Is grinding bad/outdated design?

[Mister K]

As other have said, it depends on how it's implemented.

There are (imo) 2 ways that developers can take to make grinding OK-ish: either make it fun/engaging, or mask the dullness well enough so that people wouldn't notice it.

I am not sure what can be counted as an example of the former, but I'll go with Demons' Souls: my favourite way to grind was was equiping Stormruler and going to the last zone of Stormpriests area.

As for latter, I'll go with Final Fantasy X. Yes, it is still monotonous, but thanks to the way its leveling system is made, at least one of your characters will "level up" in 3 or 4 fights (in places with good grind potential, obviously), which kind of keeps the carrot close to you.

Obviously, grinding shouldn't be forced upon a player.

 

[Raddra]

Grinding can be fun if its optional. some people like to grind. I mostly hate it but sometimes i'm just in that sort of mood and I find it satisfying, so long as theres a reward there for dong it: whether its XP, loot or even something like achievements.

 

[Wasted]

Grinding is usually fine if the gameplay can carry it. Two games I generally "enjoyed" grinding was FFX-2 and FFXII. FFX-2 because I consider it the best turn-based combat system ever made and FFXII because I enjoyed getting strong enough to tackle the game's fun end-game content.

In comparison I am almost done with my first play through of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, my first SMT/Persona game. The game forces you to grind in order to beat certain story bosses that feel WAY stronger than the areas they inhabit. Also,TMS#FE might the only JRPG that I can think that "the grind" becomes exponentially worse the higher level you are.

Why? The game has a combo system called "Sessions" where teammates will follow-up your attacks with their own. At the early game your team will easily do 3-combo Sessions fairly often. At the end game even teammates not on the field will be able to attack allowing you 6-combo sessions nearly every turn. You will also eventually get further combo opportunities in the form of "Duets" which restarts the Session allowing you 15+ combos even on the weakest of enemies.

At end game, thanks to the Session system, a typical enemy encounter will probably take 10x as long compared to when you started the game, if not longer. This leads to a lot of problems:

1. If you want a quick fight (and don't want to run away) you will have to go out of your way to not maximize damage since Sessions are triggered when you attack an enemy with an element it is weak to. Potentially doing a fraction of the potential damage by not attacking with a weak element.

2. As you level-up your session animations get longer as you unlock more powerful attacks.

3. Loot is tied to the Session system! For every hit you do after the 2nd combo you get a bonus item drop. So if you do a 12-hit combo you get 10 extra item or currency drops. A necessity to get materials to make weapons and unlock abilities for your characters.

3. Even if the enemy dies during the Session the animation completes, regardless if said enemy potentially died with the first hit.

4. Special, Duet, and Ad-Lib (special attacks that can randomly trigger) animations can be skipped, but the Sessions cannot be skipped or sped-up.

So if you want to maximize your team's power you want to do Sessions as often as possible and try to extend them as much as possible, extending what could be a 30-second encounter into a 5+ minute ordeal. This makes a already grind heavy game more of a chore.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Like any other game mechanic, it can be implemented well or poorly. I myself tend to enjoy it more often than not.

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm no fan of grinding. I actively try to avoid games where grinding is a huge part of them, especially when its the only way to progress. Still, I understand, through one of these threads no less, that there are people who actually love to grind. We actually had a thread here once where someone asked for a game that lets you grind. Then there's games like the Disgaea franchise, which seem to proudly boast about their grinding potential, which seems to suggest that there's a market for that sort of thing. I guess it won't be going away anytime soon.

In the end, I suppose grinding is good, if you're into grinding.

 

[Subbies]

You probably shouldn't base an entire game around it

Disgaea seems to pull it off quite well though.

OT: Eh, different people, different tastes. If you don't have time to play much, then grinding just gets in the way. If you have lots of time on your hands then grinding will increase your gametime.
I hate grinding, especially in MMOs, but some people love it.

 

[ClockworkAngel]

It depends on the game for me, and I think it can be a relaxing activity in certain circumstances.
I can grind for drops in a Souls game and be content, especially if I turn on some tv in the background and just kinda veg out. Or I can fight the same monster over and over again on Monster Hunter for the carves I need.
But other grinds I can't stand, especially if RNG is involved, like in certain MMOs where you grind to get stuff to make better gear when there is a chance your attempts can end not only in failure, but also losing everything you just spent hours grinding for.

 

[Lufia Erim]

It depends. If you HAVE to grind, say levels, to be able to progress that's just bad design. If however you can grind because you want to, to get that extra skill or higher numbers but it's not a necessity it's fine. It also depends on the rewards.

Like grinding in Monster hunter for badass looking ( and usefull) gear is fine.
Absolutely love grinding in SMT games. Its fun, the music is awsome and leveling up your demons to fuse and make stronger i great

 

[Something Amyss]

Sometimes grinding is the fun.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

As other have said, it depends on how it's implemented.

There are (imo) 2 ways that developers can take to make grinding OK-ish: either make it fun/engaging, or mask the dullness well enough so that people wouldn't notice it.

I am not sure what can be counted as an example of the former, but I'll go with Demons' Souls: my favourite way to grind was was equiping Stormruler and going to the last zone of Stormpriests area.

Did you hide in that crumbled building with no roof? I gained many a level from that spot!

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Usually, if it's to acquire some super weapon or to get ready to face a super boss, I don't mind it. I'd like for there to be either a challenge waiting for me at the end of all of that with a reward, or just a straight up reward.

Case in point, the Doomtrain summons from Final Fantasy 8. Sure it was a pain in the ass trying to fight Malboros for the items I needed, but then that was simply the challenge to overcome. And then, on the rare occasions...

Sometimes grinding is the fun.

Which can either be a good thing or bad thing depending on the implementation. Thanks, Amy. >.>

EDIT: OH, Bravely Default does this nicely as well, with how their job system works. Dunno how I forgot that in this kinda thread...

 

[Mutant1988]

Grinding is one of those things that is the best when you don't notice it at all.

It has a purpose in game design - To enhance the sense of accomplishment by increasing the amount of time/effort you need to put in.

The trick to doing it right is to have enough other gameplay elements to distract players from the repetitiousness. That and not extending the grind to ridiculous degrees. A lot of games fail the latter part.

 

[meiam]

I think grinding can be useful tool in a game. For example almost all old school JRPG have been beaten at initial/extremely low level, so you didn't even need to level up to beat them, but you always had the option to get a few more level to make an hard section easier. This made the difficulty setting ingrained in the game, which made it possible to have challenging encounter since it was always possible for the player to just grind a few level get past the obstacle.

MMO group content grind can be fun too, its an unwritten truth that most people play at high level more for the social aspect, so the dungeon grind is just something to do in the group instead of just sitting around talking. Most of it is easy enough for you to talk about stuff at the same time as playing. Plus you can do cool stuff like trying to do it as efficiently as possible. Clearing some of the WoW daily 5 man dungeon were actually pretty fun when we'd pull half of the dungeon at once and would kill the boss while running forward, make things interesting.

 

[DoPo]

The level grind is not bad, especially when you consider there hasn't really been a good alternative

Erm, what about point buy where you gain advancement from finishing quests?

OT: Is grinding bad? No. Not by itself. It could be something I dislike in a game, but I definitely wouldn't say it's inherently unacceptable. If it was, then it wouldn't be in use as much as it is now.

Is grinding outdated? No. Not really. If it was, it wouldn't be in use as much as it is now.

Of course this is subjective and depends on gaming tastes

Questions in the title are completely objective, though, and I provided the answers. Whether it's "acceptable" can also be answered objectively: yes. There are games, series, and even genres that thrive on the concept of grinding. They are doing quite OK, too. Moreover, this has been going for quite a while. So...yes, they've been accepted.

A subjective question would be whether any specific person likes grinding or not and why. To this I can also provide an answer: in general I don't like grinding. It can range from mildly annoying to a majorly irritating. It's worse if it's mandatory. Optional grinding, especially in small quantities, is tolerable.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

"Tedious" is subjective, as is "grinding". One man's grind is another man's game play. WoW was received with open arms as "EQ without the grind" because you got XP via questing. Now, people consider questing "grinding". I've heard people complain of "grinding" to describe almost every possible in-game activity done more than once.

Most games will have some kind of "padding" to extend the play time. Whether it's perceived as good or bad is highly individual.

 

[Gamerpalooza]

Depends on the grinding. For the most part its tedious to grind for levels past a certain amount and there's no easy way to hit max.

There's also grinding for gear in which the RNG is what's a hassle.

There's also grinding for mats which is hidden behind dailies, RNG, and the overall limit that you can only carry x amount.

For the most part the mentality behind its existence is what makes it outdated. Such as "we don't want you to have it the first day its out". This is what I hate from MMO's. Yet they rely on it to keep the 1% happy instead of seeking that all their customers be happy. This shouldn't be taken as everyone should just be given free gear either.

When grinding is done right and content isn't entirely hidden behind the grind and RNG I tend to find it acceptable.

In terms of mobas I can tolerate grinding a game like LoL because I enjoy the match first and foremost and the IP is secondary especially with the current implementation of chest and keys it makes it even more worth it. Sure I wont be playing League day in and day out but it doesn't make me hate the game for it. I also like some JRPGs that allow me to grind for content such as the "Tales of ___" franchise with content available through new game+.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

So long as it's not mandatory for progression, it's fine. It's when grinding is the only means to a the end of quest, like if you have to gather 20 bear taints to progress but said taints only have a 10% drop rate or something, that it becomes a serious problem.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

If the gameplay's fun, then not really, because it doesn't feel like grinding. It wouldn't be something monotonous you do to just farm money, but something that has it's, own appeal. For example, you could grind in Arkham City in order to unlock more abilities, but the combat is awesome, so it doesn't bother the player.

In the other hand, if your gameplay is dry turn based combat or mindless button mashing against enemies that can't kill 99.99% of the time, then yeah, go back to bumfuck ville please.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

As with most things a well designed game can pull off grinding. A poorly designed one can't. If you make side activities varied and upgrades that feel like an edge rather than just stat points that you feel too weak without, then grinding is fine.

Saints Row for example has a ton of similar side missions that could be considered "grinding" complete with experience point levels and unshockable abilities, but the grinding never seems dull, because it mixes it up and rewards you more heavily for doing things you haven't done or getting gold medals. Plus if you want to slam through the game you can do it, you just won't have the edge. Plus one look at the available upgrades and you'll see something that will make you go "I WANT TO HAVE THAT"

Yeah no, I hated grinding in Saints Row. At the very least, the first game. By the 5th hour in I was bored out of my motherfucking mind. Saints Row 2 did it better (yet still annoying), but I felt no need to play III or IV, because I have grown tired of sandbox.

Ah yeah I've never played the first one. Was mostly talking about 3 and 4 but I don't remember it annoying me in 2.

 

[FalloutJack]

Point-Buy

Well, question on that. Isn't point-buy similar in that your actions earn you points to buy your enhancements, as opposed to experience granting effectively the same?