In my experience one of the most important steps to taking control of your own mmo gaming is to make an informed decision about your approach to end game content. During the leveling game you can log on and do whatever takes your fancy, comfortable in the knowledge that everything you do helps you level up a little bit. Once you reach end game the paths to progressing your character are likely to require much more focused playing, are likely to involve long repetition and may even depend heavily on luck. I think that in this environment it is vital to know what you are getting in to. Decide what you want to achieve and most importantly decide what you are prepared to do to get it.
I helped out in a radiance dungeon run last night (running one of the starter dungeons which helps people gear up for raiding). It was an enjoyable encounter that was quite tricky in parts although the old timers had ran it so many times they knew all the tricks. When we killed the final boss and it came to rolling for the single radiance reward it was great to be able to say: "Pass, I don't raid so it would be a waste". When pressed further as to why I don't raid I could truthfully admit that while I enjoyed the few raids I have gone on I amn't prepared to do all the things that raiding requires.
I helped out in a radiance dungeon run last night (running one of the starter dungeons which helps people gear up for raiding). It was an enjoyable encounter that was quite tricky in parts although the old timers had ran it so many times they knew all the tricks. When we killed the final boss and it came to rolling for the single radiance reward it was great to be able to say: "Pass, I don't raid so it would be a waste". When pressed further as to why I don't raid I could truthfully admit that while I enjoyed the few raids I have gone on I amn't prepared to do all the things that raiding requires.
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Now while I wouldn't mind experiencing end-game content in DDO, I get the impression that I need to be building my character with that goal in mind as I level, which is in contrast to a game like WoW where you can level with a Soloing build then respec to a Raid Build when you hit Cap. But then as much of the leveling you'll do in DDO is via Instanced content anyway, it only makes sense to level with a group if you're planning to do end game content.
To answer your question, "What do I want?" I just want to see the game.
Re, Favor, I heard it works something like this: Do a Dungeon on Solo, get 1 Favor (just as an example, actual Favor amounts may vary). Do it on Normal and get 2 Fabor but if you've already completed it on Solo you only get 1 Favor, i.e, 1 for Solo + 1 for Normal = 2 Favor.
Do it on Hard and you get 4 total Favor, i.e., 1 (Solo) + 1 (Normal) + 2 (Hard), or 2 (Normal) + 2 *Hard).
Complete the Elite level and you wind up with 7 Favor in total, i.e., another 3 points on top of Hard.
At the moment it still seems very much like a game you can just log in, grab a Dungeon quest and belt it out on Solo or Normal in a few minutes (well, 10-15), but if you have extra time to kill and have already done the Hard level then you can hang out looking for a PUG to attempt it on Elite.
Playing last night I realized I was enjoying the Dungeon grind as much as the farming grind of WoW, perhaps even more so. The Dungeons are right there, either in town or not far out of it, so there's no jumping on a griffin and flying off to the zone you need. You just grab the relevant quest to get you in the door and off you go.
/death starts a timer (like a breath bar or a recall button) labelled dying.
Despite this rather obvious clue a lot of new people have sat there and watched it until their character (surprise, surprise) dies.
PKing in DDO, who'd have thought it?