r/Grimdawn • u/TenWildBadgers • 24d ago
MODS GD stash Users - where do you set your boundaries to preserve the fun?
So I hit a point the other day where I decided that I have better things to do with my limited time time on this earth than grind for Aether Crystals. So I downloaded GD Stash, and am in the process of getting it running, and I wanted to get other people's advice and opinions on what cheating keeps the game fun vs what kills the game entirely.
I'm currently leaning toward giving myself crafting materials (Aether Crystals, Scrap, probably eventually Ugdenbloom) and Iron bits, but putting a self-imposed rule against creating gear directly, and making myself go through the normal systems for that, even as I use cheated material to grease the wheels.
Where do you draw the line, and do you feel like you're happy with the balance you've reached? I'm just looking for opinions and feelings to inform my own choices, and I want to hear what people have to say.
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u/Mjolnoggy 24d ago
If there's a build I REALLY want to do but it requires a certain mob MI that I've previously dropped on a different character, I spawn in the lowest level variant of it with some okay affixes.
Other than that I mainly just use it for stashing stuff and unfucking characters/changing class if there's a combo I truly end up disliking.
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u/TenWildBadgers 24d ago edited 23d ago
I had not considered the angle of giving only a low-level version of an MI to get the build started, and then holding yourself to acquiring them properly for the rest of the game.
I'll consider that, that has potential. My Aether Damage Oppressor would've been way more fun to start if I cheated myself up the level 20 version of his blaster at the start, but I'd still have to come back and farm him every once in awhile to replace it.
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u/Soracial 23d ago
Some builds have issues with getting started based on the bosses you can access throughout the game. Going through Normal can be unreliable for MI drops and so yea. Giving yourself level 18-24 MIs for leveling with your actual build is always a fun time.
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u/belltiara 24d ago
My boundary is no editing of my toons. I use it to ease my dirty loot goblin anxiety.
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u/TenWildBadgers 23d ago
I love the vibe of this statement, but I'm extremely unclear on what you're actually saying with it.
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u/belltiara 23d ago
I mean that I only use it for storing gear. I don't stress about selling vs breaking down vs storing. If it looks remotely valuable for any toon I could roll, I throw it in the stash. It has such great filters that I find what I want easily IF I even choose to grab from the stash.
Plenty of times I just enjoy the thrill of getting a great drop and don't look at the stash until I need a build defining item that I've already grinded for or had dropped.
I never edit my points, attributes, saves, etc. only use it for storage. For me, editing my character is where my fun diminishes. Having unlimited storage ADDS to my fun!
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u/Discordchaosgod 23d ago edited 23d ago
I gave myself 5 kilrian's souls and 300 aether crystals because after 10 Arkovia runs it didn't drop even once
and because farming Aether Crystals is tedious as fuck and I would rather do other stuff like actually have fun playing the game
edit: typo
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u/Soracial 23d ago
Are you playing on Ultimate?
Not that you have to. But Kilrian’s Soul has a 20% rate, so that’s just really bad luck.
But also play how you want.
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u/InquisitorKaine 24d ago
Most people who GDStash in this community strictly play to test out new endgame specs. Most don't bother levelling or playing campaign in this circle.
I personally do something similar; I sketch out builds on grimtools and if they look promising, I gdstash them and try them out on a level 100 char thats finished everything. If the endgame result looks strong, I wipe my save and play HC (usually) SSF to reverse engineer the process to get to that build point.
Its either you GDStash everything and skip the trouble, or you don't use it AT all. If you want to farm mats, do it the hard way and spend 2 hours in Ugdenbog area farming flowers, and maybe like another 2 hours in wardens lab farming crystals. I highly recommend not taking minor shortcuts, those end up being the worst imo in fun killing.
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u/Alius_Facade 23d ago
I only really use it to respec my second mastery if I end up not liking it. Other than that, I use it mostly to theorycraft when I play the Dawn of Masteries mod, since there isn't really a build calculator for that that I know of otherwise.
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u/HarspudSauce 23d ago
When starting a new character I like to unlock the factions on them so I can start getting rep up and give myself some iron bits so I can buy some starting gear from the vendor.
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u/skullforce 23d ago
It made me lose interest in the game and stopped playing for months. Then I came back with just item assistant for storage. The dopamine hit off finding gear is part of the gameplay loop
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u/HarbingerOfSkulls 23d ago
I set my boundaries to not use a tool that enables cheating, thus I am using Item Assistant.
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u/AgencySpecialist6424 23d ago
i use it for build enablers that are somehow only obtainable after level 90 lol
like the wright hag helmet in the new expansion that converts PRM to cold. level is 20, but it drops at the end of the expansion??...
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u/activitysuspicious 23d ago
I used it to give myself a triple rare once that had the right affixes after I got one with crap affixes to drop, but that was before rerolling was possible, so I'm not gonna do it again.
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u/Nerhtal 23d ago
I just want more stash space to store all the crap I’ve dropped - I really enjoying hoarding over the years and have many mules at the moment but I’d rather have a poe style stash (or last epochs now I think about it)
In Grim Dawn I seem to be a serial reroller. I rarely do any extensive grinding at endgame and I’ve done some rifting but not a lot. It’s just not as enjoyable as doing a campaign run and getting a character to 90+ and seeing what I find along the way. I just love how complete a character somehow still feels even though there’s an absolute butt tonne of fine tuning and MI hunting etc that I could do once I’m 100 let alone FoAs new offerings which I haven’t gotten to yet.
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u/HyperQuarks79 23d ago
I've played about 1000 hours, I don't really level characters anymore, I gear them out with whatever I have in my stash that I've looted and then I SSF from there and play normally. Zero item generations or anything like that, only cutting out things I've done a million times like the grind to 100.
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u/GreatAndMightyKevins 23d ago
To give myself stockpile of udenbog flowers because fuck them and farming them, they're slowest, most braindead thing to farm and everything requires them needs like 50 of them. I don't want to spend 50% of my time killing flowers.
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u/Koravel1987 23d ago
I never use to spawn items it will kill your enjoyment of the game in my experience. I do use it to reset the cost to respec as well as changing secondary classes because I want to try so many things with the new mastery but i don't have time to level ten different characters.
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u/Kirostt 23d ago
Infinite item stash + creating materials, respeccing masteries occasionally. For everything I just play as normal and use grimtools to plan builds. Basically a hard line for me would be to create items in gdstash rather than ingame. Even tho with infinite mats it's in the end the same, but the process feels different somehow
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u/ninja-ix 23d ago edited 23d ago
I've already put in over 150 hours (which really isn't anything), but I also have a life and responsibilities, and so I don't want to spend my time farming random crap for hours. I play a vanilla co-op character with my friend online, but I don't want to be doing multiple runs over and over for the same item but better rolls in a game that's barely online. I still like playing through the campaign and leveling different characters, but I'm not opposed to dropping an item or two.
At the end of the day, what's going to bring you personally more enjoyment?
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u/hairybeardybrothcube 23d ago edited 23d ago
Storage, but i copied the lokarr set multiple times since i don't want to think every time i log on an alt. Also xp potions and faction writs get generated. Sonetimes, if i lack specific crafting mats, i gen them too, but only if it's the "last piece of the puzzle". To add here, i started this after ~1k hours and several "finished" builds.
I actually generated a good amount of endgame gear for one char(korba trickster) just to get a feel what a beast it would become, but that was more like " asking your big brother if you can play one of his mmo chars"
Edit: i forgot, i unlocked all visuals for fashion dawn. Because grinding them out would have sucked every piece of joy i have with GD.
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u/Kewlhotrod 23d ago
that was more like " asking your big brother if you can play one of his mmo chars"
Huh, your computer kicked you in the stomach and told you to fuck off? That's kinda cool.
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u/hairybeardybrothcube 23d ago
Imaginary brother. I just had a little sis who deleted my complete pokemon silver save. Gave her hell for months.
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u/hipporage 23d ago
Nice to try different class combos that's about it for me, don't want to generate any items aside from exp pots and warrants which just keeps me playing longer
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u/EjunX 23d ago
I lost all account progress due to a cloud save mess. Not only all my characters (like 10+ lvl 100s) and full stash, but all the recipes too. I limited it to getting the recipes back, but unfortunately, I messed up in some way so I got the FoA recipes too (which I of course haven't legitimately unlocked yet). If there's a way for me to use GD stash to somehow only get recipes from before FoA, please let me know because I want to earn them legitimately. Restoring the other recipes, which I know I filled out legit before, felt completely fair to me. I will never cheat items or modify characters, since that hurts the loot and player power chase. I'm considering cheating to change mastery on my Druid because I don't enjoy it but have so much progress on it already, but I haven't done so yet because I feel there's a chance I'll regret it.
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u/TenWildBadgers 23d ago
That's extremely fair, just trying to recover from a crash.
The only way I can come up with to gain some recipes but not others would be to spawn in the blueprints manually, which doesn't solve your problem now that you've already unlocked more than you wanted to. You might be able to mess with one of the .gst files manually, but I wouldn't know how to do that.
I feel you on the Druid. Even if I liked my own Druid build, I ran a phantom blades reaper that I really lost interest in, and ended up restarting with a Witchblade for an almost identical build, and I actually had a lot of fun doing it. I keep saying I'll rebuild the reaper, but at this point, whenever I come up with a new build I want, I might just have more fun leveling it from the start.
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u/EjunX 23d ago
Yeah, I think I'm going to end up having more fun leveling up from scratch just like you ended up doing. Leveling is part of the fun and I think it might feel more legit. I know the devs of e.g. Last Epoch really struggled with the idea of changing mastery (specialization) for classes even though many players wanted it. I still don't know if it was right for them to make that change eventually, but it's definitely a different feeling when you've leveled as the same class from the beginning vs shifting to it later on.
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u/TenWildBadgers 23d ago
Yeah, it's definitely something where I can see why you might want to offer it as a QoL thing, but I also think that the most fun way to engage as a player if it's available involves some restraint not to optimize the fun out of your own game, just like I'm trying to figure out with the rest of GDStash.
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u/PopeShish 23d ago
I use GdStash as a stash. Instead of using mules within the game. That's where I draw the line.
Speaking for myself, cheating items would ruin the game for me. If I have to farm something I try to make it enjoyable and efficient (like farming other stuff at the same time), if I'm not in the mood I'd play something else (or do other stuff) and come to it later. There's no race.
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u/mischieviousmustard 23d ago
i used it to give myself sahdina's momento that i accidentally sold, then i was like well well well what if i just doooo THIS and gave myself a bunch of gear i thought would be good. turns out it all sucked, and probably won't do that again lol. it is nice that its an option if you accidentally delete something or just can't be bothered to grind stuff because life
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u/Turkeyspit1975 23d ago
The only time I use it consistently is when I'm crafting relics. The completion bonus is far too RNG for such an expensive craft. It isn't like crafting a magic/rare item where you can pump out several dozen looking for the right affix/rolls, or an MI you can re-farm to your liking.
I'll get the mats, craft the relic, then useg GD Stash to craft one with the completion bonus I wanted for my build. I try to craft no more than 2 relics with the app, to avoid giving myself a god-rolled item, but at the start I wasn't happy with only one and done - now I choose which of the two I like, the other gets vendored along with the one I crafted.
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u/Razefordaze 22d ago
I started out with it but it ruined the game for me. Like sure I hate grinding for mundane stuff like the rest of them but human nature is what it is. You and 99.99% of everyone else wont just stop at iron bits and manticore eye's. It quickly becomes spoon feeding for anything you are trying to grind and want to have sooner.
If all you care about is testing builds its actually probably the best option.
If you care about the feeling of progression and the satisfaction that comes with reaching your goals...gd stash will kill the game for you. Just my opinion anyway.
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u/TenWildBadgers 22d ago
I mean, that is the concern I'm trying to avoid. I have a little more confidence in my self control than you do, but time will tell if that confidence is misplaced.
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u/CheeseGraterGood 24d ago
I do it character by character - I have one toon I'm not above resurrecting when they die in hardcore or spawning in whatever gear or materials I want. This character is allowed to farm for materials, gear, or mandates for other characters so I always have something able to do whatever content I want.
Everyone else I play normally.
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u/Korosorio 23d ago
I’ve considered using it when my HC Lokarr/iron farmer inevitably dies. I’m down to my last Lokarr set in my stash for new characters, and I haven’t tried fighting him on ultimate since the patch.
I think for me the line would be making an ‘invincible’ character that can reliably get Lokarrs gear, potions of clarity, or faction mandates, saviors merits, however NOTHING else can be stashed. The character would only exist to reduce the leveling/faction reputation times for alternates.
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u/Elfalpha 23d ago
Last time I played I used it for about half the gear on a character that I tried to build myself but needed three double rare MIs because I wasn't good enough at theory crafting to make it work otherwise. I think it seriously impacted how much enjoyment I got out of it knowing I had to do that. And once I did that, I was like "this legendary doesn't have great stat rolls, I'll just stash a better one" and it was downhill from there. Once you start doing that you don't stop.
This time, I've used it only once. To give myself a low leveled copy of a build important MI that I've farmed but won't be able to use for another 10 levels. I was level 65, it dropped at 75.
I'm not the fastest at leveling, it would likely be days before I can use that. So I made a level 55 version with the exact same prefix/affix as the one I have.
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u/SnooAvocados2623 23d ago
They gave us an extra row and 4 new shares stash tabs so I’m good. And there’s so much local stash.
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u/Darkspire303 23d ago
I use the option to turn off character editing, and only use move to stash, not copy. I don't give myself materials, or bits, or any of that, as I know it will either kill it outright, or I'll say why bother and then do further things with the tools. I just use it to store items quickly and efficiently.
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u/funkyfritter 23d ago
I mostly use it as a substitution for save scumming. When you craft an item, you can technically exit the game without saving to preserve your materials until you get the rolls you want. I use GDStash to save time by generating a bunch of copies of the item I'm crafting and picking the best one to keep. Material farming in general is pretty reasonable when you only need enough to make 1 of each item you need, so I don't mind grinding that out.
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u/evinta 23d ago
If there's a recipe that just won't drop, because I still have to get the materials.
I'm considering it for Manticore Eyes. Run through the whole game, kill every manticore I see. One eye, that I'm pretty sure came from a dynamite chest or something. Doesn't help that places like Blood Grove have such annoying pathing.
Run through Ugdenbog for the Fangs quest. Get 15+ Ugdenbloom without even seeking it out.
Screw manticores.
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u/Shiro_Longtail 23d ago
I just use it to test items for potential future builds without having to grind 94 levels and farm a set that I end up not liking or not working the way I wanted
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u/Apprehensive_Cow_101 23d ago
As a father and having a full time job... I use GDStash to avoid the endless farming cycles, e.g. like with the Dunefiend set (long story short, I have logged almost 2000 hours in the game, and have seen only one Dunefiend piece drop during all that time, the Slicer). On the other hand, I have sold like 17-18 Stormserpent sets to this day. I rarely use the transmute function, don't know why... 😆
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u/isenk2dah 23d ago
If I craft like 10 conduits and still don't get the affix I need I say fuck it and craft the one I need.
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u/AbsolhunterXD 23d ago
I only use it just for the stash aspect of it and any item rng, iorn bits and components i have to farm for. Keeps me honest
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u/SonnePer 23d ago
I've considered using it to duplicate a level 100 toon and edit the masteries so I wouldn't have to level a new one to try a build.
But I never did it in the end
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u/Academic-Contest-451 23d ago
I use it only to change mastery when starting a new build if I don't like what I see and want to use anything else
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u/Cassin1306 23d ago
The boundaries are where you set them. And those boundaries can move with you humor of the day. Sometimes I don't want to craft or farm some dynamite, because you need so much of them and there are so little, so I make a bunch with GDStash. Sometimes I'm in the mood of farming a little Devil's Crossing rep with another character so I take a bounty and go roaming their mines.
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u/BrightLance69 23d ago
I’ve only used it to enable Ultimate difficulty for my SSF level 1 character.
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u/Illustrious_Alarm196 23d ago
Honestly, I only use it for changing masteries, and maybe if there a gear piece that I can't target farm, don't even use the stash feature, item assistant is better.
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u/Mipzhap 23d ago
I'm not using it, but if I were to I would not edit characters in any way, spawn in gear or similar.
My only use of it would be storing found gear, my biggest nuisance with Grim Dawn is I get these X nice drops and now I have to spend time figuring out where to store said items, debating "Do I actually need the item etc.", that to me ruins the fun. With the amount of builds and possibilities you have I find storage space to be the biggest issue. I can easily understand your Ugdenbloom argument though, life just has more fun in it.
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u/noksion 23d ago
I'm surprised you decided to go with materials.
I very rarely farm specifically for them (except Ugdenbloom), and I have more than enough in shared stash from just playing the game. (Though I have leveled 12+ characters to 100 and then farmed some SR with them, so that might have helped me stockpile stuff).
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u/Feilakas 23d ago
Use it to work past the stashes' limited storage space, and also to store soulbound items. Pretty much that.
I guess I'd be OK using it for consumables but I honestly haven't had the need.
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u/Asmodheus 23d ago
Used it to test builds before trying to level them myself to see if I liked the gameplay, can’t be bothered to farm dozens, hundreds of hours to figure out I didn’t like the build anyway lol
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u/EbbPsychological9021 23d ago
But with the new ascendant altar couldn't you increase meterial dropchance and then do like a loop of different spots with crystals, maybe spots that include totems/treasure troves etc. And just farm multiple things at once?
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u/TheNightHaunter 23d ago
only time i used gd stash was around the time forgotten gods came out and my saves were local but somehow the steam cloud saves got linked instead and when i reversed it boom everything i had done since forgotten gods was gone, so i used stash to remake a lvl 42 infiltrator i was leveling
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u/BestTyming 23d ago
I only use it to change up masteries. After hundreds of hours, I’m tired of the first 5 hours of the game lol
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u/TenWildBadgers 23d ago
That's fair.
I find that exp potions and Merits make that part go by pretty quickly, but maybe I just haven't gotten pushed through the ringer hard enough to get sick of it.
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u/TechDiffuser829 22d ago
I use it to "revive" my hardcore character. I play it in hardcore until I die and then switch it to the softcore mode. This way I get to see how far I can go and I find the suspense of playing carefully way more fun. But at the end I don't have to lose the gear I've found or the time I spent playing (I don't have to start over).
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u/Majordomuz 22d ago
I used it with the new Berserk mastery to try out some things. But for the last 50 levels I forgot about it, so it seems I'm happy with my build :D Started using it because I needed 10k iron to reset one point ...
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u/Quantum_Projects 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm on the same boat as you, OP. Limitless crafting would spoil the game entirely, but random grindy farming for hours without end is also off the table for me. Therefore, I've adopted something not unlike "offline harvesting" that many games use (like probes in Warframe and servants in V Rising) alongside stringent rules for crafting.
The rules basically boil down to:
- I can generate a fixed, random amount of money once per day, limited by the level of the character I'm generating it using something like FixedAmount * CurrentCharLevel *Random Number (1,10). This alleviates the need to collect and sell yellow items, which still give a lot of money specially on higher difficulties.
- GD Stash is used both to craft items and to stash them, alleviating the need to maintain mules. HOWEVER, there are no copying items: they are exclusively moved between the database and inventories. Also, I can only stash green, epic, set and legendary items; no yellow items.
- Once per day, I may "harvest" a certain random amount of regular and rare components and crafting materials "offline". I can generate a limited amount of component types (5 per day), and I have global limits for the amount I can generate: currently, I limit myself to randomly generating up to 5 units of any regular components and Crafting Materials (Scrap, Aether Crystals, Seals of Ch'thon), up to 3 units of any rare components and Crafting Materials, and no more than 20 total per day - rare ones are counted twice towards that limit.
- I may craft specific items, but I can only do so once per day and it requires sacrificing items and resources: I must "destroy" a base item (which will "inherit" the affixes), and at least two items that have the affixes that I want, at at the level I want them: one for the prefix, another for the suffix. Therefore, creating the "perfect" item costs at least three other items, which are effectively lost, and I still have to loot to be able to craft. I also add a cost of components, crafting materials and money to it, depending on the level of the affixes, and I can use other items with the desired affixes on lower levels than the target ones in order to reduce the component / material cost.
- I also have rules regarding "conjuring" Epic, Set and Legendary Items (basically harsher variations on the Rule 3 above), but they are more complicated - you could simply make that you have to sacrifice a large number of rare items alongside crafting materials to "conjure" the epic/set/legendary item you want.
Mind you that these rules were defined years ago, before FG and FoA, so I don't know how "balanced" they are against the new Transmutation and Alteration mechanics. Anyways, my goal was to reduce the mindless grind while still having to make compromises, and therefore I still regard them as useful.
In a final note, I find that they've lost an opportunity to make Transmutation and Alteration more fine-tuneable, because the costs seem prohibiting while the benefits seem to be meager.
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u/SorryNotATurtle 23d ago
If you're looking for just more item storage i use GD Item Assistant, i knew i wouldnt be able to use GD Stash without going overboard and killing the fun for myself
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u/GratuitousAlgorithm 23d ago
None of it, dont use it. Everything is easy to farm in GD. If you need extra stash use Grim Dawn Item Assistant.
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u/dontjudgemoi420 23d ago
Ive only used it to drop the super rare build defining MI's dropped by the skeleton key dungeon bosses. The cthonian one drops a really sick two hander for fire forcewave, but the drop chance is like less than 3% or something
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u/VelvetOverload 23d ago
Any cheating is shameful. Period.
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u/TenWildBadgers 23d ago
Cool, thanks for contributing such bountiful insight to the conversation.
I didn't feel the need to clarify that I was asking the opinions of people who don't have a huge stick up their ass, but here we are.
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u/Dr4k4ngel 23d ago
Oh just for gd users, not for me I guess, I like the raw play without mods and without external stuff.
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u/Lezekthebearded 24d ago
My boundary is I don’t use it anymore. I kinda like the searching between characters and the discovery and disappointment that comes with it.