Hmm, I feel a grind should be a player choice. For example, for loot, experience in a good group or perhaps faction. But something static, I.e. grind x mobs for 30 hours to reach some arbitrary target, is a no thanks from me.
For example; I grinded hours in Unrest thanks to the great zone and players. But you wouldn't catch me in SolA.
I needed to grind experience to level but there were a variety of places for me to choose from.
I am ok with something that is a bit of a grind but if you cant grind it out in a focused weekend 30 hours of play. one faction, one step of an epic its too long. Now dailies can die in a fire, not every one wants a 7 day a week part time job. I would prefer no repeatable quest grinds. If there is I dont want them tied to a daily timer. If some one is out of town or works insane long days it should not hinder them from making up that time over the weekend. 10 hours of play should be 10 hours of play. Lets leave daily weekly requierd playing to the Players/Guilds not coded in the game.
Edited to make it more clear.
As long as the world is large enough and there is always something new to see, the experience progression can be slow and still enjoyable. Also, have as many hand crafted quest as you can without making sacrafices to quality, and make a rule that they cannot repeat in each starting area. Even if that means less quest in each area compared to other games, the fact that they are all unique will make it feel like there are more.
I can grind with a great deal of patience. But it isn't my first choice. Which is why I have always advocated for having a lot of quests in the game and not making the game focus on finding camps and killing the same mobs over and over and over for hours or days and then moving on to the next camp to do the exact same thing with other mobs,
My usual caveat - not quests in the "modern" sense of having them an extremely fast way to gain levels and provide a breadcrumb "golden path" of where to go. But quests in the sense of having a reason to do what I do other than amoral and ruthless slaughter of beasts or people for 10xp per kill or 5 copper pieces per drop.
I feel like we first need to define what grind means. I'm sure if you ask 10 people what a grind is, you would get 10 different answers, but this is mine.
To me, it's anytime some activity starts to feel repetitive and boring, regardless of whether or not that activity actually is repetitive. Avoid the boring part and it's no longer a grind.
That said, I do not think everything in an MMO has to NOT be a grind either; it makes the completion of some grinds all that sweeter when there is a good reward at the end. But if the standard is most things are grindy, even with good rewards, then I will probably find it hard to engage with that content for too long, unless there is some social reason to do it with friends and/or a guild.
Dailies are the worst kind of grind while some faction grinds are borderline too much; thinking of Velious faction quests here, where it can take a very long time to get your faction where you need it. So much so that even with a large number of people coming together for non-stop pulling, it can still take many hours and/or days depending on the stamina of the larger group to achieve the desired faction rating.
While this might be a good example of emergent behavior by the general public to come together and overcome said grind in a reasonable amount of time (usually 5ish hrs up to 1 day), it also demonstrates how it could be over the top, if a single group or even solo, it would take you days, possibly weeks or months to achieve the same thing.
It's a difficult thing to balance to be sure, no grinds at all is probably not a good idea, while everything is a grind is probably an even worse idea. I feel like where major grinds sneak into the design, it should generally be aligned with accomplishing very substantial milestones.
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Grinds, whether it be experience, faction or camping drops - how long do think is too long for a grind? How long would you expect to focus on something before giving up? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
'The daily grind' was the boring, repetitious work needed to produce the flour for just 1 days' bread. 'Grind' by its very connotation, makes it a negative, a bad thing.
Most people consider something a grind when the process is not enjoyable or the rewards for the effort is outweighed by that effort and the amount of time required. To try and come to some consensus on what is too long is impossible as the tipping point for each person is very different.
I think I'm more tolerant that most mostly because of how many hours a week I play. What I can accomplish in a week someone else could take a month. So to them 'the grind' is a month long struggle where as I'm done in a week. Sure, we both put in the same amount of in-game time, but my real-time duration is much less and that, I believe, is what people notice most. I heard people say "I've been at this a month" but when you inquire further, they have only spend a handful of in-game hours.
In the end, if VR wants to people to not think of parts of the game as grinds VR needs to think about the process. Faction changes, specifically, should never be successful if you're just killing some NPCs somewhere that you know some other group of NPCs hates. Doing that should give only very limited changes. Instead, to raise faction requires ever more intricate efforts. Say you're a Skar and you really want to be able to go into the city of Thronefast. Just killing thousands of orcs won't do. Sure, it will get you to a point where a specific NPC will talk to you, but not into the zone/city itself. No, instead you have to go through tiers of work, taking you to other zones to perform tasks, eventually even, possibly, going to your own city to kill certain notable NPCs there. At least this way is more interesting.
Raising faction, then, is it's own epic quest. It takes a lot of work, takes you many different places and sometimes you need the help of friends.
I think it totally depends on whether you're talking about a single play session or multiple play sessions.
An exp group should go as long as the players in the group feel up to it. If I'm having a blast I'll stick with it for hours on end, probably even give up some sleep if things are going well!
If it's for faction, I tend to not "grind" faction at all. I'll play the game and whatever faction I earn naturally is typically what I get. I can't think of many examples where I've decided to play specifically to raise my faction with a group more than it naturally would.
If it's for a special drop then I have no probem with insanely high numbers as far as hours spent. 48 hours to get a drop? Sure, that's fine. There's no reason anyone should do all 48 hours at once though. 3, 4, 5, hours in a play session sure. Just do that 12 different days and eventually you'll get what you're going for....and it should feel good once you've done it because you worked for it.
SOLO grinds, I hate. I will not spend ANY time at all grinding anything solo. Daily quests for rep? No. Solo grinding quests to level? No. Solo grinding mobs (think BDO grind)? NO.
Grinding mobs in a group? All day, every day, even on Sunday. I will spend OBSCENE amounts of time grinding mobs mindlessly in groups with friends. In fact, that is what I have been missing in MMOs since the EQ / DAoC days. I WANT to spend a billion hours grouped in a dungeon camping some random named for a 0.000001% drop chance rare item. I YERN for it.
Grinding faction a la EQ style by killing things and such? YES!!! In a great group of cool people I'd spend literal DAYS doing this.
I want to spend days down in a dungeon in groups killing things over and over.
I want the EQ style grind back.
I would grind for weeks for a rare item if it were in a group EQ style.
Solo grinds, 20-30 minutes is the most I will tolerate. It's boring. No.
I generally dont mind grinding as long as there is a clear destination for the grind and every time I turn the handle on the grinder I can see i am getting a little bit closer to my target, this includes:
Levelling Up Parties - Fine as long as the combat is interesting, you can interact with the other players (verbally) and there is character synergy that has a meaningful impact on your combat, it can't be too difficult to co-ordinate either during a 4 or 5 hour EXPing session otherwise its just too tiring to maintain that level of concentration.
Achievements - Do X Thing or Kill X of Y Under Condition Z, I can chip away at these over the course of hours, days or weeks. Months for an achievement for me is usually too long.
Epic Weapons - Two / three months seems good to me, I dont have 12 hours a day for 9 months to spare to get a single weapon any more.
Dailies - They need to be quick, you should not have to spend more than 1 hours to do all your dailies, the lower this number the better as dailies get old very quickly and always end up being a chore you have to complete before you can do whatever it is you actually logged in for that day. I have never logged into a game and gone "wooooo, I get to do my dailies again today!".
I do not like grinding when it is mixed with RNG, when I encounter this I usually just don't do that thing. Two times FFXIV combined grind + RNG included:
When grinding dungeons for relic (epic) weapons there was an RNG chance that a untradable-unique item would be added to your inventory on dunegon exit.
When crafting you had to de-synth weapons (that dropped from various boss monsters) that when de-synth'd had an RNG chance to HQ de-synth and turn into special materials. This special materials were needed for the higher crafting items and you could not level up your crafts beyond a certain point without them.
kellindil said:SOLO grinds, I hate. I will not spend ANY time at all grinding anything solo. Daily quests for rep? No. Solo grinding quests to level? No. Solo grinding mobs (think BDO grind)? NO.
I don't mind solo grinds if I'm working on faction or trying to farm an item.
Only when a grind, is not a grind because the MoB's (Moving Object Blocks, for the longest time I thought it meant 'man or beast') are varied, dynamic, and roaming. As well as have occasional desirable loots and challenging individual mechanics.
I mean travelling, is a grind. In its purest form you set out with your lowbie friends just to get to the next town and the way is frought with peril. It's an overland "crawl". You try to avoid but (not climbing walls or zone edges) pathing through you get aggro, deal with it and move on. It can be exhausting and, depending on RL schedules, all of you will have to camp out- OUTSIDE- in the middle of it all to meet up again the next day, at an agreed time to continue your.....travelling.
And coincidentally pick up exp along the way. Maybe someone has a quest. Maybe you all have different quests gotten at different times and levels and in different cities, but the quests happen to have you all heading "that way" at this time.
I enjoy living in the moment. If I have to work at something repetitive over an extended time I expect a reward and to never have to do it again, or at least for a good long while.
If the labor is shared then it's more enjoyable.
Generally don't mind grinds when I can make measureable progress and the grind is done in a single location/small area. I end up having issues with it when the "grind" is less of a grind and more of a game of high chance and PvP competition is involved.
For example:
I'll sit and grind a rare mob for days/weeks (not in single sittings) either alone or with a group as needed until I get the drop I am after. Like the camps of old EQ: grinding out mobs in between spawns/PH with groups chatting and rolling on drops as the named pops. I have next to no interest/desire/patience for this same thing if I have to be in competition to claim the named spawn vs other players/groups, as often the gameplay changes entirely to sitting around with itchy trigger fingers in a standoff with others trying to claim the mob first. There is little time to actually sit around pulling mobs/exping/etc. Can't stand that sort of standoff "grind."
I don't mind a bit of grinding, in fact sometimes the repetitive nature of it can be something to calm my brain after a busy day. Maybe while watching a video on the other monitor.
In original EQ, LGuk on the CT server, there would usually be a list to get into the frenzy camp where the 21% haste "Flowing back silk sash" dropped. Once in the group, the person who had been in the group the longest without a FBSS would have loot rights for the next drop. The first weekend I attempted, I think it took me 36 hours or so before someone accidentally dug through the telephone cable, leaving me with no internet connection and no FBSS. A weekend a few weeks later I was at it again, moving up in line in the group before finally getting the FBSS, spending about the same amount of hours as the previous session.
Today I would no longer be able to repeat that feat, but it felt strangely satisfying back then to eventually loot the FBSS.
I don't mind if there is loot or achievements which requires an insame amount of endurance to achieve, I would simply admire those folks for their dedication.
The bad part about repetitive actions though is that it is human nature to find a way to automate it, and thereby cheating.
Grinds are the most important aspect of any MMO. People will pretend the grinds are horrible but that is because they want to hit their goal even on a limited time table. Don't let the cries of the masses not even knowing what they want mislead you. The second you take away the grind the same masses will abandon you.
People want to hit max level if there is a level cap.
People want to colelct all the mastery points if they can.
People want to get their "end game" set of gear.
People want to accomplish their goals and with MMOs those goals are the tropes I came here to avoid.
People want impossibly endless content. Lowering the bar on the goals simply gives you more disapointed customers.
I don't want weekly MMO raid farm to create a conveyer belt of easy top tier loot.
I don't want the fast MMO rush to end game.
I don't want the instant character resets wiping out progression choices to flip to the FOTM.
I want to play for years and never make my goals in full. Expansions shifting or resetting the old goal posts keeping them out of reach. If you give me everything I want I will quit. I will have no more goals to accomplish. I have time and time again from one MMO to the next. Max level with BIS everything after 3 weeks? Well time to quit.
The old world MMOs were a grind and that aspect of the game has a huge draw. I want the slow burn MMO of old. VR had the goal of building a world, I hope that still is the core of your game.
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Grinds, whether it be experience, faction or camping drops - how long do think is too long for a grind? How long would you expect to focus on something before giving up? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
If you're looking for actual timeframes, I don't think I have hard numbers. However, I can give you my thought process towards reaching "acecptable" versus "won't bother".
I think it depends on the goal, what else you have to do with your time, and the amount of downtime during the grind. I'd expect the longer the grind, the better the reward. I'm paying for that reward with my time and effort. If it's an item, is it more worth it to pay for the item and avoid the long grind time (is that even possible or is the item nodrop)?
If it's faction, what rewards can I get from that faction? I think interesting vanity rewards would tempt me into the grind and keep me there longer. The more cool rewards, the more patience I'd be willing to give to it. Requiring a faction grind for a piece of gear that's a legitimate upgrade would annoy me much faster, though. A practical reward I'd put up with any amount of grinding: permanent increase in how much gold vendors give me for what I sell them. Another factor in how long I'm willing to faction grind: how many factions do I have to do this grind with again?
For both of the above: do I need a group to do it? If so, I think I wouldn't be willing to spend as much time on the grind. If it's solo-able with okay downtime I'd be more willing to spend more time on it, as I can do the dishes, fold laundry, etcetera during downtime.
If it's for experience, that's expected. The biggest consideration is do I have a good group of people to do it with? Community is everything here!
All that being said, I'm a completionist. Must put a check in every box!
Examples from other games:
I intensely disliked the tower in Division 2. 100 floors of grinding for targeted loot and that was it. If you reached the top, you got a special loot the first time then every following time nothing special. But it was the only way in the game to reliably choose what targeted loot you wanted whenever you had time to grind it. New gear set comes into the game? Go to the tower to grind it out.
In WoW there were a lot of factions that had cool stuff that I'd like to get. But it took so long to max my faction in each one. Taking time to get to all of them? Yea, that wasn't going to happen. So why bother even trying in the first place?
Not a traditional grind, but the shinies in EQ2: oh my gosh I loved those. I could grind for those all day.
Grinding the materials for a craftable set of gear that's an upgrade? Worth it. But if I had to spend that same amount of time grinding materials for a quest turn in, it devalues quest.
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Grinds, whether it be experience, faction or camping drops - how long do think is too long for a grind? How long would you expect to focus on something before giving up? #MMORPG #CommunityMatters
It's disheartening when the grind updates increase exponentionally. In most cases I'll lose interest and occasionally return to that part.
As long as i'm advancing at the same pace or around the initial pace, i'll be encouraged to continue doing the repetitions. If grinding entails me standing around doing nothing, then I will not be doing that often. I'm "buying" into the game to be entertained or at the very least occuppied with something. It doesn't have to be overly complex, just as long as it's not just standing still/sitting around waiting.
A dull grind to me is, where I need to do something that doesn't progress my character, but i have to push through it, time and time again, in order to get to something else. I find a lot of resistance within me when I'm experiencing such content. It's one of those things I won't keep up doing for long.
Faction grinds can be ok, as long as they do not follow each other up that quickly. So not one after the other. But at different stages throughout the game is fine.
Experience should never be perceived as a grind, experience is a side effect of enjoying the content and participating in the world. If possible there should never be a focus on grinding experience. (perhaps even design it as such that experience grinding is not possible, or at least not to a high/fast ratio). Pantheon for me, is not a game where earning experience is the lifestyle choice, it's just not meant to be played that way and possibly you wouldn't enjoy it if you did try to play in such a manner. There are many aspects in the game already that just don't stimulate fastpace grinding of experience. (or that is my perception at least)
Camping drop grinds: if you have to repeatably camp the same drop/mob well perhaps that's more a shortcoming of the design. And not so much a playerchoice. I'm a firm believer that these things can be approached differently where camping drops is spread out more flexible within a region instead of just 1 mob.
Grinds are important because they allow you to turn off for a bit. Even in a more challenging game, where every grind comes with serious risk to your character's well being, you can fall into the routine and enjoy it.
Real life is this way too. Even if life is hard there are times where you can fall into a routine and give your willpower some rest, and times that are more stimulating.
If "you're in our world now" is important to you as a game developer, I think it is a good idea to fill your game with both stimulating and grindy activities so players don't need to have different games to fulfill this need.
So I'd say the time I spend grinding is directly proportionate to the time I spend getting mentally stimulated. I switch inbetween simple farming games, and more "there might be a lion around the corner" games all the time.
Rather than worrying about specifics, I'd say make both grinding, and more stimulating, exploration based gameplay, somewhat optional and about equal so everyone can manage their own unique needs for both types of gaming experiences.
Barin999 said:A dull grind to me is, where I need to do something that doesn't progress my character, but i have to push through it, time and time again, in order to get to something else. I find a lot of resistance within me when I'm experiencing such content. It's one of those things I won't keep up doing for long.
You say it doesn't progress your character but that is opposite of what grinding is. Grinding is all aobut progressing your character. All of the examples you listed, factions, experience, and loot are all about character progression.
There are time sinks in games that are not about progressing your character, but every grind should have a clear goal and progress for your character.
Something like needing 45 minutes to travel around the world is not a grind, but a time sink.
Grinds are a natural part of MMOs.
I am happy to interact with a grind provided:
1. I can choose when and how to interact with it.
2. I don't feel forced to complete the grind ASAP.
3. The grind has fairly reasonable RNG depending on the type of grind.
4. I am not replacing an item with the same item only at a higher item level. (Wow's mythic + system/ New World's entier gearing system).
As for how long I am willing to interact with a grind, it depends. I typically don't mind long grinds as long as I have some control over them. Long reputation grinds are fine provided I can do turn-ins or reputation farming on my own time (no daily quests). As for gear, I don't mind spending a decent chunk of time trying to farm a BIS with a low RNG chance.