One thing I loved about Deus Ex (2000) was that the only thing that gives you experience is finishing objectives, credits weren't particularly useful (and besides killing people rarely gave much credits), and augmentations and augmentation upgrades were placed in logical places, either explicitly told to you or you could infer where they would be (Versalife has to be FULL of augmentation canisters and of course, it was). You never killed (or knocked out) a bunch of enemies to collect anything because the game didn't really work like that. Fallout similarly, I never felt like running around and killing things and it was great. Just completed "quests," each of which felt interesting and often gave the player a choice. Arcanum--you COULD grind and in fact, there were times I needed to level up persuasion or lockpicking before I did something I wanted to do so I ran around the world map for a bit to kill enough things to get the next level--but for the most part, you gather better equipment and do what quests you find compelling and you're at the right level and skill to tackle the next area. I'm definitely in the short and sweet camp. Our most limited resource is time. No one is sitting on their deathbed thinking "I'm glad I maxed the sphere grid on all my FFX characters."
I did just that in FFX and enjoyed it. Like said in the video, that is some people's entertainment. Give me a good dungeon crawler or more baal runs in D2 and I'll be happy.
Grind has largely been replaced by Checklists today. Instead of making 10 unique storyline dungeons and separating them with monster grind, you make a 100 repetitive dungeons/activities and put them in a checklist. You mask the repetitive nature of these dungeons by introducing a completionist element. That's why Bethesda games feel like "MMOs without other players".
Loads of games still have grind. In the last year I've played Sea of Stars, Octopath Traveller 2, started Metaphor and even Alan Wake 2 a little bit have had it. Probably loads more I've forgotten about. Admittedly I don't mind grinding at all, I just get in the zone and do it over and over. Usually while listening to a video or podcast. If I stop grinding then I'll switch off whatever it is I'm listening to and will concentrate on the game and engage with it. But if I'm grinding then I know I aren't missing anything and can just get on with it and do something else at the same time. If a game stays cleared then it really needs to be moving you on and not traveling back and forward over an empty map. If you keep going to new areas then it's not a problem but if it's an RPG and you are just walking back and forward and nothing is happening it gets dull.
Sounds like you're describing Ubisoft games moreso than Bethesda games - and moreso than just _grind_ in general, given the negative framing. BGS games may have a ton of seemingly auto-generated dungeons, but they don't really encourage you, or ask you to visit every single location. It's there to create emergent gameplay, so that each playthrough is a somewhat unique experience. Starfield doesn't have a thousand planets because they want you to visit every single one of them. Use your critical thinking skills, rather than just relying on gut reactions. Being a reactionary makes you dumber over time.
@jessep5280 No, I mean specifically Bethesda games. They have a specific loop where the player picks up a dozen quest for some of these repetitive dungeons, and then tries to clean that list. It doesn't matter that they might miss some, if their goal is still to complete the dynamic list that's presented to them. What that does is it strips the supposed "RPG" of any player motivation beside chasing map markers. It is not "reactionary" to dislike shallow games, especially when they ride on the shoulders of once-legendary giants.
I love love love Fallout. That being said, I couldn't finish FO4 because I got fed up doing the same settlement quest, saving some NPC three times in a row. At the start I liked the different quests that could be considered grind, but when each location just gets filled up with enemies almost immediately and the fetch quests have zero impact and no pay off for the story or in-game happenings, it just grinds, pun intended, to a halt.
In a world where we enjoy art for art's sake, none of this is an issue. That we must subscribe and timesink and microtransact and extract greatest possible value from a game, and that greatest possible value must also be extracted from the players, we end up in an oppositional relationship instead of an appreciative one.
It's subjective. I love grinding for materials in Fallout 4 when I'm playing Sim Settlements. I hate checklists and dailies in Fallout 76. I don't know why it's different, though I suspect it is the quality of the characters and dialog in the former. The grind is a relaxing interlude between great storytelling bits, as opposed to a transparent attempt to force artificial "daily" engagement that serves no other useful purpose except to pad a corporation's MAU's.
Wouldn't subjective. But a state of mind that anyone can be in. Sometimes you just want mindless tasks. The rhythm is its own reward. Hence why their are games designed entirely around grinding such as stardew valley, farming simulator etc
After getting through what little story bits are released in F76, it's a "Groundhog's Day" grind. Overall, F76 is not a game to feel any sense of accomplishment or completeness from a story perspective.
I played Fo76 since launch up until the first seasons update (introduction of battle pass), despite it's problems. It only took about 20 days of playing the seasons update to make me quit the game and never come back. I have no respect for developers that want to make up poor reasons for me to play their game daily, like a slave or a dog returning for treats. Here's some advice, ditch ALL games that use this shitty system and NEVER look back. Battle Passes suck out everything that's been great about games and replace it with stress. You're gonna be thanking me (first & foremost yourself), I guarantee it.
Fallout: You can grind the death claws in the boneyard. It's the easiest way to get to maximum level. They stop respawning if you kill the deathclaw mother.
One man's grind is another man's gameplay. Whether it's making money, farming materials, leveling up or hoping for a rare drop, any progression system will have SOMEONE feel like it's a grind. I personally don't mind grind so long as I can feel I'm making progress. Heck, I play Old School Runescape, the game that's often considered nothing BUT grinds. But I have a lot more patience for grinding up skills than I do grinding bosses for rare drops, because the randomness doesn't feel like I'm ever making progress. That said, a lot of people love boss drops more than slower, grindy skills because the element of luck and "It could be over on any kill" is so enticing to them. Grind is personal. Find your particular style of grind and embrace it, but understand that others will be offput by it out of hand.
Personally, what i considered the stupidest grinds were many of the 'Achievements' in WoW. So many of them were just repeating the same action for literally hundreds or even thousands of times, to no point other than being able to brag of your (heh, lol) 'achievement'. And to keep you in the game and paying a steady monthly subscription to Blizzard, of course...
I just realized how absurdly different the definitions of "grind" really can be. Other terms are required to differentiate. But honestly, talking about it in a general sense might not even be that useful as each game is (or at least, should be) its own creation, its own piece of art with its own design choices. So defining "grind" per example to point out bad/lazy game design might be the best way to go about it.
When I saw the title I thought this was the grind that nearly inevitably comes as a game prepares to launch. QA and even last minute Development grind.
I know it's more grind than game at this point, but I never felt a greater sense of accomplishment in RPG level progression than being able to walk slightly further on the world map after leveling up in Dragon Quest 1. Something about knowing you need to grind in order to not get completely wrecked on the next screen and having a goal in mind was strangely satisfying and manageable to me.
I feel like I tend to separate "grind" and "chores" in games. Grind is something I do not want to do, but have to do in order to progress in some way (money, gear, XP, etc.). Chores I don't have to do, and sometimes they don't even give you anything (like petting a cat when you pass it in the street on the way back to your base), but they _are_ infinitely (or nigh-infinitely) repeatable, and I can work them into my routine. Another example, games that allow base building. I love when I can customize my base to be visually how I'd like. I hate when I have to endlessly repair walls or refuel generators or such. I love upgrading weapons and gear, I hate finding ammo. I love finding new ammo types, I hate crafting it. I love learning new spells, I despite hunting for components. Basically, anything that allows me to experience (or re-experience) things I like? Awesome. Things that pull my time _away_ from things I like? Not awesome. Your zombie spawning example is interesting though. I think...for me personally, that'd be a neutral scenario. On the one hand, if I _HAD_ to do it (because there were no better sources of income/XP/etc.) I'd call it grind and dislike it. On the other hand, if there were plenty of other/better enemies elsewhere (even if they didn't necessarily respond as often, or at all), it might be a fun little spot to try out new spells or gear or combos. I guess what all that ends up meaning is that I think framing is everything, and how optional (or non-optional) it is really ends up making the difference. (I've never understood the game length thing _EXCEPT_ where it relates to price. For a sub-$30 indie game, it can last 20 mins and I might be totally cool with it, for a $65+ AAA game...ya...it better be life-changing if it's going to be 20 mins XD)
The thing I realized when trying to define what people call grind in games is it's 1 term with 2 definitions. The first definition I've figured is the mechanic of repetitive action loop to build up something usually EXP/GOLD, also referred to as farming. The second definition is usually just something you have to do in the game that takes a significant amount of time that people consider unfun. Usually something I referred to as a slog. It doesn't have to be something like farming it can just be a part of the game where you play as a side character that you don't think is very fun or interesting. Or there are puzzles you have to do that you don't find very fun. That's at least what I have personally found are the definitions of grind.
I agree with you that the journey is more important than the destination: the main gameplay loop is king. Though I wouldn't call it "grind" if it's engaging. If your main gameplay loop feels like a grind, then I'm ditching it. A good example of a non-grind game loop was Bloodlines: getting XP/money/weapons didn't feel like a grind since it was obtained by doing quests and all quests felt unique.
Imho the journey is more important than the destination: the main gameplay loop is king, even above the story. If your main gameplay loop feels like a grind, then I'm ditching it. A good example of a non-grind game loop was Bloodlines: getting XP/money/weapons didn't feel like a grind since it was obtained by doing quests and all quests felt unique.
Grind as farming in FromSoft games actually serves a purpose, to level up to either beat a boss I suck at or to loot cool gear or both. In a lot of games (looking at you Ubisoft) it is just as many have said: a mindless checklist to stretch the playtime... I still have PTSD from the seals in AC Odyssey where it was part of a quest or in Fallout 4 Nuka Cola DLC where it was part of a Steam achievement...
While I dislike most online gaming grind, I do enjoy single player grind at least as an option. The grind can add a level of role play by spending additional time with your party and you can get more attached to them in ways that writing can often fall flat on. However I dislike grind that is required for ultra rare items or boss fights that have like a 1 in a million chance for a drop, etc. A few good examples are Chrono Trigger has a weapon in the beginning of the game you can grind for or wait a few dungeons and get it for free. Legend of Dragoon has some late game armor that appears early on that you can buy immediately with a few dozen hours of grinding or you can wait to late game and buy it easily. Earthbound has examples of grind that I really hate like the rare best weapons, and MMOs and pvp FPS games and their battle passes are examples of why I stop playing or refuse to play games with that kind of grind. Tldr; optional grind = best grind
About grind. There is a game: DarkStar One. And its not greatest one in my opinion but I remember liking it. In this game you have a star map to travel around but its an illusion: to move plot forward you snake through it on a predefined path. Each zone on a map has progressively stronger enemies and each zone sells you ship upgrades that will get you strong enough for current zone but not strong enough for the next one. The thing I've remembered the most is that in about middle section of a game to progress you need to grind a good amount of money on repeating generated missions (not plot-related), I've got so frustrated of doing the same things over and over again I've just hacked in the money I needed. On my Steam stats for it I see that I've spent respectable almost 20 hours to finish it, it would've been much longer if I had to grind the money. I don't think there was a need to pad game time this way. Feels like reward amount was miscalculated for the middle section of a game because otherwise I had fun playing it.
I feel like online games could build more on the interactions between the different players who specialize in different things (like in your example with necromancer bones but with different professions, for example). Or even in single player, make all content and resources available to everyone but at a lower efficiency (so even if you have to grind, it would be the activity you enjoy most or at least specialize in). For example, you level blacksmithing but you could still use alchemist potions, you would just have to buy them at a premium and sell some of your produce to get the money. The main problem with that approach is that you have to make different professions balanced and varied enough so that all players don't pick the single most lucrative one.
Grind is the verb, the actions that players need to stay engaged. Excessive grind leads to burnout. Good designed grind has player itching to keep playing. Deep Rock Galactic (one of the very best co-op shooters)is one of the very few games ( I'm in my late 40's) that I never have an issue to keep jumping in the randomly generated caves. All MMORPGs burn me out and I love MMORPGs. Mobile games are my least fav things to play as the grind because it's obviously trying to make you buy things constantly. The older I get the more my time is valuable to me.
I loved fishing in FFXIV and Classic WoW. It was a great way to chill, chat, watch shows, and generally relax during the downtime between dungeons and raids.
GRUNN is an indie adventure game that uses grind in a very interesting way. You can cut grass and do other gardening chores that are not mandatory at all, even though it seems like they give you progress. They are very grindy and addictive, but they give you an opportunity to think about the puzzles while still being in the game and doing something that feels satisfying. This, plus a time loop, completely change the feeling of being stuck that is typical of such games.
It's funny discussing Fallout because while it really does feel short compared to some of today's slogs (there are like three quests per map) that's part of what makes it so great, because the huge variety of choices available to you (both in build type and morality) means it's hugely replayable. I'm never going to bother replaying most RPGs just for the sake of doing a stealth build, or an unarmed build, or setting my intelligence to the lowest value, because it means grinding (yes) through too much stuff for the sake of seeing the consequences.
Hi Tim , Before saying something offtopic into this content first in original Fallout there is some few grinding things i mean just for level yourself things and also no need to do that but in order to grind yourself to reach maximum level as fast as possible :) In Military Base area player can grind to kill some Super Mutant Army to level themselves up or can get exp kind of efficient by not killing the Deathclaw eggs in boneyard area and Deathclaws keeps spawning after leaving area and i think you suppose to wait 1 day in order to wait their spawn anway :) so player can kill it again to earn more exp . If considering those as grinding in Fallout 2, Arcanum or Outer Worlds or any of your games there is possibly are some place to level yourself up like that way . Off Topic content is that you may heard probably Fallout TV Series has won best Game Adaptation Award . Without you and other people you have worked with , probably this amazing universe can't be created and get that award . Thanks again for each one of you for creating this masterpiece . And secondly Outer Worlds 2 Officially announced it's release year in 2025 i'm soo excited to play that game , i hope this upcoming game become huge sucess .
The most enjoyable grind I've ever experienced was the multi-player for Mass Effect Andromeda. You had jet boots, space magic and ray guns at your disposal - which was a great starting point. Yes, you would grind to max out your manifest, but the gameplay itself was so good - fluid, fast paced, and in three dimensions. Matches didn't feel like a grind, they were fun, and short enough you could play several in a session.
The main issue with grind is having to redo something you've outskilled, a problem that you've solved. This is why a turn-based RPG or a cooldown clicker MMO is more likely to be called grindy than an action game like Monster Hunter. Basically, if you can get a bot or macro to do it, it's grind, but in Monster Hunter you're moving around in a 3D space and dealing with the monster AI RNG, so it doesn't feel like a solved problem, you can do better or worse based on your skill level and continuously improve, even if you're farming the same monster for a gem. And even in turn-based, you're unlikely to call something like X-Com grindy, because there's enough challenge, uncertainty and interesting decisions to keep you engaged So one big issue with grind is player skill levels not matching "necessary" content, and one way to counter that is to have a system for cranking up the difficulty and the rewards so you don't waste their time. That becomes tricky in a game with an economy because you have guys who can turn the difficulty up until they have one HP and can only get kills by nudging enemies into hazards but they're getting x10 or more rewards. But then for those games you just shrug and say grind's just a part of it
I love runescape (both osrs & rs3) & especially ironman mode, which means you have to be self-sufficient, gather all materials, get all drops etc by yourself. Its definitely rough sometimes when you are stuck on some important gear drops or whatever & go mega dry, but the feeling of accomplishment makes it worth it. (also tbh being on the spectrum probably helps alot to enjoy the repetive, endless grinds just to see number go up & all that :D)
grind can also be a good way to appreciate aspects of a game that otherwise you would pay less attention to. for example, music, sound effects, animations, fuller ui/inventory functionality, general art and mood/feel of a game or around ceratin areas of it... in combination with sense of accomplishment, this can truly make fun. basically, if a game provides player an option to choose between less/not grindy and grindy ways to play, that can only be a good thing.
The best way to avoid grind is to have a wide variety of activities that all feed into a common pool of items that players will want BUT you need to obfuscate this process so that it isn't obvious else you will have many people purposely grinding what they see as the most profitable activity. In a very real sense you need to protect players from ruining their own enjoyment. For example, you could have three commonly needed items available from a vendor who uses a certain resource, this resource is a quest reward but you have to purchase an event ticket to start any of these quests and these too have varied activities. However, currency is widely available from many other activities so players can do whatever they find fun to obtain these desirable vendor only items. Games like No Man's Sky and Phantasy Star Online 2 did a fantastic job at obfuscating their grind behind elaborate progression systems.
Reminds me of Mech Warrior Online. In the earlier days, I'd often hear people complaining about the grind in the game. But I never understood it. The entire game was multiplayer, hence the name. You play a match and get C-Bills and XP at the end. XP goes into giving generally minor performance boosts in that mech variant, C-Bills are used to buy new weapons and mechs. I guess if you were wanting a new mech and couldn't afford it you might feel like you were grinding for that mech. But otherwise you just got it by playing the core game. The grind they were talking about was literally the gameplay they were there for. If it was such a grind I can't help but feel they just didn't like the game. I fundamentally greatly enjoy Mech Warrior gameplay, I was there for the games, not once did I feel like I was grinding. Even at the start when I was on a fresh account.
Hello Tim. (boy do I feel honored to be able to write to you, love your games). You could grind xp in Fallout 1, many of my friends did. Deathclaws respawned after reentering the location, if The Mother was left alive. 1k xp per specimen sure gave a boost!
@@svietlysty I can't restrain myself from doing that exact thing. The best part is it's very easy to just step outside back to neutral territory, wait a bit, re-enter and they're right there; minimum travel required, really. I always felt a little guilty about cheesing the game like that, but I just like how it works. It was 'the good grind'. (I also very pro-level cap, as it meant more replayability, and so hitting the cap due to that xp wasn't an issue for me)
One thing I've always disliked was random chance on top of random chance, Trying to get a weapon, and trying to get a good quality of that weapon. It just makes the game more frustrating, it might make the game more customizable but at the cost of my sanity.
One little thing to add to the definition of "grind" I feel like is the reward of it is extrinsic. Be it XP, loot, currency whatever. While this is self explanatory since we're talking about RPGs and they're mostly defined by extrinsic rewards, a lot of players in other genres are talking about a "grind" where no such rewards are to be obtained. Even in fighing games, which didn't have properly functioning online before Covid so "grinding" for ranked points wasn't even a thing, people would often talk about "grinding online matches". Even though they only played to gain intrinsic rewards like character familiarity and matchup knowledge.
Grinding for me is more of a state of mind than the activities itself. Usually triggered by repetitive, low attention activities that make go through the motions. Usually not the goal but a massive obstacle towards a goal
As someone with ADHD, I'm very intolerant of grind. I just can't bring myself to play most survival games because of the mind numbing grind, ESPECIALLY if said games don't return your building materials to you when you deconstruct items/buildings etc. Valheim is the only recent survival-craft type game that I feel respects your time.
The monster can be made more resource demanding on each spawn. If certain monsters are done a number of times, then the rewards from them diminish. A special spawn happens after clearing a zone a certain number of times.
New videoooo 🎉 Let's go grind on Warframe, there's a new update soon. My definition to grind is a broad way to say farm. "Oh today I'm not gonna raid, have to grind. I'm gonna farm mats" or level some items. And that's it, no matter if it will be fun or not, quick or slow. I call it grind activity when I'm farming something.
God, I haaated Warfarm's grind. Too many forms of currency/materials located on too many content islands that don't really touch what, to me, was the real core loop, until finally there really was no core loop, just several loops that were similar! Gotta rank up weapons and frames and your operator to get mastery and to progress, but there's always a "best" way to do that because of the ever-changing meta, but if you can't do that meta you have to grind to be able to do that meta, so you need mods for your initial gear to get good enough to do the dead content I used to call the core loop, enough of them to fuse together to rank them up to make your Braton/Lato/Skana worth a damn, only so that you can then do relics forever to get parts for something else, but AHA! A mastery requirement before you can access the time gate (building the thing), and a few potatoes too, why not? So to get that mastery, you'll need to rank up more gear, not the stuff you *wanted* to use, and not necessarily in a combat style you enjoy at all... but to get STARTED on that, you need to farm up the parts to build the trash weapons/frames you don't actually want to play with, and all the dead content resources needed to run the build, and you need to look up what planet and what mission drops that or if there is a more optimal farming method for the rarer stuff, and you need to remember that, or take extensive notes to remind you of your objectives, and watch those alerts and stuff, and I hope you recognize them when you--dammit I need a taxi to Saturn or whatever! My asshole friends wanna do relics some more so I'll have to spam chat! Then the connection will drop and I'll be playing alone on high level interception or extraction of something! May as well quit and start over! Obstacles upon obstacles upon obstacles1
Here are my feelings on it... Grinding is the act of doing the same thing over and over again in order to meet a long term goal. The opposite of grinding is immediate gratification, in which you have instant access to reward. It's the difference between spending years grinding for loot and getting your character up to max level, and that of unlocking admin commands and giving yourself those things within the span of a few seconds... they both serve as a reward - it's fun to have access to cool stuff immediately but the fun quickly dissipates because it was unearned, but doing it the other way is more challenging and rewarding in the long run to work towards gaining those rewards but you need patience and ain't nobody got time for that. Literally there are two types of people (generally separated by both a combination of IQ and skill) and it's best shown in one of the most famous cognitive experiments ever performed: the 'stanford marshmallow test'. In that test, children around the age of 5, were presented with a marshmallow and were told they can eat the marshmallow at anytime, but if they wait and do not eat the marshmallow by the time the researcher returned to the room that as a reward they will be given an extra marshmallow, a timer starts upon the researcher giving these instructions and then leaving the room. Most kids after a bit of initial restraint will eventually eat the marshmallow placed before them, but other kids will wait and wait and wait for the reward - and the rest are between the two, eating them after a certain amount of time of highly stressful waiting. The researchers then routinely checked up on the kids as they grew, from children, to teens, to adults, and they would see how they ended up; Fun fact, (be it if you love her or hate her) Susan Wojcicki of google/youtube fame was one of the kids from the test and in fact one of the kids that lasted the longest in order to eat the marshmallow... and researchers found this time and time again that there was a striking correlation between those that CAN wait and those that succeed in life and are generally smarter - and those that can't be bothered to and compelled by immediate gratification. HOWEVER, the sad facts are: there are vastly more impatient people than there are patient ones... such is life. Because of this, games like Everquest DEFINED a genre of difficult grinding massive multiplayer games, which catered to those that appreciated delayed gratification and cause many that experienced them over two decades ago to have deeply fond memories of them even to this day - a somewhat beloved game to many shading many contemporary releases... paradoxically, most gamers 'want' instant gratification (which was a huge design pillar for games like World of Warcraft, and they were very vocal about this during development, which set player expectations and continues on with mobile games in general and eventually most games fitting short attention spans and spoiled need for immediate gratification) however, these experiences generally are more superficial and less rewarding, causing that very same genre to pretty much die on the vine... a rot so deep that people even grew sick of WoW and only with the promise of an old 2004 style wow did people actually get excited again to play it (namely shown by subscriber numbers). Catering to the 'hardcore' players (the ones that like grinding) will alienate upwards of 90% of the gaming public that just wants immediate gratification and they want to just log on, have the coolest loot and power fantasy for 15 minutes at a time, get bored, and do the same in another game,... but catering to this kind of 'casual' player generally creates worse games. With mmos in particular, its one of those 'the rich get richer' things, where you need massive community and interest to even have the chance of success, because the second you don't have a massive community and mass interest and mass server/zone saturation, then nobody will want to play it because it would be considered either a 'dying game' or 'not enough people are playing for the mechanics to work'. ALSO you have big money behind mmos, so you need that ROI... and talking to shareholders, you could say "margins are tight, but we're going to target the hardcore gamers that make up 10% of potential customers, because this will make a better game", but you'll be laughed out of the room. So, casuals have won the day for decades and killed the genre because doing so only keeps their attention for a few passing moments and go on like a pack of locusts to ruin the next game, clamoring for more "but I want to solo", then "it's too hard to level" then inevitable "there is no endgame, this game stinks, I got to the end and there isn't more power fantasy for me" and the process repeats on the next would-be good game. The only way to bring mmos back is to bring grinding back, however, doing so will cause less people to play, which will cause the game to be deemed DoA, which will then lead to a great game that nobody will play because they will just shut it down due to it being not profitable... so the only games that are left and those that don't and are catered to casuals but result in superficial and easily forgotten titles. It's one of the biggest paradoxes in gaming, imho. I don't think it can ever be fixed.
For me, whether or not a game's grind is good or bad depends upon why the developers made it grindy. Everquest's grind was/is meant to encourage exploration, player interaction, a healthy economy, etc. GTA V online's grind, however, is meant to artificially extend the amount of time it takes for people to earn money in a way that discourages people from becoming rich so that they buy shark cards. That kind of grind is scummy.
for me grind is fun when there is still skill involved. Imo like a golden era of Bleach games on roblox 2010-2016. It was simple grind. Walk up to enemy and swing sword. As you got higher levels right you could still die really easy BUT you still needed to race to max level which was like level 10k+. You had to get multiple mobs that if you don't do it right you'll get obliterated and leveling will be so slow. As a kid I would turn on my fav album at the time and lock in for like 60 lvls a day in a couple hours or more. I definitely felt more and more satisfied with each successful grind because it took skill to level really fast. My lvls were directly correlated to my input.
I liked to play MU Online when it was fun low ratio, because it was dopamine hit for little upgrades on one piece of gear. Grind is cool when it gives prize for a struggle. Grind was fun when I was young. In these days last grind I enjoyed was Warframe, because they made the process fun and a lot of loot.
I’m a bit of a weirdo, I enjoy stuff like vanilla WoW where you have to kill tens of thousands of things with quests just to get tens of levels. It feels kind of relaxing as you said.
Talking about the original fallout and how it isn’t long enough I would have to disagree with people I think that the story doesn’t need to be overly long and plays itself out in the timespan just right for it not to get redundant and become a grind
Speaking of grind, I will walk across the length and breadth of Arcanum to farm random encounters. You level up quite quickly, it's not a chore at all. You would think the Molochean Hand would learn their lesson the first dozen times
I prefer to optional opportunities for XP grinding (enemies that respawn after the player is away for a while or small procedural side quests) as a way to keep XP from being finite. When XP is finite players often feel a need to take quests they otherwise wouldn't or that don't fit their character, or to kill everything on a map, so as not to miss out on XP. By allowing a way to make up XP some other way this pressure is off -- I think of how player in some games will kill every friendly XP, just so it doesn't go to waste. One aspect of mechanics design that has really been on my mind is what incentives XP systems create.
Putting aside the subject of actual MMO-style grind, I am happy to "grind" in a game if I: 1) Like the aesthetic and feel of the game. 2) The grind activities (crafting, combat) are well designed and have relatively low friction. 3) The game allows for some degree of varied or emergent gameplay during the grind activity, even if marginal. The grind I absolutely do not like is something like in a Jrpg, where you have something like "We didn't really scale or balance this arc of the game, would you kindly just sit in this area for the next 6-8 hours killing the same monsters and muling the same loot, until you can one-shot everything? That will let you know you can (probably) kill the next boss." Some people like this; not my cup of tea.
From my gaming experiences (Skyrim), the same thing can become grind in different contexts. Say, lockpicking. I like the minigame, especially if I have few lockpicks. When I tries to pick a lock for the loot with intent of minimizing mistakes, it's not a grind for me. BUT, if I spot a really nice perk in the lockpicking tree and it requires a higher skill level than what I currently have, suddenly "the need to find locked chest and pick them just so I could raise skill level" makes lockpicking a horrible grind... I dislike grind, but I like optional grind, cuz its existence encourage me to look for a "more efficient way" to achieve my goal, and that leads naturally to player-driven experimentation. Such as finding a better soul-farming spot in the first days of Elden Ring... my friends and I spent days trying to optimize our input macro for that "Steel Ball Run" at Caelid (yeah we're all JOJO fans) and those were my best experiences with base Elden Ring.
I think the game that does grind the best, for me, is Old School RuneScape. It's incredibly varied by intensity and reward. So if you hate grinding you can do really high difficulty, high intensity activities to get xp or monetary value quicker or you can afk the skill and it'll take way longer but you can second monitor it or chat with the people next to you doing it as well. It's also INCREDIBLY integral to the game and economy. A lot of the low level grind materials are still useful for high level characters so you can sell it for gold at the Grand Exchange and that helps out new players both get money AND level up their skills which is vastly more important than short term money.
Glad you mentioned grind as a game length extender or as the "endgame." It is crazy how often I'll see people complain about a game that doesn't have any sort of extended endgame, or is just a campaign without more after the last mission. Apparently Stalker 2 is like this, once you hit the final quest the game is over and that is fine. I often wonder if people are just conditioned to expect that now, or if they really do want to be just mindlessly grinding a game for hundreds of hours. Especially for games when all they get is a slightly better item they already have.
I feel like the point of "gring" is "to get pass n obstacle". That obstacle can be a too hard boss that you have to continously try to kill (and getting better at it), it can be gathering resources so you can get your character good enough to make things easier. In the best games the grind is trying reverse engineer the game in spreadsheet to break it.
grind is doing something over and over for the sake of grind, things you get are just bonus. I know, I've been playing eq for over 20 years and still play 😁. No one does the grind as well as koreans though 🍒
It really depends on the reason grind has been incorporated into the game. You shouldn't need to spend thousands of hours killing trash mobs just to level up your character.
I'm sort of in a weird camp where I love playing games that are just 6 hours long too, BUT I have also spent over 3000 hours playing Warframe, chatting while grinding, trading and stuff. Tho I could've spend that time on better activities (ﾉ≧ڡ≦) Nowadays I ask myself of what would I rather do: grind for hours OR exercise, go on a walk, code for fun, etc. The answer sounds obvious, but as you've said it's nice to grind when waiting for friends to hop on. I recently had a fever and am thinking that maybe I could've just grinded something to pass the time quicker, I chose to nap instead.
Grind is just a matter of player perception. Every game boils down to the core gameplay loop, there are only a few key elements to any given game. Some games try to obfuscate their loop by stacking systems on top of eachother which can just lead to a different problem, bloat. Some of my most played games are honestly a singular thing repeated ad infinitum. Most rogue-likes are essentially just a singular aspect, same with Arpgs and minecraft is quite literally just one massive grind you do for no reason besides the goals you set yourself.
I don't necessarily have fun grinding, but the enticing chance at rare loot always kept me killin'. And FTL took thousands of hours from me because of the random chance every node offers. New weapon or crew member? Dangerous adventure? Much needed store to buy fuel? You never know.
For a lot of people grinding is satisfying. For some games it's the core gameplay, like latest diablo, and people buy these games for the grind. I like every kind of progression and appreciate a little grind, but just a little. In any case I prefer 20 mins of grind in the zombie cemetery than 20 mins of cinematic cutscenes! This is a question I would like to ask to game studios: why do you put so much cinematics in your games? They are not fun, we all are get used to high quality cinematics, so there isn't even the WOW! effect anymore, only boredom.
tbf the MMO type of daily/reputation grind is the reason I have always dropped playing WoW after the initial excitement to get back to it. the game is already built upon many repeatable activities and quantitative quests, but when you can feel that the progression is being deliberately nuked into oblivion just to keep the retention time (and compensate for the lack of content) and you are forced to do the exact same set of quests over and over again for 30-60 days it gets depressive really fast instead of having some recluse from a day at work/school, you just spend 3+ hours doing even more mundane chores, after which you don't have much time/energy for the actual fun part of the game. some time later you reflect on your game experience and realize you've been doing nothing but the exact same dailies for the past month, memorized to semi-automation, but you haven't even hit 50% progression needed yet,. end up questioning the value of your time, and with further realization that you have to do even more of the same stuff, quitting is the only rational decision. solo games are usually not nearly as bad, but some mechanics like crafting have started to take influences from MMO games, throwing you into desperation mode. it's kinda worse when you're also ocd'ing everything and have a completionist nature, so skipping some elements of the game is depriving you from experiencing, especially when those elements become closer to the core experience in the end, it's all about the right balance, which is ofc subjective, but there's definitely a threshold when something is just grindy but rewarding and when it's obnoxiously exploitative of your time
I don't think I've ever evaluated a game based on its length, personally. That might have something to do with the way I interact with games. My friends call it "slow", I call it "thorough"
nice! The grind I don't like and complain about the developers is the one that is necessary to progress and the gameplay loop is meh or lower. What I consider really bad grind is the one with a monetary incentive to skip it. Predatory and scummy. But, as someone commented, now it is not grind, it is checklists and dailies and weeklies. It is grind with a newer name.
One thing to consider is in RPGs, there are level system and skill system which rewards player with stats and new skills for player willing to grind. These incentive players to grind to get stronger and to get new skills. This creates positive loop in which after getting stronger, player could grind in other areas to earn more XP and thus get even stronger and loop repeats. There are solutions to this but I'll stop here.
No one complains about Tetris, Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc., and among modern games, Dead Cells, Hades, etc., even though they are all based on repetitive loops. So it's about how good the gameplay is. If it's good, the repetitive loops are addictive. Otherwise they are a chore, busywork, deja vu, groundhog day (grindhog day?).
I've been grinding in an mmo out of choice because I enjoy it, finding myself not enjoying the game after some time, then realising I am choosing to do an activity I've lost enjoyment in. It isn't the games fault, there are plenty of other things for me to do. If there are alternatives to endlessly grinding, I don't think it's an issue. Especially if the grind is fun. Although there are limits that anything can be fun when you do it endlessly back to back, which you likely aren't even intended to play that way.
Grind to me is almost always padded playtime. I think grind is okay if its not frustrating or caused by a roadblock. Like if I grind lower level mobs to get free potions or whatever then I am fine with that, makes it easier at the cost of time.
Untill you finished the related quest you could grind deathclaws in Fallout. Just kill all of them on the groundlevel, leave, rest for a while, go back, repeat =). Soooo much XP. But of course, you needed a decent level and good gear to be able to do it in the first place, cause they was scary!
Grind seems to be done for repetitive task for a minor goal not directly related to the main goals. Ex grinding to LV up, grinding for materials to upgrade stuff... spefially if the game is level based and also player skill based and you just nees to grins to match the math to damage enough a boss...and mostly is associated negatively, thats why many MMOs have macros/auto
The more I think about "grind", the less I know what it is. Aren't... all games "grind" in some sense? Even if it means acquiring XP? I think the main distinction is that there are games which have parts that are boring and repetitive. When something becomes no longer fun to do, but "necessary" (maybe to progress), it becomes a grind. Like farming hundreds of hyenas until you get into a level-range where you can quest again. I was just spooked a little that my entire game becomes "grind"... but as Agent Smith said, "that's not fair."
In Secret of Mana I will avoid going to the first village until Ive levelled a couple of times, just to make the initial boss fight easier/earn money etc lol In Wizardry 5 grind is fun for me because I like to see how powerful I can make my characters. I still haven't beaten the game, but I have really powerful characters, haha
you touched a bit on this in the video but grinding is very close to a skinner box, especially once you add random drops into the mix... repetitive actions with random rewards is a powerful (and dangerous) psychological tactic to keep players playing. diablo 4 used this sort of gameplay for just this purpose, keeping players hooked and continue playing so theyll spend money on the in-game shop (especially the battle pass). jimmy mcgee has a great video on this
Grind definitely depends on the game. If I play a Zelda game I do not want grind. The closest thing better be finding rupees to buy something I want or need. I don't play MMO's because I hate fetch quests and I don't like a story that can't go over the top because of multiplayer restrictions. But a game like RuneScape where I have no idea what the story is and I'm listening to my own playlist and eating or chatting somehow. That's when I don't mind grind. The exception is the really good offline RPG. Final Fantasy did it best for me. I can beat FF8 without having those GF learn EVERY ability...but if you really like the game sometimes you just want to out of joy for the game.
I sometimes gravitate to grindy games or activities because i like listening to youtube videos in the background. The game doesn't take my full attention and it helps me concentrate on the video.
In fallout 4 for the Nuka-world DLC you have to reach level 30 to get the first quest for it so I would get a ton of wood and metal and scrap what I could in Sanctuary hills in the workbench thing and craft multiple shelves because you use 2 wood and like 3 steel so you could make hundreds of them and each one you make you get xp.
Once I read that true grind is doing a repetitive and easy action that doesn't advance the story. Other than that grind can be used as a slur, but not as a true definition.
Better to find ways to incorporate resource procurement into your gameplay routine as a player, because then you'll never perceive anything as grind or framing. The downside is also an upside; You get to do inventory management.😅
I'm curious what your thoughts are on items that increase the chance of a rare drop of an dark souls mob(really wanted some rare weapons some have like a 1% chance to drop). If you optimize your setup to increase the chance of getting an item and you have some level of strategy, I have a feeling when you have some flexibility in choosing your strategy it feels less like grinding, I never thought some people enjoy grinding, even though the most common grind I do now is in elden ring when trying to beat many weak or few strong mobs to get those last few runs I need to level up. This feels fairly differently from when I used to play dota and beating the forest mobs felt way more interesting because I can use a different strategy, even though they randomly spawn in the same spots.
I recall old days playing Tibia, standing making runes and talking with other players. Then some hunting monsters and back making runes. I really enjoyed this routine. Today - I can buy runes, nobody talking and making runes themselves. Is pointless to make runes alone. I lost interesting in the game.
11:20 One of the few issues with Baldurs Gate 3 is that there is no where to test your character builds. You have to use the actual story, or save scum.
In fallout (1) you could grind on the deathclaw map, they respawned id you did not kill the mother and each gave a lot of xp. I grinded there to get to level 27 so i pculd get both sniper and slayer perks, both available starting level 24 and the the i think does not give you enough xp to reach level 27 in a "normal" playtrough", at least i could not manage it. But I did jot find it bad, I enjoyed finding a spot I could grind a bit.
Hi Tim, I have a question regarding subtlety in game design. Some games (I'm, not going to name names) rely on obvious clues on how to progress into the game, from climbable ledges being visibly painted, to devs directly giving puzzle tips to players via NPCs. What are your thoughts on this? How overt do you like to be when nudging the players in the right direction?
I don't need devs to add grind to make games longer (I enjoy longer games). I want them to add to their NARRATIVE. I know full well most people who want longer games, want THAT to be why the game is longer too--not mindless grinding all the time. If game devs can't understand THAT is what people want, when they want a longer game, well that is them being of questionable intelligence, not people encouraging grind.
One thing I loved about Deus Ex (2000) was that the only thing that gives you experience is finishing objectives, credits weren't particularly useful (and besides killing people rarely gave much credits), and augmentations and augmentation upgrades were placed in logical places, either explicitly told to you or you could infer where they would be (Versalife has to be FULL of augmentation canisters and of course, it was).
You never killed (or knocked out) a bunch of enemies to collect anything because the game didn't really work like that.
Fallout similarly, I never felt like running around and killing things and it was great. Just completed "quests," each of which felt interesting and often gave the player a choice. Arcanum--you COULD grind and in fact, there were times I needed to level up persuasion or lockpicking before I did something I wanted to do so I ran around the world map for a bit to kill enough things to get the next level--but for the most part, you gather better equipment and do what quests you find compelling and you're at the right level and skill to tackle the next area.
I'm definitely in the short and sweet camp. Our most limited resource is time. No one is sitting on their deathbed thinking "I'm glad I maxed the sphere grid on all my FFX characters."
I did just that in FFX and enjoyed it. Like said in the video, that is some people's entertainment. Give me a good dungeon crawler or more baal runs in D2 and I'll be happy.
Grind has largely been replaced by Checklists today. Instead of making 10 unique storyline dungeons and separating them with monster grind, you make a 100 repetitive dungeons/activities and put them in a checklist. You mask the repetitive nature of these dungeons by introducing a completionist element. That's why Bethesda games feel like "MMOs without other players".
***RECENT Bethesda games. Don’t disrespect the Oblivion or Morrowind. Don’t you do that !!
@@pavx45 I'll disrespect oblivion all i want pal ;)
Have you ever heard of the high elves?
Loads of games still have grind. In the last year I've played Sea of Stars, Octopath Traveller 2, started Metaphor and even Alan Wake 2 a little bit have had it. Probably loads more I've forgotten about.
Admittedly I don't mind grinding at all, I just get in the zone and do it over and over. Usually while listening to a video or podcast. If I stop grinding then I'll switch off whatever it is I'm listening to and will concentrate on the game and engage with it. But if I'm grinding then I know I aren't missing anything and can just get on with it and do something else at the same time.
If a game stays cleared then it really needs to be moving you on and not traveling back and forward over an empty map. If you keep going to new areas then it's not a problem but if it's an RPG and you are just walking back and forward and nothing is happening it gets dull.
Sounds like you're describing Ubisoft games moreso than Bethesda games - and moreso than just _grind_ in general, given the negative framing.
BGS games may have a ton of seemingly auto-generated dungeons, but they don't really encourage you, or ask you to visit every single location. It's there to create emergent gameplay, so that each playthrough is a somewhat unique experience.
Starfield doesn't have a thousand planets because they want you to visit every single one of them.
Use your critical thinking skills, rather than just relying on gut reactions. Being a reactionary makes you dumber over time.
@jessep5280 No, I mean specifically Bethesda games. They have a specific loop where the player picks up a dozen quest for some of these repetitive dungeons, and then tries to clean that list. It doesn't matter that they might miss some, if their goal is still to complete the dynamic list that's presented to them.
What that does is it strips the supposed "RPG" of any player motivation beside chasing map markers. It is not "reactionary" to dislike shallow games, especially when they ride on the shoulders of once-legendary giants.
I love love love Fallout. That being said, I couldn't finish FO4 because I got fed up doing the same settlement quest, saving some NPC three times in a row. At the start I liked the different quests that could be considered grind, but when each location just gets filled up with enemies almost immediately and the fetch quests have zero impact and no pay off for the story or in-game happenings, it just grinds, pun intended, to a halt.
In a world where we enjoy art for art's sake, none of this is an issue. That we must subscribe and timesink and microtransact and extract greatest possible value from a game, and that greatest possible value must also be extracted from the players, we end up in an oppositional relationship instead of an appreciative one.
It's subjective. I love grinding for materials in Fallout 4 when I'm playing Sim Settlements. I hate checklists and dailies in Fallout 76. I don't know why it's different, though I suspect it is the quality of the characters and dialog in the former. The grind is a relaxing interlude between great storytelling bits, as opposed to a transparent attempt to force artificial "daily" engagement that serves no other useful purpose except to pad a corporation's MAU's.
Wouldn't subjective. But a state of mind that anyone can be in.
Sometimes you just want mindless tasks. The rhythm is its own reward. Hence why their are games designed entirely around grinding such as stardew valley, farming simulator etc
After getting through what little story bits are released in F76, it's a "Groundhog's Day" grind. Overall, F76 is not a game to feel any sense of accomplishment or completeness from a story perspective.
I played Fo76 since launch up until the first seasons update (introduction of battle pass), despite it's problems.
It only took about 20 days of playing the seasons update to make me quit the game and never come back.
I have no respect for developers that want to make up poor reasons for me to play their game daily, like a slave or a dog returning for treats.
Here's some advice, ditch ALL games that use this shitty system and NEVER look back. Battle Passes suck out everything that's been great about games and replace it with stress. You're gonna be thanking me (first & foremost yourself), I guarantee it.
Fallout: You can grind the death claws in the boneyard. It's the easiest way to get to maximum level. They stop respawning if you kill the deathclaw mother.
One man's grind is another man's gameplay. Whether it's making money, farming materials, leveling up or hoping for a rare drop, any progression system will have SOMEONE feel like it's a grind.
I personally don't mind grind so long as I can feel I'm making progress. Heck, I play Old School Runescape, the game that's often considered nothing BUT grinds. But I have a lot more patience for grinding up skills than I do grinding bosses for rare drops, because the randomness doesn't feel like I'm ever making progress. That said, a lot of people love boss drops more than slower, grindy skills because the element of luck and "It could be over on any kill" is so enticing to them.
Grind is personal. Find your particular style of grind and embrace it, but understand that others will be offput by it out of hand.
Personally, what i considered the stupidest grinds were many of the 'Achievements' in WoW. So many of them were just repeating the same action for literally hundreds or even thousands of times, to no point other than being able to brag of your (heh, lol) 'achievement'. And to keep you in the game and paying a steady monthly subscription to Blizzard, of course...
I just realized how absurdly different the definitions of "grind" really can be. Other terms are required to differentiate. But honestly, talking about it in a general sense might not even be that useful as each game is (or at least, should be) its own creation, its own piece of art with its own design choices. So defining "grind" per example to point out bad/lazy game design might be the best way to go about it.
When I saw the title I thought this was the grind that nearly inevitably comes as a game prepares to launch. QA and even last minute Development grind.
That is probably better known as crunch
He does have a video about that, as the other guy said, it should be called "crunch"
I know it's more grind than game at this point, but I never felt a greater sense of accomplishment in RPG level progression than being able to walk slightly further on the world map after leveling up in Dragon Quest 1. Something about knowing you need to grind in order to not get completely wrecked on the next screen and having a goal in mind was strangely satisfying and manageable to me.
I feel like I tend to separate "grind" and "chores" in games. Grind is something I do not want to do, but have to do in order to progress in some way (money, gear, XP, etc.). Chores I don't have to do, and sometimes they don't even give you anything (like petting a cat when you pass it in the street on the way back to your base), but they _are_ infinitely (or nigh-infinitely) repeatable, and I can work them into my routine.
Another example, games that allow base building. I love when I can customize my base to be visually how I'd like. I hate when I have to endlessly repair walls or refuel generators or such.
I love upgrading weapons and gear, I hate finding ammo. I love finding new ammo types, I hate crafting it. I love learning new spells, I despite hunting for components.
Basically, anything that allows me to experience (or re-experience) things I like? Awesome. Things that pull my time _away_ from things I like? Not awesome.
Your zombie spawning example is interesting though. I think...for me personally, that'd be a neutral scenario. On the one hand, if I _HAD_ to do it (because there were no better sources of income/XP/etc.) I'd call it grind and dislike it. On the other hand, if there were plenty of other/better enemies elsewhere (even if they didn't necessarily respond as often, or at all), it might be a fun little spot to try out new spells or gear or combos.
I guess what all that ends up meaning is that I think framing is everything, and how optional (or non-optional) it is really ends up making the difference.
(I've never understood the game length thing _EXCEPT_ where it relates to price. For a sub-$30 indie game, it can last 20 mins and I might be totally cool with it, for a $65+ AAA game...ya...it better be life-changing if it's going to be 20 mins XD)
The thing I realized when trying to define what people call grind in games is it's 1 term with 2 definitions.
The first definition I've figured is the mechanic of repetitive action loop to build up something usually EXP/GOLD, also referred to as farming.
The second definition is usually just something you have to do in the game that takes a significant amount of time that people consider unfun. Usually something I referred to as a slog.
It doesn't have to be something like farming it can just be a part of the game where you play as a side character that you don't think is very fun or interesting. Or there are puzzles you have to do that you don't find very fun.
That's at least what I have personally found are the definitions of grind.
Grind > Checklists
I actually prefer the Grind instead of the beginning and end game game content. The journey is my favourite part
I agree with you that the journey is more important than the destination: the main gameplay loop is king. Though I wouldn't call it "grind" if it's engaging. If your main gameplay loop feels like a grind, then I'm ditching it. A good example of a non-grind game loop was Bloodlines: getting XP/money/weapons didn't feel like a grind since it was obtained by doing quests and all quests felt unique.
This is pretty much my deal with ARPGs. I love getting my skill points and leveling through some areas, but I've never cared for max level gearing.
Imho the journey is more important than the destination: the main gameplay loop is king, even above the story. If your main gameplay loop feels like a grind, then I'm ditching it. A good example of a non-grind game loop was Bloodlines: getting XP/money/weapons didn't feel like a grind since it was obtained by doing quests and all quests felt unique.
Grind as farming in FromSoft games actually serves a purpose, to level up to either beat a boss I suck at or to loot cool gear or both. In a lot of games (looking at you Ubisoft) it is just as many have said: a mindless checklist to stretch the playtime... I still have PTSD from the seals in AC Odyssey where it was part of a quest or in Fallout 4 Nuka Cola DLC where it was part of a Steam achievement...
While I dislike most online gaming grind, I do enjoy single player grind at least as an option.
The grind can add a level of role play by spending additional time with your party and you can get more attached to them in ways that writing can often fall flat on. However I dislike grind that is required for ultra rare items or boss fights that have like a 1 in a million chance for a drop, etc.
A few good examples are Chrono Trigger has a weapon in the beginning of the game you can grind for or wait a few dungeons and get it for free. Legend of Dragoon has some late game armor that appears early on that you can buy immediately with a few dozen hours of grinding or you can wait to late game and buy it easily.
Earthbound has examples of grind that I really hate like the rare best weapons, and MMOs and pvp FPS games and their battle passes are examples of why I stop playing or refuse to play games with that kind of grind.
Tldr; optional grind = best grind
About grind. There is a game: DarkStar One. And its not greatest one in my opinion but I remember liking it. In this game you have a star map to travel around but its an illusion: to move plot forward you snake through it on a predefined path. Each zone on a map has progressively stronger enemies and each zone sells you ship upgrades that will get you strong enough for current zone but not strong enough for the next one.
The thing I've remembered the most is that in about middle section of a game to progress you need to grind a good amount of money on repeating generated missions (not plot-related), I've got so frustrated of doing the same things over and over again I've just hacked in the money I needed. On my Steam stats for it I see that I've spent respectable almost 20 hours to finish it, it would've been much longer if I had to grind the money. I don't think there was a need to pad game time this way.
Feels like reward amount was miscalculated for the middle section of a game because otherwise I had fun playing it.
I feel like online games could build more on the interactions between the different players who specialize in different things (like in your example with necromancer bones but with different professions, for example).
Or even in single player, make all content and resources available to everyone but at a lower efficiency (so even if you have to grind, it would be the activity you enjoy most or at least specialize in). For example, you level blacksmithing but you could still use alchemist potions, you would just have to buy them at a premium and sell some of your produce to get the money.
The main problem with that approach is that you have to make different professions balanced and varied enough so that all players don't pick the single most lucrative one.
Grind is the verb, the actions that players need to stay engaged. Excessive grind leads to burnout. Good designed grind has player itching to keep playing. Deep Rock Galactic (one of the very best co-op shooters)is one of the very few games ( I'm in my late 40's) that I never have an issue to keep jumping in the randomly generated caves. All MMORPGs burn me out and I love MMORPGs. Mobile games are my least fav things to play as the grind because it's obviously trying to make you buy things constantly. The older I get the more my time is valuable to me.
I loved fishing in FFXIV and Classic WoW. It was a great way to chill, chat, watch shows, and generally relax during the downtime between dungeons and raids.
GRUNN is an indie adventure game that uses grind in a very interesting way. You can cut grass and do other gardening chores that are not mandatory at all, even though it seems like they give you progress. They are very grindy and addictive, but they give you an opportunity to think about the puzzles while still being in the game and doing something that feels satisfying. This, plus a time loop, completely change the feeling of being stuck that is typical of such games.
It's funny discussing Fallout because while it really does feel short compared to some of today's slogs (there are like three quests per map) that's part of what makes it so great, because the huge variety of choices available to you (both in build type and morality) means it's hugely replayable. I'm never going to bother replaying most RPGs just for the sake of doing a stealth build, or an unarmed build, or setting my intelligence to the lowest value, because it means grinding (yes) through too much stuff for the sake of seeing the consequences.
Hi Tim ,
Before saying something offtopic into this content first in original Fallout there is some few grinding things i mean just for level yourself things and also no need to do that but in order to grind yourself to reach maximum level as fast as possible :) In Military Base area player can grind to kill some Super Mutant Army to level themselves up or can get exp kind of efficient by not killing the Deathclaw eggs in boneyard area and Deathclaws keeps spawning after leaving area and i think you suppose to wait 1 day in order to wait their spawn anway :) so player can kill it again to earn more exp . If considering those as grinding in Fallout 2, Arcanum or Outer Worlds or any of your games there is possibly are some place to level yourself up like that way .
Off Topic content is that you may heard probably Fallout TV Series has won best Game Adaptation Award . Without you and other people you have worked with , probably this amazing universe can't be created and get that award . Thanks again for each one of you for creating this masterpiece .
And secondly Outer Worlds 2 Officially announced it's release year in 2025 i'm soo excited to play that game , i hope this upcoming game become huge sucess .
The most enjoyable grind I've ever experienced was the multi-player for Mass Effect Andromeda. You had jet boots, space magic and ray guns at your disposal - which was a great starting point. Yes, you would grind to max out your manifest, but the gameplay itself was so good - fluid, fast paced, and in three dimensions. Matches didn't feel like a grind, they were fun, and short enough you could play several in a session.
The main issue with grind is having to redo something you've outskilled, a problem that you've solved. This is why a turn-based RPG or a cooldown clicker MMO is more likely to be called grindy than an action game like Monster Hunter. Basically, if you can get a bot or macro to do it, it's grind, but in Monster Hunter you're moving around in a 3D space and dealing with the monster AI RNG, so it doesn't feel like a solved problem, you can do better or worse based on your skill level and continuously improve, even if you're farming the same monster for a gem. And even in turn-based, you're unlikely to call something like X-Com grindy, because there's enough challenge, uncertainty and interesting decisions to keep you engaged
So one big issue with grind is player skill levels not matching "necessary" content, and one way to counter that is to have a system for cranking up the difficulty and the rewards so you don't waste their time. That becomes tricky in a game with an economy because you have guys who can turn the difficulty up until they have one HP and can only get kills by nudging enemies into hazards but they're getting x10 or more rewards. But then for those games you just shrug and say grind's just a part of it
I love runescape (both osrs & rs3) & especially ironman mode, which means you have to be self-sufficient, gather all materials, get all drops etc by yourself. Its definitely rough sometimes when you are stuck on some important gear drops or whatever & go mega dry, but the feeling of accomplishment makes it worth it. (also tbh being on the spectrum probably helps alot to enjoy the repetive, endless grinds just to see number go up & all that :D)
grind can also be a good way to appreciate aspects of a game that otherwise you would pay less attention to. for example, music, sound effects, animations, fuller ui/inventory functionality, general art and mood/feel of a game or around ceratin areas of it... in combination with sense of accomplishment, this can truly make fun.
basically, if a game provides player an option to choose between less/not grindy and grindy ways to play, that can only be a good thing.
The best way to avoid grind is to have a wide variety of activities that all feed into a common pool of items that players will want BUT you need to obfuscate this process so that it isn't obvious else you will have many people purposely grinding what they see as the most profitable activity. In a very real sense you need to protect players from ruining their own enjoyment.
For example, you could have three commonly needed items available from a vendor who uses a certain resource, this resource is a quest reward but you have to purchase an event ticket to start any of these quests and these too have varied activities. However, currency is widely available from many other activities so players can do whatever they find fun to obtain these desirable vendor only items.
Games like No Man's Sky and Phantasy Star Online 2 did a fantastic job at obfuscating their grind behind elaborate progression systems.
Reminds me of Mech Warrior Online. In the earlier days, I'd often hear people complaining about the grind in the game. But I never understood it. The entire game was multiplayer, hence the name. You play a match and get C-Bills and XP at the end. XP goes into giving generally minor performance boosts in that mech variant, C-Bills are used to buy new weapons and mechs.
I guess if you were wanting a new mech and couldn't afford it you might feel like you were grinding for that mech. But otherwise you just got it by playing the core game. The grind they were talking about was literally the gameplay they were there for. If it was such a grind I can't help but feel they just didn't like the game. I fundamentally greatly enjoy Mech Warrior gameplay, I was there for the games, not once did I feel like I was grinding. Even at the start when I was on a fresh account.
Hello Tim. (boy do I feel honored to be able to write to you, love your games). You could grind xp in Fallout 1, many of my friends did. Deathclaws respawned after reentering the location, if The Mother was left alive. 1k xp per specimen sure gave a boost!
You didn't have to, obviously, but you could, and it was fun. Even if only to discover the opportunity.
@@svietlysty I can't restrain myself from doing that exact thing. The best part is it's very easy to just step outside back to neutral territory, wait a bit, re-enter and they're right there; minimum travel required, really. I always felt a little guilty about cheesing the game like that, but I just like how it works. It was 'the good grind'. (I also very pro-level cap, as it meant more replayability, and so hitting the cap due to that xp wasn't an issue for me)
Great video as usual Tim, thanks a bunch.
One thing I've always disliked was random chance on top of random chance, Trying to get a weapon, and trying to get a good quality of that weapon. It just makes the game more frustrating, it might make the game more customizable but at the cost of my sanity.
usually when games are like this they are build around this specific experience. some games are just not for everyone, but this doesn't make them bad.
One little thing to add to the definition of "grind" I feel like is the reward of it is extrinsic.
Be it XP, loot, currency whatever.
While this is self explanatory since we're talking about RPGs and they're mostly defined by extrinsic rewards, a lot of players in other genres are talking about a "grind" where no such rewards are to be obtained. Even in fighing games, which didn't have properly functioning online before Covid so "grinding" for ranked points wasn't even a thing, people would often talk about "grinding online matches". Even though they only played to gain intrinsic rewards like character familiarity and matchup knowledge.
Grinding for me is more of a state of mind than the activities itself.
Usually triggered by repetitive, low attention activities that make go through the motions. Usually not the goal but a massive obstacle towards a goal
As someone with ADHD, I'm very intolerant of grind.
I just can't bring myself to play most survival games because of the mind numbing grind, ESPECIALLY if said games don't return your building materials to you when you deconstruct items/buildings etc. Valheim is the only recent survival-craft type game that I feel respects your time.
The monster can be made more resource demanding on each spawn. If certain monsters are done a number of times, then the rewards from them diminish. A special spawn happens after clearing a zone a certain number of times.
New videoooo 🎉
Let's go grind on Warframe, there's a new update soon.
My definition to grind is a broad way to say farm. "Oh today I'm not gonna raid, have to grind. I'm gonna farm mats" or level some items. And that's it, no matter if it will be fun or not, quick or slow. I call it grind activity when I'm farming something.
God, I haaated Warfarm's grind. Too many forms of currency/materials located on too many content islands that don't really touch what, to me, was the real core loop, until finally there really was no core loop, just several loops that were similar! Gotta rank up weapons and frames and your operator to get mastery and to progress, but there's always a "best" way to do that because of the ever-changing meta, but if you can't do that meta you have to grind to be able to do that meta, so you need mods for your initial gear to get good enough to do the dead content I used to call the core loop, enough of them to fuse together to rank them up to make your Braton/Lato/Skana worth a damn, only so that you can then do relics forever to get parts for something else, but AHA! A mastery requirement before you can access the time gate (building the thing), and a few potatoes too, why not? So to get that mastery, you'll need to rank up more gear, not the stuff you *wanted* to use, and not necessarily in a combat style you enjoy at all... but to get STARTED on that, you need to farm up the parts to build the trash weapons/frames you don't actually want to play with, and all the dead content resources needed to run the build, and you need to look up what planet and what mission drops that or if there is a more optimal farming method for the rarer stuff, and you need to remember that, or take extensive notes to remind you of your objectives, and watch those alerts and stuff, and I hope you recognize them when you--dammit I need a taxi to Saturn or whatever! My asshole friends wanna do relics some more so I'll have to spam chat! Then the connection will drop and I'll be playing alone on high level interception or extraction of something! May as well quit and start over!
Obstacles upon obstacles upon obstacles1
TIM TIM TIM TIM , thanks for the vid man really enjoy your insights
Here are my feelings on it... Grinding is the act of doing the same thing over and over again in order to meet a long term goal. The opposite of grinding is immediate gratification, in which you have instant access to reward.
It's the difference between spending years grinding for loot and getting your character up to max level, and that of unlocking admin commands and giving yourself those things within the span of a few seconds... they both serve as a reward - it's fun to have access to cool stuff immediately but the fun quickly dissipates because it was unearned, but doing it the other way is more challenging and rewarding in the long run to work towards gaining those rewards but you need patience and ain't nobody got time for that.
Literally there are two types of people (generally separated by both a combination of IQ and skill) and it's best shown in one of the most famous cognitive experiments ever performed: the 'stanford marshmallow test'. In that test, children around the age of 5, were presented with a marshmallow and were told they can eat the marshmallow at anytime, but if they wait and do not eat the marshmallow by the time the researcher returned to the room that as a reward they will be given an extra marshmallow, a timer starts upon the researcher giving these instructions and then leaving the room. Most kids after a bit of initial restraint will eventually eat the marshmallow placed before them, but other kids will wait and wait and wait for the reward - and the rest are between the two, eating them after a certain amount of time of highly stressful waiting. The researchers then routinely checked up on the kids as they grew, from children, to teens, to adults, and they would see how they ended up; Fun fact, (be it if you love her or hate her) Susan Wojcicki of google/youtube fame was one of the kids from the test and in fact one of the kids that lasted the longest in order to eat the marshmallow... and researchers found this time and time again that there was a striking correlation between those that CAN wait and those that succeed in life and are generally smarter - and those that can't be bothered to and compelled by immediate gratification.
HOWEVER, the sad facts are: there are vastly more impatient people than there are patient ones... such is life.
Because of this, games like Everquest DEFINED a genre of difficult grinding massive multiplayer games, which catered to those that appreciated delayed gratification and cause many that experienced them over two decades ago to have deeply fond memories of them even to this day - a somewhat beloved game to many shading many contemporary releases... paradoxically, most gamers 'want' instant gratification (which was a huge design pillar for games like World of Warcraft, and they were very vocal about this during development, which set player expectations and continues on with mobile games in general and eventually most games fitting short attention spans and spoiled need for immediate gratification) however, these experiences generally are more superficial and less rewarding, causing that very same genre to pretty much die on the vine... a rot so deep that people even grew sick of WoW and only with the promise of an old 2004 style wow did people actually get excited again to play it (namely shown by subscriber numbers).
Catering to the 'hardcore' players (the ones that like grinding) will alienate upwards of 90% of the gaming public that just wants immediate gratification and they want to just log on, have the coolest loot and power fantasy for 15 minutes at a time, get bored, and do the same in another game,... but catering to this kind of 'casual' player generally creates worse games.
With mmos in particular, its one of those 'the rich get richer' things, where you need massive community and interest to even have the chance of success, because the second you don't have a massive community and mass interest and mass server/zone saturation, then nobody will want to play it because it would be considered either a 'dying game' or 'not enough people are playing for the mechanics to work'.
ALSO you have big money behind mmos, so you need that ROI... and talking to shareholders, you could say "margins are tight, but we're going to target the hardcore gamers that make up 10% of potential customers, because this will make a better game", but you'll be laughed out of the room. So, casuals have won the day for decades and killed the genre because doing so only keeps their attention for a few passing moments and go on like a pack of locusts to ruin the next game, clamoring for more "but I want to solo", then "it's too hard to level" then inevitable "there is no endgame, this game stinks, I got to the end and there isn't more power fantasy for me" and the process repeats on the next would-be good game.
The only way to bring mmos back is to bring grinding back, however, doing so will cause less people to play, which will cause the game to be deemed DoA, which will then lead to a great game that nobody will play because they will just shut it down due to it being not profitable... so the only games that are left and those that don't and are catered to casuals but result in superficial and easily forgotten titles. It's one of the biggest paradoxes in gaming, imho. I don't think it can ever be fixed.
For me, whether or not a game's grind is good or bad depends upon why the developers made it grindy. Everquest's grind was/is meant to encourage exploration, player interaction, a healthy economy, etc. GTA V online's grind, however, is meant to artificially extend the amount of time it takes for people to earn money in a way that discourages people from becoming rich so that they buy shark cards. That kind of grind is scummy.
for me grind is fun when there is still skill involved. Imo like a golden era of Bleach games on roblox 2010-2016. It was simple grind. Walk up to enemy and swing sword. As you got higher levels right you could still die really easy BUT you still needed to race to max level which was like level 10k+. You had to get multiple mobs that if you don't do it right you'll get obliterated and leveling will be so slow. As a kid I would turn on my fav album at the time and lock in for like 60 lvls a day in a couple hours or more. I definitely felt more and more satisfied with each successful grind because it took skill to level really fast. My lvls were directly correlated to my input.
I liked to play MU Online when it was fun low ratio, because it was dopamine hit for little upgrades on one piece of gear. Grind is cool when it gives prize for a struggle. Grind was fun when I was young. In these days last grind I enjoyed was Warframe, because they made the process fun and a lot of loot.
I’m a bit of a weirdo, I enjoy stuff like vanilla WoW where you have to kill tens of thousands of things with quests just to get tens of levels. It feels kind of relaxing as you said.
Tim talking about grind reminds me of the "meow" game on super troopers.
Talking about the original fallout and how it isn’t long enough I would have to disagree with people I think that the story doesn’t need to be overly long and plays itself out in the timespan just right for it not to get redundant and become a grind
Speaking of grind, I will walk across the length and breadth of Arcanum to farm random encounters. You level up quite quickly, it's not a chore at all.
You would think the Molochean Hand would learn their lesson the first dozen times
I prefer to optional opportunities for XP grinding (enemies that respawn after the player is away for a while or small procedural side quests) as a way to keep XP from being finite. When XP is finite players often feel a need to take quests they otherwise wouldn't or that don't fit their character, or to kill everything on a map, so as not to miss out on XP. By allowing a way to make up XP some other way this pressure is off -- I think of how player in some games will kill every friendly XP, just so it doesn't go to waste. One aspect of mechanics design that has really been on my mind is what incentives XP systems create.
Putting aside the subject of actual MMO-style grind, I am happy to "grind" in a game if I: 1) Like the aesthetic and feel of the game. 2) The grind activities (crafting, combat) are well designed and have relatively low friction. 3) The game allows for some degree of varied or emergent gameplay during the grind activity, even if marginal. The grind I absolutely do not like is something like in a Jrpg, where you have something like "We didn't really scale or balance this arc of the game, would you kindly just sit in this area for the next 6-8 hours killing the same monsters and muling the same loot, until you can one-shot everything? That will let you know you can (probably) kill the next boss." Some people like this; not my cup of tea.
From my gaming experiences (Skyrim), the same thing can become grind in different contexts.
Say, lockpicking. I like the minigame, especially if I have few lockpicks. When I tries to pick a lock for the loot with intent of minimizing mistakes, it's not a grind for me. BUT, if I spot a really nice perk in the lockpicking tree and it requires a higher skill level than what I currently have, suddenly "the need to find locked chest and pick them just so I could raise skill level" makes lockpicking a horrible grind...
I dislike grind, but I like optional grind, cuz its existence encourage me to look for a "more efficient way" to achieve my goal, and that leads naturally to player-driven experimentation. Such as finding a better soul-farming spot in the first days of Elden Ring... my friends and I spent days trying to optimize our input macro for that "Steel Ball Run" at Caelid (yeah we're all JOJO fans) and those were my best experiences with base Elden Ring.
I think the game that does grind the best, for me, is Old School RuneScape.
It's incredibly varied by intensity and reward. So if you hate grinding you can do really high difficulty, high intensity activities to get xp or monetary value quicker or you can afk the skill and it'll take way longer but you can second monitor it or chat with the people next to you doing it as well.
It's also INCREDIBLY integral to the game and economy. A lot of the low level grind materials are still useful for high level characters so you can sell it for gold at the Grand Exchange and that helps out new players both get money AND level up their skills which is vastly more important than short term money.
plot twist.. Uncle Tim actually admins a chatroom for goblins.
You mean the TH-cam comments section.
Lol
Glad you mentioned grind as a game length extender or as the "endgame." It is crazy how often I'll see people complain about a game that doesn't have any sort of extended endgame, or is just a campaign without more after the last mission. Apparently Stalker 2 is like this, once you hit the final quest the game is over and that is fine. I often wonder if people are just conditioned to expect that now, or if they really do want to be just mindlessly grinding a game for hundreds of hours. Especially for games when all they get is a slightly better item they already have.
I feel like the point of "gring" is "to get pass n obstacle". That obstacle can be a too hard boss that you have to continously try to kill (and getting better at it), it can be gathering resources so you can get your character good enough to make things easier. In the best games the grind is trying reverse engineer the game in spreadsheet to break it.
grind is doing something over and over for the sake of grind, things you get are just bonus. I know, I've been playing eq for over 20 years and still play 😁. No one does the grind as well as koreans though 🍒
I love grinding. It's how you get good!
It really depends on the reason grind has been incorporated into the game. You shouldn't need to spend thousands of hours killing trash mobs just to level up your character.
I'm sort of in a weird camp where I love playing games that are just 6 hours long too, BUT I have also spent over 3000 hours playing Warframe, chatting while grinding, trading and stuff. Tho I could've spend that time on better activities (ﾉ≧ڡ≦)
Nowadays I ask myself of what would I rather do: grind for hours OR exercise, go on a walk, code for fun, etc. The answer sounds obvious, but as you've said it's nice to grind when waiting for friends to hop on. I recently had a fever and am thinking that maybe I could've just grinded something to pass the time quicker, I chose to nap instead.
Grind is just a matter of player perception. Every game boils down to the core gameplay loop, there are only a few key elements to any given game. Some games try to obfuscate their loop by stacking systems on top of eachother which can just lead to a different problem, bloat.
Some of my most played games are honestly a singular thing repeated ad infinitum. Most rogue-likes are essentially just a singular aspect, same with Arpgs and minecraft is quite literally just one massive grind you do for no reason besides the goals you set yourself.
I like to say mmos are social lubricants. That world of warcraft is an irc server with a trivia bot with really nice graphics (for a trivia bot).
I don't necessarily have fun grinding, but the enticing chance at rare loot always kept me killin'.
And FTL took thousands of hours from me because of the random chance every node offers. New weapon or crew member? Dangerous adventure? Much needed store to buy fuel? You never know.
For a lot of people grinding is satisfying. For some games it's the core gameplay, like latest diablo, and people buy these games for the grind. I like every kind of progression and appreciate a little grind, but just a little. In any case I prefer 20 mins of grind in the zombie cemetery than 20 mins of cinematic cutscenes! This is a question I would like to ask to game studios: why do you put so much cinematics in your games? They are not fun, we all are get used to high quality cinematics, so there isn't even the WOW! effect anymore, only boredom.
tbf the MMO type of daily/reputation grind is the reason I have always dropped playing WoW after the initial excitement to get back to it. the game is already built upon many repeatable activities and quantitative quests, but when you can feel that the progression is being deliberately nuked into oblivion just to keep the retention time (and compensate for the lack of content) and you are forced to do the exact same set of quests over and over again for 30-60 days it gets depressive really fast
instead of having some recluse from a day at work/school, you just spend 3+ hours doing even more mundane chores, after which you don't have much time/energy for the actual fun part of the game. some time later you reflect on your game experience and realize you've been doing nothing but the exact same dailies for the past month, memorized to semi-automation, but you haven't even hit 50% progression needed yet,. end up questioning the value of your time, and with further realization that you have to do even more of the same stuff, quitting is the only rational decision.
solo games are usually not nearly as bad, but some mechanics like crafting have started to take influences from MMO games, throwing you into desperation mode. it's kinda worse when you're also ocd'ing everything and have a completionist nature, so skipping some elements of the game is depriving you from experiencing, especially when those elements become closer to the core experience
in the end, it's all about the right balance, which is ofc subjective, but there's definitely a threshold when something is just grindy but rewarding and when it's obnoxiously exploitative of your time
I don't think I've ever evaluated a game based on its length, personally. That might have something to do with the way I interact with games. My friends call it "slow", I call it "thorough"
nice!
The grind I don't like and complain about the developers is the one that is necessary to progress and the gameplay loop is meh or lower.
What I consider really bad grind is the one with a monetary incentive to skip it. Predatory and scummy. But, as someone commented, now it is not grind, it is checklists and dailies and weeklies. It is grind with a newer name.
One thing to consider is in RPGs, there are level system and skill system which rewards player with stats and new skills for player willing to grind. These incentive players to grind to get stronger and to get new skills. This creates positive loop in which after getting stronger, player could grind in other areas to earn more XP and thus get even stronger and loop repeats.
There are solutions to this but I'll stop here.
I love JRPG Metal Max grind - weird enemies, tanks, awesome!
No one complains about Tetris, Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc., and among modern games, Dead Cells, Hades, etc., even though they are all based on repetitive loops. So it's about how good the gameplay is. If it's good, the repetitive loops are addictive. Otherwise they are a chore, busywork, deja vu, groundhog day (grindhog day?).
Congrats, Tim!
I've been grinding in an mmo out of choice because I enjoy it, finding myself not enjoying the game after some time, then realising I am choosing to do an activity I've lost enjoyment in. It isn't the games fault, there are plenty of other things for me to do. If there are alternatives to endlessly grinding, I don't think it's an issue. Especially if the grind is fun. Although there are limits that anything can be fun when you do it endlessly back to back, which you likely aren't even intended to play that way.
We used to refer to Everquest as a chat room that you had to pay a monthly subscription to use.
I LOVED doing business in EQ. And some of the best times I had was hanging out with people I met camping a spawn. Definitely a chat room with orcs.
Grind to me is almost always padded playtime. I think grind is okay if its not frustrating or caused by a roadblock. Like if I grind lower level mobs to get free potions or whatever then I am fine with that, makes it easier at the cost of time.
Untill you finished the related quest you could grind deathclaws in Fallout. Just kill all of them on the groundlevel, leave, rest for a while, go back, repeat =). Soooo much XP. But of course, you needed a decent level and good gear to be able to do it in the first place, cause they was scary!
Colloquially we say "grinding quests" even though every quest is unique because questing as an experience is more or less the same loop over and over.
Grind seems to be done for repetitive task for a minor goal not directly related to the main goals. Ex grinding to LV up, grinding for materials to upgrade stuff... spefially if the game is level based and also player skill based and you just nees to grins to match the math to damage enough a boss...and mostly is associated negatively, thats why many MMOs have macros/auto
The more I think about "grind", the less I know what it is. Aren't... all games "grind" in some sense? Even if it means acquiring XP? I think the main distinction is that there are games which have parts that are boring and repetitive. When something becomes no longer fun to do, but "necessary" (maybe to progress), it becomes a grind. Like farming hundreds of hyenas until you get into a level-range where you can quest again.
I was just spooked a little that my entire game becomes "grind"... but as Agent Smith said, "that's not fair."
Fallout 1 was about 20+ hours for me when I played through it the first time in 2014 or 15. It felt like about the right length.
In Secret of Mana I will avoid going to the first village until Ive levelled a couple of times, just to make the initial boss fight easier/earn money etc lol
In Wizardry 5 grind is fun for me because I like to see how powerful I can make my characters. I still haven't beaten the game, but I have really powerful characters, haha
you touched a bit on this in the video but grinding is very close to a skinner box, especially once you add random drops into the mix... repetitive actions with random rewards is a powerful (and dangerous) psychological tactic to keep players playing. diablo 4 used this sort of gameplay for just this purpose, keeping players hooked and continue playing so theyll spend money on the in-game shop (especially the battle pass). jimmy mcgee has a great video on this
Grind definitely depends on the game.
If I play a Zelda game I do not want grind. The closest thing better be finding rupees to buy something I want or need.
I don't play MMO's because I hate fetch quests and I don't like a story that can't go over the top because of multiplayer restrictions. But a game like RuneScape where I have no idea what the story is and I'm listening to my own playlist and eating or chatting somehow. That's when I don't mind grind.
The exception is the really good offline RPG. Final Fantasy did it best for me. I can beat FF8 without having those GF learn EVERY ability...but if you really like the game sometimes you just want to out of joy for the game.
best treatment of the topic, Tim
I sometimes gravitate to grindy games or activities because i like listening to youtube videos in the background. The game doesn't take my full attention and it helps me concentrate on the video.
I thought this was going to be about "Grind" like "working hard on making the thing", but this was also interesting.
Crunch?
The OMG we have to get the ship date?
@@wesss9353 Yea, well either that or stuff like "find time to sit down and work at it consistently for a long time" type of thing.
Icewind dale is my favorite game, the entire thing is grind.
In fallout 4 for the Nuka-world DLC you have to reach level 30 to get the first quest for it so I would get a ton of wood and metal and scrap what I could in Sanctuary hills in the workbench thing and craft multiple shelves because you use 2 wood and like 3 steel so you could make hundreds of them and each one you make you get xp.
Once I read that true grind is doing a repetitive and easy action that doesn't advance the story.
Other than that grind can be used as a slur, but not as a true definition.
Love ❤️ u Tim keep up the development vids so interesting
Better to find ways to incorporate resource procurement into your gameplay routine as a player, because then you'll never perceive anything as grind or framing. The downside is also an upside; You get to do inventory management.😅
I told my best friend...
All a man wants in life is to be more efficient than another man and be rewarded for it
Some men want that but not all
I'm curious what your thoughts are on items that increase the chance of a rare drop of an dark souls mob(really wanted some rare weapons some have like a 1% chance to drop). If you optimize your setup to increase the chance of getting an item and you have some level of strategy, I have a feeling when you have some flexibility in choosing your strategy it feels less like grinding,
I never thought some people enjoy grinding, even though the most common grind I do now is in elden ring when trying to beat many weak or few strong mobs to get those last few runs I need to level up. This feels fairly differently from when I used to play dota and beating the forest mobs felt way more interesting because I can use a different strategy, even though they randomly spawn in the same spots.
One of my players is like this. Loves all the micromanagement in his survial games, but hates it in tabletop
I recall old days playing Tibia, standing making runes and talking with other players. Then some hunting monsters and back making runes. I really enjoyed this routine. Today - I can buy runes, nobody talking and making runes themselves. Is pointless to make runes alone. I lost interesting in the game.
Personally love Viva La Dirt League's videos on the subject of "when games feel like work." lol Oh, yeah. We're all familiar.
I like some grind, particularly XP or currency grind, to get some cool leveling perks or cool buyable stuff
Grind is bad because there is no game, just incentives and rewards.
A bit like you were given rewards for replaying Tic Tac Toe over and over.
11:20 One of the few issues with Baldurs Gate 3 is that there is no where to test your character builds. You have to use the actual story, or save scum.
In fallout (1) you could grind on the deathclaw map, they respawned id you did not kill the mother and each gave a lot of xp. I grinded there to get to level 27 so i pculd get both sniper and slayer perks, both available starting level 24 and the the i think does not give you enough xp to reach level 27 in a "normal" playtrough", at least i could not manage it.
But I did jot find it bad, I enjoyed finding a spot I could grind a bit.
Time to do some grinding people! The trash mobs sure ain't killing themselves! P.S. Dog wheeze so soothing.
Hi Tim, I have a question regarding subtlety in game design. Some games (I'm, not going to name names) rely on obvious clues on how to progress into the game, from climbable ledges being visibly painted, to devs directly giving puzzle tips to players via NPCs. What are your thoughts on this? How overt do you like to be when nudging the players in the right direction?
I don't need devs to add grind to make games longer (I enjoy longer games). I want them to add to their NARRATIVE. I know full well most people who want longer games, want THAT to be why the game is longer too--not mindless grinding all the time. If game devs can't understand THAT is what people want, when they want a longer game, well that is them being of questionable intelligence, not people encouraging grind.