There will still be some sort of grind with it. But it won't be near as bad as DF1. I'm already in the 40's with the Greatsword, that's while fighting through some crashes. You hit mobs outside the protected area's and the gains seem to be really good. So there is some sort of reward for the risk now it seems. The Beta is still shaky, so the more they work through the bugs the better it should be. Right now it's tough to say how launch will be, they could change some things either for the better or the worst. We will have to wait for launch to see how it will be then.