Unlocking difficulty question

[moody]

I'm doing a Normal first playthrough now on Veteran.

When I get done will I be able to play on the next harder difficulty with a new Character or restart with the same one?

[Unexpected Persona]

Once you get to the Forgotten Gods zone on your second playthrough you can buy an item that unlocks it for another character, you just put it in your stash

[Senrezu]

Every character has to go through the difficulty levels as follows:

(Normal or Veteran) -> Elite -> Ultimate

You can access the next difficulty by finishing the main quest line from the main game. You do not need to finish the main quests from the expansions.

When you are in the Conclave of the Three the main city of the Forgotten Gods expansion you can buy Merits from a merchant. They are only available in Elite and Ultimate Difficulty.

These Merits can be placed in the shared stash and when a new character uses them it allows them to skip difficulties and providing them all attribute and skill points from quests of the lower difficulties.

[cool skill]

I'm a bit confused. After beating the game initially, I thought Elite difficulty just unlocks as a difficulty option for the game. So new characters you create can start from scratch on Elite. But it's more like a game+ where you start the game over with the same character that is already high level?

[Senrezu]

In Elite the monsters are scaled to be at least level 50. They would absolutely rip a new character to shreds since they have 100x more health and even the first zombie can absolutely one shot your level 1 character. <- That is completely outdated information. Please ignore.

So it is absolutely new game+ with new and more powerful items and monsters to match your newly gained power.

However with a bit of knowledge of the game mechanics you can still waddle your way to some xp and level pretty quickly and when you have strong low level gear you are going to get faster to max level then going through all 3 difficulties.

To address this and to not let you miss out on the extra skill points from quests the devs included these merits.

[KG]

Originally posted by Senrezu:

In Elite the monsters are scaled to be at least level 50. They would absolutely rip a new character to shreds since they have 100x more health and even the first zombie can absolutely one shot your level 1 character. So yeah it is absolutely new game+ with new and more powerful items and monsters to match your newly gained power.

However with a bit of knowledge of the game mechanics you can still waddle your way to some xp and level pretty quickly and when you have strong low level gear you are going to get faster to max level then going through all 3 difficulties.

To address this and to not let you miss out on the extra skill points from quests the devs included these merits.

Enemies in elite and ultimate scale all the way down and have for a while now. You can immediately switch a new character from normal to ultimate if you have a whatsit in your stash to use on them.

[Senrezu]

KG is right. Sorry for outdated information.

[Neit]

Originally posted by cool skill:

I'm a bit confused. After beating the game initially, I thought Elite difficulty just unlocks as a difficulty option for the game. So new characters you create can start from scratch on Elite. But it's more like a game+ where you start the game over with the same character that is already high level?

Yes. the difficulties are basically NG+.

If you own Forgotten Gods DLC, you can purchase Merit once you reach higher difficulties. On Elite, you can purchase Merit that allows you to skip Normal/Veteran, on Ultimate, you can purchase Merit that allows you to skip both Normal/Veteran and Elite, so you can technically start a new char on any difficulty you want, provided you completed unlocked the difficulty normally and reached Conclave of the Three on higher difficulty to access the vendor. Whether you want to do that, is another question.

That being said, at least with first character, I recommend completing the full game, and avoid trying to skip parts of the game (including DLCs).

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Originally posted by Senrezu:

Every character has to go through the difficulty levels as follows:

(Normal or Veteran) -> Elite -> Ultimate

You can access the next difficulty by finishing the main quest line from the main game. You do not need to finish the main quests from the expansions.

When you are in the Conclave of the Three the main city of the Forgotten Gods expansion you can buy Merits from a merchant. They are only available in Elite and Ultimate Difficulty.

These Merits can be placed in the shared stash and when a new character uses them it allows them to skip difficulties and providing them all attribute and skill points from quests of the lower difficulties.

Slightly incorrect as of v1.2.

"Defeating the Loghorrean on Normal/Veteran difficulty now unlocks Elite and Ultimate difficulty for that character (note: this difficulty unlock is not retroactive). Players can proceed to the difficulty they feel most ready for."

[moody]

So I'm looking at 2 playthroughs before I can buy Merit to start a new character on Ultimate.

[Neit]

Originally posted by moody:

So I'm looking at 2 playthroughs before I can buy Merit to start a new character on Ultimate.

No. You just need to kill final boss of the base game, jump to Ultimate and finish Act 1.

I definitely wouldn't do that on the first char, and honestly I wouldn't do it even on later chars, but ultimately you can do it, the choice is yours.

[moody]

Originally posted by Neit:

Originally posted by moody:

So I'm looking at 2 playthroughs before I can buy Merit to start a new character on Ultimate.

No. You just need to kill final boss of the base game, jump to Ultimate and finish Act 1.

I definitely wouldn't do that on the first char, and honestly I wouldn't do it even on later chars, but ultimately you can do it, the choice is yours.

Playing a bit more now I think the best thing is just to start new Characters and play them all through each difficulty and not even worry about anything. Lol

I like this game that much.

[Violesta]

Welcome to the addiction. We make jokes about alt addiction. Im one that does play the campaign over & over vs end game stuff. Thats one of the things peeps like about this game is that u can choose how u play. Theres no wrong way.
& you havent gotten into mods yet lol. Its never ending.