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Who enjoys the grind?
BTrayaL
Member UncommonPosts: 624
I was just reading a thread started by someone who thinks Aion is grindy (that dude seriously should've tried some older games before complaining) and.. it hit me!
I like the grind. I hate 10.000 meaningless quests that are worth just the XP.
The greatest fun I ever had in an MMO was back in my Lineage 2 days, with my clan, grouping in catacombs for crafting mats and recipes. When we had a full drop (that means item, for those unfamiliar with L2), we celebrated. The items were valuable, not just junk you sell to the NPC as you out-level it.
Am I crazy for missing hours of killing entire rooms of mobs that could easily wipe us if we were not carefull? Am I crazy for hating the games with a ton of dumb quests, that make you go to cap in a week or two and not group once? Am I crazy for wanting to celebrate again when I get an item from a mob?
Those were the times when I made friends, and my clan was worth a damn to me. If someone got PK-ed, we ALL went in search-and-destroy mode. We were a unit!
And this was all made possible by.. well, the grind.
Anyone else feeling this way?
Comments
I don't like solo grinding, i don't like solo questing which is just solo grinding with text. I like grouping and doing professions, dungeons, world rares, camps.
I prefer grinding to insta 50 characters.
I used to love the grind years ago, nowadays i prefer the RPG elements and PvP. The problem with grind is that it really is endless, once you've done it for so long in a game or two you're just doing the same thing again in new ones but with prettier packages.
I enjoy group grinding out in the world or in open dungeons. I don't care for instances and I'm really not concerned with "loot" so current dungeon grinds leave me unsatisfied.
The shareholders do.
Brings up a lot of nostalgic feelings :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxoaH_I8vZM
But seriously, do I enjoy the grinds in mmorpg's.
It only feels as grind if it's the sole purpose in the game, if not, then it's not a grind, it's just another aspect of the game, and I like it.
If there is a big community feeling, collective objectives and some variety in the gaming experience appart from questing and killing mobs, then I can't call it a grind.
I have always maintained that for something to be 'grinding' in an MMO, it implies that it is not necessarily something fun you want to do, it's something you have to do to progress your character, repeatedly. If you enjoy doing something, whether it's slaughtering 10,000 helpless NPC's or crafting 250 leather belts, if you have fun doing it, it's not really grinding, just part of the game that you may enjoy. I know what you mean by grinding, but to me, as long as I am having fun, it doesn't matter what i am doing.
I used to have an insane amount of fun grinding thousands of mobs in SWG trying to become a jedi back in the day, mainly because most of the time I was doing it with a real life friend usually sitting next to me. Normally if I was by myself, it did seem a bit grindy, but having a friend doing it with me made it more fun for me. Also, I remember trying really hard to get a high pvp rank in WoW's early days, (I think i gave up at rank 12), but that was one a hell of a grind. Only reason I was able to get anywhere was because I was playing with same friend and that made it more fun.
I do.
This is not to say that I don't like the idea of quests. But sending me to speak with this person to then speak with another to then kill x of y and then speak with another is very tedious.
I'd rather have actual quest arcs like DAO or even Witcher or Baldur's gate, etc and then if I want to go through a ruin and clear it out then that is what I can do.
i hate it when a specific type of gear that is a must have can only be obtained through some quest.
i'd rather have less emphasis on gear, have it mostly be crafted and then just let me out into the world to make my fortune.
I also find grinding relaxing.
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
That's why so many people don't understand Lineage 2.
it wasn't "about" grinding. Grinding only set the stage for everything else that actually happened in the game.
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
Lineage 2 was a great game and everything you mentioned were all the things I loved about it. Yet for all those things mentioned once you got behind your clan you were forever behind. That's what happened to me at least. I played back in high school from open beta until I graduated high school. Then I started working a 10 hour a day job with a 2 hour commute each way. So I had about 2-3 hours max each night to play (which was pushing it). Oh and I forgot I had bi-weekly events with my UT2k4 clan bac then too. So, after a very short while I was so far behind my clan in L2, the possiblity of catching up was near impossible.
That's really how the grind ended up affecting me. When I played ffxi and was behind my friends because of work I knew eventually I would catch them, and I did. Yet that game had a serious grind in the earlier years.
I laugh at people that say Aion is grindy. It doesn't even take a 1/3 of the time to level as L2 and less than 1/2 the time FFXI took in the pre ToAU.
Just because you can't get to max in under 2 weeks doesn't mean a game is overly grindy. To me if you can get to max in under 3 months in your first shot that's too quick. When did games stop being a journey? When did they become a race to the top and all the other stuff in the middle stopped mattering? When did bouncing from guild to guild become ok?
MMOs are ruined now a days because of most of the people want to be able to solo and be able to level fast, that just destroys the game IMO. The best times I ever had was grinding with all my friends in FF11, where it actually took skill and time to level.
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I usually hate grinding.. But realised with DCUO that the problem isn't the grind itself, it's more the combat system... I won't mind killing the same mobs over and over if the combat is fast AND fun.. No waiting (or at least, not much) on mana, on skills cooldowns.. Good fighting animations are a plus too obvioulsy..
I enjoy grinding mobs for crafting materials and make equipment for my toons. Sadly, todays MMOs are so fast paced you outlevel the item you're grinding for in this process. My first lvl 60 character in WoW was a hunter and I spent a week for mining rich thorium nodes to get the arcanum crystals I needed for my gun, which wasn't even epic, btw. When I finally crafted it and got to use it in ZG I knew it was worth the effort.
I also grinded Winterspring Frostsaber, twice. First time was pre-nerf and took a month, 8 hours each day. When I finally got the mount we took screenshots with the guy who grinded the repu with me most of the time. Today, you can buy mounts at CS if you like, and almost every player in the world has one.
Lastly, regardless of a type of an endgame a MMO may have, there should be a somewhat long grind(s) to have something to do when you're not raiding, capturing, PvPing, etc. Daily quests are not an option; doing same quests over and over again every day is not content but actually the mother of all grinds. Having many, longer grinds that upon complition gives you someting useful or something unique is a lot better and more interesting way to create solo content than some dull dailies.
So yes, I enjoy the grind, if there's that much depth in the game I feel it's worth the grind.
my 2 favorites of all time were both kind of grindy. FFXI you got into a group and killed a ton of monsters. DAoC was more solo friendly, but I'll never forget taking my necromancer with 2 other necromancers from my guild down the stonehenge barrows and clearing out multiple rooms at a time. The times spent on my Animist summoning shrooms while others pulled monsters to them was also a blast. So I guess I really do like the grind.
I think grinding is fine if the combat is fun and character development is deep.
depends on the context.
some of my best MMO friends are made while grinding. grinding is also a great way to judge if someone is going to be a flake or are truly situationally aware. grinding is more of a tool to get to know new people even if you have to carry them a few rounds. grinding is where i send out most of my guild invites. if they dont cut the musturd, they wouldn't even know that i'm an officer of the guild:D I would never recommend someone into the guild w/o having done some serious grinding with them, covert or otherwise. but then again, i had like 10 alts so nobody really knows the names of all my alts:D so if they put in an app and i want to see how they play, i'd log in an alt and "test" them on their attitude and abilities.:)
overall I see grinding as a necessary evil in the MMO business. enjoyment can arise from grinding, but they better be damn good at what they do:D problem is in a good group where everyone knows how to play, xp flows so fast that it becomes boring cuz we are all too busy killing and have no time to chat:D
Its only a grind when the game has no content, therefore leaving you feeling like you are doing a boring chore.
For example the OP was having fun with his clan, therefore it didnt feel like a grind. Other people in older games had fun reading quests, and getting into the story, therefore the levels went by almost unnoticed.
The "grind" only became a problem when developers turned their focus towards only the endgame, and not on developing the actual story/content/world leading up to max level. People were forced to go through a grind because leveling became boring and emotionless waiting to get to the developer's version of the "real" game at max level. Most games no longer even have alternate zones to level in within their level-bracket to break up the dull boring feeling, developers simply "railroad" the players through the few zones they quickly drew up to rush the game out in time to make a quick buck.
Then eventually players get disheartened and angry when they realize end game is just one constant item-chase, also very lackluster. They go off looking for another game right away, to do it all over again and complain about it.
Brand-loyalty, game-loyalty is a thing of the past.
I can't play questgrinders. They're horrible games.
At least there's satisfaction in killing something, even if it's the same thing for hours on end.