Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

If you don't like to grind, DON'T!

Adam triggered this post, but it's been around since my WoW times. Actually my whole business idea was made around "the devil may grind". I always looked down on those who kill mobs for pitiful amounts, EVE ratters being the most pathetic of all with their 100M/hour while I made 2000 in complete safety.

But in some games you "must" grind and Adam thinks BDO is such. It's not. I haven't killed any mob besides Red Nose and Muskan in the last week. I also just downsized my daily questing by removing all normal dailies (that only give energy and contribution) and the Velia cooking dailies, leaving only Olvia alchemy and Olvia cooking. They are super fast and my alchemy isn't Artisan. But instead of bragging let me tell how not to grind:
  • Identify what kind of endgame you want to do and evaluate every character progression way accordingly. If something doesn't help that progression, don't grind it! For example I'm planning to participate in node wars (assuming stuff), so PvP power of my character is important for me. But instead of believing "u must be geared" (meaning Best in Slot items everywhere in the jargon of mindless grinders), I went to Red Battlefield and found that I'm pretty competitive on lvl 52 with green gear. Unless Red Nose throws his armor on me, my armor stays green 2xHeve + 2x Steel Taritas. The only thing I'll replace is my Yuria Blade for increased accuracy Liverto. On the other hand I really wanted Ultimate: Divine Power, so I bit the bullet and grinded the damn Elrics. (It just get buffed, I don't know why) After I hit 54, I didn't see a single one of them.
  • Check if the grind actually gives anything meaningful. Cooking is my main skill, I make over 1000 beers a day, so its energy efficiency and multiples are important for me. Hence I started the cooking dailies. Now I've found that a full round of Velia dailies give me 1% increase towards Artisan 9, so I'll have to do them 5 months before hitting Master level. Screw that! I'll keep slowly leveling on beer, Sute Tea and such and the much faster Olvia dailies.
  • "Catchup mechanisms" (blatant nerfs to cater to M&S) are implemented in every game and now BDO got hit hard: processing won't consume energy, making energy itself is a pretty useless mechanic (unless they plan to make sub-node investments do something). Those who farmed knowledges to increase their max energy are now out of luck. The more one farmed, the more he lost. Another good reason to never grind more than absolutely necessary. Same for the "infinite mastery" skills that rewarded reaching levels over 55 now handed out over 50. Despite I condemn all nerfs, I wish to be a fly on the wall when Mr lvl 58+ reads this. Because of this...
  • Check yourself against other players. BDO have direct rankings. If you are above average in X, you have little to fear as those below you will whine first if low X is a problem and X will get a nerf. My Wealth level is in the A grade, meaning that if money will be a problem for me, it'll be a huge problem for the 80% below me. My Cooking rank shows that Velia dailies were not "absolutely necessary":
If you keep these in mind, you'll resist the evil sirenes singing "u need 2 make effort". Actually, they aren't evil. They are dumb and strongly believe in their dumb idea that "u need moar [whatever]". They will be quite unpleasantly surprised if the node wars turn out to be any competitive.

Seriously, don't be this guy!

PS: me not grinding levels isn't entirely true. My main didn't. But - expecting increased weight capacity - I gave my 300 APDP gear to my lvl 26 alt and went to Monastery and oneshotted everything except violents who died in a Spear-SoJ1-2-3. Went to Bandits: I couldn't pull them fast enough. Went to Khruto Cave: too low accuracy to hit them, but they couldn't hit me either. XP came in ridiculous amounts, levelups in 20 minutes. This was a valuable test for my leveling guide, but gave too little weight capacity to be any rewarding, so I stopped leveling my alts, except the smallest one who went from 11 to 17.

PS2: Don't buy Gillie suit, they just nerf it into pointless vanity. A pretty expensive one I add, I really hope there will be a refund, even if just for pearls.

13 comments:

Destabilizator said...

Please explain why do you want to "upgrade" (it's not) Yuria to Krea? Basically any weapon which doesn't get accuracy scaling per enchant level is useless. You'll not hit anything.

Gevlon said...

Krea:
Enhancement effects: "Increased AP, Accuracy"
Set effects "+ 5 Accuracy"
Yuria:
Item effects: "Additional damage to humans +5"
Enhancement effects: "AP, Accuracy, Additional damage to humans"

I don't see your problem (unless the tooltip is wrong and "everyone" knows that Krea don't give accuracy".

Krea also has 2 slots, Yuria 1 so that's +2 damage reduction.

Destabilizator said...

I see you are a virgin to BDO hidden stats, they are not only hidden, but their values also vary. Krea does give accuracy, but not as much per enchant level as none <<< Krea < Yuria < Liverto <= Kzarka. You can find relevant tests on reddit. Another problem is Krea OH, which doesn't have any accuracy, unless you also gimp your weapon for the set bonus, which doesn't cover it.

Human Damage != flat AP, > is correct (it actually was so OP - ignored defenses directly, that they had to nerf it, but it's still quite some better than AP).

Tithian said...

The sad part is that leveling in the Korean version is much faster, but the XP required got bumped up for the Western release because people complained that it was 'way too fast'... based on their experience at levels 40-50. It's one of those 'be careful what you wish for' situations.

When awakenings get released, they will be gated behind level 55, but hopefully they will ease the XP requirements a little bit by pushing the soft cap to level 60.

Gevlon said...

Damn. It seems I'll have to buy that Liverto. Anyway, with memory fragment nerf it won't be a problem.

Destabilizator said...

@Gevlon yah, and with the AH reservation system, it should be somewhat easier. Although, when I was enchanting Liverto, the fragments were 200k a pop, so the "nerf" now is more of inflation coverage.

Gevlon said...

It's a nerf. 200K back then worth much more than today. The faucets greatly outweight the sinks, the total silver in circulation grows fast. The only reason it's not a disaster is that people stockpile to look nice on the Wealth chart.

Efraim M said...

Got any link to that Yuria vs Krea accuracy tests? I could not find anything (but I admit my google fu may be low). Unless proven otherwise, I expect the hidden accuracy enhancement to be same for both weapons.

Anonymous said...

what about contribution points? how did you get yours?
I do the calpheon daily in 10-15min every single day on an alt. but contribution is getting slow. I rushed another alt trough questchains till 51 - it gave decent contribution. But so far there is no other way than grind (daily, alt rush) to get them ..

I hate grinding and also wait till content get xp buffed and hp nerfed for efficiency.
also skillpoints I found an google doc listing all the SP quests https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sDUQwllmeeXGbJYZ1-OAVajX5YDPXxC5u7sxq2LjiiE/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=0 once you have done them other alts will fly through them getting skills and contribution points fast!
High alts have also an advantage you can park them on boss spawns and with the skillpoints they can do a bit more dmg. Gearing them is cheap too only +15 weapon and offhand plus some AP accesory and a bit of accuracy. No reason to have DP, boss mechanics oneshot anyway and you should focus on iframe skills and dodge.

Shivaro said...

Dont rush to buy liverto. In two days they release a quest for it.

Gevlon said...

Got most of my contribution points from Calpheon dailies and speed-leveling alts. I wish I didn't do Calpheon dailies and did cooking and alchemy ones instead that give contribution points too. Also I started running alts after I got to 200 CP. I leveled very inefficiently, will do an efficient guide.

I know about the Liverto Q and won't rush!

Destabilizator said...

Mediah dailies provide double the xp for Calpheon ones, usually overlaid with Hunter Seals dailies. But many of them need to be unlocked first.

Gevlon said...

@Destabilizator: in terms of contribution points, nothing beats leveling an alt with 300APDP. You can literally just spec into autoattack and kill everything with left click. What matters more: you can do that when your main is still just lvl 30+ as you can enchant whatever gear you found to +6 and - while not with autoattack - oneshot mobs with your alt.