Is it worth it for f2p?

[Jarfaru]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

[Lonnbeimnech]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

you can get to 20 on a ftp account.

it will be a big grind to get from 16-20, but it can be done.

FTP is a business strategy. its like giving out free samples at Baskin-Robbins. of course you will get more ice cream if you are willing to buy some.

[RAFAR]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

Imagine a pioneer in the near future who is sent to live on Mars. He starts from absolute 0 with some basic supplies from Earth. He has to build the house, create farming fields, grow plants and keep animals for food and clothing, build a forge to craft and repair metallic tools etc.

As a f2p, you can eventually access all content in the game by favor farming ddo points. Even expansions turn up in the ingame store some months after release, so you don't need to buy them either. All you have to do is farm the quests, over and over, multiple hundred times at least... The process speeds up of course, as the favor from newly purchased packs add up, but still, it's a very very high and steep mountain to climb imo.
One of our guildmates did this btw, he spent only $5 to become premium, and farmed everything else. He was determined :)

[SuperNiCd]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

I'm going to go ahead and say its probably not worth it if you're on a super tight budget. You can play for free for a kind of an extended trial to see if you like the game play. I think it'll get pretty grindy after a while though if you can't either buy a monthly VIP subscription or buy some content outright.

Theoretically it's possible, as others have mentioned, to unlock just about all content for free, but I personally wouldn't want to do it. That said if you have a lot of time on your hands and don't mind repeating content to grind out free points, maybe it would be ok for you.

[TitusOvid]

Yes, it is possible and it is easier nowadays but still a pain. You need patience and be prepared to run solo a lot or only with your friends because groups run a lot of content you can't access roughly from lvl 5+.

Useful information for f2p, kept simple:
- If you repeat a quest you will get a penalty for xp. With more content you don't need to repeat as often.
- You need DDO Points to get new content or someone who sponsors you a guestpass.
- You can earn DDO Points with your Total favor score. Every quest gives a certain amount of favor that will ad up to the total favor.
- You will receive the highest favor for a quest, if you run it on elite. But as f2p you need to start at norm, then hard and after that you can enter elite. To make it easier you can ask for an elite opener. This works pretty good, if you add it as information to your LFM (looking for member/more) post ingame.

There are guides here on the forum or you may find useful information on the ddo wiki (www.ddowikicom) .

Good luck.

Cheers,
Titus.

[C-Dog]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a Premium/BIP player.
Of course it's restrictive, that's the model. There is an incentive to spend just a little RL cash (to become Premium) which opens some content, and another incentive to become VIP ($/month) which opens a lot more.

o https://ddowiki.com/page/Account_comparisons

However, it's also very playable as F2P, especially at low levels. So I guess it all depends what you want to get out of it. If you're happy just having fun, it's perfect. If you have a driving need to lead the kill-count in every group you join, you simply won't be that guy as F2P - and that shouldn't be a surprise. (But if you, yourself, are a decent player, you won't be the bottom of the barrel either!)

As for content, you can earn most of it just by playing the game, which earns "Favor" and via that earns "DDO Points", which are an in-game currency you can use to buy Adventure Packs, Races, Classes, etc etc.

Try it, see what you think, and if you like it a lot, then come Thanksgiving (late November) or Midwinter Sales some of that extra content (that you cannot buy w/ DDO Points) usually goes on sale (50-75% off), and for the price of a good lunch you can become Premium.

I'm Premium, was F2P for almost a year before I upgraded, and now have earned everything except the very newest content - it's very workable.


o https://ddowiki.com/page/Free_to_Play_Turbine_Point_walkthrough#Example_for _a_100_Favor_Run
o https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/497443-DDO-Store-Sales-quot-Select-Adventure-Packs-quot?p=6166886&viewfull=1#post6166886

[Memnir]

To give the game a free try - yes, absolutely.
And if you are having fun, it's also worth it when you decide to pay for a few things.
If it's not enough fun for you to decide to pay for a few things - you've lost nothing.

Yes.

[Nebless]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

Well you have 74 free dungeons up to through lvl 10 and then 9 more from lvl 11 to 20. That might even be low as I counted it off my old list I printed out about 10 years ago.

It's harder now to level up with the new dungeon ransack rules in place that gives you less XP from multiple runs, but that's off-set somewhat from the XP tokens you get via the Daily Log in Bonus.

I've never had a sub, I have bought some dungeon packs in the store and between the free dungeons, those extra one's and the Daily Dice I'm up to lvl 16 as a very casual player. So I don't see it very restrictive at all.

F2p get's 3? character slots per server so just making 1 character per server and running them through Korthos and 3 or 4 of the Harbor dungeons will net you 50 free store points per each one so you can easily build up free store points to purchase addition packs in the store.

My actual take on it is plan on throwing $20 at the game from time to time to buy points when on sale (more for your money) and then buy some dungeon packs when they're on sale to kick yourself up to Premium status.

End take; one of the better F2p games out there, totally doable as a casual player without spending money. If you plan to make it your main game / 12 hours each day / totaly dedication; than NO F2p would be restrictive as you'd burn out of what you can play quickly.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

My personal opinion is that F2P is much more fair in DDO than in SWTOR.

The only drawback is that Adventure Packs must be bought in DDO ... But everything gear related in is principle free. SWTOR goes rather the other way round . The content is free, everything gear related is often behind a paywall, so to say.

But that's my very personal opinin. I don't know how others see it.

Anywaya, I'm playing DDO as F2P for some time now, and it feels very good to me. I must say that I've bought almost all Adventure Packs throughout the years, though.

[C-Dog]

I just (re-)read the thread title, rather than the OP, so thought I'd respond to that as well...

"Is a free game worth it?" So, worth the time you spend playing it?

Yes.

[Bacab]

I think the game is great, and you can really slowly "pay as you go".

Occasionally the Catacombs Starter Pack goes on sale on Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/206480/Dungeons__Dragons_Online/

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_4_4__12&term=Dungeons+and+Dragons+online

Pick the Catacombs Starter Pack when it goes on sale (I got it for like 2.99 or 3.99)

It comes with a level 3 Permanent Hireling (great fo having them stand on pressure plates or pull levers).

I also comes with a really nice low level quest chain and 250 DDO Points (still called turbine points on this, but its the same thing)

It also has some XP pots too.

For some people, not paying much and earning the whole game via points is the "game within the game"

Anyway, give it a shot. More than likely you will come to one of two conclusions:

1. This game is super fun, I don't mind spending some money on it (this can be 5$ or it can be more)

2. I do not enjoy playing this game; I rather play something else (then you uninstall the game and you have lost nothing)

[unbongwah]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Account_comparisons
https://ddowiki.com/page/Guide_to_Free_to_Play#Quest_list

There's a lot of F2P quests, but they start getting thin around level 10-ish. At that point, you need to either farm F2P content to keep leveling or look into buying some adventure packs. Fortunately you will earn Store Points from Favor (https://ddowiki.com/page/Favor) just by playing. There are first-time Point awards on each server, so you can make 1,000 Store points fairly easily by doing the 100-Favor Dash (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/326657-The-100-Favor-Dash) on every server. It's also a good idea to check the Sales & Promotion forum (https://www.ddo.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/233-DDO-Store-Sales-amp-Promotions) or this thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/497443-DDO-Store-Sales-quot-Select-Adventure-Packs-quot) every week; adventure packs are on sale fairly regularly, though big discounts are rare.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Yeah, the starter pack is imho a great thing, especially because of the Gold Seal Hireling ! Don't throw that contract away !
And with Catacombs you can farm more Points ...

[psykopeta]

is it worth it for f2p to try the game for a while? yup it is

is it a f2p game? not even close

[LTForge]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

It depends on what you like doing.

If you're looking for an MMO in which you'll find dungeon crawling, fun narratives, an in depth character creation system and the ability to experiment with playstyles and character directions, DDO is a great game to play F2P. You're not wrong about it being content restrictive but there are around 100 dungeons you can do for free right out the gate, and as you complete them you'll earn the ability to unlock more for free. If you wind up liking low level content and just want to tinker with characters you'll unlock things very quickly as well, particularly if you take advantage of the First Time Favor bonuses on the various servers but that's a bit meta.

Other posters have mentioned that you'll likely run into something of a content drought around level 10 and they're not wrong, but if you save your points so that you can buy into some packs in the 10-20 range the process of reaching the Heroic level cap is surprisingly painless even as a true F2P.

There is one caveat to the above though. Once you reach level 20, you'll have to worry about reincarnating characters or doing epic content. This is when F2P more or less completely stops unless you're extremely careful in your planning and know exactly where to spend your points. Guides have been written though so I won't take up much time with that.

TLDR - First ten levels are fun and easy, 10-20 are pretty slow without a bit of effort, 20+ is very difficult without spending money or extremely careful planning and preparation.

[erethizon]

Well you have 74 free dungeons up to through lvl 10 and then 9 more from lvl 11 to 20. That might even be low as I counted it off my old list I printed out about 10 years ago.

Thankfully they have made it a lot easier for F2P characters since then. There are now 25 quests from 11 to 20 (and 4 F2P quests that are epic only).

https://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Free_to_Play_quests


As a free to play player I would recommend checking out the F2P quest list I linked above and making sure you run them all on elite or reaper to get as much favor (and thus free DDO store points) as possible. When it comes time to spend your DDO store points I would check out the list of adventure packs (linked below), sort them by Favor per 100 DP from highest to lowest, and buy them, when on sale, pretty much in that order. Reaver's Reach, for example, gives you the most favor per DDO store point spent and therefore is the easiest quest pack to farm to get your DDO store points back. The last quest in that chain is difficult to get a group for because of flagging, but you can get people to join you if you make it clear you want to do so.


The good news is that the top 3 quest packs on that list are all in the level range where you will definitely be wanting more quests to run (i.e. 16-19) so they will make excellent first purchases. Don't spend any of the DDO store points you get on anything but adventure packs and only when they are on sale.


https://ddowiki.com/page/Adventure_Packs

Since being premium comes with so many benefits I would strongly consider buying the first 2 expansions (Menace of the Underdark and Shadowfell) when they are 75% off in the DDO Market. Those two expansions are the only things that don't seem to ever be sold for DDO points so you will have to buy them with money if you ever want to have them, but they are quite cheap during the 75% off seasonal sales and then you finally will get all the benefits of being premium.

I only spent money in this game exactly once. I bought Menace of the Underdark. Luckily Shadowfell was available for DDO store points for a while and I was able to get it that way so I only had to buy the one expansion to have access to all content. If you like the game enough you probably won't mind spending a few dollars on those expansions when the time comes and until then you can play for free just fine.

Now that there are enough quests to get to 20 and you can repeat quests for experience you will have to decide if you will farm DDO points by playing every quest you own to get to 20 and then TRing to repeat the process or if you will do what we used to have to do when there were fewer quests and just play a character to farm all the lower level quests for DDO store points and then delete the character and start again. You can certainly do some of each. Perhaps try out all the different classes and builds on low level characters which you then delete and have a single real character that you level to 20 over and over again as you acquire past lives.

[Requiro]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

How is it to play as a f2p player?
Short version: For new player is the same as premium and almost the same as VIP (subscription).
Long version: In the beginning the only difference is less diversity with choice of race and class. But you have access to all core DnD races and classes. And some of them are superior to premium.

I heard its very content restrictive.
Short version: Generally yes, but for new player is almost unnoticeable.
Long version: For new player there is plenty of quest to do. Also you gain game currency (DDO points) just for playing the game. So after some time you can buy additional content. You will see difference when you reach level 10 or something (so usually after some days, maybe weeks)

You will not go far as a f2p player
Short version: Unfortunately yes.
Long version: When you reach higher levels (beyond 12) there is less f2p quest and more paid content. You could technically repeat a lot of quest and eventually gain the same power as Premium or VIP, but I don't recommended this way (it will be very boring). IMO Best way is to gain free DDO points (play one character on each server for 100 Favor). After that wait for Double DDO Bonus and buy some DDO Points. Then wait for discount week and buy additional content. You can find more tip on forum.

Nevertheless welcome. And remember: DDO Wiki is your friend :)

[PsychoBlonde]

you can get to 20 on a ftp account.

it will be a big grind to get from 16-20, but it can be done.

FTP is a business strategy. its like giving out free samples at Baskin-Robbins. of course you will get more ice cream if you are willing to buy some.

I have a completely f2p account that I do, and it's not bad at all, I've done four past lives so far and earned about 10 packs and a few other miscellaneous things like Deep Gnome and Half Elf and Harper and Epic Destinies. And this is a secondary account that I hardly play compared to my main account.

You can earn points to get EVERYTHING except 3 of the expansion packs on the DDO store (Ravenloft is on the store for points).

Now, my personal suggestion would be that if you have SOME money, get like 3 months of VIP and churn out a couple of past lives on a toon or three, because that gets you Elite unlock on quests and makes leveling SO much faster. And then just farm favor and TR. Save your points for when adventure packs go on sale, and when the yearly big sales come up get any races and classes and character options (like Epic Destinies) that come on sale. This also permanently gets rid of minor annoyances like the plat cap and auction house cap.

[Goalt]

The more you play the game, the less you'll like being a free to play. If you want to play this game strictly as a free-to-play, though, I can't recommend it (if you're planning on reaching "end-game" and all of that, ya know).

I'm going to say for the most part (75%/25&), no, don't play the game if you plan on staying as a free-to-play.
Also worth mentioning here is that even if you do spend money on the game, you still won't become "good". This game has a steep learning curve, like a curve that takes years to learn (especially for creating your character).

[C-Dog]

is it a f2p game? not even close
While it may be 100% accurate "for you", that's just not true across the board. It all depends on the "game" the individual player likes to play. 100% a "ymmv" thing.


Occasionally the Catacombs Starter Pack goes on sale on Steam...
One word of caution...

If you spend any RL cash on the DDO market, your F2P account is permanently upgraded to a Premium account, and that's a nice boost. +2 more character slots, full access to the Auciton House, a 4M plat cap from the start for every alt - nice. If you buy on Steam, you don't get that upgrade.

o https://ddowiki.com/page/Account_Comparisons

Catacombs does occasionally come on sale, usually either Back Friday/Monday (end of November) or the mid-winter holidaze sales.

GL!

[Goalt]

While it may be 100% accurate "for you", that's just not true across the board. It all depends on the "game" the individual player likes to play. 100% a "ymmv" thing.


What he means by that is, if you like extreme grinding, you might actually enjoy the game.

FYI Jarfaru, the only people (and I will correct this if anybody says otherwise) who claim that this game is f2p are the ones who've already spent money on it. Anyone who's actually done a little TP grinding themselves knows that it's not efficient in the least way possible. Even the people who have unlocked a lot through it don't talk about it as being a legitimate thing because it just takes that much effort.

[Requiro]

What he means by that is, if you like extreme grinding, you might actually enjoy the game.

FYI Jarfaru, the only people (and I will correct this if anybody says otherwise) who claim that this game is f2p are the ones who've already spent money on it. Anyone who's actually done a little TP grinding themselves knows that it's not efficient in the least way possible. Even the people who have unlocked a lot through it don't talk about it as being a legitimate thing because it just takes that much effort.

It's extreme grinding only at the beginning, until your first TR. After first painful TR it's much easier (hard opener) and in 3rd life (elite opener) is quite comfortable. You earn TP very fast, and can buy another packs very quickly.

But you are right: it's not efficient in any way. But grinding is never efficient...

[psykopeta]

What he means by that is, if you like extreme grinding, you might actually enjoy the game.

Yup i mean, we all have seen/read robin guide to f2p, and favor farm on every toon, then wait for pack at hard discount, then favor farm that extra in every server to reach a new mile, and all... That thing to not even playing


Yes yes, it's super easy, superfast with an opener but... DDO is not that healthy game anymore, so OP will reach lvl 7, hit the house d & p and struggle to continue lvling "but guys in forum told me i could to do so"

When if the same player pays ot makes smart purchases, it will be a much better gaming experience for him, and therefore for the game

We can lvl and alt account with our main, parking it at entrance, purchasing passes so can reach the next favor mileage, etc but i doubt any1 here is willing to carry the OP to that extend

So when ppl say DDO is a f2p game... Well, you 're not forced to use real money in anything, but the era where we were farming the few existing packs, but now we don' t repeat any quest if not for gear (specially now with opts decay)

Think the OP is one friend of yours, pretty sure nobody would tell him it's a f2p game, sorry

[Hazelnut]

How is it to play as a f2p player? I heard its very content restrictive. You will not go far as a f2p player.

As a free to play character you can comfortably get your character up to somewhere around level 8 to 10 on the freely available quests. Your free to play character will be competitive with a first-life VIP or Premium player's character at those levels (not counting twinking).

At around level 8 the number of quests available for free thin out and you will either need to re-run quests you've already done to get XP to proceed or you will need to purchase quest packs. Considering that the Heroic game goes to level 20, you've had a pretty good taste of the game to decide if you like the game enough to buy a few quest packs.

If you don't actually have the money to buy even a single quest pack, you can get to level 20 and TR back to level 1 without spending any money. You will have earned enough DDO Store Points to buy a quest pack or two. BUT there will be a lot of repeating this level 1 through 20 to get points to buy more packs. It is a slow process. On the other hand, each time you do this your character gets a little bit tougher, so you would be doing it anyway. You just don't get as much variety in quests. This is what most of the other replies refer to as the heavy grinding in the game (they are right).

[C-Dog]

What he means by that is, if you like extreme grinding, you might actually enjoy the game.
What I mean is "ymmv", which is exactly what I said and why I said it. Diff people are different. For example, if you think that a 100-favor run (see below) is "extreme grinding", you and I have VERY different use of that term. Very. :cool:


Think the OP is one friend of yours, pretty sure nobody would tell him it's a f2p game, sorry
Sorry, have to disagree. The true F2P favor-farm thing is not for everyone, but it is for some. If OP were a friend, I'd know them and whether that is/not so here, but as it is I'll offer it as an option....


As a free to play character ... Considering that the Heroic game goes to level 20, you've had a pretty good taste of the game to decide if you like the game enough to buy a few quest packs... If you don't actually have the money to buy even a single quest pack, you can get to level 20 and TR back to level 1 without spending any money. You will have earned enough DDO Store Points to buy a quest pack or two...
@ OP - In DDO, there is a mechanism called "Favor". You get Favor by running a quest. More Favor is earned by running a quest on Hard or (better) Elite at least once - doesn't matter how many times you run it, only the highest difficulty ever that counts.


o https://ddowiki.com/page/Favor

For every 100 Favor you earn, you get 25 DDO Points (aka DP). For the first time on any one server that you earn 100 Favor, you earn a bonus of +100 DP. There are 8 Servers. So, if you take the time to run to 100 (which should be easy by level 6 or so) on all 8 servers*), you will have achieved several goals...



(* Solo, as non-VIP, you can't open Elite to begin with, so you'd have to run Normal, then Hard, then Elite - which is slow. But if you jump in with a group, or (better) just state what you're doing ("100-Favor run, need Opener"), others should join to help who CAN open Elite to start with. A fast 100-favor run will easily take less than 2 hours, possibly half of that, during which time an alt will become level 3-4.)

Had a chance to try out (at least) 8 different character builds, at least at a low level.
Had first-hand experience w/ each of the different Severs (Wayfinder is very sleepy, btw, but that doesn't matter for soloing)
Earned (at least) 1,000 DP

o https://ddowiki.com/page/Free_to_Play_DDO_Point_walkthrough

With 1,000 DP, you can easily buy one of the more recommended adventure packs*, or a couple of the many others.


(* Read link in sig re "How to choose...", and/or https://ddowiki.com/page/Adventure_Packs)

And if, during that 8-server tour, you have a "main" and have raised that up to Level 7 or so, you might easily have something like +75 DP more (and have earned Drow Race "for free" on that Sever - via Total Favor (https://ddowiki.com/page/Favor#Total_Favor)). And thus you have the adventure packs you need, and stay F2P without ~too~ much grinding (ymmv) or spending money.

(Note - Some F2P do favor runs regularly for the +25 DP (after the first time on a server) - it's a thing. Now, there is no argument that, for the time spent, washing a car or mowing a lawn or just brown-bagging lunch one day and just buying $10 worth of DDO Points is better $/hour spent, but, for some, that's not the point. Ymmv.).

o https://ddowiki.com/page/Guide_to_Free_to_Play

[Merfyn]

This is only the best Free to Play game that I've spent over $150 on! :rolleyes:

[Merfyn]

I'm going to say for the most part (75%/25&), no, don't play the game if you plan on staying as a free-to-play.
Also worth mentioning here is that even if you do spend money on the game, you still won't become "good". This game has a steep learning curve, like a curve that takes years to learn (especially for creating your character).I respectfully disagree, at least with the first part. Taking a look at pretty much every modern MMORPG-type that I know of, you either have a large initial investment (boxed games like Guild Wars) or a much nastier mercenary incremental purchase environment (Neverwinter).

As for becoming "good", well... it's a frickin' game. If someone's wrapped around the axle about their character's progress, I almost envy the luxurious life they must be leading. For my part, I'm supporting a wife and putting a kid through university, so my disposable income is disposed of months before I see it. Free to Play DDO is superior to pretty much any game I'm aware of that has the depth & breadth adults are interested in.

I started f2p, bought packs at Christmas that temporarily made me VIP, have been casually playing Premium for years and STILL have yet to push a character over level 20. I've spent far more than I ever intended since I dual box for my son's account, and that's why the game is still afloat with new content.

If anyone feels like sneering at me as a n00b, I say go for it - but I doubt anyone will. Not just because DDO has a pleasant lack of bellends and a far more mature, welcoming player set, but also because DDO could have gone with EVE's f2p model and VIP's would be paying even more!

PS I would suggest that I made three bad moves starting out:

thinking this game has any parallels to pencil & paper style (I started out trying to play something which only in recent years is recognized as the Eldritch Knight)
starting multiple toons on multiple servers trying to farm favor & unlock content. I'd have been better off sticking with a single server, because I spend more time managing inventory than I do questing.
not cultivating friends, meaning a guild; by being spread across multiple servers, I don't dedicate time to questing in a party and that's a substantial disadvantage.

[janave]

It is like driving a wheelcart next to F-22 hangars.

[Fauxknight]

If you play the 1st time favor game on every server you rack up a decent starting pool of DDO points as well as an idea of what kinda of character you want to play. From there you wait for store sales and strategically buy adventure packs that cover missing xp ranges.

It does take some time to get a f2p account rolling, but once you have a clean 1-30 path to TR you start steadily racking up the DDO points and just keep buying modules on sale.


That being said, even a small amount of money spent can make the whole process a lot faster...and really if you end up liking the game you should probably at least support it a little bit.

Also note for a mostly f2p account you want to make sure you don't have active VIP during the holiday/black Friday sales.

[ShifterThePirate]

It's free... of course it's worth a try haha. If you love the game after some hours and think the f2p model is worth it you can continue playing it. If you don't like it then you just go play something else.
At first a lot of f2p content might feel hidden though since it's not that clear where to find it and you run into payed content a lot. But there is quite a lot f2p and they keep adding new f2p quests too. Just use the wiki to see what stuff is f2p and where to find it :)

[C-Dog]

Exactly. Very few things that are truly "free" (and DDO qualifies) are not worth the time. Imo, the free part of this game is VERY worth the time.

The DDOWiki can help show what is/not F2P

o 4 Races (& 5 w Drow) https://ddowiki.com/page/Races
o 9 classes https://ddowiki.com/page/Classes
o many quests https://ddowiki.com/page/Guide_to_Free_to_Play#Quest_list
o & more: https://ddowiki.com/page/Account_comparisons