Grindiversary

We grind deeds & virtues; we grind for reputation; we grind dungeons for gear; we grind for relics...and now, we grind for anniversary tokens.

Yes, you heard that right. It's the 4th anniversary of LoTRO's release, and, rather than giving us a fun, light enjoyable event - they give us another grind.

Now, I don't really want to make this blog into a negative place: I love the game, mostly because of the landscapes and well-thought-out stories. But lately I have to wonder if Turbine is actually listening to their users. And the chorus of angry voices is getting louder, it seems.

In the past, there was the end-game radiance and Legendary Item grind. The radiance grind was compounded by the confusing number of sets, and the fact that it was a ladder: you had to grind several instances to get a basic radiance set and unlock a second set of instances, which you then repeated to get a second radiance set and unlock yet another group of instances...

The Legendary Item was not so much a grind as it was a lottery. You rolled the dice and prayed you'd get the legacies you wanted on your item, only to fail and deconstruct it for relics. After deconning literally hundreds of items, you might get the one thing you want.

With Echoes of the Dead, grinding was taken to new heights. The Devs increased the number of tokens required to purchase an item (200-300 tokens), but designed it so that the instances do not drop many tokens. I ran the North Cotton Farm instance once, and got a whole 10 tokens (and most of those were for completing a side quest). The psychological factor comes into play: you see a long road ahead of you and just cannot help but sigh, and might decide that the journey is not worth it. I've pretty much done that with end-game gear; I simply don't like endlessly repeating the same ol' thing (that's also why I'm not crazy about skirmishes).

One of the Turbine folks had the audacity to say that they wanted everyone to enjoy the anniversary event - but grinding out 2 tokens from once-daily races and then repeating a melee event every 10 minutes is hardly enjoyable. I really like the offerings, but trying to get the 250+ tokens seems nigh on impossible. I'll probably get the 30 for the horse and be done with it.

BTW, the title of this post is not mine...it was coined on the official LoTRO forums.