What is the alternative to 'grind?'

mgilbrtsn

The definition of grind that I'm using is "Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks." I see a lot of people who complain about it, but I'm not sure what should/does/could completely remove it. In resource gathering, you're gonna have to get x resources a considerable amount of time. This would be considered grinding. In crafting, you've got to create things in order to get better. Even in my favorite crafting games you had to create more than just a single item to advance. In combat, you've got to kill things in order to advance. The more you kill the more experience you get. In many games you don't have to kill the same monsters over and over again, but a lot of people do for the simplicity of it. A sort of self imposed grind. All of these things sound like grinding to me. If you remove the grinding from resource gathering, crafting, and combat to name a few, do you simply remove the need for these things? Do you just get all the resources, skills and experience without having to work for it? What's the alternative?

VengeSunsoar

Only one thing. Variety. 

Kabulozo

The only thing left is an MMOAdventurer-Platformer, and nobody knows how to make it works.

Better to stay in single player adventure-action games instead.

iixviiiix

One way is use time consume to replace grind . For example EVE skill progression
Other way is put in more gamble element . For example Diablo loot table .

Amaranthar

The biggest problem with grinding is when it's forced, based on character "class", or basically the "story" that's pregenerated by game design.

I like to have options, and to choose what I do. Then grind doesn't bother me as much.

Flyte27

Random loot tables doesn't kill grind for me.

I feel the only solutions are variety and the randomness of real people who can impact you in some way.

immodium

If people find certain content a grind that content was not designed for them. Grind is completely subjective. Like @VengeSunsoar stated make more content available that a wider audience will like.

Some gamers think the leveling process is a grind to get to the PvP/Raids, so why not have the option of starting with a max level character.

Some just play for the story so give them XP boosts so they don't need to do the filler quests. etc.

Amaranthar

immodium said:

If people find certain content a grind that content was not designed for them. Grind is completely subjective. Like @VengeSunsoar stated make more content available that a wider audience will like.

Some gamers think the leveling process is a grind to get to the PvP/Raids, so why not have the option of starting with a max level character.

Some just play for the story so give them XP boosts so they don't need to do the filler quests. etc.

Wouldn't "end game" become a grind in itself?

immodium

Amaranthar said:

Wouldn't "end game" become a grind in itself?

Grind isn't the same as repeating. People can do things repeatedly and not be bored by it. Grind is when you find something to be a chore, doing something you find dull over and over.

People don't have a problem repeating the same content if it's fun.

Kyleran

The alternative is you play an "Adventure" game with a story to follow and puzzles to solve.

MMORPGs at their core are about progression, and there will always be a grind....just a matter of what flavor you prefer, and how long (or tedious) you can put up with.

BigRambo

Fun grind      When you're only left with grinding the same old boring dungeon 24/7, then it's time to move on to another game.   Fun grinding to me is grinding a variety of monsters for ingredients in order to craft a ultimate weapon and / or piece of armor.   The way grinding is set up now, once you reach endgame, there is no point in returning towards the beginning to grind because there won't be anything good for you, and that has to change.  FF14 : ARR was on the right track but they opt towards the same old boring endgame dungeon grinding 24/7 for endgame gear and the crafting RNG is to poop on, (Dunno if they improved on this, haven't played since Feb 2015).  That's why Lineage Eternal and Lost Ark are heavily anticipated, since it will be a fresh new beginning, if they want me to grind 24/7, at least let me grind in style by bashing a few dozen zombies at the same time.  

Amaranthar

immodium said:

Amaranthar said:

Wouldn't "end game" become a grind in itself?

Grind isn't the same as repeating. People can do things repeatedly and not be bored by it. Grind is when you find something to be a chore, doing something you find dull over and over.

People don't have a problem repeating the same content if it's fun.

Gamers in Themepark games get tired of the old content all the time. Always expecting new content, which developers can't keep up with.

Amaranthar

Kyleran said:

The alternative is you play an "Adventure" game with a story to follow and puzzles to solve.

MMORPGs at their core are about progression, and there will always be a grind....just a matter of what flavor you prefer, and how long (or tedious) you can put up with.

If such an adventure game has an end to said adventure, what then?
I think the key here, and this is perhaps the most viable way to go, is to have the story evolve. Even change as old stories end.
It would help a lot of this adventure left it's mark, too. That would allow for old adventures (plot lines) to be made use of for new plot lines based on them.

So, in short, an evolving world with constant new evolution in plot taking place.

Edit to add: I'm thinking in terms of world wide plot lines rather than simply player character plots, which are just story lines (as in "quests"). World wide plot lines add more meaning, add "win" in a form of a race to solve, interest in the evolving world where the old can still mean something to the new, evolving lore, player fame, player self determined "story", etc.

Allow players to also do their own choices of "grind" as they proceed through the adventures of a much more interesting world.

Amaranthar

-OR-, of course, we can just keep doing what we been doing, right?
Same ol' same ol'?
That's what everyone wants, right?
It's certainly what those inside the industry want. They don't have to risk failing at something they didn't copy and re-skin.

Flyte27

The best part of this thread is people say MMOs are about grind.  I remember saying the same thing about old MMOs that are not accepted now.  The grind now is much more restricted and instanced now though.  There is no chance of random players impacting you and creating some excitement out of the monotonous boredom.  There is also no chance to create things like a trade area, ask for buffs, give buffs, create things like camps, etc.  Everything is very methodical and mechanical.  I don't really want to grind at all anymore, but I'd likely choose the old way over the new way with instanced solo quests, instanced raids, instanced groups, jumping into dungeon queues, mounts and flying mounts all over the place, items growing on trees (actually that might be interesting), etc.

Quirhid

Amaranthar said:

immodium said:

Amaranthar said:

Wouldn't "end game" become a grind in itself?

Grind isn't the same as repeating. People can do things repeatedly and not be bored by it. Grind is when you find something to be a chore, doing something you find dull over and over.

People don't have a problem repeating the same content if it's fun.

Gamers in Themepark games get tired of the old content all the time. Always expecting new content, which developers can't keep up with.

Gamers in ALL games, you mean.

Amaranthar

Quirhid said:

Amaranthar said:

immodium said:

Amaranthar said:

Wouldn't "end game" become a grind in itself?

Grind isn't the same as repeating. People can do things repeatedly and not be bored by it. Grind is when you find something to be a chore, doing something you find dull over and over.

People don't have a problem repeating the same content if it's fun.

Gamers in Themepark games get tired of the old content all the time. Always expecting new content, which developers can't keep up with.

Gamers in ALL games, you mean.

I don't know how you'd classify a game like LoL, or others I suppose. For those audiences, of course it gets old eventually, but maybe not fast enough to be considered this way.

UO in it's early days (notwithstanding it's rampant PKing) had those events based on a plot line, had "secret locations", rares, player run events, house decoration, etc. Those things kept the game feeling fresh.

Edit: I think the ideal MMO would do that sort of thing, but add to it. UO was made with a small team compared to today's MMO's. I think a bigger effort in that sort of game world, plus an answer to PKing (hell do without it entirely), would be an exciting and interesting game to play.
A Sandbox world with ever evolving story, all sorts of things to do, choices, choices, and choices.

Amathe

A grind is partly about the repetitive nature of tasks, but it is also about how long it takes, and how much you have to do, to get from point A to point B; e.g., from level 47 to level 48.

Most modern mmos have quite a lot to choose from in order to level up. So if you are grinding it's probably because you decided to.

And so far as the time required, that's also a lot shorter now most of the time.   

Jaedor

Some real life examples of grind words are "work" and "chores" - repetitive activity referring to things that need to get done in order to obtain the result. Because they are repetitive they tend to be boring, thus earning the negative connotation of the words that describe them. Lots of people don't really like having to get a job or they don't like the job they do/have. But it pays the bills so they do it.

In games, there are activities that produce progress or increase power and which also require effort. This is the game equivalent of work, or grind. In a game though, you don't have to work. You don't have to worry about paying the bills or eating or any of the real-life penalties of being broke or unemployed.

This is actually a lot of freedom to explore or gather resources in a way that's enjoyable. If we get locked into thinking that it has to be all about power increase or progess, we end up in the same kind of negative rat race as real life and the fun goes out the window. ymmv

Flyte27

Amathe said:

A grind is partly about the repetitive nature of tasks, but it is also about how long it takes, and how much you have to do, to get from point A to point B; e.g., from level 47 to level 48.

Most modern mmos have quite a lot to choose from in order to level up. So if you are grinding it's probably because you decided to.

And so far as the time required, that's also a lot shorter now most of the time.   

There is a fairly limited amount of things to do usually and they are all very restricted.

Solo quest (instanced and usually a variety of kill or fetch quests).  Group (instanced queue), Raid (instanced queue), PvP (instanced queue in a few flavors).  Most of this is fairly repetitive and leaves no room for the players to do things outside of that box.

Wizardry

I separate the term Grind from a game when it is FUN.Obviously harvesting materials is not likely to be fun but combat most certainly can be,especially if it is interactive with other players.

Imo yes there could be ways to make every aspect of a game somewhat fun,not not haha fun but enjoyable,seems devs are just either really dumb or are more focused on a fast game to start making money rather than a quality game.

LynxJSA

mgilbrtsn said:

The definition of grind that I'm using is "Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks." ...  What's the alternative?

If you add "laborious" or "rote" to "repetitive tasks", you have your answer. 

Amaranthar

Jaedor said:

Some real life examples of grind words are "work" and "chores" - repetitive activity referring to things that need to get done in order to obtain the result. Because they are repetitive they tend to be boring, thus earning the negative connotation of the words that describe them. Lots of people don't really like having to get a job or they don't like the job they do/have. But it pays the bills so they do it.

In games, there are activities that produce progress or increase power and which also require effort. This is the game equivalent of work, or grind. In a game though, you don't have to work. You don't have to worry about paying the bills or eating or any of the real-life penalties of being broke or unemployed.

This is actually a lot of freedom to explore or gather resources in a way that's enjoyable. If we get locked into thinking that it has to be all about power increase or progess, we end up in the same kind of negative rat race as real life and the fun goes out the window. ymmv

But that's what players do. Maybe because that's the point of MMO's these days? Yeah, there's some things players do just for "fun", like fishing for example. But none of it really has any meaning. You level past whatever you do. That leaves leveling as the only thing you're really playing for.
(Of course there are always a few exceptions. But speaking generally, primarily.)

Amaranthar

Amaranthar said:

-OR-, of course, we can just keep doing what we been doing, right?
Same ol' same ol'?
That's what everyone wants, right?
It's certainly what those inside the industry want. They don't have to risk failing at something they didn't copy and re-skin.

↑ still winning? (I think so. I'm off to something more fun than this decay, at least for now.)

Jaedor

Amaranthar said:

Jaedor said:

Some real life examples of grind words are "work" and "chores" - repetitive activity referring to things that need to get done in order to obtain the result. Because they are repetitive they tend to be boring, thus earning the negative connotation of the words that describe them. Lots of people don't really like having to get a job or they don't like the job they do/have. But it pays the bills so they do it.

In games, there are activities that produce progress or increase power and which also require effort. This is the game equivalent of work, or grind. In a game though, you don't have to work. You don't have to worry about paying the bills or eating or any of the real-life penalties of being broke or unemployed.

This is actually a lot of freedom to explore or gather resources in a way that's enjoyable. If we get locked into thinking that it has to be all about power increase or progess, we end up in the same kind of negative rat race as real life and the fun goes out the window. ymmv

But that's what players do. Maybe because that's the point of MMO's these days? Yeah, there's some things players do just for "fun", like fishing for example. But none of it really has any meaning. You level past whatever you do. That leaves leveling as the only thing you're really playing for.
(Of course there are always a few exceptions. But speaking generally, primarily.)

Yes it is what players do. But part of that is the developers leading players in the direction of linear, grindy gameplay. And part of it is the players being habituated to it because of real life and previous game experience. There are alternatives but it means really looking around and opening up to see them.

Flyte27

Amaranthar said:

Jaedor said:

Some real life examples of grind words are "work" and "chores" - repetitive activity referring to things that need to get done in order to obtain the result. Because they are repetitive they tend to be boring, thus earning the negative connotation of the words that describe them. Lots of people don't really like having to get a job or they don't like the job they do/have. But it pays the bills so they do it.

In games, there are activities that produce progress or increase power and which also require effort. This is the game equivalent of work, or grind. In a game though, you don't have to work. You don't have to worry about paying the bills or eating or any of the real-life penalties of being broke or unemployed.

This is actually a lot of freedom to explore or gather resources in a way that's enjoyable. If we get locked into thinking that it has to be all about power increase or progess, we end up in the same kind of negative rat race as real life and the fun goes out the window. ymmv

But that's what players do. Maybe because that's the point of MMO's these days? Yeah, there's some things players do just for "fun", like fishing for example. But none of it really has any meaning. You level past whatever you do. That leaves leveling as the only thing you're really playing for.
(Of course there are always a few exceptions. But speaking generally, primarily.)

That actually isn't always true.  Fishing was a good way to get food in UO/EQ and in WoW it was a great way to get random good items to sell.  I never was into fishing for items, but I didn't mind the role playing aspect of fishing for food.

A lot of these type of activities are actually more relaxing than fighting.  I find when I'm fighting in game (even if it's not challenging) I get more intense.  Especially in games with real time combat.  In a turn based combat I am far more relaxed since there are pauses in between.  Fishing can be a relaxing activity.  So can things like traveling around the world (time consuming), boat rides, and sitting recovering, or other activities (just like in real life).