Comments on: You Know What I Love? Grinding (Well, Sometimes)

By: avant

avant — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:57:31 +0000

I played Ragnarok for years. Grinding can be pretty enjoyable if you do it right!

By: spooler

spooler — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:59:50 +0000

cyrinno: Grinding does get too much of a beat up. People want accessibility and too much accessibility is killing us.

the less grinding the better ! ... dependant on the game, also if the grinding doesn't feel rewarding it shouldn't be there anyways

By: vcatkiller

vcatkiller — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:34:40 +0000

I have to second that “Dark Souls” thing. I have a loop mapped out that takes me around from the Firelink Shrine, up through the Undead Burg, through the Undead Parish and finishing back up at the Firelink Shrine again. It doesn’t net you much for the time required to do the loop (around 7000 souls?) but it just feels nice and relaxing. It’s like “what do I do next? I’ll just grind around here for a bit while I think about it a little…”

There was also a small loop I had mapped out in The Depths when I was farming for large titanite shards too, but I got bored of that really quick smart.

Yeah I don’t mind grinding. It all depends why I’m grinding though.

By: cyrinno

cyrinno — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:25:51 +0000

Grinding does get too much of a beat up. People want accessibility and too much accessibility is killing us.

By: nexi

nexi — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:34:33 +0000

You know, I have been waiting for an article like this for the past month.
I completely agree with the idea of grinding/farming being therapeutic but I believe the distinction needs to be made between “Grinding to get more powerful and making the game easier” and “Grinding because you are currently weak and the game is quite difficult”.
The latter, being the grinding you “have” to do because you can’t progress without it is frustrating whereas the former is the grind you personally choose to do to your own ends, it is not necessary but you want to because you know it will help in some way or another.

I recently played through FF13 and FF12 again (still working on 12, running on emulator) and something I remember from my first playthrough of each was how much of a struggle the game was because I never slowed down to beat up some monsters here and there.
I remember a part, roughly around the Tchita Uplands on the way to Archades where I had to stop trying to kill things because it would just kick my ass, which resulted in my holding R2 and running toward the next location I needed to be for pretty much the rest of the game. This issue got exponentially worse because the more crap I skipped, the less likely I would be able to kill anything further in the game.
This time around though, I have found myself grinding after most major story events or whenever stores had a new kit of equipment and the game has been incredibly fun.

I ran into a similar issue in FF13 where everything kicked my ass and bosses were taking forever, I have often complained about the bosses in FF13 being tediously long sponge battle fights in the past, but after playing it through a second time and doing some extensive grinding when I hit Gran Pulse I found this was not the case, I was simply awful when I first played it.

By: timmytim

timmytim — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:29:32 +0000

As this article suggests, I like the process of grinding as an idea if the implementation is enjoyable. Unfortunately there are almost no games I have enjoyed grinding in as of yet.

I am one of those players who loves fluid fighting that allows you to master it early on the game if you have the stones for it (I am thinking of Mount&Blade style of blocking/swinging combat) in which you do not need all the best gear or unlockable abilities to enjoy and succeed in the game. The mechanics should be challenging, in-depth and entertaining from start to beginning meanwhile the rewards and add-ons are just icing on the cake.

Large RPGs generally are guilty for implementing a basic and forgettable combat system in a large world that rewards you for grinding frequently. An example of a game series which redeems itself is the Elder Scrolls. First person prospective with pretty graphics that allows you to block/strike is not bad but still ends a bit flat. But when Skyrim introduced various fluid killmoves on most creature types on all sort of weapons, I wanted to explore even further just to kill everything in all sort of ways. It just made defeating an enemy that much more rewarding.