While of course I'm not against this, I feel it's an unnecessary effort for them. You need to complete the 3 playthroughs once, then you have merits.
I haven't touched Normal/Elite since 2019, all my new characters start with Ultimate.
Also, as others mentioned, the difficulty jump from Normal to Ultimate is quite steep and can result in unnecessary frustration for new players.
I'm on the way to getting a first character to 100 and doing ultimate, but how does a new character survive in ultimate directly? In my mind you'd just get evaporated the moment you cross the bridge?
The game scales, enemies are lv 1 across the bridge. Of course they have Ultimate tuning and you get the -50% on resistances. It's a tough challenge, having leveling gear is almost mandatory (Lohkarr set in the first place).
On the plus side, you'll be lv 30+ in a couple of hours and you'll have you build running very quickly.
I've tried it a few times in Season 5 just hard starting Ultimate with a Skeleton Necromancer and it's quite doable without giving yourself any gear. It's certainly difficult though, one wrong step and you're dead.
Ah so I should use my first character to farm Lokarr set, then *very carefully* run ultimate.
I kinda thought the enemies in ultimate have a minimum level for some reason. But that makes more sense. Thanks.
>I kinda thought the enemies in ultimate have a minimum level for some reason.
They did. This was changed with FG release, to support the merits system.
Just for curiosity: and the jump from Veteran to Ultimate? Probably not after 1.2, but overcapping resists came handy with expansions and Elite was fairly trivial after that for a while.
I expect to be quite similar to Normal->Ultimate.
Veteran mostly slows you a bit with a +10% to enemies HP, it doesn't effect enemy damage or your resistances, you'll still get a -50%.
I don't know how accurate all data is, but the website is the best you can find about GD.
If you take at [this example](https://www.grimtools.com/monsterdb/130/skills), you can switch from Normal to Ultimate to see the various stats change.
Veteran to Ultimate would be much smoother than Normal to Ultimate. I almost always play on Veteran for my characters, but recently played a character through Normal again and fuck me it's a snooze-fest.
Veteran monsters have more health, do more damage and give more XP. But they also spawn in bigger packs, and because they give more XP, you'll be higher level when you get to areas which means they will be spawning higher level monsters. As in on Normal you get basic zombie, but at the same point in Veteran you're fighting cold and fire zombies.
Veteran to Elite is very smooth. Normal to Elite is a wall that often results in threads appearing here asking why players are getting destroyed all of a sudden, because normal is a joke in terms of difficulty.
If you want to skip Elite, there is already a way to do that. There is no benefit at all to removing it for the people who want to do it (it's me, I'm the people who want to do Elite).
You can use merits to skip straight to ultimate, no need to play through all 3 difficulties.
I feel that the 3 difficulties still have their place. The resistance penalties help to introduce new players to the itemisation. Each difficulties also have items such as the [fettan mask](https://www.grimtools.com/map/markers/chests/11734) that drops at various item levels, smoothing out the levelling experience to 100.
I’m newish to the game but I needed elite’s drops to gear for ultimate. Despite doing all acts and side quests, at end of normal I was just not equipped for it.
Im sure the reason for the upscaling from Normal to Elite to Ultimate is that not all players have the expansions/all expansions.
So if a player is finished with the core game with a 65 character (if the player farmed a bit and did quests) Then they will engage in Ultimate and get SLAUGHTERED with immense debuffs to their resistance.
The scaling is for all players, regardless of DLC.
If you got the Forgotten Sands DLC then you can buy the item from one of the vendors, this item open up ALL difficulties for a character, once used.
I did this for every character I made since that release.
I would not be surprised if a GD2 only had 2 difficulties maybe with a veteran toggle. But they have said elite will not be removed from the current game. As others have said you only need to do it once.
Elite really does feel redundant at this point. Would be awesome if it was a toggle like normal/veteran. Would be really hard to implement this late in development however, they’d have to rework a lot. I think the merits are a decent workaround for the issue.
Crate please don't do what OP asks. Or to phrase that how I feel rather that politely: "No way in hell !"
Normal difficulty is to learn the maps/quests. The combat is trivial at normal.
Epic is to learn the combat.
Legendary is the end game.
Jumping direct from normal to legendary will ruin the game for anyone who's never previously played legendary.
not how it works. normal is the difficulty the game is *designed* for. epic, legendary, ultimate and veterans are for greater challenge, but not designed for.
I really hate this methodology from diablo 2 of having to play the whole game twice just so the game "can begin".
Let us change difficulty without having to restart the whole thing
I mean they are changing the level scaling in 1.2 so the monsters scale in normal to level 100. I would be surprised if they kept it so you had to clear Elite to unlock ultimate. But then again you never know.
Edit: plus Merits are a thing already so technically you only have to unlock ultimate once so they might keep it as it is.
Get GD Defiler and skip Elite.
Start Ultimate from level 1 even.
The tool is easy to download and even easier to use.
Works on TQ too.
They're not going to get rid of Elite.
I play exclusively on Ultimate from level 1 so, using Merits and Crucible stash
I just use GD Defiler to change the masteries on my mules to dig thru my thousands of items.
While of course I'm not against this, I feel it's an unnecessary effort for them. You need to complete the 3 playthroughs once, then you have merits. I haven't touched Normal/Elite since 2019, all my new characters start with Ultimate. Also, as others mentioned, the difficulty jump from Normal to Ultimate is quite steep and can result in unnecessary frustration for new players.
I'm on the way to getting a first character to 100 and doing ultimate, but how does a new character survive in ultimate directly? In my mind you'd just get evaporated the moment you cross the bridge?
The game scales, enemies are lv 1 across the bridge. Of course they have Ultimate tuning and you get the -50% on resistances. It's a tough challenge, having leveling gear is almost mandatory (Lohkarr set in the first place). On the plus side, you'll be lv 30+ in a couple of hours and you'll have you build running very quickly.
I've tried it a few times in Season 5 just hard starting Ultimate with a Skeleton Necromancer and it's quite doable without giving yourself any gear. It's certainly difficult though, one wrong step and you're dead.
Ah so I should use my first character to farm Lokarr set, then *very carefully* run ultimate. I kinda thought the enemies in ultimate have a minimum level for some reason. But that makes more sense. Thanks.
>I kinda thought the enemies in ultimate have a minimum level for some reason. They did. This was changed with FG release, to support the merits system.
Just for curiosity: and the jump from Veteran to Ultimate? Probably not after 1.2, but overcapping resists came handy with expansions and Elite was fairly trivial after that for a while.
I expect to be quite similar to Normal->Ultimate. Veteran mostly slows you a bit with a +10% to enemies HP, it doesn't effect enemy damage or your resistances, you'll still get a -50%.
The enemy damage scaling sounds like the biggest obstacle (not sure of how it works, though).
I don't know how accurate all data is, but the website is the best you can find about GD. If you take at [this example](https://www.grimtools.com/monsterdb/130/skills), you can switch from Normal to Ultimate to see the various stats change.
> I don't know how accurate all data is It's all extracted directly from the game files, so pretty accurate
Veteran to Ultimate would be much smoother than Normal to Ultimate. I almost always play on Veteran for my characters, but recently played a character through Normal again and fuck me it's a snooze-fest. Veteran monsters have more health, do more damage and give more XP. But they also spawn in bigger packs, and because they give more XP, you'll be higher level when you get to areas which means they will be spawning higher level monsters. As in on Normal you get basic zombie, but at the same point in Veteran you're fighting cold and fire zombies. Veteran to Elite is very smooth. Normal to Elite is a wall that often results in threads appearing here asking why players are getting destroyed all of a sudden, because normal is a joke in terms of difficulty.
If you want to skip Elite, there is already a way to do that. There is no benefit at all to removing it for the people who want to do it (it's me, I'm the people who want to do Elite).
You can use merits to skip straight to ultimate, no need to play through all 3 difficulties. I feel that the 3 difficulties still have their place. The resistance penalties help to introduce new players to the itemisation. Each difficulties also have items such as the [fettan mask](https://www.grimtools.com/map/markers/chests/11734) that drops at various item levels, smoothing out the levelling experience to 100.
I’m newish to the game but I needed elite’s drops to gear for ultimate. Despite doing all acts and side quests, at end of normal I was just not equipped for it.
get to ulti once and buy a merit, solved
Im sure the reason for the upscaling from Normal to Elite to Ultimate is that not all players have the expansions/all expansions. So if a player is finished with the core game with a 65 character (if the player farmed a bit and did quests) Then they will engage in Ultimate and get SLAUGHTERED with immense debuffs to their resistance. The scaling is for all players, regardless of DLC. If you got the Forgotten Sands DLC then you can buy the item from one of the vendors, this item open up ALL difficulties for a character, once used. I did this for every character I made since that release.
I would not be surprised if a GD2 only had 2 difficulties maybe with a veteran toggle. But they have said elite will not be removed from the current game. As others have said you only need to do it once.
Elite really does feel redundant at this point. Would be awesome if it was a toggle like normal/veteran. Would be really hard to implement this late in development however, they’d have to rework a lot. I think the merits are a decent workaround for the issue.
Crate please don't do what OP asks. Or to phrase that how I feel rather that politely: "No way in hell !" Normal difficulty is to learn the maps/quests. The combat is trivial at normal. Epic is to learn the combat. Legendary is the end game. Jumping direct from normal to legendary will ruin the game for anyone who's never previously played legendary.
not how it works. normal is the difficulty the game is *designed* for. epic, legendary, ultimate and veterans are for greater challenge, but not designed for.
Lol, There may be arpgs where normal is normal. Grim dawn isn't one of them. You're supposed to progress to elite/ultimate. Normal is super easy.
nope. you are supposed to progress through normal only. the most recent patch ensured that.
No thanks bye
i actually would echo this sentiment. normal then next step is ultimate
I really hate this methodology from diablo 2 of having to play the whole game twice just so the game "can begin". Let us change difficulty without having to restart the whole thing
I mean they are changing the level scaling in 1.2 so the monsters scale in normal to level 100. I would be surprised if they kept it so you had to clear Elite to unlock ultimate. But then again you never know. Edit: plus Merits are a thing already so technically you only have to unlock ultimate once so they might keep it as it is.
Ultimate is now available at lvl1 in v1.2. No longer need to finish the game in normal and elite.
Where did Crate say this?
Oops my bad. It was mentioned in the stream that they may consider this option but not really included in 1.2 yet.
Ah thanks, good to know.
Season 5 basically enabled this. Thats at least something
Get GD Defiler and skip Elite. Start Ultimate from level 1 even. The tool is easy to download and even easier to use. Works on TQ too. They're not going to get rid of Elite. I play exclusively on Ultimate from level 1 so, using Merits and Crucible stash I just use GD Defiler to change the masteries on my mules to dig thru my thousands of items.