Poll of the Day > Is borderlands the only recent decent loot grinder?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Other than classic ARPGs like Diablo dawn and such

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There are a lot of solid Diablo style ones that aren't Diablo.

Grim Dawn
Path of Exile
Torchlight II
Last Epoch (Still in Early Access)

Sure in the shooter world there isn't as many good ones since most seem to have a lack of interesting loot though I really liked Shadow Warrior 2.

I thought path of exile was an mmo. They usually are looters by default.

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Lokchan posted...

I thought path of exile was an mmo. They usually are looters by default.

I mean it's not really an MMO in the true sense, yes you are on a server with a bunch of people but unless you form a group with them you never see them outside of towns.

So unlike World of Warcraft you won't just randomly stumble upon people while finishing content.

Monopoman posted...

I mean it's not really an MMO in the true sense, yes you are on a server with a bunch of people but unless you form a group with them you never see them outside of towns.

So unlike World of Warcraft you won't just randomly stumble upon people while finishing content.

Oh... so is like spiral knights system.

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Lokchan posted...

Oh... so is like spiral knights system.

The game was made to be an always online version of what Diablo 3 should have been. Far more depth, lots of end game content league mechanics that change things up big time in each patch. It's a game designed for those that grew up with Diablo 2 and wanted games that evolved from that directly.

The game costs $0 to play and has nothing of use or anything that makes you more powerful beyond stash tabs locked behind a paywall, If you want to see what it's about and get more information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRy50Og8lDM

It's also now on consoles so even if you lack a proper PC you can play this.

Love me some Borderlands been maxing out my last two characters on 3

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Isnt destiny just one long loot grind?

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Please don't link cancerous ziz videos here, thanks.

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Mead posted...

Isnt destiny just one long loot grind?

There are plenty of games that are loot grinds the better games have interesting loot that either drastically alters playstyle or gives you cool stuff.

Plenty of games have a loot grind where it's just bigger numbers that gets boring quick, the Avengers game from about 1 year ago is like that.

I wanted to like POE but the inventory is just a scam.

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Rotpar posted...

I wanted to like POE but the inventory is just a scam.

The inventory is very similar to D2 but unlike that game you don't have charms taking up your inventory space. They went a bit old school though with that for sure, unlike most other recent Diablo style games.

I enjoyed Final Fantasy Explorers, if that counts. =x

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Zeus posted...

I enjoyed Final Fantasy Explorers, if that counts. =x

ehhh, I liked that too but that's not really the genre I mean

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Borderlands, wont see too many cool games like that anymore:
https://youtu.be/y0J_KNap6EA

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Personally, I think I like Grim Dawn's loot philosophy better than PoE or Diablo 3's. With PoE, the lack of targeted farming and the preponderance of build-defining Uniques pretty much requires players to trade in order to be able to use many builds, which is a cumbersome system that ultimately limits build flexibility a lot in a game that has such massive potential for variety. Diablo 3 avoided that issue by having build-defining legendaries drop often enough that pretty much any build was accessible, but the sheer quantity of skill-specific bonuses offered by those legendaries (and particularly by set bonuses) pigeonholed those skills into being used in certain ways and ended up really only allowing a fairly limited number of different builds. Those builds also came together so quickly that there was rarely any room to farm for more meaningful upgrades than getting the same legendary with better stats, which is kind of boring.

Grim Dawn, on the other hand, has relatively few items that would be considered build-defining/enabling, and the majority of those are target farmable. That means there's a ton of build variety available just from guaranteed drops, but even so, there's still enough room to improve on those budget builds and/or enable more gear-dependent ones to make farming feel worthwhile. Some of those builds end up feeling a bit samey (often just different elemental flavours of similar skills, or sometimes even the same skill) after trying out enough of them, but ultimately, I think it's my favourite approach to loot of the three.

Of course, the other approach is to just eschew the idea of build-defining gear pieces in general so that's never an issue, but I'm less keen on that. Finding a piece of build-defining gear is exciting because it meaningfully changes the way you play. There's a fine line between offering that excitement and making it mandatory to get those drops in order to function (which D3 crosses), but when it's done right, I find it to be a much more interesting philosophy than having every gear piece just make the numbers get bigger.

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titan quest of all games had a re-release and two new expansions. I haven't played them yet, so I don't know how good they are, but I remember being at the end of the original game (and first expansion) and wanting MORE MORE MORE but there was no more.

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Sahuagin posted...

titan quest of all games had a re-release and two new expansions. I haven't played them yet, so I don't know how good they are, but I remember being at the end of the original game (and first expansion) and wanting MORE MORE MORE but there was no more.

oh, then just get Grim Dawn - I think half the Titan Quest team worked on it and the other half were new guys

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Lokarin posted...

oh, then just get Grim Dawn - I think half the Titan Quest team worked on it and the other half were new guys

hmmm. the point was that titan quest really needed (and deserved) more content and now has it. but thanks, that game does look good.

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I haven't played Borderlands 3, but of them - while Borderlands 2 is probably the best "game" of the first 3, I think borderlands 1 had the most rewarding loot system...

It's very similar to the progression between Diablo 1 through 3; In Borderlands the legendaries were pretty dang rare, but the standard weapons could have quality that was high enough to compete with them... like, y'know, a high quality Atlas rifle was really good, and the S&S Snipers were really snazzy. This is much like Diablo 1 where you just want to find a high quality weapon with fair durability.

In Borderlands 2, while legendaries were still somewhat rare it's not uncommon to find a few every game session and can be expected. However, magics and rares are EVERYWHERE and virtually meaningless, but the uniques/rares have game defining features on them

In Borderlands pre-sequel... ehhhh, the gear don't matter, here have another one. That's how I felt about Diablo 3 after the AH went down. Before that it was like Diablo 2's ladder auction where people were killing each other (figuratively) to get a Shako that had good rolls, but a regular Shako was virtually worthless.

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Lokarin posted...

while Borderlands 2 is probably the best "game" of the first 3, I think borderlands 1 had the most rewarding loot system...

I haven't played Borderlands 1 DLC, but yes, it has better loot than 2. BL2 has severe imbalance between gun classes. in BL1 as a soldier, you can actually have a pretty awesome AR and actually put points into skills that make them better, whereas in BL2, 99% of all ARs are crap and there are almost no stats that improve gun classes. in fact, the class and company of a gun pretty much determine its usefulness, rather than its actual stats (ignoring level obv.).

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Sahuagin posted...

I haven't played Borderlands 1 DLC, but yes, it has better loot than 2. BL2 has severe imbalance between gun classes. in BL1 as a soldier, you can actually have a pretty awesome AR and actually put points into skills that make them better, whereas in BL2, 99% of all ARs are crap and there are almost no stats that improve gun classes. in fact, the class and company of a gun pretty much determine its usefulness, rather than its actual stats (ignoring level obv.).

exactly!!

The gun naming schemes even reflected this. In Borderlands 1 if you found an SG-113 XL or something you might go "oooooo!!! the 113!!!!!", but in Borderlands 2 all the guns have pretentious names like "longitudinal"

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In some ways, I liked that BL2 made target farming certain legendaries easier, and also that legendaries had more unique properties that made them build-defining, since it meant you had something to deliberately work toward for the sake of improving your character. On the other hand, though, that did mean fewer random legendary drops just for playing through the game, forcing specific farming instead of pretty regularly finding upgrades while going about your business. It made min/maxing less frustrating, but regular play became a bit less rewarding.

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Might not exactly be a loot grinder game but if you enjoyed the Borderland series, Warframe might be worth looking into.

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adjl posted...

Personally, I think I like Grim Dawn's loot philosophy better than PoE or Diablo 3's. With PoE, the lack of targeted farming and the preponderance of build-defining Uniques pretty much requires players to trade in order to be able to use many builds, which is a cumbersome system that ultimately limits build flexibility a lot in a game that has such massive potential for variety. Diablo 3 avoided that issue by having build-defining legendaries drop often enough that pretty much any build was accessible, but the sheer quantity of skill-specific bonuses offered by those legendaries (and particularly by set bonuses) pigeonholed those skills into being used in certain ways and ended up really only allowing a fairly limited number of different builds. Those builds also came together so quickly that there was rarely any room to farm for more meaningful upgrades than getting the same legendary with better stats, which is kind of boring.

Grim Dawn, on the other hand, has relatively few items that would be considered build-defining/enabling, and the majority of those are target farmable. That means there's a ton of build variety available just from guaranteed drops, but even so, there's still enough room to improve on those budget builds and/or enable more gear-dependent ones to make farming feel worthwhile. Some of those builds end up feeling a bit samey (often just different elemental flavours of similar skills, or sometimes even the same skill) after trying out enough of them, but ultimately, I think it's my favourite approach to loot of the three.

Of course, the other approach is to just eschew the idea of build-defining gear pieces in general so that's never an issue, but I'm less keen on that. Finding a piece of build-defining gear is exciting because it meaningfully changes the way you play. There's a fine line between offering that excitement and making it mandatory to get those drops in order to function (which D3 crosses), but when it's done right, I find it to be a much more interesting philosophy than having every gear piece just make the numbers get bigger.

I mean I think both games are great, Grim Dawn is a far better solo game but the challenge of SSF which I do on occasion in Path of Exile is also fun. I think if I charted my most two played games since both of those came out those two would easily win it, Grim Dawn has also a good number of great mods that add a lot more replay value to it.

Path of Exile's focus is more like an expanded Diablo 2 and in that game even if you farmed forever it was far more difficult to find top tier gear for your own build. You were usually forced to work with others trading for the gear you wanted so not a surprise to see it work like that.

Monopoman posted...

the challenge of SSF which I do on occasion in Path of Exile is also fun.

I generally ended up playing PoE mostly SSF (informally), just because I wasn't a fan of trading (and, specifically, the fact that gaining currency mostly required farming *and* the effort of pricing/selling the loot from that farming), and it's a perfectly functional and enjoyable game in that format, but the ever-present sense of missing out on a ton of really interesting builds because I hadn't obtained the rare gear needed to enable them really put a damper on the experience. That's not necessarily the wrong way to approach loot and builds, but I personally found it kind of frustrating at times.

That said, GGG really needs to get off the fence as far as trading goes (at least, they did the last time I played, though that was a few years ago and it may have changed). They've said outright that they don't want to do anything more efficient or accessible than PoETrade for trading because they don't want to ruin the game by making rare uniques too easy to get, but they're still designing the game around the assumption that players will trade for those uniques as needed and just not caring that the trading system is incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient. Either the game should be designed around trading and have a proper trading system/auction house in place, or it should be designed around playing mostly self-found and treating trading as a supplement to that. Trying to occupy some kind of middle ground between those two philosophies is just awkward.

Of course, I say this, but I still put a solid 500 hours in before drifting away. It's a great game, just held back by a loot philosophy that I feel puts too much emphasis on playing the economy instead of playing the game.

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The Outer worlds and Outriders have been fun.

outriders is a shittier anthem
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adjl posted...

I generally ended up playing PoE mostly SSF (informally), just because I wasn't a fan of trading (and, specifically, the fact that gaining currency mostly required farming *and* the effort of pricing/selling the loot from that farming), and it's a perfectly functional and enjoyable game in that format, but the ever-present sense of missing out on a ton of really interesting builds because I hadn't obtained the rare gear needed to enable them really put a damper on the experience. That's not necessarily the wrong way to approach loot and builds, but I personally found it kind of frustrating at times.

That said, GGG really needs to get off the fence as far as trading goes (at least, they did the last time I played, though that was a few years ago and it may have changed). They've said outright that they don't want to do anything more efficient or accessible than PoETrade for trading because they don't want to ruin the game by making rare uniques too easy to get, but they're still designing the game around the assumption that players will trade for those uniques as needed and just not caring that the trading system is incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient. Either the game should be designed around trading and have a proper trading system/auction house in place, or it should be designed around playing mostly self-found and treating trading as a supplement to that. Trying to occupy some kind of middle ground between those two philosophies is just awkward.

Of course, I say this, but I still put a solid 500 hours in before drifting away. It's a great game, just held back by a loot philosophy that I feel puts too much emphasis on playing the economy instead of playing the game.

Well myself and my friends in the game don't treat it like a trading simulator, sure that is the fastest way to acquire good gear and currency but again I don't think you need that. Unless you demand BIS items for your builds you can get by with most builds without shelling out 10+ Exalts or something. I have rarely had gear on my characters worth more than a few exalts at most and have done perfectly fine.

Yes some builds are very pricey and require some expensive items to even get going but those builds are few and far between, and the game has more builds than probably any other Diablo style game since they constantly add new skills and rebalance old ones. I have probably played in the neighborhood of 50-60 characters in the game and have probably experienced personally like 20% of all builds in my estimation.

I also will say while they have not put an actual Auction House in the game, sites like Poe.trade have made it extremely easy to buy and sell items. The stash system even works with sites like that so you can set a stash public then put up prices for things and Poe.trade will list them.

So they are not directly inhibiting trading by making it all done in person and using the in-game systems to do it.

https://i.imgur.com/J8Vu6gT.jpg
One of those leagues, but I'm still playing. I used Raider BFBB to kill Sirius, but I've swapped over to FP totems, despite only having a 5L Soul Mantle trying to grind out a 6L.

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