Why not grind and questing?

[Lucius]

Originally Posted by Soulstice

Hi all!

Registered today. I have been following this game since its inception and had to reply to this thread!!

Grinding is not a bad thing when done correctly. But being a one time hardcore player and now that I have become a more casual player, I want to log into the game and feel like I am accomplishing something.

A good illustration of a bad grind is Lineage II. I loved the game, closed beta and open beta tested it and played it for a while. I had a level 55 spellhowler on bartz. Until I realized several things. First and foremost was the mindless grind. Yes it is mindless. To sit in the same spot for several weeks grinding out levels and then moving on to another spot is basically mindless. There is no accomplishment just do the time and stay alive and you will level. Any developer can do that.

Contrary to popular belief the hardcore players make up a small percentage of the playerbase and they will not keep a MMORPG afloat. Take a look at any of the current MMORPG's and most of them are populated with players that have real lives and these players will not sit in front of the computer all day and grind. There needs to be a balance. There needs to be a reason to go and kill this mob or that mob and that is where questing comes in.

Alot of folks hate WOW but, they are very seccessful in what they do. (I quit over a year ago) They try to cater to all different types of players. I hope Aion does as well. WOW pulled alot of the far eastern player base from Lineage II, so they did something right.

What really spoiled my time on Lineage 2 was bots, farmers, mindless grinding, and the lack of getting any useful loot. If Aion makes it like I have won a lottery to get an item or makes it darn near impossible to get anything, it will just be another failure. Pretty graphics do not make a successful game.

It is easy to say grinding is some type of accomplishment and in some instances it is! But some advice for those of you that have the time to put in the hours to grind. There will come a day when you will find a mate, have children, or get a job and then all this grinding will not be so much fun.

In the end I want an immersive game that allows me to accomplish something without having to spend 6 hours every night to get something done. I do not want to have to fight bots for a hunting spot, I do not want to have to win a lottery to get some decent gear (not top of the line gear), I want to be able to craft and not create another character to do it, I want some immersion and a reason to play the game other then mindless grinding.

Soulstice

I agree with Soulstice. I don't like mindless grinding and I am not a hardcore player. I am at the beginning of a game that is to say when I first start playing, but shortly there after I will only play for a few hours a day, after all I have a job to attend in the morning.

As for bots, I have several problems with both schools of thought with this. I can understand both sides (to a point) I can understand the point of the bot when there is only grinding to do. you still want to level but you don't want to grind on the same thing for weeks at a time. I can also understand the gold farming style of bots when you have a game with a bad economy. personally I think that the developers should build in a stronger support for the economy and periodically increase the drop rate of "speacial" items to drive the price down to stablize the economy in a game. The other thing that could be done is a Gold farming macro setup in the game, this would allow everyone to "gold farm" for let's say, 3hrs a night while they sleep. This would greatly reduce the standard gold farmers. With in depth quests, i.e. delivery quests, tracking quests, multi-stage quests, ect, will help to reduce the grind. Quests to hunt 500 of this or 300 of that however does little to eleviate tiresome repetitiveness of grinding.

I do have to say that botting does have it's advantages and I can understand the allure to them. I however prefer the feeling of accomplishment of doing it without the cheating. I also understand the allure of purchasing gold online, it is quick and easy. But the main problem is that it causes a major rift in those with money and those without. It also greatly disrupts the economy of the game. I personally have to say that the major problem with most MMORPG's is the difficulty in gaining gold/currancy. As said above if there was a Macro that would allow each character to gold farm for 3-5 hrs a day, this would be done while the person sleeps and the need for online companies to gold farm goes down considerably.

Just my $0.02

[vigevano]

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This is little disconcerting. I don't mind grinding. But it took 75 hours to get to 40 from 36. Hmm. Also, ironically, it get easier to lvl as you get closer to 40.

[KatzuyAion]

Originally Posted by vigevano

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This is little disconcerting. I don't mind grinding. But it took 75 hours to get to 40 from 36. Hmm. Also, ironically, it get easier to lvl as you get closer to 40.

Assuming most of us will play around 5 hours per day, that would mean that in 2 weeks 36->40 would be complete. looks good to me.

[Lucius]

to me grinding is a part of MMORPG's but I don't enjoy it. I don't mind grinding for a little while but I like to have a large variety of quests that can break up the shear boardum from grinding. I don't mind grinding if it is balanced with quests that give good experiance and I can see a marked improvement after grinding. I hate having to grind for 3 days to catch a level. This will start to get annoying and I am sure this style of gameplay is what leads many players to botting. I have worked with bots in the past and in some cases I have written them myself and I can say that it is relatively easy to create a bot to grind however it is extremely dificult to write a bot to quest for you. Therefore, I propose MMORPG's that rely more on the idea of questing and raids to level as opposed to grinding. This would actually make it harder to level if you grind with a bot than it would be to play and quest.

just a little insight I had.

Before I catch alot of $*&T for creating bots and using bots in the past, let me just say that I haven't used a bot in several years, nor have I created one. I don't advocate the use of bots anymore. There was a time when I did but I grew up and got out it. I now prefer the accomplishment of doing it myself without cheating. It is quite satisfying.

[Calindor]

Everyone has their own preferences, they should just make each as rewarding as the next, but all take the same amount of time.