Diablo 3 party system and skipping content

Question

When I join my friends game, I was on the very beginning of act 2 and he was on part 7 of act 2. It put me on his quest cause I joined his game I guess. I played for awhile until we almost beat act 2.

When I left his party and went to 'resume' game, my game was now where I left off from his party. On the hero select screen, it looked like:

Act 2:
Part 1.Start Quest
Part 7. ---
Part 8. ---
Part 9. ---

What happened to 1-7 and can I "Start Quest" on Part 1 without deleting all of the progress I had made in the party with my friend? If it does reset my act 2 back to part 1, do I keep all the gear I have or is that reset too??

I don't want to skip any content but I want to play with friends!!!

I could see this being annoying in the next difficulty level. I want to get an achievement for killing butcher, but im playing with my friend who is already past him, so I can't without resetting my whole game back to act 1...

Can someone sum up how this works? Thanks.

Answer 1

You will not lose the gear that you have gathered.

You will lose save progress if you start at part 1, you can go back to the quests you already done (In your example 7 to 9).

The way the party system works is that you always enter the game at the level that the host is playing at. If they are further ahead of your character personally you will join them at part 7 (in your example).

When you go back to your own personal game, you can start back at part 1 but it will prompt you to save over your spot in the game. You can continue on from part 9, but you lose out on the story line in between.

What you can do is have your friend join you in your game and help you kill the butcher and jump ahead after that is done.

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Answer 2

I ran into this problem with Diablo 3 for PS4. I was still in Act 1 and joined a friend who was already in Act 3 and I was stuck in Act 3, having skipped all of the content in between. There is a solution: Quit to main menu -> Game Settings -> Act -> Choose the Act you were on originally -> Accept daunting warning -> select which quest you were on -> Kill zombies. You keep all of your items, gold, experience, everything. Hope this helps.