How much grind is too much?

[pulse2]

I HATE repetitive grinding, gaming should never feel like a chore.

Fallout did this perfectly, though you are technically grinding to get ranked up, you don't realise it because you are too busy exploring and looking for things and getting attacked by things in the process. Gaming should be fun but MMOs and games like FF have you grinding for ages JUST to get to a certain level, only to beat 1 boss or complete the game as level 100, which to me is boring, that's no different from sitting in an office putting data into a spreadsheet all day, just because it is colourful and the figures are replaced with monsters doesn't make it any more interesting -_-

You get fed up of fighting the same creatures over and over and over and over, they no longer pose a threat, you know all their weaknesses and it gets to a point where you don't even need to know that because your attacks kill within 3 or less strikes, but you still have to grind to get XP. MMOs annoy me for this, you stay in section A, you grind, you go to section B, you grind, you go to section C, you grind, you go to section D, you grind. I don't want to be in the same place for hours! Its an adventure game, a massive world! I want to explore! Not be restricted to section A, unless its because there are monsters willing to chase you are high levels.

So to me, if grinding is fairly short but most of all, attached to the story in some way or form, yes, if its just "kill 200 hungry hippos", then F-off ¬_¬

 

[dimensional]

I dont mind grinding if I think it will be worth my while i.e is the end game/reward worth it? do I have to be a super god type character or can I defeat/clear the ultimate boss/level/etc now? and if I can I do so and stop.

I do find grinding really hurts replay value I spent hours getting to be that strong/get those items/resources (sometimes longer than the rest of the game itself) so if I want to get back to the same point ive got to go through the same boring mundane tasks again, so no thanks (except in the rarest of cases where I absolutely love the game enough to endure it).

No game should force you to grind to finish though unless for some reason its a central mechanic to the experience and putting in grinding just to pad out the experience is extremely lazy.(mmos being a big culprit)

As for games like Disgaea and WoW where do you draw the line? I stopped in WoW when I hit level cap (60 at the time,sod the gear) and Disgaea I just stop when the steps to advance become too large i.e trying to survive in that damn world of carnage in Disgaea 3 or beat Baarl in the original.