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[SirNiko]

WoW originally didn't display a lot of that information. Monsters didn't show their HP numerically, they just had a bar. The first thing players did was calculate the amount of HP and make a mod that lists it. They would have done that if no bar exists. It's the nature of MMO players to be inquisitive and try to figure these things out if it can be done scientifically.

There are also players that enjoy learning and exploiting the mechanics, not in the sense of cheating but in the sense of exploration. It isn't just hacking the game, often it's done by creating carefully crafted software that tracks data, records large numbers of trials and narrows down exact values over time. They organize large scale attempts to collect lots of good data by setting groups of players in under known circumstances like with the basic weapon and no armor just to test. Many times they apply the scientific method in a very strict sense in order to determine just how the game makes certain rolls and what the best course of action is to maximize success. That's impressive to me, not cheating.

I don't see a reason to hide the numbers anyway. The players that don't care about the numbers will ignore them anyway, excepting perhaps they will use equipment with progressively bigger bonuses.

[Sorano]

I actually want to write an article about treating metagame/theorycrafting as a feature. I know it's a lot of fun (to me) figuring out what's currently considered best and worst in large scale games.

[Xecutor]

In zOMG MMO player can either grind his orbs out of mobs,
(try to) open chests in an area or
try to clear instance with a crew.
Every instance have 3 difficulty settings.
Clearing it on hard will give you a lot of orbs.
But hard is ... hard!

If you don't have time for instance,
you still can get repeating quest of 'kill X things' kind.
And there are 'freebies' scattered around.
You can spend a few minutes walking around collecting them

In roguelike games there is number of ways to prevent win
with grinding. Like food clock.

[antymattar]

I have been trying to inpact several games with this. I hate it when you get to a point where the 1000000000000 dollar reward for killing death it's self is common. The normal thing to do would be to make it so that the player is less used to money.

[SirNiko]

I actually want to write an article about treating metagame/theorycrafting as a feature. I know it's a lot of fun (to me) figuring out what's currently considered best and worst in large scale games.

There are even some non-online games that do this. Final Fantasy 12 was designed with a lot of content that could never be discovered by an individual player (because it was time consuming and random unless you knew what you were doing). For example, a monster that only appears in a specific place 10% of the time, or another one that appears only when you explore a whole zone without killing any monsters. The idea was that players who didn't care simply wouldn't see those monsters, but the ones that did would use forums and chatrooms to trade findings and eventually track down the whole list (and they did, shortly after release there was a full list of where to find all those rare monsters).

Kingdom of Loathing, which I mentioned before, has a pretty active community of theorycrafters and experimenters. Each month when a new item hits they immediately start a forum thread, start posting charts and tests, and coming up with things to test to determine where and when the item would be used to get faster times in speedruns or other activities. They currently have a thread open where they are trying to figure out if there's a pattern to rewards you get from mining in order to determine the most efficient way to complete the mining quest. At one point, the devs even put a special piece of armor in the game called a Spade's Jacket that had a question mark listed for its enchantment. The whole idea was that it was a puzzle for the theorycrafting / spade community to figure out what it does (turns out it gave +1 to +3 to three really obscure stats and was different but consistent for each person).

[Muz]

I'm on the anti-grinding side of the fence. I don't have enough time in my life to do what I want and click the same button repetitively in a game. I certainly wouldn't pay to skip the grind, though, because IMO, any game that relies solely on grinding as a game mechanic can't be a good one.

There are plenty of people who do love grinding though. Grinding isn't always boring. The whole idea is that it's an "A for effort" thing, in that the people who put the most effort into the game win. They don't even put heavy effort, just easy, laid back effort, sometimes with a friend.


My favorite form of grinding is what Cyber Nations does. Every day, you log in once for 5 mins, pay bills, then log off. You have to do this once every 25 days to not get deleted. It's very simple, it strongly appeals to casual players, and the hardcore ones can and do find other ways of getting ahead. No surprise that it's got a large player base.

Anyone who's ever created a CN nation would immediately see the other form of grinding - recruitment. Hundreds of alliances send out lots of private messages in the game every day, trying to recruit.. that's another form of grinding. Another form, more obvious in their tournament version, is trades. An individual has to dig into the game mechanics, find suitable trades for their nation, and spam dozens of others to try to get ideal trades.

It's still a lot of mindless effort, but it becomes a bit interesting because you're always doing the effort with other people. Since heavy grinding games are almost always social... it might be a good idea to try to force them to mass interact with others. But that introduces social power, and some people who look for simple grinding games don't want to deal with that.

[C.A. Sinner]

I'll still drop inordinate amount of time in roguelikes though.

Roguelikes aren't grind-based at all though. In fact, most of them actively punish grinding via hunger mechanics. In something like Nethack or Crawl, getting your level up so you don't get completely obliterated on the lower dungeon floors is a challenge in itself.

[Molten_]

I don't mind grinding, as long as the enemies are interesting, varied, and fun to battle against.

Oh wait, that completely throws most rpg's and mmo's out the window

[Sorano]

Well, I'd say that depends to a lot of factors.

For example, in online games like Phantasy Star Online and World of Warcraft, one of the things you do constantly is complete dungeons repeatedly for daily bonuses, money and equipment. There's very strong grind incentive built into these games.

I never truly got bored because most occasions I was playing with different or familiar players on every occasion. Almost everyone always displayed varying combinations of character classes, equipment, abilities and skill, which kept things fresh. Plus, there was the social interaction to add to the value of the experience.

Killing a dragon with a buddy or acquaintance just feels good. Something to consider.

[SirNiko]

From a different perspective, Minesweeper is a sort of a grind game. Large parts of it involve making simple, obvious moves based on known patterns. Frequently you reach situations where there is no choice left but to click randomly and hope for the best.

The key is that Minesweeper doesn't use the grind as a gate to some other aspect of the game. In that light, it's simply a pass-time game for when you're bored or want a little low-thought interaction on the side. I'm certain we all have a game like that we enjoy playing.

[Zest]

I don't mind grinding, as long as the enemies are interesting, varied, and fun to battle against.

Oh wait, that completely throws most rpg's and mmo's out the window

Perhaps it's the aesthetics that can help ease grinding- the reason most people remember Earthbound's combat system is probably because of the writing and the strange pop-culture characters you fought against. I find that a strong art direction with cute characters always wins me over. Case in point: Dragon Quest. The battle system is at first blush as simple as can be, but I was too distracted by the critters with adorable puns like Sacksquatch and Cruelcumber to actually care. By the time the battle system got deeper (still haven't beaten it yet after several weeks), there have been some more generic monsters, but they're still rendered in Toriyama's charming style, and the bosses still have amazing puns. More kids' games need amazing puns.

[C.A. Sinner]

I don't mind grinding, as long as the enemies are interesting, varied, and fun to battle against.

Oh wait, that completely throws most rpg's and mmo's out the window

Your point being?

[Gimym TILBERT]

.... the point being that enemies are not interesting, varied and fun to battle against, which is the main problem of grinding.

Seriously, nobody try to address that point correctly, the usual approach is to have an unorthodox fighting system that qualify the game as not "yet another" fantasy expansion pack, which is fun 5 minutes but get old quickly as it fall back to old mindless practice. Next time with punctuation.

Oh wait: valkyrie profile, mario and Luigi, chrono trigger ...

[C.A. Sinner]

I don't mind platforming as long as the levels are well-designed, varied and fun to play through.

Oh wait, that completely throws most platformers, metroidvanias and run'n'guns out the window.

See what I'm trying to get at here?

Also,

Oh wait: valkyrie profile, mario and Luigi, chrono trigger ...

I'd like to add the excellent and underrated Resonance of Fate to that list. Some of the mechanics seem a bit far-fetched and esoteric at first but after a couple of battles they make total sense.

[Molten_]

Perhaps it's the aesthetics that can help ease grinding- the reason most people remember Earthbound's combat system is probably because of the writing and the strange pop-culture characters you fought against. I find that a strong art direction with cute characters always wins me over. Case in point: Dragon Quest. The battle system is at first blush as simple as can be, but I was too distracted by the critters with adorable puns like Sacksquatch and Cruelcumber to actually care. By the time the battle system got deeper (still haven't beaten it yet after several weeks), there have been some more generic monsters, but they're still rendered in Toriyama's charming style, and the bosses still have amazing puns. More kids' games need amazing puns.

I've actually been dying to play Dragon Quest for that reason alone; The enemies look so charming and interesting that I honestly wouldn't mind battling them over and over again. Maybe this is why I enjoy atmospheric games like Knytt and SOTC; To me charm beats gameplay anyday.

I don't mind platforming as long as the levels are well-designed, varied and fun to play through.

Oh wait, that completely throws most platformers, metroidvanias and run'n'guns out the window.

See what I'm trying to get at here?

I don't get what you mean. Are you saying that I should stop stating my opinion as fact? Sorry if it felt like I was, I didn't mean it (That's kinda why I threw a smiley face in there )

Either way though, to me most RPG's focus more on the NUMBERS of the enemies instead of the design and the battle scenario. I'm not saying ALL rpg's and mmo's are bad, but that's just my personal experience with them.