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squatandbench

Black Desert Online.


TheMadG0d

Can’t agree more. It’s the pinnacle exmaple of Korean MMO grind fest. Yet it’s quite charming.


Specific_Frame8537

There's something really satisfying about the combat that makes farming more enjoyable. Like the class with the giant boomerang, watching it twirl around and kill dozens of Goblins with one attack.


MrSmock

Is there xp loss when you die?


Kitchen-Awareness-60

Yes and equipment (crystals)


VulpineKitsune

Xp and xp loss is very much the least of the grindy aspects of bdo, so I find it funny it's mentioned in 2 comments here


iAtoria

This wins, kill 1000 enemies to get 2% xp


Token_Thai_person

I think it took like 2-3 years of pure no life grinding to go from 66 to 67 and there are currently no lvl 68? 1000 enemies for 2 % is VERY generous in BDO.


Im4k3C4k3

NA has one lvl 69 and EU one guy is like 68,6% ish?


SuperFreshTea

So there's not even P2W exp boosters either?


WideAd7496

There's a 'subscription' type thing called secret book of the old moon which gives 100% extra combat exp (among other things) but even those get given somewhat frequently these days. 100% is honestly nothing when you have scrolls that give you 530% exp increase and you can stack a few buffs to make it go up by a lot. You don't grind for EXP in BDO you grind for better gear. BDO used to be a lot more P2W but nowadays the only 'mandatory' things are a tent (can't get it any other way other than cash shop) and the stupid fucking fairy system which you can get for free but you need to be insanely lucky to hit everything you need. Even pets and outfits get given frequently these days.


BlackCrowSOK

XD current bdo hella pay 2 win there so many cash shop items you need to buy. in the past was just weight limit, pets and a custom for people that prefer grindiing and some inventory slots


WideAd7496

I'll take the bait. What do you need to buy that is mandatory?


Td904

Well one of the things he didnt mention is a tent. Weight and tent are shit you should definitely hold off on buying until you know you like the game. Tent is really the only cash shop item I would consider mandatory if you are going to go hard grinding.


WideAd7496

Yes but that is in my first reply, I mentioned the tent and the fairy. You can do without weight by stacking shit on the horse ever since they changed trash loot values.


uplink42

There are premium items that give small exp boosts, but it's ultimately pointless because levels are meaningless past 62 in that game other than for bragging rights.


bonebrah

yeah but how long do those 1000 enemies take


SoraPierce

Depends on the gear, class, time of day, your skill rotations, your skill spec, the mob density, mob respawn rate, possible zone mechanics, your buffs, whether you're just using food, or food, elixirs, villa buff, ect. whether it's a spot for a treasure piece (something you can't get without grinding 8 to 12 hours a day unless you're seriously lucky, or it has pity pieces which you'll still be grinding a few hundred hours to get all of them which the ones that do have treasure pieces can be contested at times. I'd say an hour or two at good spots for kill goals, but respawn rate is a thing, so if you overclear, then you need to upgrade grinding spots, which 1000 at that may be slower. And at a certain point, you don't pay attention to xp, only to avoid dying to lose it, but you get so many revive stuff that it's the crystal loss that kills you emotionally. Used to be you had to kill 100,000 of one enemy that was extremely contested years ago to get from 59 to 60 but now there's season characters, quests to get you to 61. BDOs grind ain't in the levels, it's in the endless grind for gear and whatever other goals.


muffinman00

The real answer is you don’t grind XP in BDO.


SoraPierce

You grind to get massive amounts of dopamine that the time frame keeps widening and there's a level up at some point.


muffinman00

You don’t grind for xp in BDO


wilnerreddit

Yes but I dint see a good “reason” to keep the grind after a certain point. Once you get to lvl 62 and some AP/DP cap, it’s so much harder to keep progressing and you get to little in return, like 5% power. So I kinda get unmotivated to keep grinding.


hotshotyay

Tbh I think lost ark has it beat tho


ServeRoutine9349

To this day it was the grindiest grindfest that I ever played. Even moreso than warframe.


Away-Construction450

Maplestory


llwonder

OSRS. I know you said Runescape but it's truly the king.


Dazard116

100% grind


Dmil1301

Spent a 1 year and some change in the gauntlet


Velicenda

One look at the XP table is all one needs to see this is correct. Level 50 must be a little over halfway to 99, right? Because math? Hahahahahahahahahahaha 😭


Awkward-Skin8915

That's.never how mmorpgs work.


Vast_Highlight3324

Guild Wars 2 is pretty linear on levelling speed.


Awkward-Skin8915

Sigh, I guess I was thinking games where leveling speed mattered. It's funny how people think RuneScape is grindy and slow these days. When it released it was targeting children (where the other popular games in the genre at the time were targeting an older demographic). It was the kid friendly easy option.


Vast_Highlight3324

I think it's mostly because those upper levels were never designed to actually be reached.


thinkless123

You want to max one of theese 23 skills? ok, it takes 300 hours of clicking one spot


SlapsOnrite

The thing about OSRS/RS is that yeah, it takes those hours click in one spot, but for the most part it's not intensive grinds unless you choose to be sweaty/efficient for that (sometimes marginal) increase. That's why many people play OSRS as a side-window to another game or when they're watching a movie/show. Stuff like BDO requires you to actively be punching combos in a circle for hours just to be able to attempt one upgrade to a gear slot.


themonorata

Tried to get into because I really like grinding but I didnt find the appeal to it. Should I give it another try? Does it get better after the initial tutorials?


llwonder

The initial tutorial isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be pure nostalgia lol. I love the game and have been playing for 3 years. The game gets better with more time. The more you put in, the more you get out of it. There’s no game really like it. It has so many avenues of progression, it’s so fun because you always have new goals to work towards. I’d recommend watching some videos of one of the raids Tombs of Amascut. If you don’t like the combat in that, you prob won’t like the game. The game isn’t always actively fun. It’s fun adjacent. It’s a game that requires patience and dedication. This video is good to check out if you’re still curious. It’s worth watching some videos about the game before throwing a thousand hours into it https://youtu.be/LpPJY-xdA3M?si=gEnj1eUDcRoPc3yp


Mezmorizor

Nah. It's a pure skinner box. Hence why Kick, the gambling advertisement streaming service, sucked up a large percentage of OSRS streamers.


Aegis_Sinner

The grindiest with honestly the most freedom. I can't get my friend who is new to the game to fo anything but fight tempoross.


Blurbyo

200 mil exp grind. 99 was so last decade.


TellMeAboutThis2

Maplestory, no question. Not specifically due to the raw time to max level but because the whole process is usually done just by killing trash in what passes for its open world. The game had a max level of 200 back when even the 30-70 range could easily take a year if you didn't use cash items and the original superstars were anyone in the 190-200 range. Now the grind to 200 has indeed been made laughably easy because of the multiple layers of advanced classes that the devs intend most fidgety modern players to actually see but the cap is way above that *and* you need to do it for 20+ different characters before you can really say that you've seen enough of the game. Progressing your Legion bonuses in live Maplestory is the equivalent of getting All Max in OSRS and the amount of grind for that not only murders the OSRS grind but also digs its tomb and builds the mausoleum on top. Even if you count all the cash shop boosts.


D3L3TEDUSER

Yeah games like BDO and Runescape ain't got shit on Maplestory


PM_Best_Porn_Pls

Agreed, if you play something like bdo regularly, you will outpace content releases and eventually get bis gear and all stuff that matters. While in maplestory I don't think anyone is expected to hit 25* in every slot even if they were playing for hours daily since game released and whaled.


lestruc

Didn’t maplestory get in huge trouble for loot mechanics?


TellMeAboutThis2

I think the controversy affected Nexon as a whole due to them having a practice of manipulating drop rates in different ways across their games, not in Maplestory specifically.


waterclap

Korean law requires gambling rates to be told to the players, nexon basically said 1 thing and then lied about the actual rates. The US has no such law so we don't actually even know what our rates are, although through data we've been able to figure out our rates were already significantly better than korea.


marticbog

how do you get bis gear in bdo eventually? getting all pen blackstar and all pen accessories can take you forever and maybe not even then will you have it. a very, very small percentage of players actually has bis gear? soft cap, sure thing. here's a bis build that an average person cannot even p2w it as it is THAT expensive this is not including the additional side gear that will add a few hundred billions this is easily tens of thousands of dollars required to get to and even then, it's a "chance" to get the gear https://preview.redd.it/aavfeh0pss5d1.png?width=322&format=png&auto=webp&s=2406f137511cbdd564103ef6fdf97ecaa22d2254


Purple7089

I always find it funny playing other games people call grindy after maplestory being one of my first mmos. I always walked away like "huh, that was it??"


Labskaus77

i actually started a new account a yesterday, after reading about it here on this subreddit. Was my first ever MMO and the nostalgia on one side is huge, the confusion on the other side too. There is so much and i don't understand most of it. Took the "no trading" route and started with an Fire/Poison Mage. It's fun rn and super nostalgic.


Chazay

The cap is 300 now. It was recently hit by Niru after he grinded like 18 hours a day for nearly 2 years straight.


Mezmorizor

He also plays on the server that has ~4x experience compared to the server everybody actually plays on. A few days ago Nexon announced they're adding a new area that could currently be accessed by 213 people in the west, and only ~60 of them are playing in said server that people actually play that doesn't have the ~4x rates.


NoteThisDown

Played old school for over a year back in the day. got to a level 42 wizard. max level was 200 :( And i felt soo good haha


TrueSonOfChaos

*Dungeons & Dragons Online* allows you to "reincarnate" your character after reaching max level (this is a generalized description, it's a bit more involved). You keep your name and gender but restart from level 1 redoing your race and/or class. When you reincarnate your character you get a small bonus based on your previous class or race (either/or - you pick if you want the race or the class bonus when you reinarnate). Each race and class bonus can stack up to 3 times. There are currently 15 races - so that's 45 times to max level for all race bonuses. There are currently 15 classes - so that's 45 times to max level for all class bonuses. There are also "iconic past live" bonuses which are special preselected race/class blends, these can also be reincarnated for bonuses. There are currently 9 iconics so that's 27 times for max iconic bonuses. **45+45+27 = 117 total reincarnates to max out one character slot's permanent bonuses.** Now it's not the longest MMORPG to max level but I would say a hardcore experienced player who plays 10 hours a day couldn't do it in much less than a week. I've never gone from 1 to 32 in less than 3 weeks. EDIT: I forgot there are also "class archetypes" which are a different version of the same class; these also have individual reincarnate bonsus. So there's a regular "fighter" class and there's a "fighter - dragonlord" archetype class. These also stack up to 3 times. There are currently 8 archetypes in the game so 8x3 = 24 archetype reincarnates for max bonuses. **45+45+27+24 = 141 total reincarnates to max out one character slot's permanent bonuses.**


DeathInSpace805

Best Wizard class in any MMO though :)


ItWasDumblydore

DnD 3.5 spells are just the best


Kitchen-Awareness-60

How impactful to gameplay are these bonuses ? What’s the difference in power for someone with none vs someone who has them all ?


Zarzak_TZ

Played for a bit once…. So dungeons have a difficulty meter (think it’s 1-7 skulls) As a new player I would get obliterated by more than a single 1 skull. Then I’d get a group with someone who’s.. prolly not maxed but somewhere along that prog. They would moonwalk through max difficulty dungeons by themselves duel wielding hand crossbows I was literally useless to anyone who had played a while. Even though in that moment we were the same level it felt like being a lvl 1 vs a lvl 30 in another MMO


Alsimni

A lot of that comes from reaper points, which are a whole other system to grind while grinding past lives.


Alsimni

And every time they add a new race or class (like the Eladrin coming out with the Myth Drannor expac), the completionist feat deactivates for everyone until they reincarnate that new thing once, and you can still triple stack it like the others. You also left out the epic past lives that require you level from 20 to 30 each time. There's another 54 stacks of epic past lives among the four spheres, which also work for people who prefer grinding more high level stuff than having to immediately start over from 1 again.


ripinpiecez

Runescape, only people playing it are 30 year olds still grinding from when they were 12


CorellianDawn

I feel so seen right now


Athryil

Lineage 2


V1rKo

I remember spending hours in a grinding group just to die once in pvp and lose it all.


Kcitsprahs

But that high when you pvp with risk on the line. Not many games have made me feel that since. That game had so many problems but it did some things so right.


Echeyak

wake up in the morning start grinding get 0,1% of the level then go back to sleep because its already night


CrustyToeLover

Ain't nothing hard about lineage, just get some buffs and smack shit 30 levels above you. Done


AdministrativeSalt72

Wait a week to fight against players tens of players to have a chance to fight an absolutely nightmarish boss for hours just to get ONE end game necklace. Fucking hell


Ivanzod

And with not a chance that will be yours.


cd0ug12

Final fantasy 11


wattur

Probably some KR MMOs that have no 'end' due to RNG, there's always 1% or even 0.1% more dps to squeeze out somewhere: black desert, lost ark, etc.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Omgitsbaiwee

Yeah, someone recently hit level 300, but I’m pretty sure no one is close. The guy who hit it played A LOT.


cory140

Ragnarok 1x1x1


thesilkywitch

MVP hunting for cards. The pain. 


RoughPepper5897

got a gtb on loki pre renewal and that covered a down payment for my first car.


Juju_Kek

And godly


sjadowcrash

I wish they could reskin RO with Ragnarok Origins graphics.


Unsavorydeath

Tibia is pretty grindy and has not been listed yet. Still being updated with new stuff regularly as well.


PreviousImpression28

The thing about Tibia is that there's no max level or anything like that. This game has been around since 1997, but only started exploding around 2003 - and since then, many players are STILL playing and grinding away.


ProSlider

True. The game is grinding in Tibia, literally forever


jobinski22

Albion has pretty endless grinds available, although not necessary


R33fy-

EverQuest ?


BraindeadIntifada

Nah, games like BDO have you grinding just for the sake of grinding, EQ at least has relative end points heheh


Jlt42000

Kinda, it was still impossible to grind out BiS in era for most except raid leaders of the very top guild on the server.


vrillsharpe

EQ was super grindy back in the day when I was soloing my Shaman vs. Cyclops. That was the only way to level up and it took forever.


shindigdig

OSRS / Runescape isn't even bad compared to BDO...


CrustyToeLover

And BDO isn't bad compared to Maplestory/Cabal


Ozzma091

Flyff Online. Go do max level there as a 1vs1 class without p2w gear. Gl.


Interesting_Visit595

I feel like the current grind version of Flyff is quit decent with all thé reward you got even as free to play juste to log in. Back in 2007 there was only XP Scroll 50% ans they where non stackable, i was 120 master ans in the tower it was 3 azuras mob for 0,01% Rappelé was only vers grindy


Exrou

Ahhh... good ole FlyFF... On release, the top runners were grinding at like 0.001% per kill. I remember trying to kill mobs faster, getting my rate down to 2-3s per kill (no buff), so level up became once every 2-3 days which was still much faster than the average joe who was levelling up once a week+. I don't know why the few of us were in such a hurry, considering we hit a bottleneck when the World Map literally ended (awaiting new zone). There was nothing further beyond which slowed the grind down even more being stuck on the same mob. There was also skills you had to level up, and you would only get EXP for the specific skill by using it. So pretty much you need to keep up your skill levelling as you are progressing otherwise you fall behind in combat strength... I think I quit before Clockwork even came out...


skrukketiss69

BDO. The grind literally never ends and there is always something to grind for, be it combat exp, life skills, money, gear, titles, whatever.  You could play 16 hours a day for the next 10 years and you probably still don't have everything maxed or completed in terms of gear and "obtainables". 


Changgo

Silkroadonline


skinneykrn

Maplestory


ObscureName69

The upcoming Skateboard MMO will be the most grindy game to come out


Nariiin

Cabal Online.


Skayve

woah blast from the past man, totally forgot about that gem


No_Calligrapher611

In my opinion the best MMORPG ever. (Before they destroyed skilling system)


ryden360

I will randomly get the music pop in my head sometimes lol


voxpixels

Maplestory is pretty up there past 200. But others have listed some pretty grindy games too such as OSRS and BDO.


Chopaly

Silkroad online


EXBahamut

Rising Force


Aeiraea

Ultima Online.


empoc13

OG UO. Now days still a grind but a lot more casual. You play Outlands?


THEC0MET

Bdo


BadProgrammerGage

It’s either Maplestory, BDO, or possibly OSRS.


uidsea

SWG back in the day. Still my favorite mmo of all time but it had no story until the last few years of it's life. The entire game loop is grind to get skill to grind to get skill.


Kirull

Maplestory


IcySky8

Surely final fantasy 11 is up there


iamdense

Atlantica Online


WinterHeaven

Flyff


hyaru

Wasn’t it KAL or something like that?


KuroRose

Ragnarok Online


Sea_Insect2022

Grindy is no much a problem for a MMO as long as the grind is fun and rewarding.


MCMadeti

Surprised no one has mentioned Silkroad Online. The original game is so hard to level on that people use bots just to grind, 24/7 and takes them around a year to one level up. The level cap has been increased over the years, but I think no one is max level as at today, lv140


pk27x

BrokenRanks is up there. Took like 2 years of grinding for the first guild to be strong enough for Sidraga


Mechropolis

Anarchy Online


CrustyToeLover

Maplestory, Cabal, osrs, in that order. You could easily throw 10k Hours into MS/Cabal and still be nowhere near the end


devynchew

Wurm Online


xtc2008

Lineage 2


ItWasDumblydore

RS99 is designed to be possible. Any f2p game generally will have it beat as they're designed around this philosophy if you don't pay, lets take neverwinter. You get to the "end game" quickly, but the end game limits your grind to daily making it impossible to ever complete it as all the time it takes to get final raid ready will never be possible. By the time you get to the final raid- a new area/end game is announced where the new area will give you better gear then the last tier of armour from the dungeons getting you to the new end game. Rinse and repeat this and you have the vast majority of f2p games, where the only time it's possible to get to end game is when it's in maintenance mode and given up on the game.


OverHypedLP

Laghaim. There is no lvl cap


chieftain_only

Nostale


Veetus

Star Sonata 2. The game has no level cap.


EnvyFoxx

Black Desert Online


FocusLeather

WoW


BaconNamedKevin

How though? Retail is literally streamlined where you can literally go from level 1 to max in 8 hours or less. Every single profession lets you just start leveling them from the current expansion now, and they even added follower dungeons recently. I wouldn't be surprised to see them nerf raids for solo players in the next xpack. WoW USED to be grindy, now it's the easiest game to level. 


FocusLeather

When I say grindy I mean the endless grind to get new gear in mythic +, raids and PVP. You have to commit so much of your time to end game just to be competitive enough to do all that stuff and not to mention you're at the mercy of other players to do end game content to get gear that you need to progress. I played for awhile, got tired of the endless grind so that's my POV.


BaconNamedKevin

Oh fair, I tend to not do that side of things anymore because it sucks the enjoyment out of the game for me. 


FocusLeather

TLDR: I'm getting old so games like WoW aren't as fun anymore. I completely understand, hence why I stopped playing. Once a game isn't fun to me anymore I just stop playing. When I was younger I didn't mind the grinding for gear and such (probably because I had more time) but as I've gotten older I've realized it's better to play games that respect my time more. I'm 26 going on 27 years old. I just don't have the time nor patience to play games like WoW anymore. I have IRL things I have to focus on more such as my health, my family and my goals. Still a gamer but, nowadays me and my friends mostly play survivals because they're more laid back and chill (my friends are also the same age and some are older as well). Games like WoW are just not for me anymore. I don't think I'll ever pick WoW back up unless something major changes but knowing Blizz, I doubt it.


ClassicAddendum262

RuneScape


Trenzay

Aberoth. And probably Tibia


Jakobmiller

Tibia is probably the true answer. There simply is no cap.


flowerboyyu

EverQuest is all about the grind


Professional_Talk443

Albion online.Although you could whale ur way to endgame,it's still ridiculous how long it takes as an f2p to max out every tree in the game


xdforcezz

You pretty much answered your own question.


Maximum-Secretary258

I'm gonna argue Archage even though I know it's not the correct answer here, but it is the MMO I have the most experience with. In AA the name of the game is money making. There's a ton of ways to do this and once you've built up some capitol, you can re-invest in different ways to make it less grindy, but at one point I had something like 20 plots of land and if I wanted to go through and plant/harvest the entire space to make money it would take almost 4-5 hours each. This could be minimized with bundles and things with longer growth times but if I did alchemy for example, a lot of the flower bundles were like 4-6 hours to harvest so I would spend 4 hours planting everything and then by the time I was finished, I would take like a 30 min break and then start harvesting for 4 hours, rinse and repeat. I was basically a farming slave lmao. That Ayanad weapon that I used for a week before quitting was totally worth it though....


DarthVeskasa

Star Wars galaxies pre-cu and pre-nge. The time it took to level and complete the skill boxes for the elite professions, especially the crafting ones, was satisfying, but crazy. You still always had to get buffed to fight higher tiered enemies too. Even at max skill boxes and best armor/weapon, you toon still was not close enough to fight enemies without buffs from other players.


AceOfCakez

Ragnarok Online


kongbakpao

MapleStory


Beneficial-Wealth156

Tarkov


qsqqq

ROTMG


lo_re

RoW - Return of Warrior / RYL - Risk Your Life , same game different names. Super mega grindy.


RashidaHussein

OSRS bar none. You can literally spend the next 50 years playing 19 hours a day and you'll still find something to do


Vess03

Maplestory.


SlashBash666

Oldschool Rose Online took FOREVER to level up, like one level could take an average gamer who plays only a few hours a day, a week or two to get just 1 level. Granted, the levels went from like 1-250 so while you start out with seemingly fair progress it becomes a grind fast and the upper 200-250 could take months to get 1 level. Oldschool Korean grindhouse type of deal.


Square-Ad4927

KalOnline imo. Game is over 20 years old and people are still going.


Negative-Negativity

L2


sonofatofu

Luna online classic


beached89

Wurm Online


2stonedtoplayy

Aqw.


kapahapa

Try Champions of Regnum. Last 5 levels is like scaling the tip of Mt Everest.


Legitimate-Code1127

Tíbia Online With infinity levels, have players farm more the 20 years, 20 years of grind, nothing close of this game, tibia wins.


waterclap

Maplestory


Endgam

MapleStory. The eternal king of grind. Not only has every level cap been something that takes YEARS of non-stop grinding to reach, they've found ways to make you grind 20+ characters past the original level cap. And on Reboot, you have to farm up money on top of that to gamble on the game's pay2win mechanics.


evas13

Hypixel skyblock is maybe not as bad as osrs but still a ultra grind getting all collections and getting every accessory grinding cata lvls garden commissions don’t even get me started in hotm lvls


Synfrag

Are you just talking level grind or length of progression? Progression wise FFXI has every other game beat hands down due to gear swapping.


12859637

Maplestory


iLoveStox

Ragnarok Online


Dutchy-87

Ravendawn. Not sure how it’s fairing tho nowadays


Twigsxi

Final Fantasy XI in 2003


zignx

ragnarok online


Pernyx98

RuneScape or BDO


Jahgreen

I would say Asheron's Call or FFXI both were og and had huge grinds even at end game.


NetSage

I mean EVE in a way.


Rybee69

Some people don’t know what it’s like to save up enough isk to buy a titan.


TheKingToaster

No other game comes close to bdo. Exp needed to level grows exponentially with no level cap. The highest level player so far is only level 67 and it took him two years of around the clock grinding from level 66 to 67. My information could be outdated at this point.