Grim Dawn is about the process of leveling, building your character. That should take a while.
As is already pointed out, you don’t need to finish AoM on Normal in order to go straight to Elite (nor do you have to finish it on Elite to go to Ultimate). Zantai said explicitly that you will not have to finish AoM to access Forgotten Gods. So basically nothing changes. People will probably play by finishing the entire game content on Normal (to unlock factions for rep gain), then kill Log on Elite, jump straight to Ultimate and then play by their own pace.
The problem I see is that, by finishing AoM and Forgotten Gods on Normal, people might be a bit overleveled for Elite. But that can be remedied in at least two ways: a) raise the level cap, to say 105 or 110 and b) adjust the experience curve, so that players gain experience and level up a bit slower than now (which I’m in favor of). For people impatient for this, there are experience potions and Crate might put additional options for XP gain boost in the FG.
I agree that removing Elite would probably pose significant balancing issues. I also hope that the new game mode is not a single playthrough. I hope it’s some kind of a serial dungeon/area system, maybe like rifts, but not with randomly generated areas. Like Crucible combined with campaign map.
I would love if they got rid of elite, I’ve got 4 characters in ultimate, a couple of them at the very end of AoM, and another handful in elite and I’m starting to get tired of running through the game so many times per char.
Maybe they could make the resistance penalty scale periodically through the game, like after certain acts or quests are completed, so it’s not one big jump moving into the second play through.
I think the other main concern would be shrines, especially for those without crucible. They’d have to make up for those elite shrines, I think maybe the best way is by adding more devotion points to quests, something like getting a few with each act boss you kill.
Maybe the hardest part though will be balancing for people who don’t have the expansions.
i get the point about AoM/FG being not necessary for unlocking higher difficulties, but that also mean that if you start fresh, you have to finish the base game story thrice before accessing the xpacs. it seems a little weird too and not very enticing either :undecided:
See, this is the reason why I created a “template” level 65 char who had finished Normal/Veteran fully, with a decent chunk of devotions, all reputation maxed, etc.
Now when I want to make a new char I just use a save editor to rename the character and start in Elite, skipping normal. Usually if I’m starting a character it’s because i’ve picked up items that would work for a certain build whilst farming, so usually have a semi-optimised character right out of the gate.
I’m considering doing the same thing again and just skipping straight to ultimate at level 85 instead.
There’s a few reasons for doing this:
Normal/Veteran is so easy it’s just boring. Even a half thought out character spec will annihilate the content. Elite still has much the same problem if you have a good spec and decent supporting items. So lack of challenge is the issue here.
All the items you collect in normal/elite become worthless later on, so there’s no point to doing anything but the bare minimum. The only reasons to do content in these difficulties are faction reputation, devotion points, bag slots, and the hidden skill point / attribute quests.
Expansion content in normal/elite just makes the game longer before you get to the endgame, so it’s not worth doing AoM until Ultimate. So you either do the content early for no benefit, or have to wait hours and hours before you reach it in ultimate.
It is frustrating that it takes so long to level a character to try out a new build and go farm for items that you’re burnt out by the easy normal/elite content before you get to the interesting stuff. I was skeptical when D3 made the campaign skippable and levelling to max possible in less than an hour with help, but it works. You get straight to the endgame which is where the fun is in that game.
Of course that is the other thing, the endgame for Grim Dawn isn’t the same and it’s much more focused on the campaign playthrough. Which is fine, but once per character is enough I think. Being able to play through once and adjust the difficult up as you go would be the ideal solution if that were technically possible.
I also still think the game would also benefit from end game content in the vein of D3’s rifts or PoE’s maps. I’m sure I read there was a technical reason for not doing this, but someone has already made a mapping mod…
Bumping this thread as with the upcoming expansion it will be even more relevant.
The thought of going through all the content three times per character makes me question if I should even bother getting the expansion.
Please do not bump threads. The devs read nearly everything on the forum and as said, this question has come up multiple times. Here are the answers so far:
From the 27th July stream:
"Pokerkid777 :Will there be any way to skip elite straight into ultimate? Going through the main game and 2 expansions 3 times can become very tedious at times.
I do understand that concern for some of you who have been playing the game for a long time and want to level a bunch of characters up to maximum difficulty. I actually have an idea for how to have a solution to this conundrum for those of you. The programmer is looking into how doable that solution would be and how long it would take. There are a lot of factors involved here. The biggest one honestly is we don’t want to break your characters, primarily due to the attribute and skill rewards you get on Normal and Elite difficulties. When we release an expansion we’re more careful of that so the skill rewards are exclusive to Ultimate."
And from the 14th September stream:
"Overbuilt_Gaming: Any update on the 3 difficulties in campaign? You mentioned a few dev streams ago you were going to suggest a way to the team to improve on it.
No headway on that yet, because there are other priorities that we are focussing on, mainly the Shattered Realm features. As I said I do have an idea for how we could streamline it a little bit, but that has to be reviewed by the programmer and see how doable it’s going to be. How many issues it’s going to create because our concerns are regarding skipping difficulties in regards to attribute and skills rewards from quests. And we can’t simply throw those away because certain characters have already done it and can’t give you more because those characters would then have more. And actually editing quests is also kind of a mess. If we change quests too much it creates an issue where quests can end up wiped from your quest log and then we have to come up with a way to restore them and it can be a mess. Which is why it’s complicated challenge."
A complete difficulty will not be removed because of the above reasons. Whether they’ll be able to streamline the game in any way we just have to wait and see.
Honestly, I don’t get why some people thinks it’s such a PITA to just rush through elite and and unlock ultimate… you can literally skip the whole act 1, rush through the other acts, doing only the hidden path, that one sidequest to kill the harpy boss and kasparov’s quest for the extra skill points, kill the loghorrean and just start ultimate.
It doesn’t even takes that long to skip elite, since you won’t need to do any of the expansion areas to unlock ultimate… it shouldn’t take you more than a day to skip through elite, assuming you don’t suck, of course.
The devs can’t seem to win with this. People keep asking for yet another expansion and at the same time turn around and complain because there’s too much content to run through 3 times.
As said, you can skip AoM in Normal and Elite and yes, even skip Act 1 in Normal if you get enough scrap and iron to repair the bridge though that won’t work for accessing the FG expansion since you’ll need to kill the Warden to trigger that. Or you can just do main, side and faction quests. There are plenty of ways of skipping content already if that’s what people want to do.
Yes it’s possible to rush elite in a few hours but it really isn’t ideal. Players buy extra content because they want to be able to enjoy it, and not be forced to repeat other content to get to it.
Let’s be realistic about the situation if nothing is changed. I would guess the typical play-through will experience base game 3 times, FG and AoM 1.5 times average. Personally I see this as a design flaw; the goal should either be give players the choice what to do or equal content experience.
The most obvious solution is reducing xp gain so it takes longer to get to 100 and therefore expansion content will be a higher proportion of play time. I would take a bet this wouldn’t be popular as the time sink gets bigger?
Giving players choice what to do goes against the story though right(AoM only)?
The solution for Elite I would want though is one that gives the player choice and freedom what to do. Allow AoM access immediately and create equivalent attribute/skill quest rewards in FG and AoM where the quest rewards are shared. E.g player can do Minova quest or Kill Carraxus or FG quest for attribute/skill but not get three rewards for doing all (only xp from doing all). Player has already done the story in normal/vet so it’s not a big deal. Whether something like this is possible from development side I have no idea.
Even if it only takes an hour, it’s still an hour to long. But I also want them to get rid of standard also. The game doesn’t start until you get to ultimate, first 2 playthroughs are nothing more then a really long tutorial.
Hopefully more arpgs in the future will go POE’s route and do away with the outdated 3 playthroughs
if you want to be realistic, the average player will complete that content at most once and not worry about Elite or Ultimate
The most obvious solution is reducing xp gain so it takes longer to get to 100 and therefore expansion content will be a higher proportion of play time. I would take a bet this wouldn’t be popular as the time sink gets bigger?
agreed, would not like that at all, I rather rush through content. Also, which content you cut short is up to you, you can skip all of act 1 and half of each other act easily and then do full AoM and FG if you wanted to
Speak for yourself, that clearly is not true for 90% or so of players that never even make it there… I find Ultimate the most boring, grindy part, have not yet finished it because of that I much rather start a new build (will eventually complete Ultimate too…)
I don’t think getting rid of elite is a good idea…
remember that in normal/veteran, player resistances starts at normal. then its reduced in elite. then ultimate also reduces it further.
If elite is deleted, then the majority of players (most of them haven’t reached ultimate yet if the talks in forum are accurate) will feel the game has unbearable difficulty spike when they jump from normal/veteran to ultimate.
Elite is there to ease out player progression into ultimate. its the soft test for a player’s successfulness in designing their build. also to give some time/space for grinding equips so that resistances are filled out nicely as player progresses into ultimate.
For Ultimate-oriented players who can zip through elite like it was breakfast for them, they can identify the most efficient and fastest route in elite while finishing quests that gives +skills/attributes and finding devotion stones. elite is just a minor annoyance to them. But to common players elite is necessary.
That being said, Titan Quest:Ragnarok presents a wonderful idea for almost skipping normal difficulty; creating accomplished character from the start.
This character starts at lvl40, has 1 million gold?, and has finished all quests (including +attributes/skills/health quests) up until the end of Immortal Throne expansion. They start immediately at Ragnarok expansion’s beginning. I wish Crate could add something like this (maybe player can be given option to start at fort ikon in normal/veteran difficulty after finishing the last main quest of original GD).
From the few comments I’ve read about the Accomplished Hero start it’s pretty bad, no gear available at the merchants to equip your characters adequately for that level and above. Not tried it myself though.
It also wouldn’t work with FG since you need to kill the Warden in Act 1 to gain access to that expansion. Whether it would be possible/feasible to change it for a higher level character only the devs know.
Sounds like you’ve been done with GD for quite some time, but still haven’t realized it yet, if that’s how you see it…
For me, the essence of an ARPG, is to complete all the quests and reach the level cap with my character, and removing content, a.k.a skipping a difficulty, just makes this journer shorter than it is meant to be. That’s when I’m done with my character and move to the next one, because what’s the point of keeping playing a fully maxed character? You’ve already defeated the whole game with that character, so what else is there for you to do? Start session, kill all the nemeses/bosses, then end the session and start a new one to repeat the same boring pointless boss killing over and over?
I honestly will never understand this mindset of players wanting to remove a portion of the game, just so that you can reach to the end of the journey faster… Gamers nowadays are getting way too impatient and are living in an era of “instant gratification” where they just want to get to experience the ending, instead of actually enjoy the whoe experience that the game has to offer… maybe that’s why nowadays a lot of devs are just adding a crapload of p2w microtransactions and stuff like that in their games…
But I do agree that future ARPGs should just avoid these multiple playthroughs for higher difficulties, and instead add more content to the game, so that it can last longer, but for gd, this will never happen. Maybe on gd 2.
I assume most people who want to skip difficulties want to get to Ultimate quicker so they can farm stuff. For me, this is the most boring thing to do - so I don’t.
How about a radical solution - once your character finishes a game’s final difficulty you can’t play that character any more. Would love to see a games company spring that on their players.
And they wonder why Ashes Of Malmouth is owned by 20% of the players who own the game. This 3 difficulty runs combined with unbalanced/overpowered enemies like Iron Maiden and Zantarin The Eternal, the unbalanced Crucible, monsters always scaling few levels higher than character, reduction of skill points after level 55, the lack of offensive ability nodes in the eastern Devotion constellations, the lack of defensive ability nodes in the western Devotion constellations, lackluster offensive defensive ability boosts from the equipment, underpowered Demolitionist mastery which lacks some ruggedness/defensive buffs/bonuses, underpowered fire damage caused by high fire resistance monsters have, Soldier and Shaman being the only viable options for multiclass combinations, lack of attribute/skill points as quest rewards, underwhelming defensive/offensive ability buff scaling from the attribute points, physique being the single most important attribute for all builds, lack of cunning impact on character builds as the result of the two examples prior to this one… those are my reasons why I haven’t bought Ashes Of Malmouth. If you think I am the only one who skipped the upcoming expansions because of these reasons, keep believing in it, but you are wrong.
