The Case For Grinding in RPGs

[RandV80]

It also depends on the speed of that "grinding".

DS for example, you can get most of your character build up and running under 20 minutes if you know what you are doing.

And no level of grinding/magic can save you in DS if you don't know what you are doing.

Well if it's 20 minutes, I wouldn't call that a grind. That's basically just a learning curve training period.

OT: In my opinion, grinding as defined as "hours of time spent doing repetitive actions, in order to be of appropriate strength to take on the next boss the game put in front of you" is a sign of poor design. To keep the player engaged in the story of the game you made, you need to have the advancement match the pace of the game. If I spend 20+ hours simply leveling up, but in game, the time between the last storyarc moment, and the next is almost instantaneous, then it pulls me out of the tension of the game. Final Fantasy 10 did this a lot, in fact most of the FF games I played did. But I mean, you have some big fight with a bad boss, and he does some epicly evil shit to the world!! We have to stop him right away!! Oh wait, nah let's go run around the Thunder Plains for 15+ leveling up first, I'm sure he'll put his plans on hold until we're done.

If you want to have a leveling grind in your game, then put it during a time in the game, where there isn't a timed event to deal with. Give the characters some downtime, where there is no pressing need of their attention for something. Then i have less issue with it, but only slighlty less. But yeah, if you can't design the game where your characters are strong enough to fight the next threat without hours and hours of grind, you did something wrong.
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That's one of my biggest pet peeves as well in JRPG's, though I wouldn't necessarily call it grinding but rather poor immersion breaking story pacing. In FFVI when you get to the World and hit the mainland with Celes, Kefka has for all intents and purpose already won and is just happily sitting up in his tower as the god clown king of the world occasionally raining terror down among the people. The calamity has settled and it makes sense that you have time to explore to find your allies and gain strength before confronting Kefka. But this great setup was more by accident than design, as every other FF game since Square has gotten it totally wrong. In FFVII there's this big evil meteor hanging in the sky en route to destroy the world... should Squall really be spending months-in game breeding and racing chocobos? And the reward when you get a block chocobo is the ultimate materia that simply makes that game a joke from that point on.

There's a certain disconnect between the 'game' for the players and the 'story' for the PC's. And your completely right that more developers if they want to include these sorts of time wasters need to provide appropriate break points in the story that give you time do stuff without the threat of imminent destruction or catastrophe. The worst example I've seen may be Xenosaga 2, which I couldn't actually finish because there was some key ability that you were supposed to get from it's stupid side quest padding which was some stupid 'good Samaritan' mini game where you had to run around helping citizens with stuff like finding a little girls lost teddy bear despite the constant threat of imminent destruction. Well there was a peaceful part at the beginning of the game I recall, but after spending an hour or two doing this seemingly pointless side quest stuff I wanted to proceed with the story, and it was all a roller coaster from there.

On the PC or WPRG end, though for the most part they've gotten much better getting around it, I've always found the similar problem is the incessant need for wizards/sorcerers to rest and regain their spells. We've just torn through the enemy camp and now there's a big evil villain just past this final door, but Mordock's out of spells so better stop and setup camp for 8 hours to get back to full strength.

It's why in games from Balders Gate to Neverwinter Nights to Morrowind I could never play a wizard!

 

[RandV80]

No one is saying to walk in a straight line, which FFX already did but people loved that anyways. In those early JRPGs, you walk ANYWHERE (outside of town) and you have to fight every few steps. I remember in FFVI, you had to fight enemies in a burning house when you are trying to go in there and save people. The horrible mechanic of random battles made exploring so time consuming. Say you want to explore some corner; well, you have to kill enemies on the way there (that's fine), but you also have to fight enemies on the way back (when you just fucking cleared a path). Unless, you actually got something awesome, it was just a waste of time exploring. I played very few JRPGs because even as a kid, I knew all that shit was just basically Skinner Box techniques (even though I didn't know of the Skinner Box then) to prolong the game and nothing else. And the turn-based battles weren't even very strategic to begin with (as positioning didn't even matter), it was just a waste of time fighting a battle (again and again and again) you know you will win easily.

Despite how it seems on the internet these days JRPG's were never really a popular genre until they got a boost from FFVII. In the 8-16 most never even got translated, including juggernaut series like FF and Dragon Quest. If you didn't like FFVI, which had already started streamlining a lot of the grinding elements from early RPG's, then these just weren't your games.

The thing with the Skinner Box though is that it's not inherently bad by itself. Especially in the earlier 8 or 16 bit days when games were typically short, expensive, and you were probably a kid and had a limited selection. Even if it was a gimmick something like the concept of 'Nintendo hard' or grinding in an RPG gave you a lot more value out of the game. For the latter many people got used to the style, and as long as there's characters you care about and a story that progresses from start to a clear cut end I don't mind if the game is being padded with some repetitive elements. Also in some cases the challenge isn't necessarily in the specific random battle itself, but rather the sequence of them as you need to navigate from point A to point B. A game like Phantasy Star 2 which I mentioned, and Dragon Quests were all like this as well, it's more a battle of attrition and a game of strategic resource management. Regardless though developers were aware of the problem and there's been numerous new ideas & innovations to mix things up over the years.

But back to the Skinner box, in my opinion the problem starts when developers start using it in a cold & cynical manner. In WoW Blizzard wants to hook you indefinitely so you keep coming back and paying your monthly subscription, so the game has no end and is carefully crafted to maximize the carrot on a stick effect to keep people grinding away. In a game like Farmville, you're dealing with something that's not really a game and an audience that aren't really gamers so the time/reward element is cynically crafted to subtly hook them and keep them playing. Same with all the newer FTP mobile games, which may take an actual game play element like Bejeweled and wrap a skinner box around it to encourage players to part with their money.

 

[Fat Hippo]

I stopped reading the posts in this thread when it started to feel like a grind. I was just reading the mostly same things over and over again. *

I think that sums up my thoughts on the topic of grinding and what my general behavior in connection with it is. It's also why I've only completed maybe 2 JRPGS in my entire life. And one of those while making liberal use of the emulator's ability to speed up thing by 300% at will.

* I kid, I kid. Don't get your knickers in a bunch.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

In my mind, grinding is basically the same as a game that's really difficult like Dark Souls: you spend a lot doing the same thing over and over again and eventually you get rewarded. Rewards are just more satisfying when you had to do something to get them. The only difference is that people who have good reflexes (or whatever the game requires) can get those rewards faster while grinding takes more patience, or sometimes strategy, to get a thing done. So long as the thing you have to do is fun, then who cares if it's the same thing over and over. Though I would also be in the camp of people without time to spare so I probably won't be playing a game FF8 over again any time soon

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Despite how it seems on the internet these days JRPG's were never really a popular genre until they got a boost from FFVII. In the 8-16 most never even got translated, including juggernaut series like FF and Dragon Quest. If you didn't like FFVI, which had already started streamlining a lot of the grinding elements from early RPG's, then these just weren't your games.

The thing with the Skinner Box though is that it's not inherently bad by itself. Especially in the earlier 8 or 16 bit days when games were typically short, expensive, and you were probably a kid and had a limited selection. Even if it was a gimmick something like the concept of 'Nintendo hard' or grinding in an RPG gave you a lot more value out of the game. For the latter many people got used to the style, and as long as there's characters you care about and a story that progresses from start to a clear cut end I don't mind if the game is being padded with some repetitive elements. Also in some cases the challenge isn't necessarily in the specific random battle itself, but rather the sequence of them as you need to navigate from point A to point B. A game like Phantasy Star 2 which I mentioned, and Dragon Quests were all like this as well, it's more a battle of attrition and a game of strategic resource management. Regardless though developers were aware of the problem and there's been numerous new ideas & innovations to mix things up over the years.

But back to the Skinner box, in my opinion the problem starts when developers start using it in a cold & cynical manner. In WoW Blizzard wants to hook you indefinitely so you keep coming back and paying your monthly subscription, so the game has no end and is carefully crafted to maximize the carrot on a stick effect to keep people grinding away. In a game like Farmville, you're dealing with something that's not really a game and an audience that aren't really gamers so the time/reward element is cynically crafted to subtly hook them and keep them playing. Same with all the newer FTP mobile games, which may take an actual game play element like Bejeweled and wrap a skinner box around it to encourage players to part with their money.

What's worse about JRPGs is that they almost always have shit combat systems, and they make you constantly fight. The whole point of turn-based combat is to be strategic, that's why it's turn-based. But most JRPGs are just your team on one side vs the enemies are the other side thus positioning doesn't factor into the battle. Any good turn-based game from chess to DnD, positioning plays a key role in battle. If you remove positioning, most of the strategy is removed as well. The one thing FFXII proved was that a few if-then-else statements (the game's gambits) would make the game play itself. FFXII, under-the-hood, has the exact same battle system as FFX, you can play FFXII turn-by-turn if you want. If all it takes is a few if-then-else statements to play the game, then your game's battles aren't strategic. You can't program chess or DnD or XCOM to play themselves with a few if-then-else statements. Basically, most JRPGs are just you navigating menus and not much else, it's more of a computer program than a game. Most JRPGs allow you to grind for resources so it's not really a resource management game when you have unlimited resources at hand. Random battles only even were a thing due to hardware limitations yet continued on for far too long when the hardware was more than capable.

I don't even mind Skinner Box techniques if the core game is just fucking fun to play. I play the same online shooter until a better shooter comes out, that's my rule. You give me the best gameplay and I'll play the game forever. MMOs and online shooters would be much better games if they focused on great gameplay to pull players in instead of Skinner Box techniques. You can make an RPG fun to play at low levels.

 

[Rattja]

I was about to go on and on about how it is a way to train muscle memory or whatever, but as I thought about it another thought popped into my head.
I don't actually think grinding is the problem, we are.
Yes it may be something to pad the game, but it has an interesting side effect.

See, whenever I look back at something, I try to ask myself why it felt like it did or why I liked it (or didn't).
When I first started out with my first MMOs and RPGs, grinding was what you did. Runescape, Tibia, Anarchy online, early WoW, most of your time was used to grind. Either to get materials, rep, exp or gear.
Thing is, at the time I didn't really mind at all, I actually were looking forward to go heckler hunting or farm mortigs for hours on end, but why?
The answer is rather simple, it was the people.
Whenever we grinded back then, we basically just talked about stuff while killing things over and over again. The game was more like a chatroom than anything else, just something to do while we talked about what the best sandwich was or whatever.
The grinding was boring yes, but because it was boring you started to talk with strangers and actually ineract with them.
Same with WoW, as it wasn't until we raided the same place for the 10th time on auto pilot with alts that the really funny moments happened.

These days the grind is all but gone, and I notice the effect it has. You just go in, get what you wanted and thats it, now what?

Just think about it for a moment. If you are working on something, and fully concentrated at what you are doing, you can't talk to the people around you about the latest episode of Game of Thrones right? But when you have done it 10 000 times and don't have to think at all, that's when you can actually get to know the people around you.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that grinding has no place in a Single player game, but in a MMO it actually should be there to force people to talk to other people.

But hey, that's just my thoughts about the matter.

But why should I pay some subscription fee to basically use the game as a social, visual chat room. What you just described was basically becoming so disconnected from the game itself, as to be non-existent. Well why bother with that? If I wanted to chat about Game of Thrones, or the new Star Wars movie with people, I could do that anywhere, I don't have to pay Blizzard a subscription fee per month to do that. Or hell, I could play any number of free games and accomplish that same feat. But why? Why bother? If your game is so tedious and mind numbing that I'm literally not paying it any attention at all anymore, and am on autopilot as you put it, then why play?

That's my point, you woulden't, not these days. Some years ago it was all we had.
Also, Eve is kinda like this, and it seems to do quite well, you should go ask them why they play that. It's not for the awesome gameplay with instant rewards I'll tell you that.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

My typical playthrough of FF8 is about 90-100 hours, half of which is grinding spells and weapon upgrades. In Skyrim, one of my characters was level 71 before I started the main quest lines (smithing, enchanting and alchemy can go a very long way apparently), most of the combat was centered around odd jobs from innkeepers and clearing mines for ore. FYI, at level 71, hitting the Greybeards (when you are sent to meet them for the first time) with Fus causes them to go berserk and kill you.

 

[ssjdkcrew]

Well I can't say I've played any single player game that has real grinding in a very long time. People like to ***** and complain about it but aside from Pokemon it seems pretty much extinct from what I remember it to be.

I think you're right. It makes me sad sometimes.

Grinding, is by definition I think, doing the same thing again and again. That can make you more skillful, but generally once you've shown you can do a challange once (and certainly once you've done it ten times) there's not too much point in asking you to do it again and again, especially in RPGs where as you level up the challenge actually gets easier.

That depends. Are you talking about asking the *player* to do it again, or the *character?* See, in RPGs, you're not supposed to be doing everything. It's not the *player,* but the *character* who you play as in an RPG, and therefore, there is a point when the character does the same actions over and improves the *character's* skills.

On the other hand Final Fantasy XIII has so many encounters where you are in no danger of dying from the monsters and I've already 5 starred the battle.

I don't think anyone would point to any recent Final Fantasy game as an example of good grinding.

I think you are wrong about this, in the sense I get a rewarding feeling from completing a game and maybe more from 100%ing it, but I still want the game to throw up fresh challenges to me all the way through. Or put it another way if I'm level 5 because I've killed 200 orcs and you are level 10 because you've killed 500 orcs, but my way of killing orcs is faster and my party takes less damage, should you be more gratified by the game than I am and have you accomplished more?

Well, yes. I usually am, because my party has been on a longer journey and survived for a longer time against difficult odds. If I also happen to develop a good strategy for monster-killing, I can appreciate that too, because that's something that can be attributed to the *character,* but I'd just as soon have the *character* face challenges in an RPG.

I find grinding to be an obsolete concept. Why feel the benefits of your character getting stronger when you can feel the benefits of you, yourself, becoming more skilled.

I think you probably meant that last sentence to end with a question mark.

In any case, the answer is that that's what RPGs are for; playing as another character, and therefore, no longer playing as yourself. If I notice I, myself, in any way while playing an RPG, it has failed in being an RPG. This is because "RPG" stands for "Role-Playing Game," and if the role is no longer being played; if it is the skill of the *player,* rather than their adopted role, which matters, then the very RPG-ness of the game takes a nosedive.

For instance, in Mass Effect 1 your aim was clunky until you upgraded your character. Combat effectiveness wasn't based on your personal skill, it was based on your ability to compensate for a weaker character. An example of this being done right is Dark Souls. If you are a good enough player, then you can beat the whole game at level 1. Alternatively, if you are terrible at the game, then increasing your level won't save you. That's because your ability as a player is what improves through the gameplay, not your characters stats.

Then these games are not RPGs, because they've failed to understand the very basics of what makes an RPG what it is.

Sure, they can benefit you, but you still have to do the heavy lifting. If I die, then it should be because I made the mistake. Nothing is more frustrating then doing everything right, and then losing because I don't have enough strength points.

As I said before about the Elder Scrolls and Kingdom Hearts, I like when an RPG gives the player something to do, but the goal is not for the player to improve, but rather, for the adopted character/role to take center stage. When this is not adhered to, the RPG suffers.

Kingdom Hearts did so well because at no point did I EVER have to grind. It was an option, but as long as I fought enemies consistently through the narrative I never had to stop in order to level up. There was an RPG leveling system in KH, but it was NOT implemented in such a way as to force you to grind.

Right. I agree with this. It was an option, and it's an option that many modern RPGs would do well to include, even if they don't make it mandatory (and they need not.)

It connects to what the ssjdkcrew (OP) is saying, the satisfaction of what you're doing. Your choices should have consequences, the effort and time you put into it, should have rewards and messing up should punish you.

Right. Many games just don't give your choices consequences anymore, and far from improving the experience, it makes the whole thing more boring.

Simply playing a godlike character is insanely boring, or at least after a short while. You've invested nothing in it and so it's worthless.
The time I've spent playing on my primary WoW character is what makes it special. It's the grinding, it's the raids I was part of beating for the first time, it's the effort I spent into collecting and finding curious items and it's the world that I explored back in vanilla when you could wall jump and discover hidden places.
The struggle was real, because I wanted to play a certain role with a class that wasn't technically viable, but my druid gathered up all the fire resistance items she could get (including random cloth armor) and I tanked Ragnaros, successfully.
The grind I had to do in order to make that possible, made it worthwhile. That's why vanilla was at once so terrible, but also extremely satisfying to play (and not just because of nostalgia).

It sounds it. I've played very difficult classes in some RPGs on purpose myself.

This is part of why gaming is, the way it is today. People aren't willing to invest the effort it should take to achieve something and so developers have to aim for the kind of play that rewards everyone for participating, otherwise you can't get the game funded.
I've grown used to this shite kind of gameplay and I've become very lazy, so that whenever the game is a tiny bit complex or I have to invest effort or time, I can't be bothered.
The games where I can be bothered, I'm bored out of my skull.

I'm sorry to hear that. I haven't grown used to it, and indeed, if I can get through the first level (or the first 15 minutes past the tutorials) of a game without needing to put effort into it, I often put it down for another month at least. Where others are unwilling to invest effort, I'm unwilling to *not* invest it.

Grinding is just one aspect of making something worthwhile and it's in my opinion not the best way of doing it, though it is an easy one. If I feel clever for finding this one spot where I can grind and have a theoretically easier time of leveling or gaining money of some kind, then it's fine (especially because that's valuable information that I can share or trade with others), but if I just have to mercilessly grind the same creatures over and over for some small advantage or a few % better performance as the next logical step of the game, then I'd rather not.

Well, as I've said before, there are good and bad kinds of grinding.

Like I said in the beginning, it boils down to balance in some way. Things being unbalanced or decidedly unfair, can motivate players enormously, because they can beat the odds and achieve a worthwhile victory.
Grinding can be a part of that balance, where you get to play your character as it is and bask in your glorious abilities of destruction while taking a break from the storyline.

Yup. Agreed.

You get new abilities from finding new weapons and items. Most games will use a mixture of numbers and abilities. If you use nothing but numbers, then combat gets grind as you repeat the same actions over and over. Though if you use nothing but abilities, you make things more complex and it can some times be hard to tell what is an improvement what isn't. Some times you just want a nice conclusive this is better then what you were doing before.

It doesn't really sound like a *character* change, but new abilities and new stats can, and should be combined in the RPG-leveling of today, as they were in Kingdom Hearts.

In my view it doesn't count as 'grinding' if it isn't a chore.

If I have a game with a well built XP system that levels me up to an appropriate power as I play the game naturally, that isn't grinding. That's just levelling with good game balance.

When I have to stop doing what I want to do in order to kill the same mobs in a given area 10 times in a row, THAT is grinding. So let's have a look at your points.

I'm not too happy with the term "grinding" myself, but that's the term people are using for stopping to gain levels these days.

Any well designed system of training can be implemented without necessitating 'grinding'. For example, in the original Metal Gear Solid I am taught how to sneak past guards by staying out of their line of sight. As the game progresses, I get better at this, the levels get harder to navigate, and I get new tools to help me. This isn't grinding, this is just the natural development of a well constructed mechanic.

But it also places everything on the *player,* rather than the *character,* so while it works well for a game like Metal Gear Solid, it's not really an RPG element.

If I had to stay in the first level, consistently evading guards to raise my 'Sneak' to the point where I could progress to level 2, that would be grinding.

It would be better to let you go to level 2 to evade guards for a while, at greater benefit, but higher risk. Some RPGs have been known to do this.

Perhaps I am arguing semantics here, but I think it is important to not confuse our terms.

I love the philosophy of language. It's one of my favorite fields.

I agree but again, I think having this at the end of a 'grind' is poor design. There are better ways. What you are describing is not really a 'grand reward after your hard work', but rather an alleviation of frustration. The game has forced you to grind - to repeat a menial, task that withholds your enjoyment. It then stops you from having to do this and gives you something nice. The frustration is removed, so you feel better.

No, not at all. It's not frustrating to repeat the same task, because you know why you're doing it, and the reward is not the alleviation of grinding, but the benefit that gave the grind its purpose. "Purpose," indeed, is the word here. When a task produces instant gratification, which doesn't require a time commitment, there's nothing very rewarding about it, and asking about it's purpose is like asking about the purpose of happiness.

Have you ever been in pain for a reasonable period of time?

Well, I once had a kidney stone for four days.

When the pain finally stops, you feel really good for a while. You're condition is no better than it normally is, but after a prolonged period of suffering the absence of pain gives you an elevated level of good feeling.

There is, admittedly, a euphoric sensation when you first get over a cold and such, but that's different from a satisfied feeling of accomplishment. I don't want to give myself a pat on the back for getting over a cold.

Grinding you say? Ugh brings back memories of any DQ and Morrowind/Oblivion running and jumping/falling all over the place just to able to get a normal walking/running speed.

You realize you just made me want to go back and play Morrowind again, right?

I've paid my dues grinding with games like the FF5/Tactics job system and the drawing system of FF8.

Didn't like the drawing system, which seems to penalize you for playing the way you would other FF games, but the FF5 system was one of my favorite leveling systems, alongside FF4's esper mechanic.

For me grinding is not THAT bad if you get a sense of progress. It gets bad if the game is implementing a dynamic leveling system(Oblivion) or when even the most everyday monsters or NPCs can still rip you apart even if your character is already supposed to be high level(I'm looking at you Breath of Fire).

I refer to my comments on "bad grinding." However, while the leveling system for Morrowind and Oblivion could have used some work, I think the actual grinding itself was, for me, some of the most enjoyable ever.

My basic attitude is that most people simply don't have the patience or want to put in the time. It's not a matter of "I'm an adult and have other things to do" that's an excuse, because honestly as a kid you probably had even less time when you get down to it. It's a desire for immediate gratification,

Basically, yeah. I think that's right. I'm an adult too, and I write fiction as a hobby, but I also find time to grind at RPGs, because it's what I enjoy doing. I'm in no hurry to complete the game.

There is nothing wrong with people wanting immediate gratification from games. Grinding and games that involve it, are aimed at a different kind of audience.

If that's the kind of games they want to play, I have no objections. They can play those games all they want and enjoy them. I just wish that the things I enjoy didn't get such criticism all the time.

The problem is of course a game industry intent on not willing to create games for different audiences which of course leads to increased clashes among gamers over basic ideas like this due to knowing that the industry is not going to even try to cater to all major audiences.

You know, a while back, the PC Game market shifted, from mainly AAA games, to a lot of older games or more primitive types of 2D games; even flash-type games. While I doubt this was caused by grinding, I don't think it's going too far to say that the "statistically-average" games released by AAA companies, and their bad handling of those games, may have been responsible for that. The problems that you point out are undoubtedly at least one ingredient in this issue.

When it comes to an RPG game, part of the point of "grinding" is that it simulates the adventuring and monster hunting adventurers are supposed to get up to, as opposed to just following the plotline. A lot of RPG fans basically want to have a plot present, but also want to basically just get involved in some basic hack and slash dungeon crawling when the mood strikes them within the experience. Furthermore part of the fun of RPGs is to see how badly you can break the game by providing a disproportionate amount of power to the game structure. There is a sort of satisfaction some people can't understand in say not following the plot as soon as you can, and then say one shotting the final boss after his lengthy intro. Some games like the "Disgaea" series are actually all about the whole "applying disproportionate power to the game structure" and make it a recurring joke in the series, sure you can just flat out play through the storyline if you want to, and it's not even very hard, on the other hand it also involves a lot of weird stuff in the game that can only be discovered by trying to "break" it and then find out "oh wow, the game developers actually thought of that" and providing absolutely obscene things to overcome... a sort of game within a game.

And you know what? Having that sort of freedom to play the game in different ways is awesome, as in my Kingdom Hearts example above.

With the recent "Divinity: Original Sin" one of the big complaints about it is of course the lack of ability to grind, and this the lack of ability to max out your favorite character tor play with all the toys. One of the first complaints about it (despite it's success) was how the monsters stay dead, and how some of the challenges seemed kind of arbitrary as the difficulty largely depended on how much you optimized your characters along very specific lines, which sucks in a game that basically invites you to screw around with a lot of different things. You can't say select a skill, decide "hmmm don't really like that" and then go grind some more to pick something else and un-gimp a character in a game where monsters are finite.

I sort of had that problem with Diablo II as well. Starting the game over allows you to try out a different build, and these days, there's a feature that lets you redesign your build completely once, but only a few are really viable in the second and third playthroughs.

To me the trick to making grinding work is to make the game complex enough where your gaining things constantly. I think a big part of the problem with grinding is the move towards simplification. There is a huge difference between say slogging through two hours of fighting in order to get a single level up and a trivial increase.

I had this issue with Phantasy Star II. I just didn't think that getting a level-up improved your character enough.

On the other hand if level ups are fast and furious, but there are thousands of different things to raise, experiment with, and fool around with, it can actually become fairly addictive.

Again, this is what I liked in the Elder Scrolls and Quest For Glory.

The size of games also matters to some extent as well, take the recent review of Darklands, a game world of a size and depth you rarely see nowadays. That game DID involve a lot of grinding, but the grinding happened as you played, and there were almost always things to strive for. In "Darklands" for example there is no central plotline, your just a band of adventurers out to make a career for yourself, and all kinds of things are happening through the kingdoms. Of course this is also misleading, because in Darklands there are actually at least 3 (I think 4) central plotlines, to find and defeat the Knights Templar, to Find and Destroy The Witches Black Mass (and cripple witchcraft through the lands), and to slay The Dragon (note the "the"), all of which are things hinted at and woven through the game. Once you completed all of those major plotlines you could be considered to have "won" Darklands as almost all the lore and little hints came down to those big events. The point being in Darklands there was always something to be moving towards. The one downside I felt the game had was your characters aging, which could sometimes lead to you literally playing a game
multi-generationally.

The multi-generational thing can work, if it's handled well. It sounds like the story, at least, was handled in an interesting way, not unlike Daggerfall or some of the quests in Morrowind.

 

[LaoJim]

That depends. Are you talking about asking the *player* to do it again, or the *character?* See, in RPGs, you're not supposed to be doing everything. It's not the *player,* but the *character* who you play as in an RPG, and therefore, there is a point when the character does the same actions over and improves the *character's* skills.

...

Well, yes. I usually am, because my party has been on a longer journey and survived for a longer time against difficult odds. If I also happen to develop a good strategy for monster-killing, I can appreciate that too, because that's something that can be attributed to the *character,* but I'd just as soon have the *character* face challenges in an RPG.

Fair enough, you're obviously looking at it from a different point of view than I am.

I don't think anyone would point to any recent Final Fantasy game as an example of good grinding.

That was just the first example that came to mind. I remember grinding on the original Phantasy Star as being the same kind of thing.

 

[likalaruku]

Grinding is why I only play MMOs for 1 week every 2-4 months. 7 years ago, I could grind all day, but every year I have less patience towards repetition.

I remember when going from mashing 1 button over & over again to using a set of unlockable, upgradable moves in timely order was a huge step forward, but I'm getting bored of that too.

I wish RPGs would spice it up by taking a Pokemon approach....Making it so that we have to use completely different sets of techniques for different kinds of enemies instead of bashing the same order of keys for each one. (There probably are some, but none that I'm presently aware of).

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Forced grinding is laborious, optional grinding is fine.

That way the people that really love the game and it's mechanics and want to be masters of the game can do so.

And the people that want to pick it up, play through it and finish in a reasonable amount of time can do so.

Personally I don't mind a little grinding and sometimes what some may consider grinding I may find fun, but it all depends.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I think you can tell there is a big difference between a sword, a polearm, crossbow, and all the other items/weapons you can use. If you have a spear, you fight different then you do with a sword. Heck you fight different when your using your sword in two hands Vs in one hand. That is not even getting into items and spells that can change the way you do even more then just fight.

That's generally not something that builds up over the course of a game though. You can get most of the weapon types pretty early on, most are for sale in the Undead Burg, and the weapons you pick up from there are generally either combinations of movesets already available or straight statistical variations.

Spells and miracles might build up a bit slower, but are less individually varied than the weapon movesets as well.

 

[Cybylt]

What are your thoughts on this? Is there a place for gamers like me, who want to grind, and grind well? What, if anything, can be done to revive this often-neglected gameplay element?

It feels like you're calling a learning curve or perhaps leveling as a whole and grinding the same thing, and they aren't.

What I would call grinding is certainly a bad thing. Look at Persona 1, you have a random encounter every two or three steps in dungeons in that game and by the second dungeon you have to run through it three or four times to be able to take on the boss simply because the game can't properly balance them to a reasonable level range. Or the older dragon quest games where you had to walk out of town, farm slimes and go back to town to heal for three+ hours, and only then would you not get one-shot by the first dungeon's basic mobs.

The game doesn't get any more difficult, or require increasing skill on the part of the player, it's not giving greater intellectual stimulation or thought, it simply demands your numbers to be higher. It has nothing to do with demanding instant gratification and everything to do with wanting games not to have terrible pacing. Nobody's asking to be handed everything at once and blow through it, they just don't want a time sink between the parts of the game that are fun or actually matter.

Another way to put it: Would you watch a movie that made you watch six hours of a white screen between every act? That's what a grind is.

 

[Fox12]

I find grinding to be an obsolete concept. Why feel the benefits of your character getting stronger when you can feel the benefits of you, yourself, becoming more skilled. For instance, in Mass Effect 1 your aim was clunky until you upgraded your character. Combat effectiveness wasn't based on your personal skill, it was based on your ability to compensate for a weaker character. An example of this being done right is Dark Souls. If you are a good enough player, then you can beat the whole game at level 1. Alternatively, if you are terrible at the game, then increasing your level won't save you. That's because your ability as a player is what improves through the gameplay, not your characters stats. Sure, they can benefit you, but you still have to do the heavy lifting. If I die, then it should be because I made the mistake. Nothing is more frustrating then doing everything right, and then losing because I don't have enough strength points.

Kingdom Hearts did so well because at no point did I EVER have to grind. It was an option, but as long as I fought enemies consistently through the narrative I never had to stop in order to level up. There was an RPG leveling system in KH, but it was NOT implemented in such a way as to force you to grind.

It depends. I feel ATLUS is god damn brilliant at this. Look at Persona 4, unless you know how to exploit it (which every Man and his mother claims is obvious) the game throws absurd amounts of encounters at you between bosses. BUT, it doesn't throw checkpoints, nor does the checkpoints heal you. This is very important, because it means you are constantly struggling to manage your leveling, your SP because your god damn useless without any, your HP and your dating sim remaining days which are precious and painful to lose but losing one can restore every other problem...but you lose precious social link days by doing so.

It meant that no matter how many encounters I refused to avoid on my way through dungeons, I never felt like I was grinding because it felt more like I was desperately managing supplies instead. Especially since every player insists that apparently taking three days per dungeon like it took me (that fox was simply impossible to pay, and had a habit of regening HP alone like an asshole) is considered blasphemy.

I actually disliked the grinding in Persona 4. It felt like a massive, very long grinding fest that interrupted the narrative. I usually beat it in one in game day, but it took forever, and distracted me from the aspects of the game I enjoyed most. It's worse if you lose, since you lose progress. Even though Persona 4 was superior, I think Persona 3 was better at managing grinding, since it actively encouraged you to grind for small increments at a time. Either way, I love both games.

 

[Fox12]

snip

Interesting, but I would contend that there's more to role playing as a character than leveling up their stats. Player choice, player urgency, and the strength of the story matter more. In Dark Souls your character is a blank slate, allowing you to design their personalities, race, and beliefs. It's similar to Bethesda that way. The difference is that, while you can soul farm (grinding), the game expects the player to improve along with the character. Even more impressive, they manage to make all of this fit into the narrative of the game.

Does it really make sense for the cast of ff7 to stop in the middle of a shinra base so they can workout for three hours? And does it really show character progression when when the only thing that changes is that Cloud now does 500 damage instead of 200? I find that this distracts from the narrative, pads the game time, and sometimes ruins the pacing of the game. If the story and writing is good enough, then the focus should be on either the protagonists or the world they inhabit anyway. I don't think relying on player skill somehow robs the protagonist of their central role, because I think that's something that only the story can make or break.

Keep in mind that I'm not against leveling up as a concept, I'm against having to stop what you're doing in order to meet arbitrary level requirements. There should be more to difficulty than what level you are. If a game focuses on player skill then it typically allows for more complex boss fights that require more thought and strategy, as opposed to simply hitting the opponent harder than before. Improved enemy A.I. and more complex boss fights should be encouraged. Dark Souls does this wonderfully, and I don't think it's any less of an rpg because of it.

 

[Cybylt]

It depends. I feel ATLUS is god damn brilliant at this. Look at Persona 4, unless you know how to exploit it (which every Man and his mother claims is obvious) the game throws absurd amounts of encounters at you between bosses. BUT, it doesn't throw checkpoints, nor does the checkpoints heal you. This is very important, because it means you are constantly struggling to manage your leveling, your SP because your god damn useless without any, your HP and your dating sim remaining days which are precious and painful to lose but losing one can restore every other problem...but you lose precious social link days by doing so.

It meant that no matter how many encounters I refused to avoid on my way through dungeons, I never felt like I was grinding because it felt more like I was desperately managing supplies instead. Especially since every player insists that apparently taking three days per dungeon like it took me (that fox was simply impossible to pay, and had a habit of regening HP alone like an asshole) is considered blasphemy.

I actually disliked the grinding in Persona 4. It felt like a massive, very long grinding fest that interrupted the narrative. I usually beat it in one in game day, but it took forever, and distracted me from the aspects of the game I enjoyed most. It's worse if you lose, since you lose progress. Even though Persona 4 was superior, I think Persona 4 was better at managing grinding, since it actively encouraged you to grind for small increments at a time. Either way, I love both games.

P4 has grinding? Once you understand fusion and weaknesses you shouldn't ever need to go out of your way to fight any more enemies than what you face on the way to the boss. It has the problem of being trial and error when it comes to encounters but it's definitely not a system that encourages grinding.

 

[ssjdkcrew]

If the gameplay isn't fun, the leveling isn't fun.

If the game does grinding well, instead of badly, the game will also be fun.

There were skills to level and things to gain. For example, you had to play Survival/Tournaments to earn reward points to buy new clothes from the shop. I played because the gameplay was the best. The extra stuff gained were merely cherries atop the sundae.

As I said; not trying to get anything. Sure, you *can* get something, but it's not what you've been "trying" to do.

What you can accomplish is beating the all waves on Gold difficulty with a good squad of players, not farming Geth over and over to earn money just to buy card packs so you can then play how you really want. ME3 MP should've at least had a store where you could buy what you wanted instead of it all being luck-based.

Well, I certainly agree that luck-based gameplay is problematic at best; even in a good game. However, again, beating enemies on a high difficulty level is an accomplishment of the *player,* not the *character.*

Doing nothing but fighting monsters over and over again (the laziest and regrettably most common form of grinding) is irritating and tedious. However, I don't mind grinding if it has diversity and / or challenge to it. The best kind of grinding is the type that doesn't actually feel like you're grinding.

Well, as I said, there's good grinding and bad grinding. Good grinding is involving and engaging; getting you deeper into the character and making you care about them and their capabilities. Bad grinding is just running around in circles, pushing the same button, over and over again.

I think Persona 3 and 4 are excellent examples of this. Each day after school, you can choose to do one of various activities: Working a job, building a Social Link, fishing, going to the arcade, karaoke bar, cafe, or whatever dungeon area you'll be fighting in (I might be forgetting some of the possible activities, but you get the idea). Out of all these possibilities, the dungeons are the only places where you can actually fight monsters. Even so, everything you do feeds back to improving your character's ability to fight in some way. You're grinding no matter what you do, but it never actually feels like it.

It does sound like fun.

Even in other SMT games where the range of activities is less diverse, I don't find grinding all that boring. This is for two reasons:

1.) The rewards feel worth it. The demons you can fuse are dictated by what level you're at, so each level up comes with a diverse range of interesting new demons you can now fuse, and I look forward to just seeing the designs.

2.) It's actually challenging. Even if I'm in an area where I feel relatively comfortable, there's still at least a chance that I'll be killed. The games are known for being quite difficult, and if you make a mistake, even against somewhat weaker enemies, it can snowball into a defeat.

Those are some good ingredients for grinding, from the sounds of things.

It's not about instant gratification. It's about removing the Skinner Box bullshit from the game.

And replacing it with what? What do you replace it with, whereby the game can simulate dedication and work, which pays off in the end? Because from the sounds of things, all you're replacing it with is... instant gratification.

I played The Last of Us a couple weeks back and I think my completion time was ~25 hours (over 20 for sure) because I took my time. I was enjoying the game the whole time. There was no finding a room with a certain enemy and killing them over and over again to get them to drop something. There's no way you have more time available as an adult than a kid unless you don't have a job.

This is an excuse. Anyone has enough time to play an RPG if they're not in a hurry to finish it. Even if it takes all year to finish, it's still possible to win an RPG with a ton of grinding, even if you've got a job and a social life. All you have to do is commit about two or three hours a week to getting into the game and adopting this character as a personality.

I also notice you referring to luck-based gaming, which is not a required aspect of grinding, and indeed, is only barely related to grinding, as such.

The main reason, from a game standpoint, that you don't start with everything in an RPG is because it would overload the player at the start.

That's not true at all. There are quite a few games that give you many abilities right at the start, and just run you through them with a long tutorial stage. The reason why you don't get everything from the start, is because that's what it means to be a hero.

"A real Hero is someone who didn't start out strong or powerful, but uses his courage and brains and skills to become the best he can be."
Wolfgang Abenteuer; Adventurer's Guild Master, "Quest For Glory"

Being able to "break" the game is a sign of poor design as RPGs are supposed to be balanced.

No, the point of an RPG is to be a simulator of a fictional world/adventure, so that one can play as another role, rather than themselves.

Since when do RPG fans want to just get involved in fighting when the mood strikes them? Because most RPGs you fight more than anything else so if you like RPGs, you must like fighting, which is one of the main problems of the genre. RPGs don't actually require battle.

Neither does grinding.

This does beg the question of why you would want to simulate training though.

Because it's more satisfying. Simulated training can pay off in ways that real training doesn't.

Maybe in the GTA San Andreas sense where it doesn't have a huge impact on the gameplay and anything that does can also be acquired through normal gameplay.

Are you saying you don't want your effort to pay off? Is that really what you're saying?

In a fantasy or sci-fi RPG I don't see the point. A certain amount of suspension of disbelief is already in play, so why arbitrarily introduce some realism that also makes the game more tedious?

It only becomes tedious if you don't actually care about the character you're playing as, and if that *is* the case, why play an RPG?

None of this justifies that work being tedious though. Long and challenging is better than arbitrary and repetitive, which is what most grind amounts to.

True, but that's not the kind of grinding I'm talking about. The examples I gave were Kingdom Hearts, Elder Scrolls, Quest For Glory and Shining Force, and in all of those cases, there's either nothing arbitrary about it, or it's often very challenging.

Why do you need a videogame to give you that? If you want the feeling of overcoming a great obstacle, tell yourself you won't get any food until you do 1000 pushups. Or that you can't go on a holiday until you've folded 300 paper planes. Or that you won't get to watch a football game until you've kicked 1000 goals.

I don't think you understand. That is, in fact, the way I live my life. It's not that I need a video game to provide this; to provide something that I lack. Rather, a video game needs to provide this *for its own sake.* Because without it, the game is just not as enjoyable.

Question for those who mentioned Phantasy Star II...
...Unfortunately on my playthrough I never did quite finish it... made it all the way to the last dungeon but proceeding to the first level always caused the game to crash. Oh and I did have to cheat once, in the Dezo spaceport for the life of me I couldn't find the 4th exit. It may not seem like it at first but a dungeon that's designed so you can wander in circles and has 4 different exits you need to find is particularly cruel.

Whenever I play a game without a map book, I always draw the maps myself. My problem with the grinding in PS2 was its limited usefulness. Grinding in PS2 only effects HP and MP, which only effect endurability during a long string of fights; not actual capability against strong enemies. Yet, the enemies do keep getting stronger, and the only way you can keep up is by finding better weapons and armor. It wasn't a very good method of grinding. Indeed, it almost discouraged grinding entirely.

For the record, I made it all the way to the final boss, but I've never been able to beat him.

Also I'm not really commenting on grinding here, but the earliest JRPG's started with a number of elements to them. Towns, world maps, random battles, branching caves/mountain paths/etc, dungeons, and so on. The way I always thought of it was that towns were a sanctuary that gave you a place to relax, world maps were something you can explore, and dungeons were challenges to overcome. While some of it you could label a waste of time and could be streamlined, if you go to far in that direction you end up with something like FFXIII - walking in a straight line fighting a carefully allotted number of random battles and sitting back for cut scenes at properly timed intervals. In my opinion that's just as bad as the early genre grinding.

If you're going to go that route, just make a movie or an episodic series.

No one is saying to walk in a straight line, which FFX already did but people loved that anyways.

I didn't. I thought the leveling mechanic was too clunky and annoying, and incidentally, there were non-linear puzzles and dungeons in FFX, so no. It wasn't quite as bad as FFXIII.

In those early JRPGs, you walk ANYWHERE (outside of town) and you have to fight every few steps.

In my experience, it was fairly random in most games. You might walk only six squares, or sixty before being attacked.

I remember in FFVI, you had to fight enemies in a burning house when you are trying to go in there and save people.

Seemed to make sense at the time.

The horrible mechanic of random battles made exploring so time consuming.

Gosh! Going on dangerous adventures is such a pain in the butt! Look, no matter how you implement enemy attacks, it's going to interrupt your exploration timetable. But removing them all doesn't make for an exciting adventure, does it?

Say you want to explore some corner; well, you have to kill enemies on the way there (that's fine), but you also have to fight enemies on the way back (when you just fucking cleared a path).

Better RPGs have a return/teleport/egress/Farore's Wind ability, which lets you return quickly after your exploration.

Unless, you actually got something awesome, it was just a waste of time exploring.

That's what grinding is for. Even if you don't get something awesome, you still got experience (and often money,) and so you didn't waste your time.

I played very few JRPGs because even as a kid, I knew all that shit was just basically Skinner Box techniques (even though I didn't know of the Skinner Box then) to prolong the game and nothing else.

That's just a line people use to insult grinding, without actually having to point out something wrong with it.

And the turn-based battles weren't even very strategic to begin with (as positioning didn't even matter),

Well, that wasn't the way it was in FF4. In that game, you often had to keep the spellcasters in back, to increase their survivability, and fighters in the front, to improve their attack power. In games like, as I said, Shining Force, position mattered even more, since a lot depended on the attack ranges of each character.

1) Training
First, simulation for the sake of completeness sounds nice on paper, but if you stop and think a bit, you will soon realize a whole slew of OTHER things most games omit. For example, not many games simulate bathroom breaks, and with good reason: Because it isn't wanted or necessary in a game.

First, did you actually just compare going to the bathroom to the effort of honest work? That's simply not a valid comparison.

Secondly, yes, I have played games where your character uses the bathroom, and it subtracted nothing from the experience.

Third, just because many games omit one thing, doesn't mean they should also omit a completely different kind of thing, or they'd end up omitting everything.

Fourth, just because many games omit training doesn't mean that training should be omitted. Many games aren't RPGs, and many simply aren't very good, or make big mistakes in design. You can't decide these things with a popularity contest.

If you insist on pushing the art angle, then consider this: over-simulation is just as problematic, because if a game is too much like real life, then it loses focus on what's important.

Like what? What's important, if not the depiction of the world the game is trying to depict?

Second, the notion of "training".
At face value, training could describe two different things:
-i) Player capability
-ii) Character capability

If it's used for player capability, it's not a simulation. I'm only talking about training for the character, though the player can be involved in it.

Good games challenge the players' skill by changing the conditions of test, either directly (tougher jumping puzzles in a platformer), or indirectly (managing dwindling resources, like in an older RPG with random encounters).

Bad games only challenge the players' patience by forcing them to repeat an a test they have already completed an arbitrary number of times under the same conditions.

Right. There's good grinding and bad grinding.

2) Satisfaction of hard work
This also sounds plausible, but again, legitimate challenge (or even a good story) also provide satisfaction, and with much less waste in design.

No. A legitimate challenge is not a form of work, unless it's something that one has been trying (and failing) to accomplish for a good period of time, and there's no sense that one is approaching their goal until they hit it. When they do hit it, it's hit, and then it's over, like instant gratification.

A good story is essential to *any* RPG, but that, by itself, does not make a good game, since many things have good stories, other than games. If you mean, instead, that witnessing story developments is a good replacement for what I'm describing, then I will reply that that also is an instantaneous occurrence, which is had, then ended. It's all just mental or sense experiences that quickly pass away. That's not the same thing as the satisfaction that I was describing, which can only be gotten when effort pays off.

Skinner Psychology (especially when combined with a competitive element) explains the primary reason we allow ourselves to tolerate grind. As a tool-using species, it's instinctive behavior to appreciate and value payoff for effort beyond the immediate situation.

We're more than that. We can apprehend and appreciate the passage of time, and recognize what effect it has on us and on our emotional state, if we observe it impartially. Because of that, it's often not the immediate situation that matters.

However, as someone who has considered and recognized the value of time-efficiency and who can distinguish between necessary and unnecessary work, grind is much less of a benefit in design, and is more of an obstacle.

Why? It's that simple. Appealing to developers won't help, nor appealing to the populace. Those don't prove anything. It's just a popularity contest. Just provide a good reason why I'm wrong about this, and I'll listen and consider it seriously.

 

[Olrod]

Grinding is only good and fun when you don't NEED to do it.

Putting in time and effort to work towards being able to blast through the next few stages in a God-Mode-esque way is very satisfying.

Having to put time and effort in just to be able to survive the next Boss encounter is frustrating and bad game design.

 

[3asytarg3t]

The only thing more pointless than grinding in a game is a thread about it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

First, did you actually just compare going to the bathroom to the effort of honest work? That's simply not a valid comparison.

Out of context dismissal ahoy!

Secondly, yes, I have played games where your character uses the bathroom, and it subtracted nothing from the experience.

But did it add anything to the experience?
If you say "yes", I have nothing else to say except "well enjoy your digital bowel movements".

Third, just because many games omit one thing, doesn't mean they should also omit a completely different kind of thing, or they'd end up omitting everything.

Slippery Slope

Omission of one facet does not imply omission of all, otherwise there would be no game.

Fourth, just because many games omit training doesn't mean that training should be omitted. Many games aren't RPGs, and many simply aren't very good, or make big mistakes in design. You can't decide these things with a popularity contest.

It is a popularity contest, whether you like it or not.
You don't see many TV repair or sheep shagging simulators.

Gaming is a luxury in the free market.
Deal with it.

Like what? What's important, if not the depiction of the world the game is trying to depict?

Like the setting and mechanics.
Of course, there's a limit, as determined by what is or isn't a necessary level of detail for a given production.
Why? Because there's an added burden of cost associated with the added level of detail desired.

If it's used for player capability, it's not a simulation. I'm only talking about training for the character, though the player can be involved in it.

Why should the character care? They aren't real.
If you aren't "training" the player in use of mechanics or rules (or challenging them), then why bother?

Right. There's good grinding and bad grinding.

You had better distinguish then, because until you provide something that does so, there is no such thing as "good grind".
As "grind" specifically refers to "arbitrarily needless repetition".

Super Mario Bros never felt the need to mandate a minimum score to progress to the next level.
I never had to stop and grind points by stomping Koopa Troopas to continue.

Because the primary challenge of that game wasn't the score, it was winning. The score itself in fact was highly irrelevant.

No. A legitimate challenge is not a form of work, unless it's something that one has been trying (and failing) to accomplish for a good period of time, and there's no sense that one is approaching their goal until they hit it. When they do hit it, it's hit, and then it's over, like instant gratification.

Except there is work, or effort involved in everything we do.
In a game, or any creative medium, it's the TYPE of work that dictates the quality of gameplay.

A good story is essential to *any* RPG, but that, by itself, does not make a good game, since many things have good stories, other than games. If you mean, instead, that witnessing story developments is a good replacement for what I'm describing, then I will reply that that also is an instantaneous occurrence, which is had, then ended. It's all just mental or sense experiences that quickly pass away. That's not the same thing as the satisfaction that I was describing, which can only be gotten when effort pays off.

Non-sequitur

Story has absolutely NOTHING to do with grind, as grind is a purely-mechanics centric element.
(even when it's obfuscated by story, as is common in many RPGs)

We're more than that. We can apprehend and appreciate the passage of time, and recognize what effect it has on us and on our emotional state, if we observe it impartially. Because of that, it's often not the immediate situation that matters.

That's true, but true "personal" progress must come from recognizing our changing capabilities as we grow older (better and worse) and experience life. If games aim to emulate that even at its most basic level, mindless repetition and arbitrary time wasting is NOT acceptable.

Why? It's that simple. Appealing to developers won't help, nor appealing to the populace. Those don't prove anything. It's just a popularity contest. Just provide a good reason why I'm wrong about this, and I'll listen and consider it seriously.

Why? How about the fact I am aware that I have a finite amount of time to live and thus have a greater appreciation and value for it?

I'm not going to mince words on this: I am experienced enough to recognize when I'm bored or that my time is being deliberately wasted because of poor design (grind).

I don't want "instant gratification", because without challenge or build up there's no purpose.
But if there's something I want even less than than instant gratification, it's mindless repetition.

It's not easy to make games that accomplish that, but those games do exist, and you better believe I cherish them, because they are becoming rarer every year.