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've been able to enjoy grinding to varying degrees, but it's also cast a shadow on games I was otherwise fully enjoying. Post game grinds for rare random drops took away some of the shine from both Demon's Souls and Final Fantasy XIII. Once it was done though, I kind of reset, and was like: "Yeah, I still loved it". As it was happening though......it was definitely a test of patience some days. I can't recall exactly how many times I fought the enemy in Demon's Souls that dropped the Pure Bladestone I needed, but it went on for a WHILE.

I don't generally like grinding. If something feels like grinding, it's probably because the game isn't as fun to play as it should be - or that progress in the game has been designed poorly. Technically, I don't mind having to play a lot, even if it's somewhat repetitive, as long as it doesn't feel grindy.

On its own, no, I don’t like grinding. I have low tolerance for tedious things, and would rather just do something else rather than something that feels like a chore.

However, if I like the story and gameplay enough, or if the game has enough systems where I feel like I’m able to do other things while grinding, then it doesn’t really bother me. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was great in this respect, I always had a new area to explore, sidequest to complete, etc, and the great story just pushed me along further.

On a bit of a tangent, while the story was weak, the Bravely games were refined very well for grinding, to the point where I wish more turn-based games would take a page out of their book. Auto-battle, fast-forward, and one-handed play we’re all great QoL improvements over something that usually bores me.

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.

I have never minded grinding in games. I usually listen to music or put on a video or something while I do it. Never been a problem.

Wow... okay... we ll have to agree to disagree there.

The reward is the knowledge you build a character (items) thats now capable of doing harder difficulties.
And the "fun" is the grinde, the loot and building up the character.

I think its healthy that occasionally you run into a boss / area, where things are too tough, and it forces you to go back to grind abit or do side quests.
If you run though a game and theres never any challenge, or reason to go look around, and you just breeze though it, it "feel"s like a empty challenge.

Obviously theres a right and wrong way to do this though.
The games that do it poorly, it can feel horrible to run into such a wall though, never the less I think its a nessary evil.

It depends on how good the battle system is.

Persona 5 and TMS: #FE are impecable in this regard: fighting monsters is super fun, no matter how many times you do it in a row. Because every battle is a "show", it's worth getting into one only for the sake of connecting attacks, exploiting weaknesses and launching powerful spells. Plus, they are visually atractive.

Then you have games like Pokémon... or 90% JRPGs pretty much. Were battles tend to get boring after a certain period of time. In those games grinding becomes an effort that many times is just not worth.

I enjoy grinding a lot. But if it is boring, it is boring.

The 4 platinum trophies I got were due to a ton of grinding. World of Warcraft took up my time when PvP and PvE were really fun, and that took a ton of grinding. I quit when it got boring. I prefer games with more of a grind as kind of a grind gate from the less dedicated people. I prefer gameplay with people just as dedicated as me to the game.

The example given earlier is World of Warcraft, in classic one would have to grind through levels and quests in order to do some dungeons. After that one would have to grind through dungeons to have good enough gear to dent the first boss of the raid. And then one would have to kill the boss slowly and on to the next one.

In recent times one can level up instantly, even buying it for money. But if not that then you can level up with little effort, get to max level and completely ignore dungeons and jump right into the raid. If one chose to do raid finder one could easily clear the whole thing without a single ounce of effort. But if not that due to timegates, then one could do normal raids which are also much easier and don't even require good dungeon gear.

I infinitely prefer classic to recent expansions, and people often say "but the grinding is so bad!, no way I would want to play that" Well shocking I know but I definitely do.