P2W isn't better than anything. Grinding is grinding whether you enjoy it or not. It's about finding the game that has the right kind of progression for you. Whether that be a grinding game, something with a storyline where you lvl up fast, or a game with no lvl system but skill based. If it's an mmorpg it really sucks when someone's able to login and pay to surpass you. I hate games where someone can whip out their wallet and destroy you.
Games don't all have to be the same. Find the one that matches your playstyle. If that doesn't exist yet then put your idea out there. If it's good someone will steal it lol
And its funny how the type of MMO that has the most herculean grinding mechanics are exactly those games that are monetized to entice the player to pay their way around these intentional painful roadblocks.
So in short grind to win and pay to win are equally shit and tend to go hand in hand. The only real worthwhile game mechanic is "Play To Win" where the game features are there for the main purpose of bringing entertainment to the consumer, something many MMO developers seem to have forgotten.
^Just wish I could agree, awesome, and LOL that as it is the truth.
I will never play a game long that requires insane grinding. I knew I was grind allergic when I hated FF7 (I think)every little step combat style. But I will never support unfair advantages in game being payed for. If I don't have the time or patience for a game I won't play.
Games are about game play. Play the game you like at the pace you can. If you can't keep up with no lifers blame the game design and your choice in playing. Soon well be having sponsors and u will be getting pk'd by a P2W twink weilding a Charging Sword of Mastercard.
P2W was born of the progression obsession this genre had. It's why this genre has somewhat limited appeal. Instead focusing on the unique aspects this genre has it focused on the "content" grinds. Almost always more boring than single player and regular multiplayer that's focused on fun and not repetitive things to do.
In single player games progression happens because of the story. In MMORPG story exist so you can progress and it shows.
I don't mind games that prey upon my time when they are providing entertainment while doing so. In fact, I think that's principle to the very definition of the word "game"
That isn't a waste of time, any more than watching a good movie is. But it's very subjective as to what is "good" and what is "bad". To some people Game XYZ is bad, it's a grind, and boring. To others, it's a blast and they would happily do it all day long.
I do agree though, after having spend a stint in the military that loved to frivolously waste it - that my time is the most precious commodity I have control over, and I do value it more than money.
In the early days of MMORPGs, it was common that whoever spends the most time grinding something stupid gets the best gear, the highest levels, or whatever. More recently, it has become common that whoever spends the most money gets the best gear. I'm not a fan of the latter, but the former is even worse. Publishers often prefer pay to win over grind to win because it makes them more money.
I'm sure you've heard it said that time is money. But if that is so, then why do billionaires get old and die? They had plenty of money, but ran out of time because it's not the same thing as money. Rather, time can be converted to money (get a job), but not the other way around. Time, not money, is the precious resource in life.
Pay to win tries to lay claim on your money. It's reasonable to dislike that. But grind to win tries to claim your time, which is even worse. Ultimately, either of them is a pretty good reason to quit a game and find another. But grind to win is more insidious and harder to spot, as it's much easier to keep track of exactly how much money something costs than how much time.
All of this goes out the window if the activity is fun in itself, of course. If you're having fun, it's not grinding. Not just hoping that it will be fun to eventually have what you're grinding for, but doing an activity for fun that you might still do even if it gave no experience or loot. Doing what you like to do and getting in-game rewards as a bonus is the ideal situation, of course, but it's hard to design that into a game very consistently.
Grinding can sometimes be fun, in a meditative way like bullet-hell shooters are sometimes described as meditative. I really do enjoy an activity like grinding out standing in the game I play, because the basic, "30-second loop" of activity is fun in and of itself. Not all games are like this.
Further, I generally hold the view that my success in any game should be based primarily on how I play, not how much money I am willing to put in due to some unrelated activity.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
the op is so wrong... not that grind is a good thing, but almost by definition p2w games are the grindiest games out there. They need a heavy grind, or (usually and) restrictions like Archeage's Labor system so that there is an incentive to pay to get past it.
Grinding itself is not bad if it is not overdone, and if the game is fun & has depth you don't notice it nearly so much, but typically nowadays games have so little depth it's embarassing.
Pay to win almost always means its grind gone wild if you don't pay, and its the very noticeable boring grind. If you do pay though, for the majority there is always someone who is willing to pay 100x more. If it is a grind and no pay to win, at least the average Joe has a chance to keep up. If the grind is not enjoyable and you want to be able to pay to get past it, then something is wrong with the game, intentionally (for p2w games) or not.
IMO the op has been paid by a korean developer lol...
Grinding can't be fun because if it is fun then it isn't really grinding.
Besides that you are right, when games just are about how much real money you spend in them you might just go out and shop real stuff instead.
It all depends on how much you want the goal of your grind. If the goal is worth the grind it is sometimes not so bad.
I remember when I was playing Everquest I wanted to go into the Planes very badly and I was not yet level 46 so I spent days soloing very slowly trying hard not to die as I could not get into any groups since I was a DPS class. There were times my friends would invite me but in my circle of friends there were too many DPS classes so I soled and finally made it to my first Plane Raid with my guild. It was awesome I still recall that final 'ding' as if it was yesterday .
I don't mind games that prey upon my time when they are providing entertainment while doing so. In fact, I think that's principle to the very definition of the word "game"
That isn't a waste of time, any more than watching a good movie is. But it's very subjective as to what is "good" and what is "bad". To some people Game XYZ is bad, it's a grind, and boring. To others, it's a blast and they would happily do it all day long.
I do agree though, after having spend a stint in the military that loved to frivolously waste it - that my time is the most precious commodity I have control over, and I do value it more than money.
Certainly, a game that uses up some of your spare time while providing plenty of fun along the way is a good thing. That's the goal of playing games, after all. The problem is when games want you to grind something boring for a while before letting you move on to the next fun thing. Then it's eating up a bunch of time and not letting you have fun. That's bad.
What's really insidious about it is that it can be harder to detect than pay to win. A game can be fun for a while, then make you grind a little doing something boring before you can move on to the next fun content. Then as you get higher level, the proportion steadily tilts toward more grinding and less fun. But you might press on for a while, remembering the fun you had in the past and expecting that there is more to come in the future. That's the problem.
Well said guys, the issue is most of the mmorpg crowd these days have never touched an rpg. They (like this OP) are looking for an mmoag (massive multiplayer online arcade game). They just want to roll through it so they can go onto the next. RPG games were never like this when I was growing up. Typically a good game could last you a month or two before you played out everything it had to offer and beat it. Hell, ff7 took me 8 months to create a perfect file (legitly).
If none of you have ever played an older style mmorpg. I suggest you at least try and see if you can get through it. Play final fantasy 1 all the way through.
Nice guess. It's wrong, but nice guess.
I don't hop from game to game very quickly. I spent well over a year each on Infantry, A Tale in the Desert, Guild Wars 1, Champions Online, and Uncharted Waters Online. Some of those could reasonably be called fast leveling games, but ATITD and UWO sure aren't. But they were fun for a long time because they had a wide variety of interesting things to do. You mostly didn't have to care too much what level you were, but could just go play the game and have fun and progression just happened along the way. Rarely did progression force anything more than reordering things that you were going to do anyway.
It all depends on how much you want the goal of your grind. If the goal is worth the grind it is sometimes not so bad.
I remember when I was playing Everquest I wanted to go into the Planes very badly and I was not yet level 46 so I spent days soloing very slowly trying hard not to die as I could not get into any groups since I was a DPS class. There were times my friends would invite me but in my circle of friends there were too many DPS classes so I soled and finally made it to my first Plane Raid with my guild. It was awesome I still recall that final 'ding' as if it was yesterday .
The goal of playing computer games is to have fun. Time spent playing computer games but not having fun is time wasted. That can be okay if it's small amounts of time here and there due to unavoidable issues in game design, such as taking time to load the game or finding a group in games that make it easy to do so. But having to spend a large fraction of your gaming time doing boring things is not acceptable.
Except to some people, time spent doing boring things is not only acceptable but desirable. Some people actually enjoy knowing that their time spent getting somewhere is valuable. If you remove that perception of value for those people by allowing others to skip the time it takes to progress with real life money, it cheapens the overall experience for them.
The opinion that spending large amounts of time doing boring things is not acceptable is actually a bit shocking to see in an MMORPG forum. Doing menial tasks, whether it be leveling, upgrading skills through use, crafting, gathering, etc is a cornerstone of traditional MMORPGs. Without them, it would be completely comprised of group content like dungeons, bosses or raids.
Games like MMO's fall on 3 type of players: - Have tons of free time to win - Have money to win - The miserable normal players
So if you play an MMO occasionally, you have no alternative bug go through the massive walls of grind for for the players with tons of free time to play through to be able to reach what you want!
So it's the players who tons of free time that increase the grind bar, and ability to put money on an MMO to speed up stuff appeals as the alternative for those without that much time to put on the game.
TL:DR 7 pages, Its a simple question with a simple answer i have respect for people who play the game and spend time farming the best in slot but i have 0 respect for the people who just throw their wallets at the best in slot.
I don't touch games that sell other than cosmetic items for real money. My mmorpg venue started with WoW in 2005. It was a bit of a grind but also offered gaming experiences I never had before. That's why I think grind is part of mmorpgs, like in real life you do the same stuff every day.
Where as real money in every aspect kills the competition for me. I don't trust money.
Talking about games where thousands of players exist simultaneously in a single instance and mechanics related to such games.
Excessive grinding is in place to encourage players to pay to skip it. It's kind of a crappy model for a game, which is supposed to be something fun.
When you have to super dedicated hardcore players who spend tons of time on the MMO; if the grind bar is not set at really high levels they'll run through the content ASAP and then complain there's nothing more to grind for. So one increase of grind also increases the game longevity for those who keep playing it trying to reach the end game goals. Who suffers from this are the causal players who don't have enough time to reach the same goal on any reasonable timeframe.
When you have to super dedicated hardcore players who spend tons of time on the MMO; if the grind bar is not set at really high levels they'll run through the content ASAP and then complain there's nothing more to grind for. So one increase of grind also increases the game longevity for those who keep playing it trying to reach the end game goals. Who suffers from this are the causal players who don't have enough time to reach the same goal on any reasonable timeframe.
To certain degree, yes. But if the grind get too boring those players would leave as well.
If you add some random elements and keep the difficulty high enough so you need to pay attention then fine but killing 10 000 easy skeletons would bore anyone not from Korea or China to death (they seem more forgiving to that type of grind then westerners).
What most of us see as a huge grind is relatively easy content you need to repeat over and over, like daily quests to mention a common grind most MMOs have. That type of content is neither fun nor challenging.
There are other types of grind that feel far less annoying, like a slow pace of experience point. Those you usually can gain in a variety of ways so you don't have to farm the same spot for 20 levels. It still bothers some people but far less then the type you constantly repeat the same thing.
The old games that had a slow leveling speed usually had a way larger world size then most new games so you had a bit more choices, just changing the leveling speed of a small game (like AoC to mention one) would not work very well either.
In short: MMOs with grind can be fun as long as it have the right kind of grind. For super hardcore players you do either need grind or player generated content (unless you can make a good randomizer). Boring grind will take away even most hardcore players after a while.
Comments
Games don't all have to be the same. Find the one that matches your playstyle. If that doesn't exist yet then put your idea out there. If it's good someone will steal it lol
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Games are about game play. Play the game you like at the pace you can. If you can't keep up with no lifers blame the game design and your choice in playing. Soon well be having sponsors and u will be getting pk'd by a P2W twink weilding a Charging Sword of Mastercard.
P2W was born of the progression obsession this genre had. It's why this genre has somewhat limited appeal. Instead focusing on the unique aspects this genre has it focused on the "content" grinds. Almost always more boring than single player and regular multiplayer that's focused on fun and not repetitive things to do.
In single player games progression happens because of the story. In MMORPG story exist so you can progress and it shows.
That isn't a waste of time, any more than watching a good movie is. But it's very subjective as to what is "good" and what is "bad". To some people Game XYZ is bad, it's a grind, and boring. To others, it's a blast and they would happily do it all day long.
I do agree though, after having spend a stint in the military that loved to frivolously waste it - that my time is the most precious commodity I have control over, and I do value it more than money.
Grinding can sometimes be fun, in a meditative way like bullet-hell shooters are sometimes described as meditative. I really do enjoy an activity like grinding out standing in the game I play, because the basic, "30-second loop" of activity is fun in and of itself. Not all games are like this.
Further, I generally hold the view that my success in any game should be based primarily on how I play, not how much money I am willing to put in due to some unrelated activity.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
But the acronym MMMORPG now currently means Microscopic Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Kappa.
yes pay to win is better
Pay to win...
In the end, you always lose.
Life and money.
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
Besides that you are right, when games just are about how much real money you spend in them you might just go out and shop real stuff instead.
I remember when I was playing Everquest I wanted to go into the Planes very badly and I was not yet level 46 so I spent days soloing very slowly trying hard not to die as I could not get into any groups since I was a DPS class. There were times my friends would invite me but in my circle of friends there were too many DPS classes so I soled and finally made it to my first Plane Raid with my guild. It was awesome I still recall that final 'ding' as if it was yesterday .
What's really insidious about it is that it can be harder to detect than pay to win. A game can be fun for a while, then make you grind a little doing something boring before you can move on to the next fun content. Then as you get higher level, the proportion steadily tilts toward more grinding and less fun. But you might press on for a while, remembering the fun you had in the past and expecting that there is more to come in the future. That's the problem.
I don't hop from game to game very quickly. I spent well over a year each on Infantry, A Tale in the Desert, Guild Wars 1, Champions Online, and Uncharted Waters Online. Some of those could reasonably be called fast leveling games, but ATITD and UWO sure aren't. But they were fun for a long time because they had a wide variety of interesting things to do. You mostly didn't have to care too much what level you were, but could just go play the game and have fun and progression just happened along the way. Rarely did progression force anything more than reordering things that you were going to do anyway.
The opinion that spending large amounts of time doing boring things is not acceptable is actually a bit shocking to see in an MMORPG forum. Doing menial tasks, whether it be leveling, upgrading skills through use, crafting, gathering, etc is a cornerstone of traditional MMORPGs. Without them, it would be completely comprised of group content like dungeons, bosses or raids.
- Have tons of free time to win
- Have money to win
- The miserable normal players
So if you play an MMO occasionally, you have no alternative bug go through the massive walls of grind for for the players with tons of free time to play through to be able to reach what you want!
So it's the players who tons of free time that increase the grind bar, and ability to put money on an MMO to speed up stuff appeals as the alternative for those without that much time to put on the game.
Where as real money in every aspect kills the competition for me. I don't trust money.
If you add some random elements and keep the difficulty high enough so you need to pay attention then fine but killing 10 000 easy skeletons would bore anyone not from Korea or China to death (they seem more forgiving to that type of grind then westerners).
What most of us see as a huge grind is relatively easy content you need to repeat over and over, like daily quests to mention a common grind most MMOs have. That type of content is neither fun nor challenging.
There are other types of grind that feel far less annoying, like a slow pace of experience point. Those you usually can gain in a variety of ways so you don't have to farm the same spot for 20 levels. It still bothers some people but far less then the type you constantly repeat the same thing.
The old games that had a slow leveling speed usually had a way larger world size then most new games so you had a bit more choices, just changing the leveling speed of a small game (like AoC to mention one) would not work very well either.
In short: MMOs with grind can be fun as long as it have the right kind of grind. For super hardcore players you do either need grind or player generated content (unless you can make a good randomizer). Boring grind will take away even most hardcore players after a while.