Do you see Grinding as a bad thing?

[BradleyJ]

JRPGfan said:

BradleyJ said:
Grinding is one of the things I hate most about video games. It is a time sink for no other purpose than making the game longer, which for very stupid reasons makes the game more marketable.

I think every game should be able to be beaten on skill alone, right from the beginning of the game to the end credits. Can the game be made easier if you grind? Sure, why not? But it should never be a necessity. That’s just bad game design.

Just to note, grinding for side stuff that is not a part of the main game does not concern me as much. That is directly catered to people wanting to play even more of the game. However, I would still argue that if this side stuff requires players to grind for hours and hours to even have a chance of completing it then it is still poorly designed.

Somegames the grinde = the game experiance.

Like Diablo... its all about the loot, and the "grinde" is whats fun about the game.
Some games get this right, like FF11... I ended up loveing to grind to levelup.

Heavily disagree btw on the Skill = beaten alone, or Grinde = bad game design.

I think even bad players should be able to beat a game, if a game cant be beat by most people theres something wrong with the design.
Everyone can put in more hours to grinde abit and be more powerfull to advance in a game, and thats not a "bad game design".

I bring up Diablo with people a lot. It is a fun game series and I loved it, all three of them. But ultimately it’s an empty experience. You play the game to get better gear to get to a higher difficulty so you can play the game to get better gear to get to a higher difficulty so you can play the game to get better gear to get to a higher difficulty so you can...

It’s an endless, addictive cycle with no hope for a payoff. There’s never a point in the game where you can really feel like ‘alright, I accomplished something’ because there’s nothing there to really accomplish, and there’s always better gear. Diablo is a series that is much better in small doses.

As for your second point, I would like to clarify that I am not advocating for games that can only be beaten by those who are most skilled at them. If that were the case I wouldn’t be able to beat any games. I am only saying that games should never require a grind. If people want to put more time in to grind then by all means they should have that option, but if I get to a boss that can’t be beaten (in any reasonable manner) because my characters are just too low level, then I am not okay with that.

Think games like Zelda or God of War. Would the games be easier if you gathered more hearts/health? Absolutely. But you certainly do not need the extra health to beat those games.