaded. It is incomplete, it is unsatisfying, and it fails to convince me that I want to see more. This is all the more tragic for the fact that the Crate team has created a world that begs to have stories told about it. It's further painful because the skeleton of a story that they do have could actually be quite good if given a little more effort. I don't know if the problem is a lack of story telling skills on their part, a decision to sacrifice story for game play, or if they simply didn't care, but the fact of the matter is that the cult status of Titan Quest is only going to get Grim Dawn so far. Sure, you've got a lot of TQ veterans coming to play your new title, but you're only going to attract new gamers by selling an exciting adventure. New players come for the story, they stay for the excellent ARPG mechanics and loot grinding.

Here are my biggest gripes about the story so far and my suggestions for how to fix them:

1. I don't know who I am.
The player character has, essentially, zero characterization beyond what class build I chose to use for them. Sure, it is established that I was previously "taken" by an aetherial and that I have amnesia, a convenient way to avoid giving a back story, but that's about all we get. We aren't even provided with a decent reason why our character should be motivated to go on our quest, after all John Bourbon flat out tells us that we're expendable to him, why should be risking our lives for the people who just tried to kill us? Occasionally we are given opportunities to make dialog choices or make minor moral decisions about saving or killing various NPCs, but at no point does it seem like these decisions actually effect the story in a meaningful way. Some of the readable lore notes may or may not provide bread crumbs as to the players back story, but they are far too indistinct for there to be an certainty

How to fix it:
Make my choices matter. If you don't want the player character to have definitive back story and you plan on sticking with the amnesia story, fine, but if you're going to give me choices then they damn well better make a difference beyond what loot I get or how much experience I receive. If I save someone, just having them say "thank you" when I get back to town isn't really enough to make me feel like it mattered. Have them start a quest chain, or provide me with valuable information, or open up a new area of the map. Have them join the town guard and help fight off attackers. Have them do anything that makes it seem like my choice made a difference.

If it's not your intention to stick with the amnesia story and you do have a definite story for my character, then make the bread crumbs more than bread crumbs. Make it clear that the information I'm digging up has something to do with me, my past, and my unique circumstances. Also, start introducing those breadcrumbs early. I need to know that my unique story is, in fact, part of the overall narrative and that I'm not just conveniently placed to save the world just because. Giving the player character the personal quest of rediscovering their own identity would also fix the issue of lacking motivation. If John Bourbon enlisted me by saying "Look, we know the zombies are coming from Burial Hill and you also came from that direction, maybe by killing them you can learn something about your past?" I would be far more motivated to help him.

2. Key plot points aren't clear enough.
When something of major significance to the extended narrative of Grim Dawn happens, there is very little to indicate it. As far as I can tell, the entire first act only serves as a means to have the player accidentally bump into Ulgrim. Sure, there's the element of stopping the Aetherial attacks on Devil's Crossing, but the game could really jump right into act two without much suffering. There are some rare few bits of lore to be found that could later become relevant, but the problem is that the only way to get them is by carefully reading the notes that can be found in the world. Again, the issue is that of bread crumbs or of needles in haystacks. It's hard to discern what information is really important and what can be harmlessly skipped.

How to fix it:
Key plot points could be highlighted with the addition of a few more short cinematics. The game into cinematic has a very distinct and charming artistic style and isn't so long that it's painful to watch. Additional videos of similar style and length at key points in the plot would really make them stand out and help players build an outline of events that really matter in their head. Being able to go back to those cinematics for review later would also enable people to sort out aspects of the story that they might have gotten confused on earlier.

These cinematics could either be done from a first person perspective, with the characters speaking to the camera, or they could fully involve the player character. The later would be better, but would require the Crate team to make versions for both the male and female character. As an animator myself, I understand that this could lead to a significant increase in work but I really do think it would be the most effective option. Sure, they could simply decide that one or the other was the intended character and leave it at that, but as I said earlier and in my post about Grim Dawn character design: If you give the player a choice, make that choice matter.

Highlighting the bread crumbs of information in the world could be done by giving lore notes that are actually important to the plot voice over readings. I know, I know many people hate, or at least profess to hate, audio diary type devices in games. The fact of the matter is that they keep being used as a means of providing background to complex stories because they are effective. Hearing a voice over kick in the moment I click on one of the notes would give me a reason to pause and pay attention to what is going on. Any notes that don't contain super significant information would be there for the benefit of the hardcore lore hounds that just have to know everything and could go without the voice overs.

3. I don't care about the right characters.
Ulgrim and Creed are apparently two of the most important NPCs in the game when it comes to the story. I would have never guessed it though because they spend most of the game being little more than talking heads. At the end of the game, something happens to one of them and the dialog boxes seem to suggest that I'm supposed to care, but I don't because I've never had any reason to develop a rapport with either of them. Two characters I do care about, because the intro shows them to me as more than just quest hubs, are Captain John Bourbon and Sahdina; they apparently don't matter at all after act one.

How to fix it: ***Spoilers Ahead***
More cinematics would go a long way toward fixing this. Giving the player interactions with them that go beyond being quest hubs would be another. At this point, both Ulgrim and Creed just kind of stand around and talk at me. A few of the things they say are kind of relevant to the plot but the dialog suffers from the same problem as the lore notes, which is that there isn't much to separate the stuff that matters from the stuff that doesn't. Furthermore, as evidenced by my expectation that Bourbon and Sahdina would actually be major characters, just putting a character in a cinematic makes them instantly more human to the audience than if they are just man shaped blobs that give us our objectives.

For Ulgrim, making his introduction stand out from the other random NPCs you meet in the wilderness would go along way to making a difference. I personally think that he would have much more impact if he were a prisoner in Warden Krieg's chamber, rather than a random wilderness encounter. He could still come at us with the same story about being a nobody who just happened to get captured, but it would at least plant the seed that he's someone important. After his true nature is revealed, it would help to develop him as a character if there were sections of the game where he accompanies the player in accomplishing tasks. Random interactions and witty commentary would develop him into a more complete person and could even result in our having a reason to like him. That way when he disappears, we'll actually have a reason to miss him. On the topic of his disappearance, that would sell much better if it happened in a post boss fight cinematic rather than in the middle of the fight. As it is, I barely even noticed he was gone.

As for Inquisitor Creed, giving him a more dramatic introduction would also help. After reading all of his journals, a well done cinematic intro could have given him more of a heroic status in the view of the player. Creed should feel like a person we look up to and seek for guidance, a Grim Dawn version of Deckard Cain, if you will. Instead he's just kind of an awkward extra wheel. Having him become a companion during the push to Fort Ikon would be an awesome additional way to develop him. As it is, he sends me to clear a path to the fort, but is already there when I arrive, as if he got there by some form of teleportation. Additionally, where previously the developers only give us bread crumbs about things, they seem to be giving us bread slices in trying to convince us that Creed isn't really to be trusted. They are so heavy handed in their approach to making him to be suspicious that their efforts are almost suspicious. Either they are making it so obvious that it can't be missed, or they are trying to distract us from the real threat. In either case, the effect is rather off putting; patronizing in the least, and condescending at worst. It's all the more annoying because if his betrayal should indeed prove to be both sudden and inevitable, I wouldn't care, because they've given me no reason to trust or like him in the first place.

4. My actions don't matter.
I totally get that a major aspect of ARPGs is that the world mostly resets for each play session, otherwise how would we grind for loot? This doesn't mean that when I do something that is supposedly significant to the plot that it should make a permanent difference. I think that the perfect example of this is when Captain Bourbon sends me to secure the Burrwitch Village Portal. Ostensibly, my reason for doing so is that it will enable Devil's Crossing to retake the village, but when I succeed, no effort is made to follow up on that.

How to fix it:
If you send me to secure a portal so that you can clear a village, you better damn well send troops through to clear the village. As it is, the entire first act comes across as if everything you're doing for Bourbon is just a minor convenience that he doesn't really care about. "Oh, you actually managed to secure the portal? To be honest I was kinda hoping you'd just get killed and be one less mouth to feed!" Sending a few Devil's Crossing militia through the secure the area around the portal would help to alleviate this problem. When a player goes to great lengths to accomplish a task, make sure that there is a clear result of the task being accomplished.

5. There is a lack of escalation.
While the enemy mobs do indeed gradually become tougher, there isn't a real sense of rising action to a climactic end. There was no feeling that something intense was about to happen leading up to each of the story boss fights. I never realized I was in their chamber until I was already into the encounter. I didn't even realize that Loghorrean was the final boss until the game told me I had unlocked ultimate difficulty. I knew that he was bad, for sure, but I didn't know he was the end. It didn't help that the mini-boss right before him was actually a much harder fight.

How to fix it:
It's all about ambiance. For the most part, the areas leading up to the encounters with the story bosses don't look any different than the rest of the zones they are in. This samey-sameness takes away from the feeling that anything important is happening. That kind of casual level design works great for a game where you have to unlock the boss room, because the act of bringing the key to the door to unlock it has it's own sort of intensity. It doesn't work for a game where you can just stroll in. The environment should reflect the fact that something wicked this way comes, and at this point it really doesn't. Loghorrean is an exception to this rule, as his zone is full of eldritch tentacles, but because none of the other bosses had intense build ups, it kind of went by unnoticed. When all else fails, nothing works better than an intense upswing in enemy numbers and difficulty, and anyone who has ever played a final fantasy game can tell you the benefit of having awesome boss music.

In conclusion:
The Crate Entertainment team have done an amazing job of creating an immersive world for us to play in. The skeleton of a story they have laid out could be phenomenal if they would have just bothered to keep it more in focus. If you aren't a person who cares much about story, then I suppose you would be non-plussed, but I think it's a shame that such a rich world isn't getting the sort of narrative outing it deserves.

All of that aside, Grim Dawn is a delightfully solid ARPG experience. More well known reviewers than I, are right to call it the first true successor to Diablo II. It is that good. Any minor complaints I could have about loot balance and the difficulty curve, are things that all ARPGs take time to work out. Afterall, even Diablo II is still getting patched after all of these years. I think that Crate Entertainment is to be commended on an excellent first outing. I only hope that Grim Dawns inevitable expansion content will continue to be excellent where they already are, and will improve where they are not.

Grim Dawn Review Part I: Excellence in World Building.

Slogging through the sparsely wooded highlands I observed a gaggle of Bloodsworn Cultists around the entrance to some ancient ruin. I charged, intent on wiping their demonic taint from the world. Having killed the sentries, I delved into the ruins, determined to leave no cultist survivors. Initially, I was surprised to discover little resistance, until I discovered that the Bloodsworn have also been attacked from within. The ruin was a tomb; the Bloodsworn had angered whatever rested there. I soon found myself knee deep in ghouls and skeletons intent on my destruction, but my curiosity had been piqued. If there are undead here, what treasures must they be defending? I Hacked and slashed my way through the rotting hoard until I reached the burial chamber, only to discover that it was the last hold out for the cultists. In their desperate effort to survive, they had summoned a greater daemon of terrible power; I induced vitality sapping chaotic energies and lightning to envelope my ax as I prepared for the fight of my life.

Grim Dawn takes place in a beautifully realized Edwardian Gothic setting that takes it's cues liberally from H.P. Lovecraft, Greek Mythology, and the Warhammer Fantasy mythos. The developers have succeeded in creating a believable, breathing world that provides a sense of immersion that is often lacking in action role playing games. They have achieved this through fantastic attention to detail and micromanagement of the game resources to create a bevy of both scripted and organic narrative moments, like the one described above.

The worlds of most ARPGs, such as the Diablo franchise's Sanctuary, are perpetually stuck with their doomsday clocks at one minute from midnight. Not so for Grim Dawns world of Cairn; the bell has long since tolled, and mankind is merely struggling to survive as their world becomes a battleground for otherworldly powers. The disembodied Aetherials and eldritch Chthonians have long been at war with one another and Cairn is their new battlefield. The first seeks to use mankind as a resource, while the second is intent on wiping us out before that can happen. Their conflict, however, is not merely a background plot device; throughout the game we can observe armies of Aether-warped mutants and Chthonian daemons battling one another. Most of the time, they'll actually ignore the player until one of them is destroyed. We're simply too unimportant to be a priority.

We're unimportant, that is, until we prove ourselves to be a genuine threat to their goals. In addition to a well fleshed out reputation system for friendly factions, Grim Dawn has a reputation scale for the various enemy factions as well. The more members of an enemy faction you kill, the more they start to realize that you are a threat, and the more likely they are to focus their ire on you. Raise your hostility level high enough, and they'll start sending more of their heroes and champions to try and take you down. Mechanically, this has the benefit of providing more opportunities for high quality loot, but it also gives a real feeling that there is an intelligence behind your foes.

The enemy factions grow and change in other ways as well, modifying their tactics in response to both the player and each other as the game progresses. In a cynical way, we could just view this as the developers escalating the difficulty level of the monster tables, but the thing is that it's done so well that we don't feel like that is what's happening. I was particularly pleased to watch the progression of the Aetherial forces as they shifted gears from armies of weak human zombies supplemented by a few mutants, to armies of mutated trolls supplemented by possessed spell casters, to finally adding in heavy support in the form truly terrifying mutant abominations. It makes one feel like they are actively learning about their new environment and finding ways to take advantage of its resources, even if, terrifyingly, their idea of a resource is human flesh.

Unlike many ARPGs, Grim Dawn eschews procedurally generated maps for ones that are entirely hand drawn. This choice reduces the random replay factor of the game zones, but it provides for a high level of developer control over the places and events that the player sees. The Grim Dawn team uses these strengths to their advantage by creating beautiful set pieces that show us the terrible cost of the eternal war. Ruined villages, with meals still warm on the table, are crawling with Aether spawned zombies and mutants, while cultist camps in the wilderness send out raiding parties to gather up blood sacrifices for their Chthonic "gods". In the Black Legion castle of Fort Ikon, we see ranked arrays of steam powered tanks which could help turn the tide in mans favor, if only our limited resources weren't so necessary for survival. These dour images provide a very real feeling of despair and help to place in stark light the terrible futility of mankind's hope.


Another element that contributes to the excellent world building in Grim Dawn is the fact that the game oozes lore from it's every pore. From the mastery selection screen, which explains how science is mistrusted as simply a new form of magic and therefor explains how a world with Edwardian cultural sensibilities lacks Edwardian level technology, to the conversations to be had with just about every NPC about the way their lives were before the grim dawn, no opportunity to share the worlds back story is wasted. There are also "lore notes" to be found throughout the world which not only provide information about the grim dawn, the Empire, and the core narrative, but provide experience bonuses for reading them. The game actively rewards you for showing an interest in the back story, something I think that more games could benefit from.

Unfortunately, for all its world building excellence, Grim Dawn is not without its flaws, the largest of which is its stunted and poorly presented core story. The games central story arc, about a possessed human regaining control of their body and then waging a one man war against the forces arrayed against mankind, suffers in quite a few areas.

Check back later for part two of my Grim Dawn Review where I will tackle the flaws in the game narrative and propose solutions to the same.

Grim Dawn: Balthus the Conjurer Part II

Well, I finished the game, on Veteran Difficulty, at level 46. I know many ARPG players say the game doesn't really begin until you hit the higher difficulty tiers and start the serious gear grinding. I appreciate that approach, but I get bored with my character to easily to go that route. In a week or two I'll probably crank Grim Dawn back up and give it a play through with a different class. For now, here's how Balthus ended the game.

My gearing and basic stat priorities didn't change any from my last post. Still primarily focused on defense. One thing I did start looking for was weapons with attack speed bonuses. I found those significantly boosted my DPS. Still I put a higher premium on improved defensive ability.

I started giving my weapons the "Severed Claw" upgrade at about level 30. It grants an attack skill called Brutal Slam, which I found gave me good burst DPS against enemy heroes. I slotted it as my right mouse button (RMB) ability and kept Savagery slotted on the left as my default attack.

Balthus End Game Skills 

The above link leads to the Grim Calc for Balthus's skill set at the end game. From where we were last time, I continued putting points into the Shaman Mastery until I hit Tenacity of the Boar, which I then maxed out. At that time I also picked up Upheaval, which grants a small AOE that ads bleed damage and stacks well with bleed damage buffs. From there I pushed Shaman all the way up to Storm Touched and maxed that out as well. I then filled out the remainder of the Shaman Mastery before dumping points into Stormcaller's Pact.

As for my Devotion points, I finished off The Tortoise constellation, unlocking the Turtle Shell skill. This ended up proving to be a life saver on many occasions, giving me critical seconds to heal or to finish off some of the tougher fights. After that I filled in The Lizard constellation, which provides significant boosts to health regeneration. The next constellation I went after was Ulo the Keeper of Waters. This constellation provides a lot of elemental resistance bonuses, as well as a passive skill that has a chance to remove buffs from enemies. Finally, I filled out The Solemn Watcher, which provides resistance to physical damage and increases defensive ability.

Throughout the game I continued to kill most mobs in one hit. There were points, when I was near to maxing out one of the skills, when my progress would slow due to my stats being low. I think that in the future I'll try to find more balance between boosting skills and boosting the mastery bar. That said, I didn't much struggle with the final boss, Loghorrean. I was able to maintain respectable damage to him while only occasionally popping potions to improve my health regen.

As I said, I know many people don't consider the game to have even started until they hit higher tier difficulties. If I were to continue past here on this character, I would probably finish off Stormcaller's Pact, then put one point each into the Mogdrogan's Pact skill line before returning to the Occultist Mastery to pick up Second Rite. I'll be keeping Balthus on ice for the time being, but maybe I'll pursue that someday and give another update on how it worked out. 

I think that for my next character I'm either going to go for a rifleman build or for a glass cannon caster, I'm not sure. What I am sure about is that I'm going to give Grim Dawn a rest for a time. As far as my overall impression of the game is concerned, give me a few days to mull it over and organize my thoughts. I'll be back with a Grim Dawn Final Review by the end of the week.

Deadpool and Fake Geek/New Geek Culture

People have mixed views on the term "fake geek". I don't see anything wrong with the term as long as it's used in the right context. Here's why:

For years nobody knew who Deadpool was. Then, all of a sudden, like a majestic eagle in red and black leather, he soared into stardom.The world is full of people who have "always" loved him (and by "always" they mean "since they found out about him a few months ago). I've watched with amusement as people from my childhood who mocked geek culture and comics have suddenly, now that we're around 30, become huge comic book fans. I think it's wonderful that being a "Geek" has become an acceptable thing and that the things we love are now huge in pop culture. It's a great time to be a geek. 

Now, a whole world of people who had never heard of Deadpool but claim he's always been their favorite "superhero" are saying "I don't know why Warhead hasn't been in an X-Men movie yet. She's so awesome! We love her! Everyone knows she's the coolest!"

You'd never heard of her either! You've barely scratched the surface of who she is. The movie doesn't even clearly explain what her powers are! She has maybe 5 lines of dialogue! Movie Negasonic Teenage Warhead doesn't even remotely look like comic book Negasonic Teenage Warhead!

Hello!

Look, it's perfectly OK to discover a thing and like a thing. You don't have to keep pretending that you know all about the thing and that you've loved it for always. It's OK to say "Hey, I just got into this thing." Nobody is going to judge you. Most geeks love having an opportunity to talk about the things we love. We'd love to teach you about our passions.

What's irritating is the fact that so many of us life long geeks remember that you weren't always one of us. We remember being mocked. We remember being ridiculed. We remember feeling like outsiders. We're not asking (at least, I'm not asking) for you to put us on pedestals and praise our foresight in loving comics (or whatever), what we are asking is that you stop pretending that you've always been one of us because we know you're being fake.

We know you're being fake the same way you knew we were fake when we tried out for the team even though we weren't athletic. Or we showed up to school wearing skate shoes even though we'd never touched a skateboard in our lives. Or we used our first ever paycheck to buy new wardrobes at Abercrombie and Fitch. We know you're being fake the way we were fake when all we wanted was to fit in.

The thing is, you don't need to be fake. Like I said, it's OK to admit that you're new to something. It's cool to be new. As I said before, Geeks love to teach people about our passions. We love "New Geeks". Bring 'em on! The more the merrier! The newest fans are always the most passionate fans! In fact, there's a certain irony in the fact that a whole world of people who spent their lives judging geeks are now afraid of being judged for not having been geeks. Cut that shit out.

Because when you're fake, we know that means one of two things: Either you were always a fan and pretended not to be because you cared more about your image than being our friends, or you're only being a fan now because it's popular and you care about your image and want to be perceived as cool. Either way, it means that when the tidal wave of popularity that Geek Culture is currently riding goes away, we'll be going back to being outsiders. Because as soon as we aren't cool anymore you'll shallowly move on to whatever the new fad is. At it's core, the hatred of "Fake Geeks" is a fear of abandonment.

What I'm really trying to talk about here is honesty. Be honest about who you are. Embrace it. If you've always loved the thing: Keep it up! If you really do love the thing but are new to it: Welcome! Everyone loves new friends! If you only love the thing because it's popular: That's OK too, but at least have the decency to admit it, because nobody likes a phony.

Geek culture, at it's core, is about being yourself. It's about embracing the things you love and sharing those things with others. Geek culture is about honesty.

Let's all be honest together.

 

Grim Character Build

Well, Grim Dawn has officially been out for about a month now. As I mentioned in a previous post, I've was an early adopter back when Crate Entertainment still had the game in Kickstarter. I played around with a few of it's alpha and beta builds, but I hadn't given it a serious look until it came out. After playing around with it a bit these past few weeks, I've decided to have a go at developing my own character build.

As I also mentioned in a previous post, I don't consider myself particularly good at ARPG games. I'm open to any constructive criticism or other input as to my design choices. Up until now I've always pulled my ARPG character builds off of the web, finding one I liked that somebody else had done and copying it. This is my first attempt at flying solo in this regard.

Introducing Balthus the Conjurer. Or as I prefer to call him: Balthus the Smash-Your-Dreams-With-a-Hammer-er.

Like it's predecessor Titan Quest, Grim Dawn lacks a traditional class system. Instead, it has what they call a "Mastery System". A Mastery is a set of skills that follow a certain character archetype. The current Grim Dawn Mastery choices are as follows:

Soldier - Melee Tank

Demolishionist - Ranged Phsyical and Fire DPS

Occultist - Summoning, DoTs, Chaos and Acid DPS

Arcanist - Traditional Mage, Elemental DPS

Nightblade - Melee DPS

Shaman - Hybrid Physical and Magic Melee DPS

None of the Mastery choices are limited to those specific descriptions, but those are the archetypes they most lend themselves to. Depending on which Mastery Skills you have, where you put your base stat points, and which "Devotions" you choose, you can make any Mastery serve any roll. And there's another thing - You get to pick two.

The idea is that you can find skills in two different Mastery's and take advantage of synergies between them. The game determines the name of your character class based on which two Mastery choices you make. Balthus here is a combination Occultist and Shaman, which the game calls a "Conjurer". Contrary to what you might think, he actually does very little conjuring and does a lot of smashy hammering.

Hulk Approved

This character build is an example of classic Spencer Schaepman build philosophy (I suppose now it should be called "Three Second Rush" build philosophy), which is "I don't always hit you, but when I hit you, you're dead." It combines the Occultists chaos damage and attack speed buffs with the Shamans improved two handed weapon damage. Both skill sets add bleeding damage to attacks as well, which is a nice bonus. All class skills are focused in damage dealing, all Stat points and Devotion points are dedicated to survival. Heavy armor and heavy weapons are the name of the game here.

As of right now, Balthus is level 22, having just defeated the first story boss, Warden Krieg. I am playing on Veteran Difficulty and all gear is self found. Here is a link to Grim Calc, a web based skill calculator for Grim Dawn, it shows where my build is so far.

Level 22 Balthus

My first goal at character creation was to max out the Occultist Skill Solael's Witchfire before unlocking my second mastery at level 10. I did this more to take advantage of the skills attack speed buff than to get the added chaos damage, but that helps too. As soon as I unlocked Shaman Mastery I took one point in Savagery and one point into Brute Force. I then added mastery points until I could max out both the Occultists Consecrated Blade and the Shamans Strength of the Bear upgrades. After that I put all of my points into Savagery until it was maxed. All other points were dedicated to the Shaman Mastery, apart from one point that I put into Feral Hunger to get it's bleeding damage and health absorption buffs.

All base stat points (you get one per level) are committed to the physique stat. This stat increases your health and constitution, increases your chance to dodge enemy attacks and allows you to wear heavy armor and wield heavy weapons. I do this because, as stated before, this character is more focused on hitting hard than on hitting consistently. He needs to survive long enough to deliver the killing blow and this makes that possible. For this reason all gear is focused on Armor level first, then magical buffs to physique, health, and defensive ability, and finally buffs to offensive ability and cunning. This makes the priority order base armor, defensive buffs, attack buffs. Jewelry is selected based on getting the max possible health regeneration and then follows the same pattern as armor. I have exclusively used the Salvaged Armor Plating and Bristly Fur armor upgrades. My weapon upgrade of choice has been the Serrated Spike because it provides me with the Piercing Aura skill, which provides damage retaliation.

Devotion points are earned by cleansing shrines to the old gods that you find in the wilderness. From there you can distribute them as you wish between five devotional affinities: Order, Eldritch, Ascended, Chaos, and Primordial. The different Devotions are represented by constellations. I have focused all of my devotion points into Order because it provides health, health regeneration, and resistance buffs. I focused all of my devotion points into completing the Dryad Constellation so that I could unlock the Dryad's Blessing devotional skill, which provides a chance for healing on hit. I then bound that skill to Savagery because it's my default attack. Now I am working on the Tortoise Constellation because it provides a defensive shield when you drop below 40% health.

I'm very satisfied by how this build has been working out. At this point I'm killing most mobs in one hit, elites and bosses take a few more. Warden Krieg went down pretty quickly and I didn't suffer a significant loss of health in the process. A key thing to remember with this build is that you need to keep moving, any time spent not in combat causes you to lose charges of Savagery, which greatly reduces your damage output. As long as you can see enemy mobs on your screen, chase them and kill them. You can go back for the loot later.

Well, that's it. I hope you like what I've done so far. I'm always open to comments and suggestions. If you have any questions about specific terms or why I did a thing, feel free to ask below. I'll be post updates on my character progression as I hit milestones in the game, so stay tuned in for more!

The Force Awakens: Why Finn Doesn't Make Sense, a Veteran's Perspective

Ahh, Finn. He managed to break my sense of immersion into the movie universe minutes after the title crawl! His brave story of miraculously breaking his Storm Trooper indoctrination to become an inept hero of the resistance is less than inspiring. It's not that he's wrong in his assessment that the First Order are evil and that what they're doing is wrong. It's that he shouldn't have so suddenly and conveniently come to that conclusion in the middle of his first fight without having ever fired a shot.

Pick-up your feet, because I am about to drop some knowledge.

Let me start with a little bit about my background. I'm a former United States Army Staff Sergeant. Staff Sergeants, and other Non-commissioned Officers, bear the significant burden of conducting the training of new and junior soldiers in the Army (hence the term "Drill Sergeant"). Additionally, I am a combat veteran who is diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. If that's not enough to convince you, many of the things I'm about to tell you can be corroborated by the writings of psychologist and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman, specifically his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.

In The Force Awakens we are introduced to Finn as he is participating in his first combat. The drop ship lands, he charges off the ramp with his fellow Storm Troopers, and he is immediately overwhelmed by the chaos and violence to the extent that he not only never fires a shot, he is completely disabled by one of his comrades being shot and dying. He contributes absolutely nothing to the fight. Immediately afterward, he is so struck with anxiety over the horror of his experience that he resolves, right on the spot, to desert the First Order.

I call bullshit!

I'm sorry Cap, but it's true.

Let's talk about the methods used to train and indoctrinate modern soldiers. Recruits in the United States Army, regardless of occupational specialty, spend mind-numbing hours practicing the act of killing. Going to a military range is an almost religious experience in it's level of ritual and repetition. Hours upon hours are spent repeatedly loading, arming, firing, and unloading their weapons. Heck, I've spent hours of my life just repeatedly raising my weapon to my shoulder from the low ready position and then lowering it again without actually firing. The targets we shoot at are, very purposefully, shaped like people, so that we get used to the notion of shooting at human shaped things. The whole point of all of this practice and repetition is to raise a Soldier's ability to shoot threats to what's known as "Unconscious Mastery".

Unconscious Mastery is the point at which ones body can perform a complex task without having to think about it first. Everyone has achieved Unconscious Mastery of something. We all tie our shoes without thinking. Most people have achieved Unconscious Mastery of driving. Modern Military training provides soldiers with Unconscious Mastery of killing. When presented with a threat a soldier can, and will, engage the target without having to consider whether or not it's the right thing to do before doing it. This shortens combat engagements, increases soldier survival rates, and frees up the soldier's mind to do other things like draft casualty evacuation requests or talk on the radio. 

This doesn't just apply to shooting mind you: additional hours are spent on training on specific tactics, and not as individuals, but as teams. Hours are spent repeatedly clearing houses, taking objectives, reacting to incoming fire and various other battlefield tasks. Teams work together and practice to the point of operating together like a well oiled machine. Each person knows exactly what every other team member will do in any given situation even before they know what they will do. Even after each individual skill has been mastered, the practice never stops. It goes on, and on, and on.

When soldiers finally go into combat, they can't wait to put those skills to use. First time or hundredth time, they are pumped up with adrenaline and ready to go. That kind of feeling is infectious, everyone on the team feeds off of everyone else's excitement. It's a high that anyone who has ever played team sports is familiar with, only this time the sport is war. When the battle starts, all the adrenaline takes over and those unconsciously mastered skills kick in. Soldiers don't think, they just act. They don't, in the heat of the moment, think about the fact that their "targets" are people. They don't think about the implications of what they are doing. They are executing their training to accomplish their mission. 

Soldiers don't think about the chaos, violence and horror of combat until after the fact, sometimes long after the fact. Processing all of the things that happen in combat can be difficult, especially when those things conflict with your personal sense of right and wrong. Some people aren't able to process it in a meaningful way. That's what PTSD is, when the brain can't make sense of something horrible that has happened or been done. Many soldiers experiences are so tightly locked in their unconscious mind that they don't even realize they are trying to make sense of it until the nightmares start. That's what happened to me.

These are soldiers who are trained to only shoot at armed targets who present a real threat. These are soldiers who didn't learn to soldier until they were already adults. These are soldiers with morals and codes of ethics of their own that are separate from the ones that are instilled by their Army.

First Order Storm Troopers are none of those things. Finn is a child soldier, taken away from his family at a young age and trained to be a killer. In addition to years upon years of repetitive drills and training, he has also been chemically and hypnotically brainwashed into being a killer. First Order Storm Troopers should have unconsciously mastered soldiering to such a high level that they are practically living in their unconscious mind. They have no morals or ethics other than the First Order's, which are that anyone not of the First Order is subhuman and deserves to die.

Not killing should have never crossed Finn's mind.

"But what about the shock of seeing his friend die?" you say? Apart from the highly questionable conclusion that people who don't ever take off their helmets and are known only by numbers have "friends", I can tell you this: We train for that too.

I'll never forget the first time it happened. We were drilling squad tactics in Basic Combat Training, the Drill Sergeant came out of nowhere, shoved one of our squad to the ground and said "BANG! Hooper is wounded! What do you do?" We all stood around like idiots, which of course resulted in all of us being made "dead" and being forced to do burpees for what seemed like forever. The next time, we all made the mistake of trying to render aid at the same time. The next time, some of us secured the area while others rendered aid. What felt like a hundred repetitions later, we were able to react to a member of our team getting hit as if it had been a part of our plan all along. We didn't pause or think about it, we just acted. The same way we just acted when it came to engaging enemy targets.

Based on the reactions of the other Troopers in Finn's unit, I think it's safe to say that Storm Troopers don't get much in the way of field medical training. I'd be willing to bet that their doctrine is to just ignore the failure that got themselves shot and finish the mission. Maybe, they pick up the wounded and give them aid after the fight, but not during. Finn should have been too busy fighting and killing to notice his "friend" get shot.

In short, Finn's behavior in The Force Awakens doesn't make any sense. Sure, he might have eventually come to the realization that what they were doing was wrong, but it definitely wouldn't have happened in the middle of his first fight. Even then it's unlikely, since his only moral frame of reference was the one provided by the First Order. FN-2187 should have been entirely too indoctrinated, too pumped up on adrenaline, and too eager for combat to even notice what was happening. He should have killed mercilessly, been joyful in doing it, and scoffed at the pathetic wretch who got himself killed.

Finn is a fun and lovable character, but he isn't a Storm Trooper. His story simply doesn't make sense.

Tangent: Han Solo and The Force Awakens

So I've heard a lot of chatter recently about certain events that take place in Star Wars Episode VII and I've decided to chip in my own two cents. Though I feel like it's been long enough for just about everyone to be up to speed with what happens in the movie, I guess I'll still give the obligatory spoiler warning.

***SPOILERS FOLLOW***

Han Solo dies. He's killed by Kylo Ren who, as it turns out, is really Ben Solo, Han and Leia's son. He tries to convince Kylo that he doesn't have to be an evil dark Jedi and that he can just come home and Kylo kills him. There's a little more going on than that, but I'm not going to try and capture all of the emotion wrapped up in that scene here when you can just go watch the movie.

The thing that I've heard a lot recently is that the scene in which Han dies ruins the movie and they blame JJ Abrams for ruining the movie for true fans. Some are even spreading a rumor that Harrison Ford asked JJ to kill off Han and that Harrison is really to blame. (While it's true that Harrison Ford did once want George Lucas to kill Han, that's not the case here at all.) The fact of the matter is that no matter how you slice, the death of Han Solo did not, in any way, ruin the movie. Unless of course Han Solo is the only reason you watch Star Wars moves, in which case... I'll leave that alone. In fact, that scene is the scene that took the movie from "passable action movie that will succeed just because it's Star Wars" to actually being a good movie.

You see, it's the only scene in the movie that actually has any emotional weight.

Try to imagine the movie without that scene: we see Han and Chewie set the charges to blow up the base and then instead of Han confronting Ben, they just leave. The charges go off. Poe Dameron destroys Star Killer Base. Roll credits. Now think about how you would feel about the movie if that's the way it had gone. (Because let's be honest here, Ben deciding to turn back to the light would have killed the need for two more movies.) Chances are you'd have been pretty disappointing. Sure, the film had some decent action scenes, one or two good laughs, but other than that one pivotal, heart wrenching scene, there really wasn't much to feel about any of it.

Except maybe this guy.

"Why?", you ask?

Because Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is two hours and 16 minutes of exposition.

Think about it: the new Star Wars trilogy is all about Rey and Ben Solo. Sure Finn, Poe, Phasma and Hux will do things and Chewbacca, Leia and Luke will be there to give us our nostalgia kick, but the interaction between burgeoning Jedi Knight Rey and wanna-be Sith Lord Ben is where the meat of the story really sits. And what did they do in this movie? A whole lot of nothing is what.

We spend the entire movie getting to know Rey and Kylo Ren. We see Rey as the tough as nails orphan scavenger scraping out a living, we see how she's a genius with technology and find out she's powerful in the force, but we don't really see her do anything interesting until she decides, at the end, that she needs to find Luke Skywalker. We see Kylo Ren as the menacing military commander, then discover that inside he's actually an insecure kid with daddy issues, then we learn just how committed he is to his path when he kills his father. Apart from that, the most interesting thing he does is offer to train Rey. They really don't do much.

They really don't do much because the whole purpose of this movie. the first movie in a trilogy mind you, is to set up for the story of the remaining two movies. The whole point of The Force Awakens was to introduce us to new characters using the familiar plot and set pieces of the original Star Wars as a comfortable backdrop for the audience. Without the death of Han Solo, there would be absolutely no emotional fuel behind our desire to see the next film. We would say, "Well, that was an okay Star Wars movie, better than the prequels I guess." And even then, Han Solo's death is a nostalgic call back to Ben Kenobi's death in Episode IV.

The fact is that in Episode VII as far as our heroes go, Rey and Finn are pretty much just getting swept along by the current of events. If anything, they are spending most of the movie trying to avoid doing anything significant. Kylo Ren doesn't even really read as a bad guy to us, partially because of his tantrum throwing, until he really commits to it by killing Han, which wouldn't have happened without them coincidentally running into one another. It's all most as if some all powerful cosmic force is controlling their destiny...


As for Finn, well... don't get me started on that... oh, what the heck, I'll write about that tomorrow.

Grim Epiphany

Full disclosure: I'm pretty bad at Action Role-playing Games.

I love playing them. There's nothing I enjoy more than the click-click-click-squish-loot style of game play they offer. I spend entire play sessions at the edge of my seat, literally perched right on the edge, excited to see what cool loot I'll get next. I love the visceral, non-stop nature of the combat. I love having to constantly be prepared for an unexpected change in enemy mob composition that could totally ruin your day. Or the boss level monsters that just come out of no where to break your face. I actually get a thrill out of the fact that at any moment, one tiny mistake could lead to my character being dead.

None of that changes the fact that I'm bad at them.

You see, good ARPGs, like Diablo 2, Titan Quest, and of course, Grim Dawn, have complex character development systems that are heavily stat based and rely on a deep understanding of the game mechanics and how those complex stats synergize with one another. Even merely decent ARPGs, such as Diablo and the Torchlight series, where a deep understanding of the stats isn't necessary but can result in crazy powerful character builds, have layers of rules and numbers that you need to get a grasp on for the most satisfying results. Then of course there's Diablo 3, which sort of has a stat based system... but really you can kind of just do whatever you want and get straight to the action. D3 isn't bad, mind you, but it's an ARPG for people who don't math good.

I'm good at Diablo 3.

This all came to me last night as I was playing Grim Dawn. You see, in Grim Dawn the player character has three basic stats: physique, cunning, and spirit. Physique makes you tough and allows the use of heavy armor and weapons. Cunning improves physical damage and allows the use of better guns. Spirit improves magical and elemental damage and allows the use of caster gear. From the first time I loaded up the alpha-build of the game I have been attracted to the "Demolishionist" class. They are primarily based around guns, grenades, and traps so I made the logical assumption that their most beneficial stat would be cunning. I couldn't figure out why my Demolishionist characters were struggling so much. Last night, I had a moment of clarity.

You see, the majority of Demolishionist skills revolve around dealing fire damage. Sure, you fight with a gun, and having a more powerful gun is good, but the base damage type for the Demolishionist class is fire. That means that spirit, the elemental damage stat, is far and away more important than cunning. This realization felt like a slap in the face. It also kind of felt like the heavens had opened and choirs of angels were singing. It was a "light bulb" moment. I think we all love those.

Now, this on'y really seems strange and significant to me because I love playing table top war games like Warhammer 40,000, Warmachine, and Malifaux. Table top war games also have layered rules and complex stat based systems. Creating truly powerful army lists requires a deep understanding of those rules and being able to create synergy between the different parts of your army in order to achieve victory. I'm pretty good at table top war games, so why am I so bad at ARPGs?

I think the answer lies in accessibility.

When I play a table top game, just getting together with others to play requires a significant amount of planning. There is a lot of time to just sit and think about the game while not playing the game. I've spent days at a time studying rule books and crunching numbers for no reason other than, at the time, it was the only way to get my Warhammer fix. All that time spent thinking about playing rather than actually playing, gave me time to assimilate the rules and really grasp how everything fits together.

When I play an ARPG I'm able to jump right in. I don't need anything other than a little free time and my computer to get into hacking and slashing. I'm so focused on the action aspect of the game that rather than processing the rules and numbers, my brain just blows a raspberry and says "Whatever, let's go kill stuff." I don't spend any time thinking rather than playing, which retards my ability to master the rules.

I wonder how many other gamers struggle with, or simply don't play, ARPGs because of this. Is it that, like me, they jump right to the action without thinking the system through. Or is it that they simply aren't willing to put in the effort? How many of the people who are awesome at ARPGs consciously think about what their doing and how many of them intuitively grasp the mechanics and just roll with it?

Either way, I think that, from now on, I'm going to do a much better job of thinking about and learning the rules when I play ARPGs. I expect that before too long, I wont suck at them anymore.

Click-click-click-squish...