On my second playthrough of the game, I've become much more cautious. I recall during my first playthrough I chased Lord Cras all the way from New Culn in Eastern Forsaken Plain, through several areas, and into Rathir, all because I was so annoyed with his deception and swindling of unfortunate refugees, during the Treasures of Culn side quest. At that time I had no idea about the area level cap in the game, or the implications my mad dash would have on the rest of my playthrough.
Since then I have learned that the enemies and loot get locked at the level of your player character upon first entry to that area. The first time I played through this game, it was on Casual difficulty, the lowest setting, as I wanted to learn about the game first. My second playthrough is on Hard difficulty, as I aim to gain the Destiny Dominated achievement. To complement that, I'm also trying to follow the Area-Level Cap and "Anti-Overlevelling" Guide to make the most of the game, and find better quality loot.
However, that's not as easy as it seems. The discussions for that page hint at a problem with trying to adhere stringently to the guide. I came across a great discussion in the Steam community forums about this issue as well. There is also a link in that discussion to another similar one on the GameFaqs forums. The problem with trying to overcome the level lock is that it can detract from the enjoyment of the game.
My own experiences so far with my second playthrough reinforce this. My player character Acrinimiril has spent 74 in-game days, or 28 hours of real-world gaming time, in Western Odarath alone. That's the area surrounding Gorhart. And he's only just leveled-up to level 8 experience!
When I started this playthrough, I figured that I'd level-lock the Stonecandle Mines at level 1 anyway, as I'd need something to keep me occupied other than the outdoor areas of Western Odarath. At first I strictly avoided the other two areas (Agnur Farhal and Waterhall Down), along with the link to Eastern Odarath. It wasn't long, however, before the enemies in the outdoor area of Western Odarath became less and less of a challenge, falling easily under the onslaught of my Twinned Souls chakrams. At first I even followed the level-cap guide's exhortation to avoid level enhancing activities, such as:
- Do not use Fate-Shift unless necessary, and if you do, do not try for the XP bonus during the execution;
- Do not use XP enhancing gear, potions or altars.
This all proved to be a real downer to my game, so I decided to seek solace by heavily targeting my "Chickens slain" statistic, which currently stands at 423 dead chickens from Western Odarath alone! That's a lot of dead respawned chickens, believe me. Unlike the bunnies of Skyrim, they don't contribute anything practical to the game, no XP, no loot, nothing. There's not even an achievement for killing so many of them.
Eventually, by about level 5 experience, I started noticing that the kobolds of Stonecandle Mines were no longer providing any sport for me either, so I came to the conclusion that it was about time I ventured further afield. I level-locked Waterhall Down at level 5, and Agnur Farhal at level 7. Now the experience was starting to flow quicker, along with better quality loot. The amount of time it took me to raise Acrinimiril's experience level from 5 to 8 was a whole lot less than from 0 to 5.
According to the level-cap guide, to maximize experience and loot, I should have entered Agnur Farhal at level 10, Waterhall Down at level 12, and Eastern Odarath at level 12 as well. Had I waited that long, I'd be facing the meanest, toughest enemies for those areas, with the chance of the best possible loot for them too. However, by then my game would have consisted of a large number of trivial encounters in Western Odarath, yielding insignificant XP and loot, and taking so much time that I'd probably loose all interest in the game, and perhaps life in general too!
As I write this, Acrinimiril stands on the brink of entering Eastern Odarath, having very recently leveled-up to level 8 experience. The next part of this blog series will continue comparing my in-game experiences with the level-cap guide, in the hope that I can formulate a more realistic approach to playing the game, while maximizing opportunities for XP and loot, and avoiding grinding.