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AVERTING LEVEL GRINDING
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Lucidstillness
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Closeauthor=Dyhalto
I hold FF6 and Chrono Trigger as the gold standard for challenge and EXP rewarding. The basic idea is that a player can progress in a straight line, killing everything they meet, and not have to stop to grind. If they choose to grind anyway, they get some leverage for awhile. If they run from everything, well, shit, you did it to yourself son.
I agree with this, and I found Final Fantasy VII to be another game where grinding was kept to a minimum (though the game was also fairly easy). The genius of 'old school' Square was always that grinding was an option, but usually wasn't required. This allowed players to set all kinds of challenges and restrictions for themselves, and also allowed for less 'hard core' players to have the option of buffing their party up for future challenges. It's always good to have a choice; face the tough boss with a low level party and have every turn count, or spend an hour or more leveling up so that the boss will be much easier? In my opinion, both options are legitimate.
Of course, I can't say I much care for the 'MMO' style of modern RPG, which has so many skills to level up, items to collect and quests to fulfill that they often feel like they are deliberately wasting my time. Ah well.
LockeZ's article got me thinking about how back a long time ago when I was younger I myself am also guilty of level grinding. Yay, let's all hear my life story. But the reason wasn't for the game to be any fun. Rather far on the contrary actually. It was to prove the developers I'm better than them, due to how I can find a way to bypass their challenges and breeze through the game without dying at all. Yep, I know I was dumber then. I'm not sure, but was I the only one who felt that way or not?
Anyways, what I said was supposed to prove a vague point in my head at the moment. Maybe I can put it into better words a little later. Hope someone else might find it helpful.
Anyways, what I said was supposed to prove a vague point in my head at the moment. Maybe I can put it into better words a little later. Hope someone else might find it helpful.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
What I took from it is that if you give players "have fun" and "don't have fun" as two options, some of them will be dumb and pick the second one. So it's better to remove that option when you can.
Some RPGs like, say Dreammaster for the Famicom, feature a limited number of non-respawning enemies per area, which creates a definite level cap for the player, thus allowing the game designers to control each and every challenge. While this approach certainly means that the game cannot be broken, I have a number of problems with using this technique:
1)This approach often makes a game feel very linear. Having a limited number of enemies in an area to gain experience from usually means that the designer intended for that number to be killed in order to face the next challenge (if not, why choose that number of enemies and not fewer?) This means that the player is essentially still grinding, just on rails.
2) Limited resource management can easily create unwinnable situations for the player. If the player has a choice of characters to level up or a limited number of gold to spend, they can easily make foolish or otherwise uninformed mistakes early on which might make their party imbalanced. Depending on how forgiving a game is, the only option might be to restart the game over again and make better choices. This is something that the opportunity to level grind effectively eliminates; in Final Fantasy I you can make it to the end, with a lot of blood and tears, even with the worst possible starting party.
3) Challenges are fun, monotony is not. If every boss fight is an extremely close 'every-turn-counts' affair, the player will be forced to micromanage their resources and essentially memorize the correct path to victory, most likely after many, many unsuccessful attempts. Given the option between fighting a boss until you learn the exact combination of moves to win or leveling up through grinding, I think most players will choose the latter. At least with level grinding a player has something to show for their hours of spent time.
Now, all of these flaws can be minimized with a very clever and forgiving use of this system, but I personally think player freedom is the most important part of an enjoyable RPG experience. RPGs have moved away from the 'railroad' linear path, largely because players have grown tired of having their progression dictated. I know I complained about them before, but today's RPGs feature tons of sidequests, items and optional content that, ideally, is designed to minimize the 'grind' and personalize the game for the player. This approach doesn't always work and carries its own frustrations, but it allows the player to back away from the main story and consider a different approach to the next challenge, something a fixed progression system does not allow.
1)This approach often makes a game feel very linear. Having a limited number of enemies in an area to gain experience from usually means that the designer intended for that number to be killed in order to face the next challenge (if not, why choose that number of enemies and not fewer?) This means that the player is essentially still grinding, just on rails.
2) Limited resource management can easily create unwinnable situations for the player. If the player has a choice of characters to level up or a limited number of gold to spend, they can easily make foolish or otherwise uninformed mistakes early on which might make their party imbalanced. Depending on how forgiving a game is, the only option might be to restart the game over again and make better choices. This is something that the opportunity to level grind effectively eliminates; in Final Fantasy I you can make it to the end, with a lot of blood and tears, even with the worst possible starting party.
3) Challenges are fun, monotony is not. If every boss fight is an extremely close 'every-turn-counts' affair, the player will be forced to micromanage their resources and essentially memorize the correct path to victory, most likely after many, many unsuccessful attempts. Given the option between fighting a boss until you learn the exact combination of moves to win or leveling up through grinding, I think most players will choose the latter. At least with level grinding a player has something to show for their hours of spent time.
Now, all of these flaws can be minimized with a very clever and forgiving use of this system, but I personally think player freedom is the most important part of an enjoyable RPG experience. RPGs have moved away from the 'railroad' linear path, largely because players have grown tired of having their progression dictated. I know I complained about them before, but today's RPGs feature tons of sidequests, items and optional content that, ideally, is designed to minimize the 'grind' and personalize the game for the player. This approach doesn't always work and carries its own frustrations, but it allows the player to back away from the main story and consider a different approach to the next challenge, something a fixed progression system does not allow.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Lack of repetition isn't really linked to linearity. Both of the Dragon Age games are fantastic examples of games with no repeatable battles, but with lots of nonlinearity, so that if you're having trouble with something you can go do something elese and get stronger and then come back.
Going out and levelling up in doesn't feel like normal grind, it feels more like solving a puzzle: which order is the best order to do the main quests in? Stuff you kill isn't just infinitely-spawning wildlife, it's an obstacle you need to overcome to complete some other quest. And it doesn't quite work like normal grind either: you can end up stronger than you were, but you can't get as strong as you want, there are only so many enemies. You can only become as powerful as the designer wants you to be able to become. So it doesn't remove 100% of the challenge like unchecked exp grind does.
Of course, a lot of the enemies in Dragon Age are extremely similar to each-other, and the only difference tends to be the terrain and the number/frequency of reinforcements, so in the end it still gets repetitive eventually. They can't do everything right, I guess. It's still a noteworthy example, though.
On the flip side, games like Fire Emblem produce exactly the phenomenons you're describing. One game, Breath of Fire 5, is even built entirely around the idea of using up all your resources and being unable to continue; it has a menu option called "SOL Restart", that lets you keep some of your xp and upgrades and restart the game, for when you're SOL.
Personally I like the idea of making the enemies still appear, but give extremely minimal rewards if you try to grind them beyond what's intended. Suikoden and Mario & Luigi and a lot of other games do this. It's a nice compromise.
Going out and levelling up in doesn't feel like normal grind, it feels more like solving a puzzle: which order is the best order to do the main quests in? Stuff you kill isn't just infinitely-spawning wildlife, it's an obstacle you need to overcome to complete some other quest. And it doesn't quite work like normal grind either: you can end up stronger than you were, but you can't get as strong as you want, there are only so many enemies. You can only become as powerful as the designer wants you to be able to become. So it doesn't remove 100% of the challenge like unchecked exp grind does.
Of course, a lot of the enemies in Dragon Age are extremely similar to each-other, and the only difference tends to be the terrain and the number/frequency of reinforcements, so in the end it still gets repetitive eventually. They can't do everything right, I guess. It's still a noteworthy example, though.
On the flip side, games like Fire Emblem produce exactly the phenomenons you're describing. One game, Breath of Fire 5, is even built entirely around the idea of using up all your resources and being unable to continue; it has a menu option called "SOL Restart", that lets you keep some of your xp and upgrades and restart the game, for when you're SOL.
Personally I like the idea of making the enemies still appear, but give extremely minimal rewards if you try to grind them beyond what's intended. Suikoden and Mario & Luigi and a lot of other games do this. It's a nice compromise.
i love dragon age 2
Some of the fights do get a little repetitive; the night battles throughout the city stand out in particular - granted, they are the only "random" (thought still one-off) battles in the game, not usually having any plot significance... except if you kill off an entire branch of the underworld, you'll get a quest to kill that branch's leader and get a nice reward.
When the fights are good, though, they really are good. DA:O barely used terrain, while DA2 has lots of really interesting battle arenas. My favorite is probably any that take place in the cathedral; the Anders recruitment battle is especially great. Do you try to fight your way out of the corner? Do you have your rogue(s) sneak out and clean up incoming reinforcements from behind? Do you focus on the two minibosses, or the minions? Did you wisely load up Merrill with any combination of Sleep/Horror/Petrify, since crowd control is incredible/essential in DA2? If you didn't bring Merrill, why are you a terrible person?
EDIT: i fucking love dragon age 2
Some of the fights do get a little repetitive; the night battles throughout the city stand out in particular - granted, they are the only "random" (thought still one-off) battles in the game, not usually having any plot significance... except if you kill off an entire branch of the underworld, you'll get a quest to kill that branch's leader and get a nice reward.
When the fights are good, though, they really are good. DA:O barely used terrain, while DA2 has lots of really interesting battle arenas. My favorite is probably any that take place in the cathedral; the Anders recruitment battle is especially great. Do you try to fight your way out of the corner? Do you have your rogue(s) sneak out and clean up incoming reinforcements from behind? Do you focus on the two minibosses, or the minions? Did you wisely load up Merrill with any combination of Sleep/Horror/Petrify, since crowd control is incredible/essential in DA2? If you didn't bring Merrill, why are you a terrible person?
EDIT: i fucking love dragon age 2
Okay, first off, fuck Breath of Fire 5. Hate that game.
Secondly, sometimes I find a bit of grinding fun and a much needed downtime from the storyline. Same with sidequests - they allow me to take a break from the main quest and build up some rewards that will help me later in the game. I like having more gold, I like having more items and exploring the world and dungeons, so I don't mind grinding when I crave a bit more.
Hell, I'd rather choose to grind than have that choice made for me via enemy encounters. That's the beauty of games like Chrono Trigger and FFVI - if I feel like grinding, I can. If I don't I can just skip past most of the ambushes/run from battles. The choice is mine. I like having that choice.
It's where a lot of RM games fail (imo) - not letting me choose to run or avoid battles altogether. (This is one reason why I start most RM games in play test mode - so that I can just hold CTRL and avoid encounters if the game doesn't allow me to run.)
Secondly, sometimes I find a bit of grinding fun and a much needed downtime from the storyline. Same with sidequests - they allow me to take a break from the main quest and build up some rewards that will help me later in the game. I like having more gold, I like having more items and exploring the world and dungeons, so I don't mind grinding when I crave a bit more.
Hell, I'd rather choose to grind than have that choice made for me via enemy encounters. That's the beauty of games like Chrono Trigger and FFVI - if I feel like grinding, I can. If I don't I can just skip past most of the ambushes/run from battles. The choice is mine. I like having that choice.
It's where a lot of RM games fail (imo) - not letting me choose to run or avoid battles altogether. (This is one reason why I start most RM games in play test mode - so that I can just hold CTRL and avoid encounters if the game doesn't allow me to run.)
Fun fact: I'm playing a level-less hack of Chrono Trigger - not a low-level challenge, but a completely unleveled version of the game. Yeah. It's awesome. Progression is entirely via money/exploration -> equipment.
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/111/
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/111/
author=LibertyOn the contrary, I thought BoF5 executed difficulty and leveling quite well. The game provides a clear, attainable goal at the start: get to the surface. Your progress towards that goal is easily measured by your "depth" on the in-game map. The game itself is also not relatively long, but it is at times a bit difficult, so you end up playing through and grinding exp to be used when you have to re-start the game.
Okay, first off, fuck Breath of Fire 5. Hate that game
Your second playthrough gets more rewarding as new cutscenes are played out and reveal more of the storyline. This process can continue until you're ready to play through the game completely. Grinding for more exp actually isn't difficult with the D-Counter, where you could tear through enemies and bring you closer to your inevitable death, but get lots of exp for next time in the process, rewarding you with additional cutscenes.
Enough about that though. I just wanted to touch on how I handle grinding and level progression in my own project.
Every dungeon has a level, which is the suggested level your party should be at for the particular dungeon. If you are below the suggested level, two things happen:
- Monsters spawn more frequently and aggressively pursuit you.
- For every level you are under the dungeon level, you receive 25% bonus EXP. For instance, being level 3 in a level 5 dungeon yields 50% bonus EXP.
On the other hand, if you level past the dungeon level, you will start seeing reductions in EXP in the same manner. (e.g., if your party is level 6 in a level 5 dungeon, you will receive -25% exp) This is mainly to discourage grinding, because the EXP curves in 2k/3 are actually a bit low for my tastes. When you no longer receive exp from monsters (4 levels above the dungeon level), enemies will run from you. Any enemy you touch for an encounter dies immediately and drops its loot.
This prevents situations in older versions of my project, where people were grinding to 80 and breezing through lv 40 zones. I still reward grinding with rare loot and gear, but I want getting to level 99 to be a challenge, since it is not required for completion.
EDIT:
And I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to people wanting to CTRL through games. As a developer I will fix the mechanics so they're fun rather than having people even consider cheating through my projects. That's part of being a receptive developer. As a player, you shouldn't have to resort to that. If you do, there's a flaw in the game's design.
Demicrusaius
877
Looks like Andoru is taking a lesson from Earthbound. Good idea...
My game has a ring with ten charge you can use. One charge will let you avoid one combat and three will turn off combat for two minutes.
Grinding aside, if you are lost in a dungeon, random encounters are super annoying. I get lost a lot, so it's nice to be able to temporarily turn off encounters.
My game has a ring with ten charge you can use. One charge will let you avoid one combat and three will turn off combat for two minutes.
Grinding aside, if you are lost in a dungeon, random encounters are super annoying. I get lost a lot, so it's nice to be able to temporarily turn off encounters.
The bad thing about averting level grinding is I kind of like to grind. Maybe you should discourage it rather than completely avert it.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Is giving no reward enough of a discouragement? So if you like to replay stuff you've already done, you still can, but the enemies will give no XP, AP, gold or items.
author=LockeZ
Is giving no reward enough of a discouragement? So if you like to replay stuff you've already done, you still can, but the enemies will give no XP, AP, gold or items.
Yeah, I think that is a reasonable compromise.
Perhaps give a meager amount of gold, like 1/10 or 1/20 of the original reward, so that you don't go broke of fighting them (though, perhaps you would like that, as it discourages fighting them even more).
Neverm0re
341
I would say that it would be best to not completely discourage level grind as some people actually enjoy it. What I DON'T enjoy are games that actively encourage level grinding or, even worse, require it. The ability to give yourself an advantage by putting in the time and effort to push out a few levels not only gives the player a sense of accomplishment but also extends your game without any effort on your part lol.
author=Neverm0reYeah, making you grind is a bad idea.
I would say that it would be best to not completely discourage level grind as some people actually enjoy it. What I DON'T enjoy are games that actively encourage level grinding or, even worse, require it. The ability to give yourself an advantage by putting in the time and effort to push out a few levels not only gives the player a sense of accomplishment but also extends your game without any effort on your part lol.
@LockeZ I'd be fine with that. In a game that barely rewards (or not at all ) for grinding, I'm going to grind less. Though, it doesn't mean I'm not going to grind at all. Especially if I like your battle system.
I guess maybe backtracking would work. If you have a game with avoidable touch encounters and you make a person got through a place twice they're not going to grind, they're not going to feel like they're grinding, but they can still grind if they REALLY want to because it's there. I dunno, probably not.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
So few games really make you grind, unless the game is almost entirely about becoming stronger and not really about overcoming challenges (diablo 2 & 3, for example, or mmorpgs). In JRPGs, forced grind is not really an issue I see any more anyway.
What I do see are games that encourage you to grind, often with skinner-like reward structures. FF12's loot system, for example. Or Kingdom Hearts's synthesis system; same idea. Kill this enemy until you get 5 of the item that drops 10% of the time from it, and then kill this other enemy until you get 3 of the item that drops 5% of the time from it, and you can combine the drops into a new accessory. And man, that's super boring and takes an hour, but I'm totally going to do it because there's no other way to get that accessory. You realize what you've done, Squaresoft? You've gone out of your way to compel me to be bored for an hour. Why did you do that?
What I do see are games that encourage you to grind, often with skinner-like reward structures. FF12's loot system, for example. Or Kingdom Hearts's synthesis system; same idea. Kill this enemy until you get 5 of the item that drops 10% of the time from it, and then kill this other enemy until you get 3 of the item that drops 5% of the time from it, and you can combine the drops into a new accessory. And man, that's super boring and takes an hour, but I'm totally going to do it because there's no other way to get that accessory. You realize what you've done, Squaresoft? You've gone out of your way to compel me to be bored for an hour. Why did you do that?
ChuJooRi
1035
Here's a strange idea. What if instead of level grinding, it was level poisoning (or some other fancy word). The leveling mechanics would be completely reversed. When you defeat enemies you lose experience instead of gaining experience, so the challenge would be to avoid fighting too many enemies or else your character will become weaker and weaker.
It could be worked into the story like if the main characters have powers that weaken them every time they use them.
I guess it would be a bit of a challenge to make it work though. Since you can't have enemies become impossible to defeat if the player fought too many battles.
It could be worked into the story like if the main characters have powers that weaken them every time they use them.
I guess it would be a bit of a challenge to make it work though. Since you can't have enemies become impossible to defeat if the player fought too many battles.
ALL OF MY GAMES MUST EXHIBIT A CONSTANTLY INCREASING LEVEL OF EXCITEMENT
downtimes or variance is not allowed.
downtimes or variance is not allowed.
TheNecromancer
3160
author=ChuJooRi
Here's a strange idea. What if instead of level grinding, it was level poisoning (or some other fancy word). The leveling mechanics would be completely reversed. When you defeat enemies you lose experience instead of gaining experience, so the challenge would be to avoid fighting too many enemies or else your character will become weaker and weaker.
It could be worked into the story like if the main characters have powers that weaken them every time they use them.
I guess it would be a bit of a challenge to make it work though. Since you can't have enemies become impossible to defeat if the player fought too many battles.
haha That is a strange idea, but interesting. What if..when you die you level up xD and it's not a hard game over, you respawn and continue playing. I'd make that game.
Grinding can be cathartic. Wandering through a cave or just doing laps around the town while fighting bad guys can be relaxing, at times - not unlike knocking over a few bricks in Angry Birds. It's a little numbing and not particularly intense or engaging, but with the right battle system it can feel like recuperation. If your game is meant to be chill and relaxed, grinding could be a central feature - as long as it is well-designed.
And, like kentona said, even if your game is meant to be engaging, challenging, and overall exciting, the player needs a break. He needs a minute to rest, let his heartbeat settle, so he can process the last exciting battle or plot point, and he feels prepared for the next one. The same trick has been developing in drama, thriller, and action cinema for decades - let the viewer rest, give him a calm, and then hit him hard again.
And, like kentona said, even if your game is meant to be engaging, challenging, and overall exciting, the player needs a break. He needs a minute to rest, let his heartbeat settle, so he can process the last exciting battle or plot point, and he feels prepared for the next one. The same trick has been developing in drama, thriller, and action cinema for decades - let the viewer rest, give him a calm, and then hit him hard again.
