One I do enjoy is when grind is veiled by mixing it in with other activity, such as farming materials for crafting.
Going out in open world, no stress, music is on, seeing how much stuff I can shove in my bags given a half hour of game time, and leveling up when I don't even expect it. Bonus !!! That's a good feeling.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
I love grinding as well (in a game that offers other gameplay elements), same as above, when the grind rewards with xp, gold etc and you can get into a nice groove with you character cutting a path of destruction with music playing. My first grand memories was a sweet patch of water elements in vanilla wow, later it wax for text in filth, then meat and feathers in tweak Forrest. Roll on 8 years and it's undead in my fav spot in eso.
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
What other people call grind, I call "playing the game".
Sure, some activity is dull and tedious. But if you remove the dull and tedious, you remove a developer intended time sink.
I think of it as an endurance challenge.
Do all MMOs need endurance challenge? No, of course not. Some players find it inconvenient and inappropriate for their playstyle.
However there is a trade off. A game goes from "Damn I had to kill 20,000 boars to go up 3 levels" to "Damn I've been at level cap 3 weeks now and all I do is run these same dungeons over and over".
I have said that as well. It is a matter of looking at it a certain way.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
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Originally posted by Moirae A game with a grind is an example of lazy developers looking to fill time.
There aren't enough resources to churn out never ending content.
Even if you had some system that would create content on the fly eventually it would be come the same.
grind is a state of mind.
name the game play system you love most in any game. Now repeat that every time you log in. That's "grind".
You like to craft? grind. combat? grind. pvp? grind.
or you can say "I like to craft I like combat I like pvp, etc" and enjoy the fact that you get to do it and there's lots of it.
Otherwise there is not a game that I know of that doesn't have a grind when looked at in a cynical way.
Myst? damn puzzles grind!
doom? all I do is shoot and shoot again grind!
The problem with mmo's is that they realy are a social type of game and the "grind" becomes game play when you have too interact with other people. But there are so many solo centric mmo's that players are literally logging in and expecting brilliant single player games when that's not what is being created.
MMO's are about taking the game play and adding a social element. And I'm a soloer and I still have a "social element" during play.
There pretty much isn't anything I can see that could be put into an mmo that can't be said to be a "grind" by someone who either doesn't like it or insists on doing the most mundane alone and then wondering "why am I doing this".
Then where do movies, books, cartoons, etc come from? Yes there is. It's called "being creative".
Well, I'm a writer and a composer so I suppose I understand "being creative". And used to be an actor and an artist as well.
a lot goes into making a solid story. And keep in mind, most stories are just derivatives of several story types. It's how they are woven (why not, I'll use the word) that makes them unique.
My statement was more toward the idea that it takes time to create and implement these stories for quests and then the player blasts through them and suddenly you need more. And more and moar and MOAR!!!!!
And to constantly churn out another quest and another quest on top of another takes work. Work that the players are going to zip through and then demand more.
That's a lot in order to keep players interested in playing. And mmo's want players to play for a long time.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
One persons sense of accomplishment is another persons grind.
Unfortunately there have been games that I really wanted to play with unbearable grinds, and games that I had little interest in playing with my style of character progression.
Unfortunately there have been games that I really wanted to play with unbearable grinds [...]
Shaiya was like that for me. It was like hitting a wall. Just... can't... keep... going... Toooooo slow.
And I really liked the game. Asian styling, but older. Ran great on my craptop.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
"I would much prefer going through a dungeon and grinding as I explore it"
Wait... what?
Since when is exploring something grinding? That is a very broad definition of grinding you have there. In that case pretty much everything in between the end credits rolling in ANY game qualifies.
Exploring a map is not grinding, unless monsters are respawning every 5 seconds artificially limiting your ability to do so.
When you are using a definition that broad, it makes it hard to identify the problematic gameplay as grinding.
Killing 100,000 of the same mob trying to get a pet to drop is grinding. But it is the good kind, optional. You can choose to grind it, or choose to buy it from someone who did the grinding.(or just got lucky)
Repetition will always exist. Repetition is not the problem. The problem is the tedium of that repetition. The repetition can be made less obvious and thus less tedious using a variety of different approaches. WoW as an example, has both less tedious well disguised repetition, and wtf straight up grindy as hell repetition. I would only consider the later grinding, at least IMHO.
The grind for items i can handle, possible drop passing through, or barter them. Its when it becomes rng tally for complete that "grinds" on my nerves. Tricky to make it a goal without it becoming waste of time or annoying.
The only game I have played that balances Ryan's somewhat sandboxy view of progression without a trail of quest grinding and Chris's view of the thrill of level advancement and character building is Mount and Blade Warband.
Unfortunately its not an mmo, and I have no idea how to translate that experience into a competitive online experience, but I'm hoping someone will figure it out!
There are as many different types of MMO players as there are MMO players. Developers develop MMOs with the idea that you will come and play it because of the way they designed it to be played.
But there always has been and always will be players who choose to play it a different way. Some of those are very goal-oriented over-achievers who will find the tricks and loopholes that let them achieve that goal, be it master crafter if rare things, ability to solo what others need groups for, top raider, top PVPer...whatever. And if grinding gets them to their goal faster, they will do that.
There is nothing wrong with that, But there is something wrong about later on whining about the "need" to grind--a "need" created by them in order to over-achieve. If the game is created so that everyone needs to grind, that's a different thing. But most MMOs are not and a lot of us who just plain stay away from those types of MMOs.
Take ESO for example. It's a quest-based game designed to give you 350 hours of questing for people who enjoy that sort of thing. It also gives you other things to do, most notably, the 24/7 PVP in Cyrodiil. Both taken together were developed to give you months if not years (for people with lives ) of a particular type of entertainment. So what do some do? They want to be Veteran Rank 14 with the best gear in a month or as quickly as humanly possible so they can rule the roost in Cyrodiil.
Once again, nothing wrong with that if that's how you want to play it. But then turning around and whining about "needing" to do that? And how the game sucks because they "force" you to do it? Sorry bud, no sympathy. It's a choice you made - a choice that can be mindless and numbing and soul destroying. But it's on you, not the devs that made a a game for those who want to achieve that in a year, not a month.
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“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
There are as many different types of MMO players as there are MMO players. Developers develop MMOs with the idea that you will come and play it because of the way they designed it to be played.
But there always has been and always will be players who choose to play it a different way. Some of those are very goal-oriented over-achievers who will find the tricks and loopholes that let them achieve that goal, be it master crafter if rare things, ability to solo what others need groups for, top raider, top PVPer...whatever. And if grinding gets them to their goal faster, they will do that.
There is nothing wrong with that, But there is something wrong about later on whining about the "need" to grind--a "need" created by them in order to over-achieve. If the game is created so that everyone needs to grind, that's a different thing. But most MMOs are not and a lot of us who just plain stay away from those types of MMOs.
Take ESO for example. It's a quest-based game designed to give you 350 hours of questing for people who enjoy that sort of thing. It also gives you other things to do, most notably, the 24/7 PVP in Cyrodiil. Both taken together were developed to give you months if not years (for people with lives ) of a particular type of entertainment. So what do some do? They want to be Veteran Rank 14 with the best gear in a month or as quickly as humanly possible so they can rule the roost in Cyrodiil.
Once again, nothing wrong with that if that's how you want to play it. But then turning around and whining about "needing" to do that? And how the game sucks because they "force" you to do it? Sorry bud, no sympathy. It's a choice you made - a choice that can be mindless and numbing and soul destroying. But it's on you, not the devs that made a a game for those who want to achieve that in a year, not a month.
I agree with what you say above, but I think an issue that often arises is that some parts of a game are considerably less fun if a player is not "maxed out" (for example pvp in ESO Vet campaigns) and in a sense "forces" you to do activities that you don't particularly like in order to get to the point where you can have fun.
Taking ESO again as an example, once my toon hits 50 I feel basically compelled to go to a pve grind spot and spend hours mindlessly killing mobs. On the other hand, I can spend endless hours in ESO's non-vet campaign or GW2's spvp because I am playing the game I like, and the best way to succeed is to play pvp lots (improve skill) rather than do something unrelated and boring (grind mobs for levels/gear).
I am going to jump into this conversation because I feel the problem is that “GRINDING” is a point of view more than anything.
For Example some people think questing is a Grind. Others thing that doing the same instance over and over again for Tokens is a Grind. Yet while others thinks that leveling up something is a Grind. Let’s see what other MMO Activities people can call Grinding in an MMO.
Well that basically covers everything you can do in an MMO. The core problem is people today see what life is in reality than what they seen what life was when we were younger. Life is a GRIND for most people who do not have endless streams of cash. Why do I say that well let’s look at two examples.
In an MMO where you can spend more money to get what you want and get to it faster people do not call that a grind. They call that fun because they can get to X level with little effort and more cash. Some games even let you get caught up to the raid curve for X amount of cash. People like this because they do not have to spend TIME to do things they don’t want to do. What they don’t want to do is spend the time on Vertical progression. Basically leveling from level 1 to 50, or Doing Tier 1 and 2 to get to Tier 3 raiding. They want to use Money to bypass X experience.
In real life people often do not want to have to work for anything they just want what they want to just come to them. In real life people don’t want to have to go through the 4 years or more of classes to get a bachelor’s degree. I know I have some family that are jealous of me and bitch that they cannot just pay for a class and get an automatic pass in the class. I have known college kids that come out to apply for a Systems Engineer job whom I interviewed and they want a Sr. Engineer position plus 100K with NO experience just out of college. Why? They feel that their college degree entitles them to this and do not want to have to put the years of hard work in to achieve what I have. Heck people don’t even want to go to work on a daily bases getting up at 5am and not going to bed until 11pm and doing this over 5 days a week; week after week; month after month; year after year. Life itself is a grind and people naturally want to kick back and do whatever they want, they do not want to be tied to things they don’t want to do. People just want to do whatever they want when they want. They want this in the real world as well as in gaming worlds they play as well.
The core problem is people want to do what they want when they want and they are saying things they don’t want to do are not fun. Well as in life and as in games you are NEVER going to like everything you are going to like everything you are going to do. You however are going to have to do what you need to do to get to the stuff you like to do. That is LIFE; and that goes the same for games we cannot make games that everyone is going to like everything they want to do 100% of the time.
You need to find a game that you like this will include doing some things you like. GRINDING is going to be a part of any game period because people THINK that anything they have to do in game they don’t want to do is a Grind.
I am going to jump into this conversation because I feel the problem is that “GRINDING” is a point of view more than anything.
For Example some people think questing is a Grind. Others thing that doing the same instance over and over again for Tokens is a Grind. Yet while others thinks that leveling up something is a Grind. Let’s see what other MMO Activities people can call Grinding in an MMO.
Well that basically covers everything you can do in an MMO. The core problem is people today see what life is in reality than what they seen what life was when we were younger. Life is a GRIND for most people who do not have endless streams of cash. Why do I say that well let’s look at two examples.
In an MMO where you can spend more money to get what you want and get to it faster people do not call that a grind. They call that fun because they can get to X level with little effort and more cash. Some games even let you get caught up to the raid curve for X amount of cash. People like this because they do not have to spend TIME to do things they don’t want to do. What they don’t want to do is spend the time on Vertical progression. Basically leveling from level 1 to 50, or Doing Tier 1 and 2 to get to Tier 3 raiding. They want to use Money to bypass X experience.
In real life people often do not want to have to work for anything they just want what they want to just come to them. In real life people don’t want to have to go through the 4 years or more of classes to get a bachelor’s degree. I know I have some family that are jealous of me and bitch that they cannot just pay for a class and get an automatic pass in the class. I have known college kids that come out to apply for a Systems Engineer job whom I interviewed and they want a Sr. Engineer position plus 100K with NO experience just out of college. Why? They feel that their college degree entitles them to this and do not want to have to put the years of hard work in to achieve what I have. Heck people don’t even want to go to work on a daily bases getting up at 5am and not going to bed until 11pm and doing this over 5 days a week; week after week; month after month; year after year. Life itself is a grind and people naturally want to kick back and do whatever they want, they do not want to be tied to things they don’t want to do. People just want to do whatever they want when they want. They want this in the real world as well as in gaming worlds they play as well.
The core problem is people want to do what they want when they want and they are saying things they don’t want to do are not fun. Well as in life and as in games you are NEVER going to like everything you are going to like everything you are going to do. You however are going to have to do what you need to do to get to the stuff you like to do. That is LIFE; and that goes the same for games we cannot make games that everyone is going to like everything they want to do 100% of the time.
You need to find a game that you like this will include doing some things you like. GRINDING is going to be a part of any game period because people THINK that anything they have to do in game they don’t want to do is a Grind.
I don't find grinding is part of ESO's non-vet pvp or GW2's spvp (or WvW if you level to 80 through spvp). You simply play the game and have fun, and while having fun playing the game you get better and better at it as you learn about positioning, class skills and the like.
That is totally different to spending 100 hours killing the same mobs over and over to get to the point where you can have fun. The latter is a boring grind, the former is well designed game mechanics.
Its the same in single player games. If I have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing boring stuff then the game is just boring. Good luck trying to convince the players that life is a grind as well so suck it up. That is a line of argument I have only seen applied to mmos, I imagine its a way to justify playing games with extraordinary grind?
No you don't. It's a safe bet you really like the leveling and progression, though.
Yep. CoX Foundry farms come to mind. Just massive landscapes of resurrecting mobs(for double XP!) all placed on a generic map for a team to just go in and tear through to level at 3-4 times the speed of leveling by playing the game the "right" way. Anybody that says doing stuff like that is more fun than playing the game like a normal person is probably playing a game they totally hate in the first place.
That's one reason why Ryan's "anti-grinder=instant gratification" comment seems a bit ironic, to me. People will choose to grind because they want instant gratification. They want the levels to ding by as quickly as possible, and to do it, they're willing to play the game in the dullest, most excruciating way possible.
Trouble is, most modern developers learned from the SWG Jedi unlock debacle, where they gated the most coveted prize in the game behind the most excruciating and lengthy process in the game, AKA the dumbest idea since 2 story outhouses. As a result, they've lowered the advancement speed gap between playing through the questing content and grinding mobs. No more big payoff for playing the game in the worst way.
Supposedly, there are some exceptions coming; grinding is coming back into style for some upcoming indie games. I bid they and their players good luck, and I'd thank them personally for making it clear from the onset that their game isn't for me.
Sorta true about ESO' quests getting repetitive after a while.
A long while, but still.
IMO it's in the top 5 in terms of quest delivery. But that still doesn't keep me from cringing every time some villager comes running toward me(which is alot), arms flailing: "Help! Save my village from being overrun/possessed/repossessed/under siege/poisoned by brigands/werewolves/vampires/spirits!"
It seems awesome at first, but by your 7th or 8th region, you start thinking villages and their quests are created by RNG's.
"Possessed by Trolls... sounds wierd but WtH. Now flip a coin to see if the main NPC contact is directly responsible in some way. The art dept. just made this sweet outfit; let's throw it in as a disguise, here. Another village story down, 126 to go..."
Sorta true about ESO' quests getting repetitive after a while.
A long while, but still.
IMO it's in the top 5 in terms of quest delivery. But that still doesn't keep me from cringing every time some villager comes running toward me(which is alot), arms flailing: "Help! Save my village from being overrun/possessed/repossessed/under siege/poisoned by brigands/werewolves/vampires/spirits!"
It seems awesome at first, but by your 7th or 8th region, you start thinking villages and their quests are created by RNG's.
"Possessed by Trolls... sounds wierd but WtH. Now flip a coin to see if the main NPC contact is directly responsible in some way. The art dept. just made this sweet outfit; let's throw it in as a disguise, here. Another village story down, 126 to go..."
Lol yeah. I got my one and only V14 character to that level by playing it the way it was designed - i.e. dutifully doing my 1-50 and the Caldwell Silver and Gold + dungeons and a bit of PVP... But I did take my time (~ a year to get to V14.) Still, I don't really want to do that again.
I don't have anything against stories in MMO - I believe they're essential as a matter of fact - but a questing revolution needs to happen to make them more reflective of the multi-player reality of MMOs. Stories and events that involve the whole community (sort of like Rift invasions but less predictable, more world changing in significant ways) is where the stories and quests should focus. Sure we can still have some solo story line but the development effort shouldn't be mostly there. Daedric spawns and invasions that if left unchecked by the players could result in the permanent destruction of Vulkel Guard... that sort of thing.
The old convention of quest givers giving the same quest over and over again to all who talk with the NPC is a really ancient MMO device that needs to disappear. If they're going to create a world at war setting for the MMO well, create the damn world at war the way we would experience it if it was real: we either all fight as a community responding to events that need many of us to fight or we'll just be SOL.
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I don't find grinding is part of ESO's non-vet pvp or GW2's spvp (or WvW if you level to 80 through spvp). You simply play the game and have fun, and while having fun playing the game you get better and better at it as you learn about positioning, class skills and the like.
That is totally different to spending 100 hours killing the same mobs over and over to get to the point where you can have fun. The latter is a boring grind, the former is well designed game mechanics.
Its the same in single player games. If I have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing boring stuff then the game is just boring. Good luck trying to convince the players that life is a grind as well so suck it up. That is a line of argument I have only seen applied to mmos, I imagine its a way to justify playing games with extraordinary grind?
You're absolutely right, yet this exactly is the core of the problem here.
In RPGs the idea is to improve not only your skills as a player but also the skills, stats, feats, attributes, etc of your character. The RPG aspect is what is missing in modern MMORPGs. They let us level up to max in no time, give us fancy catch-up mechanisms to make us full equipped, and then they throw in our face the same FPS/MOBA game we could have been playing without the need of boring grind and gearing/leveling up.
In MMORPGs PvP balance should be determined by the strength and class of your character, not so much by your skills as a player. There are countless of games where everyone is equal and only your skill as a player matters, so get your hands off of my RPG and let me grind the mats for the Sword of Endless Power, so i can finally kick the crap out of the pest who kept ganking me and my partner for hours.
Well, I can say I don't enjoy the grind, at least in terms of needing to do it to progress my character.
Which is why I play EVE, absolutely no grind at all, no really, my character progression is based on how long I sub, and impacted somewhat by what implants I chose to fit at any given time.
Now, do I perform repetitious tasks, absolutely, I mine, I rat (kill NPCs in sites), I mission run, I explore etc, but they are to earn ISK, not progress, and if I really was so inclined I could sell PLEX's in game and never do any of this. (Many PVPers do so in fact)
But I don't look at those activities as grinding, they are the game play I chose to do to earn ISK in game to further my greater goals, such as flying bigger capital ships, or helping build stations, or just building up my wallet. Polnt is, while repetitious, they don't feel like a grind, because I have no pressure to do them.
After as long as I've been in EVE, I pretty much have enough skill points (over 100M on two alts, 65M on a third) to do any activity I choose to (well, not industry) and my wallet is more than sufficient to pay for anything I need right now.
So no, MMORPG's don't need a grind, but you will need to come up with an alternate progression system.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Sorta true about ESO' quests getting repetitive after a while.
A long while, but still.
IMO it's in the top 5 in terms of quest delivery. But that still doesn't keep me from cringing every time some villager comes running toward me(which is alot), arms flailing: "Help! Save my village from being overrun/possessed/repossessed/under siege/poisoned by brigands/werewolves/vampires/spirits!"
It seems awesome at first, but by your 7th or 8th region, you start thinking villages and their quests are created by RNG's.
"Possessed by Trolls... sounds wierd but WtH. Now flip a coin to see if the main NPC contact is directly responsible in some way. The art dept. just made this sweet outfit; let's throw it in as a disguise, here. Another village story down, 126 to go..."
Lol yeah. I got my one and only V14 character to that level by playing it the way it was designed - i.e. dutifully doing my 1-50 and the Caldwell Silver and Gold + dungeons and a bit of PVP... But I did take my time (~ a year to get to V14.) Still, I don't really want to do that again.
I don't have anything against stories in MMO - I believe they're essential as a matter of fact - but a questing revolution needs to happen to make them more reflective of the multi-player reality of MMOs. Stories and events that involve the whole community (sort of like Rift invasions but less predictable, more world changing in significant ways) is where the stories and quests should focus. Sure we can still have some solo story line but the development effort shouldn't be mostly there. Daedric spawns and invasions that if left unchecked by the players could result in the permanent destruction of Vulkel Guard... that sort of thing.
The old convention of quest givers giving the same quest over and over again to all who talk with the NPC is a really ancient MMO device that needs to disappear. If they're going to create a world at war setting for the MMO well, create the damn world at war the way we would experience it if it was real: we either all fight as a community responding to events that need many of us to fight or we'll just be SOL.
Yep. I think ESO does it about the best so far, and for better or worse, the phasing does its job of making changes seem permanent; places where you've "brought peace to the inhabitants", they seem to "stay peaceful", for example. It's certainly a step up from most MMO's. But it would be nice to be able to revisit these places and find new things to do.
GW2's attempts to create dynamic areas are good, too. But they usually just get reset sooner or later. Permanent changes are tricky stuff, especially if you want them to be meaningful. Credit to the GW2 folks for having the courage to tear up Lion's Arch...
Hype can sometimes make people expect a revolution, when it's pretty much always gonna be an evolution. Baby steps to things arguably getting a bit better each time. I guess that's why I'm generally pretty leery of "Star Citizen levels" of game promises. One of the most fatal things a gaming company can get wrong is scope. Baby steps...
Well, I can say I don't enjoy the grind, at least in terms of needing to do it to progress my character.
Which is why I play EVE, absolutely no grind at all, no really, my character progression is based on how long I sub, and impacted somewhat by what implants I chose to fit at any given time.
Now, do I perform repetitious tasks, absolutely, I mine, I rat (kill NPCs in sites), I mission run, I explore etc, but they are to earn ISK, not progress, and if I really was so inclined I could sell PLEX's in game and never do any of this. (Many PVPers do so in fact)
But I don't look at those activities as grinding, they are the game play I chose to do to earn ISK in game to further my greater goals, such as flying bigger capital ships, or helping build stations, or just building up my wallet. Polnt is, while repetitious, they don't feel like a grind, because I have no pressure to do them.
After as long as I've been in EVE, I pretty much have enough skill points (over 100M on two alts, 65M on a third) to do any activity I choose to (well, not industry) and my wallet is more than sufficient to pay for anything I need right now.
So no, MMORPG's don't need a grind, but you will need to come up with an alternate progression system.
BBM - Or a better "reward" system, without totally nerfing the activity("grind" to some, but a reason to play for others). I bet some of what got you to where you are in EVE, was a "grind" to someone, if not to you. From reading forums over the years,I find most don't consider a feature that much of a grind if they think the reward is worth it.
That's one of the reasons I disliked WoW's "pokemon" expansion, it took away one of my fave "grinds", the reasonably lucrative pet business. It was one of those "optional" reward systems that allowed lower levels to earn some decent gold while gaining exp("grinding"). http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6413172080
(ie. Instead of going out and farming mobs to try and loot that elusive Emerald or Crimson Whelpling(or whatever your toon was capable of) and then sell it for some decent gold, they changed it so altoholics only needed one per account instead of one per character. Plus they also created a very low cap for how many pets an account could hold, not taking into consideration any of the players who had spent years and years collecting pets on all their toons( I had literally thousands and was told to either dump them--iirc the cap was first set at 500--, and/or spend the next year or so trying to sell them for a pittance on the AH, or just don't play the new content... I chose the last and cancelled my acct.)
So the newish achievement system that we'd gotten just before WotL got "restarted" ... of course those who didn't play that whole pve side of the game could care less, but there were many that did and giving us pandas was little consolation, especially when you were then gated from playing in Pandaria after leaving the beginner tutorial area until you'd hit endgame. These are just some of the examples from one game of how games are responsible for their own demise.
Like I've said before:
1. Only ever add content to the game and never take away from what came before(that's what creating new worlds/continents are for. (those that initially bought into the game bought it for what it had at that time and likely have little interest in playing something else, unless it's in the form of an expansion which they will then also buy).
2. When making expansions, do not gate the new content making it only available to the top 5?% of your subscribers/players and keeping it from the millions of other players that you expect/want to buy it. Why in the world would a level 50 player who doesn't race to endgame, let alone a new player barely leaving the beginner zones, want to pay for an expansion they won't see for at least another 40-50 levels?!
When I payed Planetside (1), what I considered a MMO at the time. I had to level my character by defending a tower during a base capture. I would either stand behind a row of Maxes and repair and heal, man a roof turret on same tower, or heal and repair other players defending the tower roof from the inside stairwell. Aren’t these grind tasks? My assessment, only fans of FPS can’t tolerate grind, unless it comes in the form of FPS.
During the last phase of the village, there was an elite sith assault on the village, you basically had to kill 20? base elite sith, and 10? elite advanced sith. This grind was considered some of the best combat in SWG until that time. The most fun these gamers had in SWG.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
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One I do enjoy is when grind is veiled by mixing it in with other activity, such as farming materials for crafting.
Going out in open world, no stress, music is on, seeing how much stuff I can shove in my bags given a half hour of game time, and leveling up when I don't even expect it. Bonus !!! That's a good feeling.
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 have said that as well. It is a matter of looking at it a certain way.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Well, I'm a writer and a composer so I suppose I understand "being creative". And used to be an actor and an artist as well.
a lot goes into making a solid story. And keep in mind, most stories are just derivatives of several story types. It's how they are woven (why not, I'll use the word) that makes them unique.
My statement was more toward the idea that it takes time to create and implement these stories for quests and then the player blasts through them and suddenly you need more. And more and moar and MOAR!!!!!
And to constantly churn out another quest and another quest on top of another takes work. Work that the players are going to zip through and then demand more.
That's a lot in order to keep players interested in playing. And mmo's want players to play for a long time.
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
One persons sense of accomplishment is another persons grind.
Unfortunately there have been games that I really wanted to play with unbearable grinds, and games that I had little interest in playing with my style of character progression.
Shaiya was like that for me. It was like hitting a wall. Just... can't... keep... going... Toooooo slow.
And I really liked the game. Asian styling, but older. Ran great on my craptop.
"I would much prefer going through a dungeon and grinding as I explore it"
Wait... what?
Since when is exploring something grinding? That is a very broad definition of grinding you have there. In that case pretty much everything in between the end credits rolling in ANY game qualifies.
Exploring a map is not grinding, unless monsters are respawning every 5 seconds artificially limiting your ability to do so.
When you are using a definition that broad, it makes it hard to identify the problematic gameplay as grinding.
Killing 100,000 of the same mob trying to get a pet to drop is grinding. But it is the good kind, optional. You can choose to grind it, or choose to buy it from someone who did the grinding.(or just got lucky)
Repetition will always exist. Repetition is not the problem. The problem is the tedium of that repetition. The repetition can be made less obvious and thus less tedious using a variety of different approaches. WoW as an example, has both less tedious well disguised repetition, and wtf straight up grindy as hell repetition. I would only consider the later grinding, at least IMHO.
The only game I have played that balances Ryan's somewhat sandboxy view of progression without a trail of quest grinding and Chris's view of the thrill of level advancement and character building is Mount and Blade Warband.
Unfortunately its not an mmo, and I have no idea how to translate that experience into a competitive online experience, but I'm hoping someone will figure it out!
There are as many different types of MMO players as there are MMO players. Developers develop MMOs with the idea that you will come and play it because of the way they designed it to be played.
But there always has been and always will be players who choose to play it a different way. Some of those are very goal-oriented over-achievers who will find the tricks and loopholes that let them achieve that goal, be it master crafter if rare things, ability to solo what others need groups for, top raider, top PVPer...whatever. And if grinding gets them to their goal faster, they will do that.
There is nothing wrong with that, But there is something wrong about later on whining about the "need" to grind--a "need" created by them in order to over-achieve. If the game is created so that everyone needs to grind, that's a different thing. But most MMOs are not and a lot of us who just plain stay away from those types of MMOs.
Take ESO for example. It's a quest-based game designed to give you 350 hours of questing for people who enjoy that sort of thing. It also gives you other things to do, most notably, the 24/7 PVP in Cyrodiil. Both taken together were developed to give you months if not years (for people with lives
) of a particular type of entertainment. So what do some do? They want to be Veteran Rank 14 with the best gear in a month or as quickly as humanly possible so they can rule the roost in Cyrodiil.
Once again, nothing wrong with that if that's how you want to play it. But then turning around and whining about "needing" to do that? And how the game sucks because they "force" you to do it? Sorry bud, no sympathy. It's a choice you made - a choice that can be mindless and numbing and soul destroying. But it's on you, not the devs that made a a game for those who want to achieve that in a year, not a month.
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― CD PROJEKT RED
I agree with what you say above, but I think an issue that often arises is that some parts of a game are considerably less fun if a player is not "maxed out" (for example pvp in ESO Vet campaigns) and in a sense "forces" you to do activities that you don't particularly like in order to get to the point where you can have fun.
Taking ESO again as an example, once my toon hits 50 I feel basically compelled to go to a pve grind spot and spend hours mindlessly killing mobs. On the other hand, I can spend endless hours in ESO's non-vet campaign or GW2's spvp because I am playing the game I like, and the best way to succeed is to play pvp lots (improve skill) rather than do something unrelated and boring (grind mobs for levels/gear).
I am going to jump into this conversation because I feel the problem is that “GRINDING” is a point of view more than anything.
For Example some people think questing is a Grind. Others thing that doing the same instance over and over again for Tokens is a Grind. Yet while others thinks that leveling up something is a Grind. Let’s see what other MMO Activities people can call Grinding in an MMO.
#1 Gathering Mats for Crafting
#2 Making Gold
#3 Working on Skills like in UO
#4 Raiding
#5 Working on Achievements
Well that basically covers everything you can do in an MMO. The core problem is people today see what life is in reality than what they seen what life was when we were younger. Life is a GRIND for most people who do not have endless streams of cash. Why do I say that well let’s look at two examples.
In an MMO where you can spend more money to get what you want and get to it faster people do not call that a grind. They call that fun because they can get to X level with little effort and more cash. Some games even let you get caught up to the raid curve for X amount of cash. People like this because they do not have to spend TIME to do things they don’t want to do. What they don’t want to do is spend the time on Vertical progression. Basically leveling from level 1 to 50, or Doing Tier 1 and 2 to get to Tier 3 raiding. They want to use Money to bypass X experience.
In real life people often do not want to have to work for anything they just want what they want to just come to them. In real life people don’t want to have to go through the 4 years or more of classes to get a bachelor’s degree. I know I have some family that are jealous of me and bitch that they cannot just pay for a class and get an automatic pass in the class. I have known college kids that come out to apply for a Systems Engineer job whom I interviewed and they want a Sr. Engineer position plus 100K with NO experience just out of college. Why? They feel that their college degree entitles them to this and do not want to have to put the years of hard work in to achieve what I have. Heck people don’t even want to go to work on a daily bases getting up at 5am and not going to bed until 11pm and doing this over 5 days a week; week after week; month after month; year after year. Life itself is a grind and people naturally want to kick back and do whatever they want, they do not want to be tied to things they don’t want to do. People just want to do whatever they want when they want. They want this in the real world as well as in gaming worlds they play as well.
The core problem is people want to do what they want when they want and they are saying things they don’t want to do are not fun. Well as in life and as in games you are NEVER going to like everything you are going to like everything you are going to do. You however are going to have to do what you need to do to get to the stuff you like to do. That is LIFE; and that goes the same for games we cannot make games that everyone is going to like everything they want to do 100% of the time.
You need to find a game that you like this will include doing some things you like. GRINDING is going to be a part of any game period because people THINK that anything they have to do in game they don’t want to do is a Grind.
I don't find grinding is part of ESO's non-vet pvp or GW2's spvp (or WvW if you level to 80 through spvp). You simply play the game and have fun, and while having fun playing the game you get better and better at it as you learn about positioning, class skills and the like.
That is totally different to spending 100 hours killing the same mobs over and over to get to the point where you can have fun. The latter is a boring grind, the former is well designed game mechanics.
Its the same in single player games. If I have to spend an inordinate amount of time doing boring stuff then the game is just boring. Good luck trying to convince the players that life is a grind as well so suck it up. That is a line of argument I have only seen applied to mmos, I imagine its a way to justify playing games with extraordinary grind?
Yep. CoX Foundry farms come to mind. Just massive landscapes of resurrecting mobs(for double XP!) all placed on a generic map for a team to just go in and tear through to level at 3-4 times the speed of leveling by playing the game the "right" way. Anybody that says doing stuff like that is more fun than playing the game like a normal person is probably playing a game they totally hate in the first place.
That's one reason why Ryan's "anti-grinder=instant gratification" comment seems a bit ironic, to me. People will choose to grind because they want instant gratification. They want the levels to ding by as quickly as possible, and to do it, they're willing to play the game in the dullest, most excruciating way possible.
Trouble is, most modern developers learned from the SWG Jedi unlock debacle, where they gated the most coveted prize in the game behind the most excruciating and lengthy process in the game, AKA the dumbest idea since 2 story outhouses. As a result, they've lowered the advancement speed gap between playing through the questing content and grinding mobs. No more big payoff for playing the game in the worst way.
Supposedly, there are some exceptions coming; grinding is coming back into style for some upcoming indie games. I bid they and their players good luck, and I'd thank them personally for making it clear from the onset that their game isn't for me.
Sorta true about ESO' quests getting repetitive after a while.
A long while, but still.
IMO it's in the top 5 in terms of quest delivery. But that still doesn't keep me from cringing every time some villager comes running toward me(which is alot), arms flailing: "Help! Save my village from being overrun/possessed/repossessed/under siege/poisoned by brigands/werewolves/vampires/spirits!"
It seems awesome at first, but by your 7th or 8th region, you start thinking villages and their quests are created by RNG's.
"Possessed by Trolls... sounds wierd but WtH. Now flip a coin to see if the main NPC contact is directly responsible in some way. The art dept. just made this sweet outfit; let's throw it in as a disguise, here. Another village story down, 126 to go..."
Lol yeah. I got my one and only V14 character to that level by playing it the way it was designed - i.e. dutifully doing my 1-50 and the Caldwell Silver and Gold + dungeons and a bit of PVP... But I did take my time (~ a year to get to V14.) Still, I don't really want to do that again.
I don't have anything against stories in MMO - I believe they're essential as a matter of fact - but a questing revolution needs to happen to make them more reflective of the multi-player reality of MMOs. Stories and events that involve the whole community (sort of like Rift invasions but less predictable, more world changing in significant ways) is where the stories and quests should focus. Sure we can still have some solo story line but the development effort shouldn't be mostly there. Daedric spawns and invasions that if left unchecked by the players could result in the permanent destruction of Vulkel Guard... that sort of thing.
The old convention of quest givers giving the same quest over and over again to all who talk with the NPC is a really ancient MMO device that needs to disappear. If they're going to create a world at war setting for the MMO well, create the damn world at war the way we would experience it if it was real: we either all fight as a community responding to events that need many of us to fight or we'll just be SOL.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
You're absolutely right, yet this exactly is the core of the problem here.
In RPGs the idea is to improve not only your skills as a player but also the skills, stats, feats, attributes, etc of your character. The RPG aspect is what is missing in modern MMORPGs. They let us level up to max in no time, give us fancy catch-up mechanisms to make us full equipped, and then they throw in our face the same FPS/MOBA game we could have been playing without the need of boring grind and gearing/leveling up.
In MMORPGs PvP balance should be determined by the strength and class of your character, not so much by your skills as a player. There are countless of games where everyone is equal and only your skill as a player matters, so get your hands off of my RPG and let me grind the mats for the Sword of Endless Power, so i can finally kick the crap out of the pest who kept ganking me and my partner for hours.
Well, I can say I don't enjoy the grind, at least in terms of needing to do it to progress my character.
Which is why I play EVE, absolutely no grind at all, no really, my character progression is based on how long I sub, and impacted somewhat by what implants I chose to fit at any given time.
Now, do I perform repetitious tasks, absolutely, I mine, I rat (kill NPCs in sites), I mission run, I explore etc, but they are to earn ISK, not progress, and if I really was so inclined I could sell PLEX's in game and never do any of this. (Many PVPers do so in fact)
But I don't look at those activities as grinding, they are the game play I chose to do to earn ISK in game to further my greater goals, such as flying bigger capital ships, or helping build stations, or just building up my wallet. Polnt is, while repetitious, they don't feel like a grind, because I have no pressure to do them.
After as long as I've been in EVE, I pretty much have enough skill points (over 100M on two alts, 65M on a third) to do any activity I choose to (well, not industry) and my wallet is more than sufficient to pay for anything I need right now.
So no, MMORPG's don't need a grind, but you will need to come up with an alternate progression system.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Yep. I think ESO does it about the best so far, and for better or worse, the phasing does its job of making changes seem permanent; places where you've "brought peace to the inhabitants", they seem to "stay peaceful", for example. It's certainly a step up from most MMO's. But it would be nice to be able to revisit these places and find new things to do.
GW2's attempts to create dynamic areas are good, too. But they usually just get reset sooner or later. Permanent changes are tricky stuff, especially if you want them to be meaningful. Credit to the GW2 folks for having the courage to tear up Lion's Arch...
Hype can sometimes make people expect a revolution, when it's pretty much always gonna be an evolution. Baby steps to things arguably getting a bit better each time. I guess that's why I'm generally pretty leery of "Star Citizen levels" of game promises. One of the most fatal things a gaming company can get wrong is scope. Baby steps...
BBM - Or a better "reward" system, without totally nerfing the activity("grind" to some, but a reason to play for others). I bet some of what got you to where you are in EVE, was a "grind" to someone, if not to you. From reading forums over the years,I find most don't consider a feature that much of a grind if they think the reward is worth it.
That's one of the reasons I disliked WoW's "pokemon" expansion, it took away one of my fave "grinds", the reasonably lucrative pet business. It was one of those "optional" reward systems that allowed lower levels to earn some decent gold while gaining exp("grinding"). http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6413172080
(ie. Instead of going out and farming mobs to try and loot that elusive Emerald or Crimson Whelpling(or whatever your toon was capable of) and then sell it for some decent gold, they changed it so altoholics only needed one per account instead of one per character. Plus they also created a very low cap for how many pets an account could hold, not taking into consideration any of the players who had spent years and years collecting pets on all their toons( I had literally thousands and was told to either dump them--iirc the cap was first set at 500--, and/or spend the next year or so trying to sell them for a pittance on the AH, or just don't play the new content... I chose the last and cancelled my acct.)
So the newish achievement system that we'd gotten just before WotL got "restarted" ... of course those who didn't play that whole pve side of the game could care less, but there were many that did and giving us pandas was little consolation, especially when you were then gated from playing in Pandaria after leaving the beginner tutorial area until you'd hit endgame. These are just some of the examples from one game of how games are responsible for their own demise.
Like I've said before:
1. Only ever add content to the game and never take away from what came before(that's what creating new worlds/continents are for. (those that initially bought into the game bought it for what it had at that time and likely have little interest in playing something else, unless it's in the form of an expansion which they will then also buy).
2. When making expansions, do not gate the new content making it only available to the top 5?% of your subscribers/players and keeping it from the millions of other players that you expect/want to buy it. Why in the world would a level 50 player who doesn't race to endgame, let alone a new player barely leaving the beginner zones, want to pay for an expansion they won't see for at least another 40-50 levels?!
Sway all day, butterfly flaps all the way!
When I payed Planetside (1), what I considered a MMO at the time. I had to level my character by defending a tower during a base capture. I would either stand behind a row of Maxes and repair and heal, man a roof turret on same tower, or heal and repair other players defending the tower roof from the inside stairwell. Aren’t these grind tasks? My assessment, only fans of FPS can’t tolerate grind, unless it comes in the form of FPS.
During the last phase of the village, there was an elite sith assault on the village, you basically had to kill 20? base elite sith, and 10? elite advanced sith. This grind was considered some of the best combat in SWG until that time. The most fun these gamers had in SWG.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.