Poll: RPGs: The "Grinding Genre?"

[Rack]

Oops, double post

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

Personally, I think Persona 4 is pretty darn easy. I agree that the first dungeon is the hardest, if only because it's best to get it done in one try for a Max S-Link run, and you don't have enough options to truly "fight smart". As for the grinding issue, you'll only need to grind for cash if you're trying to maximize your days spent out of the TV in order to do the aforementioned Max S-Link run.

I, personally, find grinding relaxing when I can feel the progression. However, there hasn't really been the need to grind to beat most JRPGs since the NES days. Except in games like Disgaea, which is specifically designed for obscene grinding and takes steps to make it as fast and rewarding as possible. Level 9999, here I come!

 

[FoolKiller]

I guess a lot of people seem to have forgotten what the fuck the RP stands for in RPG. It stands for role-playing. Some want to and enjoy becoming overpowered while others like the challenge of trying to make it through with lower levels or only one character. Live and let live.

Although I agree with the OP that you shouldn't complain about how difficult the game is. Sometimes you just have to try till you find the correct tactics for victory.

 

[Space Spoons]

I like grinding. Yes, it takes most of the challenge out of the game, but that's why it's fun- the game is trying to beat you with strategy, and you're standing firm, saying "No, that isn't going to work, sorry." and winning with brute force. You're not just advancing the game's story, you're winning the game.

 

[Windcaler]

EDIT 2: It just won't fix. Here's the corrected Poll options:

"Yes, there's no kill like overkill and I like to OHKO bosses."
"No, So long as you don't run away, you should be adequeately levelled."


I recently got into a debate about Persona 4.

The argument they made was that the first dungeon is the hardest in the game. Why? Resource management. It's right at the start, you don't have access to (very expensive) SP healing, and they were all mad that they couldn't just grind by spamming their strongest skills nonstop and still clear the dungeon in a single in-game-day. As for the boss? "Baaawww, it has fire spells, I have someone weak to fire! They get an extra turn for exploiting her weakness and wipe me out!" Uh, except that there's a clear pattern to this attack, and simply defending on the right turns nullifies that weakness....

Let me explain. Each new character joins at +10 levels over the last one, roughly. After the initial 3, the next joins at 15, then 25, then 35, etc. So a good rule of thumb is 10 levels per dungeon. These guys were arguing that the fault lies entirely with me for not grinding for thinking the game DOESN'T get easier as it progresses, and that my logic of "Level 75 is a good point for here" means nothing compared to their level 90 suggestion. In fact, some of them argued that my "easy" way of tackling the first dungeon was only making my life harder since I wasn't grinding.

So I asked them. "Have you guys ever tried playing smart? Do you ever use defense and evasion buffs? I'm not expecting everyone to have 20 years of RPG experience or anything, but it still seems like common sense to me." Their response was that I had zero right to complain about grinding in RPGs. If I really had 20+ years of RPG experience, I would know the genre is nothing BUT grinding. And this honestly made me mad, because of how newer RPGs are.

In a lot of newer games, it degrades into nothing but abhorrent grindfests. "Oh, you can't advance until you collect 30 of these, which due to your bad luck, seem to have a .02% drop rate!" "Oh, you need this arbitrarily decided level if you want to proceed, even if you just beat 5 enemies who are double that level single handedly!" It really irks me. I have more important things to do than grind for level requirements in SINGLE PLAYER OFFLINE GAMES, ESPECIALLY on EQUIPMENT.

Traditionally, I found that in RPGs, you were 100% fine on the condition that you don't run. If enemies near the start overwhelm you, retreat to the home town, use the inn, and set out again. But only IF. You'd never, ever need to grind, and grinding would actually take all the fun out of boss gimmicks! (Imagine the Antlion in FF4. Counters physical attacks but not magic, right? Imagine if you were so overlevelled that you didn't care and just attacked with everyone. Takes the strategy right out of it.)

So... I thought I'd ask you guys. What are your thoughts on RPGs? Do you really only play them to waste hours of your life on mindless grinding? Do you play them for the emphasis on strategy over execution? Do you play them for the story (like I do?) And above all else, do you believe that just because something is an RPG, that grinding should be expected?


EDIT: Btw, Escapist staff, your polls hate apostrophes. In case you didn't know.

No I dont think RPGs are anymore grindy then other genre's like FPS can be these days. You know how many people and vehicles I had to kill in Battlefield 3 to get the CITV station on a tank? Well assuming I got 100 points per kill it would be 1000. Yeah 1000 dead people in a game where the ticket counts are normally 100 so even if you're really really good your probably only getting 20ish kills before the game ends. Thats also only points I got while in a tank. It takes weeks if not months to accumulate that kind of score even if youre good at the game

Then there's the fact that I doubt you really know what grind in an RPG is. You want a real grind? Go play the original Dragon warrior till you get to max level with all the best gear. Then you can have an idea of how bad it gets and how less grindy games are today. Heck back in the 90's when the next wave of RPGs was coming out Sqauresoft and Enix (seperate companies at the time) had come out and said something like "We adjusted the game so you would be roughly the correct level requirement when you get to new areas".

Persona is a unique case IMO though. Mostly because levels really dont mean all that much. You can be 5-10 levels ahead of a boss and it will still kill you just by exploiting your weaknesses. Dark souls is similar, though more extreme because I can beat that game at level 1 without ever upgrading gear

To go a step further it also depends on each individuals definition of grind. Most people define it as doing the same thing over and over and over again. My definition is similar with an important difference. For me grinding is doing the same thing over and over again that is not fun. If Im enjoying what Im doing then its not a grind to me. Most RPGs are not grinds then because when I concentrate on leveling its my choice to do it and I usually have a good time with it.

 

[Bostur]

I've been playing computer RPGs since about 1988. The first time I heard the word 'grind' in that context was playing WoW in 2007. I got puzzled at why people played a game when they thought it felt grindy, and even more confused when it seemed some people deliberately looked for grind when there were other options.

In retrospect looking back at old RPGs I remember a few had a bit of grind in them. The Bard's Tale series, rogue games and the Ultima series comes to mind. But this was rare. Mostly RPGs was mathematically tuned so that characters had a suitable level, exponential XP growth almost makes that certain. But in the cases where a boss fight seemed to hard, there were usually some side quests to do, or it was possible to stock up on potions bought from vendors.

I suppose western RPGs wasn't into grinding until MMOs became popular.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I think someone is confusing RPGs with MMOs. Any way, I don't recall ever really needing to grind in a singleplayer RPG in my life and I have played a lot of them, Japanese and Western.

 

[Fishyash]

Most RPGs I've never had to grind unless I missed out on something.

Grinding is meant to be "the easy way out".

Also... the game just becomes really dull if you don't need to use any strategy. The game actually has some challenge to it, if you don't grind.

Honestly, I even tend to skip encounters and get away with it. Maybe it's just the RPGs I've been playing?

Honestly it's a sign of bad pacing if you need to grind to progress in an RPG. It should just reward you in a different way (and it does, by making the game easier), but not be a necessity.

An easy way to fix pacing is sidequests. I'm not talking about completely inconsequential sidequests a la WoW, I mean side quests that offer something special to either make a particular encounter easier or maybe something you can carry with you the entire game.