School of hard knocks Achievement in Dead Island

  • School of hard knocks

     

    30

    Reach level 50.

      
  • How to unlock School of hard knocks

    You will likely be at about level 36-38 after completing the game once, doing pretty much everything possible. From this point, if you can find someone who is already level 50, join them and grind out the remainder to make it go a little faster. Find a highly populated area of zombies (the more special ones the better) and grind there. Using your Fury skill to kill enemies awards bonus experience, especially if you kill enough to get your multiplier up a few ranks.

    The best way to get to level 50 is probably abusing the repeatable quest "Dreamtime" as shown below. To duplicate a weapon, hold to ready it for throwing, then hold at same time, and press . If you're using Logan and your "Boomerang" skills pops, it won't dupe. Otherwise you'll now have two of the same weapon on the floor.

    So in essence:

    1. Dupe a ton of your best, high-selling weapon.
    2. Sell them all and buy as much Oleander as possible.
    3. Turn in x5 Oleander for 1000xp in the repeatable "Dreamtime" quest in the Jungle.

    Another excellent method is abusing the passive Thug inside Harlan's Hut during the "Make yourself at home" quest in Act 1. Once you beat the game, start a New Game+ and complete the quests Passport to Life, Lazarus Rising and Ashes to Ashes, then drive to the location in the video. Save Harlan and begin the quest mentioned previously. Make sure you DO NOT end the quest, and try not to kill the thug. When its health is low, reload your last checkpoint to reset the Thug.

    Follow the steps below:

    1. Accept the quest from Harland and break into the house.
    2. Break the Thug's arms (may need to use a stronger weapon).
    3. Use a pair of BROKEN brass knuckles to punch at the broken arms.

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Comments
  • You can tell they looked after Borderlands as an inspiration for this one and the other level ones, no complaints though, game's going to be awesome.
  • I'd be funny if the make a DLC upping the level cap to 11 and an achievement called overleveled for getting to 61.
  • I hope its not too much of a grind, I hate when developers put achievements in that cheaply extend the play time of their game. If I get it by finishing every quest and side quest along with killing an average storys worth of zombies I'll be happy
  • @1 The skill tree is also like Borderlands. You have one main "fury" skill, and then the rest are passive upgrades.
  • I was hoping there would be a few more active type skills rather than only 1 like borderlands
  • Sure sounds like a time consuming achievo, I hope levelling up here will be as easy as in DR2
  • This reminds me an awful lot of borderlands with the leveling system.
  • @3 Developers dont force you to get achievements
  • i wonder if this is going to be a game where if u complete the game fully u cant go back for more levels and weapns hope not im playing it now and im level 3 atm its amazing wasnt lokking forward to this till i saw the walkthrough then i fell in love but this will not be better than batman arkum city but thats just me i have been waiting to get that since day one of its announce ment hope u all enjoy the game and hope to help u through live
  • I'm leveling up pretty quickly when i do side quests and stuff. I've played for only a few hours and I'm already level 10, so it shouldnt take that long
  • good im level 17 and still on act 1
  • I did every side mission and helped people in their games and was only 35 at the end of the game. So you are looking at approx. 2 full playthroughs for this.
  • I've got about 35 hours into this game and I'm level 42, I have 1.3 mill exp. On my third play through in this game. 1st time did a lot but not all side quests 2nd 2nd time just rushed through it mainly doing the main quests and now I'm going to do every possible quest before going into act 4.
  • Im at level 36 with 723k xp and 71 hours played. feel like i hit a wall at level 35. it takes so long to level up now
  • lvl 44 over 40hrs play time 3rd playthough
  • lvl 47 and its takes so f@#$ing long to lvl up now.
  • Lvl 49 with less than 100k to go :) about 58 hrs of play time.
  • Kinda sucks that they don't update the quest rewards after you bet the game once. It would be nice, but i understand it makes it harder to get this one achievement.
  • Also completing the challenges as you go helps. They dont give you all that much xp but every little helps. Im lvl 42 after 1 playthough or 33 hours. Did almost all side quests(only missed 1 or 2), and only fully completed 2 challenges. Oh it was all in solo too, dont know if the xp is different in co-op or not.
  • After my first playthrough i was lvl 36 and id done all the sidequests and ive just started the second playthrough and on top of it taking about 7 years to lvl up now the quests have the same xp as before!!!
  • So if I start a new game with a different character, do the levels continue adding up like the collectibles or does the new character start from level 1 again? I've just completed Act II for the first time and am level 36. I've taken my time to try to try and get all the achieves in one playthrough, but if your level doesn't reset back to level 1 with a new character then I wouldn't mind racing through it a bit faster. Anyone confirm this theory?
  • @21 New characters start at level 1 but u can start again with the same character at the same level and same inventory once u finish the game. Using your fury on groups of zombies to gain bonus xp seems to be the quickest way to level up at the higher levels.
  • Almost there 20more to go :D
  • lvl 42 after first play through with 28 hours. another play through should do it.
  • Its easier to level up joining peoples games that are a higher level than you
  • Level 48 playthrough 1 and I should get to 50 by the city or mid-way through the city.
  • this one sucks..first time through i did a lot of sidequests and finished the game around 35 or so. second playthrough i was around 42 and just raced through the beginning and did like every sidequest in the jungle and prison. just finished my third playthrough and im a 49, i now have less than 100k left and will; still probably have to reach midway thru the city since they give you crappy xp for completing quests in the beginning. they definitely shouldve increased xp for the second and third playthroughs. 400xp for completing a quest doesnt even make a dent. it sucks cause i still have 2 characters to beat act 1 with, by the time its said and done, ill have completed act one like 8 times or something.
  • How much xp for level 50?
  • Note to all players. Don't do the prologue stage again with a full set of innovatory. After cumplition of the the prologue (between the hotel and the small shack of survivors, which later make up the remaining in the life guard tower) your weapons will be removed, even for level one characters who have the home run bat. Just a heads up. I was trying that xp boost in the prologue stage where there is lvl 50 zombies. Great for start off xp (reload cheak point and you can advance to lvl 20 right of the start). Just duplicate the home run bat so you don't feel like you wasted the diamonds. Or don't duplicate at all, it's major cheating but damn is it addicting. Sorry dev, just made it too easy.
  • I thought this was going to be a easy achievement until i couldnt login to my 48 lvl profile.waste of 60 hours of gameplay.this is 1 out of the 2 achievements i need.i dont play this anymore until techland fix this... screw you techland
  • Yeah same thing happen to my lvl 47... My game freezes when I attempt to load the file. 49-+ hours
  • i can conform that lvl 50 requires just over 3million exp got this opne last night
  • If you're the pacifist boosting/cheating flower loving type: when you're at the labs after you go to tribe and fight those zombies in that arena place there's a guy who asks you for oleander and gives you 1000xp for every 2 or 3 you give him(I forget the exact amount). Now the swish news: the guy you trade with at the labs sells oleander at some point so just buy a shiz ton of it from him (duplicate weapons if need be to get more cash flow) then go back to the tribe and give him all you're oleander.
  • @33 it is 5 oleader every time
  • Game froze at 40+ hours at level 42, so fuck it had to cheat it. In the resort in between the lady who needs you to help her husband outta the car and the far gas station theres a hut with a fence around it and some guy that wants you to get inside for him. inside that hut is a glitched thug who wont ever attack you, just go in there and use a blunt weapon to break his arms then use some brass knuckles with 0% health and beat that crap outta his broken arms and you continually get xp for breaking his arm, then when he dies just pause the game, quit out then at menu hit continue and repeat, by your self you can max out in like 2 hours, if you do it with a high level friend and beat a up a high level thug you can do it in minutes.
  • does that really work
  • also, if you play as sam b, he has a skill that multiplies the amount of XP that you get from breaking bones
  • @36 it does work you can do it with and thug if you can knock them down but dupeing weapons for cash and buy A LOT of oleander from a vendor and do the contiuous quest at opes village for 1k exp every time for 5 oleanders
  • Seems everyone is having the same problems I did. Losing a character during the loading screen. Did everyone who lost their characters dupe or something? maybe its a glitch that eventually ties up the game and corrupts the file? Lost a lvl 47 Xian that way with godly weapons.
  • I have a couple of friends that have gotten multiple corrupted save files. I've been lucky and hasn't happened to me. I do back up my save files all the time on a flash drive just in case though.
  • This game needs some major bug fixes. When I try to load my 65hr. lvl. 38 character to start over... my xbox freezes on the loading screen.
  • Besides the obvious weapon duplicating glitch to get cash, and using it to buy oleanders to give to the village tribesman in Ope's Cave... there really isn't any way to "glitch" this other than grinding the main story line. Side quests in this situation are only distractions. I recommend grinding the main story line really hard over the Oleander XP glitch.
  • yes im lvl50 took all day but iv got it now and its time 2 get the other 4 achievements
  • Grinding this one out sucks... killing humans and infected does give more XP though, at least for me
  • I'm on my 3rd playthroughad only lvl 45... what did i do wrong? :D
  • lvl 44 played through once but have played a lot on friends saves what act gives you the most xp?
  • I would recommend doing this with purna as she can get up to 150% extra xp for each kill or assist. I found this out while doing right for life after getting my sam b main to lvl 45 :|
  • Glitched.. I got these ranks before game loading screen crashed it THREE times.. SAM B - Level 49 LOGAN - Level 46 PURNA - level 43 This is the last achievement i need too..!!
  • NOW I AM GOING TO CHEAT..!!
  • I read someone confirmed lvl 50 is 3mil experience. Oleander quest gives 1k experience for every 5 given. Presuming you made it to level 35, you would still farm 1.5 mil experience. To those keeping score at home you would have to do the quest 1500 times, give him 7500 Oleander, and if they cost about 115$ to buy from the scientist in the lab you would need 862500 cash, or 575 diamonds. Obviously a rough estimate, I think they thought more would play together repeatedly, but to be honest once is enough for me, and Gears 3 took a large crowd of players away.
  • Is it sad that a leveling achievement is the hardest one to get?
  • @35. THANK YOU! it worked like a charm. the oleander/tribe thing was too slow. this was 10 times faster. kudos. 48/48.
  • Horrificly glitchy game, saved game wouldn't load at level 47 chapter 14. Had to start a new game with the same character only to find back down to level 29 with no weapons and no money. They need to sort out this game with patches before I'd even consider any downloadable content.
  • Also easy, if you have the Left hand of Gova...One of the developers mods you can just start a new game, goto where you have to clear out the life guard tower (2nd quest I think) as soon as you open the garage door there is a thug, lead him out a bit and left hand him to the ground, then switch to your fists and pound on the arm till it breaks, then keep at it till he dies. Once he dies, reload last check point, and go again. Easy peezy.
  • Just a tip, do your rage attack ASAP each time the meter is full. If you get a high multiplier, your XP goes through the roof
  • Yeah ditto to the bloke above me. I never bothered with rage attacks the first time i played. I upgraded my other skill trees and ignored rage and by the end was only a level 36. I'm on my 2nd play through and used rage attacks to get the other achievment. I'm already level 25ish (i cant quite recall my exact level) Easy to do in the town where there are mass amounts of zombies on the street. Just rage it up and you can get thousands of xp points at a time if you rack up the multiplier. Quick way of levelling up.
  • the fastest way is with the thug... i went from lvl42 to lvl50 in like 20 or 30 minutes... i used sam b with the extra XP for broken bones perk tho.
  • FINALLY....!!!!
  • NOTE: You CANNOT hold more then 1000 items of a certain thing (oleander, diamonds, etc) in your inventory. It will CORRUPT your file. I lost a level 45 Logan because I had bought around 2000 Oleander, went and was doing the glitch, got to level 45 with it and was already level 41, then when i logged on the next day it froze in loading screen. So then, i went to help someone with my Sam B and was only like 22, but still, lost it to. Right when we went from 500 diamonds to 1000, and i had went to dashboard, same thing. I called Techland, and there response was that they didn't think anyone would have over 1000 items of a certain item, so they didn't put a inventory limit in, and that the script is under sized is what corrupts the file. On PC you can fix, but on consoles your just fucked unti
  • Don't know what I did wrong. No glitching or over filled inventory... Lvl 47 with 18 hours...
  • I bought a ton of oleander did the quest glitch got to level 50 and no achievement....what the hell?
  • Went from 36 to 46 with the oleander system. Now for some reason the sellers keep the same items no matter how many times i fast travel and reload. Im going to asume this is 1 of the MANY bugs! Oh well, will settle for 43/48 i guess!
  • To all players: @59 is correct about the inventory glitch except that noone knows what the magic number is for your inventory to crash. If you abuse the oleander quest take more time and do a little at a time. I put 300,000 into oleander to level up and file crashed at 98 percent story progression. Dropped my level 41 to 31 and wiped my inventory clean. Had to beat the game with a damned wrench. Be careful when duping!
  • you can go from level one to 50 in less then two hours. you just need to beat up on level 50 thugs with broken brass knuckles
  • Does anyone have the Ope mission available that will let me join a game? I finished the game before taking advantage of the oleander glitch and would love to try and get to level 50. I am currently level 39 Logan. I will be happy to help out any way I can as well. If anyone can help me out I would appreciate it. GT: Perpetualchi I am always available after 6pm PST. Send me a message.
  • Great game rented it got to level 46 then save wouldn't load so i had to cheat :[
  • Playthrough 1, 80 hours, lvl 43, and corrupted save that cannot be loaded on any box, from any storage device, or have invited to a mp game. Thanks Techland.
  • Got to level 47 and then the save diden`t work anymore. Thanks alot Techland.
  • I'm level 42 and 80 percent. I love this game. Hopefully no save probs. level 50 should be a piece of cake. Have done a lot of grinding though.
  • Only 35 hours.
  • No duping just grinding....
  • The best place to grind is around the hotel ,cash ,exp,concentrate on the challenges and level 50 is easy.,.
  • Hint.., when making deobombs. I bought enough to make about 20 and I made them and I ended up with over a hundred . Makes it all much easier...,
  • Bloodbath Arena makes it easy. I went from level 39-49 in a few hours.
  • okay so im level 50 now but no achievement any idea what to do now to get it?
  • has the thug method been fix ??
  • I think the duplicating glitch ( LT+Y+RT) is patched because it never works for me I just end up dropping my weapon with no duplication with sam b or xien right now im going for right 4 life. ive made a new duplication glitch. at the resort get on the tallest building with the longest jump possible drop your weapon on the building and jump off it only works if you die if you dont die go back on top of the building pick up your weapon and then drop it again and jump of if you die before you respawn pause the game and hit load last checkpoint so you dont lose any money then go back to the top of the building where you left your weapon pick it up go to your inventory and you should have 2 of the same weapon if it didnt work join someone's game this works best at the resort at the lifeguard to
  • On my 2nd play through, I noticed a huge increase in XP for completing side quests and killing enemies. Leveling up comes much faster playing through the 2nd time. None of the cheating stuff either.
  • I only get 600xp for the dreamtime quest wtf
  • I don´t see any reason for boosting the level. I´m only in Act 2 and im already lvl 32. If you try to explore every place and do every sidequest it should be easy.
  • #80 It's right! Fist play trough ended at lvl 39 and a lot of sidequest left. Second play trough, Act 2 and lvl 48!
  • How come I too get only 600 XP for the dreamtime quest? Is that a bug or is it because of my level or something?
  • dang, I'm level 31 and only in Chapter 5 on first playthrough, I don't see a problem getting to 50..
  • Got to save 49, was the tiniest bit off from 50 and my save corrupted. No way going through again... But is there a way of leveling up really fast from the very start of game??? Please, anyone know.
  • Bloodbath Arena helps towards this. I have managed to go from 38 to 44 in a few hours.
  • I noticed that I was at level 11-12 at end of Act I with putnam, Sam b, and 16 with Logan. Any reason? I may have used rage more with Logan, his knife throw is wicked.
  • I finished the first play through and ended at level 43. Anybody know how long it'd take doing it the legit way, by doing quests and such?
  • Something's wrong with this game, I rented the game awhile back, had over 50% of the island discovered, had all kinds of weapons I created, had a bunch of diamonds and was at about level 24ish only to lose everything and my rank went all the way down to 5. This happened after i took the rented game back and a few months later I actually bought the game, when i put the game in I got a longer than usual update. After the update, everything was messed up..this sucks!!
  • Just got to 50 and nothing!!!!! Was in arena but playing along and just got another achievment about 5 mins before. Went to the main map and nothing?? Any ideas
  • Just got it. Went to the lab and beat the shit out of an infected bare handed and it popped when he dropped :)
  • I found easiest way to do this was to go to Bunker #2 and use teleporter to the room with Suicider. Grab the 2 bottles in there, teleport out and back in and repeat. Once you got a lot, turn them in for the repeatable quest Nectar of Life. Took me about 5hrs to do 40-47 trying to do questing and then I did 47-50 in under an hour grabbing bottles of water.
  • Sucks. I hit level 50 while doing an arena and the achievement didn't pop. Anyone know how to fix that?
  • Weird, I reloaded the game and looted one box and the achievement popped.
  • So I just got this and I found what I believe is the best and fastest way. Once you beat the game and go to new game plus you are able to do all the quests over again and they scale with your level for xp. Get the quest to turn in bottles of champagne. In the first play through it gave 1k xp it now gives 6k+ at level 43. Simple duplicate champagne. It took me around 150 to go from 45-50. Roughly 30 minutes and I was done. Plus it got me 150ish diamonds to sell. Also at 50 the quest gives nearly 9 or 10k xp.
  • So, this game was free with gold. Got the achievement pretty fast. Just go through one play through. And on that play through, kill everything. Go to the start menu, extras and challenges. Game gives you mega xp jackpots for completing the challenges. When you get to level 4 of the challenges, the xp drops are like 80,000 to 400,000. Playing easy DLC level helps because killing enemies nets you points fast and works toward completing most of the challenges and achievements. Make sure to complete all challenges on one character, you can switch between characters and once a challenge is complete the xp works toward the current character you're using.
  • Finished the game at level 43. After starting again found it easiest just duplicated brand champagne to give to that woman only took an hour.
  • I used the Arena DLC and used my Purna character. Started a new game, did the champagne glitch till I got 200 diamonds, got Purna from level 10 to 28 by just using the glitch with that woman who wants champagne. Went to arena mode, leveled up my stats on Rage mode, melee weapons, custom weapons and increased my EXP bonus to 150%. Kept on playing arena mode (also doing a few story missions so I don't get bored). I reached level 50 in just 8 hours. Purna is the way to go because in her rage mode she automaticaly uses a rage gun and can instantly or almost instantly kill any enemy also she recieves a huge bonus of EXP. Per rage I got 3,000 to over 33,000.
  • Per arena match on single player I single player reach level 25 (coop higher) I would get average of 350,000 to 400,000 EXP per Arena match in single player or coop. you just need 3,000,000 to reach level 50. so arena mode is another easy mode to do also its not as boring as constantly using the glitch grind. Also naturally you will complete challenges which will give you HUGE EXP bonuses from 1,000 go 250,000 and there is a shit load and you will be racking them up fast if you do arena mode.
  • Stupid mindless grind, nothing more.
  • Took me 41 hours and 1 3/4 playthroughs with Xian(no exp modifiers nor oleander abuse), once i hit like 40+ was like hitting a wall as you need a shit load of experience just to get a single level

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