To level ~90, as all (or most?) other areas in FG seem to scale to this level, with these 2 areas being the exception. Unless there are reasons to not do so (maybe lore reasons for that closed area to be underlevelled compared to its surroundings?).
I’m experiencing the same problems as mentioned in this thread: https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/feedback-elite-difficulty-needs-area-level-rebalancing/94910
with the only difference that I played on Normal and not on Veteran - and after going through everything the game has to offer on Normal with very limited, only necessary farming for crafting (Ugdenblooms and Chtonic Seals) - after finishing then AoM on Elite I finally entered FG on Elite being already level 94.
And everything was completely fine even at this level in FG (and through the entire Elite before that actually - I was overlevelled all the time but never to the point of +10 levels) - everything scaled to ~level 90 (with + and -) throughout entire FG - but only until I came to Lost Oasis which strangely only scales to level 85. The same goes for Tomb of the Heretic, scaling only to level 85 too, while I am already level 96 at the moment of discovering it - so I am yet to actually get the quest to go there, and I suppose I’ll be level 97 (or even 98) by that time already which will make going through the dungeon feel strange (getting 0 experience for everything maybe except bosses and probably getting penalized by not receiving some drops that are not allowed when 10+ levels overlevelled (not sure about this, are there any? maybe some rare crafting materials)).
This actually already happened once with my first character (but I was using double exp potions as soon as I unlocked them so I blamed those) and now the same thing happened to my second one - but now without any experience bonuses or potions, just playing on Normal. And I didn’t even play in SR.
So I’d like so suggest increasing the level scaling cap of that particular zone on Elite to match most other areas in FG and make it ~90 (or just the same as every other area around), unless it is intended to be this way - as for now this is the only part of the game that feels “off” for no obvious reason when playing “explore everything” playstyle.
I’m guessing the reason this particular area is lower, and this is just a theory, is that if monsters were at level 94 or above, they would technically be eligible to drop pieces of the Morgoneth set, which Crate likely doesn’t want. If you could farm the set on Elite, what would be the point of doing it on Ultimate, where the danger would be much greater. I guess it’s the same reason why the Vanquisher set pieces don’t drop from the roguelike dungeons on Elite. The one thing that throws a spanner in the works is the fact that you can totally farm the Krieg set on Elite, which kinda invalidates the theory.
Theories and reasonings aside, I’m obviously all for increasing the level cap (I’m the OP in the thread you linked ). I’m currently in the process of levelling all of my characters through Elite (and I have a LOT of them) and the difficulty curve really does feel pretty off. Not just coming off of Veteran, but in general. Even if you don’t have much good loot under your belt, you can pretty much breeze through the base game and it’s only when you start AoM and FG content when difficulty starts to get back on track and even then, monsters are generally about 5 levels below me most of the time.
Ideally, it’d be best to just turn up level scaling by about 6-8 levels and disable certain area-specific drops like the Morgoneth and Vanquisher sets on Elite, if that’s the reason behind the lower monster levels.
Looking at Tomb of the Heretic’s level scaling on Elite, it’s currently in line with Ancient Grove on the same difficulty with both dungeons being slightly higher than the non-expansion roguelikes (Steps of Torment, Bastion of Chaos, Port Valbury).
Suffice to say, i don’t see it getting an increase anytime soon. It’d be bizarre for it to not be consistent with the other roguelikes across the world.
Thing is you don’t access these dungeons at the same time. If you’re doing FG after AoM, you get like 8 levels between Ancient Grove and Tomb of the Heretic. Considering AG at that point can often be borderline underlevelled, Tomb can be even worse.
The game could use an increase in the level celing, across the board, so that players that are more thorough in their playthrough still get a challenge. For other players who already found the game to have an appropriate scaling, increasing the ceiling doesn’t change anything, things stay at their level.
But, to counterpoint myself, and the OP, I don’t think monster level is everything. Tomb can be quite challenging on Elite even with a gap in levels. I’d say monster level is more of an issue in the base game (pre-expansion content) since a lot of the monsters just baseline pale in comparison to the expansion content in terms of stats and abilities. Increasing the difficulty by pumping up monster level in those areas would help bring up the challenge a little bit where it’s needed. For AG and Tomb, monster level is pretty much just a number, unless you’re so overlevelled you don’t even gain XP anymore, which doesn’t normally happen.
You’re not wrong. But the problem I’m seeing is that when you’re getting to the point where you’re out-levelling areas which seems to happen in the 85-95 range for Elite, where’s the point in staying in Elite for any longer?
Generally, it’s reputation. Even if you forked out the dough on a previous character to Merit up all the allied factions (which can be a big IF depending on how active you’ve been with crafting), unless you’ve been actively farming Nemeses already on previous characters you won’t necessarily have the Warrants to rocket up your negative reputations with hostile factions.
Now obviously you can resolve that issue by rerunning specific areas on Ultimate to get that rep up (or, well, down in this case). Thing is, not everybody is head over heels into running the same area repeatedly over and over to farm rep. It’s often a lot more of a natural flow to just finish Veteran, finish Elite and bam, some factions will already be on Nemesis (usually Beasts, Aetherial, C’thonic) while the others will be close enough that over the course of your Ultimate playthrough you get those Nemeses naturally. Your Ultimate playthrough then retains the natural smooth progression you’d normally get since you’re not rerunning stuff for rep, and you get the extra spice of having a chance of running into Nemeses so the Ultimate playthrough feels truly ultimate and, well, complete.
If you haven’t bought the Merits on a previous character, either because you’re broke or you play by certain rules etc., Elite gets you naturally to Revered status with everybody (except the ingrates in Devil’s Crossing). And you really don’t want to be dipping your toes into Ultimate without access to those lvl 90 augments (fire-focused characters with 237 % overcapped fire and no poison resistance say hi).
I can agree on wanting to get max reputation naturally and minimise grinding if you’re not into that sort of thing but if you’re staying around in Elite to the point where you’re 15 or lower levels than the max, it just feels to me like you’re stagnating your experience gain significantly and overstayed for longer than necessary is the point I was trying to get across. Hell, you could even argue that you’re starting to overgrind Elite by that point which is supported by the fact that you have over levelled a majority of the difficulties areas.
Even if you don’t get enough infamy to hit Nemeses with some factions by the end of Ultimate, bounties are a big help with that and a good way to vary it up a little as different Bosses often hang around different areas of the faction you’re grinding. Like bounties for Cronley’s Gang will send you to the main hideout, the Staunton Mine, Hanneffy Mine and the trip from the Old Arkovia rift around the loop to the hideout entrance at random (depending on which bounties you pick up).
Several armour augments from level 70 are still strong and worth using.
Just to clarify one thing, since you’ve said “overgrind Elite”. There is no grinding involved in overlevelling the difficulty. If you play Veteran and just finish all content, no farming, no bounties, no challenge dungeon reruns, no SR, none of that nonsense, just finish the difficulty, complete all quests, and move on, you’ll be overlevelled for pretty much the entirety of Elite. Start to finish. By a lot. By just naturally playing the game the way it was built, start to finish, you enter Elite and the game’s like: “The hell did you do? Did…did you actually PLAY the game? I didn’t expect you to do THAT!!”.
If you actually had to go out of your way to overlevel yourself for Elite I’d have no arguments, it’d be a self-inflicted problem. But it just happens naturally. Which is really strange to someone who was taught the ways of the ARPG by Diablo 2’s difficulty progression. Where the higher difficulty was actually harder.
I’m not too surprised really with the introduction of Forgotten Gods. Ashes of Malmouth was already pushing it a tad but otherwise, you’re right that the experience scaling wasn’t designed for 2 expansions so it’s easy to out level without trying, especially for players that explore everywhere. It’s arguably not Crate’s fault either as well, they didn’t know they were going to do a second expansion years down the line nor can they shift the level scaling around without messing with the scaling for people playing the game without one or both expansions. It’s a fairly complex problem where players that do every quest and explore every area on Normal/Veteran to Ultimate just have to deal with being over levelled eventually.
But beyond that, speaking as a more experienced player, I would still want to move on and past Elite to Ultimate ASAP for the other notable things it offers like the quest-specific skill/attribute points. Take Alexey_Zuev’s situation as an example with the reason he made the thread being that he’s still Level 96 and in Elite - it just surprises me that they say they haven’t moved onto Ultimate yet as one would assume that is what the average player would do.
Oh I know, it definitely originated from the addition of a lot more content at the end of the game. But as I argued in the thread linked above, I think the game should really account for that and I don’t believe it’s necessarily as complex of an issue as you think. If they just move the level ceiling up (areas capped at 75 would be capped at 82, for instance) without moving the level floor, the players that play the base game, in fact even players that play the full game but just don’t do everything on Veteran, will not notice a difference. If you enter Twin Falls at 71, monsters in the area will still be 71 just like before, since the game scales to the player’s level. It’ll just be the people who enter at the higher levels that’ll notice a difference, because the ceiling will be able to accommodate them.
As for why people don’t move on, I can tell you for myself that it’s just against my nature. I’ve been raised by games like D2 and TQ, where completion, start to finish, was how the game was played. The idea of “endgame” is generally unappealing to me, I’d rather conclude the game with the triumphant defeat of the final boss and the knowledge that I’ve beaten all there is rather than with the feeling of “I’m bored of grinding this character at endgame, I think I’m dying inside”.
). I’m currently in the process of levelling all of my characters through Elite (and I have a LOT of them) and the difficulty curve really does feel pretty off. Not just coming off of Veteran, but in general. Even if you don’t have much good loot under your belt, you can pretty much breeze through the base game and it’s only when you start AoM and FG content when difficulty starts to get back on track and even then, monsters are generally about 5 levels below me most of the time.