"Grinding" in non-MMO games

[Treblaine]

Ever done this?

For example in GTA4 I wouldn't do missions but drive around looking for bank security trucks, hijack them, then repeatedly ram them into a wall till they catch fire and explode, then pick up the $1000-2000 that falls out. That was way more than I'd earn for early missions.

But most of my grinding was for ammo, you could buy weapons in the game at a reasonable price but NOT AMMO! Seriously, I'd have to buy a fully loaded weapon just for the ammo inside it. Ammo should be cheap, about $10 for a box of bullets.

Anyway, what I'd do is get something like a Level 2 Sniper Rifle then go to somewhere on the map where I could find a Level 1 sniper rifle. Walk over the weapon with a level-lower than the weapon you have equipped gives you the ammo, but the weapon stays on the gorund. Run around the block and the "ammo count" for the weapon on the ground has reset to pick up more ammo. It's a chore but I found myself Maxed out on Shotgun, SMG and assault rifle rounds so I had no worries using them in combat.

 

[David DeMoss]

Yes, the old GTA weapon walkabout has consumed a good chunk of my life ever since III came out. Never bothered with the bank trucks, though...or with money in general, for that matter. With the Safehouse buying system removed there never seemed to be much point to cash apart from a handy way of keeping score. (I mean, I suppose one could buy up all the outfits in the game...but I hate clothes shopping for myself, and wasn't about to bother with strictly for Niko's benefit.)

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

Grinding in Hack-and-Slash or Action RPG games is always fun (especially when the attack/death animations are awesome)

 

[Deleted]

Grinding in RPGs is dependent on the skill of the player. I gind in RPGs when i feel like just exploring and learning techniques and tricks to get through the game. Most of the time I'm at a good enough level to beat the game without squeezing out a win or steamrolling the last boss.

 

[TraitortoHeaven]

Grinding to me is the worst in any game. I get bored quickly trying to grind.

 

[Kryzantine]

IMO, Sacred had that problem. Since starting up a new character on Silver was extremely difficult (because all the monsters are above your level and you don't have any gear or good spells to defeat them easily), you had to start out on Bronze (where on the contrary, more mobs were a few levels below you, which got tiring around level 10 or so when you started one shotting every normal mob). So the general strategy was to start out on Bronze, level your character up to 20 or 21, and then import him and restart on Silver. This meant that for the first 20 levels of the game, your character had no incentive to do the main story, and only took up side quests for the reward in spells, which made the game mostly grinding.

Oh, but finding monsters to grind was really easy. That game was overloaded with them. Annoying when you just wanted to get to a town or something, because the roads were filled with bandits, annoying goblin shaman and orcs. Then again, grinding is probably the whole point behind Sacred. Had it been more condensed, it would have been up with Diablo.

 

[Pielikey]

Grinding in Tony Hawk Games. 50/50 grind, nose grind, tail grind, etc.

 

[Dexiro]

I've done a lot of grinding in Disgaea and Pokemon. I even remember Megaman having some grinding, shooting respawning enemies for health pickups!

I don't mind a little grinding though, in Disgaea i could grind for ages before it got really boring. With different games like Pokemon i can't last as long though, the battles are just too slow and boring.

 

[mettle_edge]

Final Fantasy 12, The grinding in that game was ridiculous. Not only leveling, but having to find rare items to make even rarer items to try to make the strongest weapons.

I also remember the hours of grinding for zenny in Megaman Legends.

 

[emdotceedot]

Even though Oblivion was a "regular-ass" RPG, it played like a mumorpuger. You had to grind for all your skills, grind to get ingredients, grind to get money, etc. More or less, Fallout 3 seemed the same way to me.

 

[Judgement101]

Diablo II-Lord of Destrustion has wonderful grinding, the enemy typed and the skill variety keep it interesting and excited.

Oblivion has the WORST grinding EVER it was just so obnovious and boring because it slowly inched up and up with each skill.

Fallout 3 has ok grinding due to the xp amount actually being relevant.

FFXIII is awful, just awful. Oh right this is about the grinding. Yeah thats awful to.

 

[migo]

I tried grinding in Dead Rising once. Then I realised you advance quicker taking pictures and completing missions.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Ever done this?

But most of my grinding was for ammo, you could buy weapons in the game at a reasonable price but NOT AMMO! Seriously, I'd have to buy a fully loaded weapon just for the ammo inside it. Ammo should be cheap, about $10 for a box of bullets.

This has always been something that bugged me in games. My handgun fires a relatively uncommon .40 S&W round. Buying the highest quality off the shelf ammunition money can buy, a single round generally costs around $0.50. Even if one had a rifle that fired something fairly exotic for civillian usage like a .50 BMG round, it still would only cost about $3.00 per round. The trouble is, in games where the player can acquire tens of millions of dollars, such costs are almost irrelevant and thus the game instead opts for having unreasonably expensive ammunition.

I suppose this does serve a mechanical purpose of sorts but it annoys me regardless.

 

[grondhog]

i spent probably too much time grinding my weapon proficiencies up in Borderlands preparing for a fight against Cramerax the invincible that never happened. It wasn't so bad, I would just take my level 61 into areas in the General Knox DLC and just fight everything, it worked pretty well too.