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Does everyone hate grinding? and has it gone the way of the birds?
Dewm
Member UncommonPosts: 1,337
So first off a little history, FFXI was not my first MMO, but it was by far my favorite, I enjoyed 90% of the games features, everything from the forced party-leveling, to the "subjob" class system" and just the feel and community of the game. But none of that really matters because its not what i'm talking about in this thread. What I would like to discuss would be "grinding" and time "sinks",
It seems to me that most of the mmo players now days dont' like grinding areas anymore and they dont' like time sinks, they enjoy the "right here and right now" sort of questing to level, And I guess what i'm asking is... is my sort of gameplay gone forever? are the days of logging on and parting up with certain people to grind to cap gone?
The main reasons I enjoyed that sort of gameplay,
1. it built a good community, playing with the same people day in and day out, you had to be nice and work with everyone if you wanted to get a party. None of this "wow-esq" gameplay where to log on pug with 4-5 people you've never seen before, raid, then log off.
2. It gave a sence of acomplishment, I have a full time job and a wife and a kid, I have my projects that I work on (rebuilding a 91' Talon) So I don't have tons of time to play a MMO, but when I log on I prefere my time to mean something, Even if it takes me 3 years to get to cap, I prefere that because then it actually means something. None of this "well i'm on WoW and I capped 4 classes last month"...which isn't much of a exageration.
So are my days of gaming gone? should I re-sub to FFXI and suck every ounce of gameplay out of it because the world will never see another game like it? Does anyone else even like grinding? I dunno, I know I enjoyed it.
anyways.. just my two cents, sorry about the spelling...I'm not the best.
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Comments
If they made it so any piece of gear, weaponry, or treasure had a chance to randomly drop from any creature, thenno. It would at least add soem level of anticipation and excitement for the possibility of what could drop from whatever you are grinding. As far as mobs go anyways.
Look at the general response to 'Korean Grinder' on these forums and you'll see what a lot (not everyone) thinks of grinding. It's not a popular past time.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I have to agree with you. More and more MMOs these days are quick to level up and accomplishments mean close to nothing there.
Did you play WoW recently? That achievement system is one big LOL and the 1st moment you create a char it shows how big a LOL it is. You have mail. You run to a mailbox, open it and see that Blizzard sends you a gift - a pet! You double click it and you have a nice penguin. And (more importantly) your 1st achievement "Can I keep it"
WTF is wrong in this picture..? Is it that much an achievement to open a mail the game sends you these days..?
Nah, I much better like the MMOs where you actually can achieve something without the game telling you so. Okay, FFXI is not my game (prolly started too late), but instead I play Lineage II (an other grind, though less than it used to be). Getting gear there, kill certain raidbosses or even get epic jewels, that's an achievement to be proud of!
Please, more grind games where you can really achieve things, but also, implement good (and varied) quests in the game. I think Lineage II is a good mixture between quests & grind for me. Think I'd say the same about FFXI if I was there at launch as well
I love grinding in games with a satisfying combat system.
I hate questing where problem solving and critical thinking skills are replaced by shiny objective markers.
Maybe I will join you back in FFXI.
Grinding as a form of advacement is pretty fun when grouped up with folks, and for the most part sucks when doing it solo which is how most modern MMO's are designed.
Recently I've been playing EQ2 which of course has tons of quests, but some of those quests reward the player for grinding a certain type of NPC and I find these breaks from questing to actually be welcome.
So I wouldn't mind a MMO that managed to sucessfully blend the two types of character advancement, especially balancing the mix between solo and group play.
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Grinding can be fun when the reward feels substantial and the combat feels satisfying. Aion came close to doing this, but at least when I played around release it felt like it became too much of one at some point. Grinding in LOTRO feels okay at times as well. It definitely has its downsides and it's certainly not 'real' challenge, but if the choice is between moderate grinding and a system like WoW where everything is simply handed to you, I'll take the grind.
Well I see Kyl is posting as a voice of reason.
Grinding does get old, but is better if it can be accomplished in the group sitting. I am hoping I dont notice it when playing TOR, as making levels by simply playing thru story will be a nice change.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
I don't really get that either. Someone up there posted that if regular monsters dropped magic gear upgrades, then people would grind the heck out of them. I think they are right.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
For me, the issue is when they are forced.
I enjoy going out and grinding out 500 mob kills every once in a while, because it's quiet and kind of relaxing. The loot I receive from all those kills is secondary.
But leveling systems, lame kill quests, necessary rep grinds, etc. should never be in any game in my opinion.
It's kind of like those tests where they give two kids a puzzle to solve, but pay one of them money to complete it. The kid with the reward either doesn't solve it, or doesn't really want to do it again because the focus is on the reward rather than the fun of solving a puzzle.
The same goes for grinding: If I get a reward for doing some repetitive task, the task becomes tedious because I'm constantly thinking about when the task will be complete rather than just relaxing and taking it easy.
Sarcasm is not a crime!
I agree here. Every now and then I do want to log on and just kill some time. Maybe watch a movie while I grind on mobs. But when I feel like that is my only option of gameplay everytime I log on, which is how I felt with Aion, it isn't enjoyable to me.
Waiting for: GW2
I really enjoy questing (for example: "Please, kill 100 of the rats that are surrounding my tavern, here is 1 copper thanks").
I just don't understand people who like to grind - this is stupid... Duh! Kill Kill Kill! I am going to kill 100 goblins! NOT FUN!
A simple "Please" (and 1 copper) can go a long way!
/sarcasm off
On a more serious note, I hate grinding, even when disguised as a quest (= non epic storyline where you help the local tavern...). I played MapleStory a while back, got traumatised, and just pronuncing the word "grinding" makes me shiver now.
Having 4 characters at cap is not a big deal in WoW (and is actually desirable) since a lot of the "fun" (<= quotes) happen at end game. MapleStory on the other end was all about leveling and so leveling was supposed to take forever. I am more of an explorer, so you can see my problem here.
My problem with pure grind is this: what is the outcome of it? I have less and less time for games now, and even though I don't mind the occasional mindless mob bashing (it helps feeling better sometimes), I generally prefer to be told a nice story, or being challenged (by mobs/players), rather than grinding by pressing 12345 without even looking at the screen. In fact most of the time, when I happen to grind, I stop after a while and start talking to people instead.
In other word, pure grinding can be done as efficiently by a bot (as it would by you), so I generally don't understand why I am supposed to be doing this as a human player (and I'd rather be socializing, exploring, discovering the world/lore instead - things were my "input" or at least "attention" is required).
Personally i can see where you're coming from. I myself don't think the grind should be short , at all. However the problem lies in being capable of maintaining said grind interesting. Farming 5 million boars gets old way too quickly. So if a game manages to make a long grind interesting i'll take it over an instant gratification one any day. But if my choice lies between killing 100k boars 1kk i'd go for the 100k.
There is actually one MMO which during the beta had a HUGE grind (no one was near the end lvl cap after 2 years of beta) but kept me interesting and that was because it was a pure PVP game, so every battle was somewhat "new" so it remained interesting for much longer than let's say farming boars and crocodiles.
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Yea i require afew things from my MMO's now...if I cant level atleast 80% By PvP only and stay in competitive endgame gear from PvP only...I dont bother with it.
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No, I like grinding. I like the rhythm of combat. It's very "zen" to me.
Or just plain ol' relaxing.
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I still enjoy grinding, it's an integral part of any solid rpg (imho) and always has been.
I group grind often. If in a mixed level group, it can be effective as a way to help power level up the lowers. If I'm with a friend who's questing, I follow along as a quest helper and also gain my own XP through kills.
When solo I tend to quest grind (optimize my grinding so I also get quest XP), but when quests run out or I don't feel like messing with them, it's off to find a good spot.
I feel the same way. Pop on my favorite online station to a dreamy-trance channel and off to my spot for a while.
What I find amazing is how much progress can be made. I often level up and did't even realize I was close.
Yea I hate grinding. I cant imagine anyone loving it.
When was the last time you read a fantasy book, or watched any movie where the character ran around in one spot for hours killing the same things over and over. Oh look, there's some pigs! Lets make BACON!
There's no point to it really. Story or otherwise. In the context of the way the world works, fields of the same mob do not just gather, walk around in short paths, and wait to be killed. Nor do wolves have armor chest plates fall out of their fur.
In no way does grinding even make sense. In any setting. Except when you're playing a game I guess. But grinding is action without context. There's no real reason to be doing it. The only time I ever grinded in real life was around the age of 7 when I became fascinated with squishing and killing crickets. However they had no loot. And provided very poor XP.
I would not mind grinding so much if I felt like I was accomplishing something. Atleast rinse and repeat dungeons have a feeling of going from start to end and you get a feeling of completion. With area grinding you feeling like you are not doing anything. Who wants to read the story of a Hero that sat in the forest grinding a mob that respawned. It would be more interesting if the grind had some sense of accomplishing something. Say an area where when you kill mobs they do not respawn till you clear the main boss of the area. Then you could create your PVP aspect if you wanted and have a since of accomplishment. Groups could compete to finish the area so the mobs reset and respawn. Better than just sitting in one spot killing mobs that keep respawning around you for no apparent reason. Atleast to me.
I'd say relaxing.
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I used to enjoy sitting in one spot for 8 hours and grinding away on my parry stat for example in FFXI 7 years ago.
I'd slap myself back into coherence if i did that today.
I realized that zoning out and putting on outside forms of enjoyment kinda defeats the purpose of playing.
More power to the people that don't mind, but it's not for me anymore.
I used to enjoy it but i also used to spend far too many hours a day doing it. I prefer a little more depth these days than playing games as an automaton.
I don't really like grind, but I am not entirelly against it.
Depends how it is done. I like element of surprise and randomity. I hate recent barter systems when I know I have to do 60 instance runs to get 180 stupid medallions to barter it for soemthing
Grind if done right can be ok, same with time-sinks - if they're used to build game atmosphere and immersion like f.e. you have to wait a bit to catch a boat or airship to get somewhere (they are not like cabs on demand of single person..) .
If time-sink is artificial created to prolong content like for example daily quests - then I am against it.
It is not only matter of mechanic itself it is how it is implented...
In MMO's I tend to hate it, but I think that has more to do with the progression rate than anything else. Grinding on mobs just has too slow of rates (exp/drops/etc) to be any fun in most mmo's and just feels unrewarding.
But in other types of games such as turn based JRPG's with random encounters for example, I love the grind and will often go out of my way to do it (since it is usually required anyways).