Brad-
Wow I can see you and your team are putting a lot of thought and heart into this very imortant game feature. Great post, as it all describes multiple games that had pieces of the good and bad you described.
I love a game that makes you think about what you want to do next day you play, as you lay in bed at night. It could be a multitude of things that cause these thoughts. But in its simplest of terms, it usually comes down to something your character is involved with that is being solved by bits and pieces, little bit at a time, and usually involving many different areas. The end result is usually something of benefit to the character which comes in ALL kinds of forms (weapons, skills, armor, mounts, spells, unique items, faction, status or appearance, progression, on and on... It is funny, it has nothing to do with what level you are or "grinding" to get to the next level.
So in a nutshell, the most fun I have encountered, with numerous memories, have been situations of seeking or earning something for my character or helping someone else to achieve theirs. It often results in a very social situation, friendships or teamwork.
Another form of "Grinding" which I love... Rare drops, rare mobs, are some of the most dynamic things a game can offer in my opinion. Knowing you have to put time in to discover a "special" piece or item needed to better yourself, quest or advance, really makes it worth the "grind" of doing so. There is a payoff other than a slow exp gain. EQ was amazing this way, yet I really believe the rare mobs should have a bigger potential area to spawn, so that a group cannot "claim" it as theirs. Also, if a mob is rare and also drops a rare item, one of these needs to be adjusted so it does not take a potentially outrageuous time period to achieve it. Just some tweaks to old system... great stuff though.
Grinding is completely in the mind of the person who thinks they're grinding.
When someone sets their goal on obtaining something, whether an item, a level, a skill, or anything else, and choose do nothing but chase it, to me is grinding. It doesn't matter if it takes you a week or month or a year. From the time you start to the time you end you are 'grinding'.
So, I don't really have much sympathy for people who don't like grinding since I believe it's self-induced. I don't care how long leveling takes me because if I get bored I will do something else. I'd rather the game have a healthy challenge and a 'great filter' of longer leveling at the expense of someone not wanting to play because they think they will be "grinding" levels.
Duffy said:For me it depends on the kind of grind. I like faction grind or xp grind, and I could just kill mobs for hours. What I absolut dread is quest grinding: going from questhub to questhub and working through the quests there, then moving to next hub and rinse repeat. The horror for me.
I agree with this... questing should be deep lore driven epicness... Not collect 5 of this 10 of that blah blah blah blah... Also make the quests vague with no !, dots on a map, or shiney trails to follow. Give general directions like...
There have been rumors of a great and power mage that went crazy killing everything in site wondering the dark forest, south of the great tree. He was said to know the location to blah blah blah...
It makes you go explore and learn the land etc etc. I'm sure there are others here who feel the same way.
Niien said:Duffy said:For me it depends on the kind of grind. I like faction grind or xp grind, and I could just kill mobs for hours. What I absolut dread is quest grinding: going from questhub to questhub and working through the quests there, then moving to next hub and rinse repeat. The horror for me.
I agree with this... questing should be deep lore driven epicness... Not collect 5 of this 10 of that blah blah blah blah... Also make the quests vague with no !, dots on a map, or shiney trails to follow. Give general directions like...
There have been rumors of a great and power mage that went crazy killing everything in site wondering the dark forest, south of the great tree. He was said to know the location to blah blah blah...
It makes you go explore and learn the land etc etc. I'm sure there are others here who feel the same way.
Yep, we like it :) Good description of the direction we're heading.
Aradune said:But as I try to bring this post to a close and bring us back to the OP, we have a responsibility to make sure that however many advancement paths there are, that they are interesting and varied. That it doesn't feel overly repetitive or familiar... that it's not too grindy. That and we also need to do our best to avoid situations where a more boring and less fun path is not also the more efficient -- again, players should not find themselves compelled to choose a more efficient but less fun route over a less efficient but more varied and fun route.
In the early MMOs there was a lot of grinding. I've attempted to explain why but also to say that, regardless of reason, we should do our best to avoid it. The good news is that we know a lot more now. We know better how to identify gameplay that is too repetitive and, hopefully, how to tweak that gameplay and make it more interesting and compelling. We know now that many players will choose having less fun in the short term if they believe it will get them to more fun in the future. And we have better tools that should aid us in creating not just a greater quantity of content, but also better quality as well. And so, while Pantheon is certainly a game heavily inspired by the 'older school' MMOs, we are not just re-creating an old-style MMO in a modern setting. We are picking and choosing game mechanics and features, and doing it carefully. As great as some of the earlier MMOs were, they all had flaws and issues as well. As much as we learned what worked and what we'd like to see brought back to the MMO genre, we also saw what didn't work, what was unnecessary, what was tedious and repetitive. And so as much as we are building on a foundation of what worked, we are also, just as importantly, not bringing back the flaws and errors of the past. We're picking and choosing, and then building a lot of new, hopefully genre evolving features and mechanics, on top of that foundation.
As usual, I took advantage of the original topic (in this case grinding) and tried not only to simply address that issue but use it as a gateway and opportunity to bring up other related issues, other bigger issues, and share with you more and more of our philosophy as well as how we are approaching building Pantheon. It makes for a longer read (sorry) but it seems more satisfying then just answering in one sentence: "With Pantheon, we will do our best to avoid overly repetitive or tedious game mechanics which often leads to what many players refer to as 'bad' grinding". And that's because the OP really hit on something much bigger that is always a challenge when developing an MMO: having different ways to advance your character is good. Creating interesting environments, stories, settings, etc. to make character advancement more fun and less tedious is good. Moving players around an interesting world in order to advance is good. Taking short cuts and introducing repetitive gameplay is bad. Band-aids are bad. Slowing character advancement, when necessary, needs to be done with care and a real effort to avoid the grind.
So that’s it – that’s my take on repetition and tedium and our goal to avoid it whenever possible in Pantheon. We definitely believe that we can bring challenge, cooperation, community, class interdependence, etc. back to MMOs without also dragging in un-fun and unnecessary grinding.
Good Read, thanks Brad and everyone else for posting such interesting feedback, glad to see it
Just hate that it took so long to learn all this, maybe next time we can turn the learning curve down and get more games out sooner?? :)
My take on grinding is it is great as long as it can offer more excitment / danger than just leveling up. If I have to grind the same group of 20 mobs over and over and over I do not like it. Just ideas to spice it up.
1. Keep loot tables hidden and have odds of extremely rare items / cool stuff. If gridning on mobs for 6 hours to level up held a chance of a super rare or cool item it would make it more exciting. (Again please hide loot tables [obviously this will get compiled eventually])
2. Make the grind dangerous- Gridning on the same 20 mobs over and over would be a lot more exciting if the groups were randomized. Maybe 5 come this time maybe all 15 come next time because Joe Orc happened to spawn in there and did a call to everyone) Lots of random enemies / chances of rares and bosses. Maybe because we killed 500 orcs King Orc comes around back and tries to backstab us.
3. Collect X items for X scenario. Make them drop keys or tokens or parts of a puzzle. When Combined something special happens!
4. Wandering enemies. This is pretty much already a given but instead of just 1 path for enemies give them a random path. Maybe Orc King Bob goes this path today and he decided to walk X path tomorrow. Oh crap a wandering group of enemies is coming right up to us never seen them before!
5. Randomized packs. 2 Wizard and a Warrior now maybe 3 Wizards on the next spawn or 2 Clerics and a Warrior.
6. Varying AI Tactical Okay guys give the tank 10 seconds to get aggro okay go nuke. Well maybe the tank has his aggro and the cleric heals and they are like WTF he was almost dead and they went onto the healer or look oh no their wizard is casting AOE Flame of doom lets whack him to interupt and get back on the tank. (each enemy can have 20+ tactics pre set and have them rotated)
Kilsin said:A dreaded word to some but music to others' ears, what are your thoughts on grinding any type of content in MMORPGs? :)
Grinding is fine when it is a choice but not so much when you are forced to do so. Example would be SOD in Vanguard. If you wanted to progress you had no choice but to grind there and it was not the most enjoyable part of the game. I personally like doing a dungeon grind, like Darguns Tomb. Lots of bosses to kill with the chance for good loot gave me motivation and I have always loved running dungeons. The bigger the dungeon the better.
Dullahan said:In my opinion, grinding was dubbed as such by players who wanted achievements faster and with less effort. All grinding really is, is work. Its a necessary component to any activity if it is to feel at all realistic and provide players with a sense of accomplishment.
We are playing a video game, and as such, it can be coded to reward us for simply logging in. Its that easy. That just isn't rewarding for most people. Two things occur when the "grind" is removed or reduced: 1) players either don't play because it doesn't feel worthwhile or 2) they play and enjoy the game briefly, but then run out of things to achieve. The latter then places the burden on the developers to create new content every few months as can be seen in most modern MMOs that cannot maintain a steady playerbase.
The key is to somehow make the work seem fun and not just repetitive. A large and varied world helps a ton with this. It doesnt feel so much like work when you can choose to grind in 100 places instead of just 1.
For me it's only a grind if there is no challenge. Clearing the same orc village for the 100th time if it was so easy it required no concentration or skill? Hell. Wiping that village 100 times while honing my class skill and working out optimum group tactics and skating the edge of death to maximise kills per minute? Great.
I prefer grind as primary means of leveling because then it leaves quests to be just that quests. Not tasks. Bring me 5 rat tails, 5 skeleton jaws, and a beetle shell is a shopping list. Not something that you would actually go on a quest to find. I think with the rise of EverQuest and then WoW it brought the term into the collective consciousness on a level that made it lose it's meaning. At least for games. Anything above newbie armor level should be requiring traversing of multiple zones/areas and the taking of items from pretty mean guys. After all, if it's worth having for a quest giver(Code of Zan Fi for example) then it's going to be pretty tough to find.
It might upset people who like to grind but... could there be a law of diminishing returns maybe? After you've killed 100 Orc Grunts maybe you don't get XP for them anymore? You can still farm that rare item, but you won't level up from just staying where you are...
I hope people don't mind me 'thinking out loud' in my posts... I do do it a fair amount - Hopefully if it's on-topic it's still valid/useful :)
disposalist said:It might upset people who like to grind but... could there be a law of diminishing returns maybe? After you've killed 100 Orc Grunts maybe you don't get XP for them anymore? You can still farm that rare item, but you won't level up from just staying where you are...
Or diminishing returns if you killed 100 orcs in the same area (or areas within close proximity). Make XP farmers explore a little more.
I am starting to wonder if game developers in general are just not thinking about content. If the game environment is rich and there are tons of things to do be it crafting, leveling, raiding or good old dungeon running the term “grind” should never be heard. Is this a problem of the game or the players? I have experienced my share of grinds while playing but in most cases I never looked at it that way. From my point of view, it was a long term goal to get to whatever level or get “x” number of fish or even mob kills. The scope has to be large and the process has to be engaging at every level.
Grabbed a random definition real fast:
Definition - What does Grinding mean?
Grinding refers to the playing time spent doing repetitive tasks within a game to unlock a particular game item or to build the experience needed to progress smoothly through the game. Grinding most commonly involves killing the same set of opponents over and over in order to gain experience points or gold. Although other game genres require some grinding, role-playing games (RPG) – specifically massively multiplayer online role-playing games – are the most notorious for requiring this type of time investment from players. A game level at which a lot of grinding is required may be called a treadmill level.
Techopedia explains Grinding
Requiring that players grind out experience points by fighting the same opponents over and over seems to run contrary to good game design. However, there are two elements to grinding that have made its inclusion inevitable in almost every RPG. These are:
Grinding can be tedious, but it gives players a reason to keep playing rather than giving up and walking away.
Is the trend of players to demand to get to the top level content as fast as possible without earning it? If they don’t get what they want call it a grind or other terms? I can list several MMO’s that have fostered this mentality. Now there are hordes of players like this.
How does one change this definition and them thought process behind it? I will say it comes down to content. If content is deep and method it is deployed is key.
With Pantheon I am hoping that the lore and content will create the base for a immersive and gaming convention that changes this mentality. I think the Dev’s have made it pretty clear this won’t be a hand holding, pampering care bear sort of game. It’s a breath of fresh air in my opinion. If there are lengthy quest paths and crafting chains so be it. It makes for a better gaming experience in the long run. Now, see how I did that? I changed out the word grind with lengthy. This is how it begins. Change the language and then the dynamic of the game.
Ox steps off the soap box…
Love grinding with any and all of my classes I’ve played but none more than being the puller / tank and being lucky enough to have some crack circulating in the group and being able to serve up a constant stream of xp riddled mobs for hungry waiting dps mouths, leaving the last 20% of the kill for them to finish off as you go to pull the next one from somewhere out in a nice big open zone and realising hours have passed and you're so focused on your job, the chinwag and finding the next mob you didnt even notice the last ding. All the while having a laugh and making some new friends to look out for next time, or maybe it becomes preparation for the groups the cohesion you'll need for when you next hit up a dungeon, so you know after a good grind in the outdoors you will be rocking it with some players who can read each other in certain situations and bring that same A game to the dungeon grind, but this time taking home some hefty loot as well as the xp! Priceless and definitely looking forward to getting amongst it on Pantheon and I love the fact that you guys are not afraid to make this idea one of the many conceptual centrepieces of the game!
Grinding = time sync that sometimes is a must. Especially with low dev numbers on content. If you plan to release a new expac every month or week i suggest to continue with some type of grinding.
To gain the numbers, you might need to dum it down some to the past VP key camps we first had. Later on EQ devs revamped some of the quest pieces and made it easier, to the point of too easy. Cotf named spawns and gear pieces or things like mage EM that 1 raid replaced.It was run back and forth quests.
So did those devs learn their lessons? after 15 years eq was in development? NO
Content = key to any mmo success, more tradeskills, more options to turn away from the simple xp grind.
All this is just learned from playing the game after 17 years. Most of it is simply common sense why this was done the way it was.
The only thing i suggest to the team, is
1. Create characters with the goal of 5 year span. What skill sets they plan to have how much of an increase to meet the 5 year span to be 100%
So no nerf is needed later on, saying "Opps we ****** up boys, sorry we didnt put any thoughts into it" , "We just kept making you all so powerful, we ran out of ideas how to make the next addon"
now we need to nerf you all after 15 years..........
1. sorry for all the time you spent with us, and all the money you placed in our good faith.
2. dont like it you can leave.
3. dont voice your opinions like we care.
that stuff can be brutal to the community. It has happened in many games like this.
dont think wow, rift, lord of the rings, AOC, DOAC wasnt boring either, i felt it was a dummed down game from the start. All of which i played and many more. 1-50 in under a month.
rinse and repeat.
btw brad thank you sir for a nice write up.
Quests, like epic are very important to have grinding, and turn ins and a very long list of kills along the way, and maybe a few boss mob kills to make it more then 2 players worth.
Running back and forth to different quest mobs is not so bad, if you combine it with a bunch of killing. Even better if you have a turn in mob, decide to randomly decide to turn on you, spawn a boss mob, walk away for 24 hours, or simply talk to you.
Random outcomes are so much better then the standard system we had for the last 20 years.
AI is getting much better, but it all depends on the time devs are able to put into the products.
Mod Edit: Language and copy/paste double post into first post so I can delete double post. Please edit your first post in future to avoid breaching the forum guidelines by double posting.
Somewhere along the way gaming has changed and modern MMOs became grind-2-win, and any form of skill was lost.
I see it commonly now with modern MMOs. Players think that grinding is a skill, and acquiring the uberist gear simply from grinding takes some great talent.
So the kids that have no life and can spend 20 hours a day, advance (out-grind) those that have real lives, and thus think they are so uber cool. It's become uber pathetic.
Everyone can get the best gear in the game, either grind or p2w. No more is the best gear in the game reserved for those that truly worked hard learning and playing their class and took on difficult challenges that had no guarantee of a pay-off.
Todays MMOs will give you the best gear with little challenge other than mind-numbing grinds and spinning the random number generator to then upgrade your gear. When did that become skill?
Taking on world bosses is just another mass melee RNG event. No skill required, no tactics, just beat on him until he dies and hope rng smiles upon you. If not, rinse repeat in X hours. Over and over and over.
I was watching this player in BDO the other day, so smug about how awesome he was because other players could not kill him. Not from any skill on his part mind you. Purely because he has been playing 10-20hrs a days and has grinded his way to better gear faster than those spending a few hours a week.
It was truly pathetic that he simply had no clue of this obvious reality. He somehows thinks his superior gear is actually him being better and more skilled some how.
In his low 20's and simply perceives success in a game is how much you can grind.
But I guess the joke is on me as given how these modern MMOs work, that is how success works.
Glad I got to play games where most players wearing the best gear had to truly work and apply their skills and tactics to achieve rare rewards. Rather than thinking, wow, that guy ground 500 hours to get that cloak, gee I wish I could grind more.
Honestly, I think if it's FUN then it's not a GRIND.
As a way of example, the only times I ever felt like I was grinding in EQ1 was during certain level stretches where I spent all my time in the same zone for an abnormally long period of time. Such as The Overthere or Dreadlands. These zones lasted a good ten levels each which is WAAAY too long of a level spread. I'm totally bored of a zone after about 2 levels... 4 max, or I should be adjusting which section / camp I am at based on my advancing levels. Anything over that and it starts to feel like that song on the radio that's been played to death. You liked it at first... and then you couldn't stand to listen anymore.
I personally think long and annoyingly difficult quests / objectives SHOULD be in the game, such as epic's / higher levels / faction / really uber quest items / etc. But I think the key to not making them feel like a grind is just making the content fun and engaging and changing. If you can give me a new place to hang out every few levels, avoid daily quests like the plague, and make multiple FUN options for advancing faction, then you won't have any grinding in the game. And to your question. While I DO think there should be really difficult / time committment content, NO there should NOT be grinding.
Daily quests IMHO are the scourage of modern MMO's. I won't do them... I refuse. I will find some other way to get gear or faction thank you.... After about the second or third time through the same content I start to resent the developers and then I start thinking about quitting. I have a job already, I don't need another. And tedious repetetive boring stupid crap I consider work not fun...
Mornroc said:Daily quests IMHO are the scourage of modern MMO's. I won't do them... I refuse.
I would rather kill 10,000 mobs than do 5 daily quests. I hate dailies. With a passion. If the only way to do things is gated behind dailies, I'm out.
I feel one reason we love EQ1 more than WoW was that WoW could be soloed to max level in a week. I dont see even the most hard core of us soloing 1-50 in a week ( I said solo not PL! ) Remember what a pain it was in the 50s! Holy ****! I was so glad to get out of the 50s they took forever, but once I hit 60 the sense of accomplishment was something I never felt in WoW. Im ok with a long xp grind, or faction grind to accomplish something, I trust the Devs will make the journey to max lvl fun at every xp camp I go to.
Oxillion said:
Is the trend of players to demand to get to the top level content as fast as possible without earning it? If they don’t get what they want call it a grind or other terms? I can list several MMO’s that have fostered this mentality. Now there are hordes of players like this.
I see what you did there. (and completely agree)