Alternatives to MaxDiff on XM Platform

Hello,
I would like to create a survey on the XM platform that enables participants to prioritize a large number of features, say 20-25.
I have read that MaxDiff is a good survey technique for this. However, only the PX platform supports full MaxDiff projects. We do not have the budget or the time it would take to upgrade to PX from XM…that may be in the future but not now. 
In the meantime, what are work arounds and options? Pros and cons of them?
Qualtrics support has told me I could program a real MaxDiff on the XM platform but it would be very difficult. Your thoughts?
Or, how could I develop a series of questions on the XM platform that uses some MaxDiff principles, even if not a full-blown MaxDiff? If so, what would it be?
My fallback option is to use the multiple question type to ask 2 rounds of questions. The first round is a series of questions so that every feature is seen once...each of the 4 questions would have 6 features as answers (all randomized), and the respondent would pick the top 2 for each question. In the second round, these top 2 “winners” would get passed to a final question (with 8 features as answers) and the respondent would pick the top 3. While this is not MaxDiff it does have some advantages: relatively few questions compared to a MaxDiff; gets to a rough priority order that may be good enough for our purposes. I also explored a slightly more complex option using the MaxDiff question type with 3 rounds of questions rather than the 2 in my fallback plan I outlined above.
I look forward to your advice.
Thank you very much in advance!