Behind the Grind
The better you get at a game, the less rewarding the grinding becomes.
Read Full Article
The better you get at a game, the less rewarding the grinding becomes.
Read Full Article
Behind the Grind
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
A great article and a good explanation why I can't stay interested in MMOs forever. I am looking forward to trying the Old Republic though, hopefully it can bring something new to the table
The thing about the boring battles is my biggest problem. Glad to see somebody agrees with me that that kind of battle is not interesting.
MMO combat is what is keeping me from DCU Online. Is it a sacrifice that has to be made in order to support the player count, or just a system that has fallen behind? Because if I could have an MMO where you do all the regular stuff: run about, talk, accept quests, gain XP, but the fights were like Arkham Asylum, I'd be more willing to play them. I don't understand why they have to be so simple as just clicking on stuff.
One day the infrastructure is going to be in place, or a netcode will be invented, that will allow proper "twitch" gameplay on any scale without lag. Until we get there, MMOs are not going to be exciting in terms of gameplay.
Actually... come to think of it, I would like to see an MMO with FFXIII's gameplay...
Actually... come to think of it, I would like to see an MMO with FFXIII's gameplay...
All excellent points, and as good a definition for Grinding as I've ever heard.
This is going to sound like a really terrible thing to say, especially on this particular website, but this seems like a limitation for all video games. Not a lack of positive feedback or interesting combat mechanics, but to be limited by the need to keep gameplay streamlined and simplified. To keep a lowest common denominator. This is about to make me sound like an old man shaking his fist at the kids on his lawn, but how can ANY virtual RPG expect to compete with tabletop?
Tabletop games have literally no limits, no repetition and no learning curve. At all.
Some might fight me on the learning curve thing, since you usually need about three rulebooks to even get started with say, a DnD or Star Wars roleplaying game. But once everyone understands the basic premise (ie. Dice represent the randomness of events, your stats help you influence the probability involved), it's really just a matter how much rule lawyering you really want to do.
This is going to sound like a really terrible thing to say, especially on this particular website, but this seems like a limitation for all video games. Not a lack of positive feedback or interesting combat mechanics, but to be limited by the need to keep gameplay streamlined and simplified. To keep a lowest common denominator. This is about to make me sound like an old man shaking his fist at the kids on his lawn, but how can ANY virtual RPG expect to compete with tabletop?
Tabletop games have literally no limits, no repetition and no learning curve. At all.
Some might fight me on the learning curve thing, since you usually need about three rulebooks to even get started with say, a DnD or Star Wars roleplaying game. But once everyone understands the basic premise (ie. Dice represent the randomness of events, your stats help you influence the probability involved), it's really just a matter how much rule lawyering you really want to do.
Ah, yes. Grinding. I'm too good at math to play MMORPGs. Time needed to get stuff just adds up too quickly. On the two occasions I've tried getting into one or another, I managed the foresight to see just how long it would take to get to the next reward. I think I stopped playing within five minutes both times.
I'm not saying you're wrong on any points; but I think the appeal is in the visuals. Tabletop, you might have little plastic or die-cast metal figurines that you paint by hand, but that's about it. The rest, you imagine. The videogames just look pretty, and do all the number-crunching for you. Also, with the "MMO" aspect, you can play with friends all around the world. So, there's a certain appeal to, well, the masses. I still have a decent-functioning imagination, I like the models, and I'm an accountant, so I see your point; but reality is most people don't like to "work" (as most of them view it) for their fun.Crunchy English said:
OT: Good points all around. I will say, however, that dungeon and raid encounters generally involve much more than "push 1-5 until dead". Yes, that is the "bread and butter" of it, especially if you're a damage class. There are times when you need to stop, times when alternate abilities are need, times when you need to move to cover, or at least out of the fire, and various other things, changing from boss to boss. I will concede, however, that out in the regular "world" of Warcraft, most fights consist of "1-5, repeat until dead"; and with that as the bulk of the content most users experience, it is something to be addressed.
Not a fair comparison due to the massive differance in game generes.
MMORPGS are out to do something a lot more evolved than a game like "Team Fortress 2", and involve concepts like relying on stats to indirectly resolve things rather than the relfex/twitch based enviroment of a shooter.
Grind becomes a problem in MMORPGs because no matter how big the game is, your going to run out of new content, and it takes time to develop more of it. The long term rewards that you grind for, and the puzzle-like raid boss fights and "loot farming" excist largely to keep people playing while more new stuff is created.
Team Fortress 2 relies on the "human factor" far more for it's appeal, while there are social elements of MMORPGs, except in PVP (which is usually only one facet of the game) you are generally pitting yourself against the game, rather than other people. In Team Fotress 2 the experience varies as differant people with differant levels of skill and reflexes get involved. It also plays very quickly, and doesn't require much in the way of thought in how to tweak the numbers of your character for the best effect, all that matters in the end in a game of TF2 is you.
Both games appeal on a differant level, which can overlap but doesn't always. There are people who are going to absolutly loathe the very concept/play style of one of those games without even getting into issues like "grind" or the lack thereof.
The long term appeal of TF2 with very limited amounts of actual content (despite some gradual expansions by Valve over the years) has not gone unnoticed. You find plenty of action/twitch based games that try and use a multiplayer component as an excuse for skimping on single player content. Yahtzee goes off on this all the time... multiplayer is a neat extra feature, but games should be able to stand on single player alone. I happen to agree with him entirely on this point, and without any qualifiers (which is fairly rare given our differant tastes).
I think Team Fortress 2 and other "competitive deathmatch" games represent a genere which addresses the problems your talking about for SOME people, but it's hardly a solution that applies to everyone. What's more I'd also argue that "Team Fortress 2" has arguably become a blight on the landscape of gaming, because I think it's actually been dragging down games by convincing devleopers making things like "Crackdown 2" that they can skimp on actual content as long as they insert some kind of multiplayer aspect "Oh yeah, people will play for thousands of hours if they can just run around and shoot each other or do missions in co-op".
In absolute terms though I think World Of Warcraft is also a far more ambitious game, that tries to do more things, and probably appeals (conceptually) to more people, though I have never seen it's number of players compared directly to "Team Fortress 2". In the end, with rare exception, all online games are going to suffer from the lack of being able to produce content as fast as people beat it.
Perhaps at some point, an MMO will be created that will be flexible enough to allow the designers to constantly be building content as people play the game. Solving the problem much the same way certain MUDs did (which inspired MMORPGs). I remember back in the days of Mudding when you used to have teams of coders and builders on with some of the more wellt travelled games, and something new was appearing constantly.
MMORPGS are out to do something a lot more evolved than a game like "Team Fortress 2", and involve concepts like relying on stats to indirectly resolve things rather than the relfex/twitch based enviroment of a shooter.
Grind becomes a problem in MMORPGs because no matter how big the game is, your going to run out of new content, and it takes time to develop more of it. The long term rewards that you grind for, and the puzzle-like raid boss fights and "loot farming" excist largely to keep people playing while more new stuff is created.
Team Fortress 2 relies on the "human factor" far more for it's appeal, while there are social elements of MMORPGs, except in PVP (which is usually only one facet of the game) you are generally pitting yourself against the game, rather than other people. In Team Fotress 2 the experience varies as differant people with differant levels of skill and reflexes get involved. It also plays very quickly, and doesn't require much in the way of thought in how to tweak the numbers of your character for the best effect, all that matters in the end in a game of TF2 is you.
Both games appeal on a differant level, which can overlap but doesn't always. There are people who are going to absolutly loathe the very concept/play style of one of those games without even getting into issues like "grind" or the lack thereof.
The long term appeal of TF2 with very limited amounts of actual content (despite some gradual expansions by Valve over the years) has not gone unnoticed. You find plenty of action/twitch based games that try and use a multiplayer component as an excuse for skimping on single player content. Yahtzee goes off on this all the time... multiplayer is a neat extra feature, but games should be able to stand on single player alone. I happen to agree with him entirely on this point, and without any qualifiers (which is fairly rare given our differant tastes).
I think Team Fortress 2 and other "competitive deathmatch" games represent a genere which addresses the problems your talking about for SOME people, but it's hardly a solution that applies to everyone. What's more I'd also argue that "Team Fortress 2" has arguably become a blight on the landscape of gaming, because I think it's actually been dragging down games by convincing devleopers making things like "Crackdown 2" that they can skimp on actual content as long as they insert some kind of multiplayer aspect "Oh yeah, people will play for thousands of hours if they can just run around and shoot each other or do missions in co-op".
In absolute terms though I think World Of Warcraft is also a far more ambitious game, that tries to do more things, and probably appeals (conceptually) to more people, though I have never seen it's number of players compared directly to "Team Fortress 2". In the end, with rare exception, all online games are going to suffer from the lack of being able to produce content as fast as people beat it.
Perhaps at some point, an MMO will be created that will be flexible enough to allow the designers to constantly be building content as people play the game. Solving the problem much the same way certain MUDs did (which inspired MMORPGs). I remember back in the days of Mudding when you used to have teams of coders and builders on with some of the more wellt travelled games, and something new was appearing constantly.
Really, when something becomes a 'grind' I think is up to the individual in the end. But, at the risk of sounding overtly melodramatic, it really is akin to taking drugs. The first hit is all pleasure, but the more and more you do it the more and more tired you get of it, because it's the same chemical, firing off the same neurological pleasure sensations, but travelling through a weaker and weaker blood artery. And eventually the pleasure is all but gone and all that's left is the pain that we know as 'the grind'. 
Yahtzee mentioned in one of his ZPs that grinding is in fact probably the only thing that keeps people going in MMOs as of right now and he was probably right too, save for the fact that he couldn't comprehend the social community aspect of MMOs, which is also truly important for the longevity of any MMO. But that doesn't mean that you can't lessen the grind and replace it with something else. Both Guild Wars 2 and TOR are hoping to replace some of that grind with meaningful context within their worlds (i.e. story) so...I'm genuinely interested in how their different approaches will pan out in the future. Lead System Designer behind TOR also mentioned, in one of his dev dispatches, how critical community is to maintaining an MMO and how important it would be to capture that for the project so...as I said, I am interested in how this will all evolve.
Yahtzee mentioned in one of his ZPs that grinding is in fact probably the only thing that keeps people going in MMOs as of right now and he was probably right too, save for the fact that he couldn't comprehend the social community aspect of MMOs, which is also truly important for the longevity of any MMO. But that doesn't mean that you can't lessen the grind and replace it with something else. Both Guild Wars 2 and TOR are hoping to replace some of that grind with meaningful context within their worlds (i.e. story) so...I'm genuinely interested in how their different approaches will pan out in the future. Lead System Designer behind TOR also mentioned, in one of his dev dispatches, how critical community is to maintaining an MMO and how important it would be to capture that for the project so...as I said, I am interested in how this will all evolve.
Excellent article and I couldn't agree more. Reasons like that keep me away from games like WoW, to me it's on the same scale as Mafia Wars or something of its ilk.
Whilst this doesn't even begin to touch on tabletop RPGs, it's one step closer. As much as I can complain about Bethesda and the direction they took Fallout 3 in... well the fact that they hand over so much control to the fan base makes up for it.
Being able to download a few new quests (hell, practically importing the entire Morrowind quest log doubled gameplay) or items or NPCs or companions; I managed to fight off any weariness when playing Oblivion.
I have to agree here. This is also why RPGs (MMO or Single Player) really come to life on PC. Have you ever played Fallout 3 or Oblivion on a console? How dull and limited the world becomes once the side quests are out of the way, all locations are explored and those last few main story quests are stuck in your log until you complete them. On the PC with fan patches and mods, you can tailor the games to suit you.Crunchy English said:
Whilst this doesn't even begin to touch on tabletop RPGs, it's one step closer. As much as I can complain about Bethesda and the direction they took Fallout 3 in... well the fact that they hand over so much control to the fan base makes up for it.
Being able to download a few new quests (hell, practically importing the entire Morrowind quest log doubled gameplay) or items or NPCs or companions; I managed to fight off any weariness when playing Oblivion.
Ah, but here we have a difference. When you buy Crackdown 2 you are expecting a Single Player Story (as it is sold) and the nice addition of a Multiplayer. However Team Fortress 2 is SOLD as a MULTIPLAYER game, not a single player. When you buy it, you know that you're getting some online action and not a campaign.Therumancer said:
Not a single point I disagree with, great article Samus! I'm sure there will be a massive surge of WoW players coming in to justify their crack habits and call you a liar though (funny how they all act like drug addicts when you call them out on the crap they do).
The problem with innovative combat is that, whenever a dev comes up with a good idea, they fail to execute it well. APB, for example, was an awesome idea. Horrifically eexecuted.
In WoW, when I used to play, I grinded enough ore and stone to build my own city and castle. As a herbalist I grinded enough potions to fill the sea twice over. I killed enough boars to guarantee their place on the endangered species watchlist. I fished the oceans dry.
It was mind numbing fun.
It was mind numbing fun.
If the Microsoft Surface/Surfacescapes project ever came together in some affordable fashion tabletop games might enjoy some of that visual appeal, although figuring out where to put the snacks could induce a crisis...Nuke_em_05 said:
I play both tabletop & computer RPGs and enjoy them both. Sure, Dragon Age and Mass Effect are like a beach read compared to a really intricate D&D campaign, but there's nothing wrong with a little fluff now and then. WoW, on the other hand...I've been playing for four years now, have five level 80 characters, and do sometimes think that if I wasn't part of a guild of friends spanning Los Angeles to Canada with whom I'd otherwise enjoy little social interaction I'd have long since quit. But chatting with people you like over a relatively undemanding common activity has a venerable history from quilting to bridge to watching baseball - I love games like Left for Dead but when I play those with friends we're generally too busy to talk. Maybe in the end that's part of the appeal of the "simpler" MMO mechanics; and if you want to get more serious, go raid.
My solution to this has always been the same: flatten the curve, make the increase in effort steady. Not too much, but still. Make it closer to a line, instead of a exponential curve. Sure, it'll take a little longer at first, but near the end you'll shave so much time it's not even funny, while still spending 20 times as much time to get to lvl 50 as you did getting to level 5 (numbers random, point unaffected)
Quests also mitigate this, which is why I barely slowed down with my trial of WoW, and I got to lvl 20. (The dungeons helped too. I swear I could level up in about an hour that way.) The quests give you motivation, and every quest should give you SOMETHING useful, whether it be a new item or a bunch of gold. Most quests should give you something just a tiny bit better than what you have-not so much that you'll be skyrocketing the stats up, but enough that you feel that you're getting better.
Quests also mitigate this, which is why I barely slowed down with my trial of WoW, and I got to lvl 20. (The dungeons helped too. I swear I could level up in about an hour that way.) The quests give you motivation, and every quest should give you SOMETHING useful, whether it be a new item or a bunch of gold. Most quests should give you something just a tiny bit better than what you have-not so much that you'll be skyrocketing the stats up, but enough that you feel that you're getting better.