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"?
Thread TL:DR
I generally respect what MMOExposed has to say.
Here is the thing though. Anything worth having is worth working for. If you remove the work, there is a VIABLE argument that it is no longer worth anything.
Hence why I moved to TableTop gaming. It takes FOREVER to get a quality paint job on a mini, and NC can't take it away.
i cannot phatom how people are thinking. removing the grind from MMO's?
It is the equivalent of having a soccer match and just remove all the gametime and just have the teams shoot penalty's, who scores most of em wins
You already have em They are called moba's
Are FPS games being haunted by these same kind of things? I need more RTS in my FPS or else it would suck...
Honestly leave genre's alone. your genre has already been created there is no need to further destroy another genre.
Why? If people are not happy with games in this genre, shouldnt they voice their opinion. In fact, shouldnt genre adapts for their audience. If mmos are still all like uo and eq, there will be a lot fewer players.
If you are not happy with your job as lets say a baker.
You will not try to change to bakery into a butchery because that is what u like more.
No u will leave the bakery and start working at a butchery.
so if people are not happy in mmo's they can f off and go somewhere else. becaue the things they like already exist.
I agree here, to a point. Unfortunately, the publishers and developers seem to agree with Nariusseldon (To take your analogy out a bit further) It's the shop owner who In the last 10 years, has seen an increase in people who want meat. So the Bakery added a meat section, sacrificing some of the bakery to put in some half assed excuse for a butchery. So now the Bakery thinks it can service both sets of customers at the same time, but then wonders why so few customers purchase meat or bread from him. MMORPGs have changed to adapt and continue to attract the action gamer. In doing so, have left behind some what made them MMORPGs and now they are poor games from whatever angle you look at them from. They can't keep action gamers for long and they certainly don't do well to keep the players looking for a good old fashioned long term game anymore.This new generation of MMORPGs are just getting worse and worse. And what are the devs doing about it? Making combat more exciting. Yeah, OK, But no matter how exciting it gets, sooner than later it gets un-exciting. And based on recent interviews, I don't think they are getting the hint.
But that Bakery continued to make Bread, while its new Butchery section started to make Meat Patties.
And the Hamburger was discovered, and blew up to be a huge success, later to be known as Mc Donalds...
See how that works... Sometimes thinking outside the box for once benefits greatly!
i cannot phatom how people are thinking. removing the grind from MMO's?
It is the equivalent of having a soccer match and just remove all the gametime and just have the teams shoot penalty's, who scores most of em wins
You already have em They are called moba's
Are FPS games being haunted by these same kind of things? I need more RTS in my FPS or else it would suck...
Honestly leave genre's alone. your genre has already been created there is no need to further destroy another genre.
Why? If people are not happy with games in this genre, shouldnt they voice their opinion. In fact, shouldnt genre adapts for their audience. If mmos are still all like uo and eq, there will be a lot fewer players.
If you are not happy with your job as lets say a baker.
You will not try to change to bakery into a butchery because that is what u like more.
No u will leave the bakery and start working at a butchery.
so if people are not happy in mmo's they can f off and go somewhere else. becaue the things they like already exist.
and they do ... and the devs take notice, and want their customers back.
That is .. if the bakery is not making enough money because more people like steak .... the baker can decide to close down the bakery and turn it into a butchery.
Don't tell me you never heard of business which changes.
Originally posted by Mothanos I think leveling should be gone in modern mmo's Its a bottleneck to play with family or friends or guild. To many times its a massively long /played to get to the point where you can start doing things together. While GW2 certainly did a good job at downscaling, it also lacks endgame contend to keep things fun and challenging. To much zerg and tactics. When i look at Archeage - sandbox or Eve Online also a sandbox i am baffled we still see the same themeparks rolling out with flawed systems that keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over. Each and every themepark has this major design flaw, be it endgame contend or veteran rank design where you need to go trough making your desire to log in less and less. New generation mmo's should be sandbox....where players can create the contend, and developers add new zones and bosses / dungeons / raids. Again what Archeage has inside her game in terms of options are ridiculously large, tons and tons of funs tuff to do, and risk versus reward to go with it. The feature list of AA and Eve Online shows that no themepark can ever match this, but it seems themeparks are always going to have more profit so most studio's dont dare to make such mmo's.Combine Eve Online skill system and AA world / feature list and you have my perfect mmo for years to come o/
Topic is to remove grind from mmo and sandbox are the most grindy in the bunch. understand the topic before setting your prejudice to maximum mode.
Eve Online grindy ? orly ? what do you grind in Eve Online ? I never grinded 1 day in my 5 years of being a Goon. When i joined this alliance i was showered with isk to buy anything i needed. Ship got replaced if you lost it in fleet. Your character develops while not online. Where is the grind ? I was usefull after 3 days of playing when i could tackle 90% of all ships. Where is this grind in the best sandbox mmo ever created ands still after 11 years remains the undisputed king of kings in the world of sandbox.
Now look at Archeage and all its features, i havent played it yet, but like i said combine Eve Online skill system with a feature list of AA and you have no grinds but tons and tons of fun. you silly joker learn to understand what if writen before casting your sentence you have no clue about.
So you were spoon fed. Ok, i agree spoon feeding is a good alternative to grinding.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Lol just no narius. Bakeries do not turn Into butcheries, for 1 they server customers looking for bakery products, so they innovate with bakery products and 2 they have neither the skills or equipment to turn into a butchery. If the business failed it is because they failed to provide a high quality bakery product to Keep their customer base. If they fail and the business premise is taken over by a butchery -well know the town has 2 butcheries and no bakery. Doh.
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
Diablo 3 is a great example of quality grind kill same mobs over and over and eventually obtain the big rewards over time, great fun and addictivr. I've done the exact same thing in the past in wow -water elementalist, cloth etc - but not any more, grind was sanitised with tokens, people complained that they didn't get rewarded sometimes or it took too long.
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
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"?
First of all we have to ask what the core of the problem, and therefore we need some more questions.
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"
1. What is traditional grind? Mob camping ad nauseam, Questing from Hub to Hub? Yeap.. all of that. But is that a clear enough answer? No.
A grind is some work you have to do to get something you really want.. or even better said you require.
We have to camp mobs ad nauseam to get the next level to be able to do something else. We have to do Quests, we actually don't like, to get that reward we require, or that progression we require to do something else.
Is it the progression? Or is it the reward we get, which makes "some job" to a grind? Or is it not much more that both, depending on the game, is often required to get somewhere, or to be able to do something.
2. So.. now that we now what grind is.. how can we get rid of it? And in the best case.. without making out of a MMORPG a FPS or whatever?
Originally posted by Kyleran Without grind, there is no progression, which is the core of a MMORPG IMHO. You would be left with what? An a adventure game I suppose, or a MMOFPS like Planetside.
Like someone else said, perhaps the real problem to solve is how to add grind content that can be shared with family and friends on demand, so that you don't have to wait until endgame to finally meet up with them.
If we need some kind of progression, so that it will be a MMORPG and nothing else.. and i do agree to some extent... who we can avoid grind, then? Or is progression really the problem?
As i pointed out, it is much more the requirement to do something, which leads to grind. And that can be of course progression.
But what if everything would be available at the very beginning to all players.. and a character could still progress? So take out progression as content gateway could be a solution.
Another solution could be to avoid heavy vertical progression, to avoid power imbalances between characters to get rid of that as pre request to do something.
EvE for a lot (as this thread showed) does not have grind. Well.. i do say that it does have grind.. but it depends a lot more on the player. You can actually do almost everything from the very beginning.. and still you get better. Though even in EvE some content is gated behind progression as gateway.. and there the grind comes..
But what is the solution of EvE or other games to look not that grindy?
They offer very different kind of options to play, of options to advance/progress. You are not required to do quests, you could do anything else instead. So to offer different equally effective ways to accomplish something(reward or progression) can be a solution to avoid traditional grind.
With that, it means
- No Item drop just from one source(Dungeon or Instance).. because then Dungeon running becomes a grind
Instead make them available through different sources.. Get from Dungeon bosses, craftable, or any other possible way.. just every way should be equally hard to obtain.. and to make that equally hard to obtain is the acutal pain in the ass.
- Not one way to progress though the game.. like with Quest running or mob camping.. because then they become a grind
Instead offer a lot of different means to progress, to advance your character and make all equally hard and rewarding.
And as last point avoid progression gateways... make all of your possible content available right away from the very beginning.. No need for endgame content, high level content or any other way. Short tutorial.. and then available at the very beginning.. the complete game should be the endgame.. or there should be no endgame at all. Both is basicly the same.
And to avoid progression gateways you have to set a lot more on horizontal progression and avoid heavy vertical progression. Though some vertical progression is still possible..
Now after all that said.. is it still possible to make a MMO without any traditional grind for everyone?
Most probably not. Because it is almost impossible to balance everything equally.. and with that some task will be slightly better, slightly more effective.. and then this task will become a grind.
Do anybody here have any ideas and suggestions for "Cutting the Traditional MMO Grind"?
Simple .. make combat fun, and get rid of the quest text excuses (aka Diablo 3, or similar games). You don't have to get rid of grind, you just have to make it fun.
examples?
describe your average play session at 451 played days in this fun game, please.
Diablo 3. Go in, click a button, go into a MP game that has a rift open, kill stuff, kill stuff, kill stuff, hopefully get legendaries.
Come back out, go into a private game, experiment with builds. Go back into a public game, and kill stuff again.
Well you can just drop the focus on progression systems and that would wipe out all grind without a lot of work. If you have no incentive to go activities you don't like, then you won't do them and won't grind. The big hurdle to jump over is trying to convince people that mmos don't have to have progression systems.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal I would like to see MMO'S, at least, themeparks move towards action/adventure with question for powers and items.
Structure MMOs like Sp games .. there is no grind.
Two solutions ...
a) make the grind fun like D3 (not for everyone, but there is obviously a big audience for this), or
b) make the game like SP with no grind .. every level, every fight is designed to be interesting, and done only once with no repeat.
Originally posted by Bladestrom 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?
Well said friend, I could not have said it any better than that.
i cannot phatom how people are thinking. removing the grind from MMO's?
It is the equivalent of having a soccer match and just remove all the gametime and just have the teams shoot penalty's, who scores most of em wins
You already have em They are called moba's
Are FPS games being haunted by these same kind of things? I need more RTS in my FPS or else it would suck...
Honestly leave genre's alone. your genre has already been created there is no need to further destroy another genre.
Why? If people are not happy with games in this genre, shouldnt they voice their opinion. In fact, shouldnt genre adapts for their audience. If mmos are still all like uo and eq, there will be a lot fewer players.
If you are not happy with your job as lets say a baker.
You will not try to change to bakery into a butchery because that is what u like more.
No u will leave the bakery and start working at a butchery.
so if people are not happy in mmo's they can f off and go somewhere else. becaue the things they like already exist.
and they do ... and the devs take notice, and want their customers back.
That is .. if the bakery is not making enough money because more people like steak .... the baker can decide to close down the bakery and turn it into a butchery.
Don't tell me you never heard of business which changes.
Yes alot of people like steak. i myself like steak very much. i do love good bread more tho.
But where is this steak you mention? all i see is wortless slabs of ruined meat they are trying to feed us from the bakery. The shop on the corner is selling that betautifull steak.
So if you ask me the smart thing to do is for the bakery to turn back to bread and mabey expand into patiserrie.
Some are realising it. if i look at Archeage wich is a Sandpark. it still has a WoW style questing. wich is not bad but tottally not my thing. I do love the crafting and PvP tho.
You know i have been rushing to levelcap in every mmo post-WoW. And i did not enjoy the games after i reached cap. Now im playing archeage i am currently level 36. i could have been 50, i could have rushed my way trough the quests get to 50 and then wonder what im supposed to do again.
but no i am still 36 i have been farming. (on a actual farm no mobgrinding for items) i have been exploring area's (mostly looking for trees to cut) wich are a nice sight to see (the are's not the tree altho they made me happy too). i have build a boat. i have smithed my own armor (my god expensive to do) i don't even have my own house yet i have not felt the need to put it down yet altho i am in the procces of doing that. i have just been having fun doing whatever the hell pleases me.
so Archeage is a bakery trying to make bread again. its not there yet. it still has some ways to go to be fully back into baking and adding a patiserrie but we will be heading that way thank god.
edit: oh right the grind.
I'l just end it with this. If you think MMO's are a grind today? then honestly you have never grinded in your life and you should stop playing mmo's. A grind is not a bad thing either it is how you spend the grind wich makes it boring or not.
Leveling is such a grind nowadays because it is in your way it is in your wayy to level cap thus its being hated. If only leveling would take longer again (aka atleast 6 months to level to cap) you would not talk about a grind. you would talk about a journey you partook in. and if you then finnaly reached cap that satsfaction is indescribable.
Comments
Thread TL:DR
I generally respect what MMOExposed has to say.
Here is the thing though. Anything worth having is worth working for. If you remove the work, there is a VIABLE argument that it is no longer worth anything.
Hence why I moved to TableTop gaming. It takes FOREVER to get a quality paint job on a mini, and NC can't take it away.
But that Bakery continued to make Bread, while its new Butchery section started to make Meat Patties.
And the Hamburger was discovered, and blew up to be a huge success, later to be known as Mc Donalds...
See how that works... Sometimes thinking outside the box for once benefits greatly!
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
and they do ... and the devs take notice, and want their customers back.
That is .. if the bakery is not making enough money because more people like steak .... the baker can decide to close down the bakery and turn it into a butchery.
Don't tell me you never heard of business which changes.
So you were spoon fed. Ok, i agree spoon feeding is a good alternative to grinding.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
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
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
First of all we have to ask what the core of the problem, and therefore we need some more questions.
1. What is traditional grind? Mob camping ad nauseam, Questing from Hub to Hub? Yeap.. all of that. But is that a clear enough answer? No.
A grind is some work you have to do to get something you really want.. or even better said you require.
We have to camp mobs ad nauseam to get the next level to be able to do something else. We have to do Quests, we actually don't like, to get that reward we require, or that progression we require to do something else.
Is it the progression? Or is it the reward we get, which makes "some job" to a grind? Or is it not much more that both, depending on the game, is often required to get somewhere, or to be able to do something.
2. So.. now that we now what grind is.. how can we get rid of it? And in the best case.. without making out of a MMORPG a FPS or whatever?
If we need some kind of progression, so that it will be a MMORPG and nothing else.. and i do agree to some extent... who we can avoid grind, then? Or is progression really the problem?
As i pointed out, it is much more the requirement to do something, which leads to grind. And that can be of course progression.
But what if everything would be available at the very beginning to all players.. and a character could still progress? So take out progression as content gateway could be a solution.
Another solution could be to avoid heavy vertical progression, to avoid power imbalances between characters to get rid of that as pre request to do something.
EvE for a lot (as this thread showed) does not have grind. Well.. i do say that it does have grind.. but it depends a lot more on the player. You can actually do almost everything from the very beginning.. and still you get better. Though even in EvE some content is gated behind progression as gateway.. and there the grind comes..
But what is the solution of EvE or other games to look not that grindy?
They offer very different kind of options to play, of options to advance/progress. You are not required to do quests, you could do anything else instead. So to offer different equally effective ways to accomplish something(reward or progression) can be a solution to avoid traditional grind.
With that, it means
- No Item drop just from one source(Dungeon or Instance).. because then Dungeon running becomes a grind
Instead make them available through different sources.. Get from Dungeon bosses, craftable, or any other possible way.. just every way should be equally hard to obtain.. and to make that equally hard to obtain is the acutal pain in the ass.
- Not one way to progress though the game.. like with Quest running or mob camping.. because then they become a grind
Instead offer a lot of different means to progress, to advance your character and make all equally hard and rewarding.
And as last point avoid progression gateways... make all of your possible content available right away from the very beginning.. No need for endgame content, high level content or any other way. Short tutorial.. and then available at the very beginning.. the complete game should be the endgame.. or there should be no endgame at all. Both is basicly the same.
And to avoid progression gateways you have to set a lot more on horizontal progression and avoid heavy vertical progression. Though some vertical progression is still possible..
Now after all that said.. is it still possible to make a MMO without any traditional grind for everyone?
Most probably not. Because it is almost impossible to balance everything equally.. and with that some task will be slightly better, slightly more effective.. and then this task will become a grind.
Diablo 3. Go in, click a button, go into a MP game that has a rift open, kill stuff, kill stuff, kill stuff, hopefully get legendaries.
Come back out, go into a private game, experiment with builds. Go back into a public game, and kill stuff again.
Exactly. People basically race to the level cap so they can PvP these days, so just go play a MOBA.
You make me like charity
Well you can just drop the focus on progression systems and that would wipe out all grind without a lot of work. If you have no incentive to go activities you don't like, then you won't do them and won't grind. The big hurdle to jump over is trying to convince people that mmos don't have to have progression systems.
Structure MMOs like Sp games .. there is no grind.
Two solutions ...
a) make the grind fun like D3 (not for everyone, but there is obviously a big audience for this), or
b) make the game like SP with no grind .. every level, every fight is designed to be interesting, and done only once with no repeat.
Well said friend, I could not have said it any better than that.
Yes alot of people like steak. i myself like steak very much. i do love good bread more tho.
But where is this steak you mention? all i see is wortless slabs of ruined meat they are trying to feed us from the bakery. The shop on the corner is selling that betautifull steak.
So if you ask me the smart thing to do is for the bakery to turn back to bread and mabey expand into patiserrie.
Some are realising it. if i look at Archeage wich is a Sandpark. it still has a WoW style questing. wich is not bad but tottally not my thing. I do love the crafting and PvP tho.
You know i have been rushing to levelcap in every mmo post-WoW. And i did not enjoy the games after i reached cap. Now im playing archeage i am currently level 36. i could have been 50, i could have rushed my way trough the quests get to 50 and then wonder what im supposed to do again.
but no i am still 36 i have been farming. (on a actual farm no mobgrinding for items) i have been exploring area's (mostly looking for trees to cut) wich are a nice sight to see (the are's not the tree altho they made me happy too). i have build a boat. i have smithed my own armor (my god expensive to do) i don't even have my own house yet i have not felt the need to put it down yet altho i am in the procces of doing that. i have just been having fun doing whatever the hell pleases me.
so Archeage is a bakery trying to make bread again. its not there yet. it still has some ways to go to be fully back into baking and adding a patiserrie but we will be heading that way thank god.
edit: oh right the grind.
I'l just end it with this. If you think MMO's are a grind today? then honestly you have never grinded in your life and you should stop playing mmo's. A grind is not a bad thing either it is how you spend the grind wich makes it boring or not.
Leveling is such a grind nowadays because it is in your way it is in your wayy to level cap thus its being hated. If only leveling would take longer again (aka atleast 6 months to level to cap) you would not talk about a grind. you would talk about a journey you partook in. and if you then finnaly reached cap that satsfaction is indescribable.