Grim Dawn Patch v1.1.4.0 Preview
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Crate Entertainment's hack 'n' slash action-RPG Grim Dawn will soon be getting a sizable new patch focused entirely on quality of life improvements. This v1.1.4.0 patch is going to address some balancing issues, add an option to auto-loot components and crafting materials, update the game's target HUD, allow you to search crafting recipes, and so on.
Here's an excerpt from the patch preview article:
Let there be balance
No update is complete of course without a balancing pass and you can expect that here as well. Among the changes, some highlights include: a pass on end-game two-handed weapons, revision of many high-level Epic items to have better resistance distributions (no more just Fire/Cold/Lightning resist), and improvements to the Arcanist mastery’s toggled and passive skill lines.
One major thing we’ve been eager to do for a long time however is going to have major ramifications for all our players. We felt that, over time, the base game’s difficulty has waned significantly relative to the power growth of player characters, and even compared to the Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods expansions.
You would get surrounded by packs of mobs and not care. Their damage was just not up to par, not only compared to your offensive capabilities but simply to the armor you were wearing. Special attacks had become an afterthought as face-tanking every enemy was a better use of your time than repositioning.
With this patch, the base game has received a substantial balancing overhaul of Normal/Veteran and Elite difficulties, over 1800 database records in all! We’ve narrowed the gap between the expansion content and the base game content, meaning that the lower levels should feel more exhilarating to play again and the jump between difficulties will be much smoother.
Does this mean the endgame has gotten more difficult? Well, yes and no. No because we focused balancing on the early game (roughly levels 1-60), but yes because we’ve updated old monster and boss encounters to deal damage in line with expansion enemies.
All in all, we would describe the challenge as more consistent, rather than more difficult, as older monsters are now more of a threat on a level you’ve already been used to with Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten Gods foes.
Auto-Looting
Popularized by Grim Internals, this was probably the #1 most requested quality of life feature we’ve been reading about and the most missed whenever an update broke support for Grim Internals.
With v1.1.4.0, auto-looting of Components and Crafting materials will become standard. You will be able to toggle it in the game-options as it is disabled by default.
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In addition, with this change, we are making Partial Components automatically combine when looted, so that’s one less press of a button!
Target HUD
The Target HUD has been a relic from another era of Grim Dawn, and its time has finally come to join us in whatever century this is now. At 1080p and above, Boss health bars become even more impressive!
Monster Health Bars
Another staple of Grim Internals that is sorely missed whenever we did an update, Monster Overhead Health bars will become a baseline feature. You can toggle various options, including Player Health Bars in Multiplayer, under the new Interface options tab.
With this change, we’ve also updated overhead indicators for Hero monsters to stand out better and included new overhead icons for Bosses and Nemesis Bosses so that you can pick them out in a crowd.
Crafting Search
Turns out when you add hundreds of crafting recipes, it can become a bit challenging to sort through them all.
With v1.1.4.0, we’ve added a powerful search filter to the Blacksmith UI that allows you to not only filter by item names but also by specific stats. If you are looking for Components with Offensive Ability, simply searching for Offensive Ability will filter out everything that does not provide you the desired bonus!
Crucible Map Selection
It’s no secret that any UI work in this engine makes us cringe, but in this case the pain was worth it. Gone will be the days of restarting the Crucible endlessly until you hit your favorite map (or installing Grim Internals, I suppose).
With the next update, you will be able to select the desired Crucible Map from the main menu, or leave it set to Random if you prefer to the current setup!
Visual Updates
The next update continues our efforts to bring older content to our modern standards. Among the sprinkling of Skill FX updates, another monster group has received a complete overhaul. The Boneback rats are now awesome!
