First off, I love leveling new characters and playing through all aspects of the game (leveling, gearing up, doing quests, boosting rep, farming bosses, hunting Nemesis, etc.).
That being said, pretty much any jack-of-all-trades build can push through Normal/Veteran, but with the addition of the expansion, people are reaching fairly high levels long before reaching Ultimate. My last character hit level 78 before reaching the final boss in Veteran and I’m sure if I stuck around to farm a bit, I could have hit 80 with relative ease. With this current trend, Elite serves no purpose other than maxing your devotions (which from my understanding can be accomplished without Elite) and grabbing those extra +skill/attribute quests. There’s no other redeeming factors to Elite difficulty anymore other than to test if your resists are in the right place (which can easily be figured out while traipsing through the first two acts of Ultimate) and farming for better gear.
To me, if I’m not seeing any character progression while I play, it becomes stale and very boring. This is why leveling a new character is so fun because you continually get stronger through levels and new equipment, but by the time you enter Elite around level 70ish, there’s not much more progression to be made - especially when the quests give so little experience in comparison to your current level. Sure you’ll still gain levels and reputation with the factions, but the entire process of running through the game will feel (at least it did for me) extremely sluggish with only a handful of levels to gain and maybe a few new pieces of gear to wear.
I know a lot of people have suggested to opening all difficulties upon completion of Normal/Veteran, but I’m guessing Crate would see a similar effect if they just disabled Elite entirely as I’m sure most people want to just jump straight into Ultimate - not only to continue with the game, but also to test their build quicker. I recall this was an issue during beta because we were hitting the max levels early in the game and it seems that trend is starting to repeat itself again.
I agree, if you clear through everything, you reach too high a level too soon. As a result, I do not fully clear everything any more. I no longer uncover the whole map, and push through the quests, and ignore most the map. I used to hit Log at level 55ish, now I do it around level 46.
By the time I finish the expansion, I’m about level 55 now. Same as before.
I might also note that before the expansion, Elite felt easier than Veteran.
That would mean you don’t hit Revered with any of the factions without farming a bunch. I find the compromise is to just skip all the trash, and rush through the quests.
I would think that it would be to your best interest to push through with elite. Especially on your succeeding characters. I would want to be able to wear the highest possible gear i can before transitioning to Ultimate, unless you are playing on 1st playthrough or self-found playthrough.
With the release of the new Mythicals, I feel there is much more incentive to do so especially in HC before hitting Ultimate. Doing runs on Elite Valbury and AoM can get you close to the ~90s range.
I’m level 75 after Killing Loghorrean in Elite and doing SoT and BoC. In Veteran I did all quests except challenge dungeons and fully cleared expansion content. In Elite I did all quests. 78 in Veteran sounds really high.
I agree that Elite is a bit unnecessary, the game feels too long with the expansion running the content three times over. There should be more large shortcuts. But I have 1700 h in GD, so I’m a bit burned out I guess.
On one hand, elite is great for farming gear with your first gimpy character who would struggle in ultimate.
On the other hand, once you have ok gear in your stash, elite really serves no real purpose besides quest bonus and devotion points.
Overall, I feel elite is still necessary for “normal people who discover the game”. I hate it, but I know it’s necessary.
My homebrewed suggestion would be to treat elite and ultimate the same way normal and and veteran work now. But this can’t be done without tedious busy work rebalancing everything.
I really want to head into the expansion contend after killing Loghorrean (always playing Veteran), but like OP said, if you do this, you gain to many levels. The game has gotten too big, and I do not have the willpower to play through all the contend 3x with a character.
I don´t think getting rid of Elite is the answer.
Maybe scaling the game like in Ultimate would work, if the experience gain would be adjusted. And we´d get 2 devotion points from some shrines.
I really didn´t mind the old school system with 3 difficulties, but it just doesn´t work anymore.
My goodness, if AoM sells well, and we actually get another expansion, GD would probably get even bigger. No no no, best not think about that. :undecided:
Everyone who bought GD that actually enjoyed it will buy the expansion. There’s lots of content compared to your standard DLC. You’re talking about some serious value for your money, which everyone appreciates. Even people like me, who have been annoyed with Grim Dawn and have heavy criticism for certain mechanics, actually bought the expansion. It just speaks volumes about the quality of the game.
Compare that to the 2-3 hour shitty DLCs EA release on a periodical basis, I have no doubts AoM will sell.
I do hope they really max cap the level to 100. Last thing we’d want is for our characters to be able to do everything in 1 class.
I don’t think we need 3 difficulty settings in GD anymore. With the espansion, story got really big, so two difficulties are okay. If Crate is going to release another expansion with more story content, then there’s no way to play through 3 difficulties all over again.
As someone who loves to over-level characters i fail to see how this is a problem. are you playing for XP? when your toon is a little too high for the content you move faster, get more loot, and wreck more faces.
Grim Dawn normal/vet/elite is just preparatory school FOR ultimate. they serve no other purpose, so why not be as absolutely prepared as possible?
I enjoy wrecking the content in mid range levels because it shows my build is working, where i need to focus etc. So it stands to reason doing EVERY quest and completionist run will make you too high level, but it doesn’t matter because when you finally reach ultimate the mobs will always be ahead of you.
and if you’re a completionist this is a not a new problem introduced with Ashes of Malmouth, i had several characters reach level 65+ on NORMAL before the expansion was out
I dare to assume, that for most of “us”, Ultimate is where it´s at.
[The Endgame?!]
Overleveling like there is no tommorrow? Nah. I don´t want to steamroll everything, that´s just tedious.
Yes, you can skip it, but I don´t wanna! I waited too long for the xpac to skip it on 2 difficulties. :furious:
I agree with most of u on the difficulty, but removing Elite is’t the answer, i think that they need to do a MASSIVE difficulty rebalance(something one would expect they already would do.) to streamline it all instead.
For AoM i pulled out my old Conjurer who i had’t played since beta(before Necropolis was even added) and while i started on veteran i quickly dropped that and did it on normal since the mobs were 6-8 lvls above me regardless(i was 59 when i beat Log) and i finished the new content around lvl 65(i explored everything) and even then act 1 elite is a breeze compared how it was before.
I do love all the new enemies though, the new aetherials are far tougher then the older ones, might wanna mix them with the old ones for variety just for kicks
My last two characters I killed Log at level 65/68 respectively in Veteran and I don’t actually farm that much. I do a few bounties here and there for extra rep, but it’s mainly the fact that I completely clear the map 100% every time I play.
Not much. This time around I killed Log at level 65 and I entered Crown Hill at 77. It’s not that difficult if you clear everything.
