Redstar2613 wrote:
You level up as you play through the game, sometimes you will have to stay in an area (just before a boss, for example) to get stronger. That's called grinding and some games require more of it than others. But what you're doing when grinding, is making your character stronger, earning more money and finding items enemies dropped. You're still making progress, just not in the story. But if there was no need to grind, ever, the game would just be way too easy. But grinding can also be a choice. Some times if you're a few levels lower, it wont make it impossible, just a bit more challenging.
If you don't enjoy that kind of game, don't play them. There are tons of genres, so not playing video games any more just because of a single type of game doesn't make any sense at all.
The Legend of Zelda games have some RPG elements but you don't level up and any important equipment (like a new sword), you will get at a certain part of the game, so there is no danger of not having strong enough weapons or anything like that.
Grinding is still utterly pointless, though. The thing about it is you're not EARNING anything; you're having it given to you, just in very, very, VERY small increments. Grinding itself offers zero challenge or depth, it *only* eats time. This is why I consider it to be one of the worst concepts in gaming, if not THE worst. It does not make an easy game hard. And yes, I've played through plenty of RPGs where it's necessary....I wouldnt hate it so much if I hadnt already done plenty of it. They're often still very easy games, and those few that arent? Oh, they're difficult.... ONLY when not grinding. The grinding part is so easy as to be mindless. It doesnt ADD to the difficulty, it DETRACTS from it. Look up something on TVTropes called "fake difficulty".... that's ALMOST what grinding is, except with the "difficulty" part removed. The basic concept is the same though. You could perhaps instead call it "fake time extension", as the usual design purpose for it is to make a game appear to be longer than it is (since short games seem to bother people). For example, Disgaea. Friends of mine consider it pretty hard, because of all the stuff you need to grind to get to the high level parts, but I played it myself and.... yeah. It's so easy as to be sleep-inducing. There's zero challenge there, only time lost. Nothing more.
THAT is why I hate grinding. A damn stupid concept that could be replaced by ACTUAL gameplay. If the developers of a game want to put in sections where you should be "powering up" your character? Grinding is the direct opposite of the right way to do it. They could instead give you piles of optional quests/missions that you could do, each different from the last and each offering different stat/power/whatever increasing rewards, or put in a bunch of dungeons that you dont HAVE to go through, but that if done provide the same effect. I've seen games that do indeed use this idea, and they're dramatically more engaging than the others that use the grinding concept. Particularly as this concept is all about OPTIONAL quests/dungeons/whatever. You dont HAVE to do them, but when you wanna power up, they are there for you to use as such. Not to mention that such things can provide ACTUAL challenge, too. Not merely time extension via repetition.
Me being the way I am, if grinding really did up the challenge of something, I'd be all for it. But it doesnt. Just eats time.... nothing more.
A better example of this would be magicka, instead of withholding content from you, you can do anything you want as soon as you have finished the tutorial, but as you plsy the game naturally you will slowly begin to learn the good and bad combinations.
22 Dec 2013, 1:07 pm
