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Random thoughts on more interesting gameplay. or "How I learned to love the grind"

Started by The Shadow Nose Jul 23, 2006 at 7:17 PM 28 replies 3.6k views

Original Post

Jul 23, 2006 at 7:17 PM

There has been some discussion (namely on the "There is life after Permadeath" on eliminating the Grind from a game or more appropriatly how to make it more fun and less of a chore. So, here are some thoughs (mostly from existing games) that may prove useful. ================ 1. Go old-school or "I stomp goombas for fun, not XP": Games like Super Mario Bros and the Zelda games don't really have much grind to them. That is because there really isn't an incentive to do repitative tasks. I think that is because neither Mario or Link gain any XP or abilities simply from killing enemies. Mario has a few abilities which he mainly gets from items like 'fire flowers', 'raccoon leaves', 'invincibility stars' or 'Hammer Brother suits' Invincibility lasts for a short time and the others give bonuses for basically forever until Mario gets hit. So he has an active interest to avoid combat that may make him lose his new power. Link has more abilities at his disposal but he doesn't gain any real power from killing enemies, the most he can expect is a heart for life or arrows, bombs or money. Link increases his Max HP through collecting heart containers, and gets new powers by buying or collecting items. So if he has any incentive to build his stats, he does it by fulfilling quests or searching for special tokens. So, in a nutshell, instead of rewarding players mainly from killing random thugs. The player is rewarded for completing a quest, task, or just getting their hands on a special item. The monsters in the way are just barriers to challenge the player on the way to the goal, killing them isn't the goal itself. =================== 2. Make ever-increasing challenges or "Those who live by the grind shall perish by the grind... if they arne't careful" Little story included --- Okay, I recently downloaded ToME (a rogue-type RPG) and one neat monster I met in the early levels is the 'white worm mass'. Basically, its a weak monster that reproduces at a high rate. So, the player walks into the room and sees a level 1 monster on the ground. After a few seconds, the monster spawns a duplicate nearby. Player: Hey, now there's two! Hmmm... I could kill them now and get a few XP... or let them reproduce and get INFINATE XP! *waits* The white worm masses keep reproducing, soon there is about 8. The player picks off a few with Manathrust because white worms can cause poison if they touch you (a ranged magic attack) Player: Sweet, easiest leveling ever... However, he soon runs low on MP and the worms keep reproducing, they start to fill the room. Player: Oh well... I can just get in the doorway and pick them off as they come at me. My melee can take them out now. He gets in the door and easily defends himself, however eventually the white worms spawn a red worm mass which is slightly more powerful. Player: Hey, that ones worth more XP, I will wait for it to reproduce also and then harvest the XP. The white worms are filling the room, and the player easily keeps them at bay. The red worms begin to reproduce and the player picks them off with manathrust, getting good XP. Player: Sweet! However, with all the worm masses in one place, it summons a Giant Slug which is like level 15 or so. It tramples over the white worms and kills them all, it heads straight for the player. Player: What the... AHHH! Run away! And so the player runs out of dungeon level 1 with a level 15 monster behind him spraying acid and killing enemies and trees as it gives chase. ------ So, if the player mainly gets XP or abilities through defeating enemies. Perhaps let their combat affect what enemies show up. In this case, not killing off the white worms makes more white worms appear to be killed later. Then if enough white worms survive then more powerful versions appear that give more XP. But if the player keeps killing too many worms, or too many worms are in one given place. Then thye can fight a powerfull mini-boss. The very act of 'grinding' makes more powerful monsters come to chalenge you, either for better grinding or to scare you into going somewhere else. Also in ToME, if you start as a Alchemist, you can make potions of Detonation which can be sold for a huge profit. But they also do massive damage. One easy way to level up is to bring a potion of detonation to a lake and find a level 20 Hydra. Kill it with the potion (almost always a one-hit KO) and you can easily go from level 1 to 16 from a single kill! Of course, XP is determined by the difference in levels so later kills do very little, but it is a nice way to bypass truging through massive levels with Alchemists (who are neiter good spellcasters or good melee fighers). =============

makeshiftwings

Jul 23, 2006 at 7:43 PM

"Grind" is sort of a new concept in the gaming community, and I don't think there's much of a consensus on what qualifies as grind and what doesn't. Generally, when I hear the term grind the following things are true:

1) It's mainly only used to refer to MMORPGs.
2) The people doing it claim to not like doing it, but still pay $15 a month to do it.
3) There is this idea that when you are done with the grind, you will then be able to do "the real game", but a lot of people end up disappointed when they get to "the real game" and end up quitting or complaining a lot.

I think "grind" is very much an effect of the way MMORPGs work; I don't think it applies to Super Mario or Zelda or even most single player RPGs. The reasons why:

1) Single player RPG's generally have a defined end point; you only need to be strong enough to beat the final boss and see the end.
2) Single player RPG's are all buy-once play-forever, which means the developers have little incentive to try and keep you playing for 6 months straight.
3) Single player RPG's have no competition with other players, and usually cast you as a hero, and usually scale along with the story to ensure that you're strong. Thus there is never the feeling of constant inadequacy that is common in MMO's, where half the people you see are "better" heroes than you.
4) Single player RPG's usually have more interesting plotlines since they don't need to compensate for the fact that there are 10,000 protagonists in their story. Thus, you feel that you are progressing through a plot rather than just progressing to a high level.
5) People don't complain when they get to the end of a single-player RPG, have maxed stats, and have completed every quest. But people do complain when they get to the end of an MMO, because they feel the game should be infinitely long. It's impossible to make infinite amounts of legitimately creative and interesting content, so developers cater to what players are demanding and stretch out the gameplay however they can; the players in turn feel that this content is not "good enough" and refer to it as grind.

People's theroetical solutions to grind usually involve skipping most of the leveling up and progression of usual RPG's, and instead get right to the "endgame". The "endgame" is usually considered to be some sort of massive PvP battle system. Guild Wars is a good example of this sort of solution. The problem is, that this type of MMORPG will only attract and keep people who actually want to spend all their time PvPing in arenas with other people. It can be fun, but that's not usually what RPG players want. RPG players like character progression, questing, and leveling up. People who claim to hate the "grind" in WoW probably wouldn't actually be happy if you gave them a maxed set of equipment. The only thing they could do is PvP all day in the battlegrounds; there's nothing else to do. People even refer to the PvPing in battlegrounds as "grinding" because you can get rewards if you do it long enough. The unanswered question is what do these complainers actually want to DO in world of warcraft? What sort of endgame do they envision? And if they claim to hate grind so much, why do they keep paying $15 a month to do it, and if they're paying that much, do developers really have a responsibility to make anything different? People complaining about grind are sort of like people that complain about reality tv shows but still watch them constantly.

The Shadow Nose

Jul 23, 2006 at 8:32 PM

Oh, I never played any MMORPGs, don't feel like spending the money. I was thinking once of getting Final Fantasy XI... but got turned off when I heard of the inflation problem.

Though I am downloading PlaneShift through bittorrent right now, its supposed to be a free game so I'd try out MMORPGs through it.

Nytehauq

Jul 24, 2006 at 8:11 PM

Quote:
Original post by makeshiftwings
"Grind" is sort of a new concept in the gaming community, and I don't think there's much of a consensus on what qualifies as grind and what doesn't. Generally, when I hear the term grind the following things are true:

1) It's mainly only used to refer to MMORPGs.
2) The people doing it claim to not like doing it, but still pay $15 a month to do it.
3) There is this idea that when you are done with the grind, you will then be able to do "the real game", but a lot of people end up disappointed when they get to "the real game" and end up quitting or complaining a lot.

I think "grind" is very much an effect of the way MMORPGs work; I don't think it applies to Super Mario or Zelda or even most single player RPGs. The reasons why:

Indeed. But people have many bad reasons for doing boring things. The "grind" is all about expectation with no reward - you grind gear/levels/experience with the hope that things will be more fun once you get to the top. It's not a design application or limitation - it's for making money through renewed and returned subscriptions. It really doesn't apply, as you said, to non-MMORPG's. In fact, I think "grinds" should be stricken from all game development everywhere.

Quote:

1) Single player RPG's generally have a defined end point; you only need to be strong enough to beat the final boss and see the end.
2) Single player RPG's are all buy-once play-forever, which means the developers have little incentive to try and keep you playing for 6 months straight.
3) Single player RPG's have no competition with other players, and usually cast you as a hero, and usually scale along with the story to ensure that you're strong. Thus there is never the feeling of constant inadequacy that is common in MMO's, where half the people you see are "better" heroes than you.
4) Single player RPG's usually have more interesting plotlines since they don't need to compensate for the fact that there are 10,000 protagonists in their story. Thus, you feel that you are progressing through a plot rather than just progressing to a high level.
5) People don't complain when they get to the end of a single-player RPG, have maxed stats, and have completed every quest. But people do complain when they get to the end of an MMO, because they feel the game should be infinitely long. It's impossible to make infinite amounts of legitimately creative and interesting content, so developers cater to what players are demanding and stretch out the gameplay however they can; the players in turn feel that this content is not "good enough" and refer to it as grind.

People's theroetical solutions to grind usually involve skipping most of the leveling up and progression of usual RPG's, and instead get right to the "endgame". The "endgame" is usually considered to be some sort of massive PvP battle system. Guild Wars is a good example of this sort of solution. The problem is, that this type of MMORPG will only attract and keep people who actually want to spend all their time PvPing in arenas with other people. It can be fun, but that's not usually what RPG players want. RPG players like character progression, questing, and leveling up. People who claim to hate the "grind" in WoW probably wouldn't actually be happy if you gave them a maxed set of equipment. The only thing they could do is PvP all day in the battlegrounds; there's nothing else to do. People even refer to the PvPing in battlegrounds as "grinding" because you can get rewards if you do it long enough. The unanswered question is what do these complainers actually want to DO in world of warcraft? What sort of endgame do they envision? And if they claim to hate grind so much, why do they keep paying $15 a month to do it, and if they're paying that much, do developers really have a responsibility to make anything different? People complaining about grind are sort of like people that complain about reality tv shows but still watch them constantly.

Hmmm...actually, WoW PVP is decently interesting at first with free gear in Battlegrounds - on the "test" servers, you get a character with top tier gear and some reagents to start off for free. It's interesting to just compete, but then you realize how boring, pointless, and barebones the game is without community and the illusionary treadmill. It doesn't have very much at its center, and requires too much to get started. Honestly, it isn't a very good game and was never intended to be by the current development team - it was just very successful. So yeah, you're right.

But, about the "grind" the OP describes. In games like Diablo II - you're not grinding. You're having fun and getting experience for it. Why do you think people still do Baal runs, killing the exact same monsters over and over again? Diablo II has deeper gameplay than most MMO's, if not all popular MMO's. It's not terribly deep, but the fact that it involves things like positioning alone put it a step above all the others. It was genuinely fun to play. Console games and "oldschool" games even moreso. That's not grinding - it's playing. Grind is generally used to refer to boring "play" endured for the promise of "fun" play - it's an illogical construct in videogame terms - in the real world, you get in not more than you put out. You have to "grind" sometimes. The entire point of videogames is that you don't have to do things to get rewards.

Nick_Japan

Jul 24, 2006 at 9:01 PM

I think the problem isn't so much the idea of obtaining stats/gear/xp or whatever by killing loads of monsters over and over again, but fundamentally how fun the combat is. The actual experience of grinding is quite similar to fighting through a new dungeon - there are a couple of questy things to do, and a few special enemies, but for the best part you just fight stuff in the same way you always fight stuff.

Did anyone play Revenant? It was basically Diablo but with an almost Tekken-like control system, which added a feeling of skill and craftsmanship to the combat. Therefore, killing even easy monsters was fun because you could show off and flip over them and stuff - it was never boring.

I think the core problem though is that so many games are based around combat - the basic player experience is fighting monsters. Regardless of backstory, setting, scenery, quests, fighting monsters is what you do. Even the subquests and activities are only really useful for helping you fight more monsters - better swords to help you fight monsters, better armour to allow you to fight tougher monsters, healing potions to allow you to fight more monsters before going back to town, it's all focused around this one single activity. The only way to truly get rid of the grind is to have the player do something else entirely.

wildhalcyon

Jul 25, 2006 at 10:33 AM

"Grind" generally only occurs in RPGs. Sure, Mario probably has some grind elements to it as well, but the length of a traditional platformer pales massively behind that of a traditional RPG - maple story not counting.

I think of grind as having to perform the same repetative action to achieve a specific goal in the game. That goal might be finding a special piece of equipment, getting a new ability, but mostly its reaching lvl 99, or 50, or whatever.

Grind isn't always bad. For a lot of games, the repetative action is simply all there is to do. In Katamari Damacy, you roll. In a golfing game, you hit the ball into the little hole. The difference between a golf game and mindlessly leveling up your characters in the Shrine of Underlevelledness is that the golf game typically offers a little bit more in the way of thought while you're performing the action.

The best way to avoid the grinding feeling of mindlessly repetative gameplay is to add some variety. If you're working on an MMORPG, give the players more to do than just exterminating the local fauna. One of the best MMOs I ever played was Puzzle Pirates. It definately went the extra step in making sure the player was interested.

makeshiftwings

Jul 25, 2006 at 5:01 PM

Quote:
Original post by Nytehauq
But, about the "grind" the OP describes. In games like Diablo II - you're not grinding. You're having fun and getting experience for it. Why do you think people still do Baal runs, killing the exact same monsters over and over again? Diablo II has deeper gameplay than most MMO's, if not all popular MMO's. It's not terribly deep, but the fact that it involves things like positioning alone put it a step above all the others. It was genuinely fun to play. Console games and "oldschool" games even moreso. That's not grinding - it's playing. Grind is generally used to refer to boring "play" endured for the promise of "fun" play - it's an illogical construct in videogame terms - in the real world, you get in not more than you put out. You have to "grind" sometimes. The entire point of videogames is that you don't have to do things to get rewards.

Personally, I like WoW's gameplay more than D2. Honestly, they're not THAT different; they're made by the same company with the same basic gameplay rules. The upcoming WoW expansion is even going to have D2's socketed items.

I never felt WoW was a grind because I played mostly to do the quests with my friends, and when we all got to a really high level where things started to get boring, we stopped playing. When I started again, I started a whole new character, and things were interesting again. The feeling of "grind" usually only hits people when they're at the max level of their MMORPG and they've done everything there is to do three times already. The only thing left for them in the PvE world is replaying some part they've already done a million times. I don't think this is necessarily because all MMORPG developers are greedy capitalist pigs who don't care about gameplay and have a fiendish plan to get people addicted to monotony; it's because you just can't make an infinite amount of interesting PvE content. Most people would be happy if they bought a single-player RPG that had the length and variety of quests and race/class combos that WoW has. But since it's an MMO, people expect it to go on forever even after you've seen ever piece of content in the game. A better version of battlegrounds will not save WoW. Battlegrounds is a PvP deathmatch style minigame. And a large percentage of WoW players don't like PvP. That's why the majority of players play on PvE servers, and spend all their time raiding dungeons with their friends. It's what they want to do. Their real desire is not for more interesting PvP; it's for more and more and more new dungeons and quests, and to have an infinite power growth curve. This is currently an unsatisfiable need.

Way Walker

Jul 25, 2006 at 6:11 PM

My take on the grind:

Scenario 1) You try to do a quest and find that it's difficult. "Well, shoot", you say, "I can just kill some slugs to level up. Problem solved!" You kill some slugs which are now too easy to be interesting to kill, but you level up. Now the quest is too easy to be interesting.

Scenario 2) Sword1 was good last level, but now it's starting to hold you back. You need Sword2 to really get the most out of your abilities, so you go on some quests (See Scenario 1) to make some money. In the process, you've also gained a level or two. Now you can afford Sword2, but you've outgrown it and really need Sword3.

Scenario 3) Well, you did it. You finally reached Level 1337, have Sword1337, and have completed all of the 1337 quests. It's lonely at the top. All you can do is kill the other Level 1337 players who have Sword1337 and have completed all of the 1337 quests, but you would have bought an FPS if that's what you wanted to do.

The only MMORPG I really played was Asheron's Call. I had fun, but didn't grind much. I tried it, but didn't like it. My favorite characters:
1) Crafter. Baking, fletching, and alchemifying wasn't interesting in itself, but having little skill with a weapon (enough to kill a some animals for meat and maybe a few weak enemies to help fund my hobby) made the runs to distant towns to get the ingredients I needed more fun.

2) Support mage. Casting enchantments and healing spells to help groups is very much my style, but didn't get you far in AC because, by the end, everyone knew healing magic, item enchantments, and creature enchantments. Those were a given, the only question was, "What's your weapon?".

3) No weapons/armor. All I used were protection enchantments I cast on myself.

Kest

Jul 26, 2006 at 12:01 AM

Quote:
Original post by Way Walker
Scenario 1) You try to do a quest and find that it's difficult. "Well, shoot", you say, "I can just kill some slugs to level up. Problem solved!" You kill some slugs which are now too easy to be interesting to kill, but you level up. Now the quest is too easy to be interesting.

It sounds to me like this game is not allowing enough interaction. Leveling up should help, but the player should be capable of compensating for his character's lack of skills. Mostly with strategy. That is, after all, the one primary attribute given to the game by the human player in a true RPG. Take better cover. Use grenades. Throw the sword. Knock someone out and sneak by in their clothing. It should never come down to attack 6 vs defense 5 = you lose.

Quote:
Scenario 2) Sword1 was good last level, but now it's starting to hold you back. You need Sword2 to really get the most out of your abilities, so you go on some quests (See Scenario 1) to make some money. In the process, you've also gained a level or two. Now you can afford Sword2, but you've outgrown it and really need Sword3.

Personally, I kind of enjoy seeking out new battle gear, and wouldn't mind this type of thing at all. But I would still recommend trying to avoid having a lot of weapons that make other weapons obsolete. A quiet but quick firing SMG doesn't outshine a laser sighted heavy blasting SMG. It just comes with a different personality.

When it comes down to this type of situational argument, I always point at Fallout. There were a few pistols that would have become obsolete, but you were just too afraid of running out of ammo with the others. There really were no weapons that were left behind. Just new weapons to be discovered.

Quote:
Scenario 3) Well, you did it. You finally reached Level 1337, have Sword1337, and have completed all of the 1337 quests. It's lonely at the top. All you can do is kill the other Level 1337 players who have Sword1337 and have completed all of the 1337 quests, but you would have bought an FPS if that's what you wanted to do.

Maybe you should have thought about that before you played the game for 1337 hours. I really don't understand this one. You surely can't expect the game to entertain you forever? You've made it to the top. If that was your goal, then you've won. Play something else.

makeshiftwings

Jul 26, 2006 at 3:28 AM

Quote:
Original post by Way Walker
My take on the grind:

Scenario 1) You try to do a quest and find that it's difficult. "Well, shoot", you say, "I can just kill some slugs to level up. Problem solved!" You kill some slugs which are now too easy to be interesting to kill, but you level up. Now the quest is too easy to be interesting.

Scenario 2) Sword1 was good last level, but now it's starting to hold you back. You need Sword2 to really get the most out of your abilities, so you go on some quests (See Scenario 1) to make some money. In the process, you've also gained a level or two. Now you can afford Sword2, but you've outgrown it and really need Sword3.

Scenario 3) Well, you did it. You finally reached Level 1337, have Sword1337, and have completed all of the 1337 quests. It's lonely at the top. All you can do is kill the other Level 1337 players who have Sword1337 and have completed all of the 1337 quests, but you would have bought an FPS if that's what you wanted to do.

I agree, that's what most people see as grind. However, that's what computer RPG's are. Arguments about what RPG's "could be" aside, most players and reviewers agree that RPG means some variation on character advancement by getting XP and GP for questing and killing. That's what separates an RPG from an Adventure game.

People who like RPG's like character advancement. Sure, they also like stories, but lots of genres have stories. Character advancement only becomes "grind" when you don't enjoy doing it but feel like you have to. And usually the main place people run into that problem is MMO's. However, a lot of this is just the strange psychological addiction phenomenon that seems to pervade MMORPG players... they claim to hate the game but can't stop grinding. As I said earlier, the main thing I see causing "grind" is that even huge developers can only realistically make 200 to 300 hours or so of content and still get the game out in a reasonable amount of time, but people want to play their favorite MMO for thousands of hours. Personally, I think people should be grateful that they enjoyed 4000 hours of World of Warcraft before getting bored, rather than complaining endlessly that the game disappointed them. There are lots of games that I consider worthwhile that only kept me busy for 10 or 20 hours.

Way Walker

Jul 26, 2006 at 9:50 AM

Quote:
Original post by Kest
I always point at Fallout.

Me too. [smile]

Gnarf

Jul 26, 2006 at 10:37 AM

Quote:
Original post by makeshiftwings
I agree, that's what most people see as grind. However, that's what computer RPG's are. Arguments about what RPG's "could be" aside, most players and reviewers agree that RPG means some variation on character advancement by getting XP and GP for questing and killing. That's what separates an RPG from an Adventure game.

There's a few things that seperates MMORPGS (or at least certain ones, WoW being the example here) from other RPGs and games in general...

Now, World of Warcraft encourages the player to do the same dungeons over and over again, to get as good gear as possible, and it pretty much forces the player to do the almost-endgame dungeons over and over again if you wanna make it through the endgame ones. In addition, at this point in the game, to make money and gather other things needed for the endgame dungeons (eg. potions and reagents for potions and enchants), you'll be killing the same kind of creatures over and over again in areas you've already explored. Other games, RPGs or not, seldom encourages or requires this kind of behaviour. In other games, you don't enter a dungeon you've cleared entirely, to kill everything in it one more time, hoping they'll drop that weapon you want this time. If you revisit areas you usually have a different purpose than last time you were there (unless last time was a failure). Exceptions to this usually occurs as optional stuff, not really needed to finish the game (eg. gathering every soul in the recent Castlevania games).

Also, in WoW there's a lot of "down-time". You'll run out of health and need to rest. You'll run out of inventory space and need to return to some town. Your equipment's getting destroyed and you need to repair it somehow, etc. These things certainly occurs in lots of other RPGs as well, but I don't think it tends to amount to even remotely near the same percentage of the time spent as in WoW. And you can add to that a lot of time "wasted" due to the teaming-with-other-people bit (wating for others to get ready, waiting for enough people in your guild to get online for today's raid, people disconnecting in the middle of stuff etc)...

I think these things are a great part of why people think of parts of the gameplay as a grind, that they are in the game to make people spend more time on less content, and that this happens to MMORPGs mostly, partly due to the monthly pay thing and how fast the developers are able to add new content to the game.

Quote:
Original post by Kest
It sounds to me like this game is not allowing enough interaction. Leveling up should help, but the player should be capable of compensating for his character's lack of skills. Mostly with strategy. That is, after all, the one primary attribute given to the game by the human player in a true RPG. Take better cover. Use grenades. Throw the sword. Knock someone out and sneak by in their clothing. It should never come down to attack 6 vs defense 5 = you lose.

While I agree, there are lots of RPGs with pretty lackluster combat systems where you never feel like you're grinding. I think it's when you go back to some already explored area to kill 20 goblins, rather than doing some subquest, exploring some new area, it becomes a grind.

Kest

Jul 26, 2006 at 3:04 PM

Quote:
Original post by Gnarf
Quote:
Original post by Kest
It sounds to me like this game is not allowing enough interaction. Leveling up should help, but the player should be capable of compensating for his character's lack of skills. Mostly with strategy. That is, after all, the one primary attribute given to the game by the human player in a true RPG. Take better cover. Use grenades. Throw the sword. Knock someone out and sneak by in their clothing. It should never come down to attack 6 vs defense 5 = you lose.

While I agree, there are lots of RPGs with pretty lackluster combat systems where you never feel like you're grinding. I think it's when you go back to some already explored area to kill 20 goblins, rather than doing some subquest, exploring some new area, it becomes a grind.

Often, the only difference between grinding and having a blast is how lackluster the combat is. I say try your best to not force the player to level up. Make his stats more like tools and less like a machine. Keep him using his brain to get through objectives. Not relying on his stats, but using them to expand his tactical options.

If he just happens to want extra strength to do something extra cool before he's supposed to be able to do it, or if you as the designer just didn't get that one situation perfectly balanced, make it an enjoyable experience to build stats up, rather than an annoyance. That's pretty easy to do, by simply giving him experience to do what your game is based on the player doing. You can't go wrong by asking the player to kill more viruses in Dr.Mario. Or shoot more demons in Doom. Or blast more lines in Tetris. If they don't enjoy it, they don't enjoy your game. No way out of that one.

If you're building a game that is based on nothing but a story, with stale combat, you're in trouble.

Gnarf

Jul 26, 2006 at 4:06 PM

Quote:
Original post by Kest
[...]
If you're building a game that is based on nothing but a story, with stale combat, you're in trouble.

I certainly agree that you should make the combat fun. Fact is, I've played several games with less interesting combat systems than WoW without ever feeling like I'm grinding, because they involve lots of exploration, puzzle solving, and character and story progression in addition to fighting. In WoW there is little story progression, few puzzles and little exploration, quite some character progression and tons of fighting. As you progress through the game there will eventually be hardly any exploration, puzzles or story progression, seldom any character progression, and more fighting. The combat system isn't good enough for that kind of game, IMO.

Just singling out this one example:

Quote:
Or shoot more demons in Doom.

The kind of grinding you have (after a certain point) in WoW would be equal to Doom if Doom forced you to do level 4 5 times before proceeding to level 5, and giving the boss at level 10 a 5% chance of dropping the rocket launcher, which is absolutely needed for level 11.

Way Walker

Jul 26, 2006 at 4:33 PM

Quote:
Original post by Gnarf
Quote:
Or shoot more demons in Doom.

The kind of grinding you have (after a certain point) in WoW would be equal to Doom if Doom forced you to do level 4 5 times before proceeding to level 5

Some of us do have to do level 4 5 times (at least) before proceeding to level 5. [rolleyes]

makeshiftwings

Jul 26, 2006 at 5:35 PM

Quote:
Original post by Gnarf
The kind of grinding you have (after a certain point) in WoW would be equal to Doom if Doom forced you to do level 4 5 times before proceeding to level 5, and giving the boss at level 10 a 5% chance of dropping the rocket launcher, which is absolutely needed for level 11.

WoW is not like that though. For almost the entirety of the game, you only ever "have to" do any quest or dungeon once, and even then, you can easily skip over more than half the content and still find new and interesting things to do all the way to level 60 and the endgame. It's only then that people feel they "have to" do the same raid dungeon over and over, but you don't actually "have to" do anything. Those raid dungeons are the equivalent of the optional dungeons and bosses from Final Fantasy's and such. In a normal single player game, once you got to the equivalent of the level 60 zones in WoW, you would then beat the main bad guy, save the world, watch the ending movie, and then happily uninstall the game and go buy the next one. MMORPG's do not have this option; instead they have a mass of angry people demanding more and more questing and dungeon exploring while simultaneously complaining that the quests and dungeons take too long. There is not a simple solution to this problem.

Kest

Jul 26, 2006 at 6:01 PM

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Original post by Gnarf
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Original post by Kest
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If you're building a game that is based on nothing but a story, with stale combat, you're in trouble.

I certainly agree that you should make the combat fun. Fact is, I've played several games with less interesting combat systems than WoW without ever feeling like I'm grinding, because they involve lots of exploration, puzzle solving, and character and story progression in addition to fighting.

But that's what I'm saying. If the game focuses on exploration and puzzle solving, then find an interesting way to give the player experience for doing these things. The main problem with both exploration and puzzles are that they are rarely open-ended. They can't normally be repeated. An exception or two would be Star Control (mainly II but also III) space/planet type exploration, and possibly lock-picking-like puzzle mini-games.

Mini games are a great way to let your players have fun while grinding. Put football (insert other sports) tournaments into your game. Or space flight simulators. Or gladiator arenas. Things that can be fun to play again and again to gain experience without making the player feel like he is abusing some system.

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Or shoot more demons in Doom.

The kind of grinding you have (after a certain point) in WoW would be equal to Doom if Doom forced you to do level 4 5 times before proceeding to level 5, and giving the boss at level 10 a 5% chance of dropping the rocket launcher, which is absolutely needed for level 11.

But an RPG doesn't have an excuse for having small levels. RPGs are acceptably lower quality and detail than games like Doom, and for good reason. You can build levels that are hundreds times larger. Instead of level 4, call it a space colony. I'm shipping off to space colony eight to kill hundreds of demons and work out my back! Be back in a few days!

Extrarius

Jul 26, 2006 at 9:49 PM

Kest: Size is an interesting point you bring up. Of all the games and demos that I've played, I'd have to say Serious Sam felt the largest. I'm nearly certain it doesn't compare at all in land mass to MMORPGs, but that fact that the game lets you see large areas (instead of hill after hill after hill blocking your vision every few inches) AND every area has something to do. Sure, the 'something to do' is mindlessly killing the hundreds of enemies spawning all around you in the vast desert wastelands, but that's better than any MMO I've played. Large spaces aren't really fun when the only purpose they serve is to make it take 20 minutes to obtain Quest Item #638 instead of 20 seconds.

Gnarf

Jul 28, 2006 at 3:28 PM

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Original post by Way Walker
Some of us do have to do level 4 5 times (at least) before proceeding to level 5. [rolleyes]

Because you don't wanna start level 5 with 5 health and no ammo left? In WoW tho, the conditions you have to meet tends to not be related to how good you do (eg. a constant 5% chance that a certain weapon drops from some boss at the end of the instance).

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Original post by makeshiftwings
Those raid dungeons are the equivalent of the optional dungeons and bosses from Final Fantasy's and such. In a normal single player game, once you got to the equivalent of the level 60 zones in WoW, you would then beat the main bad guy, save the world, watch the ending movie, and then happily uninstall the game and go buy the next one.

Don't quite agree with that. The content being added to the game, which, the way I figured it, is part of what you're paying that monthly fee for, tends to be just those kinds of dungeons. Story-wise, they're "even bigger threats to the world than the previous instances" (admittedly, I can't recall how any such optional stuff is story-wise in other games, but leaving others to defeat whoever's about to destroy the world next isn't equivalent to "beat the main bad guy, save the world, watch the ending movie").

Either way. Giving one dungeon a constant % chance of awarding you with the item you want encourages doing that dungeon several times. This is unlike most non-MMO RPGs, far as I know.

Kest:

Yeah, pretty much agree.

Kest

Jul 29, 2006 at 11:06 AM

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Original post by Extrarius
Kest: Size is an interesting point you bring up. Of all the games and demos that I've played, I'd have to say Serious Sam felt the largest. I'm nearly certain it doesn't compare at all in land mass to MMORPGs, but that fact that the game lets you see large areas (instead of hill after hill after hill blocking your vision every few inches) AND every area has something to do. Sure, the 'something to do' is mindlessly killing the hundreds of enemies spawning all around you in the vast desert wastelands, but that's better than any MMO I've played. Large spaces aren't really fun when the only purpose they serve is to make it take 20 minutes to obtain Quest Item #638 instead of 20 seconds.

Just to clarify, I was using the idea of 'large' in terms of play length, not really in size of the area, though the meaning ends up being similar. A level on Doom 3 can probably be finished in about 15 minutes. The designers would have loved to make it 2 hours, but the game just had way too much detail added to every nook and cranny. If you remove the amount of unnecessary detail (flashlight shadow mapping cues (-made that up) or which walls are allowed to have what types of the 13 types of bullet holes), then level designers can spend that much more time adding more gameplay to the level. That means either more depth, or larger areas but with the same quality.

Where Doom designers need to worry about every single wall section and it's properties, an RPG designer would likely build a library of wall types, then plot them here and there with an editor. One is made for detail, the other is made for quick construction time.

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