What item did you grind or farm for the longest?

[Frindis]

Christopher Livingston from PC Gamer made an article about it last year: https://www.pcgamer.com/what-item-did-you-grind-or-farm-for-the-longest/ and @McStabStab made a thread about grinding through a game - https://forums.pcgamer.com/threads/finishing-games.6844/

I'd like to know some more about your own grind/farm stories. How long did it take you to get that item? Did you enjoy the journey? Perhaps you got tired of it?

Definitely understandable, especially if something got a 0.02% chance to drop like the Baron Rivendare steed in WoW. A mount that you got from killing Baron Riverdale inside a raid instance called Stratholme, which itself took a long time to finish back in vanilla WoW, and the majority of people never, ever managed to get the mount, like this guy...:

I ran Strat UD in vanilla. I ran it into TBC. I ran it in Wrath. I've killed Baron well over a thousand times. I have never seen the mount drop. If Classic claims my life the way original WoW did, 100% I am getting that God damn mount. [Source]

Me, I probably spent at least a whole week grinding for the Frozen Shadoweave gear in WoW Wrath of The Lich King. You needed it for the main raid in the game, The Icecrown Citadel. The problem was that so did a whole bunch of other players AND bots also, so you had to compete against them for the resources. Thankfully, I managed to find a neat strategy that included tagging the mobs with enough damage after the bots had targeted them and basically letting the bots do the dirty work. One bot user got so angry, he stopped his precious bots and showed himself complaining to me. I *spit* at him and laughed. Anyways, it took a sweet long time to get the Frozen Shadoweave, but I did it and then went to kill The Lich King on 25 player difficulty. For anyone interested: An example of how the raid was from a Warlocks perspective, which was the class I played:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocq4byvypZM

 

[Pifanjr]

I don't remember ever grinding for a specific item. I've grinded or farmed to get my skills up or to get resources I needed, but I don't think I ever spent a week for something specific. I get bored far too quickly for that.

 

[Brian Boru]

^ Exactly what @Pifanjr said ^

 

[mjs warlord]

Ok so you asked about farming , i cant remember exactly how it worked but in warframe you got your team together and waited to be attacked , if you stood high up in certain places you could farm everything that the enemy dropped. As i say i dont remember how it worked , all i know is you did not even have to attack anything because items would just drop and automatically get scooped up. I used to just leave the game running without having to do anything.

As you cant imagine players talked about this in chat and the devs who went in chat to help players soon stopped it but it was fun whilst it lasted.

 

[Pifanjr]

Ok so you asked about farming , i cant remember exactly how it worked but in warframe you got your team together and waited to be attacked , if you stood high up in certain places you could farm everything that the enemy dropped. As i say i dont remember how it worked , all i know is you did not even have to attack anything because items would just drop and automatically get scooped up. I used to just leave the game running without having to do anything.

As you cant imagine players talked about this in chat and the devs who went in chat to help players soon stopped it but it was fun whilst it lasted.

This just sounds like an idle game with extra steps.

 

[Colif]

I used to farm a fire resistance item in a town in one of the Plague lands, I think the 1st zone you go through (it has been 14 years since i played). I was mainly grinding it for gold though. I remember Scholomance 40 man raids, not sure i ever got in one, they might have been reduced to 20 by time i got there.

I know I used to be in every raid my guild ran to Kazazhan, trying to get some dagger as I was a rogue. I never got it, the only time it dropped and I was there, a hunter rolled and won it... it was a rogue weapon. That led to drama. It was the point I realised MMO aren't good for me as I valued pixels over human life. Lost a friend over that one.

It was similar in Age of Conan, I got to stage I was only missing things that I didn't really need anymore. Getting everything you want in a game is sure one way to stop wanting to bother playing it.

I used to grind the casino in TDU2 to try and win top payout on the slot machines, I eventually had enough money to buy all the cars I wanted in game. It took a year or so but I wasn't going anywhere.

 

[Frindis]

@Colif every weapon is a hunter weapon according to the hunters

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-MhIZ8qEZU

 

[ZedClampet]

This just sounds like an idle game with extra steps.

What he's talking about was a glitch/bug.

I'm not sure what my correct answer is. It was either a weapon in Warframe or a set of armor in Wizard101. In Wizard101 you had to complete a dungeon that had 6 bosses who cheated (it's a turn-based game, and they often did things out of turn, adding buffs or debuffs that weren't available anywhere else in the game). After the last battle, you had a chance to get a piece of armor. You needed 3 different pieces and the drop chances were crazy low. I have no idea how many times we did that dungeon, but I think it was probably longer than what I was thinking of in Warframe, but the difference is that I actually had fun running that dungeon in Wizard101. In Warframe I was bored to tears. They have an amazing knack for creating the most boring grind missions you can imagine.

 

[ZedClampet]

@Colif every weapon is a hunter weapon according to the hunters

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-MhIZ8qEZU

This video reminds me of playing For the King. Great gear is hard to come by, and at the end of every battle, each person, in turn, gets to see what their loot is, which they have the option of either taking or passing to the next player. It can definitely create some tension among the players.

 

[mainer]

I'm with @Pifanjr and @Brian Boru on the farming/grinding for specific loot; I've never actually done that. I have gone back through certain areas or maps (depends on the game) to gain another level or increase skills, but a lot of that is often do to enemy respawn rates (if a game has them), or quests that can drag you back and forth through the same area multiple times.

From what I've seen, it seems like the farming for a specific item often involves fighting a boss or mini-boss over and over until you get what you want. Diablo 2 Resurrected comes to mind as it's a very loot oriented game and the whole world respawns all enemies when you save & exit. I've watched several videos of players "boss farming" to get better loot. Me, I'm just happy to get out alive and don't have the desire to do it again. I don't think I'd fair well in competitive gameplay.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm with @Pifanjr and @Brian Boru on the farming/grinding for specific loot; I've never actually done that. I have gone back through certain areas or maps (depends on the game) to gain another level or increase skills, but a lot of that is often do to enemy respawn rates (if a game has them), or quests that can drag you back and forth through the same area multiple times.

From what I've seen, it seems like the farming for a specific item often involves fighting a boss or mini-boss over and over until you get what you want. Diablo 2 Resurrected comes to mind as it's a very loot oriented game and the whole world respawns all enemies when you save & exit. I've watched several videos of players "boss farming" to get better loot. Me, I'm just happy to get out alive and don't have the desire to do it again. I don't think I'd fair well in competitive gameplay.

Seems like farming for specific items mostly happens in multiplayer games. Even though I sometimes play those sorts of games, I would actually be ticked off at a single-player game that behaved the same way.

 

[Colif]

@Colif every weapon is a hunter weapon according to the hunters

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-MhIZ8qEZU

It means so much to me now that I can't remember name of the dagger or which boss dropped it. I farmed Onyxia so many times she didn't have anything left to give me by end. I didn't like that fight but did it for the team.

Grinding an area to lvl up or maybe get a good drop happened more in Diablo 2 than I found it did in Torchlight 2. Guess the people who made TL2 learned a lesson from making Diablo 2, grinding one boss over and over was replaced by random dungeons. In TL2 the chances of finding a legendary were tiny so grinding any area could reveal one. Lucky to find one by time character is 100 and often its not even something you can use (I hated that but its another way of making you play again). Very few items were attached to specific bosses so the grind was more general.

I know people farm Pindleskin in Diablo 2. And the cows. I would get bored. doing the same thing over and over. I only played the game for a month last time, parts of game that annoyed me the first time I played in 2002 were starting to occur again.

Seems like farming for specific items mostly happens in multiplayer games.

or any Action RPG. They might have multiplayer but you don't have to play them with people. It comes down to how game rewards you for killing something, do you get it all or does it have a loot table and a really small chance of the thing you want. Does game expect the player to come back and try again or is the encounter guaranteed to give you everything.

replayability is a reason to make people only have a tiny chance of getting the best thing. I wouldn't have played some games as long as I did if you get the best drop right away.

shame they just use the same odds in loot boxes now to get all that money off people who want that thing.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

It's not for just one item, but the most time I've spent grinding was for armor in Breath of the Wild. I got all of the different types of armor, and spent the time grinding to upgrade every piece of armor to the max. It was worth it because it forced me to see things on the map I never would have seen otherwise.

 

[Pifanjr]

I just remembered, I did grind for the Blade of Awe in AdventureQuest for a bit. I'd occasionally spend some time doing random battles, which was the only way to encounter a chest that contained one of the five pieces you needed to get it.

I don't think I ever got it.

What he's talking about was a glitch/bug.

I was aware, I was just commenting on how him abusing this bug turned the game essentially into an idle game.

 

[Johnway]

i think it was planetside 2 i had to platinum 5 LMGs (1500 kills each) to get the platinum reward LMG. In my case was the butcher, essentially the basic starting LMG with a 150 (instead of 100) round drum, some preconfigured augs and a higher rate of fire if you fired long enough and a different skin texture. Honestly not worth it. but then again a nice gift especially when i wasn't really trying to grind.

Tried to get the aurx composite armor which was like the cosmetic you had to buy but completely covered in shiny good and looked like a dodgy texture instead. Never got it as it didn't play it long enough nor was i trying to grind for it.

But i suppose the longer grind was trying to get various path of exile league rewards. Trying to bag 24 challenges. it can take anywhere from 1 to 2 months of play grinding away to get my prize. These days, 12 challenges is easily done in less then a month.

 

[Zloth]

A golden chocobo in Final Fantasy 7? It was so long ago, I couldn't even say how many hours it took.

 

[Pifanjr]

I remembered another one. Not an item, but I spent a lot of time on the harvest sprites in Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. Getting each of them gifts and playing those terrible mini games over and over to raise their skills so they wouldn't just nap on my crops if I asked them for help.

Those harvest sprites were one of the reasons I never got very far into the game. They were at the farthest end of the map and thus a pain to visit every day and the mini games were mind numbingly boring.

 

[Frindis]

@Johnway Remember grinding in Planetside 2 for something called (I think) the Shadow Sniper. Cost around 1000 cert and I used to play as a medic to accumulate points faster. Honestly can't say it was worth it since I stopped playing a couple of weeks after I got it.

You would not by any chance know of a good beginner bow build I could try out in PoE? I'm thinking of jumping in again. Tried to follow a Deadshot build before, but it ended up insanely expensive and broken. Most likely my own fault for not reading the fine print on the guide, lol.

 

[Sarafan]

Probably some high tier items in Dungeons & Dragons Online. The game is instance based and the loot is more or less random, so getting these items means doing the same instance several dozens of times. It was 12 years ago or so... I was more resistant to farming back then.

Also, it's not directly correlated with items, but I did some major experience farming in Planescape Torment around 15 years ago. I was able to level up my Nameless One past 100 level. There's no level cap in the game. I will never repeat something like this in the future...

 

[Volley]

The big one that comes to mind is; 2.5 weeks, approx 8-12 hours a day grinding the Winterspring Frostsaber in early 2005 in World of Warcraft. My first reputation grind in that game, and not my last…

 

[Johnway]

@Johnway Remember grinding in Planetside 2 for something called (I think) the Shadow Sniper. Cost around 1000 cert and I used to play as a medic to accumulate points faster. Honestly can't say it was worth it since I stopped playing a couple of weeks after I got it.

You would not by any chance know of a good beginner bow build I could try out in PoE? I'm thinking of jumping in again. Tried to follow a Deadshot build before, but it ended up insanely expensive and broken. Most likely my own fault for not reading the fine print on the guide, lol.

Yeah in planetside 2 the cost of guns can be quite pricy at 1000 certs. But it didn't bother me tbh. The VR training room allowed me to test the weapons and get exactly what i wanted. I only purchased a weapon an item when i had aurxed a weapon. I was more interested in gear/armour augs and never invested in vehicles as i played almost exclusively HA. most of the weapons are side upgrades tbh and the most critical stuff like g2a launcher is usually like 250 -500 certs. I think there were points where i reached 9999 certs and i just spent them just to prevent them being wasted.

Concerning POE, my go to build is the creeping frost witch. Its cheap and effective. See Big ducks guide for details (can't provide video as GGG keeps making tweaks so past videos might not be relevant. So you'll need to go to the Path of building and look at it). It usually gets me the 24 challenges.

Never play the ranger unfortunately. Played it once or twice and found it wasn't effective. Spells are my thing and the witch can be surprisingly flexible.

 

[Withywarlock]

Item-wise, probably the Swift Zulian Panther from World of Warcraft's Zul'Gurub instance. I believe it took me approximately 356 runs, once per character. I consider myself lucky to have managed to get Baron Rivendare's Deathcharger in 87 attempts, thereabouts.

However, even combined those are nothing compared to how I got the 'Insane' title. Here's my story copied from VGR:

Once upon a time in Azeroth, Lady ADHD had decided that I should partake in a quest. The quest was to become a Bloodsail Admiral. The requirements? To quite simply reach the reputation of Honoured with the Bloodsail Buccaneers. Reputation in World of Warcraft is as follows: Hated (-36000 reputation), Hostile, Unfriendly, Neutral (3,000 reputation), Friendly (6,000 reputation), Honoured (12,000 reputation), Revered (21,000 reputation), and finally Exalted, which you become upon finishing Revered. Typically a faction starts at Neutral; they won't engage in combat unless you attack first, provided the game even lets you attack that particular faction.

The Bloodsail do not.

The Bloodsail are the sworn enemies of Booty Bay, one of the Steamwheedle Cartel (neutral goblin) towns, and your quest hub. In order to begin to gain reputation with the Bloodsail, I had to reach a point where Booty Bay was "phased," which means I'm stuck in a stasis of some sort. This is during a quest when the port town is under attack, and that only I and other players on this exact quest can see the Bloodsail invaders attacking, with flaming buildings and - most importantly - weakened Booty Bay Bruisers, the previously super high level guards. Bruisers themselves don't offer reputation per kill, but the townsfolk do, and the Bloodsail invaders who get caught in my attacks don't penalise me with reputation loss. So I began with my Druid, circling the town, killing people.... for one and two reputation points at a time.


I had to go from about Unfriendly, which takes 3,000 to rank up to Neutral, and then Neutral to Honoured (18,000 total points), with about 3 rep for every two NPCs killed.

After spending a few full-time days doing this, I had eventually received my title, my hat, and some clothes I couldn't transmogrify such as a Bloodsail sash and shirt. Still hot-blooded after days of grinding, I decided to take this a step further for a title of even greater renown:

Insane in the Membrane.

Called so because it was insane to attempt it. There was no benefit to reaching Exalted with the requisite factions besides a title; no gear, no tabards, no mounts. There was virtually no roleplay value either, but that's a criticism of the game itself rather than this one achievement. The factions involved were all the Steamwheedle Cartel towns (Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan and Ratchet), the Darkmoon Faire, and Ravenholdt.

The Steamwheedle Cartel was fairly straightfoward: kill Bloodsail nearby.... at the cost of reputation with them. More on that later. The Darkmoon Faire were only around during the first week of the month, and in a game where you pay a monthly subscription to play, you can imagine the issues that would've caused. We'll get around to that shortly. I decided I'd take a break from the Cartel's requirements and do Ravenholdt, so off to the Arathi Highlands I go.

Ravenholdt are a faction of assassins, who have played roles involving Stormwind's SI:6 and several Rogue class questlines. I have the honour of getting my guild's Fangs of the Father, which involved that faction. Ahem. My goal is simple: gain reputation with them from Neutral to Honoured by killing members of the Syndicate, a rival faction which has mages in its ranks. Fun fact: you can level up Syndicate reputation to Honoured, but this takes considerably longer because there's only one place to farm rep, and there's nowhere near as many NPCs to harvest. Again, no rewards either except dubious bragging rights.

There were some difficulties to this reputation. Arathi Highlands is significant for two reasons:

1. It is the first zone in the Eastern Kingdoms where Horde and Alliance players are likely to meet, and will be level appropriate for the zone.
2. It's a massive quest hub.

This meant I had to contend with lower level players stealing the kills I was rightfully stealing. Having some sense of honour I would let lowbies 'tag' mobs and help them kill them so they could move on with their quests and let me carry on with my lengthy task. Eventually I finished my grim harvest, only to find in order to advance my reputation I would have to hand in some lockboxes to the faction.

Another fun fact: lockboxes can't be sold on the auction house, meaning you have to go farm them or pay someone to do it. I'm poor, have several TV shows to get through, and like farming, so I set to. I sent to the Isle of Quel'Denas to slaughter what must've been thousands of Murlocs to get their lockboxes, each Murloc having a 1-in-3 chance of having a box.

World of Warcraft has bag space rather than encumberance or weight. A feather takes up the same space in a bag as a falchion, or indeed, a lockbox. This meant numerous trips to the mailbox, having my Forsaken Rogue send them to my Troll Druid, who was turning them in for reputation from a town not far from the guildhall.

During all this, the Darkmoon Faire was on, which was fortunate. This meant doing their daily quests each day, their profession quests for each time I was there, and handing in Darkmoon Decks. I had my Pandaren Shaman buy the reagents to craft Darkmoon Decks (tarot cards, essentially) and mail them to my Druid so they could be turned in for reputation. If I recall correctly they netted me between 5-15 reputation each. Again, I needed 42thousand reputation total before this week was over. If you'd ever seen a Pandaren's hands become ablaze, that was me putting on my sigma hustle.

After all that, I had unceremoniously handed in the final deck to the applause of one person who had just logged on that morning. I was dead chuffed, and the one who had just logged on had long been Insane.

And so, on the 10th of June, I came to be known as Johní the Insane.

 

[Frindis]

@Johnway Thanks for the tip. Might just try something else than the ranger. I can always visit her on standard anyways. I mostly now use her for mid-tier mapping and heists so I can earn some exalts at least.

@Withywarlock That is some INSANE achievements! Never managed to get the Baron Rivendare's Deathcharger or Zulian (beaut of a mount!) myself, but I did however get the Wrath Sea Turtle from just around 200 tries. Love that turtle, makes a cute hide-in-the-shell action:

View: https://youtu.be/mwZtfZJU3aw?t=19