I hate having typed up such a nice informational post only for the thread to die right after I posted it.
Hehe, it's a good point, having the acceleration of XP deppreciate in a curve, so the further you get the less you get, still rewards powergamers whilst only giving them a minor advantage. I agree with simple things being boring, something that most new games whatever genre or plattform doesn't seem to have. There is no challenge or 'resistance' it's like a movie that you have controll over. Counter Strike is very skilled based whilst newer FPS (I haven't played a lot) just aren't, the first time I played COD4 I killed way more people than I died which in CS took me a LONG time. With COD, L4D etc. you can pretty much just shoot and move your mouse in Frenzy randomly spraying bullets everywhere whilst CS has a lot of recoil which requires you time your shots just as the mouse is over the player, too late and he will get you first, too soon and your recoil will build up too much to get a good shot.
If the game is fun though, no matter how repetitive or simple it is, it's not grind if it's fun, it's just that repetitive and simple things don't tend to be fun, not for me anyway but 11 million WOW subs disagree..
I tried WOW for a couple hours and gave up, I could see the tedious, repetitive, boring "Talk to the guy next to me" quests I was in for, when I play a game I want the game to start as soon as I logg in, not at level 80. I also dislike how a level 30 is utterly chanceless against a level 80, the level 30 should have SOME sort of chance but unless the level 80 gets a heartattack it's not going to happen. It's all to do with Instant Gratification, everything is starting to revolve around it.
I would contest your assessment of AC's grind. While people could group together you had to grind mobs to level your character in a very boring way.
I played on Darktide mostly, so my experience probably differs a lot from the standard white world. Trying to level up when you have items on you that can drop on death and can be jumped at any time is far from boring. Even then, I think the leveling in that game was more of fluff after a certain point, It certainly wasn't driven by necessity. Also, I think the combat mechanics helped quite a bit, especially if you were fighting magic casters. I mean if you consider some of the monsters, like virindi, they would shoot you with spells that would lop off half of your health, and if you were in a group of particularly spammy casters, the game was quite exciting as you tried to dodge and heal if you did get hit.
If all combat were like that, it'd be quite nice, especially if XP/loot rewards were proportional to the difficulty of what you were fighting.
Also, consider that in your standard WoW archetype game, you have to grind monsters that are carefully tailored to your difficulty, if you go into a higher level zone than is defined for your character, you as the player have little ability as a player to alter the outcome of a fight, whereas in AC you could take on anything really if you had the skill to dodge and heal yourself at the right times. The quests though specifically, in the WoW archetype, you grind through quests, they are simplistic and repetitive with little thought put into them. I would much rather have an Asheron's Call style game where you're forced to grind through endless amounts of crappy monsters to level up if the quests are as high quality as they were in AC, rather than a game with boring weak quests.
People constantly complain about grind in MMORPG but is there a game that doesn't have any grind? I can't see it working. You have to reward progression whilst not letting the amount of progression determine the ability of the character.
The only solution I can think of is that progression is merely cosmetic or doesn't effect the character, this however means that people would spend loads of time playing and they wouldn't really be getting anything from it.
All these people complaining about grind, lets hear your solution!
My solution is simple. Don't make the game about who has the highest level, all crappy games do this.
An example of how to do this?
Okay lets take a tale in the desert love it or loath it, doesn't matter. It's not about having the highest skills it's about building stuff. Lets take a few multiplayer games, everyones stats are equal but they have a task to do other than "achieve" (I use the word losely) a higher character level. Sometimes there goals are building things like ATITD, sometimes killing others (Without the need for higher skills) and sometimes it's other things.
In short don't require the player to repeat a task several times in order to advance to do the same thing at a higher level with better opponents.
Will it be as successful as the grinding games? sadly by the state of current mmo trends probably not.
People constantly complain about grind in MMORPG but is there a game that doesn't have any grind? I can't see it working. You have to reward progression whilst not letting the amount of progression determine the ability of the character.
The only solution I can think of is that progression is merely cosmetic or doesn't effect the character, this however means that people would spend loads of time playing and they wouldn't really be getting anything from it.
All these people complaining about grind, lets hear your solution!
My solution is simple. Don't make the game about who has the highest level, all crappy games do this.
An example of how to do this?
Okay lets take a tale in the desert love it or loath it, doesn't matter. It's not about having the highest skills it's about building stuff. Lets take a few multiplayer games, everyones stats are equal but they have a task to do other than "achieve" (I use the word losely) a higher character level. Sometimes there goals are building things like ATITD, sometimes killing others (Without the need for higher skills) and sometimes it's other things.
In short don't require the player to repeat a task several times in order to advance to do the same thing at a higher level with better opponents.
Will it be as successful as the grinding games? sadly by the state of current mmo trends probably not.
Your game has already been made: Guild wars.. instantly level 20 if you choose you just have to unlock skills...
People constantly complain about grind in MMORPG but is there a game that doesn't have any grind? I can't see it working. You have to reward progression whilst not letting the amount of progression determine the ability of the character.
The only solution I can think of is that progression is merely cosmetic or doesn't effect the character, this however means that people would spend loads of time playing and they wouldn't really be getting anything from it.
All these people complaining about grind, lets hear your solution!
My solution is simple. Don't make the game about who has the highest level, all crappy games do this.
An example of how to do this?
Okay lets take a tale in the desert love it or loath it, doesn't matter. It's not about having the highest skills it's about building stuff. Lets take a few multiplayer games, everyones stats are equal but they have a task to do other than "achieve" (I use the word losely) a higher character level. Sometimes there goals are building things like ATITD, sometimes killing others (Without the need for higher skills) and sometimes it's other things.
In short don't require the player to repeat a task several times in order to advance to do the same thing at a higher level with better opponents.
Will it be as successful as the grinding games? sadly by the state of current mmo trends probably not.
Your game has already been made: Guild wars.. instantly level 20 if you choose you just have to unlock skills...
It's not "My game" but you are right several like this have been made. I even mentioned one and refered to what are dozens. Unfortunately for you though guild wars isn't one of them.
The antidote to grinding is bringing the focus back to the journey through the levels, as opposed to leveling being something you race through to get to the "good stuff." You do that with a lot of TLC on the leveling mechanism, and not by end loading the game with all the things that are actually fun to do. It also helps if you incentivize small group play so that people aren't "grinding" alone, as they so often do these days.
Maybe. Consider this, though. I discover a new dungeon, which looks really cool, and I want to see what's at the end. There are thousands of mobs in my way that I must fight through. If I have a greater goal, it's not likely I'll consider killing those mobs a "grind." While it is repetitive, I'm not really focused on killing them. I'm focused on getting to the end.
The journey, if it's repetitive, is made more bearable by having an ultimate goal; i.e., end game.
When a quest says kill X number of mobs and it has a damn counter on your screen, then it feels like grinding because your only objective is the death of those mobs, not something greater. If you meant that each chunk of the leveling process - the "journey" - should be made less repetitive, then I agree.
I personally think the answer is variety of activity, because the less time you spend doing one particular thing, the longer it takes for you to become bored with it. Non-combat or social activities especially have been overlooked in MMOs, and they could contribute a lot to reducing the feeling of grind. The activities themselves can't be boring and repetitive, though, or you end up with a situation like RuneScape. While it has something like 27 skills to train, the training itself is very repetitive and daunting at higher levels (i.e. cutting down thousands of trees to get from 89 to 90 Woodcutting). Jagex tries to offset this with mini-games and skill exp through quest rewards, but the core of training is still reptitive action - grind.
This is exactly my feeling.
People play oblvion, morrowind all the time and never think it's "grinding". They are exploring and fighting their ways to their goals.
I've done most of my leveling in some games by just exploring and fighting for my (virtual) life.
And had a great time of it as well.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Originally posted by kevin_123 People constantly complain about grind in MMORPG but is there a game that doesn't have any grind? I can't see it working. You have to reward progression whilst not letting the amount of progression determine the ability of the character. The only solution I can think of is that progression is merely cosmetic or doesn't effect the character, this however means that people would spend loads of time playing and they wouldn't really be getting anything from it. All these people complaining about grind, lets hear your solution!
First off, you need to find out why there is a grind present in games and what is the function.
I lean towards following explanation:
Grind has very low entry barrier which assures the competitiveness for all players.
The exact opposite of grind based progression through the same content would be to reward only those who are skilled thus keeping the content locked to vast majority of the playerbase.
The other option is different game concepts that are simply not based on progression of any kind - like EVE Online. Character development is 'merely cosmetic' and what matters more is your in-game activity yielding rewards equal to your efficiency.
Scottc makes some good points. AC darktide had player driven politics (eve does too I understand). Player driven content was something that existed in MUDs but was largely lost in the EQ -> WOW fork. I am no talking player houses here, give players the tools to manage govern and fight each other and you need not worry about endless new content. Unfortunately sandboxes often have the worse skill grind of all (and no tools provided for the players to build their sand castles). You need in game political, economic, and social tools.
For me grind is boring repetitive tasks. Obviously boring is subjective. Ask a golfer whether hitting a little ball over and over again is boring, most are delighted to hit them into a net over and over again.....grinding? No. It occurs to me that the draw for then is the small improvements that allow them to 'level' there swing. One of the reasons that MMORPGs get grindy is that there systems are too un rewarding, too simplistic, combat in particular (which in many MMOs is usually the main focus). Sure you get a new skill now and then but it is then a case of hitting 1 2 3 4 5 instead of 1 2 3 4. (or worse still hitting 1 2 3 5 instead). One of the reasons wow was successful was he combat was pretty crisp and engaging (though some would argue it is a somewhat simplistic 1 2 3 block).
Certainly can exist but I can't think of any good examples that haven't been mentioned before. And as I have said some pretty decent sandboxes that could have been non grindy ended up with horrific skill grind.
Playing EVE Online now for years among other mmorpgs during that time.
Although you CAN grind in that game (for money/reputation) I can do nullsec complexes solo for lots of money in a very short time, train my skills in real time by a click of a button and go afk fo 1 year if I wish.
When I log back in I do not have to worry about grinding rep or upgrading 'epic' gear.
My corp although wouldn't be too happy ofc of my lack of particiaption in the game, but you know what I mean.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
I think the whole concept of grind comes from the gameplay lacking in depth and variety. Most popular single player RPGs have extremely engaging gameplay and epic involved storylines. The entire game usually only last for about 30 hours or so and we rarely find ourselves bored or feeling like we're just 'grinding' away at anything. Contrast that to MMOs, where you usually have to invest FAR more than 30 hours of time with much less enjoyable gameplay and extremely little emphasis on story and its not hard to see why many see it as a grind. They suffer through it, in most cases, simply because they are trying to reach the point at the end-game where the game will be more fun.
You've got it exactly right. A single-player game might last 30-40 hours, but you never have to wander around and kill things at random to level up, you're part of an ongoing story and you move from older content to newer content constantly. MMOs are supposed to last much longer than 40 hours, but they usually aren't all that much more content-heavy. Given the amount of content you can consume in a single-player game in an hour, can you honestly say that any MMO out there gives you the same amount of content available per hour or play?
Of course not!
The biggest problem with the grind in MMOs is that it really covers up a fundamental lack of content. Grindy content is fast and easy for the developers because it takes no creativity. Generate something once and make players do it over and over and over again. Occasionally, you can throw in different types of mobs to hide the painful fact that it's still the same stuff you've done a thousand times before.
I'd really like to see some content-heavy MMOs where there's tons of stuff to do and it doesn't all feel stale. I just don't see any developer out there actually taking the time, effort or money to develop such a game.
Comments
I hate having typed up such a nice informational post only for the thread to die right after I posted it.
Hehe, it's a good point, having the acceleration of XP deppreciate in a curve, so the further you get the less you get, still rewards powergamers whilst only giving them a minor advantage. I agree with simple things being boring, something that most new games whatever genre or plattform doesn't seem to have. There is no challenge or 'resistance' it's like a movie that you have controll over. Counter Strike is very skilled based whilst newer FPS (I haven't played a lot) just aren't, the first time I played COD4 I killed way more people than I died which in CS took me a LONG time. With COD, L4D etc. you can pretty much just shoot and move your mouse in Frenzy randomly spraying bullets everywhere whilst CS has a lot of recoil which requires you time your shots just as the mouse is over the player, too late and he will get you first, too soon and your recoil will build up too much to get a good shot.
If the game is fun though, no matter how repetitive or simple it is, it's not grind if it's fun, it's just that repetitive and simple things don't tend to be fun, not for me anyway but 11 million WOW subs disagree..
I tried WOW for a couple hours and gave up, I could see the tedious, repetitive, boring "Talk to the guy next to me" quests I was in for, when I play a game I want the game to start as soon as I logg in, not at level 80. I also dislike how a level 30 is utterly chanceless against a level 80, the level 30 should have SOME sort of chance but unless the level 80 gets a heartattack it's not going to happen. It's all to do with Instant Gratification, everything is starting to revolve around it.
AW
I would contest your assessment of AC's grind. While people could group together you had to grind mobs to level your character in a very boring way.
I played on Darktide mostly, so my experience probably differs a lot from the standard white world. Trying to level up when you have items on you that can drop on death and can be jumped at any time is far from boring. Even then, I think the leveling in that game was more of fluff after a certain point, It certainly wasn't driven by necessity. Also, I think the combat mechanics helped quite a bit, especially if you were fighting magic casters. I mean if you consider some of the monsters, like virindi, they would shoot you with spells that would lop off half of your health, and if you were in a group of particularly spammy casters, the game was quite exciting as you tried to dodge and heal if you did get hit.
If all combat were like that, it'd be quite nice, especially if XP/loot rewards were proportional to the difficulty of what you were fighting.
Also, consider that in your standard WoW archetype game, you have to grind monsters that are carefully tailored to your difficulty, if you go into a higher level zone than is defined for your character, you as the player have little ability as a player to alter the outcome of a fight, whereas in AC you could take on anything really if you had the skill to dodge and heal yourself at the right times. The quests though specifically, in the WoW archetype, you grind through quests, they are simplistic and repetitive with little thought put into them. I would much rather have an Asheron's Call style game where you're forced to grind through endless amounts of crappy monsters to level up if the quests are as high quality as they were in AC, rather than a game with boring weak quests.
My solution is simple. Don't make the game about who has the highest level, all crappy games do this.
An example of how to do this?
Okay lets take a tale in the desert love it or loath it, doesn't matter. It's not about having the highest skills it's about building stuff. Lets take a few multiplayer games, everyones stats are equal but they have a task to do other than "achieve" (I use the word losely) a higher character level. Sometimes there goals are building things like ATITD, sometimes killing others (Without the need for higher skills) and sometimes it's other things.
In short don't require the player to repeat a task several times in order to advance to do the same thing at a higher level with better opponents.
Will it be as successful as the grinding games? sadly by the state of current mmo trends probably not.
Your game has already been made: Guild wars.. instantly level 20 if you choose you just have to unlock skills...
It's not "My game" but you are right several like this have been made. I even mentioned one and refered to what are dozens. Unfortunately for you though guild wars isn't one of them.
Eve online is grindless for clever people.
This is exactly my feeling.
People play oblvion, morrowind all the time and never think it's "grinding". They are exploring and fighting their ways to their goals.
I've done most of my leveling in some games by just exploring and fighting for my (virtual) life.
And had a great time of it as well.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
First off, you need to find out why there is a grind present in games and what is the function.
I lean towards following explanation:
Grind has very low entry barrier which assures the competitiveness for all players.
The exact opposite of grind based progression through the same content would be to reward only those who are skilled thus keeping the content locked to vast majority of the playerbase.
The other option is different game concepts that are simply not based on progression of any kind - like EVE Online.
Character development is 'merely cosmetic' and what matters more is your in-game activity yielding rewards equal to your efficiency.
I think people claiming EVE has no grind are delusional. The grind for money is beyond the grind for XP in some of the most grinding intensive games.
Scottc makes some good points. AC darktide had player driven politics (eve does too I understand). Player driven content was something that existed in MUDs but was largely lost in the EQ -> WOW fork. I am no talking player houses here, give players the tools to manage govern and fight each other and you need not worry about endless new content. Unfortunately sandboxes often have the worse skill grind of all (and no tools provided for the players to build their sand castles). You need in game political, economic, and social tools.
For me grind is boring repetitive tasks. Obviously boring is subjective. Ask a golfer whether hitting a little ball over and over again is boring, most are delighted to hit them into a net over and over again.....grinding? No. It occurs to me that the draw for then is the small improvements that allow them to 'level' there swing. One of the reasons that MMORPGs get grindy is that there systems are too un rewarding, too simplistic, combat in particular (which in many MMOs is usually the main focus). Sure you get a new skill now and then but it is then a case of hitting 1 2 3 4 5 instead of 1 2 3 4. (or worse still hitting 1 2 3 5 instead). One of the reasons wow was successful was he combat was pretty crisp and engaging (though some would argue it is a somewhat simplistic 1 2 3 block).
Certainly can exist but I can't think of any good examples that haven't been mentioned before. And as I have said some pretty decent sandboxes that could have been non grindy ended up with horrific skill grind.
Playing EVE Online now for years among other mmorpgs during that time.
Although you CAN grind in that game (for money/reputation) I can do nullsec complexes solo for lots of money in a very short time, train my skills in real time by a click of a button and go afk fo 1 year if I wish.
When I log back in I do not have to worry about grinding rep or upgrading 'epic' gear.
My corp although wouldn't be too happy ofc of my lack of particiaption in the game, but you know what I mean.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
You've got it exactly right. A single-player game might last 30-40 hours, but you never have to wander around and kill things at random to level up, you're part of an ongoing story and you move from older content to newer content constantly. MMOs are supposed to last much longer than 40 hours, but they usually aren't all that much more content-heavy. Given the amount of content you can consume in a single-player game in an hour, can you honestly say that any MMO out there gives you the same amount of content available per hour or play?
Of course not!
The biggest problem with the grind in MMOs is that it really covers up a fundamental lack of content. Grindy content is fast and easy for the developers because it takes no creativity. Generate something once and make players do it over and over and over again. Occasionally, you can throw in different types of mobs to hide the painful fact that it's still the same stuff you've done a thousand times before.
I'd really like to see some content-heavy MMOs where there's tons of stuff to do and it doesn't all feel stale. I just don't see any developer out there actually taking the time, effort or money to develop such a game.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None