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Questing vs Grinding
Preponerance
Member Posts: 295
After reading quite a bit on the subject, I thought I would share my thoughts on both the questing and grinding aspects of MMO's in general. Please forgive my writing style as I'm no English major nor a blogger(even though I would love to be). Most of it was observed on these forums but I do frequent other forums that have games in the market now.
QUESTING - Pretty much every game out on the market has some kind of quest system. I think the main reason there were implemented was in part due to the RPG element of games. I also think these were included to "guide" players to areas where they could "hunt/kill" mobs appropriate to their characters level/abilities. It leads the player though "most" of the content without having to search for it.
The Pros of Questing - Just 2 examples not my complete thoughts.
- Easy to find out where your character needs to be in accordance to its progression.
- To obtain gear/equipment and or money that is usable for your character in order to help its progression.
The Cons of Questing - Just 2 examples not my complete thoughts.
- Easy Mode - Kind of like co-pilot, there is no thinking or testing to the waters on what you can kill and you can't. Even though there are some people that push the envelope.
- Player X is level 22 and has a total of 20 quests to complete. Here comes Player Y who is also level 22 and has 20 quests to complete but they are on different lines of the quest series so there is no reason for them to group since they both have different goals to reach. (There is more that could be said here and discussed about but I don't want to drag this out.)
GRINDING - Also pretty much ever game you can grind your way up the levels. Also a lot of buzz about Eastern MMO's are grind fests which I do agree with for the most part. However there are some upsides to grinding as well however tedious and boring it may seem. So let me elaborate a little on the Pros and Cons of grinding.
The Pros of Grinding - Again see the other Pros/Cons
- Player X and Player Y meet again but neither of them have the quests and both needs levels. They share a common goal. They group up together and spend then next couple of hours grouped up together. In the mean time they also invite Player D, Player C, Player Z. Now they have a full group of people that spend the next hour os so playing and getting to know each other. If you can see where i'm going with this.....basically grinding, in my opinion builds a better community because you get to spend time with other players and not soloing the whole time doing quests and only group at max level.
- Causal and Hardcore alike your both going to achieve something. Hardcore maybe looking for a ultra rare crafting component or the casual just looking for some levels.
The Cons of Grinding
- Same mobs/area over and over again.
- No just reward for grinding other than levels and occasional drops.
I could go into more detail for each Pro/Con but thought I would like to share my ideas on the differences on both types of gameplay. I know that in Champions Online you could now share quests to other people who were not eligible for them(not sure how true that is since I left before they implemented it).
I'm not a fanboi, fanboy however you want to spell it of any game or genre. I try them all out unbiased. I have no particular way to play and never fully liked a game that had it's problems. I have experience every MMO that is out. From Sandbox to Themepark from Space to Fanasty each game is enjoyable to it's own extent.
MMO's is like dating....ever single person you date is going to have an issue it's just trying to find the one with the issues you can tolerate and deal with on a daily basis.
Comments
Don't have a ton to mention, though I'd say to your "Easy-Mode" cons to "questing"... most top MMO's these days already cue you in to difficulties through their con system. So questing does little to regulate that or dumb it down. I'd go even further, using LotRO as an example...
Well made quests REQUIRE you to think, and may come to surprise you. I've had quests here and there in LotRO where you have to go to a certain area, critters are all conning well within your capability, and you realize that your quest objective is in an area loaded with elite trolls. So now, you have to figure out how to fight your way through, or seek an entrance that's not guarded by them.
There's another one that launched with Mirkwood, whose quest objective points intentionally deceive you. I loved it, personally, and I hope turbine doesn't succumb to nerdrage and get rid of it... anyhoo...
Furthermore, I'd say that "easy-mode" is certainly not an accurate comparison to grinding. There is very little that's difficult about grinding. You just find mobs that you can take on with minimal difficulty but give good xp and drops, and just start hacking away. Rarely will you find that you have to sneak past an area full of elites to find the best grinding spot; you just look for the easiest spot to get to that's close to town and get your spamming digits ready...
Elite Trolls, even conned mobs, you must be talking about the TrollShaws.
I guess I should have reworded that not exactly, Easymode, but hold my hand please and tell me where to go..
Edited for clarity.
I would like to add that grinding is more of a state of mind than an activity. Grinding is when you turn yourself off to everything but the xp bar and do whatever is most efficient to getting xp. (or gold or whatever). By turning yourself off and ignoring everything about the game, you've made it very boring and tedious. A chore. And thus it turns into a job, and like real life is a grind, you've managed to turn the game into a grind.
You could grind in LOTR. However in LOTR, the most efficient way to get XP is to do quests, so you grind quests. Ignore everything you possibly can about the quest and just think about the mob you need to kill. Thats pretty much the same thing as grinding in EQ.
And yet there are people who avoid grinding at all costs. They never bother to look at the xp bar (much like in pnp games). They just do whatever they like with their friends. Higher levels to them don't exist. Why should it, they are playing with their friends and having fun. Why change what isn't broken. I was level 30 in LOTR before i stumbled upon the xp bar by accident. Until then i never cared what level or item i had. I was just having fun.
Questing is no different from Grinding. Only different methods to do the same thing.
If there is some kind of smaller goal to work towards to while grinding, then that's good, for those who aren't satisfied by the act of grinding alone. If you simply like to level up, having quests to do or not doesn't matter.
I will try to explain how retarded questing is done in games,by showing exactly what they do.
You are out leveling for xp.You find a camp,you don't have to waste anymore time running around to another camp or NPC.Ok say you kill 50 bears.
Now the option is to go do a quest instead.Say that quest needs 10 bear pelts and takes those same 50 bears to get those 10 pelts.All the games are doing is ,making you grind those exact same mobs ,but just because you ran back n forth to some static useless NPC,they figure you deserve bonus XP?LMAO,just the thought of it is laughable.
The next time you run an errand for your parents,i bet you come back home and think "Man i feel a lot more experienced now"I should get bonus brain cells,for running that errand.
If games are that lame,and just want to hand out free xp,don't waste my time or test my intelligence by disguising it by making me an errand boy to some virtual NPC.Instead just give everyone 75% bonus XP for just logging into the game,it is the exact same thing.
I guess when i hear so many people commend games like EVE for allowing free skills for doing nothing but put a check mark into a box,i can see why there is so many people that adore such lame game mechanics as questing for XP,amongst many other dumb ideas i have seen.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't see how awarding xp for quests is any more retarded than awarding xp for robotically killing the same spawn of mobs over and over again. Neither system is perfect, it's just a question of preference.
I like the idea of games like UO and Morrowind where you gain skill by actually using the skill but in practice this usually leads to very dull gameplay as players are encouraged and sometimes effectively forced to powerlevel the skills rather than use them as intended.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I, personally, enjoy quests, especially well-written ones, like in LotRO. I rarely look at the xp bar, and I don't fell like its a grind. I feel I'm part of the story. However, if I had to just mindlessly kill the same mob over and over again, I would get bored quick. I prefer questing, it gives me a reason to kill that mob (sometimes it's not a good reason, but still a reason). Grinding mob after mob would seem like a tedious job with no enjoyment. If I had to do that in a game, I would be looking for the cancel button quick.
You're failing to understand what quests are for.
They're supposed to break up the crushing monotony of grinding mobs into smaller chunks, structure it in a manner where the player has a tangible objective to complete, and allow for a more controlled method of reward. Most people don't want to stand in one place grinding the same mob over and over with the same attack sequence. I don't want to be a human macro.
This tripe about "bonus" or "free" XP is just silly.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
@ OP
I feel the same way as you. While it's nice to have some epic styled quests to do along the way, I don't feel having thousands of quests is necessary. DAoC had an epic quest system where every 5 levels, you were given a quest that took a while to complete, and rewarded you with a magical item, and it's worth mentioning that magical items in DAoC were very rare. The whole epic quest series was one long story. Classes within the same type of school, had their own epic quest line. So there were many epic quest lines to experience, which all came together at the end. In the meantime, everyone grouped together and grinded xp either by camping above ground and pulling mobs to the camp, or dungeon crawling.
People think mob grinding is dull and boring, yet the same people probably love hack n' slash games like Diablo, which is no different than mob grinding. What makes one fun and the other boring is the combat style and pace of combat.
Good grind groups aren't how you describe. A good grind group searches for the best xp per hour, which is found through trial and error. DAoC for example requires your group to fight purple con mobs, which is the highest con in the game. Meaning, your seeking out fights that your group could easily die to, but if played right, can get an awesome amount of xp per kill. With a well balanced group and good players, you'll rarely have a full group wipe, but the fact that it can happen if one person slips in their role or creatures respawn too fast makes it dangerous, not easy-mode like you claim.
You're failing to understand what quests are for.
This tripe about "bonus" or "free" XP is just silly.
As soon as he said levelling for XP, you knew he was grinding. And once they are grinding, no game enhancement matters.
My major qualm with questing is the extra travel time. Like i would 1st find an NPC quest giver then travel to the area the quest deals with then complete the quest. Now I have to stop what I am doing and go see the NPC. This is where I find it breaks up my... umm.. concentraion...well my grindage into smaller or larger time packets then I set myself up for. I mean maybe i had a coffee or maybe a glass of beer. Both case equal a difernt amount of time I would like to focus on an activity.
Where grind alows me the player to set the breaks from imersion based soley on my "state". Now if we set up an area where the terain/mob/stratigy changed and stayed the same relitive dificuly or skill/exp lvl would the questers be more comforable with it? I mean when I have to leave prematurly just to copulate my gains, even if the gain over time is greater, I feel like im am slowed down.
That is to say when I 1st played games, single/muli/mmo, they were all grind and hence my mind is set in thinking I am losing something for breaking off.
Now when I set out, I want to continuously gain working with spawnrate over gain and find the optimum place and what I find in most games today is the gain per mob is so low compared to the quest completion that it becomes far to much grind to stay competitve. Even with long travel times.
So what I sugest is to balance out the quest rewards to be on par with the distance traveled over time to time spent in an area "farming".
Now the reason this system has been incorperated in the 1st place was to limit spawn ownership or farming in the 1st place and especialy when you have a new game or an influx of new players they will all be competing and complaining about so and so who wouldnt leave this or that spawn.
Now what I saw in DFO was what they called a staged release. Since DFO was almost completly grind based(skills only for action) and limited low end mob resources this "staged release" worked to solve this problem. That and I would say helped increase they hype level dramaticaly. I mean if limited copies were avalible and you got one wont that make you feel special?
I think that grinding is essential for questing. I spend a lot of time grinding on my MMO because the quests are difficult. I love to spend time grinding in groups because it means there is more to the story than the story. You and your friends can make it more like an epic adventure.
www.ryzom.com
One mans grind is another mans pleasure. Hmmm... that sounds a bit homoerotic...
Some people see questing AS grinding. I half agree. Crappy questing is. In LotRO, if there aren't other reasons why I'll be out in the field where the "10 wolf pelts" drop, I drop the quest. Fortunately, Turbine seems to be onto this and is fairly good at stacking quest areas.
Good grind groups aren't how you describe. A good grind group searches for the best xp per hour, which is found through trial and error. DAoC for example requires your group to fight purple con mobs, which is the highest con in the game. Meaning, your seeking out fights that your group could easily die to, but if played right, can get an awesome amount of xp per kill. With a well balanced group and good players, you'll rarely have a full group wipe, but the fact that it can happen if one person slips in their role or creatures respawn too fast makes it dangerous, not easy-mode like you claim.
I wasn't talking about "grind groups", I was talking about grinding for XP. Most people aren't grinding to break world records. You don't have to take on big challenges to level, at least not in any game I've played.
Trollshaws is one example. Southeast of Esteldin is another. I particularly like the heavy duty elite bandit that guards the way to Forochel.
LotRO started out without quest guides. You had to discern the area they were talking about through the text of the quest. Now, they provide a guide that you can choose to turn off. I imagine they caved by request from those guys who start those, "hate reading stupid quest text" threads. Also, possibly from those people that got fed up with the quest giver using the elven name for an area while the map uses the common name or dwarven, etc.
Most quests are based on grind. Imo its still better then pure grind... having a task makes me feel more motivated
But I would love to be a part of an adventure... too bad quests arent like adventure games - you have to think logicaly to solve a riddle. More mysterious riddles, some kind of labyrinth, a code to crack, something that involves your brain 
Brain + weapon = win 
Hmm... give me
and tell me to shoot 10 twenty times in a row and I can promise you that I wont go to bed till I do it 
It would be much more fun then killing the same mobs over and over again.
I believe every mmorpg player has got many ideas for interesting quests, the most important thing is to change the way of thinking. Atm everything is focused on killing mobs, no matter if its a quest or pure grind.