In response to Danbriggs
Danbriggs wrote:
I personally don't think that Grinding or Power Gaming should be seen in the negative light that this thread seems to give it. Grinding allows more hardcore players to spend their time advancing themselves faster than others, they rightfully should be able to advance faster. If I powered through 10 straight hours of game play, I expect to be a lot farther than the next guy who's casually meandered through 6 hours. Players wanting to invest a lot of time in their characters ought to be able to see something out of it, otherwise, what's the point? Why would you spend all that time progressing yourself when you still play on the same level as someone with less experience than you?

In summary, Power Gaming should be encouraged with proper rewards. Grinding can be minimized by keeping game play dynamic and different.

I personally love Power gaming. I think it should be rewarded and supported also. It's only Grinding(farming) that I have issues with. I have been doing research on how I would explain to people what I mean about Zero Grinding. Zelda, D&D, and Mario would all be examples of Zero grinding games. Players shouldn't be killing monsters farming for items they drop. Players should be killing monsters simply because they are an Obstacle that is in their way of completing the goal or quest. Leveling up is a good thing. Doing it as fast as possible is great and I am totally for it. When I say I don't want grinding what I mean is that farming for items, gold, experience "Can" ruin the entertainment and just add unnecessary time to the game. Now there are quite a few examples of games where farming is actually fun and rewarding. Those games are the ones that have a large selection of monsters to fight, combat is never the same and there is an engaging challenge to the farm. Nestalgia did farming right there is an assortment of monsters right in the starting area making it so you will have to be on your toes when you try and level up. There are other games where you only have to spend a few minutes in a monster area before your able to move on to the next monster making Farming a minimum which allows the players to advance to a new location and area keeping the games entertainment value.
In response to Legato_frio
Here's the catch though, people will grind in any game, but only in times of honest desperation. In WoW, If I find myself grinding or farming for materials I need, I know I'm in a bad spot. Usually because that means I'm out of money, but having the ability to grind is an excellent and safe backup for when resources are low. It's so inefficient however that I would never use it for leveling. Grinding isn't bad if it's there as an option, It only get bad when the player is forced to grind to progress. And actually, in LoZ: Minish Cap, I used the Grind to get more of the Shells in order to collect all of the trinkets. A tough task that was, but it felt good once you got that final statue out of a few hundred.
In response to Danbriggs
Danbriggs wrote:
Here's the catch though, people will grind in any game, but only in times of honest desperation. In WoW, If I find myself grinding or farming for materials I need, I know I'm in a bad spot. Usually because that means I'm out of money, but having the ability to grind is an excellent and safe backup for when resources are low. It's so inefficient however that I would never use it for leveling. Grinding isn't bad if it's there as an option, It only get bad when the player is forced to grind to progress. And actually, in LoZ: Minish Cap, I used the Grind to get more of the Shells in order to collect all of the trinkets. A tough task that was, but it felt good once you got that final statue out of a few hundred.

Agreed, in Zelda I find myself farming/grinding for hearts when I am low. Or rupees when I am in need of a few more bombs. Which in all reality feels like a natural honest farm/grind.
In response to Legato_frio
I hope you understand where us grinders are coming from now. It's not that we particularly enjoy grinding, but it's simple and there as a reserve for resources when you're really low. Building your game with Zero Grinding in mind would make players feel hopeless when their chips are down.

Edit: The category of Grinding I mean is Farming. Farming is Grinding for resources, but True Grinding is doing repetitive tasks for progression. I never True grind anything.
In response to Danbriggs
Only thing I hate about games that aren't balanced is when a grinder becomes immortal

There is only one way I can think of to actually make grinding impossible and it's close to what someone else said earlier. Have a game made where everything that happens to you, all your items, skills, etc. are all randomly predetermines by the game itself, but hiding it well enough that none of your players know this.
In response to Raruno
One little problem with that plan. When your players don't know how much progression they need until their next ability, people will grind even more to get it. You can't stop grinding in any game that allows progression, but Like I said, you can't lump every type of grinding into the same "Grinding is Evil" category. Farming is good, Grinding for progression is BAD! *Swats hand* NO! BAD! STOP IT!
In response to Danbriggs
yes but is grinding really grinding if your quest for gaining something is just an illusion? No matter how much you think you're doing of something, you'll never actually progress until the game, which predetermined when your player would get stronger, allows you to
In response to Raruno
At this point it's no longer a progressive game. If you have nothing to progress toward. This eliminates grinding, but also makes your game totally pointless to have quests in it in the first place.
In response to Danbriggs
pretty much
In response to Raruno
But this wasn't meant to be practical, I was just saying that's the only way I can think of having a game with absolutely zero grindingd
In response to Raruno
Raruno wrote:
yes but is grinding really grinding if your quest for gaining something is just an illusion? No matter how much you think you're doing of something, you'll never actually progress until the game, which predetermined when your player would get stronger, allows you to

Grinding is when you have to do something repetitive to get a reward. To get rid of grinding, just don't give rewards for completing repetitive tasks. You can still offer rewards for quests, just make the quest interesting and only doable once.

In playing World of Warcraft (haven't played recently, but I'm sure this still applies to some extent) there are different forms of grinding. To level up you repeatedly kill mobs. It doesn't take long to kill a mob so this is very repetitive. Once you reach the highest level, you repeatedly do dungeons or battlegrounds. This is a form of grinding too because you're doing the same tasks over and over again, but because the tasks are more elaborate it's automatically more interesting.

The first form of grinding is obnoxious and is typically frowned up (from a game design point of view). The second type isn't so bad, and it lends itself towards the original post's idea of making players grow by learning about the game, not by having stats increase. In WoW you get better at dungeons and pvp because you get better gear, but also because you get more familiar with the game.

If you think about it in a wider sense, grinding isn't as bad as people are inclined to think. There's nothing wrong with asking the player to repeat some content to get a reward. There are many games I've played through multiple times even though there was no reward. If you're asking people to mash the same attack key over and over again, they won't like it. If the game is fun, they won't mind doing some things over and over.
In response to Forum_account
In any way, to make a game with Zero Grinding is to make a game based on skill, or luck. You can do this by making a strategic battle system that doesn't involve stats(like rock, paper, scissors),..or make events happen with a flip of a coin.
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