Leveling used to have some flaws and now it’s worse. My main problem with the game before the expansions came out was that if you ever stopped to farm some MI, rare ingredient or reputation, you would quickly get overleveled for the current and following areas, reducing rare ingredient drops and reputation for the next dungeon or faction, locking you into a vicious cycle of grind if you wanted to have access to faction equipment and blacksmith crafts. The worst part is that enemies would get too easy and ruin the fun of killing them. That issue could be sidestepped by not farming anything and doing everything only once, so it wasn’t too terrible.
The problem got worse with the expansions, because level caps in normal/veteran AoM and FG areas are very high. Highest level areas in FG have a level cap of 75, which means one can level up up to ~85 in there. There I was killing the magi to get reputation, to see all the interesting rings they drop and maybe get the achievement for killing all of them (didn’t even get it yet) and bam, I got to level 84. Which is 6 levels higher than the highest level cap in the vanilla content on Elite difficulty. Now I would have to beat the whole Elite difficulty just to get to some challenging level caps waiting for me in Ultimate.
The above is made even worse by the addition of expansion devotion shrines on Normal, and by giving higher difficulties more devotion shrines than Normal, instead of less. I got 55 devotion points before I even went down into Krieg’s cellar on Elite. My devotions are already maxed (boring), I have to quickly play through Elite to get to challenging content (boring and repulsive because of my completionist nature), and I feel like I missed out on some mid level experiences, challenges and loot. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to just go and have some fun challenge and leveling in Veteran SR. Got to level 100, cleared SR75, and don’t know what to do again. I don’t want to play Veteran SR forever and ever. Do I start a new character that will run into the same problems? Add a Savior’s Merit via Grim Stash to skip the misery? Play an old build of a base game?
I probably need a way to control my experience gain if I’m ever to play another character. An item that would lock my level to the average level of the area I’m in, or significantly reduce my experience gain, or something. But then the devotion progression will still be messed up. Why is the devotion shrine increase even a thing anyway? If someone is using the difficulty skip merits, why don’t you just give them all the devotion points from lower difficulties? And devotion shouldn’t be nearly maxed out just by beating Normal. That’s terrible progression.
Shrine increase was so people who skipped straight up to Ultimate could get 55 devotion points without having to go down to the lower difficulties to do so hence 59 shrines on Ultimate. Having more shrines also gives people the choice of which ones to tackle. Some might prefer to do just all the ones where you have to fight foes to cleanse them for example.
Maybe consider spending less time on lower difficulties. For example you could go to Elite at level 50 and to Ultimate on level 70 if you focus on it. I do that + Veteran + SSF so that’s its more tailored to my preferences.
Or if you don’t want to forgo this completionist nature of yours, the only solution for you is to start on Ultimate using Merit. I actually used to play like that a long time ago - GDStashing the merit (because I didn’t have any character that could buy it) and starting on Ultimate with various characters. I was an altoholic back then. But preceded with a bit of Crucible to get some devotion points and levels before progressing in Main Campaign.
I have a program / trainer that can temporarily lock Exp if needed.
I just found a mod that is probably just what I’d want if I wanted to play a new character. It would be great if reducing exp was an option in the unmodded game though. But devotion progression would still be terrible. I could limit myself to the old base game number of devotion points per difficulty, and/or ignore expansion until Ultimate, but all of that is just silly. Maybe having devotion maxed by the Elite difficulty is not too bad, but it would definitely be better if it could stay un-maxed at least until the beginning of Ultimate.
Experience gain and levelling is a bit quirky in this game imo. It is not designed where you should or need to complete everything in each difficulty; it is overkill. Forgotten Gods also gives very little xp for its difficulty, and so it is commonly skipped in at least one difficulty. Skipping Ashes of Malmouth in one difficulty is also quite common.
Players will need to move up a difficulty if/when they want more challenge or to progress to Ultimate faster, regardless of any outstanding quests and such.
Why, are you curious about my veteran SR build? It’s just what I got during leveling excluding the weapon and amulet I crafted between SR runs. I’d share it, but I can’t find how to get a link to my grimtools build.
There are people who complain that leveling is too slow, and now I guess people who complain that leveling is too fast. Really can’t please everyone.
I actually really like how it is. It makes it possible to level at a good pace without “having” to wear the Lokarr set, which is boring to me. Nobody is forcing you to do all the content, anyway. It is there so you can do what you want to do. Especially if you’re on your 1000th character like some of us are.
I’m a completionist, too, and what I usually do is I fully complete Ultimate. I don’t spend much time on the lower difficulties like tqFan mentioned because there is not much point. The best XP and loot drops are to be found in Ultimate.
I mean each difficulty is designed for different purpose.
Normal can be boring for those veterans like yourself. However, for people like myself who have just got into the game, It’s a way to explore the game and do what we need to learn.
There are many ways to enjoy the game. You don’t have to push yourself doing things that make you feel bored.
Given your experience, I would give you the rules I play by…play on Ultimate starting at level 1 using merits. It’s super fun right out the gate for someone seeking a challenging progression.
@Whatever1 You voiced my concerns exactly! I also think that XP gain is too high and there are too many shrines too early.
This slower levelling mod might be the first I actually install for GD, thanks.
Now to find another mod in which shrines give 0.5 devotion point…
You are missing the point - there are players who are completionists. They can’t leave any shrines untouched, any totem inactivated, any quest incomplete and any FoW uncovered. Also, challenges during leveling are different than end-game challenges. Your build is not perfect, you are often missing skills, devotions, items, augments, resistances - tackling those challenges along the way is very satisfying for many people.
It’s the way of playing games so your solutions to overleveling by skipping content are not really solutions.
Solution number 3 kinda works - just go straight to elite (level 1 ultimate is a bit of slog - it’s probably better to gain a few levels and devotions in CR before starting it). But it’s not perfect since you are still skipping content (it hurst!). And there is still risk of catching up and overpowering content since player power gain is faster than difficulty increase (obviously - this is arpg, it would be weird if there was no noticeable power gain during leveling).
Of course, there’s no perfect solution and it’s impossible to please everybody. IMO GD is very close to my sweet spot but it’s not quite there. I’d love to have XP reduction items (reverse Lokarr?), potions or even level drain option at Spirit Guide. XP to iron bits or aether crystals exchange (obviously, at “it’s not worth it” ratio!) system would be nice too.
I haven’t yet tried merits, but I’m afraid of 1 problem with them: MIs.
I don’t revisit areas to farm items or even share items between characters. Therefore going through 3 difficulties gives me 3 chances of finding some boss-specific MI. Starting on Ultimate would leave me with only 1 chance. That could be mitigated if Cruci dropped all MIs, since I spend some time there trying to win.
not sure that means I am missing the point. So because some people are OCD, the game has to cater to their needs now, by extension forcing everyone else to play as OCD to not fall behind in level ?
then find a mod with a slower leveling rate, or create one
exactly, and from what I can tell it is a small number that has this issue, so they will have to live with it I guess - or use a mod, that is why they are supported
the problem is that an MI you find in Normal (say level 30) or Elite (level 60) isn’t going to help you much in Ultimate when what you really should have is the level 84 / 94 version…
I disagree. Some of my characters keep lvl 30 MIs (e.g. pulsing shard) because the higher lvl items have awful prefixes and suffixes. Of course, I change them when better items come, but sometimes the higher versions do not drop no matter how much I farm (e.g. ascended casque).
I would never use a level 30 at level 80, it never is worth it imo. Going by your example, you have a helmet with 260 armor (level 32) instead of 1030 armor (level 70) presumably because you want the 21% aether resistance (don’t really see anything else that would make this worthwhile). That is not a good trade-off to me.
It’s about physical resistance, few points in maiven’s skill and armor boost. Combine it with few other items that give physical resistance and that 750 armor difference becomes not so big.
