This mod reduces experience gain and shrine count to return the game back to pre-expansion days, when you had to play through Normal, Elite and a bit of Ultimate to get all your abilities. Nowadays you can level up to 85-100 with 47 out of 55 devotion points just by playing on Normal, which is an absolutely terrible progression. I enjoy taking it slow, clearing all content, and generally enjoying everything that early- and mid-game have to offer, so I made this mod for myself.
The game with the two expansions has at least double the content now, so I couldn’t quite stretch the exp and devotion evenly between the three difficulties without turning it into a drip feed, but now you can be high level with max devotion by the end of Elite, instead of Normal. The journey to power takes two difficulties, and then you get one last difficulty to hone your build and just enjoy being at your best without it getting old too soon.
This mod is rather simple. I learned most of the stuff from GD forums and the outdated Slower Leveling mod on Nexusmods. Disclaimer: I haven’t played far with it yet. This mod was made for GD version 1.1.9.8. Using it on newer versions might revert some changes to 1.1.9.8. I’ll try to update this if it becomes incompatible with some future patch.
This mod requires the expansions. Should be compatible with anything that doesn’t overwrite or override the same files.
Features:
- Reduced exp gain from kills: you get 10% of kill exp, +3 flat exp so you can actually level up at a decent pace on those level 1 zombies in the beginning. Added a +1 flat exp version separately, which I’m using right now. Theoretically, if you level up to 50 in the vanilla game, 10% of that exp would get you to level 25, so it’s more like a temporary 50% level decrease, if you get what I’m saying. You’d be a bit higher level than that though, as I didn’t reduce every source of exp;
- Reduced exp gain from monster totems: you get 10% of it. That exp is an unnecessary bonus to something you want to do anyway;
- Reduced the amount of shrines: disabled most of the shrines that are sitting in the open, enabled all the concealed/difficult ones. Still kept a bunch of easy ones in Act 1 so you can get a Tier 1 constellation before your first act boss. There are just enough shrines to max out your devotion by the end of Elite, if you’re up to the challenge of getting the most difficult shrines. Ultimate still has every shrine active. I’m open to suggestions on the shrine selection. Shrine list.
- Removed exp gain from the Crucible and the Shattered Realm: now you can kill things and earn loot without devaluing campaign content;
- Reduced exp gain from repeatable bounties: you get 10% of bounty exp. You can grind that reputation without getting overleveled;
- Changed Potion of Clarity effect from +100% exp to -100% exp: in case you want to stop exp gain for awhile. Didn’t touch item exp bonuses.
Quests, shrines and some other stuff still give full exp by my choice.
Installation: extract the contents of the archive into your Grim Dawn directory with overwrites. Launch the game via a shortcut with a “/basemods” argument added to it, like so: “\Grim Dawn\x64\Grim Dawn.exe” /basemods. Each file holds one or several features, and you can use any combination you want:
- databaze.arz — 10% kill and totem exp, less shrines, Potion of Clarity;
- quests.arc — 10% bounty exp;
- scripts.arc — 0% exp Shattered Realm;
- survivalmode1/scripts.arc —0% exp Crucible.
I’m the guy that posted the complaint about the state of leveling in the current version of the game with expansions. In case the mod is incompatible with a future patch and I’m not around to fix it, 1.1.9.7 version of the mod on Nexusmods has the loose files included so you can replicate the changes.
The mod is also available on Nexusmods.
07.08.2023 Updated the formulas for other difficulties
Slow Leveling mod.zip (140.3 KB)
Less flat exp per kill.zip (22.4 KB)
