GRIND GRIND GRIND GRIND GRIND. Why?

[Exion_Blade]

.....S...I...G...H.....

There has to be something better than this. The virtue grind is seriously getting out of hand and is one of the BIGGEST reasons i haven't come out to play much lately.
Why are virtues designed to be so hard to obtain? The store is NOT, and will NEVER BE a valid excuse for why something is difficult to obtain. Virtues should be no different than Class points to get as they are more or less essential for anyone wishing to customize and build their class.
So why is it we have to go through the same amount of time very time we have a new character. We experience NOTHING new and just end up being bored to ever living death by it.
There MUST be a way to alleviate this (no the store is NOT an option, period).

- How about reducing the amount of "things" needed to complete a deed? Less quests for area quest deeds, less kills for slayer, or even less locations to discover? Tie location deeds that go effortlessly with the questing? (i know this is done better in newer areas but its still so horrible in older ones)

- How about increasing the virtue amount gained? Instead of just 1 virtue each, give more 2 or 3 virtue completions? Less time grinding, more time playing.

- How about more class/race specific deeds to spice things up? (recommended but less so. As grind is not, and will NEVER BE, fun. EVER)

Or how about a way to track deeds unlocked Account-wide?
Be it either:
A) Unlocking the virtue for all chars on that account (for at least that server)
and/or
B) Halving the amount "things" needed to advance the deed(s) on subsequent characters.

SOMETHING. We have far too much grind as it is. And I don't have the time to do it over and over and over.

tl;dr: game experience ruined by unnecessary grind, fix it plz

[Lilka]

The virtue grind is seriously getting out of hand and is one of the BIGGEST reasons i haven't come out to play much lately.

Why are virtues designed to be so hard to obtain?

This wasn't always the case. Players would often complete seemingly impossible Angmar deeds (hundreds and hundreds of Uruks) doing Carn Dum runs, and Moria spiders was a whole lot less daunting when you were running Skumfil a few times a week with a kin or pug. Other deeds were completed with ease because you spent a reasonable amount of time, a good few levels, in an area, for a number of reasons - seeking legendary pages, seeking rep, mining nodes for desired craft items, seeking a drop. Those reasons aren't so important anymore.

One thing I'm noticing with my Beorning is that without those regular runs, deeds are a lot harder. Also, we're rushed in and out of an area so quickly there's no chance of getting 350 wolves just via questing or walking around. Example, 'spiders in the Lonelands' I recall as being quite an easy one, you'd usually have to go out specially just to finish it off. My char barely managed 15 spiders while doing the Amon Ros quests! Maybe there are fewer spiders? Still -it's going to be a slog now.

- How about reducing the amount of "things" needed to complete a deed?

I agree. Asking a newbie player who's going to spend barely a day in a zone to kill 350, 450, 550 of X is crazy now. It's not like before, when you'd easily get the first tier done in your everyday questing time, and maybe put some effort into the latter tier - a chunk of which would have been filled by a fellowship quest or two. In the old days you'd easily complete 60 quests in [Zone], because you HAD to complete the zone to be strong enough for the next. Now, with 2-3 zones suitable for you at any level, you feel the need to rush off before the next zone's quests start to go blue, then grey. I have to do 30 more quests in Angmar - but if I do that, I'll ruin Forochel (my favourite.) So I'm not likely to get that deed done on-level.

Discovery deeds can be untouched, though. There's no harm in asking people to visit the world, and they're done very quickly.

[Freawaru]

.....S...I...G...H.....

There has to be something better than this. The virtue grind is seriously getting out of hand and is one of the BIGGEST reasons i haven't come out to play much lately.
Why are virtues designed to be so hard to obtain? The store is NOT, and will NEVER BE a valid excuse for why something is difficult to obtain. Virtues should be no different than Class points to get as they are more or less essential for anyone wishing to customize and build their class.
So why is it we have to go through the same amount of time very time we have a new character. We experience NOTHING new and just end up being bored to ever living death by it.
There MUST be a way to alleviate this (no the store is NOT an option, period).

- How about reducing the amount of "things" needed to complete a deed? Less quests for area quest deeds, less kills for slayer, or even less locations to discover? Tie location deeds that go effortlessly with the questing? (i know this is done better in newer areas but its still so horrible in older ones)

- How about increasing the virtue amount gained? Instead of just 1 virtue each, give more 2 or 3 virtue completions? Less time grinding, more time playing.

- How about more class/race specific deeds to spice things up? (recommended but less so. As grind is not, and will NEVER BE, fun. EVER)

Or how about a way to track deeds unlocked Account-wide?
Be it either:
A) Unlocking the virtue for all chars on that account (for at least that server)
and/or
B) Halving the amount "things" needed to advance the deed(s) on subsequent characters.

SOMETHING. We have far too much grind as it is. And I don't have the time to do it over and over and over.

tl;dr: game experience ruined by unnecessary grind, fix it plz

Just out of curiosity, is the character for whom you are grinding virtues at or near level cap? I never much saw the point in grinding virtues for low-level alts... The game is easy enough right now as it is to breeze through the content without ever touching virtues, or only using the virtues you acquire through normal questing. Heck, it's not even necessary at end-game anymore to have maxed out virtues (unless you're playing in the Moors, of course).

It's only a grind if you're a completionist or a PVPer, IMO.

[Exion_Blade]

Just out of curiosity, is the character for whom you are grinding virtues at or near level cap? I never much saw the point in grinding virtues for low-level alts... The game is easy enough right now as it is to breeze through the content without ever touching virtues, or only using the virtues you acquire through normal questing. Heck, it's not even necessary at end-game anymore to have maxed out virtues (unless you're playing in the Moors, of course).

It's only a grind if you're a completionist or a PVPer, IMO.

it's a lvl 60 character (hence the moria part)
I already have 3 lvl 100 toons with all capped virtues.
I just suddenly burned out while realizing i needed to grind virtue deeds

[Giliodor]

I think a grind is part of an MMO. I don't think the virtue deeds should be changed, they should just be account-wide (server-wide at least).
If you want the best for your character, you have to grind. I'm personally not a fan, either, but I still think it should stay like this. Especially because it discourages powerleveling.

Make virtue tomes drop from BB/Lootboxes, though.

[Cirgellon]

The virtue grind is better than most. At least you only have to do it once and you keep your progress forever, unlike grinds for LIs and other gear. It also takes me less time. I've maxed virtues on alts within a week.

[Frisco]

It's a grind because the game needs time sinks. If you don't want to do it, don't do it. It's a video game, not life or death.

[Freawaru]

it's a lvl 60 character (hence the moria part)
I already have 3 lvl 100 toons with all capped virtues.
I just suddenly burned out while realizing i needed to grind virtue deeds

Yeah, I saw the Moria deed in your original post. Level 60 isn't really what I'd call "near level cap" though.

Again, do you need to grind out virtue deeds, or do you just want to? Does the level of difficulty in the content really call for capped virtues, these days? I certainly don't need that maxed out Zeal in BBs, nor do I need it in skirmish raids...

[Exion_Blade]

I think a grind is part of an MMO.

No, it isnt. It's a sorry excuse for a developer to say "hey, here's content guys" where there is none. I.E. Time waster.

I don't think the virtue deeds should be changed, they should just be account-wide (server-wide at least).

While i disagree that they should be left as they are, hence the thread topic, i do agree, and have listed, the idea for making virtue gains account-wide.

If you want the best for your character, you have to grind.

Completely disagree. This is a sad MMO trend that we have been told to believe. While it is a reality, atm for many games, it is still a very bad way to make a game.

I'm personally not a fan, either, but I still think it should stay like this. Especially because it discourages powerleveling.

Extremely poor reason to say "hey grind is gud guys". There is nothing wrong with a person who wishes to skip over content they have already done and have no wish in seeing again.

Make virtue tomes drop from BB/Lootboxes, though.

This idea i actually very much like. Also add them to loot tables or world drops.

Just out of curiosity, is the character for whom you are grinding virtues at or near level cap?

it's a lvl 60 character (hence the moria part)

Yeah, I saw the Moria deed in your original post. Level 60 isn't really what I'd call "near level cap" though.

Why should that matter? I wish to do BB's on this character. Cant due to low virtues and terrible scaling, I wish to do a lil moorsing, again, still cant. I wish to do DN/watcher on level. Cant, virtues bad. Must grind.

[Exion_Blade]

So out of curiosity, and be realistic, how many of you LIKE the virtue grind?
How many of you DISLIKE it.
Why? Give some reasons.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

You are playing an MMORPG. One of the core features of a MMORPG is a leisure activity that consumes a massive of your time via repeatable activities. There lots of these repeatable activities. Deeds are one of them. Other games call Deeds - Achievements.

I believe Swtor has kill Achievements that require that you slay 5,000 opponents on a single world (region for us). Some of the Swtor Achievements can only be advanced by buying stuff from the Cartel Market. You can't earn Cartel Coins to spend the Cartel Market by playing Swtor beyond a very limited amount. You got to buy Cartel Coins with dollars. Swtor solves one of your issues by making Achievements account wide. Swtor magnifies one of your concerns locking some of the Achievements behind a Pay Wall.

You going to find this deed -achievement - grind - spend dollars problem in all these games. In the case of Lotro you have to decide which Deeds you want to complete by repetitive actions so that you can get your reward. Or you can choose to get the reward via Dollar payment. Or you can do without.

In your case, you have the Virtue wheel displayed. Most virtues provide so little benefit that there is no point in doing the associated deeds. I have not gone out and done a deed to improve a slotted virtue on one of my characters in years. A lot of the virtues offer very small improvements in a main stat like Agility. This virtues are not worth anything.

To me it is Virtues like Charity and Innocence that are valuable.

One other thing to remember. You can wait to level 100 to get a decent numeric value for your slotted Virtues. It does not take long to kill 90 Sickle Flies in Bree Land when you are level 100.

[Giliodor]

So out of curiosity, and be realistic, how many of you LIKE the virtue grind?
How many of you DISLIKE it.
Why? Give some reasons.

I like it, sometimes. That's because it's something entirely different than the usual (for me) and rather stressful PvP. It's a good opportunity to take it easy and relax a bit.

[Mar-Evayave]

There are some deeds I do feel are ridiculously high. For example, 300 grims in Forochel. There's maybe 12-15 grims on the entire landscape at a given time, and a good number of them can spawn anywhere (very few locations that always have grims, and those locations spawn only a handful each). Worst. Deed. In. The. Game.

I do think problematic deeds should either have the mob density increased or the amount needed decreased. With the grims, even using an accelerator, most of the time is spent running from one spot to another or waiting for mobs to spawn. A lot of time wasted, in other words.

[Freawaru]

So out of curiosity, and be realistic, how many of you LIKE the virtue grind?
How many of you DISLIKE it.
Why? Give some reasons.

It doesn't bother me because I don't need to grind for virtues. <shrug> Did it bother me back in the day when it was necessary to grind for virtues? Yeah, a little (and mostly because I did my virtue grinding pre-LOTRO store and deed accelerators). Now, though? Not a problem for me. At most, I'll get my primary virtues up to 9-10ish for my alts that do more than BBs and the occasional skirmish raid/T1 instance, but that's it. My main has capped virtues because she's my main, and she's the character I played back when virtues mattered more than they do now. I don't play in the Moors anymore, and didn't play that much when I did, so that extra sliver of morale/mitigation/etc I get by maxing out my virtues means diddly squat to me.

Edited to add:

Most virtues provide so little benefit that there is no point in doing the associated deeds. I have not gone out and done a deed to improve a slotted virtue on one of my characters in years. A lot of the virtues offer very small improvements in a main stat like Agility. This virtues are not worth anything.

This. All of this. The only reason to cap out virtues now is to give yourself a very small advantage in PVP. And by very small, I mean very small. It's not really going to make much of a difference. Honestly, the only reason why I may ever think of grinding deeds these days is to get some free Turbine points. Otherwise, the advantages I get from deeding during actual gameplay are so small as to be insignificant.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

So out of curiosity, and be realistic, how many of you LIKE the virtue grind?

It does not bother me. All these games have grind features. Many stations with a lever you has to push multiple times to get your reward.

Virtue deeds are one variation of improving your character's innate abilities. Other examples would be leveling your character. Leveling your war steed. Adding to your faction reputation. Class deeds. Racial Deeds. Maxing your crafting skill....

The other big one is improving your gear. For us we have getting first age level capped legendary items. Tuning the legacies and tiers. Getting armor with sockets. Creating the high end essences ...

Some content is really not doable with non level capped characters because character scaling does not help much. If you are trying to do Big Battles and the Moors with a non level capped character. You are doomed. Max your virtues is not going to help. Maybe you will last 2 seconds longer.

I've done Big Battles with non level capped characters. It has value in earning experience points. Getting Promotion Points. Doing a really good job. Pah.

[Exion_Blade]

I believe Swtor has kill Achievements that require that you slay 5,000 opponents on a single world (region for us). Some of the Swtor Achievements can only be advanced by buying stuff from the Cartel Market. You can't earn Cartel Coins to spend the Cartel Market by playing Swtor beyond a very limited amount. You got to buy Cartel Coins with dollars. Swtor solves one of your issues by making Achievements account wide. Swtor magnifies one of your concerns locking some of the Achievements behind a Pay Wall.

You going to find this deed -achievement - grind - spend dollars problem in all these games. In the case of Lotro you have to decide which Deeds you want to complete by repetitive actions so that you can get your reward. Or you can choose to get the reward via Dollar payment. Or you can do without.

You seem to completely misinterpret what i am pointing to. My direct concern is VIRTUES, not DEEDS in general. Virtues have a DIRECT gameplay impact. Do these swtor "achievements" you mention have the same?
And yes, account-wide is good, in fact having heard SWTOR has them account-wide is one of the reasons i listed it as such.

In your case, you have the Virtue wheel displayed. Most virtues provide so little benefit that there is no point in doing the associated deeds. A lot of the virtues offer very small improvements in a main stat like Agility. This virtues are not worth anything.

um....

While i agree that the might/agil/will/fate/vit contributing virtues arent that great, we all know that those arent what the majority of people use.(see below) And even then, why should i still be limited in my customization by a massive grind wall?

To me it is Virtues like Charity and Innocence that are valuable.

Yup

I have not gone out and done a deed to improve a slotted virtue on one of my characters in years.

It doesn't bother me because I don't need to grind for virtues.

That is great for you that you find no need for virtues. It means the problem i, and others, are having isnt plaguing you.
It's like going onto the PvMP forum and saying "idc, i dont pvp".

One other thing to remember. You can wait to level 100 to get a decent numeric value for your slotted Virtues. It does not take long to kill 90 Sickle Flies in Bree Land when you are level 100.

What? Yes it does. For 1) They are very spread out, 2) you usually arent the only one doing it (worse on more populated servers), 3) you cannot see them on the mini map when you are above level, and 4) its significantly harder for melee classes to do. So kiss it goodbye if you cant have your draw distance very high (or just never knew about the option), or someone else is in the area killing them, and you cant find that person.

[Vulcwen]

One thing to note is that reducing virtue grind doesn't have to mean to make the deeds easier. Another option that hasn't been mentioned is to award virtues on the basic deed, rather than the advanced one. That would cut the kill requirement by 66%, while still keeping the advanced deeds for another purpose (perhaps let those grant gear (deed-level), cosmetics, housing items, emotes, or whatever).

Anyway, I don't find slayer deeds the worst kind.. It are the quest deeds in certain (mostly low-level) regions that just make me give up when I barely started (I can't stand the shire for example). Slayer deeds do get a pain when the mobs to kill have a stupid low respawn rate.

[Exion_Blade]

One thing to note is that reducing virtue grind doesn't have to mean to make the deeds easier. Another option that hasn't been mentioned is to award virtues on the basic deed, rather than the advanced one. That would cut the kill requirement by 66%, while still keeping the advanced deeds for another purpose (perhaps let those grant gear (deed-level), cosmetics, housing items, emotes, or whatever).

Anyway, I don't find slayer deeds the worst kind.. It are the quest deeds in certain (mostly low-level) regions that just make me give up when I barely started (I can't stand the shire for example). Slayer deeds do get a pain when the mobs to kill have a stupid low respawn rate.

I dont mind, at all, keeping it the way it is for first character go-throughs. But to do it on multiple chars just makes a person want to quit the game. I dont see why they cant make it easier on us altoholics who have already payed the piper once, or even multiple times.

[Lilka]

So out of curiosity, and be realistic, how many of you LIKE the virtue grind?
How many of you DISLIKE it.
Why? Give some reasons.

I like it to an extent. I liked how having a straight flush of maxed virtues made my character/me look like I'd worked hard for my results, even if 'worked hard' meant 'clicked a mouse a lot'. It shows you've put some effort in and, to a raid leader, gives the impression you know what you're doing.

I feel that now we don't have group content to aid the deeds, nor long periods of time finishing every last little quests or doing a craft run in a zone, theyre are excessive, the amounts set at 2010 levels when it was a very different game.

That said, I don't stress it. If I don't want to do virtues, I just don't. My minstrel has 14s and 15s, and I don't group anymore, so it doesn't matter.

[Mar-Evayave]

What? Yes it does. For 1) They are very spread out, 2) you usually arent the only one doing it (worse on more populated servers), 3) you cannot see them on the mini map when you are above level, and 4) its significantly harder for melee classes to do. So kiss it goodbye if you cant have your draw distance very high (or just never knew about the option), or someone else is in the area killing them, and you cant find that person.

What Yula means is it doesn't take nearly as long as it would take if you went there on-level. At level 100, you are 1-shotting everything in the Shire. At level 10-15... not so much.

[Exion_Blade]

I liked how having a straight flush of maxed virtues made my character/me look like I'd worked hard for my results, even if 'worked hard' meant 'clicked a mouse a lot'. It shows you've put some effort in and, to a raid leader, gives the impression you know what you're doing.

While i dont at all disagree with this point, it just gets old after a few characters. Sometimes you dont want to do the same grindy deed 5 times in a row. The first time isnt that bad, but it was bad enough.

I like it to an extent....and I don't group anymore, so it doesn't matter.

I'm seeing this alot. "It's fine cause i dont have to, or want to, do it."

What Yula means is it doesn't take nearly as long as it would take if you went there on-level. At level 100, you are 1-shotting everything in the Shire. At level 10-15... not so much.

The shire is not the only deeding place. Just because i can "one shot" everything doesn't change the fact i have to kill THOUSANDS of NPC's for my deeds. That's THOUSANDS per character.

[Freawaru]

I'm seeing this alot. "It's fine cause i dont have to, or want to, do it."

The reason why I'm personally having a hard time understanding why you're so frustrated with virtues essentially comes down to this: is it necessary to grind out more than one or two virtues to cap in the game as it currently stands? The only virtue that seems worth having to me right now is Zeal for its raw morale. But even then...



One piece of armour that took almost no time to acquire has almost twice the amount of morale, and a whole slew of other stuff I like besides. Why would bother wasting money and time grinding out Zeal to cap again on another character now that essences exist in the game? That's not even touching the gold jewellery that's fairly easy to acquire now, thanks to the BB merit system. And when it really comes down to it... will 400-500 points of morale truly make that much of a difference in the end, based on the current difficulty of content? You mentioned on-level DN/Watcher earlier... If you think it's going to make THAT much of a difference, perhaps instead of grinding out your virtues to current cap (which wouldn't be at all necessary), you could spend a little bit of time getting one or two existing go-to virtues like Zeal up to 9 or 10 by doing trivial slayer deeds and quests in low level areas? A temporary annoyance, for sure, but not nearly as bad as trying to grind it all out in one go.

Again, I'm just finding it difficult to understand why it's such a huge source of frustration when content is getting easier and easier to complete with just about every update. I could understand if the benefits you get from virtues were huge and if your gameplay would be seriously impacted without capped virtues, but the reality is that the game simply isn't anywhere near as difficult as it was a few years ago.

[Snowlock]

While I agree with you OP, that it's rough; there are other avenues to gain virtues that don't have as much grind, like completing quests and stuff in instances. I think Turbine has bigger fish to fry than this, imo.

[tamlong]

You are playing an MMORPG. One of the core features of a MMORPG is a leisure activity that consumes a massive of your time via repeatable activities. There lots of these repeatable activities. Deeds are one of them. Other games call Deeds - Achievements.

And that there is the problem. If developers of MMORPG's would think outside the box and realise that most players want to enjoy the game without grinding repeated activities over and over and over again each time they want to enjoy a new class, then perhaps the number of players would increase tenfold. The 'you are playing a MMORPG' argument so just accept everything without any complaint is an argument as tired as it is invalid.

[Exion_Blade]

The reason why I'm personally having a hard time understanding why you're so frustrated with virtues essentially comes down to this: is it necessary to grind out more than one or two virtues to cap in the game as it currently stands? The only virtue that seems worth having to me right now is Zeal for its raw morale.

Why would bother wasting money and time grinding out Zeal to cap again on another character now that essences exist in the game? That's not even touching the gold jewellery that's fairly easy to acquire now, thanks to the BB merit system. And when it really comes down to it... will 400-500 points of morale truly make that much of a difference in the end, based on the current difficulty of content? You mentioned on-level DN/Watcher earlier... If you think it's going to make THAT much of a difference, perhaps instead of grinding out your virtues to current cap (which wouldn't be at all necessary), you could spend a little bit of time getting one or two existing go-to virtues like Zeal up to 9 or 10 by doing trivial slayer deeds and quests in low level areas? A temporary annoyance, for sure, but not nearly as bad as trying to grind it all out in one go.

Again, I'm just finding it difficult to understand why it's such a huge source of frustration when content is getting easier and easier to complete with just about every update. I could understand if the benefits you get from virtues were huge and if your gameplay would be seriously impacted without capped virtues, but the reality is that the game simply isn't anywhere near as difficult as it was a few years ago.

Glad we can agree on one thing: The grind itself is nonsensical for something so trivial. Simply lowering it would make more sense and solve quite a bit of gripe from those who still have yet to grind out these deeds.
No-brainer.

I think Turbine has bigger fish to fry than this, imo.

While you are correct, i offer food for thought: this issue is PART of a bigger fish to fry.