I hate any game with "grinding". Any game where you can perform a boring and easy task to become stronger for difficult tasks, has a game design problem.
Games should never treat wasted time as an in-game resource.
Even one of my favourite games, Dark Souls, would be objectively better without a levelling system that can go as high as you like from the very first enemy in the game.
When you fight a boss in Dark Souls, you are always aware that you COULD just backtrack and do some grinding, and it would be easier. This means you can't fully concentrate on getting better at the boss, because you're always thinking "am I stupid for trying this at this level?"
I hate grinding, it's objectively harmful and adds nothing. Put level caps in, restricted by passing difficult events.
I like grinding in some games. It's fun.
Get over yourself.
>>330310723
grinding is the only way to reward players who simply don't have enough skill but still want see some progress simply because put some HOURS in
As gaming becomes more and more popular the scale of general lowest skill will continue to lower and RPG style level-up systems will continue to proliferate
>>330310959
>doing boring things over and over is fun
Just fucking kill yourself, you are everything that's wrong with the industry.
>>330310723
It's really a shame how almost every JRPG has bosses that are designed as "puzzles" to figure out, but the game itself encourages you to be so overlevelled you don't have to figure it out.
Playing a JRPG without any unnecessary encounters usually reveals a lot of clever design that many players will never see.
It isn't boring to me. If the game is fun then doing the content over and over again to slowly gain strength through leveling up or getting new equipment is not a big deal. In fact, some games are entirely built around grinding like Monster Hunter. Grinding to get a new set of armor is fun because each fight with a monster can go differently and I learn new ways to effectively fight them.
Get over yourself, grinding is just fun to some people.
>>330310959
>Fun
Some people think splitting their dicks is fun.
This is not a valid argument.
>>330311115
DMC-clones always looked really dumb and tasteless with how over engineered the choreography and effects are. Would it hurt them to have some subtlety? And whenever I look at the scene aside from the main character's pummeling of one unit, it looks very boring because the bots are always just standing around waiting to be killed.
>>330310723
>its objectively harmful and adds nothing
Really? because in any game with a level system, its usually used as a method to diversify characters and abilities. Using dark souls as an example, it would be boring as shit if your character could use literally everything from the outset. With enough time you can technically use everything. But build diversity comes from trying to make OP builds within certain level ranges, using 150 as the example from dark souls 1.
Having finite choices in any one situation like leveling and allocating stats lets the player be as ingenuitive as they possibly can, attempting to break the game within its set limits. its limiting enough to be conducive to more inventive ways of play, but forgiving enough that you cannot permanently fuck up a character unless you are fucking retarded.
And dark souls is a shit example anyways because it is more conducive to player skill than most any other RPG. Its possible to beat it at level 1, so your spiel about grinding in it is pretty much invalid. If you cannot do something, your stats will only help you to the degree that your own skill allows.
>>330311841
Alright. For some people doing the same task multiple times is enjoyable if there is a slow sense of progression or small rewards. Grinding in a JRPG is satisfying because you gain new abilities and can see through numbers that your work has genuinely paid off. Grinding also helps you to better understand game mechanics, enemy patterns, and figure out what works best. That sense of progression is very satisfying and the act of growing stronger through every attempt is a lot of fun.
If you don't like it then that's you. But grinding has a place and can be fun for some people who enjoy building characters and learning things through repetition.
>>330312270
>For some people doing the same task multiple times is enjoyable if there is a slow sense of progression or small rewards.
I wouldn't exactly call literal lab rats "people".
>>330312513
Then we wouldn't call a squirrel with the attention span of a goldfish a person either.
Ad hominem goes both ways.
That's cool but i'm still going to enjoy my games.
>>330312575
>a squirrel with the attention span of a goldfish
How does that apply to people who do not wish to partake in live skinnerbox experiments?
>>330312513
90% of everything we do is mindless repetition.
You want to dump an entire genre that has been around longer then the console and the ibm compatible computer because you want to "play" a game that's nothing more then a collection of shiny win buttons.
Why don't you just buy a cheap dvd player, build a compilation movie of your most favorite scenes from movies and just go to the scenes that you want to see to get that emotional high.
>>330310723
>Even one of my favourite games, Dark Souls, would be objectively better without a levelling system that can go as high as you like from the very first enemy in the game.
Play Monster Hunter then.
>>330310723
Grinding is only bad when the gameplay isn't fun.
I don't mind grinding in games in which the base game itself is enjoyable to play. I can repeat levels in Bayonetta several times for both higher scores and farming halos for new weapons, because the gameplay is good and varied.
Likewise, although I don't share the fascination, grinding in Disgaea games was described as enjoyable by a friend who said he really enjoyed simply seeing his numbers go up and finding optimal ways to increase those numbers. I understand his view although I don't share it.
Condemning all grinding because of certain games faults is fucking stupid. An OP is a blithering, sopping cunt for suggesting otherwise.
>>330310723
>Grinding in Dark Souls
Jesus Christ, how horrifying. Unless you throw like, a shit ton of points into one particular stat, you're not going to see very noticeable gains. I'd argue that Dark Souls is one of those games where just straight up grinding actually won't really help you.
>>330312513
Like you said before, this is not a valid argument. Just because you don't see the possibility of grinding being fun to anyone doesn't mean that isn't the case. Multiple games are based entirely around grinding, many of which are incredibly popular. You've got shit like Monster Hunter, Warframe, Harvest Moon in many aspects, and more.
People like grinding. You don't have to like it, but dismissing it entirely is retarded.
>>330311869
U wot?
In that very webm, the second enemy attempts to fuck the player from behind mid-combo.
>>330312686
Because not all leveling systems are automatically skinner box.
If its like pokemon where most of the levels are arbitrary stat boosts with a skill peppered in every several levels, thats one thing.
But leveling systems in a lot of other games are not. They force you to choose how you want to play that character specifically. They say "you can use up to X amount of things, not all of them".
>>330310723
>actually grinding in dark souls
Do people legitimately do this? I can understand doing it if you want to level up to like level 100-120 for the PVP meta but if you have grinded for bosses you straight up are bad. You get more than enough souls per sweep of a section+boss to upgrade your weapons and stats respectfully.
>>330312958
>there are people who like it, ergo it's good
>>330313121
Then you better off yourself, because life in and of itself is an endless grind. Better not play that unfun piece of shit.
Grinding is boring, but how the fuck do you grind in Dark Souls unless you need materials or a rare gimmick item?
>>330311869
>Would it hurt them to have some subtlety?
If they did, they wouldn't be DMC-clones anymore bub. DMC had everything but subtlety.
>>330313121
I didn't say it's automatically good, I said dismissing it entirely is stupid. Not all grinding is good. Look at shit like older JRPGs where grinding is mandatory to even have a chance at a boss or MMOs where you can grind a dungeon a hundred times but since gear is RNG based you may never get any progression.
But there is good grinding, and many people enjoy it. I'm not saying grinding is inherently good, but that it's stupid to deny it or say it adds nothing to a game when it clearly does for some people.
>>330310723
>Games should never treat wasted time as an in-game resource.
Your opinion on what a game should or shouldn't be is irrelevant, kiddo.
>>330313185
Yeah because practicing a complex skill for the betterment of yourself is the same as repeating the same mind-numbingly simplistic task in a video game just to raise your damage multiplying and health increasing stats on your avatar.
>>330313121
>The Economist
>filled with poorly constructed news and biased opinions
>that quote
The irony is so strong.
>>330310723
I just don't know how people do it. I like being mentally engaged. When I tried WoW i got to level 20, got bored. Diablo 2 single-player, got to the jungle and quit with all the mindless clicking.
I just can't do it.
>>330313427
Just like doing a job or going to the gym. Or getting a degree.
>>330313668
What do you play?
>>330313690
>Just like doing a job
Is a necessity, video games aren't. The fact that you complain boring ass grinding to a job doesn't work in favour of your argument.
>going to the gym
You're actually bettering yourself
>Or getting a degree.
Involves attaining a plethora of knowledge and I fail to see how it's comparable to grinding in any way.
Inexplicit grinding can be tolerable.
Like for example in Etrian Odyssey. At first you can only get so far in the labyrinth before you run out of MP and get destroyed. Because the game is just that hard, you're forced to retreat for the time being, lick your wounds, gear up, and only after that go back. And this time you can venture a bit further, because you've leveld up, but also because you've learned how to deal with the monsters and have explored the floor and drawn its map.
>>330313839
Well, some games I have played over the last few months:
-Factorio (just starting though - not very far)
-MH4U
-Fire Emblem Fates
-Cities: Skylines
-M&B Warband
-Pillars of Eternity
-Xcom 2
>>330313997
>getting a degree
Involves doing mundane work for 4 years, minimum that may only tangentially be related to real work skills.
It's absolutely grindy. You learn a lot if you take it seriously, but it's a fucking grind.
>>330313997
Because you in and of yourself are the same existence as that character. Nothing you are doing even matters to the universe at large. You are just in an endless quest to better your "Stats" to accomplish "Tasks" that in the end are all arbitrary and will not matter in the grand scheme of things.
There are people that pay subscriptions to MMORPG and all they do in those is grinding while doing something else like watching a movie or reading a book.
What is even the point of paying for a game monthly at that point.
>>330314407
>lol muh existentialist crisis
Yeah I'm done. Fuck off, kid.
>>330314446
>grinding while doing something else like watching a movie or reading a book
I did that, and I must say it works really well.
Of course you don't play those games FOR the grind.
I played for raiding, the daily reputation and other grind is there just to support it. And at a certain point the grind ends, because you don't get any substantial rewards from it anymore.
But there's no point playing for the grind if there's no good primary content.
>>330314487
I'm not having a crisis. thats a fact. several thousand years from now, nothing we've done will matter to anyone. Several hundred thousand our society may as well not have existed. Thats just how the world works.
And given enough time our sun will explode. Then the universe eventually after that.
And nothing you have done will have mattered to stop it in the slightest.
>>330314584
The fact it needs grinding at all is because of a bad and deliberate game design, so to force you to pay for more subscriptions hoping for some day see the endgame.
>>330312830
>exactly this
i cant stand mmos anymore because its the same literal shit grinding that's been reused in every fucking modern mmo after wow, but when the gameplay is fun, such as combat, grinding ain't so bad and it's manageable.
>>330311632
FF5 pretty much exemplifies this. Still some of the best use of boss fights I've seen in a JRPG.
Only problem is a lot of em have a good chance of kicking your ass once before you figure out the gimmick or which jobs completely stomp on them.
>>330314745
You don't really need it. Grinding is there to get a better starter gear at raiding.
But competitive guilds don't need those, they just go in using heroic dungeon gear. But that's because they have more time to practice fighting the bosses.
If your party can pull off the prefect execution of the encounter mechanics, you don't need the safety net of reputation epics.Or they just buy crafted and BoE world drop epics on AH.
My problem is that in any RPG where you can grind, I don't want to grind. But I also like to explore obsessively. So by the time I reach a difficult challenge, it's honestly hard to tell whether I'm overlevelled just because I lingered too long. It's like a tax on enjoyment and creates doubt in my mind.
Unlike cheat codes or difficulty settings, grinding means you are always affecting your future enjoyment in an unpredictable way.
>>330315902
same, dog
>>330315902
Why don't you just run from encounters?
>>330316069
Because at that point, I would become hyperaware that there is a serious problem with how I'm approaching the game, and I'd probably just stop playing it.
>>330315902
>So by the time I reach a difficult challenge, it's honestly hard to tell whether I'm overlevelled
The fact that you're having difficulty should make the answer obvious.
>>330316252
>The fact that you're having difficulty should make the answer obvious.
But why would it be obvious? I don't know how hard the challenge is supposed to be. Games often have weird difficulty spikes.
This is especially true in games like Souls, where they're famous for being "hard" but have weirdly easy bosses as well. So you could accept just about any difficulty as "intended". You just don't know.
>>330316360
If you were overleveled, then you most likely wouldn't have any challenge.
>>330316360
I think you are looking into it way too hard
>>330313668
D2 actually pisses me off because the parts of the game that AREN'T mindless clicking are gated behind a fuckload of it because you have to beat the game to get to Nightmare difficulty when D1 didn't have this problem because it would kill you for not playing properly no matter what difficulty you were on.
>>330316707
>parts of the game that AREN'T mindless clicking
What did he mean by this?
>>330311869
> i literally want games to be boring
welcome to the future
>>330316656
You're right of course. But the Souls games MAKE me think about it, because their game design is "be as careful as possible".
But the most careful possible approach is to grind to 99 in every stat on some random Hollow.
It's contradictory.
>>330317014
The game only allows you to overlevel when your skill doesn't match up. You can choose not to level at all.
The games approach isn't "Be as careful as possible" its "Don't be stupid". its subtle, but there is a difference. With the proper amount of skill, rushing like a berserker can be a viable tactic.
Even then though, leveling will only make the game so much easier. Your abilities as the player are far more of an advantage than any numerical value, stat or armor.
>>330310723
I kinda have to agree with you. A recent example would be Witcher 3. You're palying as a century-old monster-hunter who doesn't really get any more proficient during the game since he's done all that shit hundreds of times before. And yet there's a level system, wheere you can't even scratch overleveled enemies. It's silly and immersion-breaking, and I really don't see how it added to the game.
>>330317365
>You can choose not to level at all.
Yeah that's what I do now. To be honest it feels like the whole PvE game is actually balanced around not leveling your character at all, but upgrading your items to max level. Which makes the whole character levelling system seem bizarre to me now.
>>330310723
I kind of agree. I prefer when games reward mastering the mechanics instead
>>330317525
Even worse is the Arkham games. What the fuck is "WayneTech", and how does it teach a fully-trained Batman how to fight better, using currency that can also upgrade his armor? It's the one part of the game that doesn't make logical sense, and the game already has a method for giving Batman new stuff.
>>330317014
Do you have some form of anxiety disorder? You seem way too overly cautious for a video game.
>>330317904
>Do you have some form of anxiety disorder?
Yes. But I love a good challenge with defined rules. I feel like people don't make those anymore, unless they're self-imposed.
>>330317871
I kinda rationalized it as being Batman realizing he needs more of his toys. Like, after you beat up a bunch of dudes he goes "Fuck this is a terrible night. Luckily I have more stuff." Like he's going in thinking to use the bare minimum force necessary and as the game goes on he realizes he needs to use more force.
I don't know, it makes sense to me.
>>330310723
>This means you can't fully concentrate on getting better at the boss, because you're always thinking "am I stupid for trying this at this level?"
This sounds like a personal issue with you famalam. My first run of dark souls was capped at SL30 because that was, practically, all i needed for the Claymore and later Zweihander.
>>330317528
It pretty much is. The use of the stats themselves is to decide on which armors, weapons, and spells you want to use, if any.
>>330312815
You have to grind pretty hard for gear in Monster Hunter
>>330318450
not as much as you'd think. by the time you are grinding hard for gear, you are already into the higher tier of content, which isn't even related to any story elements or anything. The only thing you really need to farm earlier are mats for consumables or maybe on of the gem materials, which are rare but can easily be glossed over.
At least in 3u
sup lol
>>330310723
Grinding is shit. I'd much rather prefer to get a hard-ass boss whose weakspot takes 8 milliseconds to show and go away and hammer away at it than to kill weaklings on drone mode until boss becomes weak as well.
Just my opinion
