I do think that a lot of the grind could be taken away from MMOs while still making them fun, and in fact making them more fun.
What makes a activity like questing, raiding, killing mobs for XP and so on a grind is the fact that you repeat it a zillion times. By mixing activities more and rewarding people for doing different things you get less of a grind. Doing some quests, kill a few mobs, craft a little, do a dungeon, a few DEs and a little PvP is not a grind while spending 99% of your leveling experience just doing quests is. Or 99% of the endgame raiding for the latest tier of raidgear for that matter.
MMOs should offer a lot of different ways to play and reward players who play more than a single way.
The problem in many MMOs is that the game forces you to play a certain way, like 20 levels of quests with maybe an optional dungeon after and then another 20 levels until the next optional dungeon. That will feel more grindy than doing a lot of different things.
In the old days people did stuff like dungeons all the time because dungeon gear was good but today you level so fast that gear is pointless until you reach max level anyways. The fastest way to level a new character is by just questing which make the MMO feel very grindy, and once you reach max you go from questgrind to dungeon grind (and many players never learn how to play those dungeons) and once you have good enough gear you go to raid grinding.
PvP is slightly different but can still be rather grindy.
It is really not a good themepark if you have to ride the ferriswheel 200 times until you can ride the rollercoaster and have to ride that the next 200 times.
I would be content with developers at least making the leveling process more challenging. The solo adventure with no risk or thought needed makes me want to claw my eyes out.
Also, I really wish that I could level via group content from level one. Yea, I know there are people out there that say 'you can group up in current solo content', but I mean content from level one that is BUILT for a group and not for solo.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar Good idea. I'm all for it. Get rid of the traditional grind.
1. What is the traditional grind? 2. How do you get rid of it?
It's easy to just say vague empty things. It's like saying, "Just make a fun game"
This!
Traditional Grind either == "I don't want to just sit here and whack monsters until I reach max level" OR "I don't want to do quest after quest until I reach max level." So, basically the grind is the whole reason for the existence of the game. These people are looking for a MOBA of said game so they can just PvP and stuff without worrying about the actual story.
No level progression. Everyone is immediately the same (max) level upon login.
No skill progression. Everyone has same skills upon login.
No gear progression. Everyone has best gear possible upon login.
No monetary system. (Because you'd have to go kill something(s) or harvest something(s) and that would be a grind). That would mean there's no crafting because there's no materials to be had. That would also mean no vendors to buy stuff from because you don't have anything to make purchases with. I guess you could have NPC's that dropped mats and the mats were used in a barter system and that would then be the monetary system. But, to get all those mats to trade with someone else would be a grind still.
Just a few things that popped into my head regarding getting rid of that "Traditional MMO Grind". Sounds like an awesome game worth playing.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar Good idea. I'm all for it. Get rid of the traditional grind.
1. What is the traditional grind? 2. How do you get rid of it?
It's easy to just say vague empty things. It's like saying, "Just make a fun game"
This!
Traditional Grind either == "I don't want to just sit here and whack monsters until I reach max level" OR "I don't want to do quest after quest until I reach max level." So, basically the grind is the whole reason for the existence of the game. These people are looking for a MOBA of said game so they can just PvP and stuff without worrying about the actual story.
Nothing you do before max level affects you at all though. When was the last time you played an MMO and got an item 1/10th the way through and thought "Man, I might need that at max level, I think I should save it" ?
Like Dave666 mentioned earlier, people only care about getting to the end game because nothing they do before that affects them. Why? Why do MMOs have to be designed this way? Why does the 'real game' have to start after a monotonous time sink?
I am all for progression and story, but current MMOs leveling process makes me feel like I am playing Progress Quest.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Maybe You do not want an exaggerated long journey to end game where the actual challenging content is.
1. Make the journey shorter.
Maybe you do not want to spend too much time getting end game gear which is reset with an update or expansion and then having ot spend a lot more time to get end game gear again, and ofc that sucks with alts as well.
2. Make getting end game gear fun and more about rewarding peoples time rather than being a carrot on a stick. Why not make top gear attainable quickly, and then allow people to play alts and explore the game.
For 1 + 2 to exist the game has to be in good condition. The long grinds and boring quests are to cover up the lack of content, or fill up the game with content becuase devs do not want to be bothered with making complicated content. Must be very simple and easy for them to make quests with NPCs just standing around. Maybe there needs to be better devs in the genre and thats the problem, and its not so much the demand.
Also, I beleive there is corruption/fraud in the gaming industry where they exaggerate their costs to retain most of the profits for themselves especially when they are a public company. The exaggerated costs means more money for them and less for their 'lazy' investors. So, it is a suspicion of mine, but if its true, then dont expect anything great from unethical employees.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
What amazes me more is how some players still find a way to defend that system as "fun".
What amazes me more is that there are a lot of really close minded people who can only look at the world through their own little lenses.
They are fun. I'll take a game like Lineage 2 over most of what is out on the market now any day.
so here is the thing. If I say it's fun then "it's fun". You don't have to understand it, you don't have to mull over it, just accept that some people think that different things are enjoyable and they have their reasons and they wouldn't be playing these games unless they thought they were fun.
Just like I understand why people wouldn't find them fun and want something different.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The long grinds and boring quests are to cover up the lack of content, or fill up the game with content becuase devs do not want to be bothered with making complicated content.
Sorry this is one of the biggest myths around.
Grinds are in the eye of the beholder anyhow. I, for one, enjoy the journey and take my time to get to the end. The longer the journey, the better.
The grind isn't necessary the trick is making a game that lacks the grind is fu has progression and appeals to casual and hardcore with being a time consuming Sandbox. You figure that out you will have blizzard and activision money
As fs23, grind is a word used by the lazy who want the rewards without the effort, blizzard have implemented this and we all see the results.
I love long grinds and look forward to them, if a player doesn't like them then those players should simply not do them. And there lies the rub, if you don't want to spend the long consecutive hours of raiding but equally you don't want to grind reps etc- what exactly do you want?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
A grind is a grind, no matter how you look at it. Doesn't matter if it is quest hubs, dungeons, daily quests, or mobs; you're doing something that you have to repeat over and over at nauseam until you reach cap. After "cap", you start grinding heroic dungeons, raids, more quests, dailies, and the like to get the better gear or that next advancement point; all for the desire of experiencing "end game".
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
As some people suggested doing any one thing to much is a grind. There needs to be something to break up the monotony. Just sitting there killing the same mobs over and over again isn't fun. Doing a million quests following a GPS around isn't fun IMO.
If you have things to break it up like exploration, down time, or anything that will stop you from repeating the same exact thing over and over again non stop the grind isn't so bad.
Angry Joe pointed this out in his Wildstar MMO beta review and it caught my attention because it is something I also wanted for a while now.
But how about we cut the traditional MMO Grind all together?
What sort of MMO would we have if we did this?
Do anybody here have any ideas and suggestions for "Cutting the Traditional MMO Grind"?
What grind? Every MMO released allows the player to reach max level in a couple weeks.
What we need is more grind. I remember taking 6 years to reach max level in Asheron's Call. 9 months to reach max level in DAoC. Even Vanilla WoW took me 3 months to reach max level. Today I can get into a new MMO and reach max level in under a month easily.
Now if you're talking about the progression systems used to level then yes I call them a grind. The linear WoW model of grinding boring and easily completed fed-ex tasks needs to die and die quick.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I'm torn on this one because on the one hand I do enjoy progressing, however it seems like levels and gear thresholds in games seem to do nothing but separate me from friends and would-be friends in game. I like the idea of everyone hitting the game at some level of competence from the get go, but the challenge then would be how to present a game that starts at endgame.
A giant world with emergent content, tons to do and find, and changing mysteries might do it, but that sounds suspiciously like pie in the sky.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Comments
One of these days a dev will hit the nail on the head for the true next generation of MMOs.
I do think that a lot of the grind could be taken away from MMOs while still making them fun, and in fact making them more fun.
What makes a activity like questing, raiding, killing mobs for XP and so on a grind is the fact that you repeat it a zillion times. By mixing activities more and rewarding people for doing different things you get less of a grind. Doing some quests, kill a few mobs, craft a little, do a dungeon, a few DEs and a little PvP is not a grind while spending 99% of your leveling experience just doing quests is. Or 99% of the endgame raiding for the latest tier of raidgear for that matter.
MMOs should offer a lot of different ways to play and reward players who play more than a single way.
The problem in many MMOs is that the game forces you to play a certain way, like 20 levels of quests with maybe an optional dungeon after and then another 20 levels until the next optional dungeon. That will feel more grindy than doing a lot of different things.
In the old days people did stuff like dungeons all the time because dungeon gear was good but today you level so fast that gear is pointless until you reach max level anyways. The fastest way to level a new character is by just questing which make the MMO feel very grindy, and once you reach max you go from questgrind to dungeon grind (and many players never learn how to play those dungeons) and once you have good enough gear you go to raid grinding.
PvP is slightly different but can still be rather grindy.
It is really not a good themepark if you have to ride the ferriswheel 200 times until you can ride the rollercoaster and have to ride that the next 200 times.
I would be content with developers at least making the leveling process more challenging. The solo adventure with no risk or thought needed makes me want to claw my eyes out.
Also, I really wish that I could level via group content from level one. Yea, I know there are people out there that say 'you can group up in current solo content', but I mean content from level one that is BUILT for a group and not for solo.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
1. What is the traditional grind?
2. How do you get rid of it?
It's easy to just say vague empty things. It's like saying, "Just make a fun game"
This!
Traditional Grind either == "I don't want to just sit here and whack monsters until I reach max level" OR "I don't want to do quest after quest until I reach max level." So, basically the grind is the whole reason for the existence of the game. These people are looking for a MOBA of said game so they can just PvP and stuff without worrying about the actual story.
Crazkanuk
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Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Since WoW patch 2.3, MMOs have been reducing the grind. And since then, the time people play them has gotten shorter and shorter.
Nahhh, there's no pattern here.
Have you ever thought that "reducing the grind" means gutting the game?
not sure ,but seems MMO games can't work without grind , if We dislike it ,lets move on MP or SP games
Gutting boring and badly designed mechanics from a game sounds like a good idea to me.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Let's see. MMORPG with zero grind.
No level progression. Everyone is immediately the same (max) level upon login.
No skill progression. Everyone has same skills upon login.
No gear progression. Everyone has best gear possible upon login.
No monetary system. (Because you'd have to go kill something(s) or harvest something(s) and that would be a grind). That would mean there's no crafting because there's no materials to be had. That would also mean no vendors to buy stuff from because you don't have anything to make purchases with. I guess you could have NPC's that dropped mats and the mats were used in a barter system and that would then be the monetary system. But, to get all those mats to trade with someone else would be a grind still.
Just a few things that popped into my head regarding getting rid of that "Traditional MMO Grind". Sounds like an awesome game worth playing.
Nothing you do before max level affects you at all though. When was the last time you played an MMO and got an item 1/10th the way through and thought "Man, I might need that at max level, I think I should save it" ?
Like Dave666 mentioned earlier, people only care about getting to the end game because nothing they do before that affects them. Why? Why do MMOs have to be designed this way? Why does the 'real game' have to start after a monotonous time sink?
I am all for progression and story, but current MMOs leveling process makes me feel like I am playing Progress Quest.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
The wording is wrong, or misleading.
Maybe You do not want an exaggerated long journey to end game where the actual challenging content is.
1. Make the journey shorter.
Maybe you do not want to spend too much time getting end game gear which is reset with an update or expansion and then having ot spend a lot more time to get end game gear again, and ofc that sucks with alts as well.
2. Make getting end game gear fun and more about rewarding peoples time rather than being a carrot on a stick. Why not make top gear attainable quickly, and then allow people to play alts and explore the game.
For 1 + 2 to exist the game has to be in good condition. The long grinds and boring quests are to cover up the lack of content, or fill up the game with content becuase devs do not want to be bothered with making complicated content. Must be very simple and easy for them to make quests with NPCs just standing around. Maybe there needs to be better devs in the genre and thats the problem, and its not so much the demand.
Also, I beleive there is corruption/fraud in the gaming industry where they exaggerate their costs to retain most of the profits for themselves especially when they are a public company. The exaggerated costs means more money for them and less for their 'lazy' investors. So, it is a suspicion of mine, but if its true, then dont expect anything great from unethical employees.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
What amazes me more is that there are a lot of really close minded people who can only look at the world through their own little lenses.
They are fun. I'll take a game like Lineage 2 over most of what is out on the market now any day.
so here is the thing. If I say it's fun then "it's fun". You don't have to understand it, you don't have to mull over it, just accept that some people think that different things are enjoyable and they have their reasons and they wouldn't be playing these games unless they thought they were fun.
Just like I understand why people wouldn't find them fun and want something different.
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
I have been thinking about this..and what I say is keep it simple...How about an mmo with 2 modes??
Like one mode would be your typical mmo mode (sandbox or other) and the second mode would be an arcade style...Just a rough suggestion. ^^
Sorry this is one of the biggest myths around.
Grinds are in the eye of the beholder anyhow. I, for one, enjoy the journey and take my time to get to the end. The longer the journey, the better.
I love long grinds and look forward to them, if a player doesn't like them then those players should simply not do them. And there lies the rub, if you don't want to spend the long consecutive hours of raiding but equally you don't want to grind reps etc- what exactly do you want?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
A grind is a grind, no matter how you look at it. Doesn't matter if it is quest hubs, dungeons, daily quests, or mobs; you're doing something that you have to repeat over and over at nauseam until you reach cap. After "cap", you start grinding heroic dungeons, raids, more quests, dailies, and the like to get the better gear or that next advancement point; all for the desire of experiencing "end game".
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
So gutting them altogether is better?
If you car has a bad engine, just rip out the motor so it stops making those god awful sounds?
As some people suggested doing any one thing to much is a grind. There needs to be something to break up the monotony. Just sitting there killing the same mobs over and over again isn't fun. Doing a million quests following a GPS around isn't fun IMO.
If you have things to break it up like exploration, down time, or anything that will stop you from repeating the same exact thing over and over again non stop the grind isn't so bad.
They already did.
destiny
wot
moba
ccg
the next gen mmos are not mmos anymore. That is the ultimate innovation.
What grind? Every MMO released allows the player to reach max level in a couple weeks.
What we need is more grind. I remember taking 6 years to reach max level in Asheron's Call. 9 months to reach max level in DAoC. Even Vanilla WoW took me 3 months to reach max level. Today I can get into a new MMO and reach max level in under a month easily.
Now if you're talking about the progression systems used to level then yes I call them a grind. The linear WoW model of grinding boring and easily completed fed-ex tasks needs to die and die quick.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I'm torn on this one because on the one hand I do enjoy progressing, however it seems like levels and gear thresholds in games seem to do nothing but separate me from friends and would-be friends in game. I like the idea of everyone hitting the game at some level of competence from the get go, but the challenge then would be how to present a game that starts at endgame.
A giant world with emergent content, tons to do and find, and changing mysteries might do it, but that sounds suspiciously like pie in the sky.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D