Grinding in Games
Back when Guild Wars came out, gamers made a huge deal about its lack of grinding (its lack of a monthly fee was also occasionally discussed). This hype didn’t allow it to defeat WoW, but nothing seems capable of felling that dragon. While nothing really changed in MMO World, it did highlight something – people thought of grinding as a problem, and that eliminating said problem is a step forward.
Grinding, in addition to something you do on the dance floor or with unprocessed wheat, is a pejorative term for overly repetitive and un-fun actions in gaming. Say, killing a hundred slimes in Dragon Warrior to save up for that sweet suit of Full Plate, or doing Battlegrounds over and over to gain Honor. The essence of grinding is doing (ACTION) over and over for an unreasonable amount of time until (THING) happens. When it gets bad it can take hours of repetition to gain a single level/piece of equipment/puffy pirate shirt. Note that killing stuff to gain XP is not grinding in and of itself – it has to be extremely repetitive and deeply boring before you can call it that. Some games can actually make leveling fun.
To be fair, there are arguments in favor of grinding. The first is an issue of pacing – if you start the game with everything unlocked, you have nothing to play for. A slow gain of power throughout the game keeps it fresh by giving the player new abilities every so often. Time between new abilities also gives the player a chance to learn how to use them to their fullest – imagine being dropped headfirst into a game that starts with ten different abilities. Grinding can also be good storytelling – the best way to convey that a character is growing in the story is to have him actually grow and become capable. The other argument is, well, routine is nice sometimes. It’s comforting to do a repetitive task until your mind goes elsewhere to contemplate the nature of the cosmos. Like a nightly cup of hot chocolate, a repetitive task can be a pleasant tradition of sorts.
World of Warcraft stands poised at the center of the casual/hardcore MMO divide. Opponents say that the game is too easy, and that getting to endgame is far too quick. Proponents of the game say that eighteen-hour boss fights are stupid. See, there are punishing, brutal games, and people are ok with that – it actually adds to the charm. Death is a great way to illustrate this – let’s say you die (in a game! in a game.) Prince of Persia has you respawning seconds later, exactly where you were before your untimely demise. WoW makes you take a walk or pay a bit of money every time you die. FF11 conjures a spectral hand to punch you in the kidneys. FF11 is more grindy than most games, exacting a fee of many hours from its players in exchange for items. Death actually causes a loss of experience, causing the player to lose hours of work. In my opinion, somebody should have been shot for that decision, but that’s a valid game design decision for many players, and here’s why. In our hypothetical Game A, there’s no reason to avoid death, since there is no punishment for it. This means that survival isn’t an issue, and that there is no fear of dying. Compare that to a visceral experience like FF11, where a death can cost you valuable hours of your life. In that game, you’re gonna give it everything you’ve got to make damn sure that you’re not going anywhere. These situations create real (simulated) danger, a risk of losing something. Pupils dilate, palms shimmer with sweat and adrenalin begins to flow. This might be the purest way of tapping into the gamer’s flight-or-fight reflex ever devised. Other games do it too, of course. My friend got hugely into Shiren the Wanderer, a Roguelike that severely punishes dying by taking all of your unstored items and gold. Diablo II’s Hardcore mode deletes your character when you die once.
There’s a relationship between the two, of course. The more you grind, the more time you’ve invested into your gear/character. If you’re playing a punishing game with high grind, death really hurts. Basically, to figure out how hard a game is going to be, multiply its Grind Value by its Punishment Value. The higher the result, the more difficult/exhilarating/annoying the game. This even accounts for hypothetical games with light grinding but ridiculous punishments for death, or vice versa. There are no numbers, of course, but this is a good guideline for how “intense” a game will be.
The Gears image, WoW Skills image and the Dead Queen image (which is delightful) are all licensed according to Creative Commons.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I have to say the worst experience I ever had with grinding in a game is the original Final Fantasy. Horrible. It’s a great game but the amount of time spent building levels is just ridiculous…ugh
December 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I hate grinding, as much as I see it a necessity of sorts. The pacing, learning of a game’s many features, and perhaps the exploration of the game world that usually accompanies grinding is what I find necessary. However, a game needs to be very very careful in balancing its grinding requirement; either that or it needs to be very addictive. I remember when I had tried playing World of Warcraft for a while that I could not for the life of me figure out how people tolerated the fact that after grinding endlessly for 70 levels that you had to grind some more in end-game boss fights, or hours upon hours of player versus player (PvP) fighting to get PvP equipment. Ugh!
December 17th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
The core of the issue i think is the need for more content. Games are a lot longer then they used to be. They cost quite a bit more money + resources to create and gamers DEMAND substance. The gamer culture just needs it and the only way to provide in any sort of responsible matter, is to introduce grinding. Make the rewards big and further apart. Games are not books and many desire to never have a definable end, a place where the gamer can finally stop.
Then i play a little game like
http://www.kongregate.com/games/GregoryWeir/the-majesty-of-colors
And i am pleased of the very marginal amount of grinding introduced. Because grinding in gaming roots, is really the means to change your characters destiny. You spend all this extra hours and expect something special, something even absurd.
When grinding becomes the only form of communication in gameplay, that’s when i get bored.
December 21st, 2008 at 1:43 am
Grinding is hard work. But it’s also a way of tapping into your character.
I mean if death has no punishment, then not only people would not fear death, some would actually abuse it in order to do whatever they need to do.
Also, you forgot Etrian Odyssey’s punishment: you-shall-not-pass-until-you-grind-enough
December 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
There are also those who find fun in the grinding process. In the MMO crowd, I’ve noticed that its only really fun if you have friends to play with you. This is more of a second-hand experience, but my friends just recently got WoW’s latest expansion and have been all grouping together fighting various conquests in order to get wherever. Being able to discuss it and live it with other is really a BIG part of the experience. There was an article a while back that actually discusses just how much MMOs get away with, but why are they so good? Because it allows human interaction.
Personally, I’m a Guild Wars person. The lack of grinding gives me a little less to do when I run around in the world, but had they added it to GW, the entire place would need to be filled with creatures, which would spell instant murder for some. And while it takes a little bit away from the in-world action, it’s PvP-Centric nature makes up for it.