All the gear I get is too high level to use

[Wondercrab]

I've been enjoying the game so far, but I've reached a point where almost every single upgrade I get is too high level for anyone in my party to use. Since the leveling speed seems to hit a brick wall at 5, I've been playing for hours upon hours with a growing pile of loot in my inventory and barely any upgrades that are actually useable.

I'm playing on the expert difficulty, and I'm wondering whether that means enemies are dropping higher level loot because they're a couple of levels ahead of me? This seems like a pretty massive oversight if it's the case, since battles are starting to feel incredibly unrewarding as a result.

[Hex]

Get unique weapons and upgrade them as you level.

[Wondercrab]

Originally posted by Hex:

Get unique weapons and upgrade them as you level.

Is there any reliable way of getting those? As far as I can remember I've only seen one weapon that said it was upgradable, and none of my characters could use it.

[Valekrin]

It's definitely because of Expert difficulty, you can turn that down in the window next to the Pause menu. Set it to Experienced, then you'll face level 6 enemies that'll drop level 5 loot. There are lots of reliable ways for upgradeable weapons, that includes killing the champion enemy in each zone, looting the tombs and using the lectern to identify the item over multiple rests and the rare gold bounties. There are plenty of threads on those items if you want to know specifics.

[Wondercrab]

That's a huge bummer. I hope this is something that gets fixed/modded soon. I tend to lose interest in TRPGs like this if they're not super challenging, and the process of inching out upgrades to try and get an edge is a massive part of the fun for me. Really feels like this is an unintentional oversight with expert difficulty and the way things scale.

[Olleus]

The vast majority of the time, the best gear is what you'll forge yourself. Pretty much the only exception (apart from very niche builds) are the special weapons - but they can be upgraded to match your level so it's fine.

[Summanus]

I've got the same problem. Most of my mercs are lvl 5-6 but I have a bear thats lvl 8 and he seems to be dragging up the average quite a bit. So I'm regularly facing enemies at lvl 8 now and getting loot thats way beyond my mercs at the moment.

Its just the unfortunate result of playing on Expert mode. You just need to be patient, store the higher level loot at your Travel Post and wait for them to grow into the gear. Or else use your blacksmith to forge your own gear.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

It's cause the XP curve is broke in the game unless you want to grind for dozen hours every level.

But you will read lots of people making excuses for devs

[Olleus]

/\ Haven't heard anyone make excuses for that?

Progression isn't well tuned. After level 5 (and especially after 7) the only reasonable way to level up is the training dummy, which is actually lightning fast. Similarly, some of the Paths are way faster than others to complete. The Crime one is ridiculously slow. Some professions (like Miner) level up in no time while others (like Woodcutter) never get anyway.

[Keith 'Blood' Hanson]

One way to get legendary/upgradable weapons is by doing missions with a gold border; once I knew what to look for they were easy. Will spawn with some regularity once you've done all the static stuff in the area (Destroyed the bandit lair, found the ruins, defeated the champion, etc)

They stand out because instead of you seeing artwork on the missions, you'll see an in-game picture of the person you're supposed to kill.

If you're on adaptive they'll be at the rank of your highest level person in your group, in region locked they jump up to level 7/8, not much to be done without editing the files or grinding.

But yeah. Sleeping being the best method to gain xp via the training dummy isn't really the greatest thing in the world...

[Gaz O'D]

Originally posted by Wondercrab:

Originally posted by Hex:

Get unique weapons and upgrade them as you level.

Is there any reliable way of getting those? As far as I can remember I've only seen one weapon that said it was upgradable, and none of my characters could use it.

Red crowned bosses drop purple upgradables.

Also for yellow upgradeables, go to the Inn, look for the quest where the persons face is there and it says something like "kill Bob the Grumbler", then go kill him and he will drop a yellow weapon, but those have a name and are upgradeable.

[Keith 'Blood' Hanson]

Also you can get special upgradables from 1) Doing the area champion/boss, 2) Finding the ruins in the area and going into the final room, requires your scholar to rebuild the purple colored stuff 3) doing the arena in the area (Everywhere except Tiltren has at least one).

The gold missions I talked about earlier usually give you weapons you can level that are a bit more useful though. As for armor, usually you can get the best just by making it yourself, easiest way to get stuff that has three slots and can be given its own personality. Armor you make usually has the best stats in armor/guard, some of the enemy armors do give you some unique passives, just hard to find ones that are three starred.

Also you can buy weapons and armor off of merchants, I think they should be at your level if adaptive...In region locked they are the level of whatever region you're in.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by JimmysTheBestCop:

It's cause the XP curve is broke in the game unless you want to grind for dozen hours every level.

But you will read lots of people making excuses for devs

Yeah at least fix the loot tables.
Wtf is the reason to drop me lvl req 7 loot when my party is lvl 5?

Enough excuses, get to fixing the game dudes.

[buchecker]

This is what i got after fighting 20 lev 14 enemies with a lev 8 party (and some extremely helpful polar bears)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2970322525

Its an absolute joke.

[Anavel Gato]

I missed the old game where there is no level restriction for looted gears. Crafted gear sucks if you can't upgrade them.

My solution: Cheat Engine, baby. Manually upgrade weapons that you love, remove level restriction or increase quality of weapon, armor.

[redacted]

Originally posted by Anavel Gato:

I missed the old game where there is no level restriction for looted gears. Crafted gear sucks if you can't upgrade them.

My solution: Cheat Engine, baby. Manually upgrade weapons that you love, remove level restriction or increase quality of weapon, armor.

Really sorry to hear that item level restrictions were a newer change. Absolutely awful decision and begs the question of why they made changes like this. They clearly don't value the balance or challenge level of their combat very highly, so why even limit the cheese? Let players cheese if your game is already broken or can't be taken too seriously.

Also really sucks when the solution, and believe me I use this exact solution a LOT for various games, requires the player to go out of their way, use a 3rd party tool, and spend their time and effort to correct general laziness in design by the developers.

Hope this game slowly turns into a polished gem and doesn't stay this rough.