ever since i started playing this game (pre-Warden), well maybe not that long. i’ve been wanting to make characters that are higher then level one. i’ve been feeling this extremely strongly since i picked the game back up a month ago. i have one particular skill i want to focus on (Shaman’s Wind Devil). Every time i think i get it figured out i end up wondering how a different secondary mastery would synergies with it. i currently have three different characters. all around level thirty. each time i decide to try a different mastery i have to start a brand new level one character. it’s not that i want to get rid of the old ones either. i play all of them. seeing how the differences stack up. i would now like to start a fourth. once again i’m facing the annoyance of levelling a character up to a decent level to see how well this particular combo could work. a monotonous grind. that i’ve repeated time and time again. and once again i find myself wondering about pre-generated characters. being able to have a character that starts at a particular level
in my opinion this could be implemented two different ways. both would still require effort. making it more a reward. the first would simply being able to clone saves as part of the character creation process. the only thing the player would get to change would be the characters name. this would require them to actually build a character to use as a pre-generated character. this would be highly skill based. as i doubt making high level zero mastery characters is easy. even a single mastery might have difficulties
the second would be a checkpoint system. once a character reaches a predefined level they can generate a character of a specific level. possibly twenty levels lower. so a person who’s gotten a character to level fifty would be able to generate a level thirty character
i feel this would go far to increasing enjoyment of the game for many. without reducing the sense of accomplishments. rewarding those that achieved something with a useful feature that will come in handy many times. if they want to use it
What you want is already in the game, sort of.
You can start the game with a new character and be level ~20-30 with access to all way points and several devotion points in about 30 minutes, possibly less.
But first you have to play through the main campaign at least once (daunting as it may be).
And ideally, you have to unlock Revered level with the Resistance of Malmouth, to get access to the XP potion for 100% bonus.
And if you want to be efficient, you’d also beat the 2nd Secret Quest for an armor set that grants even more bonus XP.
And then you’d roughly follow this method:
(Needless to say, the video contains spoilers which might diminish your enjoyment of a first time play-through)
TL;DR:
Collect lore notes, drink XP potion and equip XP gear, read lore notes, do some easy quests, teleport to some easy shrines and cleanse them for experience, et voilá, you can start playing at level 20+.
Ofc it requires a little more effort than the methods you described.
First character is the hardest and has to clear the path for the others, I recommend sticking to one and following it through. Any other characters you make after that will be much easier to level.
sounds extremely niche. like a infinitesimal number of players, fans even, would do this. does sound like a great final pre-gen unlock though. if a save can reach max level and devotion points in under a certain time limit, that player can generate max level characters. possibly with max devotion points already available. to smooth their play experience. eliminating a grind they have more then proved themselves capable of
Alternatively, use GDStash’s character editor function. Make a new L1, go into the Stash and use the editor to give it whatever you want it to have in the way of skill/attribute points, devotions, etc, then save it as your template character.
There is a blank L100 character you could download, but I’m not sure it works properly with the latest version of the game since some changes were made to how characters are saved in v1.2 far as I know.
i’m legit confused, if you don’t want to actually play the game, why don’t you just use the save editor, or GDstash, or the premade template char Medea linked?
the way i’m reading OP and your subsequent reply to skips already existing is “i don’t want to do even that”, which makes it sound like what you want isn’t really playing the game (since it comes of sounding as this unbearable chore) but “test” builds?
and for testing builds we have all sorts of modding options available - heck you don’t even need to download tools or premade saves, you can just go in custom mode and use console commands Console Commands Reference
Reminds me of the conversation around implementing a respec system in-game. There is no one right way. This idea obviously is not one you’d find useful. Many Would find it useful, though. So many in fact that there appears to be many workarounds in use for it already. If it is in such high demand why not put a official in game method in? One that is a reward for playing the game. Got to level 50,70,90. You can now generate a level 30, 50, or 70 character; respectively. Nothing else. Only difference is a higher level. Max out a new characters level and devotion points in less then 10 hours unlocks being able to generate a new character that is max level with max devotion points
what i’m reading here is this feature is in such high demand that the community is already using various workarounds to accomplish it. all this does is place a method in-game that Crate would have full creative control over
except you don’t want to
which is also exactly why the people that “cheat”/mod the game this way do it this way, because they have no interest in really playing “the game” and just the specific portion of it
^i say no interest in actually playing the game since they aren’t interested in using the skips already available as that’s already “too much regular gameplay” for them
the issue i see it is if when you implement these features “standard”/“official”; they become the norm, the expectation
i already feel like i’m “weird” for not using the skips/“in the minority” because people seem to have an expectation you’re at minimum using XP potion etc on your 2nd char even if not speed levelling in 4 hours
That, to me, would suggest that duplicating chars would be the norm, and the expectation then to not “play” the game, but just copy to a certain point - and “everything” centred around it
This probably isn’t a net positive for players overall, specially the way GD is structured around campaign experience, and despite how easy it/the tools are accessible, i’m guessing “most” players truly not wanting that form of extreme skip; is why save editor plays is probably not the predominant part of players.
“why would i want to play when i can just duplicate my char”
i don’t remember the exact wording, but Zantai at some point said something to the gist of, just because something seems neat/beneficial or a feature “i” would like, doesn’t mean it’s healthy for a game
I think, atleast the way i perceive your request/responses is that this would very much fall in the more detrimental category if it was “vanilla”, hence it’s good it’s optional as modding, because it leaves it just in the outskirts of not being the default/expectation play behavior.
because there is a “high” demand for aimbot/esp tools; does that mean Valorant, CoD etc should implement them as deafult ?
(and i’m curious what you base the high demand portion of; just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s high)
I thought GD was really generous when it comes to leveling alts (and loot, of course), but apparently not? I thought Merits, Mandates, Warrants, XP pots (and Lokarr set) work towards the idea of leveling your new characters faster and more comfortable?
And I myself have used Hero Editor in Diablo 2 just to test some build ideas I had: creating a character, playing with it for 10-20 minutes to get the “feel” of it, then delete it. And that worked fine.
Also, I believe quite a few people were asking to implement teleport straight to bosses from Grim Internals, which is practicaly a cheat (which is of course fine in a single-player game as long as it’s not forced on everyone). I shudder at the thought of what GD2 might look like if it follows “high demand”. Probably some dumbed down shit like Diablo 3 where skills are unlocked automatically, and you have active skills only on LMB and RMB - everything else is passive / proc.
@Gnomish_Inquisition
i’m sorry you feel alienated by all the different “convenience” features Crate added to the game over the years. i’m certain that was not there intent. i seem to remember them being uncomfortable with them as well. your method of playing does not make you weird in the least. the way you choose to play the game deserves the deepest respect. not many have it in them. that sort of dedication and discipline. what you have achieved is a true accomplishment
thank you for sharing your views with me as well. i truly appreciate it
dont’ get me wrong i don’t mind XP potion, lokarr set and Ult xp boost is there
just mentioning how it seem to have shaped the more general perception of the game/in this case of alt char levelling
it’s not that all convenience is bad, but perhaps the degree of it, and when/where that then fits as “official” (even if technically optional) and then as “mod”
Xande’s mention of boss teleports is probably a good example of that too
i’m not like an “old” gen/hardcore player trying to gatekeep in the sense that “all must go through the same 25hour grind i do”,
but probably more come to sorta agree with dev sentiment that sometimes things could be too convenient for our own good/not good as a whole/“be careful what you wish for” type deal/protection mebe
had the thought it might be easier to tie it to the achievement system. possibly hardcore ones dealing with defeating certain difficulties. such as defeating the first difficulty on hardcore would unlock level 25 as an option for new characters. and each subsequent difficulty would unlock the level that a character is likely to start that difficulty on. and getting the level 100 hardcore achievement unlocking level 100 characters at creation. i would actually commit to hardcore for a reward like that
also thinking a polar opposite option could be added “Nuzlocke Mode” which disables all the character based convenience features. ie respecs, writs, locks out the shared stash, etc. for a more retro experience. i’ve seen time and again people decrying the fact Crate is catering to casuals. This would give a mode for those that want to play the game as it was “originally” intended to be played. without naming it something that implies it should be the default mode or any of that. plus i think that whole Nuzlocke thing is neat and deserves to be in a game that won’t be DMCAd. if only in spirit
actually i think all i really want is a level 5 character. i just go big, i guess. the rest doesn’t matter. i would just like to skip that first run of the crucible. where i’m clubbing stuff to death. it gets old. the rest never has. i like playing the campaign. in that the progression system for the first few levels never felt all that bad. it’s just right now i want to focus exclusively on the crucible. and 5 levels always seems to be the point where i’m guaranteed of getting at least one skill i like and, in any mode, stuff starts getting interesting. gating it in some fashion would make perfect sense. i just believe it would increase my enjoyment of the game massively. for as small a thing as it might seem
? i love playing Crucible. loved playing it ever since it came out. sometimes i prefer Campaign. Other times i prefer Crucible. I’ve only ever defeated the first difficulty on both. Still got close to a thousand hours of playtime from playing around on the first difficulty of both. currently running around the first part of the Campaign. seeing what the lowest level i can be to get to Warden Krieg. only got as far as repairing the bridge over the underground cavern, so far. still level 1 though. got distracted when i decided to level a blank character. so i could look up the different skills, in game
i’m curious why you’re even doing that now?
Crucible has long since been “obsolete”/inefficient as starter for anything but truest of SSF SC
merit and/or XP pot etc will give you an easier and quicker starter/boost
and especially if all you care for is what amounts to a lvl 5 jump then that is probably also fitting of that
i don’t have any of that unlocked. plus i love playing the Crucible. especially since i could lock in my favorite one. the characters that i use for it tend to never enter the main campaign
I think the main point here is to find a sweet spot between what feels like to much effort and what feels like cheating.
In my case, for example, I often look at the heroes I have and think “I wonder what it would feel like to have this same combination of masteries, but turn him (for example) into a melee fighter instead of a caster”.
Now, respeccing back and forth is too much of a hassle (saving and re-creating the old setup). Making a new character from scratch to try it is too much effort. Using a tool to duplicate and re-name the character feels to much like cheating. So in the end I don’t give it a try at all.
I’m not sure what a good solution would be, though. Being able to legitimatelly duplicate a character sounds like it really would render actually playing the game obsolete.
