Oh... My... God... There's a level cap?!

One of them is not too bad if you overcap light resist by 100% ++…

I did zero grinding, used zero XP potions, and have zero XP gear. Every devotion but my last one (Hungering) is already maxed, and that includes a couple of ‘mistakes’ that were capped and now lay dormant. I have no more skill points to get.

As far as gear goes, I am pure pet/summoner. I’m already loaded for bear, and these fantasy builds with full sets and such are NOT being accomplished with a solo character and self found gear. I’m certainly not ‘sick of the game’, but yes I was quite shocked to hit a level cap. Why does it seem outlandish to simply keep going? Normal RPG scaling of XP progression has been a fixed formula for longer than most people on this forum have been alive. Diablo II may have had a level cap of 99, but to hit that you had to put in ten times the hours you do in this game.

Honestly, I don’t think you should ever hit a level cap in a true ARPG. Even if progression goes straight up exponential, fighting enemies should NEVER be for nothing. I wouldn’t care if it took a year of playing to hit 101, it would still be something worth smashing through mobs towards. That is the game for me, that is all that matters.

Your feelings are quite understandable, considering that for you “leveling up” is the primary source of satisfaction you get from the great grinding wheel which is an ARPG. Yet as most others have pointed out here, Grim Dawn is not alone in having a level cap; I certainly cannot think of another ARPG without one.
With that being said, Grim Dawn is slightly different from other landmarks of the genre in that its “builds” are more gear-oriented than comparative games; if you look through the “build” compendia here, you’ll see that most competetive “builds” differ only in gear and slight devotion modifications. For me, the last few level-ups felt for this reason weak and comparatively lame. I get “more” but upgrading a single piece of gear than I do by going from 95 to 100.
Therefore, most people consider the leveling process a step towards attaining the necessary prerequisites for playing the “end game”. The “end game” means changing your carrot from level-up to finding a better piece of gear. For almost everyone else on these forums, this is perfectly acceptable. Considering that 99% of everything you pick up is utter garbage, and you pick up only 1% of everything that drops, the end-game is all about finding an ever-diminishing needle-carrot in the haystack of crap. You can sweeten this by changing your goal: Instead of wanting to level up, you should want to … [fill in from list of suggestions above, e.g. kill MQ or Ravager or Gladi 150-170]. Alternatively, you could try a different character and build her up from scratch. Failing that, you could say: I spent 40 Euros and got X amount of hours of fun out of that, that is surely a much higher ratio than you get from spending 14 Euros on watching 94 minutes of Hollywood, since I guess that for your X > 100.
Crate was “kind” enough to put the carrot of level cap pretty close within your reach. Consider D2, it was very hard to reach level cap (I never did), or PoE (I also gave up at 97). On the other hand, those might be games for you, since the carrot while be in front of your nose for some time without being attainable. I for one wish that “builds” in GD were slightly more balanced between carrots, I would prefer slightly more boni in masteries (more keystones, transmuters behind gates, etc.) and less in gear, and I would have liked having a slightly higher level cap combined with that put behind a higher wall of content so that “grinding” was also done for XP, but that being said, I think GD will still hold many hours of entertainment for me, I also want to finally find some decent little carrot in the giant haystack of crap.

On the other hand, this is a game that emphasize on having infinite possibilities for character building, between masteries, gear, devotions, MIs…

IMO it’s a game supposed to be played with many characters,

if you were to need too many hours to bring a char on level 100, would be very difficult to fully experience more different characters in endgame

Why talking about two opposite extremities - either you have to play forever to reach the level cap or it is easily achieved half way through the Ultimate? I’d rather see players reach ~97lvl by the time they kill the last boss in AoM. Then you still have like 3 lvl to grind in case you missed some rogue dungeons or some quests or areas.

How fast or slow you level up is up to you. You can choose to do all the side missions and farm areas or bosses repeatedly or you can go from point A to point B and not get to max level until after you finish AoM content. You miss nothing by skipping content. I only play up to a certain point in elite and then jump into ultimate.

I remember Sacred (Gold/Underworld) had a level cap of 255 wich no sane person ever reached so there was like no cap at all :).

not sure what you mean by ‘Normal RPG scaling’ but I am not aware of any (A)RPG without a level cap

Honestly, I don’t think you should ever hit a level cap in a true ARPG. Even if progression goes straight up exponential, fighting enemies should NEVER be for nothing.

I would hate that, if the level cap does not exist or practically takes forever to reach I do not bother reaching it, then the cap is whereever I am when I finish the game, makes me lose all incentive to reach it

Taking forever to reach level cap in Titan Quest was the main reason i never had a character at level 75. Made worse by the only endgame options being the Mythical bosses and the Secret Passage.

I’m glad Grim Dawn has a reasonable time to reach level cap because i hate testing builds and knowing they are not at level cap. Meaning i’m not testing it at the highest challenge threshold.

I’ve managed it once - but that was when playing the Legion of Champions mod where Bumbleguppy has upped the XP a little, increased mob sizes and chances to run into heroes plus more new heroes, but he also raised the level cap to 99. I took an Avenger through to L75, but did speed run him a bit through Legendary iirc. So could have been a bit higher, but would never have hit L99.

I hate farming period so the thought of doing nothing but re-runs of areas or the whole game again without quests to complete just to hit L75 is something I’d never do. Far too boring. :smiley:

Exactly this. And let’s not forget that after the expansion a lot of sets are only for level 94, without a lower level equivalent (uroboruuk’s, Kreig’s, etc.). So imagine, with more exp needed to level up, what would it be to level a character til 94 to really test a build, and only then discover that what worked on paper doesn’t work in actual game :stuck_out_tongue:

You can always respec of course, but still…

:undecided:

Silly dev. You expect people to actually read the blurb! :wink:

Other than what Zantai highlighted above me, I’m going to excavate and post another post/opinion of his that I think needs to be said as well:

Basically, once you’ve done finished the story/other secrets, hit max level, finished gathering secret skill/attribute points, 55 devotion points and have gathered the literal perfect set of gear for your character - it’s done, it’s perfect, you can either do what you’ve been doing for the hundreds of hours it has taken you to get there and keep playing the game or start over. The choice is yours.

Sorry wrong. I play solo self found and have completed many sets and that’s a good thing. As others have pointed out the game is best enjoyed with many different classes. A good fit for those who have alt-itis. Also I know of zero ARPGs with no level cap. The paragon grind in D3 doesn’t count. So much fun adding 5 more points of mainstat :rolleyes:

If you do all the side quests, clear out every mob on every map as you go, even without potions, you’ll reach the cap before AoM (I did my first few play throughs). That’s avoiding SoT and other rogue dungeons.

Now that I use potions, I make almost a straight beeline through every zone, leaving a lot of the map unseen, and I hit Ultimate midway through the Ultimate still.

I’ve only got one toon to 100 so far and that’s my Conjurer. He did all the Outcast quests on Normal and Epic, mostly to see how the pets handled things, but otherwise just ran through the game clearing all areas. I think he may have done a couple of Rover bounties to get enough rep for the Mogdrogen quest in Normal and he’s run AoM on Normal and Elite. He hit 100 about halfway through the Asterkarn Valley. No XP potions since he doesn’t have any.

I think even when the game has “no end” (beyond the main historyline), and you start to find other things to do, even then, sooner or later it will become boring.

I have 735 hours played in Skyrim. I played with different characters, different builds, different guilds, achieved 100% of the achievements, and even with more content to explore (coming from mods), I was tired of the game.

So, if you think about it, an endless game can’t be enjoyed forever.

Six months passed since I played the last time, and now I’m slowly wanting to play again this great game. But because the game is great, not because is endless.

In Grim Dawn, there are a lot of things to do. Yes, some of them involve grinding, but this is what makes an ARPG. Even with infinite levels, sooner or later you will get bored and will need to take a break and play something else.

I know the feeling. I play GD like a maniac for a few months and then I have to step away. I come back ready to go again and it’s off to the races until I need that next break.

I feel the same when I go away on holiday for a couple of weeks and don’t play at all. Come back refreshed and ready to get stuck in. :slight_smile: