Is DDO A Grind Game, or Not?

[Velexia]

It would seem that DDO is in a mid-life crisis, and has forgotten it's roots... or maybe we are just under entirely new management that has decided to take DDO in a "new" direction...

So, is DDO a game which has mechanics that promote/require grinding, or a game with mechanics that deter/prevent grinding?

If I leave anything out, please feel free to add your own.

Prevention and Deterrence
There is a bonus for completing a quest for the first time on a particular difficulty. This suggests to players that they will be rewarded for not getting stuck in a rut, grinding.

There is a penalty for repetition of the same quest, which does not diminish over time. Eventually repetition will result in 0 xp awarded. Again, this deters grinding.

Looting the same chests excessively results in a reduced reward, and then no reward which lasts for a week. This suggests that one should not grind as well, but allows for an eventual return to old stomping/looting grounds.

Promotion and Requirements
In the last two years, there has been a trend with quests, requiring a player to run the same quest an excessive number of times. Reaver's Refuge, Meridia/Shroud, Necropolis IV, Amrath, Inspired Quarter, Dreaming Dark... in fact, it seems that every quest since Gianthold, which was on the very edge itself, has required and promoted the grind.

In Reaver's Refuge players are given a reason to run a series of quests, 4 total between 4 and 400 times, give or take. The system is completely based upon luck, with fairly poor odds if the player is trying for something specific. If the player runs the same quest 26 times before finally getting the desired effect for ONE of three tiers... they are experiencing a dichotomy of incentives. On one side they are being deterred by not receiving experience points, and eventually loot, and on the other they are continuously being lured into trying again for another chance which may simply end in a failure, nothing gained, time lost. I personally spent 5 hours today in the Reaver's Refuge attempting to finally complete my Dragontouched Armor once and for all... and came out completely emptty handed. No XP, and no completed Dragontouched item to show for it. 600 Draconic Runes spent, 9-12 Prey on the Hunter quests run, and 2 Stealer of Souls quests run...and NOTHING to show for it. Nothing at all.

Next comes Meridia and the Shroud. Here the players are given incentive to run each of 5 quests possibly 4-5 times per item they wish to make a "Blank" for. Then they are required to run the Shroud raid an average of 18 times to create a decent item, or 36 times to create a good item (Single vs Double Imbue). They are also required to run at LEAST 20 times to cleanse an item if they decide they want to wear two items. By the completion of the first item, the character has long since stopped receiving experience points, and is simply grinding away, trying to create a single item from this Raid.

Necropolis III, Tome Pages, Shield Fragments, Tapestry Shreds, Sigil Pieces, and then a Raid which drops loot as per normal. This felt like maybe a step in the right direction... as it takes less runs overall and you are less likely to hit the 0 xp awarded mark on any particular quest.

Amrath, boot pieces... with such impossibly low drop rates for items required for Raid Participation that bind to character, this is a particularly bad grind mechanic... but then, is it as bad as that of Reaver's Refuge or the Shroud?

Inpspired Quarter, collect three shards or one disc, collect four discs for one chest, loot one chest for one chance.

Dreaming Dark, complete various quests several times over to receive 6 of each of 4 shards...

Epic. Run a quest multiple times at maximum level (thus no XP) and attempt to collect tokens, scrolls, augment crystals, what have you... to upgrade items you may or may not have.

True Reincarnation, play your favorite character from scratch again, now with 75% more XP required! Do it again for double the pain! Why not go for completionist?
__________________________________________________ _______________

I remember a time when I once said... "You know why I love DDO...? Because I never feel like I am grinding." That DDO is dead.

Is this a grinding game, or is it not, because if it is... I may just leave and never come back again... and stop recommending that my friends try it out, and come join the server on which I play...

[Velexia]

Ah yes, and why is this in suggestions...? I am suggesting that something be done to fix the mixed signals we are getting. Either A: Remove the incentives to grind, or B: Remove the penalties for grinding.

I would prefer A, but I doubt we will see either A or B, honestly.

[Danmor]

/signed

A MMO will always require some grind, which is ok.
But the ridiculously grind-tastic stuff like epic or Reaver's Refuge is definitely going over the top.

When you add something new, please make it less grind.

[Buggss]

/very signed..

DDO has always tried to stand out from other mmo's by avoiding grinding as much as possible but it's heading in that direction.

[Bacab]

100% agree

Though I do not mind the TR grind...I like playing my favorite toons...but with raid loot the second(third) time around...
BUT it starts to wear off at lvl 16-17ish when you realize you are essentially going to run out of content. The TR grind is not bad through the low levels to the mid levels. But the lack of lvl 20 content kinda roughs ya up a bit. Repeating quest at -60% almost forces you to drink XP pots (cha-ching). And the idea that you HAVE to run things N/N/N/N/N/H/E to not run out of content is silly. I do not even mind N/H/E...but come on, 5 Normal runs...

I think some more lvl 17-20 content would be nice.

[Dingdongtudelu]

I agree.

I came to ddo, after grinding my brains out on wow, vowing to never play any game that got you hooked on repeating something ad nauseam to get a particular item that made your character more powerful, until a new patch got released that got you started all over again.

I came to ddo to quest, in dungeons. I play casually, I like to log on, enter a dungeon, and be immersed in the whole d&d experience by having a dungeon narrator that guides you through your adventure. I loved hearing that narration voice for the first time. It was such a refreshing concept from any other game. It made you feel like you actually were that little dwarf with his crappy armour and flaming axe, trying to fight off hordes of kobolds, while at the same time your DM was describing just how wet and foul smelling that sewer was that you were crawling around in. I loved having to actually COMPLETE a dungeon to get any rewards at all.

It feels like that kind of development was too rough to manage, and that more addictive concepts from other mmorpgs were implemented to keep the playerbase occupied. Slayers, rare spawns (basically outdoor areas feel very grindy, except the explorer touch), item crafting, etc...

I would love to see actual roleplay crafting. Grabbing your chunk of starmetal that you retrieved from that fallen dragon's hoard, venturing deep into the mountain, dragging along the cart of equipment you need to craft your greatsword with, vanquishing a huge demon to access the anvil and making your weapon. There would be no need to repeatedly do the dungeon to get the items. Your rewards, be they questrewards or a static item in the dungeon, would load 100%. The run is just so incredibly hard, it takes near perfect coordination to get it done. People would die, few would succeed, but the ones that succeed would have something to show for it. You could look at that dwarf with his huge flaming sword, or the elf with his glowing crown, and say: "Woha, that's one tough #@$#"%.", instead of 'jesus, that guy just spent 30 days, repetitively entering, spamming to the monster, chopping its head off and recalling'.

I think the whole roleplay aspect is key here, which is directly oposite to the random factor. The more random a drop gets, the more repetition is needed, which kills the roleplay experience. If you were sure to get an item, the adventure would feel more like a quest than a task. The problem is, the more content you add that focuses on running something once, the less times people would actually do the quest, which results in more pressure on the development team to release more and more content.

This is where profitability comes into play. A good solution was implemented in the way of having different difficulty settings, and adding the bonus xp for completing it the first time. Perhaps that chunk of starmetal you find on epic settings would simply be a chunk of ore on casual settings, resulting in less of a powerful item (perhaps even both in statistics as visual effects). In any case, solutions like the difficulty settings are far more desirable than the grinding ones, in my humble opinion atleast. Note that this primarily concerns endgame dungeons, as having to develop regular dungeons like this would be far too timeconsuming, which reduces profitability. It also kills your gaming experience, as you find yourself with an incredible challenge to gain that small chunk of xp on the way to level 20. I can already see the frustration among players grouping with a PUG, unable to complete 99% of the quests...

Endgame, or epic dungeons atleast, are for capped characters, and I hear plenty of them shouting that they want a "greater challenge" anyway. This could be a way to get rid of that whole grindy feel, while at the same time giving players an incentive to keep playing.

I'll stop rambling now .

[Tumarek]

I think making drop rates on hard and elite much better could help... Thinking about Inspired quaters here. Nice casual quests on normal, but drop rate aint too good.
They really get a nice punch on elite and are challenging and fun at that point but there is no reason to run them on elite... drop rates are about the same.

So instead of forcing people who want a certain piece of equipment to grind the quest on normal 100 times, make them prepare and invest in 10 hard and fun runs. Actually make some named items exclusive drops for elite... more challenge, less grind -> more fun.

I still like the fact that DDO isnt a game were grind is required to level, but it still could do with less.

[Mr_Ed7]

I think the game and perhpas even your own guild is what you make of it.

The game allows for grinding if you so choose.

I prefer a more casual laid back approach; it is not a race.

[dunklezhan]

I think the game and perhpas even your own guild is what you make of it.

The game allows for grinding if you so choose.

I prefer a more casual laid back approach; it is not a race.

True. but there's no getting away from the fact that people want the best gear. However, the way to do that is to make it really *difficult*, which is not the same as *tediously repetitive*.

I'm with the OP and a couple of the other posters here: improve the drop rates to virtually guaranteed at certain difficulty levels, but make those difficulty levels truly mean something. You can run it on normal 100 times and never get the drop, sure. But run it somewhere between 1 and 5 times on Elite (I'd prefer once) and be practically guaranteed to get it - but you'd better bring your best game if you're playing it at level, or if you're playing a L20 quest on Elite and you don't already have the most tricked out items in the game (in which case why would you be doing it? TR and start again!).

That's the problem with end game for me, and why I probably won't spend any time there once I reach it - you're either grinding grinding grinding the same quests endlessly, chasing random drops which you need multiple of in order to craft/hand in for whatever uber item you want, or... nope. There's no 'or'. That's it. Which I don't like, so I'll hit 20, try a couple of epic instances and if they don't offer me anything exciting, I'll TR and head on up the line again exploring a new build/character/content/whatever (I think TR is a stroke of genius actually. Gives you a way to keep advancing your character once you reach cap).

I don't honestly see how any developer can effectively prevent the end game grind in an MMO - I mean, you aren't advancing - *its the end game* - what else would you be doing except grinding for gear if you aren't going to TR?

But the item/crafting grind on the way up just to be able to do end game content? That's what needs keeping an eye on.

[Yaga_Nub]

Yes.

[Rasczak]

Make something rare to find but worth getting. Then add in some feature that requires you to access said item, sigils, boot ingredients, shroud ingredients, relics, tokens, scrolls blah blah

Means it takes players awhile to gain that 1 item from new content and hoped that they will grind old content still for new characters recently made.

DDO has preety much always toed the line. Reflag a raid, randomly dropping flagging items, high amounts of items needed to flag, small random chance to drop item, bigger chance after 20 completions to find the item.

To be fair, the grind has gone up a lot over the years but you have to also make it difficult to find special items. If I completed a ToD and found exactly what I wanted 1st time as did everyone else then honestly what would we have to do around here? Why also would certain items be so expensive to buy, are included in most builds etc etc.
You can't make them easier to get since it takes some of their power away and new content gets adjusted to suit the explosion of say dt armours...

It's an MMORPG and so there will always be a grinding elemental. There has to be for balance and to keep players online.
The trick though is the random results, DT armour was an insult. At least with everything else we knew what we were going for and what the result would be.

The only true grind I find in DDO is Refuge. Everythign else you have a chance to drop it first time or receive it as a reward on your 20th.
Epic I do not consider a grind. Yes you need tokens but after a while there will be so many epic quests to run that it won't feel like a grind. Scrolls, Shards and Seals should be considered to be like the elusive bloodstone and raid loot. If you want it then you need to look for it. At the end of the day it's not like the be all and end all. The epic loot is awesome to have, so is shroud items, but there are ways of being almost effective without them.

Either way, Refuge needs a relook, the rest of it I can't complain. Hell, in pnp it took me 8months of campaigning to find one juicy item so it's not end of the world. I just think an Epic raid token should be worth more than an epic dugeon token, fix refuge, give people more loot options. And they heading that way, in another 4 years we'll probably have so many unique item choices it won't be a case of looking for that one ring or that one shield. We used to only get toughness on Minos, now I can get it on other items....less tapestry running more epic running. See what I'm saying?

[Kriogen]

If you want casual/normal/hard, DDO is not a grind.

If you want elite/raid/epic and cool toys, DDO is huge grind.

"Flagging" for <insert quest> should be removed. Just that, removed. Specificaly that "get 20 tokens to enter" or "get item or fail" ****.

Other things? If I can do stuff on normal, maybe hard, i'm OK. If I have to do extra for elite/epic, it's also 'legit'.

[Eladiun]

/signed more content less grind

[Beherit_Baphomar]

Any MMO requires grinding, without it your playerbase would wither and dry up.

It's how you impliment that grind that matters.

GH, for example, isn't a grind. I've ran I don't know how many characters through those quests countless times. And the next character I create I'll still enjoy it.

The Vale, again not a grind IMO. After multiple characters and items created I still enjoy the quests.

SoS. I like the quests, but with no progression toward what I want/need this goes in the grind category.

Necro. Again, I like these quests and I can see an end in sight, so no grind.

Amrath/TOD. Too little progression (read **** poor boot ing/ring drop rate) this goes in the grind category.

So the game is both grindy and non-grindy IMO. I don't mind farming an item, I do mind seeing no progression toward that item.

[Raiderone]

It is definitely a Grind. And has always been a grind game. It's just gotten worse with the addition of Reaver Refuge, Amrath and Epic.

I think Reaver Refuge is the worst of all Grinds. It's all about blind luck. I even complete more than one item per toon. So times that by 8 or 9 toons.

No wonder I'm thinking of deleting toons or just leave them in the Abyss...

Sometimes I choose not to Grind...hence running different toons.

Oh! And TR is the biggest grind due to the lack of additional levels to keep us preoccupied until DDO figures out it's future...Epic Levels?? Atari??

[Tumarek]

It is definitely a Grind. And has always been a grind game. It's just gotten worse with the addition of Reaver Refuge, Amrath and Epic.

I think Reaver Refuge is the worst of all Grinds. It's all about blind luck. I even complete more than one item per toon. So times that by 8 or 9 toons.

No wonder I'm thinking of deleting toons or just leave them in the Abyss...

Sometimes I choose not to Grind...hence running different toons.

Oh! And TR is the biggest grind due to the lack of additional levels to keep us preoccupied until DDO figures out it's future...Epic Levels?? Atari??

Well i would consider a game to be a grind if you are forced to grind just to play it. In DDO you can do all content and get to level 20 without grinding, excluding epic. Grind in this game is still optional and so far they have kept it this way.

[Josh]

Yes, and it has been since day one.

[ArichValtrahn]

I find it amazing this question is even being asked. The Favor/TP system for F2P is grind city. For high levels, Greensteel, DT crafting, etc, serious grind. Reincarnate, double XP to level = more grind. Dont even mention Completionist.

[grodon9999]

There is way too much grind in this game and Turbine keeps adding grind without lowering existing grind.

[Lerincho]

Simple answer, it's the ultmiate grind. Saddly just recently even heard a WoW player state that it was too much grind for them compared to WoW.

This from a game that on the original box stated All the MMO without the grind. Oooops