PAX West 2016 - The Grind - Full Panel
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ค. 2024
- The Grind. We've all experienced it. We've all complained about it. Some of us secretly love it. But ask 100 people what it actually IS, and you'll get 40 different answers. Join us for a mechanical discussion of what "grinding" really means in games. Is it necessary for a "classic MMO?" Is it part of the genre of a "JRPG?" Does it exist in board games? Is it bad? Is it good? Is it necessary? Part storytelling, part game design, part game theory-let's explore the grind from all angles.
Grinding mechanics in games, game design, and game play.
PANELISTS:
Brandon Rym DeCoster [Producer, GeekNights], Scott Rubin [Host, GeekNights] - เกม
![หมานแต่ผัวเขา - แสตมป์ โตเกียวมิวสิค [ OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/m0g1TSBJPgo/mqdefault.jpg)
I watched this while grinding Fishing in Warcraft, because irony is so delicious.
Grinding isn't all bad. But it can put people off if used too much.
I LOVE your talks. It helps illuminate my path in design and articulates much of my thoughts and more very easily metabolized and well spoken. Thank you.
I played adventure capitalist because it got me out of bed in the morning. I can second the notion that grinds give you a feeling of accomplishment that can help counter feelings of failure and worthless associated with depression. If used intentionally and voluntarily, I could see games like that being used to help people.
I loved the video, thanks for uploading it :)
Content so good I'll waste time wisely coming back.
Aw yeah, Scott rocking the Burning Wheel
Love this! Much better to grind in life, real life, than for a virtual character.
WARNING. NEEDLESSLY LONG AND INDULGENT COMMENT INCOMING. If you don't
care about mobile rhythm games with waifus, feel free to skip this one.
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I have an interesting example from the game I currently make a part of my actual for-real income on: Love Live.
On the one hand, Love Live has grinding, Candy Box mechanics, and Skinner mechanics. I really wish it had less of all of those things. If you want to rank high in events, be able to play more songs in a row, get more of the game's premium currency (Love Gems), etc., you have to spend more time playing songs. And theoretically it doesn't matter how good at rhythm games you are. You could, if you really didn't want to bother improving, just keep playing on Easy or Normal and eventually achieve everything you wanted with enough time spent. You would never have to better yourself to progress in the game. It has that exponential level curve for player ranks, so you can effectively keep succeeding and progressing and getting more stuff despite not actually leveling yourself up as a rhythm game player.
Despite that, there IS implied incentive to improve in how the game rewards you for being good at harder songs. Playing on Hard mode pays out more EXP, gold and event points than Easy or Normal, and the rewards for getting high or full combos in that mode are better as well. The rewards go up even more for Expert and Master modes, to the point where being good enough to full combo Expert/Master songs is one of the best free ways to get Love Gems in the game. Recent updates have also made Expert just straight-up the most efficient mode for gaining points in events as well.
The most significant rewards are even better than just gold or gems though: the best rewards are time and enjoyment. Grinding out Easy and Normal songs SUCKS ASS. There are so few notes to keep your attention during those songs that they get boring quickly, even if you're more comfortable on those difficulty levels. And because they don't pay out much, it takes 3-4 times longer to grind on those songs compared to grinding on Expert/Master. If you're either naturally good at rhythm games or you improve yourself enough to play Expert/Master, you not only slash the required grind by about 75% but you make the grind itself more fun and challenging, making it less of a, well, grind.
I've spent two years playing this game and striving to improve my rhythm skills because yeah, I really sucked to start. And like you said in this panel, the fact that there was a non-skill-based progression aspect helped me keep playing despite the fact that I sucked. But the game also subtly encouraged me to keep improving my skills through its design and conditioning. Now I can play Expert pretty competently! And I feel a sense of real accomplishment for having done so, plus I have a higher level of fun while playing those harder beatmaps. I still have room to go from where I am too. Lord knows I'm nowhere near full combo'ing most of the Master level songs yet! x_x
Of course Love Live also has the pay-to-win mechanic, which I also wish weren't a thing. However, the interesting thing about their pay-to-win system is that paying alone doesn't necessarily guarantee you high placement in events. You can't just buy the best cards and items and even if you could, they wouldn't automatically rocket you to the top of the main leaderboard. You still have to grind out songs to reach the top tiers. All paying in this case does is 1) make you able to grind MORE, and 2) give you more chances to get stronger cards (which TL;DR: doesn't matter much once you reach the basic score requirements for S-Ranks). You still have to grind, and the only way to really make the actual grinding easier (thus giving you a higher likelihood of placing high) is if you are genuinely good at the skill-based part of the game, money or no money.
ANYWAY. All this is to say: Love Live still has major problems with how it's designed. I didn't even get into how the scouting mechanic basically IS a slot machine and functions on the exact same psychological design as one. But I still greatly enjoy the game aesthetically and rhythm game-wise, so I feel like this gets to be the one game like this that I allow myself. (You'll be pleased to know I dropped Pokemon Go pretty quickly after the initial hype. :P) Sorry for rambling endlessly about it in your comments section! I've just had lots of thoughts about this kind of thing in regards to my relationship with the game and a video about these types of game mechanics seemed like the most appropriate place to get those thoughts written down somewhere.
Do you write such reviews often? I'd read them with pleasure!
This is my favorite example of grinding. In Guild Wars one, there is a tutorial area you can never go back to. People grind to the max level in that area (full with diminishing returns on enemies with static levels). Look up "Legendary Defender of Ascalon".
Oh I remember that. For the last few levels you had to let the enemies kill you so they would level up, because otherwise they wouldn't give you XP anymore.
I listened to this while solving a jigsaw puzzle and it made so much sense
Rym and Scott constantly talk about Garfield's characteristics. Wveryone interested should imo also read Engelstein's "Building blocks(...)'. :) just a random book yall would enjoy if you like this kinda stuff
Wooo! We want more! :D
Fairy Land.... I loved playing this game the first time until I got here. After a WEEK of playing and I walked away and I've never been back.
I can only enjoy grinding if the game has good real-time combat, like Gothic or Dragon's Dogma.
About Skinner mechanics. Am I right in thinking that both examining things (like clocks in FF) and talking to NPCs are a form of variable interval rewards? Does that explain why we check everything and talk to everyone? (other than a carry-over from some games where the plot won't move until to walk to a random farmer in town?)
Loot drops are another one; Anyone aware of a list of common skinner mechanics in games?
Scott dont get mad at Rym for interrupting you at the beginning, we need both of you...
Can you guys provide your references and sources other than Characteristics of games please? Thanks
meaningful reward for meaningful work. the grind is required to feel satisfied with achieving things in games. Grinding and treadmills are two different things. grinding you actually earn something tangible at the end. Treadmills are when you grind and grind and actually get nothing for it, treadmills are solely to keep people playing for that 15$ sub fee. Grinds are something that make you feel satisfied when completing them. nobody likes chores, but you feel good when chores are done. you cant get that feeling of completing something if you remove all grinds from all games. just my opinion.
surprised i havent heard them talk about diabloand like paragon leveling in any of the few vids yet
directly anyway
I do strongly agree that artificial grinds are terrible, but at the same time the concept of reward can be as simple as gaining XP. If combat is great, XP or level progression is like a bonus. I hate MMOs where it is nothing but grind obviously, but games like Borderlands, but also Dungeon Siege Legend of Aranna actually had pretty great 'grinds'. Enjoyable to play, interesting enough to keep playing and the reward tended to be worth it (finding new gear in Dungeon Siege), becoming stronger in Borderlands gaining some new skills etc. Not everything about grinding is bad. But once it turns into a goal in and of itself, like in most MMOs, that's where games go south and destroy the experience. WoW for that matter is NOT a good game.
the only game i ever liked grinding in was diablo 2
(killing bosses for items/levels including baal runs)
felt oddly satisfying for some reason
Compressor?
no, there's not something wrong with your left ear, it's a problem with the audio
how old is that guy Scott? Im getting scared when he says he cant move the mouse anymore.
I’m now 39 and I’m not getting headshots like I used to…
no Hanzo story? I want Hanzo story... is there a link to the podcast with hanzo story maybe? How do I get Hanzo story?
look up "hanjo" on their website for the link to the article they mention. DO NOT GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH THIS.
I will grind my life away for my level 3 spells on Rydia in final fantasy iv. I know bio is better...but that sweet sweet juice from fire, ice, and lit 3 is everything to me.
The most horrifying thing a DM could do: @smile@ "Roll a Reflex save!"
Power Leveling an Oblivion character. GRIND
Yeah, I knew RPGs systems were inherently broken.
Back when I played Final Fantasy VI when it first came out, there are so many ways to break the game. Favorite way: Genji Gloves and Offerings. Dual wield and then attack 4 times for each hand. Or the grind at the looping river with a turbo controller. Doesn't really take any skill or practice.
If I were a game designer, I'd get rid of it and just turn the game into either an action adventure like Zelda or Metroid where you acquire skills to overcome obstacles. This is the best type of game like the Arkham games.
Although, I don't like its combat. It's not exactly shallow nor deep. Just wish I could chain unintended reactions together like Super Mario Bros.
If grinding is intentionally put into the game to maximize in game purchases, thus is bad.
There is a couple of Grinds I stopped with this year - Watch_dogs - I stopped playing assassin's creed 3 because of the grind in that and tried watch dogs but didn't get as far as the first chapter because of the shit all over the place which unlocked thing.
Kitten game - a candy box.
Facebook has a silly number of levels and I know of people who just want the next level which is a puzzle wizard or whatever the new label is.
I think you missed one great example. Owning a cat is a grind.
Pick the level for Borderlands? Yeah, somehow I don't think these two guys understand why Borderlands actually did a good job with it's gameplay loop. It is actually nothing like an MMO.
some people told me Black desert isn't pay to win....
i wanna hear the story of the guy reaching the lowest overwatch rank
I was curious too :)
kotaku.com/the-guy-with-the-lowest-possible-rank-in-overwatch-1785662123
They told it on their podcast, on the geeknights website. Its on the episode titled "Queen Emeraldas"
Cool
Other than the Middle Ages, also see the 2016 American election. 8:05
Great video overall, but there is something about USA players and Final Fantasy grind that always strike me as odd. From forum comments and youtube videos they all think its mostly a grindfest with little skill involved, but they totally ignore the strategic elements, the hidden information elements, the inventory/gear managment elements, etc. The grind in final fantasy is mostly a difficulty balance thing but with the right strategic skill you can win them at a very low level. For example, they use the "mute" spell once, see it doesnt works and forget it for the rest of the game. Later, when a wizard enemy is kicking their ass they just say "ugh, this is a grind-wall, I need to grind my magic defense now, no other way arround it!" and then it becomes "attack attack, grind grind". They refuse to do other thing than attackign. USE THAT MUTE SPELL! most of the times that wizard enemy is weak to them and you can obliverate them in a way lower level that you would if you grind. Final Fantasy is mostly about strategic optimization, but as USA players refuse to do other thing than "attack attack attack" it gained the fame of a grindfest. Very sad, as that lead to FF12 and FF13 trying to get to the core essence of that managment and resulted in a huge failure.
With most of the Final Fantasy games, the BEST POSSIBLE TIME to completion without Tool-Assisted RNG manipulation (impossible for humans) is many hours, and most routes involves grinding out levels in certain optimized places. There is literally no way to progress without achieving a minimum level.
Yeah but the point is: in a normal playtrough you are engaged with learning the mechanics, the enemy weaknessess, etc. So you dont experience any kind of grind. This is specially true in the Big Ones, 6, 7, 8, 9, where the minimum to progress is very low (even too low sadly) and they even have some kind of accesory to lower the random encounters, even turn them off compleatly.
Thanks for the reply tho, I like your stuff. Sorry for antagonizing on this one. Do more Utena stuff!
In fact, thank god that Final Fantasy games have bosses that require some minimum level! Western developers, afraid of putting a "grind wall" and lose a client constantly ruin games because of that. For example the Pirate ship leveling up of Assesins Creed Black Flag. The game was afraid to put any kind of boss that required you to level up the ship, causing a dissosiation of the main story missions and the sidequests ones. THAT is pointless grinding.
Can I invite you to Turkey? You've made a rather big error there, better for you to find out yourself what it is. Besides, you'd have a wonderful summer holiday!