Is DDO A Grind Game, or Not?

[Seikojin]

I was thinking about this topic a while back. I like the mechanics they have in place to hamper the grind. Nothing says stop doing this over and over like getting nothing out of it.

Given that there is a less than 1% chance to get anything you want, thousands of players flock to the quests that offer their loot.

Does having a pair of scims (or kopeshes, or whatever) really make or break the gameplay experience for me? It shouldn't, but it unfortunately does.

In order to TR you need to get epic tokens to trade in for a heart. Then you can take it and get your TR on. The problem here is that epic quests are not very easy for someone without the best gear in the game.

If you want to get the heart from the Store, you have to pay cash or earn points to buy it. Soo many points, you could start from level 1 and play to 20 and not earn enough points to buy the heart on sale.

I understand the grind very well. Do I have to participate? If I want to evolve my characters, yes. If I want to sit at 20th lvl on my first life, no.

What I do like though is all the quests they are adding. Yeah, even low level ones. Because when I do TR, having all those fresh quests to do at low level will be nice and help take some of the grind factor out of it.

Though, in my professional opinion, I do think loot needs to come down differently to help prevent grinding.

They can easilly add a ++ to the loot that is less than 1% on the tables. This can be tied to the decay timer for chest ransacking. What this would cause is during the 20 times you repeat that chest grab, the chances of each ++ loot will increase, making it liklier that it will appear in your table. If the incriment is .001%, it will yield .020% on the last roll before ransacking. If the incriment is .01%, it would add .2% increase in possible on the last chance. If we are dealing with whole numbers, then it would be 1%, giving the big, huge 20% chance bonus to drop on the last pull.

Or, there is another option.
They can make you have loot choices. They can take most chests and offer a selection of loot. Much like von6 and Invaders rewards. You get a choice for one item, or two in my mind for Greensteel comps. I mentioned this in a lag reduction thread IIRC. This would alter what loot you get to your taste. Programatically, more to do. But it would allow the players to have less of a grind and feel more reward from the work in the quest.

[Ormindo]

For long, DDO has been for me a new Eve for the MMOs. But since I'm higher-leveled, it is almost worse than other games...

[Samiusbot]

I have to ask all of you that feel the game is too grindy “Who is making you grind?"

Because I don't think Turbine is forcing you to grind something out. Or is there some mail I have not gotten yet saying that if I don't get the ideal proprieties on my DT I will be killed? Or if I just have a single shard green steel item that I will become homeless.

And I love TRing replaying my favorite guys up the cap again with all that great old gear now just sitting in my back because I am capped and it is not so hot at cap. But If it is not fun to play my level 10 TR am I forced to play him until cap? No.

So who is making your play a grind? Sure there are some design things that the Devs have built that are more time intense then others, but if you put in the time you must have felt that it was worth the time or you would have done something else, right?

Is Turbine perfect? No. But it takes two to tango. I bet grinding takes at least two also.

[KKDragonLord]

DDO is by no means the exception

The difference is, the quality of the content makes most of the game fun even if after you have already run it before.

Much of the grind is a choice for most people.

Running the same quest repeatedly to maximize XP gains while minimizing Time expenditure is a valid play style for lots of people, to these players, completing optionals, disabling traps, killing foes and breaking things is usually defined as a waste of time.

Obviously, we might change styles every now and then according to our objectives.

Optimizers want to become ever better acquiring the top notch Loot to their builds, and eventually thats where we all will end up after hitting cap.

It wouldnt be fair to consider TR as a grind by itself because, despite popular belief, acumulating XP is not the only driving goal in most players lives. It is a nice way to allow players to make their main characters marginally better while enjoying most of the great content of the low to medium level range.

Lots people has stuck with DDO for almost 4 years now and, while a great deal of players have abandoned the game and returned every now and then because of the sheer lack of content of the early years, those who remained have managed to keep themselves entertained through all these years (and changes).

The reason is because DDO is a game that inspires people to make and play several characters at once because of the sheer variety of builds and possibilities, and also because of the need of certain roles in parties, which makes people create more characters to support their guilds and friends whenever they can.

A lot has changed since Mod 9, thats for sure, and a lot of grind mechanics have been implemented well before that. with The shroud equipment and the dragontouched slotmachine system serving as relatively successful examples. Now that the game has hit the level cap Ring crafting, TR and Epic stuff are changing the balance of grind in DDO.

Considering those change to be a bad thing would be unfair, because without grind mechanics the average player would simply become bored and leave after a while. Now the game is getting richer with new quests every update (though the quality of these might be questioned) and there are new things being added, making constant changes to classes and play styles which in turn works as an incentive for veteran players to try making new characters or TRing.

I certainly have not reach my quota of DDO play, even though im not one for MMOs at all. I might come and go a lot (especially now i can just be premium forever) but i am not the kind of player that stands grinding too much, lucky for me, i can always play a different quest or a different class each time and still enjoy the game.

If my personal friends ever believed me when i tell them how good this game is and joined the game i would probably play it a lot more.

If you ever play sooo much you cant even have anymore fun anymore, try spicing things up a bit, making a static group to play every once and a while or even giving a shot at Perma Death play. I don't know much about other MMOs, but i don't care to know either as long as there are options to make DDO keep being fun.

If only it became possible to allow players to design quests (with the appropriate limitations in place for experience and Loot availability balanced with time completion). Then DDO would truly live forever.

[Arintal]

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.

Well Guild Wars ?

Top gear from start with pvp char. Or top gear in week with rpg char? And was it failure? Nope.