Grim Dawn multiplayer launches

Grim Dawn is no longer a solo experience from this evening as multiplayer goes live.

Crate Entertainment has been busy preparing the multiplayer portion of their ARPG for a few weeks now and today Early Access backers can jump into the action for the first time.

Released as part of the 2.0 update, this is patch also brings a load of new features and improvements which are detailed below. Notable additions include the new Transmuter system, dismantling, item changes and more.

[Major New Features]

• Multiplayer is now available! You can now host and join multiplayer games via Steam.
• Note that this is feature includes a large amount of background changes, and though they went through extensive testing, something may still have slipped through. Please report any multiplayer-related crashes, quest errors and character bugs at our forum.
• The Main Menu has been overhauled so that getting right into the action is faster than ever
• All masteries now feature a new set of skill modifiers called Transmuters. These modifers open up new build opportunities by providing you with the choice of specializing a skill at the cost of some trade-offs.
• Dismantling is now available at the Inventor. You must first complete a short quest (available after repairing the bridge to the Arkovian Foothills and rescuing the apprentice).
• Dismantling allows you to turn items you do not want into valuable scrap and components by destroying them with dynamite. Note that some components drop more commonly from Dismantling.
• Steam-Cloud saving can now be enabled under Options. The first time this is done, character saves will need to be transferred to a new directory. This process is automatic, but may take some time, depending on how many characters you have.

[Art]

• Mastery UI has been updated with new art
• Unique guns now have firing FX appropriate to the damage type they deal
• Updated font in Quest window and Quest Tracker
• Equipped two handers now use a paler image in the off hand.
• Warden’s Laboratory now has a new tile ground texture
• Warden’s Laboratory Living Quarters now have a wood floor texture, as do other select areas
• Dry dirt texture used in various undergrounds including Cronley’s Hideout has been improved
• Texture and fog changes around Four Hills to make it a little more distinctive

[Animation]

• Weapons in the right hand now auto-hide upon activating throwing-based skills (ie.Phantasmal Blades) and casting-based skills (ie.Dreeg’s Evil Eye)
• Ghosts now have a “GetHit” animation
• Outlaws now have a “GetHit” animation
• Boar “Walk” animation was reworked.
• Half-Troll Beastkin ragdoll physics have been redone.
• New PC “Throw” and “ThrowFast” animations for each weapon type. Adjustments to the timing callbacks of thrown projectiles were made (ie. Stun Jacks leave the hand at the correct moment when the animation plays).
• New PC “Ring of Steel” animation for each weapon type.
• Various hanging lantern’s lighting FX now swing in-sync with the swinging/swaying animation.
• Gunslinger’s Talisman’s granted skill “Volley” animation was redone, and in the end, shortened considerably so players should no longer feel rooted when firing it off.
• Occultist’s Hellhound pet attack animations have been adjusted to be quicker, hitting their intended targets much sooner.

[Tech]

• The method by which Fog of War data is stored in character saves has been overhauled. This requires that fog data be reset.
• Items on the ground now spread out their name labels rather than overlapping
• Corrected the calculation in the character sheet for Average Armor. Bonus armor was being incorrectly added. The tooltip for Armor has been updated.
• Health and energy potions are now automatically picked up
• Item Set bonuses are now organized by each level of bonus
• Duplicate set items will no longer count toward set bonuses
• Fixed health on completed components always showing up as max value
• Two Handed items can now be appropriately equipped when player is holding two items
• Fixed certain crafting components not being usable in crafting
• Fixed certain damage attributes from showing up as doubled on the character sheet if holding an item in the off-hand
• Added distinctions on item tooltips for One-Handed, Two-Handed, Off-hand, Ring, Belt, Medal, and Amulet items
• Total bonus health granted from Physique is now visible under the Physique description rollover
• Total bonus energy granted from Spirit is now visible under the Spirit description rollover
• Added word wrap to Greatest Enemy Killed
• Last Enemy Hit and Last Enemy Hit By names under OA and DA rollovers are now properly localized
• Fixed an issue with Offensive and Defensive Ability reduction effects being applied as % reduction rather than absolute values (ex. 50 reduced Target’s Defensive Ability for 5 seconds is now correctly 50 and not 50%)
• Color-blind options have been added under Video Options. If you are a person who would benefit from this feature, we would appreciate your feedback.
• Fixed a display issue for negative Light Radius values on the Character Sheet.
• Extended the cooldown between “Skill not ready” messages.
• Dual wielding DPS calculation updated on the Character Sheet to be more comparable to actual performance (before chance on attack skills).
• Base health/energy is now retroactively updated if there are any Health per Physique or Energy per Spirit value changes. Older characters may gain some health.

[Game]

• The corrupting presence of the invading Aetherial and Ch’thonic forces continues to spread. 22 new hero monsters have been added with brand new archetypes: Corrupted and Voidtouched.
• Two new pages of Inquisitor Creed’s journal have been added to the Warden’s Laboratory, as well as a small scene suggesting past events.
• Deflect values have been significantly reduced on all monsters
• Area of Effect skills can no longer be blocked or deflected (ex. Grenado, Blackwater Cocktail, Sigil of Destruction, etc.)
• Slight boost to enemy speed and damage in normal and veteran difficulty. Increase to OA and DA scaling for enemies in veteran.
• Slight increase to player speed. Movement speed bonuses on items have been reduced to compensate.
• Reduced level offset on Steps of Torment to decrease likelihood of over-leveled gear drops. The effect on difficulty shouldn’t be too significant.
• Alkamos’ treasure room will now always drop a least one item of Epic quality and will drop items of Rare quality more often
• Slightly reduced the numbers of monsters which spawn in the first challenge room of Steps of Torment. This room is one of the greatest challenges currently in the game, and it justly guarantees a blue item as a reward. However, the spike in difficulty was a little too high. In addition, Skeletal Golem heroes can no longer spawn here.
• Hero and Boss monsters will now always drop either Food Rations or Vital Essence
• Increased the drop rate of rare crafting materials from Hero and Boss monsters
• The Master of the Pit in Old Arkovia has received a buff worthy of his title. He also now drops his Monster Infrequent axe less…infrequently.

[Itemization]

• A new stat has been added: Conversion. Conversion (appears as % of X Damage is converted to Y) changes one damage type to another. Example, if you have 10% of physical damage converted to fire on an amulet, 10% of all physical damage you deal (after bonuses/cunning/etc) is converted to fire damage instead. If the Conversion is on a skill (ex. a Transmuter), then the conversion occurs before any other skill/gear bonuses are added, skill modifiers are still applied first.
• A new stat has been added: Total Retaliation Damage. This stat modifies all retaliation damage the same way Total Damage modifies all non-retaliation damage.
• A new stat has been added: Shield Damage Blocked. This stat modifies the damage blocked by your shield.
• 18 new Epic items (4 Medals, 7 Rings and 7 Amulets) have been added
• 6 new Epic set items, in 2 sets, have been added at level 30 for Occultists and Demolitionists: Miasma and Brimstone
• New level 35 Epic gloves have been added: Quickdraw Gloves. The similarly named proc on Marauder’s Gloves has been moved to these.
• Bloodreaper’s Boots have been renamed to Bloodhound Greaves. They are no longer part of the Bloodreaper’s Set.
• Many Epic items have been updated to make them more focused and interesting. Some were significantly changed (ex. Boots of Unseeing Swiftness). Note that this may impact your ability to equip some items if you lose core stats.
• As part of this update, item sets have been completely overhauled. Collecting set pieces did not feel sufficiently rewarding and individual pieces were sometimes too awesome on their own. We have shifted some of the power to the bonuses while also making the bonuses much more interesting.
• The following set items have been removed from the game (only impacts items above the current level cap, but some of these can drop): Herald’s Boots, Herald’s Gloves, Legguards of Redemption, Footguards of Redemption, Sharpshooter’s Cover, Dawnguard Legplates and Dawnguard Greaves.
• Many rare affixes have been updated, including some options providing % Constitution.
• 13 new rare prefixes and suffixes have been added to provide more options for Burn, Coldburn and Electrocute damage
• 23 new rare suffixes have been added to provide more versatile spell damage combinations (ex. Fire + Chaos, Fire + Lightning, etc.). These suffixes become available at level 35.
• The caster off-hand suffix “of Corruption” has been renamed to “of Solael’s Malice”. A new “of Corruption” off-hand suffix has been added.
• The shield suffix “of Immortality” has been renamed to “of Redoubt”. A new “of Immortality” shield suffix has been added.
• Damage scaling on items for flat damage has been toned down at higher level so that there is not as big of a jump around level 25. Damage over time (ex. Poison / bleed) was reduced less so that it ended up as a bit of a boost in relative power to flat damage. Physical damage originally had higher values to compensate for armor, but the difference between physical and elemental damage was too high, making physical the obvious choice. These adjustments should make other damage types more competitive.
• Most % Protection bonuses on Magic Suffixes have been converted to absolute protection bonuses
• 3 new prefixes have been added for Shields, Head, Torso, Leg and Shoulder armor which provide % Protection
• 2 new prefixes have been added for Shields which provide % Shield Damage Blocked
• 1 new prefix has been added for Torso armor and Belts which provides % Constitution
• 21 new suffixes (called “of Spellweaving”) have been added which provide % damage bonuses to various damage combinations (ex. Fire + Chaos, Fire + Lightning, etc.). These suffixes are more common on caster off-hands and become available at level 35.
• A new tier of Attack Speed (of Alacrity) and Cast Speed (of Haste) Suffixes have been added so that Magical quality Attack/Cast Speed bonuses scale more smoothly with Rare Suffixes. The values on these suffixes have been adjusted. Weapons will also no longer generate tier 1 Attack and Cast speed Suffixes past a certain level, improving your odds of getting a level-appropriate bonus.
• Pierce resist values have been reduced on items. This resist is highly effective against many enemy types and was a little too easy to accrue.
• Reduced armor values on Belts
• Reduced health and % health bonuses on items
• Reduced the values on double resist magic prefixes (ex. Fire + Cold Resistance)
• Reduced % Damage Converted to Health values on Magical affixes and some Rare/Epic Items
• Increased Energy Regen on Caster off-hands and helmets (absolute values only). Caster helm regen now increases with tier, rather than being static across all levels.
• Due to the buffs in absolute energy regeneration values on caster gear, the % energy regeneration on Caster off-hands has been reduced at higher levels
• Significantly increased frequency of % damage bonus suffixes on Caster off-hands
• Pets summoned by items have had their stats significantly improved so that they are more competitive with class summons
• A new component has been added: Reinforced Shell. This is a shield component and serves as an upgrade to the Battered Shell. It is acquired primarily through crafting, available baseline on the Blacksmith.
• 8 new Component Blueprints have been added to the game. These Components are now acquired primarily through crafting.
• Blessed Whestone and Silvercore Bolts follow the standard format
• The following are more challenging to craft, but the blueprint also creates a Completed Component: Hollowed Fang, Imbued Silver, Purified Salt, Scaly Hide, Silky Swatch and Wardstone
• Radiant Gem is now crafted completed. Blueprint updated.
• Increased the level requirement on Purified Salt to 20, up from 11
• The Bristly Fur component now also provides 25% Constitution
• Adjusted the stats on Dread Skull
• The Hallowed Ground rare component now has the same completion bonus table as Chains of Oleron
• The + All Skills completion bonus for Chains of Oleron (and now Hallowed Ground) has been replaced by -5% energy cost to skills. This bonus was extremely rare, but those that were lucky enough to get it had a significant advantage. +Class skill bonuses will remain as the rarest completion bonuses.
• Updated the stats on Fireblast, Ice Spike and Poison Bomb Component skills to make them more interesting.
• Added two new Recipes for Royal Jelly, acquired via drops
• Updated the blueprints for Elixirs, making them easier to craft
• Consumable stats and durations have been adjusted.
• Updated the base stats on items created from Rare quality (green) blueprints
• The relic Corruption has been redesigned to be more appealing to poison builds
• The relic Arbiter has been redesigned to be more appealing to hybrid 2h-melee builds
• Fixed an issue with the Troll Rage relic skill costing more energy than displayed. Energy cost adjusted.
• Updated mastery-specific Relic completion bonuses (ex. for Juggernaut, Slaughter, etc.)
• Fixed an issue with the Brutal Great Axe recipe generating affixes intended for 1h-ed weapons. Unfortunately, this fix is not retroactive.
• The Aether Cluster blueprint has been removed from the game. Any existing copies of this item have been purged. The Aether Cluster will come up in Act 3.

[Class & Skills]

• Various skills have been given “transmuters” that can change or improve the function of the skill but usually with some cost, such as loss of damage, increased cooldown, weapon restrictions, etc. These should provide many new build possibilities and enhance some existing ones. Some existing skills have been modified to accomodate these changes.
• Most skills have had the scaling for their ultimate ranks improved, particularly for the final 3 ultimate levels. %-based bonuses still generally experience diminishing returns beyond the normal maximum skill rank.

Soldier

• Fixed a duplicate instance of bleed resist on soldier passives, returning elemental resist to decorated soldier.
• Increased the amount of constitution given by veterancy.

Demolitionist

• Mortar Trap cooldown has been significantly reduced and energy cost moderately increased.
• Mortar Trap will now launch “the big one” earlier.
• Updated Offensive Ability scaling on Mortar Trap, which should improve its chance to hit and crit significantly.
• Blackwater Cocktail: Reduced energy cost, lowered flat fire damage in the base and Intense Heat mod, increased burn damage, increased armor reduction on Intense Heat. Moved %burn damage to Intense Heat and added %fire to Agonizing Flame. Agonizing Flame bumped up to tier 8. These changes are intended to reduce the power of maxing out these skills / mods at lower levels by pacing out the stackable damage, while also boosting the long-term viability with the addition of tier 8 %fire bonus.
• Skyfire Grenado moved to tier 7.
• Reduced cooldown and slightly increased Grenado damage.
• Reduced cooldown of Canister Bomb, added flat fire, reduced pierce. On the modifier, removed bleed damage and added %fire and %pierce.
• Firestrike energy cost reduced, damages reworked to improve balance and in accordance with it’s transmuter. Explosive Strike now always inflicts burn and has a chance to inflict physical.

Occultist

• Pet innate attack damage now starts a little lower but increases more with each level to a higher max. Ultimate levels received an even larger increase in scaling.
• Added %chaos damage to Hellhound Hellfire aura
• Hellhound Firebreath damage scaling increased. Chaos damage added.
• Exchanged elemental for vitality damage in second rite. Elemental was previously added to provide synergy with other masteries, which was a good thing but it came at the cost of too many Occultist skills featuring too many different damage types.
• Pet life, attributes, OA and DA scaling per level increased. Increased cunning and spirit will help keep damage more viable at higher levels.
• Raven heal and lightning strike cooldowns reduced slightly. Lightning Strike now scales down from the original cooldown of 10s to 7s at skill level 16 and 5s at the ultimate level.
• Pox modifier Black Death damage increased and split between the existing internal trauma and added poison with poison recieving the majority of the damage to provide better synergy with the poison bonuses of other skills in the mastery.
• Reduced Sigil of Consumption cooldown from 12 to 5 seconds and increased radius from 2.5 to 3 meters
• Set Bloody Pox to flat 5s duration and reduced cooldown to 3.5s
• Added %wpn damage to Sigil of Destruction and slightly reduced chaos damage
• Increased Hellhound attack speed / reduced swing pause.

Nightblade

• Heartseeker pass-through scales up to 100% by level cap, instead of at the ultimate cap. Slightly increased cold damage.
• Execution scaling toned down.
• Dual Blades flat pierce scaling reduced.
• Increased min pierce on Phantasmal Blades – increased %bleed on Heartseeker.
• Reduced energy cost scaling on Shadow Strike, Lethal Gambit and Blade Trap.
• Adjusted the bonuses on Shadow Dance
• Increased damage on phantom blades