I’m not sure what happened, but something is off. Every possible encounter is hundreds of levels above my gear score now. I am level 50, fighting “level 35” encounters, but they have 400 more gear score than me, even on easy. I cannot progress. What the fuck did you do?
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Times when everything was too easy are gone.
Get used to it 
Uhhh, no, sorry, brain dead “git gud” response doesn’t work here. I literally can’t progress the game.
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@Saharadrac Could you please send me some examples? Maybe screenshots as they’re probably easiest?
I’ll pass the specifics onto the team.
I tried, it says i can’t embed media in a post.
Didn’t say gitgud brah, I’m not that kind of DICKens
But you should already know that all of us can’t progress easily anymore.
I was able to take lvl45 dungeon in 3-7 runs depending on luck.
Now beating lvl40 gives me headaches, and lvl35 is very competitive.
Well, many of us mentioned that lvling is easy, even too easy.
But now when the battles started to be very challenging rewards should reflect those changes.
I’m in the same boat. Just came back to the game, and my lvl 50 assassin is completely useless.
She has a gear score of 740, and the simplest chapter 1 fight on Easy has an enemy score of 1404.
These fights are virtually impossible to win. No amount of clever play matters when you die in three hits, and there’s no way to lower the difficulty to start grinding for better equipment.
I’ve had to create a new character, which…ugh, isn’t very fun at all. I might just retire this game again tbh.
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Well now I know why XP rewards became as plentiful as water in a desert.
In the summer.
And it’s Death Valley.
The game is made too hard to play and progess . Just going to delete the game
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My thoughts on this issue based primarily on my own game play (so please feel free to take with a grain of salt):
The issue: Gear Score seems to matter significantly more than character level.
My observations: On my primary character, I ran into the same issue you’re reporting. Despite reaching level 50, I found myself struggling with level 40 content because of my Gear Score.
Meanwhile, on an alt that was using my best gear, I absolutely blew through the early game content (I’m talking ending almost every enemy in one hit for the first two chapters), despite the gear being level synced to match the alt’s low character level.
Further evidence of Gear Score importance: I’ve found that while hard and very hard challenges on my main character are almost impossible (unless the RNG deities favor me), they’re exceptionally easy on a tricked out low level character.
Even though the official, visible Gear Score -seemed- low because my gear had been level synced (ex. my character’s Gear Score might say 50), it was like there was a shadow Gear Score that let me dominate early game content (killing things in a Very Hard skirmish with one hit, despite the Skirmish Gear Score being 150).
My solution: To make late game content playable, I needed to improve my gear to increase my Gear Score. This required five things (dependent on what tier my gear was at) -
- Gold
- Shards
- Relics
- Runes and Scrolls
- Glyphs
Further Info on How to Acquire these Items:
*Note - I am not going to mention follower names to avoid spoilers. The titles I use here are visible in the Follower section of the Tavern, independent of where you are in the storyline.
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Gold is relatively easy to get in the game. Essentially every chest has gold, regardless of whether it came from a Dungeon, Event, or a Skirmish. The Merchant follower provides gold. Salvaging gives gold. PvP gives you gold. If you find yourself repeatedly gold capped, leveling the Mystery follower will help.
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Shards are a bit more difficult to obtain than gold, but they come in every Skirmish chest. If you’re short on shards, definitely hit Skirmishes hard. The Runesmith follower can make them for you (costs ore and gold). You get shards when you salvage. You can also use marks from Events to obtain lots of shards (and this is a fairly good use of your marks, except for Diamond marks). The only issue with shards is that higher level armor, weapons, and spells require a huge amount of them so start saving them early.
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Relics can be where gear progression starts to slow down. Each gear set requires its own set-dependent relics. This is where Eveline comes in. You feed her ore and gold, she’ll make you relics. At early levels, you don’t get to choose which relics she makes you. As you level her, she can make better relics and trade lower level relics for higher level relics, or exchange one type of relic for a different relic, allowing you to choose the relics you need. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and one of the daily challenges will offer a relic as a prize.
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Runes and Scrolls seem relatively uncommon, and each tier upgrade from Rare+ requires several of them that match the gear’s element type (i.e. light runes for light gear), making it difficult to level an entire set of gear that shares the same element type (that’s a whole lot of light runes). You can find runes and scrolls in rarer chests (gold chests and above). The Hunter follower can also craft you runes and scrolls (in exchange for gold and ore).
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Glyphs seem ridiculously rare (far more rare than runes or scrolls in my limited experience), and you begin to require them when leveling your gear to Legendary+. You can exchange gems for glyphs in the store. Thankfully you can get gems in game by playing through the story and accomplishing goals (yay, free!). You can also get glyphs from the store by trading Diamond marks from Events (another free method). These methods will save you money but will also require a lot of time spent playing so I can definitely see this being a major wall for many players (who will either quit or spend money to get gems and crowns to avoid the grind).
I hope that some of this is helpful to you! Know that you are not alone in reaching that awkward phase in the game where your gear score prevents you from doing level appropriate tasks. I spent a chunk of time there, but when I realized what was happening, I was able to level several pieces of gear in short order, and went from dying in level 45 challenges to handling 50-52 with relative ease.
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Thanks for that well thought out reply. I reached the same conclusions as you. Unfortunately, I’m not very motivated to start over so i stopped playing after getting a new character up to level 20 or so. You are right, though, it was working.
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Hey @Petra, these are great insights from a new player. I would highly recommend posting these comments or a link in the Tips and Tricks thread to help others in the community looking for help like this:
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Thank you, @Sibelios (or Sibby, as a lovingly call you in the PQ3 chat because character space is precious). I’d be happy to post them over there. Hopefully they’ll help other new players who are hitting a wall because of their gear score. 