Breakfast Topic: Have dailies replaced old fashioned grinding?
by Alex Ziebart 
May 31st 2008 at 8:00AM
One of the stated goals of making daily quests so vast and varied in WoW is to help out those people who would rather quest for money than grind primals all day and night. A good goal, and definitely one that I support. Questing is usually a lot more entertaining than grinding out piles of motes.However, to me it doesn't seem like dailies have replaced grinding as a way of making money. It works fine as an alternative, but it doesn't quite stand up to other ways of generating gold. Dailies make it easier to get money, but it doesn't seem to me like it's the best source of income, contrary to what most people say about daily quests. Dailies allow you to make one hundred gold in an hour, but farming the right primals can get you quite a bit more. Even Fishing in the right places, as Eliah pointed out to me, can double or triple what you could make in that time through daily quests. Let's not forget that the gold generated by daily quests has inflated the market on some items required in crafting, making it even more profitable to grind out the raw materials.
What are your thoughts on daily quests as a replacement for old fashioned farming and grinding? As an alternative? Have they done their job well as another option for generating gold, or have they just thrown the market off? Is it possible for anything to actually usurp grinding raw materials as the number one money maker?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Quests
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jessierockeron May 31st 2008 8:06AM
Still, it does seem a little more fun than grinding, you are pretty much still making a decent income at a pretty fast rate.
Jessierockeron May 31st 2008 8:08AM
Oh soz, I didn't see the part where you said it was more entertaining. Ignore what I said above.
Mahavok May 31st 2008 8:24AM
Yep sure has. I gladly except it. Dealing with all the bot's in Tyr's Hand was absolutely horrendous.
Chrissie May 31st 2008 8:28AM
My motivation as a player is fairly dependent on short-term rewards, so grinding low drop rate stuff grates on my nerves. Plus, my main character is resto. Sooo, I'll definitely pick dailies over farming any day. There is nothing that quite compares to the easy, painless money you get via say bombing quests, the 20g for netherwing crates, most of the cooking dailies, etc.
Recently I needed piles of both primal shadow and life for enchants and BT resist gear, and I bought almost all of it off the AH. Where a piece of advice you read in most leveling/money making guides is "Never buy something you can farm yourself", my policy is "Never farm something unless you're too broke to buy it".
That said, the money alone isn't enough of a motivation for me to do dailies regularly, either. If I need the rep for an item I want, sure. If I'm still grinding out my drake, sure. Just for the money, I have to be getting close to broke to be wanting to bother with that kind of repetitiveness. Besides, why do 25 dailies when you can run Kara, buy an epic gem with the badges, and sell it for 500g?
ErsatzPotato May 31st 2008 8:32AM
Dailies ARE grinding. There's no if and or but there. After a week or so they are no more or less interesting than farming motes. Pure grinding is more profitable per hour over a longer time span, but if you pick the dailies done carefully they are more profitable given a short amount of time used.
Ideally you choose the quickest dailies (got to factor in travel time) and those which couple with normal grinding. Also, have to factor in the rewards. Before the nerf, the Nag goggle daily was the best deal in WoW by miles. It coupled with one fishing daily and one cooking daily, gave badges for minutes of effort, and gave an excuse to get those pesky shadow primals if you spent a few extra minutes.
I hate dailies. Truly, thoroughly, hate them. They're dress-on-a-pig. Problem is some are too good to not do. Before I'd dedicate a couple hours every week or two to farm while watching a movie and be done with it. Now, on every character, I'm leaving gold on the table every darn day. "Ugh, gotta log on the 'lock, knock out fifteen minutes for that 35g on dailies." Granted, the same old farming is more profitable now (got to love 35g+ primal fire/air/water and plateau empty) but I hate the sense of obligation dailies give.
Gimmlette May 31st 2008 1:03PM
"Dailies ARE grinding. There's no if and or but there."
Amen. But I do agree that this is a game and if I can't stand the daily quests, I do not have to do them.
I don't mind grinding as that is the only way to get a talbuk or rep from many different factions. I wanted my epic flyer and grinding and selling primals was taking too long. So I spent 2 weeks doing 8-15 dailies per day and got my flyer. I have not been back to the Isle since and only do the dailies around Shatt if I'm not off helping guildies. It's a source of relatively easy money, particularly with the fast mount and I know if I need cash for repairs and I'm low, one hour of dailies gets me repair money.
But it seems the dailies fall into the "if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it is a duck" category. They may be quests but they are still grinding out the money. It's just that you're less AH dependent.
Jessierockeron May 31st 2008 7:35PM
"Dailies ARE grinding. There's no if and or but there."
Dailies ARE fun.
Ilnara May 31st 2008 8:43AM
So you might be able to make more money the 'old fashioned' way.. but whats the gain per time unit of that grinding? Many level grinding guides always caution people to stay away from "drop" quests because they aren't a time efficient way to make XP. So how can 'drop' grinding be more efficient at making gold?
I say this article is a tad misleading, doesn't take into account that what you can get for farming -other- things beyond dailies is completely subject to your servers economy, population, and other factors, while the dailies are always constant.
I can run every quest on Quel'Danus proper in about 35 minutes, which nets me just about 100g.
When I drop farm mats (Primal life, for instance) I grind mobs for about an hour and come away with about 5 to 6 motes which on my server, won't be selling for 200g (and they'd have to sell for about 200g to break even with the time / money rewards. If I can make 100g in 35 minutes, then for drop farming to be more efficient I'd need to make roughly twice the amount of gold, or more, in twice the time frame.
EdgEy Jun 1st 2008 3:02AM
6 motes per hour , is terrible. Really terrible. If you're not a herbalist, don't farm primal life. It's from gathering the mobs mainly.
3-4 primals an hour or more is usual, for a badly geared player farming mana/fire/water/air. That's 120g , plus the greys, etc.
Good geared players can easily outshine dailies by farming primals.
grumblenuts May 31st 2008 8:54AM
I vote for the grinding. I can grind 50-60 motes of air or water in an hour. It goes quick and is very profitable.
ErsatzPotato May 31st 2008 8:55AM
"Besides, why do 25 dailies when you can run Kara, buy an epic gem with the badges, and sell it for 500g?"
[All below ignores drops. Probably averages out anyway or shifts in favor of dailies.]
Assuming that 500g and three hour clears (can be done more quickly of course) that works out to ~135g an hour averaged over multiple weeks.
That rate can be easily beat by either lots of dailies every day or a few carefully chosen dailies daily. Lots of dailies shifts toward more gold but less efficient, carefully chosen ones smoke it on time/gold.
On the other hand, romping through Kara in t6 gear has got to be fun, and fun is the biggest part of the equation in the end.
Liel May 31st 2008 9:09AM
To me dailies benefit me more because I get gold and earn faction, I might not need or want the faction now but you never know.
S?hrtogg May 31st 2008 9:37AM
11 island dailies + the nether residue gathering quest
150g in 30min
nothing beats sunwell isle
kunukia May 31st 2008 9:39AM
Both, depending on whim, and as others have said, pick your dailies for efficiency. Also, only my skinner tries to complete the nether residue daily (Gaining the Advantage) in one go, every day (although they have improved the drop rates for herbs and mining). In Nagrand, the goggley thing, nether residue, sometimes cooking, all easy quick quests. She is not my fisherman, or I could have 4 dailies in Nagrand some days!
I must also point out, that when it isn't real busy at the 'Throne of Kil'Jaeden', the fiery elementals there drop very well, and I throw in some motes of fire farming.
I apologize for poor grammar and sentence structure, still drinking my first cup of coffee.
Jolly May 31st 2008 6:02PM
Seems to me that dailies vs. grinding is a self correcting problem. As more people do dailies, inflation will rise to the point that it becomes increasingly more profitable to farm. As more people switch to farming, the supply of goods (primals etc) deflation will occur and dailies will become more valuable.
That's how it works on a macroeconomic level. For an individual, just go do whatever seems like fun to you on a given day.
Trustee of Lothar Jun 24th 2008 9:33AM
Obviously the best way to make money is a combination of all the above. If you see something that you can grind while you're running a quest do it.
Anything you can do to make money while you're doing something else is better than dividing your tasks up and conquering them individually. Multi-task!
Tim May 31st 2008 10:22AM
Eeeeugh, dailies or grinding each make money, but neither are fun, no matter how many times we try to convince ourselves otherwise. And games are supposed to be fun.
Basically, they are a way for Blizz to put its player base on hamster wheels to justify the monthly fee.
Can you tell I'm not a fan of this practice?
Oilof May 31st 2008 10:27AM
Personally, I enjoy dailies each and every time I do them, and they are NEVER a grind for me. In my opinion, people need to stop thinking of dailies as an obligation just because they are available every 24 hours. Remember, if you're not having fun, there's no reason to be playing a game.
More to the topic, I think that for the average, casual player, dailies have completely replaced grinding, while for the hardcore players out there, grinding is the more efficient route.
Dein May 31st 2008 10:47AM
I think dailies are a great thing as they provide the very casual player a way of easily collecting money, and for a very hard core player to cool off and collect some easy cash. I don't think dailies will ever replace farming as the most effective way to make money, after all, it does inflate the market. However, the way I see it, its a win win situation. The casuals get their income and the farmers get less traffic in their favorite grinding zones.
Elyx May 31st 2008 11:11AM
I Personally did some research a while back (personally, mind you, which means that results can be subject to opinion), and found that my average grinding on simple mobs was about 160-200g per hour(often more). prior to Sunwell, my average gold for dailies was aprox 60-80g per hour.
I've never done the grind on motes or what peeps call 'drop' items. my money was made on a combination of selling cloth (i only grind on humanoids), rep items (i usually grind on token droppers), and the random items that tend to drop more often simply cause your killing such a vast amount of mobs. i have gotten more blues and epics drop in my $$ grinding then throughout most my lvling process, partially because my time is devoted to killing as many mobs as i can, rather then completing as many quests as i can.
My server (up to this point, haven't checked recently), has ALOT of competition for nodes and motes...when i was grindding them i was lucky if I got anything more then 25-30 motes in an hour. Dailies have recently, with the addition of the quest hub in sunwell, gotten close to competitive. not there yet, but close. i can average about 100-120g in an hour of questing.
The limitation, i believe, with dailies, even as they improve, is the amount thats realistically available to you within a give time frame. like i said, ripping out the sunwell quests in the hub will get me about 100 gold or so, and about 10-20g in selling stuff and cloth. If i sold all the cloth i got, as well as the tokens, it might approach 150g or so. Problem is, thats all i can do. I cant go back and do another hour of those, there done already, and the rest of the available dailies are too time consuming to be worth it money wise. I don't do the traditional BC dailies (ogrilla, sketis)...waste of time, completely. There is the exception for those who aren't willing to respect (which i do on a regular basis), they would probably prefer the dailies (you really want a solid DPS class to grind mobs).
I think the advantage of dailies, and why they have resulted in a larger flood of money on the market compared to the more traditional methods (which have shown me to be more effective in overall results), is their
objective focus. its far easier after a long day at work to just grab x and y quests and do them then to try and organize an hour or two of mob grinding (which involves some AH work as well). If you add rep in there, as well as simple visibility (everyone know about the dailies, I'm still amazed at how few people know about how successful basic grinding can be), and there ya go. it brought $$ making to the masses in a simple approach...thats its only real success. And a big one at that.