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 get 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.
I didn’t fully playtest this yet, but this mod is so basic I expect it to just work. Not to mention that I learned most of the stuff from GD forums and the outdated Slower Leveling mod on Nexusmods. A few quick tests went fine, now I’m starting my new playthrough. This mod was made for GD version 1.1.9.7. Using it on newer versions might revert some changes to 1.1.9.7 and maybe even break stuff. I’ll try to update this when 1.1.9.8 comes out.
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). 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 ones 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 dungeon. 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. You can see which shrines are active in GD Stash after updating the database. I’m open to suggestions on the shrine list.
- Removed exp gain from the Crucible and the Shattered Realm: now you can stress test your build or earn some 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.
Installation: extract the contents of the numbered folders into your Grim Dawn directory with overwrites. Each folder holds a separate feature of the mod. You can use any combination of those folders. I have included the “loose” files in case you want to make adjustments or merges of this mod. There’s a folder that contains clean files in case you want to uninstall the mod.
I’m the guy that posted the complaint about the state of leveling in the current version of the game with expansions.
This is a hardmod, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work in the mod folder. I only spent a day on it, didn’t really want to spend more time figuring that out than making the actual mod. I understand that hardmods may actually be more convenient though.