Why I like To Grind, My Obsession With RPGS


  

70 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you like to grind in RPGs?

    • Yes, love it!
      10
    • No, hate it!
      28
    • Depends on the game...
      32


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Actually, one of the few games where grinding was fun was actually Phantasy Star Universe. But, then again, I've realized MMO's as a whole are only really fun with friends.

Not necessarily. I have a blast playing Guild Wars by myself with some mercenaries.

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i don't have a problem with grinding itself. it's when it feels like it's taking a long time to get where i want to go or progress the story in sp rpg's.

i also like to pvp in the world while i level, so when a game seperates one faction from another in some artificial way for pve areas, i get frustrated, because i love seeing an enemy in teh distance and sneaking up on them and SURPRISE! or seeing a high level player in the distance and being like OH SHI-! and run away and hide.

i also hate level curves. especially when they ramp up dramatically. i like levels that come fast and furiously, even if it means more levels. i'd rather take a game with 100 levels that i can get in 3 months of fairly casual pve while world pvping(still paying attention to exp per hour of course) then a game with 50 levels that takes the same amount of time to take, and say takes 1/8 of the time to get to level 30 and the rest is spent going from 31-50.

i also hate getting to max level and having to do a gear grind to become viable. like in wow you have to spend at least 2 weeks battle ground farming honour for gear to be viable in arenas or world pvp.

i hate farming instanced pvp even for leveling, since it quickly becomes the same thing hour after hour and is not fun at all. especially when it feels like you personally have no impact on who wins or loses. example of this war warhammer online.

sp rpg's are hit or miss for me. nwn1, kotor1, and nwn2 didn't have enough combat to satisfy me and played them through multiple times with new character builds. but the combat in DAO is so boring and the character building is so weak compared to older bioware d20 games that i just get bored and can't finish it. in DAO as well i hated how it felt like i needed to base all my dialogue choices on which party member i wanted to like me, instead or playing the toon to my preferred alignment and exploring all the stories of all the NPC party members. sure a good sp rpg should have pivotol moments which can affect who you can choose to be in your party after wards, but constantly balancing out getting bonuses to one party member vs having to kill off another regular party member was annoying. especially when the two most OP members of your party are opposite alignments.

teh combat itself also has to be fun in mmo's no matter whether it's a mob grind or quest grind. and i have to feel powerful vs mobs. and gain in power as i level. nothing annoys me more in mmo's when i feel more powerful at level 10 than i do at 30 or 50 or 100. not saying there shouldn't be elite and party only mobs or challenging/interesting trash pulls in dungeons.

another thingi hate in mmo's since wow is bag space and trash items. i hate running out of space in my bag every couple hours and having to break from what i'm enjoying to run back to teh nearest vendor and sort out my inventory just so i can make money. hell at this point i'm getting annoyed by the rampant wow style idea of having to click every mob to collect it's loot. my favourite system was l2, where items had weight so if i managed the weight well enough i didn't need to go back to town for days unless i got a heavy item or ran out of consumables. and loot dropped directly to the ground, so i could leave it there for hours and pick it all up at once very quickly, but at the risk that if some other player came along they could ninja pick up my loot and money.

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That's the only issue I have with Guild Wars is the lack of space for objects. I can't remember how many times I'm near the end of a quest and I run out of room and have to debate whether to finish the quest but leave loot behind, head back to a selling and have to backtrack, or drop items that would have netted me some gold.

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Started up Star Ocean 4 International Edition again the other day, the bonus system in it makes me want to grind and level up laugh.gif

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I can tolerate moderate grinding in single-player RPGs; however, I cannot stand the endless grinding you're forced to do in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. It feels like the biggest waste of time. It's even worse when you're paying a monthly fee to kill 50 creatures only to get a minimal amount of experience points.

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I think it dawned on my that World of Warcraft was a piece of crap was when I cleared an area of enemies and all I could do now was sit and wait for them all to re-spawn. I kinda had a 'wtf am I even doing?' moment. :laugh:

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in WoW i loved it. the excitement of getting that item you were grinding for as you got closer and closer was brilliant.

That just seems like an artificial way to keep players playing your game. Seriously, the amount of grinding WoW requires is ridiculous. Thanks god for Guild Wars :)

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I understand what Grinding is and why grinding is actually liked. It extends gameplay and while others call it "padding" some players feel it is the equivalent of the effort needed to complete the task.

For example, EVE Online's version of a grind is my favorite. You are earning a living. Without grinding you cannot support the skills you have been learning, but that skill system gives you the time needed to work up that amount of money in-game. One of the biggest RPG/JRPG guys I know loves to grind. His new favorite game is Monster Hunter which is VERY grind heavy. His explanation, if I can recall correctly, was that without the grind he feels that he got there too easily and that his character's potential is limited by the missions available. He enjoys being able to go get that much more powerful by training in a random area against X number of enemies, etc. It also correlates into the value a player puts into their character. Grinding and grinding for days, weeks, months etc. makes the player value the character and game far more. The more effort they put into the game, the less likely they'll stop playing it.

Still, grinding should have a dual purpose. Experience should be a part of grinding, not the reason to do it. Grindable missions should earn you money, minerals, items and possibly even influence in the game. While much of that is reflected in player leveling systems the game needs to start being more unique and dynamic. Actually, this discussion has made me want to design a dynamic item generation system... Grrr damn the thinking mind.

Grinding can be fun, if the battles are good...but most grinding involves just getting into battle, and mashing the attack button. That is why when it comes to RPGs, I think the CRPGs were the most balanced. Baldurs Gate allowed you to level up easily, and not have to grind. In fact, most of the time you had a choice to fight or not, and still get the experience.

Grinding really takes the challenge out of most boss battles. When I played FFVII, I spent many hours grinding, it really killed the final battle for me, as Cloud was too strong...battle was too easy.

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I don't mind grinding so much, but I do have my limits. Personally, in this day and age, you'd think developers would have come up with better solutions for MMOs. WoW's solutions are only partial, but they're getting better. The developers of Guild Wars 2 however seem to know just how it is, and are working to revamp the kind of tedious system that most MMORPGs have. Enough with the cluttered quest logs of the same sort of quests (kill or collect x)! We've done them thousands of times across many different games!

All these free-to-play games coming out are also troublesome, as most of them do their best to copy WoW in different aspects, without realizing that WoW isn't exactly perfect at all. The people trying to get off the damn game are looking for something original/fun, not more of the same reputation/EXP grinding with collection and kill quests...

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As for single player games, it really depends. Many games today have a number of side quests, lands to explore, goals to meet or whatever which makes grinding not very difficult (or noticeable for that matter). I don't really care for leveling up just for the sole purpose of leveling. That to me isn't very fun, and is one of the reasons that old games like Pok?mon that I enjoyed growing up just doesn't cut it these days, as it's more of the same battles and meeting a bunch of people hopped up on prozac.

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I usually like grinding but with enemies of about the same levels so I still get the feeling of challenge while doing it.

ex : Im level 40 and level 60 enemies/bosses are too hard to beat for me , I grind with level 40-50 enemies in general , because its less boring to me

I'm doing it i my current Hard Secret of Mana run

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I don't mind grinding so much, but I do have my limits. Personally, in this day and age, you'd think developers would have come up with better solutions for MMOs. WoW's solutions are only partial, but they're getting better. The developers of Guild Wars 2 however seem to know just how it is, and are working to revamp the kind of tedious system that most MMORPGs have. Enough with the cluttered quest logs of the same sort of quests (kill or collect x)! We've done them thousands of times across many different games!

All these free-to-play games coming out are also troublesome, as most of them do their best to copy WoW in different aspects, without realizing that WoW isn't exactly perfect at all. The people trying to get off the damn game are looking for something original/fun, not more of the same reputation/EXP grinding with collection and kill quests...

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As for single player games, it really depends. Many games today have a number of side quests, lands to explore, goals to meet or whatever which makes grinding not very difficult (or noticeable for that matter). I don't really care for leveling up just for the sole purpose of leveling. That to me isn't very fun, and is one of the reasons that old games like Pokèmon that I enjoyed growing up just doesn't cut it these days, as it's more of the same battles and meeting a bunch of people hopped up on prozac.

New MMO's have two paths with two methodologies. WoW-like or not and difficult or not. If you make a game that doesn't play like WoW, you risk alienating the WoW players in order to be new and original. While that may be better than WoW's current system it is also making adapting to the game more difficult. Fighting against bots, macros, scripts, etc. with new interface methodology may irritate a large number of people. Not to mention WoW has tons of mod support while a new MMO has none. Then there is the other end of the spectrum, making it WoW-like. The problem with this is that many gamers will enjoy it for a while and then realize they could just be playing WoW which has more players, more of their friends and more experienced characters already grinded up.

The other two things which reflect difficulty are also related to WoW in a way. In the last few years WoW has become very easy to level in. As a result, more players are actually using their additional character slots and more new players are jumping into the game for the first time. If you make a new MMO which has a similar learning curve you usually get a similar effect. Unfortunately, as I've experienced with this method, players tend to hit endgame far quicker. With a newly released MMO, endgame is fairly lackluster and if your players hit endgame before there is anything of interest they will more than likely just jump back on WoW after "completing" this new MMO. But, on the flip if you make the game more difficult in order to extend gameplay time you may just get people rage quitting the game cause it isn't as easy to level in this game as opposed to WoW. Most new MMO's fail because of these reasons unless a drastically new system is introduced. Games like EVE, Aion and Guild Wars had this kind of thing within them, and I see Guild Wars 2 getting there as well.

In regards to your comment on Leveling, I completely agree. Two games have this concept nailed. One is EVE. A players ability in EVE is directly related to the amount of time they put into the game. It isn't about what level you are, but how much time you've alloted to learning new things. The system works well and really kills the feel of a grind for new abilities IMO. The second game is Monster Hunter. While MH is nothing but grinding in a sense, it isn't for levels. Rank is only a reflection of the monsters your character is capable of defeating. Without his armor/items he is the same at rank 40 as he was at rank 1. Grinding is to improve the items, weapons and armor of your character and that is another way to disconnect grind from the leveling process.

I think leveling in general is becoming a tired mechanic. Completing a challenge mode, a certain allotment of quests, fulfilling X requirements in order to gain a rank would be far more interesting. Say you want to rank up as a warrior to gain some new abilities. Well, rather than sitting in an area for an hour to get that 100,000 xp needed you could just qualify for the requirements (complete these few quests) and then complete the promotion challenge. If you complete the challenge you gain a new rank and therefore new abilities. The rest is dependent on your character's equipment and that is where side quests, crafting and the economy come to play.

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Level grinding doesn't really bother me. In FFIX which I'm playing through right now, I level fairly quickly so not much level grinding needed. it mostly bothers me in MMO's, because I am paying money for it, unless it's a free mmo like Runes of Magic, where I can just do quest to level up really fast. now what I hate, is that micro-transactions that a lot of games are adding. oh and the most I have level grinded, was in a JRPG called Tales of Symphonia, Level grinded for 10 hours, so I could beat the game on mania mode.

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There's a point at which grinding is as enjoyable as a migraine. I mean, some games just make it incredibly painful. Then there are some games that make it enjoyable. I've spent countless hours on several MMOs grinding to reach the next level. For example, Star Wars Galaxies in Pre-CU/CU. Though, I enjoyed it, but after a month or so I would get so burnt out that I had to quit the game for a while. I did that several times. I've been back to the game probably 6-7 times.

The thing is, they just need to learn to balance things correctly. I want a challenge. I want to work hard for good gear. The better it is, the harder I should have to work for it. Though as I said, it can burn you out if you don't take breaks and do other things.

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Level grinding doesn't really bother me. In FFIX which I'm playing through right now, I level fairly quickly so not much level grinding needed. it mostly bothers me in MMO's, because I am paying money for it, unless it's a free mmo like Runes of Magic, where I can just do quest to level up really fast. now what I hate, is that micro-transactions that a lot of games are adding. oh and the most I have level grinded, was in a JRPG called Tales of Symphonia, Level grinded for 10 hours, so I could beat the game on mania mode.

i spent a weekend in lineage 2 grinding my brains out for 16hours each day. gained half a level each day. had to use a second dual boxed account to recharge my mana to minimize downtime so i was constantly killing mobs, in a spot that had a good spawn rate so i never didn't have a mob to kill, and always in range so i didn't have to move from my spot. and the curve actually got much worse from there within 3 levels of mine.

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It truly depends on the game. I've enjoyed hours of mindless grinding in Guild Wars from time to time, but whenever I try a different game and I have to grind to get any further (or to get past a certain bad guy) I tend to find it boring.

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i spent a weekend in lineage 2 grinding my brains out for 16hours each day. gained half a level each day. had to use a second dual boxed account to recharge my mana to minimize downtime so i was constantly killing mobs, in a spot that had a good spawn rate so i never didn't have a mob to kill, and always in range so i didn't have to move from my spot. and the curve actually got much worse from there within 3 levels of mine.

This is the kind of thing MMO's should avoid. It halts the experience and kills immersion almost completely. It isn't even a social activity in the game. Not that it's bad to do it, just the game shouldn't force players to resort to this.

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This is the kind of thing MMO's should avoid. It halts the experience and kills immersion almost completely. It isn't even a social activity in the game. Not that it's bad to do it, just the game shouldn't force players to resort to this.

actually grinding in l2 could be a very social experience. although that particular character was played mostly solo(i rerolled after spending too many nights without a party on a class that party dependent), most l2 players were either in vent or chatting in clan/alliance/or shout chat the entire time they were playing. in fact during normal play it was the most social mmo i ever played.

it wasn't like wow with memes spammed in trade or zone chat(example the endless chuck norris jokes in the barrens), it was actual conversations, while you grinded.

it's because the combat was fairly simple. as a melee for example you simply targetted the mob or assisted your tank hit attack and waited for the mob to die. so you had plenty of time to pound out a sentence or two while you were actually killing stuff.

as for immersion, it was also the most immersive mmo i've played as well. but that's because of the player driven qualities like pvp for the sake of revenge or someone talks smack or tries to take over your spot or whatever, and the politics between clans and even within clans themselves. it was totally different from a faction based game like wow where the drama is mainly about raid spots and wipes and repair bills, and the faction prevents you from PKing that guy on yoru faction that just started killing YOUR mobs or talking to the enemy or w/e.

i mean the grind was brutal, but it paid off with epic pvp like sieges with 200vs200vs40 battles that was the result of people pulling different clans together to first take a castle then someone else pulling a bunch of clans together to fight the first group and a third wild card group just showing up to fight both sides for the sake of pvp.

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I don't mind grinding in a game like Diablo, where finding a really good item is an epic feeling. Now, in a game like WoW, grinding at maximum level is nearly worthless and migraine-inducing. Killing the same monsters over and over again makes my brain go numb and I lose almost all interest in what I'm doing.

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actually grinding in l2 could be a very social experience. although that particular character was played mostly solo(i rerolled after spending too many nights without a party on a class that party dependent), most l2 players were either in vent or chatting in clan/alliance/or shout chat the entire time they were playing. in fact during normal play it was the most social mmo i ever played.

it wasn't like wow with memes spammed in trade or zone chat(example the endless chuck norris jokes in the barrens), it was actual conversations, while you grinded.

it's because the combat was fairly simple. as a melee for example you simply targetted the mob or assisted your tank hit attack and waited for the mob to die. so you had plenty of time to pound out a sentence or two while you were actually killing stuff.

as for immersion, it was also the most immersive mmo i've played as well. but that's because of the player driven qualities like pvp for the sake of revenge or someone talks smack or tries to take over your spot or whatever, and the politics between clans and even within clans themselves. it was totally different from a faction based game like wow where the drama is mainly about raid spots and wipes and repair bills, and the faction prevents you from PKing that guy on yoru faction that just started killing YOUR mobs or talking to the enemy or w/e.

i mean the grind was brutal, but it paid off with epic pvp like sieges with 200vs200vs40 battles that was the result of people pulling different clans together to first take a castle then someone else pulling a bunch of clans together to fight the first group and a third wild card group just showing up to fight both sides for the sake of pvp.

Sound like EVE in a fantasy setting. Gonna have to check this game out a bit and see how it plays *signs up for trial account*

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Sound like EVE in a fantasy setting. Gonna have to check this game out a bit and see how it plays *signs up for trial account*

unfortunately it's not as populated now as it was when i played it. it does have some similar concepts to eve though :p it still gets pretty decent sized content updates, and from what i hear the class balance has been greatly improved over the years. some of the grind has been reduced as well in certain ways, and it's easier to get decent gear at lower levels and save up for "endgame" gear(though there isn't really an endgame)

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Still, seeing the systems and the game is a good way to get acquainted with how everything operates. I just wish more big name MMO's were free to play. Cash shops are all well and good but a one time pay would be so much better. I think that such a system is the only way to beat WoW in terms of community. If anyone can access it for free then it has that over WoW.

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