With the next expansion that most likely will have a ton of new content the time to go from start of normal, through elite to the end of ultimate will become immense.
I suggest that we just get rid of Elite. It will serve very little purpose anyways, as leveling can happen at a decent pace just in Normal and Ultimate.
For reference I will point to Path of Exile who got rid of their repeat difficulties entierly, which was considered a great success.
Things like that has been required countless times, i’m pretty sure Crate is aware of the potential problem and has solutions ready.
I like your suggestion though, it would require rebalancing (for shrines, quest rewards with skills/attribute points…) but maybe not in a repelling amount (that’s up to the devs ofc)
Short answer, YES.
I wonder if the new game mode does just that, make it a single play through + farming
that would be shattering indeed 
although i suspect that most if not all the players would play that mode in that case :eek:
Definitely support this idea. Running the story 3 times one every char is becoming very old.
One playthrough would be really awesome.
Either the new level cap is really high… or yes, it’s time for Elite to go.
There’s the issue with the resistance penalty. If they remove Elite, the jumping from Normal to Ultimate would mean an instant resist penalty of 50%. The jumping from Normal to Ultimate would be way too severe for new players.
Maybe making it optional, but getting rid of it would mean major balancing.
If possible, the difficulties should be a selectable modifier like Veteran is for Normal. I have not much time and I haven’t played at all in the past 3+ months. The expansion made the game FAR too large in my opinion with three difficulties to run through. Most players don’t even beat Normal, so there is not much point to having Elite or Ultimate…
I don’t quite remember is Crate mentioned this was not possible with the engine or if it would have taken too many man hours to change this. If I remember correctly, medeirra or Zantai spoke about this during the Alpha.
3 diff levels is to far ? I dont want to compare GD to D3…cause D3 is mostly trash…but some of the options in game are best ideeas for games like this…like scazilion diff levels so u have a lot to do and dont finish the game fast.
The new diff levels bring new items, new skills levels, new devos, new harder chalenges, quests, etc, a somewhat sense of ongoing progress…which is the one most seeked out thing in games today…u want to always do better and get better. PoE is just like a smartphone app…1 diff level, same items, finished it in 1 day with up to lvl 10 maps…awful wannabe game…
The ideea is …the more the better. Wouldnt mind to pay more for another diff level over Ultimate now in GD that would brinig up higher lvl items of the same name to farm for them…
Yeah. It would require figuring out how to deal with a lot of different rewards. One idea I’ve been tinkering with is taking some of the redundant rewards and adding in faction milestones between honored and revered for the ones that you are always sided with (Devil’s, Homestead, etc). It’s a 12000 XP, so giving a skill point or blueprint once or twice between that could help disperse some of those rewards.
In favor of this idea
Agreed, considering how few % of players even start Elite, let alone Ultimate, is it really going to be that much of a game spoiler if Ultimate unlocked at the same time as Elite and players new or experienced could pick as they wish.
It’s not as if the balance need to be changed anywhere, it’s just player choice what sort of challenge they want, and what order they do the shrines for the devotion points in.
I suggested removing a difficulty level a long time ago (because playing through a linear game 3x each per character on 30+ characters is exhausting and obnoxious; #ReasonsWhyXeiluaQuitGD), apparently it’s a bad idea because then people would have “legacy” devotion points or whatever.
Personally, I’m for removing difficulty levels altogether (in the same vein as PoE) and GD’s zones could just become more difficult as you progress instead. Heck, Crate could pull a “Borderlands playthrough 2.5” thing where, upon defeating the main campaign’s final boss, the whole game gets harder: every zone scales to your level and elites/tougher enemy types appear more frequently (difficulty up, far less busywork for the player). Also your choices would actually matter on each character this way since you could only make each decision once.
I have to agree with the original post. Right now I am taking my first character slowly through the game since there is a lot of new environmental art to look at but the necessity of going through the whole world three times on each character was a major contributor to the six month break I took away from GD. Also Ashes of Malmouth had been announced but wasn’t out yet so while I am really looking forward to seeing all of that (and what is still to come) it adds more time to the grind so I think reducing the character progression process to only two difficulties would be a fantastic addition to the next expansion.
I am “FOR” removing elite.
With new content and the current level scaling, people will hit level 75 from just defeating the first difficulty. It just seems like the logical thing to do at this point
Maybe to save themselves some work they could just have the waypoints unlocked up to the next boss. Would function as a gear check of sorts. So once elite is unlocked you can portal straight to but not past the warden. Once the warden is killed all portals up to cronley are unlocked. And so on.
I agree with the original post.
Since AoM came out, I haven’t completed any new character. Just getting to the end of the elite and I get bored. The original game with 3 difficulties is ok and well balanced.
I am so hyped with a new build in my head, but spending hundreds of hours on 3 difficulties to complete it is so tedious and overwhelming. Considering GD is a game with nearly unlimited builds, a build that can be completed within 100 hours is good enough. As a matter of fact, an average adventure game on the market normally lasts about 25-50h.
I stopped playing since mid December, 2017. Recently, after hotfix 1.0.5.1, I want to be back to the game, and set the new rule for myself to enjoy the game: begin anew; discard normal, elite and play ultimate only; start with level 100: 103 attribute points, 241 skill points and full devotion points; nemesis with all enemy; keep all the ally factions intact so to enjoy doing quests. With this, I can get over the tedious repetition and dont have to pay attention to non-mythical items (which is so not important anymore after the expansion), and with the compromise of losing the fun of leveling and opening shrines.
But even with that new rules I set for myself, I quit after 15min, because I am 2 hit killed by the monsters in front of devil’s crossing, in ultimate mode without high items and resistances are all -25/-50.
The expansion is good for all the players that have spent hundreds and thousands of hours on the original game, but not so good for new comers. It’s complicated if they want to see it as a whole complete game. I introduced the game to my brother, he quit after finishing Normal mode with the first character. I introduced the game to my friend, he began to multiply components with save files even though he hadn’t reached the end of Normal, and he even became more confused when I explained to him that there are inferior and superior versions of unique items.
“Get rid of Elite?” easy said but not easy done. It is like to adjust, consolidate the whole game and re-balance all things in game. Still, in my opinion, it is better to reduce the repetition and let go of the idea that there are 2 versions of unique items, which kind of kills the meaning of unique items. If unique item quantity is reduced so much by doing so, just make different versions of them like the ravager’s visages: with different colors to show different attributes (fire, cold, lightning, chaos, aether,…).
In the current state of the game, getting to the next difficulty level does not require doing AoM. I;m sure they will come uo with something.
But removing elite or all difficulty levels would require a massive rebalancing which i’m pretty sure they won’t go into