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When is a game a grind game?
Aczero
Member Posts: 248
When is a game a grind game?
If you have to fight mobs 2 weeks long? 3 weeks long? 2 months long?
I see people saying about games: "It is not a grind game you are maximum level in 3 weeks", for me a game is a grind game when you have to level with the only reason to become better. If you have to kill mobs without a reason (I mean quest completion/story line with this) hours long it is already a grind to me. That's why i love GuildWars, you are quick max level, maybe to quick(?), and then the game really starts. You never have the feeling that you have to kill mobs for leveling. If you look at the most F2P games you see that the most games are grind games (for me), because they have a lack of quests.
It's about the same with item grinding. In some games you have to grind items to be the best equiped, because every month they got new equipment that is better than all other equipment.
I'm waiting on WAR now, because you can level from rank 1 to rank 40 through PvP, what I really love and I hope they have a lot PvE quests also.
I'm a PvP player, I always was and always be. That's maybe one reason why I don't like killing mobs without a good reason.
When is a game a grind game for you?
Comments
To me a game becomes a grind when you are forced to repeat the same task over and over again for advancement. I think that a grind is all how you percieve yourself playing the game, it can come from many different factors in the game. In games where there's tons of quests, dungeons, ect to do, I've never felt like I was just grinding away at my experience bar. Now on the other hand, I remember playing EQ1 and all there really was to do was either sit in a group camping a spot or raid.. that to me was a grind.
You probably won't get a single answer to your question because everyone has a different reason a game feels like a grind to them. When I get to the point that the games started to feel like a grind, I'd sign off and find something else to do..
To me a real grind game is a game which has a format where very little or none of the real fun content ti you reach the higher levels. Developers do this mainly so you are forced to pay more sub money while you grind away those levels to reach the Endgame raiding content. WoW is a very good example of this. In order to raid and do PvP you have to be of a high level in order to compete effectively as lower levels always lose against higher level players. Also in order to raid which is where a large portion of the 'Fun' is you need special loot gear in order to raise your abilities.
Now you have to have this gear because every other high level characters has a PvP and PvE gear set. And getting this gear is designed to take months. I have heard stories where it can take a player months to just get a helmet for example. This is because in these bits you need a large group of players to work together to kill the monster that drops the item itself. Now thing is all of those players are after the same loot item too. and the monster probably only drops that item rarely. So what you get it people spending every night for several weeks to months just doing the same 'Fun' raid every night.
This is done once again to keep you hooked into the game therefore paying more sub cash over. And this is what i consider a true grind. The mindless repetitive paying for promised endgame content. And guess what WoW has recently added 10 more levels to it and made ALL the Epic loot obsolete so you have to do it all again what fun!!!
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
When a game starts getting repetitive. I can stand doing a few thins without reason as long as I don't need to do it for very long. But if I get the same "kill x" or "acquire x" quests over and over and is always supposed to kill pretty much the same guys to get them, it becomes boring and a grind. Grinding for me is basically when you're forced to do something over and over until it's not fun any more.
Grinding to me is being forced to kill mobs to level as there is nothing else to do. like to have a purpose to what I'm doing I'd like to see MMORPG's start to challenge RPG's in the story department. Final fantasy costs me £40 per game in which I get 100s of hours of game play, an increadable story, music score to compete with a hollywood blockbuster and cracking visuals. The longest MMO subscription I had was WoW for 2 years a total of £350 I feel I got very little value for money here when comparing the two.
This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.
--Terry Pratchett
Exacly the grind is deliberetly made longer so you have to apy more subs. I wouldnt mind tho if the game itself was fun from the begining.
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
Grinding such as levelling a weapon skill by simply repeating your attack over and over again on random mobs until you see the magical 'your axe skill has increased to 127' pop up in your log. Do this for years on end and you have yourself a mind numbing 'fun' experience.
Repitition is irrelevant. All MMO's have repitition. It's a grind when it's no longer fun to do a certain task and you are only doing it to get to the next step.
Grinding is for me when I am doing a repetitive task no matter the reason. Sometimes a grind is fun, sometimes not. The more I repeat the task the more likely it is that the fun stops. I play a game to have fun by overcoming challenges and seeing new or unexpected things. Grinding is neither challenging nor new nor in any way random.
In MMOs grinding is most likely: killing the same hostile NPCs again and again, crafting the same item again and again or running around for hours collecting flowers. Its all the same thing: repetition of a task which consumes time to gain wealth or character strength. It is boring as hell but thats the formula most MMO devs are using to bind a player to their game.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I've played a few MMORPG's, and the one thing I think is grinding is when there is not enough content to play the game different ways. I played WoW to level 70 once on the ally side, and started to again, but I found I was basically doing things exactly the same way and gave it up. Even good quests become grinding to me if you need to do them every time you play through the game. I have found that in terms of PvE content Vanguard SoH and Everquest (1 or 2) both had lots of content and I could make alts and level them up different ways. I like the idea of leveling up using PvP too cause then you have the human factor too.
So to answer your question, I think a game is a grind when the content is limited to the point where you have to keep replaying the same stuff, the content itself is repetative, or very predictable and boring. A mix of PvP is a good flourish in my opinion and part of the reason I'm watching AoC and WAR.
Grinding isn't just repeating the same thing over to level. It is just repeating the same thing over and over to reach a goal. If you want 100 silver and you kill something that drops 1 silver each time, and you kill it 100 times, that is grinding.
If there is nothing to do each day but to do what you did before, it is a grind. WoW has dungeon grinds, money grinds, rep grinds, etc. I prefer LOTRO's title grind. If I am going to kill 100 of something, I want a new title out of it.
Answer: always
The better they hide this fact, the less people think of the game as such.
Even single player games are "grind" to some extent. All you are doing in a fps is "move reticle on top of head, press button". Do this enough times until win. Except for the occasional boss, the only thing that really keeps those games interesting are the varied strategy and ai, which mmo's lack. (Check out the "stupid ai" thread in the developers corner for some possible reasons why this is so).
The hard thing is, making a good dungeon, or a good story, or both (like final fantasy games are built on) takes too much time to be able to carry a player through a year, or even 6 months of playing. Players WANT a game they can be addicted to for that long, and developers want to keep their subscriptions. How often does a final fantasy game come out? every 2 to 4 years these days. A few dungeons of FF caliber in an mmo would last players a few days to blow through, and then what? So they have to have repeats, or make you fight mobs in one section of the dungeon for a long time, or make you do several quests in that area which are fetch quests, etc, just to make the content last long enough.
To me, it doesn't feel like a grind if I am doing something new every little bit (even though technically I would still call it a grind). This can happen if things are more random (nethack has lasted for years because of this), or dynamic (pvp is an example of something that can feel less grindy).
Its a grind game when the developers decide to stick mmo infront of its genre.
almost every mmo that need to build up something thats longer then a instant reaching cap, is a grind hehe.
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There is no grind. I don't believe in it. I either like a game or I don't.
For instance: I use to play a MUD that had a very repetitive system to level skills. But this was done in non-safe pvp areas. So although I was doing the same thing over and over, it was fun because I always had to be on the watch for pvp situations.
Another example: WoW The first time I played WoW I found it very boring, I didn't like travel times or leveling trade skills. The next time I played it, after a few years, I enjoyed it. I had a different mindset and approach.
Then I got into another game and stopped playing WoW again.
If a game stops being fun, stop playing it and there won't be any grind.
To the OP: I think you are asking the wrong question. Forget about grind, and ask – how can a MMORPG be fun. There are many answers to this question. And as of yet I don’t think a really good MMO as ever been made. I think a good MMO would include the following things:
1. All quests are choices, you are never told what to do. And one of those choices is always not to get involved with that situation.
2. All choices made have an effect on the world, which affects everyone else. (Truly dynamic world and story)
3. The amounts of exploration, questing, pve combat and pvp combat is always up to the player.
When a game can do all of the above, it will be the first good MMO ever made.
Let's give this thread two questions!
1. How can a mmorpg be fun?
2. When is the mmorpg a grind?
Because you can have fun with a grind mmorpg. Look Runescape! People have fun when they are just clicking on a rock, when their inventory is full they move to the bank and then move back and start all over again. They are doing this just to reach level 99 mining... What takes days, this is the biggest grind i ever saw in a game, but people enjoy doing it.
To me a game is a Grind when the only reason to log on is to slog through meaningless repeative boring content in order to get to the 'end game'. I want to be able to immerse myself in the entire game...right down to just wandering around and having my own adventures not rush to the end because there's nothing else to do.
Games that have meaningful content through out its level ranges in my opinion successfully hides and or removes the feeling of grinding (atleast to me, some people just like sitting at the top no matter how important the low level stuff might be) to reach the end. Its supposed to be an MMORPG ... not MMOEG (end game). I guess when i play MMO's even if I don't RP in game I take the RPG part of the name serious. I want to explore and have fun, the fun's over if you get to the end and you just do the same thing over and over and over again because its worthless to do all the stuff you skipped.
I guess its one of the reasons I like the concepts WAR has going. Everything is helpful to the over all realm no matter if its PVE or PVP.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
I just thought about this again and I think I know what the most mmorpgs are doing wrong:
There is a end! With some really good PvP mmorpgs this doesnt matter, but with PvE mmorpgs it does.
When is a mmorpg the most fun? The first time you complete the game, the second time it is already a grind to me. I'm waiting on WAR atm and i really really love it, the game has no end! The whole game is based on war. Every quest you do helps to win the war. When you are rank 40, you don't have to grind for equipment. You just kill the opposite faction. For me this is the perfect game, if they do what they told us.
You all guys noticed that i'm a WAR fanboy, so I will compare things to WAR.
My main point now is that mmorpgs developers have to stop making RPG games and put them online, but making online games RPG.
There is a bit of a difference between grinding and a game being a grind. A game with a bit of grinding is alright, just so long as the missions are varied enough and the actual gameplay is enjoyable enough that you don't become bored with a game extremely quickly. When a game crosses that line, it becomes a grind. And, of course, since games are intended to be about having fun first and foremost, and since a game just isn't fun to play if it's tedious, that is usually about the point that I stop playing said game.
That is, if my horribly wimpy computer doesn't crash from the strain first. But that's another issue altogether.
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Playing: Nothing
Played: Champions Online, CoX, STO, PSO, WoW, lots of free-to-play crap
Looking Forward To: DC Universe Online, Blade and Soul
I didnt read the posts past the OP but to awnser your question every game is/has a grind. Be it quest grind, skill grind, mob grind, money grind ect. The only diffrence is some games make there grind fun others dont.
Grind is in the eye of the beholder, if you are having fun then it isnt a grind. People say EQ was a huge grind but the first time i played it i didnt know what a grind was, i was just having a ton of fun.
To me, it is a grind when I cannot encounter new content to advance my character.
Agreed, that pretty much sums up my opinion on the subject
For me, a grind is when you are forced to do the same identical or virtually identical quests over and over again like in the new Rise of Kunark expansion to get enough faction or whatever to progress. Copious amounts of faction grinding isn't fun, merely a crappy timesink diguised as "content." Vanguard is like that too...faction grinding left right and center, and part of its bad gameplay. Its like they never learnt from EQ1. Do developers really think faction grinding is fun? Of course they dangle powerful rewards at the end, but I doubt that is enough for most players to drag themselves through tedium.