Is Grinding bad game design?

[Wittymations]

Lately I've been playing Star Wars Galaxies Emulator (Swgemu) which is unsurprisingly an emulated version of the retired real mmo. It can be a lot of fun, but sometimes quite the pain. One aspect of it is the huge demand for grinding. I don't play a lot of mmos, I didn't play World of Warcraft, I don't play Destiny. Perhaps grinding is a huge part of mmos in general. But grinding isn't limited to just online games, it's a part of others like RPGs

Grinding is the repetition of tasks to reach a goal, often a level, skill, or weapon. This can be kiling certain enemies over and over or crafting the same item all to gain xp.

Lot of people view this as mind numbingly boring. Some can enjoy it. There's different arguments for it and against it. Ranging from it destroying the fun in the game as unneeded fluff to that it's a good way to make your reward sweeter.

So, you guys feel like grinding is good or bad for games?

Myself, I'm a bit on the fence. It may be needed for online games for sake of balance, but sometimes in single-player it's just "ugh." I don't mind a little bit of grinding, but there are times I feel they're taking it too far.

Also I never make topics.

[Spin Attaxx]

Yes.

 

It's one reason why I gave up Pokémon for a long time - the prospect of having to tediously stay in one area and repetitively fight the same stuff again and again and again just to boost some numbers to make the beef gates fall quicker when in other games I could just go and do it... it's a pretty big problem, and it's why RPGs aren't one of my favourite games to play.

[Solkia]

It depends on the game and how it's handled.

 

A game like Conquer 2.0 handles it fucking horribly because you'll be spending days upon days trying to just get hallf the exp you need for 1 level.

 

Tales of the Abyss does Grinding right because you never really need to grind at all, but is an option if you want to.

[Lady Soniko]

Yes, unless the grinding is fun to begin with (ladies)

 

But in most cases grinding is awful, it's awful in the Soul's games where farming enemies and resetting them with a bonfire every time you're trying to scrape enough souls together for items and level ups. Grinding in games like SA2 to pick up animals and chaos drives to boost a Chao's attributes so they can perform well enough in a certai Chao mini game etc.

 

I can't think of a particular moment where grinding is fun unless it's stupidly satisfying or rewarding, but even then the level of grinding in games like that heavily depend too, for instance Hyrule Warriors is a game where grinding is it's main meat of the game, you can't beat it unless you're a certain level to tackle the level's powered up enemies, grinding is fun and ridiculously satisfying as you cut through hordes of enemies until you realize... there's 20+ characters that can be levelled up to lvl.200, and the rest of the cast don't scale with you as you level up, which means YOU need to put in over 100+ hours of your own time, repeating levels over and over to level up each warrior. This is especially bad because it's a necessity to clear the game to get special rewards, some levels/missions are LOCKED to specific characters and you need to be of a decent level with that character to pick up the rewards the game offers you for clearing that mission, ergo if you've spent the entire game playing as Link mostly, then when you're expected to do a hard mission with Agitha who has barely breached level 20, then it becomes a whole different problem.

 

Another way it's done badly is, you can spend rupees to bypass grinding with said character to automatically boost their level, but it is COSTLY to the point of you'll end up grinding levels anyway to grind for MORE rupees to level a character up.

 

After 3 months of on and off play with HW, I am so burned out from grinding that I won't be touching the game for a very long time.

[Tara]

Prior to the server wipe, I had a topic on here about the merits of repeated stages in games and asked if there was ever a situation in which it would actually be preferable or enjoyable.

 

The common consensus was repeating stages wasn't fun and is never good design.  I think the same thing probably applies here.  Repetition is generally not fun in games, but in some circumstances, it can be tolerated. (Such as when replaying old stages comes with actual incentive)  I've always wanted to be one of those people who IV train their Pokémon and have really high, competitive battle stats, but even though I've been playing Pokémon since Red and Blue, I just haven't and probably never will develop the tolerance and commitment it takes to do that.

 

I'm, of course, referring strictly to mandatory grinding, not optional grinding or when the game is easy enough to progress without it.

[Silencer226]

I think grinding can be a rewarding experience to have in a game. Working towards getting that uber weapon that completely ahnihilates everything in your way or just getting strong enough to defeat a foe who's been kicking your ass (to an extent of course) is a pretty good feeling.  

 

On the dark side tho, if grinding is made to be stupid hard/long... (shutup) it can be pretty bad. Like if you are playing a game with a dumbass difficulty spike that forces you to grind.

[Lady Soniko]

Also I forgot about the nightmare that was grinding in Unleashed HD for the Werehog.

 

 

Never again.

[Silencer226]

Also I forgot about the nightmare that was grinding in Unleashed HD for the Werehog.

 

 

Never again.

...Oh yes, this is an example of bad game design.

[Gregzilla]

I was getting ready to say "grinding is one of the worst things in gaming EVER" but the more I thought about it, there are some games where grinding is tolerable.  Generally I find it okay when it's optional AND you can find interesting ways to do it.

 

For instance, if I feel like I want to get some more levels before moving on in the main story, I enjoy exploring areas I haven't seen before that were optional.  Like, there are side areas you can skip if you want but you can go through them to get more experience.  As long as it can find ways to keep it fresh then it's okay.

 

But that's the big hole RPGs often fall into.  Often times they're just content with saying "you aren't powerful enough to move on, go fight more boars until you're ready."  THAT is one of the worst things in gaming to me, and it's why I really can't stand a lot of RPGs.  When a game requires you to be stronger than you currently are, and the only way to do so is to go back to areas you've already been to, that's usually the point where the game goes on my shit list.  Repetition is almost never a good thing in games.

[Lady Soniko]

Grinding should be optional and not a necessity to progress in a game, that's how I feel.

 

You can grind to become more powerful, but you should be powerful enough to get by without having to set too much time aside for the sake of passing a certain part of the game.

[Solkia]

Grinding with the werehog wasn't hard. Span Rooftop Run Day and buy a shit load of Chillidogs with the rings you get. Maxed everything in less than an hour.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I'll be honest, I almost thought this was about rail grinding from Sonic games before I looked at it more closely.

 

IMO, Grinding works best when it's something the player CHOOSES to do, rather than something they absolutely MUST do.

[Lady Soniko]

Grinding with the werehog wasn't hard. Span Rooftop Run Day and buy a shit load of Chillidogs with the rings you get. Maxed everything in less than an hour.

 

It was necessary to make head way in his later stages.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

The concept of grinding is to both extend/pad out game content as well as provide a long-term goal to a player. At least, that's what it is to me. But that's not fundamentally smart game design. You want players to throughly enjoy the game and be able to advance through without having to consistently grind. Offer alternatives or more entertaining ways to advance through or improve. Monster Hunter has grinding in it, but the way the game's mechanics set up it allows the grinding to feel natural at your own pace. The game doesn't go to a grinding halt because you have to go farm out that material, at least most of the time. Grinding is at it's worse when it makes players feel like they A: will never be able to acheieve such a goal at first  B:Have to forcefully stop playing the game's main story or most enjoyable parts in order to constantly grind.

[Pelly <3's U]

I love grinding, but I also grew up somewhat on games such as text based adventure ones (push the toilet!? How was I supposed to know I needed to push the /fucking/ toilet to get the secret entrance to the whorehouse) and olllld school RPGs (think getting out graph paper to map and looking up what every weapon/enemy/item/spell does in a separate manual). I guess it made me kind of a sucker for tedious, unrewarding, and worklike aspects of games. Even now I love simulation games where I need a separate excel spreadsheet and a business plan to make sure I don't go under and beads of sweat drop down my face as I'm having a panic attack about paying bills. 

 

I actually think grinding is a somewhat dated mechanic and probably not very relevant in todays modern setting, but I have a soft spot in my heart for monotonous drudgery that makes gaming more like work!

 

Edit: Actually I thought of something I hate which is when games put an artificial cap on your ability to grind such as 'ohh you need to reach this story point to unlock the ability to use this power' Motherfucker, if I want to spend 60 hours grinding my characters up for no reason I should be able to steamroll through the game like a boss as a reward.

[LATER BUDDY]

Yes...but I'll admit that I'm not really appalled by it.

 

At heart I have a biiiig spot for games with stats and numbers and that whole pizzazz. I like the math of things and the concept of it all of getting better statistically, and ultimately in these types of games it boils down to RPGs and grinding.

 

There's some shit grinding, like uber shit grinding, and it's strange because some games are huuuuuge offenders while others aren't really that bad, but I can find myself tableflipping a game of the latter, and playing months and months of the former just fine. Case in point, I played Destiny for an embarrassingly long period of time, and if I didn't have every goddamn thing I'd probably still be playing it every week (waiting for the DLC to drop lmao). I'm perfectly find admitting it's garbage because at it's core, it really is garbage thanks to it's grinding. The hook though is that the entire fucking game is based on RNG drops. /Everything/

 

And that's the catch that you find yourself in an addiction. Mixed with timed event windows, it suddenly becomes fun in much of the sense of a gambler's addiction. The new weekly refresh is here and you have one shot at beating this mission you've done 8549032 times over with some bullshit modifiers in chance to get a super shiny weapon or armor piece. You finally get it, go shoot some stuffs and grind to level it up and once it's there, you realize that you just want the next thing like a spoiled brat.

 

There's that time in every RPG thing where it suddenly hits me hard that I stop and think "...why am I doing this anymore." It's a point near end game where I realize a lot of the grind addiction is simply to get the next big shiny thing, and when the big shiny things start to run slim or even repetitive in the nature of receiving them, you then realize that you're a dunce haha. But hey the next big RPG comes around the corner and suddenly you're back at it again.

 

In nature, that's the fun of it all. You play games because you want to succeed and win and get all the coolest loot and gear along the way, and that's totally fine. I think grinding becomes a problem when suddenly it's blurring the game's goal for you in where the chase is purposely prolonged and over complicated just to keep you in the chase, because said design of actually having the gear isn't all that satisfying. Grinding is fun and worth it if the act of grinding is fun AS WELL as the reward. When a game can give you both, I feel like it's fantastic game design. I feel like Dark Souls is a great example because the game is based on risk and reward and punishes you harshly for your mistake, and in turn can make you lose progress in your grind for more currency to spend on weapons and armor and stats. The gameplay is completely solid that fighting feels like a reward, so in turn obtaining higher power in stats/weapons/armor feels satisfying and calling you back for more.

 

----

 

An argument for this is that while that can all be fine and dandy, actual game world and enemy repetitiveness can harm even the most polished grind and reward system, and I totally agree with that. There's nothing more fucking boring than that 1 am in the morning, actually falling asleep feeling because another random encounter halted you, and it's filled with the same annoying/easy/overly difficult/generally uninteresting design enemies you've been seeing the past hour kinda feeling. It's a lot to ask to keep the player entertained every 10 seconds of gameplay with something new and exciting, but game designers definitely shouldn't stick with the stale old "that bad guy" by lazily changing their color pallet or giving them a scythe instead of a pitchfork kinda deal. Invent ways to keep your creations reusable and fresh. Take Bloodborne. Those dull ass villagers that plague a lot of the early game for what seems to be forever. Yeah maybe some of them get more wolf-like later and get stronger, but maybe make them that when in a group, suddenly they're more coordinated and offering new attacks and opportunities for you to strategize against them as if the group is considered a new enemy itself, instead of just rushing a bunch at you with each of them acting independently. Pulled this out of my ass so that could be faulty but you know, just think of new twists like that.

 

Like I said at the start though, while there's some definite bullshit going on in games with grinding, I guess it's just so ingrained in games that I tend to not give it a second though and don't really mind it that much. Not saying that's ok to do, and that designers should work on ways to prolong their game more legitimately than that, but at the end of the day I guess I'm still having fun with most games with grindy elements to them *shrugs*. I mean I'm typing this when I'm currently playing a juggling act of Skies of Arcadia: Legends, Bloodborne, and Torchlight 2 hahaha.

[Diogenes]

It's the worst. Rather than actually pacing a game's content properly, they waste your time forcing you to repeat things you've already done until you reach whatever arbitrary level is equal to the next round of enemies. What is even the point of that? I'm not getting any fun out of fighting the same enemies 100 times. Even if it's not so simple that I'm just mindlessly mashing basic attack, I've still surely "solved" the battle after the first few times, and I'm just spamming that strategy. Why not just make the boss or the next group of enemies balanced to whatever level you expect me to be when I can reach them? Are you trying to test my understanding of the battle system or how much patience I have for stabbing rats?

EXP/leveling as a whole is just such a sloppy way to pace a game. Avoid too many fights and it's fuck you, you literally can't beat this boss right now, go back and punch all the giant spiders you skipped. Grind too much and you don't even have to bother with strategy, you've paid your way out of having to actually learn and think about the game and the price was your free time.

And y'know, there are so many people who whine and moan about things like the super guide "ruining games", and I wonder how many of them would consider wasting an afternoon on a virtual murder spree so you can beat down a boss with raw numbers rather than proper strategy perfectly good design.

Anyway, it's not like there aren't other ways to pace out upgrades. Like, what if you only leveled up by beating bosses? One level per boss, with that one level being equivalent to the kind of stat growth a traditional system would give you over the course of that "chapter" of the game. And everything in the next chapter would be balanced against this known level/stats/movepool. Or they can break it up across other mandatory events. Get to the part of the story where you save a dojo from bandits, and they train you as a reward, boosting your attack stat and teaching you a new special move. Or you solve a puzzle in a dungeon that both opens the way forward and reveals a treasure chest, with a scroll that teaches your mage a new spell. And there are probably better ways to do it, but it feels like other ways have barely even been explored, because RPGs have basically defined themselves by this lazy, broken system.

[MegasonicZX]

It was necessary to make head way in his later stages.

Not necessarily, sure some of the enemies took more of a beating without the extra strength but if you knew what you were doing you could beat them without the extra stats (well unless you didn't upgrade strength then yeah your probably right since the enemies later on can take forever to kill without the proper amount).

[Kuzu]

I feel like its a culture divide honestly, most JRPG's(which I'm assuming we're referring to here) are grinding intensive because they're a lot more patient for that type of shit. Us however have lives and we like to get shit done as fast as possible and as quick as possible.

 

 

 

As for me....it really depends on the game; In fighting games, its more about grinding your skill set and touching up on your experience, which I don't because its better myself as a player for future endeavors. It helps you expand your thinking more and you get a greater appreciation out of the game for it. Its the rewarding type of grinding I love.

 

 

RPG grinding is really not my cup of tea, I'd rather be able to beat the game at my own pace than having to grind just to be able to beat one boss. Its not fun, there's no reward, and its tedious as fucking sin. If there's no reward for my grinding aside from getting to a higher level, I'm gonna hate it. Its why I take so long to beat certain RPG's, I get to a point when I have to grind and then my enthusiasm just dies. On the flipside though, if you're overlevelled, the game becomes a joke.

[Captain Fun]

Grinding is the repetition of tasks to reach a goal, often a level, skill, or weapon. This can be kiling certain enemies over and over or crafting the same item all to gain xp.

This is essentially what the Borderlands games are about. Always getting to a higher level or better weapons. You grind and you become overpowered. This kind of thing is a chore in singleplayer but I think with Borderlands it's fun in multiplayer, just bullshitting with friends while you play. It can be addictive. 

 

I can't tell if that's actually good game design or just proof that I'll play anything with co-op. Probably the latter.

[StaticMania]

Grinding is bad game design by virtue of just being one of the different types of padding, padding...which is never really a thing players like dealing with and is always regarded as negative.

 

If you can describe grinding as padding, that means it's mandatory and unless there are ways to do away with the tedium of grinding, it's going to always be a bad time.

 

Grinding is only acceptable when it's optional for a leveling up system.

[Autosaver]

I liked Xenoblade's approach. The game gave you so much xp you really never needed to grind. If you were having trouble, it was an option but it's not really necessary.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Guild Wars 2 is also a good example of flow and great pacing when it comes to leveling. It's arguably one of the best things about the game. It follows a lot of what Xenoblade does but it finds so many ways to reward you for doing all sorts of different actions and events. It also avoids the pitfalls of XP/loot stealing that other MMOs suffer and benefit you for working with other players even in things as simple as a simple escort quest.

[Solkia]

I wouldn't use Guild Wars 2 as a good example of level grinding. If you don't know the tricks then maxing your level will be a nightmare.

 

I dropped that game entirely because of how unexplanitory it was.

[SuperStingray]

I like grinding when it's intermittent and makes progress feel tangible.  I think it's best implemented in Dark Souls (or more recently Bloodborne) because grinding gives you an excuse to go back to early environments in the game and see how much stronger you've grown by fighting early enemies.