There was a cave in Kun Lai Summit where there were sprites that dropped Windwool Cloth. I killed a lot of them. A lot. Days and days and days of killing.
Playing | GW2 Wanting | Pantheon Watching | Crowfall Retired | WAR, Cabal, MO, CO, SHK, WoW, FFXIV: ARR
To me a grind has to have a pay out either emotionally or materialistically (like it has a profound impact on your character/game). People don't mind maxing out Pokemon because there's a satisfaction at seeing your childhood favorite trounce other people because of good breeding and smart move choices, even if tier groups like Smogon deem the Pokemon you raised worthless (only one example). Same can be said for Fire Emblem Awakening and Fates: there's a lot of strategy and outright grinding in re-classing (and basically re-leveling) a character just for unique skill sets or to see them pair with other characters. But characters with certain skills can wreck maps and players far better than their counterparts that didn't take the same time to do so. Sometimes to the point where they can make up for bad stat growths, allowing our favorite characters to still be useful (if you're a fan of someone unpopular, that is).
I feel like a lot of MMOs as of late are missing the whole pay out part of the grind. We grind to get to level cap so we can continue to get gear...then do it all over again, usually making previous grinding efforts obsolete. Sure, the numbers are there...but a vast number of people want more than numbers recognition and character skills don't tend to evolve much past their base forms in most games.
In terms of MMOs, my favorite grind was Mabinogi back in 08 or 09? It was just a little f2p Korean MMO and the graphics are piddly compared to games now (and even some then), but there were things going for it that I really wish more MMOs now would take hints from. I mean...there's a reason that piddly f2p game still has updates even in 2016, even if I don't personally play anymore. There grinding was either a means to achieve non-combat related fun (music playing or crafting clothes/stuff for houses), or the rewards/power upgrades for maxing your skill ranks were so noticeable to the point where certain skills could make certain dungeons solo-able...but it would take you damn near a few months to reach that point, or longer.
The other thing that bugs me of current MMO grind these days is the idea of having to grind alts just to figure out what class you want to play as a main. It's old. Very old. I wish more people took ideas from Mabinogi or FF14 in the that you either just cherry pick your skills or can swap classes on the fly (ArcheAge tried but it had a myriad of other problems). That, or if I'm going to be locked in a class from the start, have a class preview dungeon right there in character creation so that I can see how the class plays from the get-go. I want my time to be used exploring the game I'm playing and killing stuff/crafting stuff, not re-playing the same first 20-30 levels in the same zones just to figure out what I want to play as.
Anything satisfying just ain't grinding no matter how repetetive.
Grinding (video gaming), repetitive and uninteresting gameplay (from wikipedia).
If you are doing something you already done before and it bores you then you have a grind, repetetive content can be very different (Tetris is still popular even though the content is the same and have been since the game was made in the late 60s (yeah, it is ancient), if it would have been a grind no-one would have bothered playing it for more then 5 minutes.
This. When you get a game that highlights "end game" and it's the players only goal then sure, they're going to feel like they're grinding to get there.
OP: My favorite game that some people complain was a grind = EQ
Grinding my levels in groups over a decade ago in FFXI. Didn't feel like a grind with other people to talk too. Isn't it weird how that happens in an MMORPG.
I don't mind grinding if you can find a really rare item by doing it. I mean open world grinding not dungeon. I remember playing Rappelz in the early days grinding open world mobs and I was the first person to get the rarest armor in the game.
Comments
Playing | GW2
Wanting | Pantheon
Watching | Crowfall
Retired | WAR, Cabal, MO, CO, SHK, WoW, FFXIV: ARR
I feel like a lot of MMOs as of late are missing the whole pay out part of the grind. We grind to get to level cap so we can continue to get gear...then do it all over again, usually making previous grinding efforts obsolete. Sure, the numbers are there...but a vast number of people want more than numbers recognition and character skills don't tend to evolve much past their base forms in most games.
In terms of MMOs, my favorite grind was Mabinogi back in 08 or 09? It was just a little f2p Korean MMO and the graphics are piddly compared to games now (and even some then), but there were things going for it that I really wish more MMOs now would take hints from. I mean...there's a reason that piddly f2p game still has updates even in 2016, even if I don't personally play anymore. There grinding was either a means to achieve non-combat related fun (music playing or crafting clothes/stuff for houses), or the rewards/power upgrades for maxing your skill ranks were so noticeable to the point where certain skills could make certain dungeons solo-able...but it would take you damn near a few months to reach that point, or longer.
The other thing that bugs me of current MMO grind these days is the idea of having to grind alts just to figure out what class you want to play as a main. It's old. Very old. I wish more people took ideas from Mabinogi or FF14 in the that you either just cherry pick your skills or can swap classes on the fly (ArcheAge tried but it had a myriad of other problems). That, or if I'm going to be locked in a class from the start, have a class preview dungeon right there in character creation so that I can see how the class plays from the get-go. I want my time to be used exploring the game I'm playing and killing stuff/crafting stuff, not re-playing the same first 20-30 levels in the same zones just to figure out what I want to play as.
Grind.. power level, best grinds have a point imo.
OP: My favorite game that some people complain was a grind = EQ