Any Grind?

[dhTrial]

At what level you start needing to grind the same quests over and over to keep leveling?

Also, since I got to level 5 in one week, how fast would I be able to get to level 10 and 15? Does it slow down alot?

I am wondering how grindy this game gets and at what level it starts (up through 5 there is almost no grind.)

[Wrustle]

Prepare yourself for nothing but grinding... that is all. With little to no (quest) content in almost a year you can expect to grind grind grind.....

Oh, and Hello, Welcome!

[Trillea]

At what level you start needing to grind the same quests over and over to keep leveling?

Also, since I got to level 5 in one week, how fast would I be able to get to level 10 and 15? Does it slow down alot?

I am wondering how grindy this game gets and at what level it starts (up through 5 there is almost no grind.)

If you are willing to put up your own LFMs and not just go with the popular quests it is very possible to level all the way to 16 with little to no grind (depending on your personal definition of grinding). Running each quest in the game norm/hard/elite will quickly get you both favor and the XP that you need to level and you will quickly unlock the 32 point build at 1750. You can also put up LFMs for quests that you would like to do just at higher difficulties and hope that someone else with an opener needs it too, although that can take longer per group.

[Trillea]

Prepare yourself for nothing but grinding... that is all. With little to no (quest) content in almost a year you can expect to grind grind grind.....

Oh, and Hello, Welcome!

He is talking about how to get to level 16 and there are MORE than enough quests ingame to do that easily without grinding much. After cap however, grinding for crafting ingredients is a different story.

[Draccus]

It all depends on what you like. I would guess that you could make it all the way to 16 without playing the same quest at the same difficulty twice.

However, you are probably going to find quests that you LOVE to run and will want to run those as much as possible while you're still getting good XP for them. The Crucible is one of my favorite quests in the game and offers ridiculously good XP so I ran it a lot. I didn't run it a lot because I *had* to (aka Grinding), I ran it a lot because the quest is flat-out fun.

The grinding will start when you are at or near level 16. There are raid rewards and crafting ingredients that you will want (dare I say it; need?) that are going to require a lot of grinding for. Fortunately, the raids people tend to grind the most are also pretty fun raids to run.

I've run about 85 Shroud raids and still enjoy the raid. Granted, not being able to run it more than once every 3 days (the rule for most DDO raids) helps it from becoming stale but thank God I'm not sitting in the same corner of the world doing the pull-kill-rest-repeat grind that EQ-model games require.

[Memnir]

Level 14-16 is when you need to start grinding quests - and then it's mostly so you can craft the most powerful items in the game (Shroud Gear and Refuge armor).

Before that it gets a little harder to answer, however. There are certain quests at every level that are run most frequently to maximize leveling or loot gain. Do you need to stick to those quests? No. But, those will usually be the quests with the LFMs up. As was suggested above - if you want to run some of the underloved quests, you'll probably need to either join a Favor group and not get a whole lot of XP or start your own group.

[Zenako]

Answers in Yellow


At what level you start needing to grind the same quests over and over to keep leveling?

To keep leveling = never, there is more than enough content to never need to "grind" quests or explorer areas to level all the way to cap.

Also, since I got to level 5 in one week, how fast would I be able to get to level 10 and 15? Does it slow down alot?

Depends on your playtime and groups you are with. The low levels are easier to shoot up thru, the middle levels might slow down some (depending on your groups and grouping patterns), while the high levels can be moved thru pretty fast since there are a lot of high level groups running things all the time.

The dynamic tends to be, at low levels, ANYONE can be in a group and not seriously affect the outcome for a veteran player, so often players might put up groups just to have someone to chat with. By mid levels, it is a LOT easier to mess things up in a quest, and thus many veterans tend to be more selective, or stick with guild based groups in those ranges (6-11 ish). Once you get to higher levels, once again the dynamic of it only takes a couple of well played characters to handle a quest, so bringing others along is again less risky (on most quests).


I am wondering how grindy this game gets and at what level it starts (up through 5 there is almost no grind.)

About the ONLY things that most consider "grinding" in this game are centered around 1 Raid and 1 other End Game Quest. In that raid you can pull various ingredients to "craft" some very powerful items. Since you will be needing many many ingredients to make the most powerful items, that quest gets run a lot. The Shroud.

The other quest(s) with grind, are the ones associated with the Reavers Refuge, and you have to run them a lot to get the various runes you can pull the lottery stick on to see if they gave you the right combo of features on your Dragontouched Armor. Many players give up trying for the "best" combo and settle for any good combo. That is because the results are just random each time you try and improve one of the 3 aspects of the armor. You could get stupid lucky and get exactly what you want the first time, or you could still be trying after a couple hundred attempts. (Each of the 3 slots of features has around 20 possible results - actually more than that come to think of it, kind of like playing roulette.)

[Wrustle]

Level 14-16 is when you need to start grinding quests - and then it's mostly so you can craft the most powerful items in the game (Shroud Gear and Refuge armor).

Before that it gets a little harder to answer, however. There are certain quests at every level that are run most frequently to maximize leveling or loot gain. Do you need to stick to those quests? No. But, those will usually be the quests with the LFMs up. As was suggested above - if you want to run some of the underloved quests, you'll probably need to either join a Favor group and not get a whole lot of XP or start your own group.


Right........ What he said there.

If you are a true newcomer then there is a lot of content to explore and have fun with. If you have played this game longer than, let's say 6 months then well, it's an entirely different story.

When you hit level 12, you should be exploring the Vale and it's all downhill from there.

That being said, glad you chose DDO and I hope you have fun with it.

[ArkoHighStar]

Right........ What he said there.

If you are a true newcomer then there is a lot of content to explore and have fun with. If you have played this game longer than, let's say 6 months then well, it's an entirely different story.

When you hit level 12, you should be exploring the Vale and it's all downhill from there.

That being said, glad you chose DDO and I hope you have fun with it.

When you hit lvl 12 you should be in the desert, the only reason people run the vale at lvl 12 is to power level to 16, which in my opinion is something a new player should avoid.

Do the quests appropriate to your level, and learn to start groups, over the next few months their will be tons of new players who have never seen the content before, and you can level with them at your own pace.

You can level to 16 in this game in under a week if you want, you can also have it take severalmonths if you want its your choice.

[KKDragonLord]

Prepare yourself for nothing but grinding... that is all. With little to no (quest) content in almost a year you can expect to grind grind grind.....

Oh, and Hello, Welcome!

Someone is so grumpy that they forgot how the game works under lvl 16


He is talking about how to get to level 16 and there are MORE than enough quests ingame to do that easily without grinding much. After cap however, grinding for crafting ingredients is a different story.

This is the answer you are looking for.

Also, if you count getting some XP doing explorer areas and rares every now and then, you can get to 16 without ever repeating a quest.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

When you hit lvl 12 you should be in the desert, the only reason people run the vale at lvl 12 is to power level to 16, which in my opinion is something a new player should avoid.

Do the quests appropriate to your level, and learn to start groups, over the next few months their will be tons of new players who have never seen the content before, and you can level with them at your own pace.

You can level to 16 in this game in under a week if you want, you can also have it take severalmonths if you want its your choice.

I agree, with the cap about to go up people shouldn't neglect the desert. If you use the vale to level to 16 you are stuck doing a lot more grinding of the same ol same ol to get to 20.

[Milolyen]

When you hit lvl 12 you should be in the desert, the only reason people run the vale at lvl 12 is to power level to 16, which in my opinion is something a new player should avoid.

Do the quests appropriate to your level, and learn to start groups, over the next few months their will be tons of new players who have never seen the content before, and you can level with them at your own pace.

You can level to 16 in this game in under a week if you want, you can also have it take severalmonths if you want its your choice.

I have to agree with Arko here. Do not be in a rush to lvl. Enjoy the content as you lvl and run each quest in your lvl range on normal first then go back and run them on hard/elite if you enjoyed them the first time. Some of the replies you have seen here come from people that have already ran it all and are just looking to powerlvl and get to the end game grind so that they can see how powerful their char is all decked out.

This brings me to another point. Enjoy the content don't let the zergers ruin your lvling experience by making all the content far easier than it should be. Try to find the first time through quest groups and when you form your own group put that in your LFM that you are a first timer to the quest and don't want to zerg. That is the best advice I can give ... unless you do want to race to the endgame and get stuck in the grind then I and others on the forums can give you the quick way to do that as well.

Milolyen

[Uproar]

thank God I'm not sitting in the same corner of the world doing the pull-kill-rest-repeat grind that EQ-model games require.

You forgot to include the mega long spawn times often encountered on the same!

[baylensman]

I've found through leveling several ALTS the biggest step seems to be level 9 through 12. It can be bypassed somewhat by pushing through the Giant hold, but as a new player with out some high level items you may find it a bit of a stretch at levels 9 and 10.

At level 5 don't be shy about putting up LFMs and PUGgin your way through some content. Three barrel cove is a case in point. If you can get a few groups going in there and hit everything on the normal hard elite track you should be good to go for the necropolis and the Von's.

Some folks pick their quest runs by favor, usually pushing house P stuff first to get access to the buffs. After that it usually pretty easy to get a Delera's run together.

I guess the best thing to keep in mind is that is only a GRIND if you let it be. If you find a good group of friends or join a guild you may have so much fun that you hit the level marks without even realizing that you ran 20 or so quests.

above all have fun

[SneakThief]

Also, if you count getting some XP doing explorer areas and rares every now and then, you can get to 16 without ever repeating a quest.

Actually ... I wish I could find the post, but I think someone did the math and determined that you can level to 16 by just completing all the explorer areas. So ... yeah ... you can definately do it without ever repeating a quest.

Like others have said though ... some of them you WANT to repeat ... just cuz they are FUN! :D

[Maxelcat]

sorry the game IS NOT GRINDY...

seriously...

im 8G away from 10th and havent ground a thing.


granted. I belong to a Guild. and have acess to all the party mods.

[Draccus]

You forgot to include the mega long spawn times often encountered on the same!

That's why I quit the original EQ. I was sitting at the bottom of some dungeon hoping to pull some special armor for my rogue. The boss we were killing was on a 30 minute timer. But he didn't spawn all the time. There was a placeholder that spawned 90% of the time. Additionally, he didn't drop the armor all the time. In fact, he dropped the armor about 5% of the time and some other trash the rest of the time. To top it all off, there were two other rogues in the group who wanted the armor.

Soo...I did the math.

I needed 10 cycles on average to get him to spawn. I needed 20 spawns on average to get him to drop the armor. I needed 3 armor drops on average to get my set. I figured I needed about 300 hours, or 12.5 full days of sitting on my butt in a dungeon to get this set of armor. In a player-written guide for obtaining this item (and other items) it said, IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, "ensure you have a book with you to pass the time between spawns."

Buh-bye EQ.

[winsom]

For whatever reason, I enjoy repeating The Shroud, Stealer of Souls and Visions of Destruction after level 14+. These are fun for me even after the 20th time. Much less so for the Hound and Reaver.

I enjoy doing Shan-To-Kor and Splinterskull Fortress a few times each on the way to level 7+. Waterworks, Delaras and Catacombs, not so much.

I never "grinded" the Vault, or Titan, or Demon Queen raids. Those are not as fun for me beyond the first few completions (if completed at all). It's too bad there are some great items in there that only come from there, but my characters do great without them.

[ChadMan]

i start my BIG grinding at lvl 9 when i get in to Giant Hold were Two quests called Madstone And Crubicle give me atleast 17k a run

[Thrudh]

Prepare yourself for nothing but grinding... that is all. With little to no (quest) content in almost a year you can expect to grind grind grind.....

Oh, and Hello, Welcome!

Incorrect... You will have to repeat some quests once or twice (many are fun to repeat), but you can get to capped level without doing a lot of repeats...

Now, if you want the good gear, you will have to grind somewhat... the good news is that most quests are pretty short, so grinding can be done in small increments... I usually run one Shroud a night (Shroud is a raid that drops ingrediants that can be used to make uber gear), and then do other fun quests... Slowly but steadily, I've gotten most everything I wanted...

[Thrudh]

When you hit lvl 12 you should be in the desert, the only reason people run the vale at lvl 12 is to power level to 16, which in my opinion is something a new player should avoid.

Do the quests appropriate to your level, and learn to start groups, over the next few months their will be tons of new players who have never seen the content before, and you can level with them at your own pace.

You can level to 16 in this game in under a week if you want, you can also have it take severalmonths if you want its your choice.


Exactly, I don't hit Gianthold at 9, and the Vale at 12, and neither will most new players... Plenty of fun different type quests out there to play at level...

[Zenako]

i start my BIG grinding at lvl 9 when i get in to Giant Hold were Two quests called Madstone And Crubicle give me atleast 17k a run

Well that "grind" will be addressed in the next release. The EXP for those two over used quests (for just the EXP reason) is being reduced, thus reducing the incentive to "grind" them.