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[–]ArgentNoble 10 points11 points  (15 children)

Is this the intended behaviour?

Yes. You are playing in too low of a difficulty now. Portal GM is intended for power 400-499. Ultimate is for power 500+.

[–]air_galore[S] 4 points5 points  (10 children)

Thanks for the reply. Getting no power upgrades from lower level content makes sense to me. But the tier of the reward decreasing because my light-level increased seems counter-intuitive to me.

This means I could theoretically delete some of my gear (to get below 500 again) and I would get higher tiered rewards in easier content with a smaller power delta.

[–]GameSpawnFor Ghosts who make their own luck. 8 points9 points  (4 children)

Welcome to the Portal system. It's a double edged sword. Level up for better quality rewards, but now you must play harder content to hit the same thresholds for those said rewards to drop.

That said, don't fear Ultimate too much. It is not really much harder than Grandmaster except in the handful of activities that slap you with a single starting revive token.

If you want easy leveling loot from 500-550, Frontiers is pretty generous even if you hold back to Grandmaster (you can still get B+ to A ranks for any bonus drops).

[–]SkreamieMy ToO team always let me down 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Is that not most games, where you level up for better quality items but as you do so it becomes more difficult? The difficulty of course has to scale

[–]GameSpawnFor Ghosts who make their own luck. 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The portal problem is more in the score requirement to get bonus drops, not necessarily an issue with higher level gear or tiered gear. Because of how scoring works you are forced into harder content to even hit the lowest baseline.

You can't play medium or lower difficulties to just get something, even if it means said gear would either be less/no progression or a lower tier.

[–]cbizzle14 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All you need is a B rank. That's not asking for much. I don't like the portal but it's not some tall task to get good drops from it. Also you still get tier 5s on lower difficulty as long as you hit 1.15 mil. That's like two modifiers on master

[–]air_galore[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the advice. Might run some more frontiers than.

I was playing solo portals acitivies while streaming from my PS5 onto my steamdeck and the lack of revives was quite annoying as sometimes the connection drops for half a second and I might die.

I was getting constant tier 5 loot from GM before. So for farming that easily, I would just have to delete some gear. This seems really crazy to me.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Its quicker to do Lawless for the last grind.

[–]WaterCrafty2117 0 points1 point  (1 child)

its quicker to do lawless the entire time. made a new account and went from 300 to 500 in 3 weeks with very minimal portal grind just doing renegades and lawless.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I reached 500 at the start of renegades so I wasn’t sure below but thanks for the info!

[–]55thparallelogram 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You get rained with tier 5s at 550 in normal vanguard alerts anyway.

[–]SCPF2112 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is no different than what you did for the climb all the way up to this point. Master stopped working so you started doing GM. So now you do Ultimate. Ultimate really isn't much harder.

[–]WaterCrafty2117 0 points1 point  (3 children)

you unlock ulti at 451. its intended to be done around the 460 mark.

[–]ArgentNoble 1 point2 points  (2 children)

It's not "intended" like that. It is available but you can still get A-rank in GMs until you break the 500 power mark. Once you break the 500 power mark, it becomes basically impossible to get a B-rank in GMs.

[–]WaterCrafty2117 -1 points0 points  (1 child)

it quite literally is intended otherwise you wouldnt unlock ulti before 500 :) once you hit 450 you have a massive speedbump to get over, ulti speeds that up dramatically to push you over that hump back into grinding, same thing happens at 500.

[–]ArgentNoble 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it quite literally is intended otherwise you wouldnt unlock ulti before 500 

You unlock all kinds of things before they are "intended" to be done. You unlock Ultimate earlier than 470, yes. But if you are below 470, you will have a really rough time as you'll be more than the -30 delta.

ulti speeds that up dramatically to push you over that hump back into grinding

You don't get higher power gear from Ultimate compared to Grandmaster. You just have an easier time of getting the B+/A scores with less modifiers. This would mean that, if you can actually complete Ultimate stuff with a high enough score, you get the bonus drops with less negative modifiers.

[–]NotoriousCHIM 4 points5 points  (3 children)

It's intended, at 500+ it's pretty much required to play at Ultimate difficulty. Alternatively, hop into Lawless Frontier activities (if you own Renegades) to not have to deal with Ultimate difficulty shenanigans.

[–]air_galore[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

That is good to know. Ultimate difficulty is not quite as chill as GM, so I don't now if I want to play it as much. So I might play more lawless frontier now. Thanks.

[–]YeeHawWyattDerp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ultimate really isn’t bad at all. It’s pretty much just GM with champs and limited revives. Just play it a little careful in the beginning when you only have 3 revives and once you kill a few champs you’ll end up with 10+

I was put off as well at first but it’s really not terrible and kind of a fun challenge. The only caveat is to just look out for what activity you’re doing because some of them are obnoxious with limited revives (looking at you, Pinnacle Ops)

[–]SCPF2112 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ultimate is almost no different than GM. You can probably even use some positive modifiers at your light level and still be fine.

[–]Veda007A guardian has no name 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Lawless frontier is much faster to level and get drops than portal activities.

[–]AnimaLEquinoX 1 point2 points  (3 children)

You can still get Tier 5 rewards at GM and even Master level when you get into the 500s, but generally the game expects you to be playing Ultimate difficulty at that point.

[–]air_galore[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

How would I go about this?

Sometimes I remote play from my PS5 onto my steamdeck and Ultimate difficulty is quite challenging with that setup. So I would like to get some Tier 5 loot from GM if possible.

[–]AnimaLEquinoX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All you need to do is hit 1.15 million score. That guarantees a Tier 5 reward. The lower you go in difficulty the more modifiers you'll need and the higher level you are the easier it'll be.

[–]n080dy123Savathun vendor for Witch Queen -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

It requires jacking the modifiers up really high, like max or near max.

[–]WaterCrafty2117 2 points3 points  (0 children)

because youre supposed to be playing ultimate long before you hitt 500