How can developers end something that is in the control of it's players? Plenty of MMORPG's under my belt, either fully played or tested but not once did I grind, I dislike that kind of playstyle, which is all Grind is to me a playstyle. I chooce not to grind, so in turn I might not hit cap lvl asap, I might not be the toughest ingame character within weeks, eventually I will ALWAY's reach that same lvl of those who "grind" onl;y thing is I personaly am enjoying the game allot longer and never get to a point of getting bored, cause to me grinding will also result in people getting bored very quick.
^ This.
Grind is in the players hands ultimately. If all you care about is getting to the end game as fast as you can, then you will feel the grind. If you play to have fun and see all that a game has to offer throughout all the level ranges, then you will be less likely to feel the grind.
I also like taking my time in a game. To me there is no point in grinding all the way to max level as fast as I can only to spend the next few months repetitivly grinding raid bosses and encounters. After all, raiding is still a grind for gear, and a far worse grind than one would experience while leveling.
Even taking your time, experiencing all the game has to offer could be considered a grind if what there is to experience is tedious and repetitive. For example, hundreds and thousands of quests that could be better described as tasks and chores will feel tedious and repetitive for me, no matter how slow I do them.
If a game....any game....regardless the genre would feel tedious and repetitve, I choose not to play such games. But keep in mind what could be considered fun for me could be considered tedious and repetitve for someone else.
I feel that if a game starts to feel tedious and/or repetitive there is more focus to get to the next lvl, to me lvl's are just a side-effect, a necessary side-effect, as obvious you will lvl.
As a example, there can be quests in a MMORPG that tell you to kill 1000 specific creature's, now I am sure if people would enter the game world and focus on killing those 1000 creature's will end up in feeling like a chore/tedious and/or even repetitve.
When I would take a quest like that it might take day's/weeks/months before I finish it, I know on my travels I will spot these creature's, I would see no need into killing them in a row, perhaps I kill a few today, perhaps a few the next day, perhaps don't even get to see those creature's for day's/weeks, eventualy I know I will finish the quest. Atleast to me this is what is meant with taking my time, I don't want games to turn out being jobs, but keep in mind seeing me talk remember I am a social/exploring crafter and hardly put any time into PVP, while sometimes I might get a feel to get into PVP, it isn't the main reason or even a reason for me to play a MMORPG, I like the other parts of a MMORPG and am more into PVP with FPS or RTS games. Though I do feel PVP should always be a part of a MMORPG game, but only by choice and never forced.
Originally posted by Torik Or 'skill'. It really depends on your point of view and what you consider 'skill'
Unless you are fighting two imbeciles (quite possible, I admit), they will beat you unless you are OP. Two competent players will beat you. You might get one down, but the second will finish you.
Too many players want 'movie hero vs movie ninja' results.
In any FPS one player can (and frequently will) mow down more than 2 opponents at once. Is every "class" overpowered in an FPS?
It's a simple function of "how important is skill?" Personally I prefer games where skill (in other words: player decisions) impacts combat a lot.
The advantage of robotic 100hp + 10dps characters (where your only choice is "where do I spray my DPS hose?") is that it lets newbies win a lot more than they otherwise would. This is one of the big selling points of RPG design, that anyone can do well. But personally I strongly prefer games where player skill matters (and at the same time, where it's clearly communicated why you lost - or possibly how you were beaten.) The first Modern Warfare's death mechanic springs to mind, where you get a replay from your killer's view of exactly how they killed you. TF2 comes close too.
Basically while I concede that the majority of RPGs will never get away from that basic 100hp+10dps hose gameplay, I think there's room for a minority of them to cater to player skill.
(Please no "only FPSes can be playerskill heavy" comments. Need I point out Chess or Go? An MMORPG can be balanced around skillful tactical ability choice in much the same way that Chess revolves around tactical/strategic decisions.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't mind that occasional "take x to y and get z quest" or "kill 100 widgets and get some honorific" but I just feels there needs to be more than that. I agree with the risk and reward statements made here already. I also agree (in principle) with the lessening of, or outright elimination of leveling might help.
If there has to be "grinding" of some sort in game then can't we have more choices, more variable, different story arcs for the choices we make and/or when we complete a quest, we actually can see a difference in the world we are playing in (even if it is small)? Or are there just too many people playing to make this plausible?
Let me give you an example: I played City of Heroes from Beta through this year. 5 years of a very good game. I enjoyed the powers, the costumes, the storylines were all cool. There were times I actually felt like a superhero like when I would hit someone with my stone hammer and watch them fly backward 20 yards.. now that was awesome. Nevertheless, the storylines, story arcs and quests, like every other MMO, were the same.. no real differences, no real changes no matter what style of hero you played. This is where devs perhaps can start to think about the depth of the progressions they are writing so that there IS different outcomes, different gameplay for the type of character you are playing. I know this would take time, money and lot of good writers but guess what? Look around devs! Just look at this community! There are some here who I believe seem to know how to write, and have some obvious creative talents. There is untapped potential out here that maybe you need to use to help make games that at the very least make the grinding aspect fun.
Lets look at progression. Here is where a lot of the not-fun grinding takes place. There is always a Tank, a DPS class, and AoE class, blah, blah, blah.... this is getting old in my opinion. Where is the creativity? These traditional archetypes need revision, need diversity, need a makeover! And as you progress its more of the same. Warrior becomes Gladiator or Paladin or Templar, Spellcaster becomes Wizard or Sorcerer, etc, Scout become Ranger or Assassin, etc.. you get the drift. I feel that if you are going to have classes then have a TON of them so that people feel somewhat unique. Allow crossclassing (like in DnD) so you can make some interesting characters. Give better storylines and allow for more chances for people to play diverse playstyles..
I know my comments are biased because I am a long time Pen and Paper gamer but I just can't buy the argument that developers can't think out of the box and give us more interesting and diverse playing options, etc.
Get rid of classes and levels. Both these designs do not have enough mini milestones which makes the grind so much worse. A system like UO where you could work on several different skills at once create more points of reward for your effort. Plus even in old UO going from 0 to 70-80 skill wasn't that difficult or grindy and by the time you got to 70-80 skill there were many different areas you could hunt in or group up and hit something bigger that would probably get some of you killed but at 80/80 you could rez a friend or there were rez scrolls with enough magery.
This is a big difference between UO and current mmo. Dieing in UO was enviable. You could control how much dieing hurt if at all. Where today everyone gets all pissed off and emo when they die.
Skill systems, whether any developer wants to acknowledge it or not, are the future of MMORPG's, and perhaps games in general. I've seen a lot of posts about EVE, and they are all pretty much right, one thing that drew me into that game was the skill system. Though I will admit, I never played past the hour-long tutorial because I was getting sucked into that game hardcore; yes I quit because it was too much fun of a game for me.
I haven't seen any posts regarding the original Star Wars Galaxies, (and if I missed them, I'm sorry). That game was also skill based, but it was also class based, (they were called 'professions'). A player had a certain number of skill points to use on any 32 professions. You had 5 or 6 basic professions, then the rest were elite professions. The fun thing about this system, is that a person could be an armorsmith, and also be a pistoleer, or any other combonation of the 32 professions. To this day, that is still my favorite type of skill/class system I have seen in any game. The great thing was, if you were tired of being a Bounty Hunter, you could reset all your skill points, and choose to be a Doctor, or a Musician. You did have to level back up to those points though, (while there were skill points, there was also MANY types of experience you could gain, which you had to earn in order to spend your points). But I will also add that if you knew the game well, you could level VERY quickly. I mean getting experience to become a Medic/Doctor simply required that you healed people wounds and damage; people would come into towns and go to a med center, where doctors hung out and healed wounds all day.
To me, that system was so far ahead of it's time it was ridiculous. The point being: It was a skill-based/class/level system, a mix of every type of advancement system, instead of just one. And for anyone who ever played that game back then, for me at least; there was never a dull moment.
The ideas expressed here by so many fine folks on these forums prove my overall belief that answers can be found to alleve the grinding one finds in MMOs. Let's hear some more thoughts.. I know you all have them!
I hate grinding for advancement in any game. I tried WoW and all the popular fantasy MMOs and hated them.
Then I played EVE Online on a whim and ended up playing it for another 3 years. There was grind in that game too but less than most since all I did was kill other people for fun and money to survive. People are unpredictable. Many times you really had no idea what you were facing or if the enemy had backup. IMO PVP is less of a grind then PVE. Computer AI / Missions / Quests are easily predictable after the 2nd try and then it becomes a GRIND.
The Skill system was great.
I hate that in many games you have to be online killing tons of NPCs/Mobs just to advance. If you only log in to change skills you will still be moving forward but probably broke (in game).
Skill systems, whether any developer wants to acknowledge it or not, are the future of MMORPG's, and perhaps games in general. I've seen a lot of posts about EVE, and they are all pretty much right, one thing that drew me into that game was the skill system. Though I will admit, I never played past the hour-long tutorial because I was getting sucked into that game hardcore; yes I quit because it was too much fun of a game for me. I haven't seen any posts regarding the original Star Wars Galaxies, (and if I missed them, I'm sorry). That game was also skill based, but it was also class based, (they were called 'professions'). A player had a certain number of skill points to use on any 32 professions. You had 5 or 6 basic professions, then the rest were elite professions. The fun thing about this system, is that a person could be an armorsmith, and also be a pistoleer, or any other combonation of the 32 professions. To this day, that is still my favorite type of skill/class system I have seen in any game. The great thing was, if you were tired of being a Bounty Hunter, you could reset all your skill points, and choose to be a Doctor, or a Musician. You did have to level back up to those points though, (while there were skill points, there was also MANY types of experience you could gain, which you had to earn in order to spend your points). But I will also add that if you knew the game well, you could level VERY quickly. I mean getting experience to become a Medic/Doctor simply required that you healed people wounds and damage; people would come into towns and go to a med center, where doctors hung out and healed wounds all day. To me, that system was so far ahead of it's time it was ridiculous. The point being: It was a skill-based/class/level system, a mix of every type of advancement system, instead of just one. And for anyone who ever played that game back then, for me at least; there was never a dull moment.
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SWG was probably the best game i ever played. you werent forced into any particular type of play style, you played how you wanted to, in effect, creating your own play style, the profession trees were perhaps SWG's biggest selling point, personally i liked the ranger skill tree, once you had mastered it enough you knew when animals were tracking you and could try and lose them - great for exploring too, and, realistically, it didnt stop 'intelligent' mobs from agro'ing you. now that i think about it. the type of games that i've had the most fun in, didnt have levels.
Throwing in my hat supporting the angle that the only way to reduce grind is to give players plenty of options that all earn general XP at comparable rates. Meaning, I suppose that actions earn two forms of XP at once: one type related to the activity you're doing directly, and a second "neutral" xp that goes toward your general experience bar.
I back the "no levels" stance and think the experience bar's amount should remain constant rather than exponentially increasing in size with each level gained. The exponential raising of hte level bar each time just seems like a way to slow us down as we approach level-based game's "end game"... one cannot deny that if you can hit level 10 in 20 minutes and then take many hours to days in order to complete a level at higher points that it's built to slow you down. You're not findign less animals, you're not doing less quests, usually you're doing MORE and gaining comparitively less ground.
It comes down to the fact that all actions in your game world are "expereinces"... so why are they not all rewarded? Right now it seems that only actions that kill mobs, or completion of quests (the majority of which require killing mobs at some point) earn XP that goes toward your main bar.
I'm a group player, usually support classes (I suck at combat), and if my work schedule has me not on when my guild is on they fly ahead of me. I'm always happy to sit aroudn crafting, but though my crafting level rises, it doesn't help me catch up to my friends. Instead I'm shoe-horned into going out to solo quest, or dealing with PUGs ... sometimes that works out, sometimes not so much. If my grafting gave me general XP toward my next skill point, I could craft away to my hearts content and still make up for time I missed when I was dealing with RL work. Without having to do things I find very un-enjoyable.
An alternative, which would support roleplayers, would be the ability to give some of your own XP away to others. "What?!" Basically, whatever is sitting in your general XP bar is yours to do with as you choose. Say you're nearly to full, and decide to just hang out in a tavern. You meet up with someone who strikes up an in-character conversation... and you know what? They're actually pretty damn decent. You have a nice in-character interaction, and decide to reward that person with a chunk of XP.
- Will some players take to begging for XP? Probably, but that's what an unlimited ignore list is for.
I'd best leave off at that, otherwise I start blabbering about specifics of how to I'd allocate XP for mob kills and such. What ti comes down to is there needs to be equally viable ways to get general XP. Profressions can earn it, and we can open more professions slots, or give players unlimited ones, so they can keep working at that for ages. Allow for ways that players can earn XP from one another via social interactions. Free XP from the combat system, basically, while still rewarding those that engage in combat if that is their play style.
Grinding is a large part of character development and your attachment to that character..to make it the best it can be, to learn where drops are even on rotating days, and to teach the new commers what you have learned at those certain lvls.
What is the fun of having a pre-high-level handed to you? What's the fun of not being sure where a drop will simulate because there will be no need for that lower lvl stuff anymore. What is the use in professions which are spent with weeks of building skills so others can wear better gear and carry better weapons now that you are just handed a ton of gear with your new high lvl champion... so no need for a trade skill..
Simply put, grinding is a part of MMO.. it's a building block on a lot of different lvls. .. even for making friends and having fun with grinding the grind.
Grinding, Grinding, Grinding.. I love grinding. Grinding is a large part of character development and your attachment to that character..to make it the best it can be, to learn where drops are even on rotating days, and to teach the new commers what you have learned at those certain lvls. What is the fun of having a pre-high-level handed to you? What's the fun of not being sure where a drop will simulate because there will be no need for that lower lvl stuff anymore. What is the use in professions which are spent with weeks of building skills so others can wear better gear and carry better weapons now that you are just handed a ton of gear with your new high lvl champion... so no need for a trade skill.. Simply put, grinding is a part of MMO.. it's a building block on a lot of different lvls. .. even for making friends and having fun with grinding the grind. The journey is part of the fun..:)
I can appreciate "the journey" and have no problem working for my level... or pardon me "playing" for my level. I really hate killing mobs, though, and when a game gives me only killing mobs as a viable means of gaining experience. That's when I get bored rather quickly and usually walk away from the game. I gave WoW a solid effort, months and months working up to level 70, did some exploring before WotLK came out (had to rush and misse dmuch of my "journey" being pressured to rush rush rush and keep up with my GF and others in our guild... lowbie healer is useless to the guild, eh?)
Then the expansion came out and we all sort of baulked at doing it all over again. So we got naked and ran around hte new areas map clearing and takingpicture,s then cancelled the subscriptions. If I get bored enough I might go back... but since WoW offers nothing but mob killing, sometimes hidden inside quests, but still mob killing, I'm not sur eI'll get bored enough to return.
More than anything I want a game that will reward XP for things other than mob-killing. General multi-purpose XP for professions, even the ability of players to award XP off their own incomplete XP bar to other players who made an impact on them role playing. (Say up to a max of 500xp given out per day or something.) Just... more diverse ways of levelling up. Not asking to have max level handd to me, but I'd just like the "game" to contain options I actually found "fun". I was in the game for my guild, so anytime they were not on I was bored with the progression options.
Grinding is trivially easy content repeated till your eyes bleed. Make a game that is complex enough that there is no one solution that always works. Make it not trivially easy. An example of a game that is not trivial is chess. Whether playing against a computer or another player there is no final best play. There is no way to say "just hit this set of keys over and over". Even checkers is I think an example of non trivial game. No final solution.
I think that would require an ai that is able to change its attacks in response to the tactics the players use.
I am really sick of hearing about grinding. Everything you do to progress in a game or real life could be considered a grind. First you need to establish what you are considering a grind. If you are considering killing monsters over and over to gain xp and level a grind then that has been ended for a long time now.
Games now have no grind if that is what you are talking about. They are games, they take time to advance a character. These are online RPGs. RPGs have always had character advancement by gaining xp in some way. If you want to play an online adventure game then I that is a different story. I for one would not pay to play an online adventure game. The game would be too short to be an online game. I would buy a single player adventure game instead.
Taking time to actually PLAY a game does not mean you are grinding. If you feel this way then the game is not for you.
What exactly is "grind"? I've heard the term tossed around a lot, without a real sense of what it is. I get that it's doing the same thing over and over again, but I've never seen any activity, let alone video game, where this wasn't the case. In basketball, you grind points. In any video game, you repeat the same thing over and over. Was Megaman a grind? You jump from platform to platform and shoot things. That's it. Pacman grinds dots in a maze. Grind is one of those overused buzzwords that has no meaning. Every game involves repeating activities. So, what activities are grind and which aren't? The closest I've been able to tell is, grind is what you don't like. And that's a very silly way to decide it, since, as has been previously stated in this threat, one man's immersion is another's grind. So, until we can come up with a more concrete definition of what grind is, I doubt we can really find a meaningful way to do away with it.
Said it so much better than I, thank you. I hope people wise up and read this.
I dont think there is a way to effectively end grinding. What can probably be done is to mask the grind in something fun. Take questing for example. If you look at older games where quests were few and far between you had to pretty much grind mobs to progress your character or skills. Questing added a layer to help soften the grind (by trying to add a 'reason' to it) If you followed the story of the quest, and if the story was written well, you felt less of a grind because you were trying to see the next part of the quest (kinda like watching a TV show). The other way to eliminate grind is upto the player. Rushing through content makes you feel the grind ten fold. Players need to slow down a bit and try to enjoy the game. An MMO isnt Mario Bros and there is no princess in dire need of saving. Developers need to focus on this as well. At release an MMO should have a ton of content focused on the early to late middle game. End game content shouldnt even be focused on for release (not saying they shouldnt have it ready, it just shouldnt be the main focus for at least a few months down the road). If the early game content has a lot of thought put into it, you could effectively slow the leveling curve down and still allow players to have a great time. But again, its up to the player to learn to pace themselves and not run a three week blitz to reach level cap. Just slow down and take your time, its a game not a race
Another great post. I would like to add though, I dislike questing and being told what to do in my MMO. I preferred making my own quest choosing what I kill or where I go to xp.
That is easy make the game really short, the shorter it is the less chance of having grind.
Of course no one likes this concept because they want to be able to play the game for years and not feel like the content repeats or drags.
Since I really don't think you can eliminate grind and have a game meant to be played for a long time, let me be negative for a while.
Skills verses levels, either way you have to repeatedly do something to level, so it is subject to grind either way. Even Eve you have to wait to level skills so the grind is time based. The only difference is to the individual, but you still end up grinding, having you prefered system just postpones the feeling.
Action combat, group focus, death penalty, you may like these mechanics but they can only help stave off the grind for so long, and probably not long at that.
Dynamic worlds, neat trolls usually live in the forest but now they are in the valley, this is like Diablo, sure it changes but not in a significant way as the game is basically the same, unless you have a system that can generate new and interesting gameplay mechanics a dynamic world is not going to do much to curb the grind.
Multiple paths to level by, this isn't going to work because if you think about it each path is a grind within itself, switching up the paths by hunting for 30 minutes, questing for 30, crafting for 30 and PvPing for 30 just means you grinded for 2 hours.
The thing is is I think there are only so many times you can do something or something similar before it becomes drull, which is why I say you have to make a game short so that the mechanics fall within the threshold of of still interesting but don't become drull, it is when you cross into drull territory is when the grind kicks in. That is the only solution I see, though that isn't a satisfactory answer.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
"Ending" Grind is simple in theory but difficult in reality. "Grind" is not simply repeated activities; if this was true, then everything you do, including breathing, would be grind. That's obviously not the case. Grind is repeated activities when you're not having fun. When the enjoyment is gone, the dreaded feeling of, "Man, I still have this many things to go until I level?" sets in.
Grind sets in much faster with activities that involve less player interaction or "slower" activities, though even combat is not immune if it does not vary (i.e. killing 200 mobs who all do the same thing and who never adapt). Grind can also set in if you fail something often (whether it's your fault or the game is designed that way). This is a tricky balancing point as a developer, because if you let players succeed often, they'll claim it's "too easy". Likewise, if you make it difficult, it'll be "too hard" and most people won't feel like even trying.
How to offset grind, then? Well, as a developer, you can't force everyone to have fun all the time. That's up to the players, whether they're having fun or not. So, you need to have lots of variety. This is where the sandbox starts to sound appealing. Have a large number of different skills (especially non-combat), have non-combat/social activities, have quests that are epic adventures instead of Kill-X or FedEx, and let the players chart their own course every day by choosing what they want to do. This can be done in a themepark, despite what most people here would believe; it's one of the key's to WoW's success, though they've had 5 years to build on variety and add in tons of content.
This great community has plenty of knowledge of all things MMO-wise. It is always great to read the various and sundry conversations about the games we love, hate or love to hate (or hate to love). Through it all however there is one issue that seems to plague every gamer no matter what game they are playing and that issue is: Grinding. No matter how fun or "cool" or whatever a MMO is, developers still cannot seem to find a way to end the grinding that is so much a part of Massive Multiplaying. Are we as gamers always going to have to live with "grinding"? Is "grinding" absolutely necessary in an MMO? Can't developers come up with something different? Would we as players ever truly want to play a game where there was little to no "grinding"? What do you all say? How can developers bring grinding to an end? How can we as players help to make such a change? Do we as a community have any good ideas that should be heard concerning this issue? I'd really like to read what you all have to say about this. Here are a few of my ideas as to how to at least lessen the grind and bring about more fun for MMO gamers: Concept- Do any of you remember the Top Secret project that existed a few years ago? That attempt was to gather just ordinary players together to create a new MMO. I don't know what happened to it (other than the Leader of the project decided the genre the project was going to do was a Racing MMO; at which point I bowed out) but perhaps more kinds of project like that would help create games and in that creation time perhaps come up with more "out of the box" thinking that could potentially lead to either less grind or better gameplay that would mask the grind. Concept- In pen and paper RPGs (and yes I'm one of those old guys), you as the GM/DM could choose to give experience points for kills only if you wanted to, but you had options to that "grind". I gave points for kills of course, but I gave more points for storyline items I had written into my quests. I gave points for my players who best exemplified their character's personas, I gave points for creative ways to solve problems, I gave points for resolving conflict without that conflict turning to violence, and many other various things I gave points for as the game progressed. Perhaps more ideas like these could be incorporated into an MMO to lessen the grind. Concept- Getting rid of levels. Is that truly possible? It might be hard to imagine an MMO without true levels, character progression trees, skill trees, etc. How would you improve as a character? A good question to be sure, but the grinding begins BECAUSE you have to make the next level for the next uber power or 133t loot... maybe then the question should be: Should we get rid of uber powers and leet loot? I am not saying these ideas are even possible or may not even wanted by the MMO gamer population at all but I'd sure like all of you to weigh in on this issue. Since grinding is something almost all of us complain about then maybe as a community we can think of ways that developers could resolve this problem. Let me hear your thoughts!
I think grinding can be elminated by just what you say-have the developers go back to the pen and paper concept of RPG's.
It's basically what they have done but players are too much of in a hurry to get to the end to realize it. In WoW at every so many levels there are dungeons to go through with parties. There is also quest to be done all the way to the top without just killing monsters for xp. It is player perception that makes it feel like a grind. Everyone thinks the top of the game is magical. It isn't, the monsters are the top of the game are relevant to for the players at the top of the game. At level 30 the monsters of that level are relevant for that level.
If people didn't think about getting to the finish line and just enjoyed playing and advancing their character through out the whole game there would be no "grind". World of Warcraft is too focused on end game. The levels before are too quick and all solo which makes end game all that matters. In Everquest in the beginning it took some time to level and people partied up during leveling. I for one didn't think about while playing everyday, how fast I can get to the end of the game. In the beginning all levels of Everquest was fun to be in and end game was just a finish line. Why do I want to finish my fun online game?
Originally posted by Torik Every method of obtaining ISK in EVE will become a grind if you do it enough just like any system of leveling and skilling up. Mining, rat farming, mission running, trading even piracy will become a grind if you do it often and long enough. Fundementally it is no different than WoW or EQ.
Just because you repeat 1 action twice does not make it a grind.
I am really sick of hearing about grinding. Everything you do to progress in a game or real life could be considered a grind. First you need to establish what you are considering a grind.
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
I am really sick of hearing about grinding. Everything you do to progress in a game or real life could be considered a grind. First you need to establish what you are considering a grind.
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
I disagree, a grind I think is anything being repeated, taking longer or used more than you want it to be, does not have to be easy it could be very hard, as long as you don't like it.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
I am really sick of hearing about grinding. Everything you do to progress in a game or real life could be considered a grind. First you need to establish what you are considering a grind.
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
Thats what people wanted in leveling. No death penalty all solo. Everquest had difficulty while leveling. Sure Everquest could have lessened the xp curve but I believe the rush you got from difficulty of encounters in dungeons throughout the game made it worth it.
I personally do not have a problem with grinding in so much as it means completing the same mechanic over and over again - that is whet the vast majority of game mechanics are based on. I would however prefer they devote the energies to the variation of task and environment so the machanics feel random and new rather than repetitive tasks. i think the challenge is in changing from a "kill 10 of" adf "fetch 10 of" to tasks and challenegs that are buried well into an immersive environment. I dont mind grinding if its part of a well developed lore or storyline in a variety of environments. I dont think devs use chain quests or long story arcs enough these days either. The satisfaction from completeing a number of arc quests is more for me than the instant thrill of a one off.
I am really sick of hearing about grinding. Everything you do to progress in a game or real life could be considered a grind. First you need to establish what you are considering a grind.
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
I disagree, a grind I think is anything being repeated, taking longer or used more than you want it to be, does not have to be easy it could be very hard, as long as you don't like it.
You like it or not, it's a grind. Even if it's the best thing in the world it's still a grind.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Comments
^ This.
Grind is in the players hands ultimately. If all you care about is getting to the end game as fast as you can, then you will feel the grind. If you play to have fun and see all that a game has to offer throughout all the level ranges, then you will be less likely to feel the grind.
I also like taking my time in a game. To me there is no point in grinding all the way to max level as fast as I can only to spend the next few months repetitivly grinding raid bosses and encounters. After all, raiding is still a grind for gear, and a far worse grind than one would experience while leveling.
Even taking your time, experiencing all the game has to offer could be considered a grind if what there is to experience is tedious and repetitive. For example, hundreds and thousands of quests that could be better described as tasks and chores will feel tedious and repetitive for me, no matter how slow I do them.
If a game....any game....regardless the genre would feel tedious and repetitve, I choose not to play such games. But keep in mind what could be considered fun for me could be considered tedious and repetitve for someone else.
I feel that if a game starts to feel tedious and/or repetitive there is more focus to get to the next lvl, to me lvl's are just a side-effect, a necessary side-effect, as obvious you will lvl.
As a example, there can be quests in a MMORPG that tell you to kill 1000 specific creature's, now I am sure if people would enter the game world and focus on killing those 1000 creature's will end up in feeling like a chore/tedious and/or even repetitve.
When I would take a quest like that it might take day's/weeks/months before I finish it, I know on my travels I will spot these creature's, I would see no need into killing them in a row, perhaps I kill a few today, perhaps a few the next day, perhaps don't even get to see those creature's for day's/weeks, eventualy I know I will finish the quest. Atleast to me this is what is meant with taking my time, I don't want games to turn out being jobs, but keep in mind seeing me talk remember I am a social/exploring crafter and hardly put any time into PVP, while sometimes I might get a feel to get into PVP, it isn't the main reason or even a reason for me to play a MMORPG, I like the other parts of a MMORPG and am more into PVP with FPS or RTS games. Though I do feel PVP should always be a part of a MMORPG game, but only by choice and never forced.
Unless you are fighting two imbeciles (quite possible, I admit), they will beat you unless you are OP. Two competent players will beat you. You might get one down, but the second will finish you.
Too many players want 'movie hero vs movie ninja' results.
In any FPS one player can (and frequently will) mow down more than 2 opponents at once. Is every "class" overpowered in an FPS?
It's a simple function of "how important is skill?" Personally I prefer games where skill (in other words: player decisions) impacts combat a lot.
The advantage of robotic 100hp + 10dps characters (where your only choice is "where do I spray my DPS hose?") is that it lets newbies win a lot more than they otherwise would. This is one of the big selling points of RPG design, that anyone can do well. But personally I strongly prefer games where player skill matters (and at the same time, where it's clearly communicated why you lost - or possibly how you were beaten.) The first Modern Warfare's death mechanic springs to mind, where you get a replay from your killer's view of exactly how they killed you. TF2 comes close too.
Basically while I concede that the majority of RPGs will never get away from that basic 100hp+10dps hose gameplay, I think there's room for a minority of them to cater to player skill.
(Please no "only FPSes can be playerskill heavy" comments. Need I point out Chess or Go? An MMORPG can be balanced around skillful tactical ability choice in much the same way that Chess revolves around tactical/strategic decisions.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't mind that occasional "take x to y and get z quest" or "kill 100 widgets and get some honorific" but I just feels there needs to be more than that. I agree with the risk and reward statements made here already. I also agree (in principle) with the lessening of, or outright elimination of leveling might help.
If there has to be "grinding" of some sort in game then can't we have more choices, more variable, different story arcs for the choices we make and/or when we complete a quest, we actually can see a difference in the world we are playing in (even if it is small)? Or are there just too many people playing to make this plausible?
Let me give you an example: I played City of Heroes from Beta through this year. 5 years of a very good game. I enjoyed the powers, the costumes, the storylines were all cool. There were times I actually felt like a superhero like when I would hit someone with my stone hammer and watch them fly backward 20 yards.. now that was awesome. Nevertheless, the storylines, story arcs and quests, like every other MMO, were the same.. no real differences, no real changes no matter what style of hero you played. This is where devs perhaps can start to think about the depth of the progressions they are writing so that there IS different outcomes, different gameplay for the type of character you are playing. I know this would take time, money and lot of good writers but guess what? Look around devs! Just look at this community! There are some here who I believe seem to know how to write, and have some obvious creative talents. There is untapped potential out here that maybe you need to use to help make games that at the very least make the grinding aspect fun.
Lets look at progression. Here is where a lot of the not-fun grinding takes place. There is always a Tank, a DPS class, and AoE class, blah, blah, blah.... this is getting old in my opinion. Where is the creativity? These traditional archetypes need revision, need diversity, need a makeover! And as you progress its more of the same. Warrior becomes Gladiator or Paladin or Templar, Spellcaster becomes Wizard or Sorcerer, etc, Scout become Ranger or Assassin, etc.. you get the drift. I feel that if you are going to have classes then have a TON of them so that people feel somewhat unique. Allow crossclassing (like in DnD) so you can make some interesting characters. Give better storylines and allow for more chances for people to play diverse playstyles..
I know my comments are biased because I am a long time Pen and Paper gamer but I just can't buy the argument that developers can't think out of the box and give us more interesting and diverse playing options, etc.
So Mote It Be.
Get rid of classes and levels. Both these designs do not have enough mini milestones which makes the grind so much worse. A system like UO where you could work on several different skills at once create more points of reward for your effort. Plus even in old UO going from 0 to 70-80 skill wasn't that difficult or grindy and by the time you got to 70-80 skill there were many different areas you could hunt in or group up and hit something bigger that would probably get some of you killed but at 80/80 you could rez a friend or there were rez scrolls with enough magery.
This is a big difference between UO and current mmo. Dieing in UO was enviable. You could control how much dieing hurt if at all. Where today everyone gets all pissed off and emo when they die.
Skill systems, whether any developer wants to acknowledge it or not, are the future of MMORPG's, and perhaps games in general. I've seen a lot of posts about EVE, and they are all pretty much right, one thing that drew me into that game was the skill system. Though I will admit, I never played past the hour-long tutorial because I was getting sucked into that game hardcore; yes I quit because it was too much fun of a game for me.
I haven't seen any posts regarding the original Star Wars Galaxies, (and if I missed them, I'm sorry). That game was also skill based, but it was also class based, (they were called 'professions'). A player had a certain number of skill points to use on any 32 professions. You had 5 or 6 basic professions, then the rest were elite professions. The fun thing about this system, is that a person could be an armorsmith, and also be a pistoleer, or any other combonation of the 32 professions. To this day, that is still my favorite type of skill/class system I have seen in any game. The great thing was, if you were tired of being a Bounty Hunter, you could reset all your skill points, and choose to be a Doctor, or a Musician. You did have to level back up to those points though, (while there were skill points, there was also MANY types of experience you could gain, which you had to earn in order to spend your points). But I will also add that if you knew the game well, you could level VERY quickly. I mean getting experience to become a Medic/Doctor simply required that you healed people wounds and damage; people would come into towns and go to a med center, where doctors hung out and healed wounds all day.
To me, that system was so far ahead of it's time it was ridiculous. The point being: It was a skill-based/class/level system, a mix of every type of advancement system, instead of just one. And for anyone who ever played that game back then, for me at least; there was never a dull moment.
The ideas expressed here by so many fine folks on these forums prove my overall belief that answers can be found to alleve the grinding one finds in MMOs. Let's hear some more thoughts.. I know you all have them!
I hate grinding for advancement in any game. I tried WoW and all the popular fantasy MMOs and hated them.
Then I played EVE Online on a whim and ended up playing it for another 3 years. There was grind in that game too but less than most since all I did was kill other people for fun and money to survive. People are unpredictable. Many times you really had no idea what you were facing or if the enemy had backup. IMO PVP is less of a grind then PVE. Computer AI / Missions / Quests are easily predictable after the 2nd try and then it becomes a GRIND.
The Skill system was great.
I hate that in many games you have to be online killing tons of NPCs/Mobs just to advance. If you only log in to change skills you will still be moving forward but probably broke (in game).
...
SWG was probably the best game i ever played. you werent forced into any particular type of play style, you played how you wanted to, in effect, creating your own play style, the profession trees were perhaps SWG's biggest selling point, personally i liked the ranger skill tree, once you had mastered it enough you knew when animals were tracking you and could try and lose them - great for exploring too, and, realistically, it didnt stop 'intelligent' mobs from agro'ing you. now that i think about it. the type of games that i've had the most fun in, didnt have levels.
Throwing in my hat supporting the angle that the only way to reduce grind is to give players plenty of options that all earn general XP at comparable rates. Meaning, I suppose that actions earn two forms of XP at once: one type related to the activity you're doing directly, and a second "neutral" xp that goes toward your general experience bar.
I back the "no levels" stance and think the experience bar's amount should remain constant rather than exponentially increasing in size with each level gained. The exponential raising of hte level bar each time just seems like a way to slow us down as we approach level-based game's "end game"... one cannot deny that if you can hit level 10 in 20 minutes and then take many hours to days in order to complete a level at higher points that it's built to slow you down. You're not findign less animals, you're not doing less quests, usually you're doing MORE and gaining comparitively less ground.
It comes down to the fact that all actions in your game world are "expereinces"... so why are they not all rewarded? Right now it seems that only actions that kill mobs, or completion of quests (the majority of which require killing mobs at some point) earn XP that goes toward your main bar.
I'm a group player, usually support classes (I suck at combat), and if my work schedule has me not on when my guild is on they fly ahead of me. I'm always happy to sit aroudn crafting, but though my crafting level rises, it doesn't help me catch up to my friends. Instead I'm shoe-horned into going out to solo quest, or dealing with PUGs ... sometimes that works out, sometimes not so much. If my grafting gave me general XP toward my next skill point, I could craft away to my hearts content and still make up for time I missed when I was dealing with RL work. Without having to do things I find very un-enjoyable.
An alternative, which would support roleplayers, would be the ability to give some of your own XP away to others. "What?!" Basically, whatever is sitting in your general XP bar is yours to do with as you choose. Say you're nearly to full, and decide to just hang out in a tavern. You meet up with someone who strikes up an in-character conversation... and you know what? They're actually pretty damn decent. You have a nice in-character interaction, and decide to reward that person with a chunk of XP.
- Will some players take to begging for XP? Probably, but that's what an unlimited ignore list is for.
I'd best leave off at that, otherwise I start blabbering about specifics of how to I'd allocate XP for mob kills and such. What ti comes down to is there needs to be equally viable ways to get general XP. Profressions can earn it, and we can open more professions slots, or give players unlimited ones, so they can keep working at that for ages. Allow for ways that players can earn XP from one another via social interactions. Free XP from the combat system, basically, while still rewarding those that engage in combat if that is their play style.
Grinding, Grinding, Grinding.. I love grinding.
Grinding is a large part of character development and your attachment to that character..to make it the best it can be, to learn where drops are even on rotating days, and to teach the new commers what you have learned at those certain lvls.
What is the fun of having a pre-high-level handed to you? What's the fun of not being sure where a drop will simulate because there will be no need for that lower lvl stuff anymore. What is the use in professions which are spent with weeks of building skills so others can wear better gear and carry better weapons now that you are just handed a ton of gear with your new high lvl champion... so no need for a trade skill..
Simply put, grinding is a part of MMO.. it's a building block on a lot of different lvls. .. even for making friends and having fun with grinding the grind.
The journey is part of the fun..:)
I can appreciate "the journey" and have no problem working for my level... or pardon me "playing" for my level. I really hate killing mobs, though, and when a game gives me only killing mobs as a viable means of gaining experience. That's when I get bored rather quickly and usually walk away from the game. I gave WoW a solid effort, months and months working up to level 70, did some exploring before WotLK came out (had to rush and misse dmuch of my "journey" being pressured to rush rush rush and keep up with my GF and others in our guild... lowbie healer is useless to the guild, eh?)
Then the expansion came out and we all sort of baulked at doing it all over again. So we got naked and ran around hte new areas map clearing and takingpicture,s then cancelled the subscriptions. If I get bored enough I might go back... but since WoW offers nothing but mob killing, sometimes hidden inside quests, but still mob killing, I'm not sur eI'll get bored enough to return.
More than anything I want a game that will reward XP for things other than mob-killing. General multi-purpose XP for professions, even the ability of players to award XP off their own incomplete XP bar to other players who made an impact on them role playing. (Say up to a max of 500xp given out per day or something.) Just... more diverse ways of levelling up. Not asking to have max level handd to me, but I'd just like the "game" to contain options I actually found "fun". I was in the game for my guild, so anytime they were not on I was bored with the progression options.
Grinding is trivially easy content repeated till your eyes bleed. Make a game that is complex enough that there is no one solution that always works. Make it not trivially easy. An example of a game that is not trivial is chess. Whether playing against a computer or another player there is no final best play. There is no way to say "just hit this set of keys over and over". Even checkers is I think an example of non trivial game. No final solution.
I think that would require an ai that is able to change its attacks in response to the tactics the players use.
Make AI challenging, and monsters harder.
Shadow of the Colossus MMO with grinding ftw.
I am really sick of hearing about grinding. Everything you do to progress in a game or real life could be considered a grind. First you need to establish what you are considering a grind. If you are considering killing monsters over and over to gain xp and level a grind then that has been ended for a long time now.
Games now have no grind if that is what you are talking about. They are games, they take time to advance a character. These are online RPGs. RPGs have always had character advancement by gaining xp in some way. If you want to play an online adventure game then I that is a different story. I for one would not pay to play an online adventure game. The game would be too short to be an online game. I would buy a single player adventure game instead.
Taking time to actually PLAY a game does not mean you are grinding. If you feel this way then the game is not for you.
Said it so much better than I, thank you. I hope people wise up and read this.
Another great post. I would like to add though, I dislike questing and being told what to do in my MMO. I preferred making my own quest choosing what I kill or where I go to xp.
That is easy make the game really short, the shorter it is the less chance of having grind.
Of course no one likes this concept because they want to be able to play the game for years and not feel like the content repeats or drags.
Since I really don't think you can eliminate grind and have a game meant to be played for a long time, let me be negative for a while.
Skills verses levels, either way you have to repeatedly do something to level, so it is subject to grind either way. Even Eve you have to wait to level skills so the grind is time based. The only difference is to the individual, but you still end up grinding, having you prefered system just postpones the feeling.
Action combat, group focus, death penalty, you may like these mechanics but they can only help stave off the grind for so long, and probably not long at that.
Dynamic worlds, neat trolls usually live in the forest but now they are in the valley, this is like Diablo, sure it changes but not in a significant way as the game is basically the same, unless you have a system that can generate new and interesting gameplay mechanics a dynamic world is not going to do much to curb the grind.
Multiple paths to level by, this isn't going to work because if you think about it each path is a grind within itself, switching up the paths by hunting for 30 minutes, questing for 30, crafting for 30 and PvPing for 30 just means you grinded for 2 hours.
The thing is is I think there are only so many times you can do something or something similar before it becomes drull, which is why I say you have to make a game short so that the mechanics fall within the threshold of of still interesting but don't become drull, it is when you cross into drull territory is when the grind kicks in. That is the only solution I see, though that isn't a satisfactory answer.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
"Ending" Grind is simple in theory but difficult in reality. "Grind" is not simply repeated activities; if this was true, then everything you do, including breathing, would be grind. That's obviously not the case. Grind is repeated activities when you're not having fun. When the enjoyment is gone, the dreaded feeling of, "Man, I still have this many things to go until I level?" sets in.
Grind sets in much faster with activities that involve less player interaction or "slower" activities, though even combat is not immune if it does not vary (i.e. killing 200 mobs who all do the same thing and who never adapt). Grind can also set in if you fail something often (whether it's your fault or the game is designed that way). This is a tricky balancing point as a developer, because if you let players succeed often, they'll claim it's "too easy". Likewise, if you make it difficult, it'll be "too hard" and most people won't feel like even trying.
How to offset grind, then? Well, as a developer, you can't force everyone to have fun all the time. That's up to the players, whether they're having fun or not. So, you need to have lots of variety. This is where the sandbox starts to sound appealing. Have a large number of different skills (especially non-combat), have non-combat/social activities, have quests that are epic adventures instead of Kill-X or FedEx, and let the players chart their own course every day by choosing what they want to do. This can be done in a themepark, despite what most people here would believe; it's one of the key's to WoW's success, though they've had 5 years to build on variety and add in tons of content.
Those are just my thoughts, anyways.
I think grinding can be elminated by just what you say-have the developers go back to the pen and paper concept of RPG's.
It's basically what they have done but players are too much of in a hurry to get to the end to realize it. In WoW at every so many levels there are dungeons to go through with parties. There is also quest to be done all the way to the top without just killing monsters for xp. It is player perception that makes it feel like a grind. Everyone thinks the top of the game is magical. It isn't, the monsters are the top of the game are relevant to for the players at the top of the game. At level 30 the monsters of that level are relevant for that level.
If people didn't think about getting to the finish line and just enjoyed playing and advancing their character through out the whole game there would be no "grind". World of Warcraft is too focused on end game. The levels before are too quick and all solo which makes end game all that matters. In Everquest in the beginning it took some time to level and people partied up during leveling. I for one didn't think about while playing everyday, how fast I can get to the end of the game. In the beginning all levels of Everquest was fun to be in and end game was just a finish line. Why do I want to finish my fun online game?
Just because you repeat 1 action twice does not make it a grind.
EVE Online can be played grindless.
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
I disagree, a grind I think is anything being repeated, taking longer or used more than you want it to be, does not have to be easy it could be very hard, as long as you don't like it.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
Thats what people wanted in leveling. No death penalty all solo. Everquest had difficulty while leveling. Sure Everquest could have lessened the xp curve but I believe the rush you got from difficulty of encounters in dungeons throughout the game made it worth it.
I personally do not have a problem with grinding in so much as it means completing the same mechanic over and over again - that is whet the vast majority of game mechanics are based on. I would however prefer they devote the energies to the variation of task and environment so the machanics feel random and new rather than repetitive tasks. i think the challenge is in changing from a "kill 10 of" adf "fetch 10 of" to tasks and challenegs that are buried well into an immersive environment. I dont mind grinding if its part of a well developed lore or storyline in a variety of environments. I dont think devs use chain quests or long story arcs enough these days either. The satisfaction from completeing a number of arc quests is more for me than the instant thrill of a one off.
To err is human....to play is divine
A grind is a trivially easy process repeated till your eyes bleed.
I disagree, a grind I think is anything being repeated, taking longer or used more than you want it to be, does not have to be easy it could be very hard, as long as you don't like it.
You like it or not, it's a grind. Even if it's the best thing in the world it's still a grind.