Build an MMOGame then everything will be fine though people will call your game suck (as an MMOGame).
Back to the topic , Mob grind are better than quest grind in many faces ,
But when the game turned (heavy) "grind" , quests or mob grind are same ... they all bad .
In old games , i always wish the grind are less heavy . It suck when you have all item but can't wear it because lack of level .
The level cap of item make everything worst , just 1 level difference and the gears make the gap like sky and earth.
I prefer casual system at less i can use what ever i able to get my hand in .
The level progression mob grind wasn't all bad , what make it bad in my opinion are all the system relate to level progress.
i agree with other post that you need balance of quests ,but i don't think put XP reward on quests are nice idea.
Also i don't want to see quests with auto point out what you need to do , where you have to go and who you have to kill ,
at less i want a well craft quests as a puzzle worth to solve with worth reward , not for grind EXP .
In EQ items didn't have level restriction or bind on equip type mechanics. That came along at a later point. It was the point when gold farmers and item sellers started to plague games by selling items for in game money and giving developers the idea to use these shady tactics themselves. There was also a time in between having no restrictions on items and having bind on equip. They tried a system where items scaled by level, but it didn't work because people would use the same equipment through the entire game.
Originally posted by ranghar I think killing mobs at camps is better for people with friends. You can just set up at a camp and B.S. in mumble to get to the end game group content.The flipside is that questing is way better for the solo player, and a lot of people play MMO's solo...which seems completely backwards to me.
That is a great point!I enjoyed grinding mobs in EQ1 when I had friends grinding with me. The BS we did during the dreaded downtime was made the grinding fun.Like you said, grinding quests is usually (with a few exceptions) a solo activity. No friends/help needed, usually.
This is a critical point, ultimately connected to the issue of variety and choices many people, including yourself, have talked about. With mob grinding, you had a choice to do it solo, or to do it with a group. With quest grinding, you have no choice, you have to do it solo.OK . . . you do, technically, have a choice to grind quests with pre-existing friends, but let's face it, it is overkill. You don't have a way of upping the quest difficulty to take into account multiple people. With mob grinding you would just move onto the toughest mobs you could find and handle, the difficulty was always adjustable to group size.Furthermore, mob grinding made it possible to make new friends, to meet people while you were out adventuring. It made it possible to group up on the fly. With quest grinding, the only role other people serve is to break immersion.But, in the end, I don't believe in grind. There are ways of implementing progression without grind, but even in a game where progression is tied to xp which is tied to activity, I see no reason a MMO should ever need to feel like grind. When I was playing City of Heroes, I never felt like I was grinding, it was always fun. And the reason it was fun was I always found content that was exciting and relatively challenging and which also awarded good xp. The point is, leveling should be fun, it should involve content that is challenging, and that is entirely doable. (The interesting thing of note was that City of Heroes didn't actually start demonstrating some of the characteristics of a traditional grinder until it implemented PvP and an economy.)
It doesn't have to be that way, though.
In WoW, I had a guy in my guild that was always asking folks to group up. For everything. I admired his desire to play with friends, but in WoW, it was useless, except for the camaraderie.
In City of Heroes, most of the missions (quests) were instanced inside buildings. They would increase the difficulty depending on the number in a group, from 1 to 8. They also had another personal difficulty slider (later on) where a single player could "up their difficulty." In groups, you got choose which player's difficulty to use for the mission. Street sweeping mission (Kill X of Y Mobs) were not affected, though.
So, while what you say is true today, it does not have to be
I did like your point about "friends with grinding." I made quite a few friends by getting into groups to grind
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
In EQ items didn't have level restriction or bind on equip type mechanics. That came along at a later point. It was the point when gold farmers and item sellers started to plague games by selling items for in game money and giving developers the idea to use these shady tactics themselves. There was also a time in between having no restrictions on items and having bind on equip. They tried a system where items scaled by level, but it didn't work because people would use the same equipment through the entire game.
I think we can have another way do fix the problem than add level require and item bound .
I wasn't play EQ so i can't understand how big of the problem was , but i like to know your though about that problem.
And the items scaled system , lol
i think it better if they add item decay alone with that system .
Originally posted by ranghar I think killing mobs at camps is better for people with friends. You can just set up at a camp and B.S. in mumble to get to the end game group content.
The flipside is that questing is way better for the solo player, and a lot of people play MMO's solo...which seems completely backwards to me.
That is a great point!
I enjoyed grinding mobs in EQ1 when I had friends grinding with me. The BS we did during the dreaded downtime was made the grinding fun.
Like you said, grinding quests is usually (with a few exceptions) a solo activity. No friends/help needed, usually.
This is a critical point, ultimately connected to the issue of variety and choices many people, including yourself, have talked about. With mob grinding, you had a choice to do it solo, or to do it with a group. With quest grinding, you have no choice, you have to do it solo.
OK . . . you do, technically, have a choice to grind quests with pre-existing friends, but let's face it, it is overkill. You don't have a way of upping the quest difficulty to take into account multiple people. With mob grinding you would just move onto the toughest mobs you could find and handle, the difficulty was always adjustable to group size.
Furthermore, mob grinding made it possible to make new friends, to meet people while you were out adventuring. It made it possible to group up on the fly. With quest grinding, the only role other people serve is to break immersion.
But, in the end, I don't believe in grind. There are ways of implementing progression without grind, but even in a game where progression is tied to xp which is tied to activity, I see no reason a MMO should ever need to feel like grind. When I was playing City of Heroes, I never felt like I was grinding, it was always fun. And the reason it was fun was I always found content that was exciting and relatively challenging and which also awarded good xp. The point is, leveling should be fun, it should involve content that is challenging, and that is entirely doable. (The interesting thing of note was that City of Heroes didn't actually start demonstrating some of the characteristics of a traditional grinder until it implemented PvP and an economy.)
It doesn't have to be that way, though.
In WoW, I had a guy in my guild that was always asking folks to group up. For everything. I admired his desire to play with friends, but in WoW, it was useless, except for the camaraderie.
In City of Heroes, most of the missions (quests) were instanced inside buildings. They would increase the difficulty depending on the number in a group, from 1 to 8. They also had another personal difficulty slider (later on) where a single player could "up their difficulty." In groups, you got choose which player's difficulty to use for the mission. Street sweeping mission (Kill X of Y Mobs) were not affected, though.
So, while what you say is true today, it does not have to be
I did like your point about "friends with grinding." I made quite a few friends by getting into groups to grind
Man, CoH was a great game to play with a group of friends. For the first month, my wife and I were constantly playing with a full group of guildmates and we would just do all of each other's quests non-stop. It was one of the better grouping experiences I've had in a mmo.
For the question in hand. I like both. I started mmo with Asheron's Call which was a total mob grinder (with quests that were purely optional and most worth doing). I moved on to DAoC, which was a total mob grinder and you needed a group to do anything at a reasonable rate. I preferred the AC style where grouping was mostly optional (except for some quests), but it was also super beneficial. DAoC just forced me to group too much.
There are times where the wife and I just want to sit in a spot and grind mobs so we can have a nice chat while gaming. Unfortunately, most mmos don't really offer that anymore. Even more frustrating is that in so many mmos questing while leveling isn't optimized for grouping and even being in a duo can make things needlessly frustrating (WoW was bad with this after the 1-60 revamp).
What I want is a mmo with more or less fixed rates of xp gains. If the developers feel that an hour per level of pure questing is a reasonable rate, then I feel an hour of mob grinding should be an equal amount of xps. Quests could offer a guarantee at receiving a moderate upgrade in equipment, but mob grinding could offer a chance at receiving better than average loot, but it's not a guarantee. More options for me and fellow gamers is never a bad thing.
your so called "grind" is much more fun when you actually have a reason to do what you are doing, and know what you do.
eg, it's not like WoW's classic quests which told you to slay 100 pigs and then bring 30 horns of the same mobs, so you basically had to kill 100 again
i enter an area and actually interfer with those NPCs. i help em solve their probs - and believe me, in ESO those probs escelate rather quick, and soon you are helping gods... this aint no "my wife is dead. what should i do?" quests.
do the storyline they present me in each map (and sometimes over 2 maps) and actually PLAY my char. this is what an RPG is about. not spreading stats and equipping more and more gear.
so yea, i prefer the quest hub approach, if done right
"believe me, mike.. i calculated the odds of this working against the odds that i was doing something incredibly stupid and i did it anyway!"
Do we want levels? Yes, we want to have character progression and the level system works. Ok, how? and what will be the response from the community?
Dev: "Mob killing!" Community: "Just a Mob Grinder game"
Dev: "Questing!" Community: "Just a Quest Grinder game"
Dev: "Open World Dungeons and Events!" Community: "Zergfest"
Dev: "Instanced Dungeons!" Community: "Just a Dungeon Crawl - Lobby game, I want an open world"
Dev: "Open World PvP!" Community: "Zergfest"
Dev: "Instanced PvP!" Community: "I wish there was more open world PvP"
Dev: "All of the above combined so you can do it however you wish!" Community: "Mob killing gets you to max level 5 minutes before the dungeon crawlers and 10 minutes before PvPers, it's too imbalanced"
MMORPGs aim to reward time invested and player skill. If you don't like either of those goals, an MMORPG is not for you.
I can fly higher than an aeroplane. And I have the voice of a thousand hurricanes. Hurt - Wars
Mob grinding and quest grinding are about as bad in my book. Killing tons of trashmobs or doing loads of trashquests are both boring timesinks.
Taking down a hard mob or doing a tough well made quest is fun though but when you consider something a grind it is badly done.
MMOs needs to have varying content no matter if you quest, run dungeons, kill mobs, do DEs or whatever. And only focusing on one thing makes the game more vulnerable to that.
If you see quests as a grind, or mob farming as a grind, stop you are insane . Do a thing because you enjoy it, don't do it if the journey is not worth the reward I.e min max rushing to max level despite your enjoyment is stupid.
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
In EQ items didn't have level restriction or bind on equip type mechanics. That came along at a later point. It was the point when gold farmers and item sellers started to plague games by selling items for in game money and giving developers the idea to use these shady tactics themselves. There was also a time in between having no restrictions on items and having bind on equip. They tried a system where items scaled by level, but it didn't work because people would use the same equipment through the entire game.
I think we can have another way do fix the problem than add level require and item bound .
I wasn't play EQ so i can't understand how big of the problem was , but i like to know your though about that problem.
And the items scaled system , lol
i think it better if they add item decay alone with that system .
I prefer a system where you can trade any item with anyone, but it's hard to implement. Gold farming and Item farming became a fairly large issue in EQ past a certain point. I was pretty amazed people were buying gold and items in game for real money. To me it was a funny idea wasting real money on a virtual item, but people were paying into the 1000s of dollars for gold, items, and accounts.
I think killing mobs at camps is better for people with friends. You can just set up at a camp and B.S. in mumble to get to the end game group content.
I don't need a video game for me to hang out with friends. If a video game has to resort to my friends to entertain me, it fails me.
I don't like either honestly. Obsession with vertical progression and themeparks only games lead to this problem.
It is not a problem if the game is structured like D3 .. just a series of tasks (with lots of choices & variation) aimed at progression.
Focused and get rid of all the distraction like stories, or what-not.
I think quest in MMORPG's are best when not forced.
In MMORPG the destination is more important then the journey... but let me throw these stories out there to stop you from getting there.
I don't think so at all. The only destination in most MMOs is endgame and I hate endgame with a passion, I won't play it. The only fun in MMOs is the adventure itself, the levelling journey. Beyond that, it's just a bunch of crap I want nothing to do with.
If you want cool end game or high level powers/areas/items or whatever you have to finish this story. You want to play with your higher level friends you better finish this story. There are psychological urges for most gamers in vertical progression MMORPGs.
I don't want any of those things. I want to have a good time playing a game and when it's done, I'll move on and do something else. I don't have higher level friends because none of my friends would be caught dead playing most MMOs. I don't care about high level powers/areas/items. I care about having a good time. Endgame is not a good time for me.
Grinding by definition suggests that you are doing something that you don't enjoy doing.
I wonder what people would think of WoW if all you did was log directly into a raid and nothing more. It seems to be what everyone wants... skip leveling, skip questing, skip exploring, just start out in end game. End game is just an instance, nothing more. You don't need crafting, worlds, mounts, gold, or social interaction. Just a time card to punch in your local group finder assembled instance.
If you don't enjoy MMOs, why do you continue to play them?
I would never play that game because I have zero interest in end-game content. I want no PvP, no raiding, I'm only in it for the leveling and the second that's gone, so am I. That's what MMOs are. I don't care what everyone else wants, I want the progression and I want it in a way that's not boring and absurdly repetitive.
I would like if both options were roughly equal in xp and potential gear chances. Then you can have more freedom, but as it stands now, you basically gimp yourself in more mmos, if you grind mobs.
If a mmo has a large world, I like to just go off and explore, look for named, kill stuff here and there, find a 'camp' that I like, or suits the style me and my wife are playing and such (So I am usually a duo with her playing support).
With that system, I like rare named and camp type areas (can be part of the quest hub system too).
Originally posted by ranghar I think killing mobs at camps is better for people with friends. You can just set up at a camp and B.S. in mumble to get to the end game group content.The flipside is that questing is way better for the solo player, and a lot of people play MMO's solo...which seems completely backwards to me.
That is a great point!I enjoyed grinding mobs in EQ1 when I had friends grinding with me. The BS we did during the dreaded downtime was made the grinding fun.Like you said, grinding quests is usually (with a few exceptions) a solo activity. No friends/help needed, usually.
This is a critical point, ultimately connected to the issue of variety and choices many people, including yourself, have talked about. With mob grinding, you had a choice to do it solo, or to do it with a group. With quest grinding, you have no choice, you have to do it solo.OK . . . you do, technically, have a choice to grind quests with pre-existing friends, but let's face it, it is overkill. You don't have a way of upping the quest difficulty to take into account multiple people. With mob grinding you would just move onto the toughest mobs you could find and handle, the difficulty was always adjustable to group size.Furthermore, mob grinding made it possible to make new friends, to meet people while you were out adventuring. It made it possible to group up on the fly. With quest grinding, the only role other people serve is to break immersion.But, in the end, I don't believe in grind. There are ways of implementing progression without grind, but even in a game where progression is tied to xp which is tied to activity, I see no reason a MMO should ever need to feel like grind. When I was playing City of Heroes, I never felt like I was grinding, it was always fun. And the reason it was fun was I always found content that was exciting and relatively challenging and which also awarded good xp. The point is, leveling should be fun, it should involve content that is challenging, and that is entirely doable. (The interesting thing of note was that City of Heroes didn't actually start demonstrating some of the characteristics of a traditional grinder until it implemented PvP and an economy.)
It doesn't have to be that way, though.In WoW, I had a guy in my guild that was always asking folks to group up. For everything. I admired his desire to play with friends, but in WoW, it was useless, except for the camaraderie.In City of Heroes, most of the missions (quests) were instanced inside buildings. They would increase the difficulty depending on the number in a group, from 1 to 8. They also had another personal difficulty slider (later on) where a single player could "up their difficulty." In groups, you got choose which player's difficulty to use for the mission. Street sweeping mission (Kill X of Y Mobs) were not affected, though.So, while what you say is true today, it does not have to be :)I did like your point about "friends with grinding." I made quite a few friends by getting into groups to grind
1) Man, CoH was a great game to play with a group of friends. For the first month, my wife and I were constantly playing with a full group of guildmates and we would just do all of each other's quests non-stop. It was one of the better grouping experiences I've had in a mmo.<snip>2) There are times where the wife and I just want to sit in a spot and grind mobs so we can have a nice chat while gaming. Unfortunately, most mmos don't really offer that anymore. Even more frustrating is that in so many mmos questing while leveling isn't optimized for grouping and even being in a duo can make things needlessly frustrating (WoW was bad with this after the 1-60 revamp).3) What I want is a mmo with more or less fixed rates of xp gains. If the developers feel that an hour per level of pure questing is a reasonable rate, then I feel an hour of mob grinding should be an equal amount of xps. Quests could offer a guarantee at receiving a moderate upgrade in equipment, but mob grinding could offer a chance at receiving better than average loot, but it's not a guarantee. More options for me and fellow gamers is never a bad thing.
1) Yea, CoH was made for fun with groups. My Super Group decided to make Thursday Nights our "Alt Night." Those interested rolled up new characters and grouped for a couple of hours on Thursdays. We would go through everyone in the group's missions
2) I feel the same. Sometimes, I feel like logging in and just finding a camp group and chatting during downtime.
3) The trouble is, as players do quests (which usually consist of killing Mobs), they are getting XP for killing the Mobs and XP for the quests, making questing more efficient, thus more popular. This is why I would like to see quests give up rewarding players with XP, Gold, and items (ie: vendor trash). Make the rewards more personable, like class skills/spells/abilities or other character improvement based rewards.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I like a mix of both but with the way some games force you to quest I tend to lean more towards grinding mobs. The thing that pisses me off to no end is games that go out of their way to force you to quest. My beta experience in Wildstar was almost ruined when I found out you get almost no xp if you out level a mob by a single level.
I think it should be balanced so if a player really wants to sit there a grind they should be able to and get almost as much xp as questing. It should also extend to pvp, crafting and dungeons. I should get xp for doing all of those tasks as it offers me more variety in gameplay. Why stop someone from enjoying a certain style of playing?
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds -Solid non level based game -Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
I am of the mindset that 'grinding' is not something that should be an acceptable part of gaming. I would define 'grinding' as there being one effective way of gaining levels/gear/pvp points/etc. I strongly dislike the current trend of MMOs that force the player down specific paths (such as the current love affair with quest or die) even if the game contains multiple types of content. There should always be options for players to advance their characters, especially if a development team is going to spend time developing multiple different types of content in their game.
However, in the spirit of answering the OP's original question, I would say that quest grinding is worse than mob grinding. I believe this because mob grinding can be done in a very efficient manner, and the player can control how fast or slow they partake in this activity. Quest grinding often comes with artificial time constraints/increases in the form of npc voice acting, cutscenes, quest "choices", running to turn in/find quests, escorts, and rng drop quests.
Too much mob grinding is a very bad thing, particularly because it encourages cheating. If you go back to the days of like L2 with like .2% of a level for grinding an hour that lead to just about everyone that made it to max level did it by botting.
That said I have done nothing but quest grind for the last 8 years and feel it's gotten old and stale, I definantly think going back and doing some mob grinding would be a refreshing change of pace. The problem is companies would need to be smart about how they implemented it so it doesn't lead to rampant botting.
I am of the mindset that 'grinding' is not something that should be an acceptable part of gaming. I would define 'grinding' as there being one effective way of gaining levels/gear/pvp points/etc. I strongly dislike the current trend of MMOs that force the player down specific paths (such as the current love affair with quest or die) even if the game contains multiple types of content. There should always be options for players to advance their characters, especially if a development team is going to spend time developing multiple different types of content in their game.
However, in the spirit of answering the OP's original question, I would say that quest grinding is worse than mob grinding. I believe this because mob grinding can be done in a very efficient manner, and the player can control how fast or slow they partake in this activity. Quest grinding often comes with artificial time constraints/increases in the form of npc voice acting, cutscenes, quest "choices", running to turn in/find quests, escorts, and rng drop quests.
Pretty much a bot can mob grind so I don't see how that is better, but whatever floats your boat. Some people like the experience of these games and play them for the whole game, not just the quickest way to get to level.
I am of the mindset that 'grinding' is not something that should be an acceptable part of gaming. I would define 'grinding' as there being one effective way of gaining levels/gear/pvp points/etc. I strongly dislike the current trend of MMOs that force the player down specific paths (such as the current love affair with quest or die) even if the game contains multiple types of content. There should always be options for players to advance their characters, especially if a development team is going to spend time developing multiple different types of content in their game.
However, in the spirit of answering the OP's original question, I would say that quest grinding is worse than mob grinding. I believe this because mob grinding can be done in a very efficient manner, and the player can control how fast or slow they partake in this activity. Quest grinding often comes with artificial time constraints/increases in the form of npc voice acting, cutscenes, quest "choices", running to turn in/find quests, escorts, and rng drop quests.
Pretty much a bot can mob grind so I don't see how that is better, but whatever floats your boat. Some people like the experience of these games and play them for the whole game, not just the quickest way to get to level.
You did not understand my post well at all. I do not enjoy grinding as evident by my first sentence. Please do not presume to judge my tastes in video games especially when the evidence to the contrary is quoted in your very post.
Pretty much a bot can mob grind so I don't see how that is better, but whatever floats your boat. Some people like the experience of these games and play them for the whole game, not just the quickest way to get to level.
I remember some game manage to fix bots problem , make it harder to loot by put some garbage on loots table and use inventory manage to stop people from effect bots .
They also make you have to go to repair the gears more often and when your weapon durability = 0 , you can't attack.
Give Mobs debuff skill so even if you are high level , AFK around low level mob may make you die .
Also at high level , mobs are tough and strong but you can get a lots exp from them ( more effect than using bot ) ,
A lot xp but you have to do teamwork which impossible for bots
Anyway , it pain to see quests turned to grind stuff with GPS and auto run from start to end,
And because mass product , the quality drop too much to the point it become pain tasks.
Play multiplayer game and have to bury my face on the tasks until i get enough level to join multiplayer contents aka RAID is too much.
Mob grind work better since it allow you to join your friend anytime you want.
Mob grind is way worse of the two. Apart from resource gathering, its got to be the most primitive content an MMO can have. Everything from finding spawns to camping respawns to fighting over spawns is everything I wasn't prepared to see in an MMORPGs when I first tried them.
Many old games revolved around this and I couldn't be any more disinterested. I was appalled by how many people actually enjoyed it past the point where the novelty wore off. It was not even challenging! Combat was based on the age-old straight and true, braindead tank 'n' spank and everything could be overcome with more grind.
It is the closes thing to a hamster wheel I've seen in a game. This is why I loathe those old-school MMORPGs. In my mind, there are not enough redeeming qualities to apologize for this abysmal gameplay and metagame. Every player who tried and played those games should look back and think "never again".
With what they know now, I doubt many would play a similar game today. ...or if they would, I would be very disheartened by how low they have set their bar.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I think a lot of the newer games overdo it with quests. A good example is Wildstar. There's just way too many quests and it makes all of them feel meaningless. I would prefer it if games just made long quest chains with a good story that take you all over the world. And you can only pick up like one or two quests at a time.
Maybe have something similar to Skyrim where taverns serve as kind of a quest hub. You ask the bartender if they've heard any rumors and they tell you about such and such so you have to seek that person out to start the quest. The taverns would also serve as kind of a social hub if you want to group up with other players or just chill in the tavern and interact with people.
This is a very good point.
And maybe the problem is that all the quests are so short and rapid-fire that they feel like meaningless errands. I feel like a robot getting a quest, following arrow, returning in a very formulaic fashion that lasts like 7-10 minutes each time. These aren't quests...these are tasks.
I would really like a quest that felt like a QUEST. Make it long-term, difficult to solve, involve lots of PvE. And like you say, have the quest take your everywhere...but not in a "run errands" fashion. Have the player organically figure out what they need to do for the next part of the quest and go on an adventure.
I like a bit of both mob grinding and quests, but I think that it is fun to have several kinds of quests/tasks.
First of all, most of what we do in WoW-like games is actually more like a chore or task. Quests should be epic and hard to finish.
Second, I would love it if the chores were more random and involved some mob grinding (even if just incidently) and were picked up less by an NPC with a ! over his head and more like something like a wanted poster, or just because you kill a mob or look at something or go into an area. Some "quests" could take more the form of bounties where you get an item from killing a mob and then hand it in to an NPC like a sherif for example for some money and added xp.
I find that ToR's bonus quests were actually one of the coolest ideas of that game because you just get them from doing a random quest in an area. I should emphasize that I like the system, just not necessarily their execution in ToR. It is an idea that could be expanded upon in future games though I think.
Rift, for a themepark game, has an excellent mix of mob grinding and quest doing if you mix in some rifts and invasions as well.
I miss the days of getting a group and finding a good spawn.
When it was important to have a good puller etc. Having a different group make up meant you had different buffs and handled mobs differently. Having a character with good CC was important for those crazy pulls that got out of hand. The rewarding feeling of surviving a nasty pull was great
Comments
Yes , put up DRM and people call you greedy .
Build an MMOGame then everything will be fine though people will call your game suck (as an MMOGame).
Back to the topic , Mob grind are better than quest grind in many faces ,
But when the game turned (heavy) "grind" , quests or mob grind are same ... they all bad .
In old games , i always wish the grind are less heavy . It suck when you have all item but can't wear it because lack of level .
The level require of item make everything worst , just 1 level difference and the gears make the gap like sky and earth.
I prefer casual system at less i can use what ever i able to get my hand in .
The level progression mob grind wasn't all bad , what make it bad in my opinion are all the system relate to level progress.
i agree with other post that you need balance of quests ,but i don't think put XP reward on quests are nice idea.
Also i don't want to see quests with auto point out what you need to do , where you have to go and who you have to kill ,
at less i want a well craft quests as a puzzle worth to solve with worth reward , not for grind EXP .
In EQ items didn't have level restriction or bind on equip type mechanics. That came along at a later point. It was the point when gold farmers and item sellers started to plague games by selling items for in game money and giving developers the idea to use these shady tactics themselves. There was also a time in between having no restrictions on items and having bind on equip. They tried a system where items scaled by level, but it didn't work because people would use the same equipment through the entire game.
true that started to change 4 months after launch - with the Plane of Fear / Hate
EQ2 fan sites
In WoW, I had a guy in my guild that was always asking folks to group up. For everything. I admired his desire to play with friends, but in WoW, it was useless, except for the camaraderie.
In City of Heroes, most of the missions (quests) were instanced inside buildings. They would increase the difficulty depending on the number in a group, from 1 to 8. They also had another personal difficulty slider (later on) where a single player could "up their difficulty." In groups, you got choose which player's difficulty to use for the mission. Street sweeping mission (Kill X of Y Mobs) were not affected, though.
So, while what you say is true today, it does not have to be
I did like your point about "friends with grinding." I made quite a few friends by getting into groups to grind
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I think we can have another way do fix the problem than add level require and item bound .
I wasn't play EQ so i can't understand how big of the problem was , but i like to know your though about that problem.
And the items scaled system , lol
i think it better if they add item decay alone with that system .
Man, CoH was a great game to play with a group of friends. For the first month, my wife and I were constantly playing with a full group of guildmates and we would just do all of each other's quests non-stop. It was one of the better grouping experiences I've had in a mmo.
For the question in hand. I like both. I started mmo with Asheron's Call which was a total mob grinder (with quests that were purely optional and most worth doing). I moved on to DAoC, which was a total mob grinder and you needed a group to do anything at a reasonable rate. I preferred the AC style where grouping was mostly optional (except for some quests), but it was also super beneficial. DAoC just forced me to group too much.
There are times where the wife and I just want to sit in a spot and grind mobs so we can have a nice chat while gaming. Unfortunately, most mmos don't really offer that anymore. Even more frustrating is that in so many mmos questing while leveling isn't optimized for grouping and even being in a duo can make things needlessly frustrating (WoW was bad with this after the 1-60 revamp).
What I want is a mmo with more or less fixed rates of xp gains. If the developers feel that an hour per level of pure questing is a reasonable rate, then I feel an hour of mob grinding should be an equal amount of xps. Quests could offer a guarantee at receiving a moderate upgrade in equipment, but mob grinding could offer a chance at receiving better than average loot, but it's not a guarantee. More options for me and fellow gamers is never a bad thing.
i actually prefer ESO's approach.
your so called "grind" is much more fun when you actually have a reason to do what you are doing, and know what you do.
eg, it's not like WoW's classic quests which told you to slay 100 pigs and then bring 30 horns of the same mobs, so you basically had to kill 100 again
i enter an area and actually interfer with those NPCs. i help em solve their probs - and believe me, in ESO those probs escelate rather quick, and soon you are helping gods... this aint no "my wife is dead. what should i do?" quests.
do the storyline they present me in each map (and sometimes over 2 maps) and actually PLAY my char. this is what an RPG is about. not spreading stats and equipping more and more gear.
so yea, i prefer the quest hub approach, if done right
"believe me, mike.. i calculated the odds of this working against the odds that i was doing something incredibly stupid and i did it anyway!"
You be the dev for a minute.
Do we want levels? Yes, we want to have character progression and the level system works. Ok, how? and what will be the response from the community?
Dev: "Mob killing!" Community: "Just a Mob Grinder game"
Dev: "Questing!" Community: "Just a Quest Grinder game"
Dev: "Open World Dungeons and Events!" Community: "Zergfest"
Dev: "Instanced Dungeons!" Community: "Just a Dungeon Crawl - Lobby game, I want an open world"
Dev: "Open World PvP!" Community: "Zergfest"
Dev: "Instanced PvP!" Community: "I wish there was more open world PvP"
Dev: "All of the above combined so you can do it however you wish!" Community: "Mob killing gets you to max level 5 minutes before the dungeon crawlers and 10 minutes before PvPers, it's too imbalanced"
MMORPGs aim to reward time invested and player skill. If you don't like either of those goals, an MMORPG is not for you.
I can fly higher than an aeroplane.
And I have the voice of a thousand hurricanes.
Hurt - Wars
Mob grinding and quest grinding are about as bad in my book. Killing tons of trashmobs or doing loads of trashquests are both boring timesinks.
Taking down a hard mob or doing a tough well made quest is fun though but when you consider something a grind it is badly done.
MMOs needs to have varying content no matter if you quest, run dungeons, kill mobs, do DEs or whatever. And only focusing on one thing makes the game more vulnerable to that.
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 prefer a system where you can trade any item with anyone, but it's hard to implement. Gold farming and Item farming became a fairly large issue in EQ past a certain point. I was pretty amazed people were buying gold and items in game for real money. To me it was a funny idea wasting real money on a virtual item, but people were paying into the 1000s of dollars for gold, items, and accounts.
I don't need a video game for me to hang out with friends. If a video game has to resort to my friends to entertain me, it fails me.
I don't want any of those things. I want to have a good time playing a game and when it's done, I'll move on and do something else. I don't have higher level friends because none of my friends would be caught dead playing most MMOs. I don't care about high level powers/areas/items. I care about having a good time. Endgame is not a good time for me.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I would never play that game because I have zero interest in end-game content. I want no PvP, no raiding, I'm only in it for the leveling and the second that's gone, so am I. That's what MMOs are. I don't care what everyone else wants, I want the progression and I want it in a way that's not boring and absurdly repetitive.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I would like if both options were roughly equal in xp and potential gear chances. Then you can have more freedom, but as it stands now, you basically gimp yourself in more mmos, if you grind mobs.
If a mmo has a large world, I like to just go off and explore, look for named, kill stuff here and there, find a 'camp' that I like, or suits the style me and my wife are playing and such (So I am usually a duo with her playing support).
With that system, I like rare named and camp type areas (can be part of the quest hub system too).
2) I feel the same. Sometimes, I feel like logging in and just finding a camp group and chatting during downtime.
3) The trouble is, as players do quests (which usually consist of killing Mobs), they are getting XP for killing the Mobs and XP for the quests, making questing more efficient, thus more popular. This is why I would like to see quests give up rewarding players with XP, Gold, and items (ie: vendor trash). Make the rewards more personable, like class skills/spells/abilities or other character improvement based rewards.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I like a mix of both but with the way some games force you to quest I tend to lean more towards grinding mobs. The thing that pisses me off to no end is games that go out of their way to force you to quest. My beta experience in Wildstar was almost ruined when I found out you get almost no xp if you out level a mob by a single level.
I think it should be balanced so if a player really wants to sit there a grind they should be able to and get almost as much xp as questing. It should also extend to pvp, crafting and dungeons. I should get xp for doing all of those tasks as it offers me more variety in gameplay. Why stop someone from enjoying a certain style of playing?
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
I am of the mindset that 'grinding' is not something that should be an acceptable part of gaming. I would define 'grinding' as there being one effective way of gaining levels/gear/pvp points/etc. I strongly dislike the current trend of MMOs that force the player down specific paths (such as the current love affair with quest or die) even if the game contains multiple types of content. There should always be options for players to advance their characters, especially if a development team is going to spend time developing multiple different types of content in their game.
However, in the spirit of answering the OP's original question, I would say that quest grinding is worse than mob grinding. I believe this because mob grinding can be done in a very efficient manner, and the player can control how fast or slow they partake in this activity. Quest grinding often comes with artificial time constraints/increases in the form of npc voice acting, cutscenes, quest "choices", running to turn in/find quests, escorts, and rng drop quests.
Too much mob grinding is a very bad thing, particularly because it encourages cheating. If you go back to the days of like L2 with like .2% of a level for grinding an hour that lead to just about everyone that made it to max level did it by botting.
That said I have done nothing but quest grind for the last 8 years and feel it's gotten old and stale, I definantly think going back and doing some mob grinding would be a refreshing change of pace. The problem is companies would need to be smart about how they implemented it so it doesn't lead to rampant botting.
Pretty much a bot can mob grind so I don't see how that is better, but whatever floats your boat. Some people like the experience of these games and play them for the whole game, not just the quickest way to get to level.
You did not understand my post well at all. I do not enjoy grinding as evident by my first sentence. Please do not presume to judge my tastes in video games especially when the evidence to the contrary is quoted in your very post.
I remember some game manage to fix bots problem , make it harder to loot by put some garbage on loots table and use inventory manage to stop people from effect bots .
They also make you have to go to repair the gears more often and when your weapon durability = 0 , you can't attack.
Give Mobs debuff skill so even if you are high level , AFK around low level mob may make you die .
Also at high level , mobs are tough and strong but you can get a lots exp from them ( more effect than using bot ) ,
A lot xp but you have to do teamwork which impossible for bots
Anyway , it pain to see quests turned to grind stuff with GPS and auto run from start to end,
And because mass product , the quality drop too much to the point it become pain tasks.
Play multiplayer game and have to bury my face on the tasks until i get enough level to join multiplayer contents aka RAID is too much.
Mob grind work better since it allow you to join your friend anytime you want.
Mob grind is way worse of the two. Apart from resource gathering, its got to be the most primitive content an MMO can have. Everything from finding spawns to camping respawns to fighting over spawns is everything I wasn't prepared to see in an MMORPGs when I first tried them.
Many old games revolved around this and I couldn't be any more disinterested. I was appalled by how many people actually enjoyed it past the point where the novelty wore off. It was not even challenging! Combat was based on the age-old straight and true, braindead tank 'n' spank and everything could be overcome with more grind.
It is the closes thing to a hamster wheel I've seen in a game. This is why I loathe those old-school MMORPGs. In my mind, there are not enough redeeming qualities to apologize for this abysmal gameplay and metagame. Every player who tried and played those games should look back and think "never again".
With what they know now, I doubt many would play a similar game today. ...or if they would, I would be very disheartened by how low they have set their bar.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I like a bit of both mob grinding and quests, but I think that it is fun to have several kinds of quests/tasks.
First of all, most of what we do in WoW-like games is actually more like a chore or task. Quests should be epic and hard to finish.
Second, I would love it if the chores were more random and involved some mob grinding (even if just incidently) and were picked up less by an NPC with a ! over his head and more like something like a wanted poster, or just because you kill a mob or look at something or go into an area. Some "quests" could take more the form of bounties where you get an item from killing a mob and then hand it in to an NPC like a sherif for example for some money and added xp.
I find that ToR's bonus quests were actually one of the coolest ideas of that game because you just get them from doing a random quest in an area. I should emphasize that I like the system, just not necessarily their execution in ToR. It is an idea that could be expanded upon in future games though I think.
Rift, for a themepark game, has an excellent mix of mob grinding and quest doing if you mix in some rifts and invasions as well.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
I prefer killing mobs.
I miss the days of getting a group and finding a good spawn.
When it was important to have a good puller etc. Having a different group make up meant you had different buffs and handled mobs differently. Having a character with good CC was important for those crazy pulls that got out of hand. The rewarding feeling of surviving a nasty pull was great