Times you have grinded in video games

[rusty_shackleford]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grind#English

(video games) To repeat a task a large number of times in a row to achieve a specific goal.

What are some times you have grinded out a task in video games? What game? What was the goal/reason for the grind?

[J1M]

Wizardry 6 in order to reach level 2 because enemies were killing party members in one hit.

[Oyster Sauce]

Wizardry 6 in order to reach level 2 because enemies were killing party members in one hit.

Ah, Etrian Odyssey

[Tadeusz]

Well, MMOs come to mind as it's necessary for progression.
I rarely grind in solo games but there's some cases like gathering wood and ores in Valheim for building or getting totems to exchange for the neat indestructible boots in Dawn of Magic.

[rusty_shackleford]

as it's necessary for progression.

But is it really, tho?

[Tadeusz]

But is it really, tho?

Are there any MMOs without grind? It's hard to imagine. Though, using your definition of grind, tasks can be arranged not in a row Some PvP activity may also break the grind.

[methoxetamine]

Recently Bravely Default because I suck donkey **** at the combat. I think I'm just too impatient. Usually I don't need to grind in jrpg's at all

[rusty_shackleford]

But is it really, tho?

Are there any MMOs without grind? It's hard to imagine. Though, using your definition of grind, tasks can be arranged not in a row Some PvP activity may also break the grind.

A lot of newer ones do better at hiding the grind, at least.
I'd have to break down various MMOs to figure out exactly what makes the non-grindy ones feel that way. A large selection of content, variety of tasks(incl. very different ways to get to the same goal so you don't have to do the same thing repeatedly), frequently being rewarded(if small) for achieving something, and such are likely all contributing factors.

[Xenich]

But is it really, tho?

Are there any MMOs without grind? It's hard to imagine. Though, using your definition of grind, tasks can be arranged not in a row Some PvP activity may also break the grind.

A lot of newer ones do better at hiding the grind, at least.
I'd have to break down various MMOs to figure out exactly what makes the non-grindy ones feel that way. A large selection of content, variety of tasks(incl. very different ways to get to the same goal so you don't have to do the same thing repeatedly), frequently being rewarded(if small) for achieving something, and such are likely all contributing factors.

What is your opinion of EQs grind? You seemed to have a positive opinion of the game (unless I am mistaken).

[rusty_shackleford]

Are there any MMOs without grind? It's hard to imagine. Though, using your definition of grind, tasks can be arranged not in a row Some PvP activity may also break the grind.

A lot of newer ones do better at hiding the grind, at least.
I'd have to break down various MMOs to figure out exactly what makes the non-grindy ones feel that way. A large selection of content, variety of tasks(incl. very different ways to get to the same goal so you don't have to do the same thing repeatedly), frequently being rewarded(if small) for achieving something, and such are likely all contributing factors.

What is your opinion of EQs grind? You seemed to have a positive opinion of the game (unless I am mistaken).

It's the thing about the game I don't like, sitting in one room repeatedly killing the same mob when it spawns sucks

[Xenich]

A lot of newer ones do better at hiding the grind, at least.
I'd have to break down various MMOs to figure out exactly what makes the non-grindy ones feel that way. A large selection of content, variety of tasks(incl. very different ways to get to the same goal so you don't have to do the same thing repeatedly), frequently being rewarded(if small) for achieving something, and such are likely all contributing factors.

What is your opinion of EQs grind? You seemed to have a positive opinion of the game (unless I am mistaken).

It's the thing about the game I don't like, sitting in one room repeatedly killing the same mob when it spawns sucks

I have mixed feelings on that. I used to think it was bad, and when WoW came out with its "dungeon run" concept it seemed like the solution (and it is I guess depending on the feel you are going for), but after the years I came to appreciate the idea of sitting in a single area and pulling mob cycles waiting for a rare to pop. I was affirmed of my enjoyment of this with Pantheon when I would group in dungeons. It just was fun (for me) to constantly anticipate that the "next pop" might be that rare mob I had been hoping for.

I guess I like both for different reasons.

[Rienen]

The only notable grind I've done recently was during the relaunch of Defiance. I enjoy just going around to different overworld events and generally doing my own thing. So, any EGO levels I could get from PvP and/or Social achievements weren't something I cared to do. This meant running the same missions and major/minor Arkfalls for exp, which didn't really bother me, since I enjoyed the jank of the gameplay.

[logincrash]

I fondly remember grinding for rare drops in GW2 because it more often than not meant taking part in huge events with a hundred other players chatting and having fun. Any of the World Boss dragons, or the Chak run, or the raptor races in the desert - all of them required active participation and actual skill rather than just sitting around clicking the same buttons to the point that it could be automated. Something that GW2 also has, sadly, as there are dozens of idling characters surrounded by turrets farming mobs in some areas.

[Norfleet]

Some PvP activity may also break the grind.

PvP activity is either also a grind, because you're grinding some stat associated with PvP, or it's intended to facilitate grind by taking control of territory or resources to grind.

[Vaako]

I do like to grind just to be able to kill bosses more easiely and kill trash mobs in 1hit. Korean games like lineage are on another level of grind tho that I woudnt even bother anymore. Was enough already when AION came out I grinded to 49, max was lvl 50 then account got hacked because their server security was **** and that made like 1-2 months of grinding completly useless. After that I tried TERA and Black Desert but didnt go very far because the grind was similar bad there. But if I find a good spot in singleplayer games like that bunny level in Blacksouls 1 I do grind for a few hours, even if I afterwards 1shot every boss...think I stopped at lvl 600 then but on difficulty 1 there was 0 challenge anymore.

[rusty_shackleford]

But is it really, tho?

Are there any MMOs without grind? It's hard to imagine. Though, using your definition of grind, tasks can be arranged not in a row Some PvP activity may also break the grind.

A lot of newer ones do better at hiding the grind, at least.
I'd have to break down various MMOs to figure out exactly what makes the non-grindy ones feel that way. A large selection of content, variety of tasks(incl. very different ways to get to the same goal so you don't have to do the same thing repeatedly), frequently being rewarded(if small) for achieving something, and such are likely all contributing factors.

Need to do a thread about what makes anti-grindy content

[Norfleet]

What are some times you have grinded out a task in video games? What game? What was the goal/reason for the grind?

Just about every game. Because number go up. I want a number to go up, doing the thing makes number go up, therefore, I will do the thing until number stops going up or I am prevented from doing the thing. If I encounter a task that makes number go up in a noticeably significant way, my automatic reflex is to do it again.

[Xenich]

Some PvP activity may also break the grind.

PvP activity is either also a grind, because you're grinding some stat associated with PvP, or it's intended to facilitate grind by taking control of territory or resources to grind.

This, when I used to PvP in MUDs and in some of the early MMOs, it was a MASSIVE grind at times.

[Tadeusz]

PvP activity is either also a grind, because you're grinding some stat associated with PvP, or it's intended to facilitate grind by taking control of territory or resources to grind.

I thought more about Lineage 2 where other players may want to take your farming spot forcefully so it's an unpredictable thing.

[Xenich]

What is a grind though? Repeating content?

Some people in EQ used to claim the end game bosses were a grind due to the extreme cycle of wipes until you perfected your strategy and were able to retain it for the time needed to see it through.

I can't tell you how many times we wiped on the AoW, often getting him to 0% before we tuned every element of the raid until we could take him down without any errors.

Any task that has to be repeated is a grind (exp, quests, etc...). I guess I don't mind grinds IF there is a good balance in the risk vs reward of it and in the process of the grind, part of it is having to master the encounter (it makes the grind seem less mundane). The grinds I hate are where the tasks are simple, no effort, no thought, no skill, etc... just "widget play" for 1000000000000000000000 times until you are rewarded a fancy sprite of power.

[Xenich]

PvP activity is either also a grind, because you're grinding some stat associated with PvP, or it's intended to facilitate grind by taking control of territory or resources to grind.

I thought more about Lineage 2 where other players may want to take your farming spot forcefully so it's an unpredictable thing.

Well, from my experience of "real PvP", it isn't like an FPS game of running around killing people randomly. There is planning, strategy on many levels (psychological, physical (in game), economic, political, etc...) and the good PvP guilds dominate with this.

[Norfleet]

What is a grind though? Repeating content?

Well, basically, anytime you're repeating the sequence, you're grinding. That's why work is known as "the grind", a concept which existed even before games. Grind is the workification of games.

Some people in EQ used to claim the end game bosses were a grind due to the extreme cycle of wipes until you perfected your strategy and were able to retain it for the time needed to see it through.

That's not the part that is the grind. The part that is the grind is when you kill him over and over and over to get that one drop everybody needs. If you only ever had to kill him once, and then that was it, it wouldn't be a grind, because it only needs to be done once. The thing which makes it a grind is that he doesn't drop the thing you need every time, forcing you to repeat a task you've already solved ad nauseam.

[Oyster Sauce]

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3175-super-credits ... lldivers-2

[Xenich]

What is a grind though? Repeating content?

Well, basically, anytime you're repeating the sequence, you're grinding. That's why work is known as "the grind", a concept which existed even before games. Grind is the workification of games.

Some people in EQ used to claim the end game bosses were a grind due to the extreme cycle of wipes until you perfected your strategy and were able to retain it for the time needed to see it through.

That's not the part that is the grind. The part that is the grind is when you kill him over and over and over to get that one drop everybody needs. If you only ever had to kill him once, and then that was it, it wouldn't be a grind, because it only needs to be done once. The thing which makes it a grind is that he doesn't drop the thing you need every time, forcing you to repeat a task you've already solved ad nauseam.

So reward completion has to be a part of the cycle then?

My point in the cycle was the cycle of the "try" (ie wipe, rez, setup again, etc...), so you are saying that once the process is perfected and the rewards are provided, this is then the true cycle and whether it is a "grind" is based on if the group has to repeat this too much?

[Norfleet]

So reward completion has to be a part of the cycle then?

Yes. Otherwise it's just FAILURE. Sure, you can failgrind, but that's on you, because you suck. The correct rebuttal to somebody whining about this kind of grind is "GIT GUD, SCRUB".

My point in the cycle was the cycle of the "try" (ie wipe, rez, setup again, etc...), so you are saying that once the process is perfected and the rewards are provided, this is then the true cycle and whether it is a "grind" is based on if the group has to repeat this too much?

Specifically, that the rewards ARE AVAILABLE. They may not necessarily actually be provided, and sufficiently, if the game is utilizing grind-creation mechanics like "random drops" or "NEED MOAR!". If I need only one set of King Kong balls, but 99% of them turn out to be eunuchs for no other reason than developer spite, that's a grind-mechanic. If I need over 9000 of them, rather than simply checking off a "Been there, done that", that's also a grind mechanic. The best "grind" mechanic, therefore, doesn't use this kind of force to achieve it: I only need one. I WILL get one. But I can get more, and give/sell/trade it away. Older MUDs were often like this: You only NEEDED one of that item, it was enough for you. Killing the monster would always drop it, so you didn't NEED to grind it multiple times. Of course, you could choose to do so to trade the item to someone else (in which case they wouldn't need to grind it), and you could lose the item through your own incompetence (like, say, getting killed) and thus need another one, but that was on you.

[Xenich]

So reward completion has to be a part of the cycle then?

Yes. Otherwise it's just FAILURE. Sure, you can failgrind, but that's on you, because you suck. The correct rebuttal to somebody whining about this kind of grind is "GIT GUD, SCRUB".

My point in the cycle was the cycle of the "try" (ie wipe, rez, setup again, etc...), so you are saying that once the process is perfected and the rewards are provided, this is then the true cycle and whether it is a "grind" is based on if the group has to repeat this too much?

Specifically, that the rewards ARE AVAILABLE. They may not necessarily actually be provided, and sufficiently, if the game is utilizing grind-creation mechanics like "random drops" or "NEED MOAR!". If I need only one set of King Kong balls, but 99% of them turn out to be eunuchs for no other reason than developer spite, that's a grind-mechanic. If I need over 9000 of them, rather than simply checking off a "Been there, done that", that's also a grind mechanic. The best "grind" mechanic, therefore, doesn't use this kind of force to achieve it: I only need one. I WILL get one. But I can get more, and give/sell/trade it away. Older MUDs were often like this: You only NEEDED one of that item, it was enough for you. Killing the monster would always drop it, so you didn't NEED to grind it multiple times. Of course, you could choose to do so to trade the item to someone else (in which case they wouldn't need to grind it), and you could lose the item through your own incompetence (like, say, getting killed) and thus need another one, but that was on you.

Remember how Verant would use "nearly" unbeatable raid targets at end game to slow the top guilds?

I remember PoA had targets that were "for the most part" too difficult and kept the top tier raiders "grinding" gear off past targets to min/max to the point where they could take on the next island target, combined with the need to perfect raid practice to the point "no error" efficiency in order to beat them prior to Kunark. They kept this focus a bit even into Kunark with VP and later Velious. This is why I considered the "Try" as a grind aspect.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I wonder how many literal, actual years of my life I have spent grinding in videogames. Live service games in particular are a black hole of time.

► Show Spoiler

My first ever MMO, Space Cowboy Online (also relaunched as Air Rivals and ACE Online), where I had to mob grind to level 50 to 60ish to be able to participate in the weekend PvP faction wars. The level cap was 120 IIRC but there were severe diminishing returns in exp farming after 60ish/70ish. I remember watching my dad level grind in the asteroid map at level 70ish and he was getting maybe 1% of exp to the next level for an hour of grinding. So most people just stopped levelling at around 60ish to just focus on the PvP. IIRC there were leaderboards and on the NA server, less than 10 people got over 90 or 100 or something like that.


World of Warcraft: Farming the elites up in the Ordon Sanctuary (required having beaten the MoP legendary questline and having gotten a legendary cloak to access) to get the 100,000 Timeless Isle coins to buy the Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent, which was my most favorite mount until the customizeable Dragonflight proto-drake was added.

Farming M+ dungeons (mythic score of 2,000+ required) and RBGs (need to win 40 RBGs) to get the seasonal mounts. I think I have a dozen or so RBG Vicious saddle mounts now.




I killed Garrosh 508 times using the bonus roll + hallway skip trick to get his 0.5% droprate Tusks of Mannoroth. I think it took 30 or 50 hours. Then Blizzard gave the Tusks away for free in MoP remix.






Final Fantasy XIV: using the Trust system to semi-AFK level up my other roles so I could see the rolequestlines. I had the game windowed. I would move my character forward to a pack of mobs and let the NPC party members fight them, and then click back to my web browser to scroll the web or watch youtube. I would only have to play the actual boss fights since you will almost certainly die if you stand still and are not in a safe spot when the lethal room wide AoEs go out. Takes about 30 minutes per dungeon run. For healer/caster, I levelled scholar/summoner, which are two classes that share the same exp bar, so I got to knock out two roles and get to see two rolequestlines for the price of one grind.

Grinding Eureka and and Bozja to get the flashy glowing relic weapons. Eureka was the more enjoyable experience (4 maps which looked at minimum okay, as opposed to two ugly brown wastelands. No frenetic and exhausting constant chasing of FATEs or critical engagement. More chill atmosphere. No intense music all of the time. Etc). Haven't had the motivation to do much Occult's Crescent.

Grinding the 400 FATEs in Dawntrail zones to get the orchestrion rolls and the Tulliyollal adventurer plate.


Final Fantasy XI: the 500 hours of playtime it took me to get to level 75 as a Tarutaru Dark Knight Samurai and beat the Rise of the Zilart story. I started in Bastok as a level 1 Taru warrior. Got to level 30 IIRC, and then unlocked Dragoon and levelled that to level 37. That was when Horizon launched at the end of 2022. Sank 200 hours into that. The grind and the community atmosphere was addictive, but I could not justify the time investment anymore, so I hung up the game. Then came back with the HQ in late 2024. Decided I didn't like being a Dragoon, unlocked Dark Knight, and changed my citizenship to San D'Oria. Levelled with the gang, got to 60ish, unlocked Samurai and levelled that as a sub job to 37, then went back to Dark Knight and took that to the end. That all took 500 hours.

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Warframe: levelling up warframes and weapons to level 30 in that grinneer defense map, applying a Forma to them which resets their level back to 1, and then rinse repeating over and over countless times so I can fit more mods into my equipment. Apparently I have something like 400 hours in Warframe since they updated it to start tracking playtime. Who knows how many hours total I have in it.




Pokemon Black & White and ORAS: I got into breeding Pokemon for the right natures before signing up for the official online ranked seasons. I spent a lot of time biking back and forth down the road in front of the daycare to get the eggs to hatch, and then had to do that dozens of times until I got the right natures. Then I had to farm the Elite 4 dozens of times to level them up to 50+ (the PvP was level capped at 50). There were ways to bypass this grind by going to someone's website and creating the Pokemon you wanted with all of the correct natures and stats and then mystery gifting it to your DS, but then you couldn't use it for online because the servers had a way to determine which was legit and which was not.

Guild Wars 2: farming meta events for expansion mastery EXP so I could acquire all of the expansion masteries. By the conclusion of End of Dragons, I think I had everything except the ridiculously grindy Tyria and Icebrood Saga masteries. I was mastery level 405, and the cap IIRC was 601 or something like that.




Monochrome Mobius: I played on hard difficulty before the nerf patch. Around the midgame at level 30 or so, I had to spend several hours levelgrinding on the turtles in the underground mine. I also had to levelgrind a bit in the final dungeon, and then spend an hour or two retrying the final battles over and over.


Trails into Reverie: I played on Abyss difficulty. I had to spend a few hours levelgrinding in Ymir Canyon before fighting Matteus and then spending an hour retrying his boss fight over and over. Towards the end of the game, I spent many hours in the Reverie Corridor farming for the personal accessories for each character in my favorite party.




Granblue Fantasy: slime farming and Arcanum farming (whichever had the better EXP event currently active) to level up alt jobs so I could unlock more advanced jobs and job skins. And then they added Extended Mastery and new jobs that required the prior jobs to be EM20 to be unlocked, so I had to level them up again. I only do this during the three times of the year when they run 10x EXP events (anniversary in March, Summer in August, Christmas/New Years). I think I now have almost all of the jobs levelled up except for the extra row of jobs that required a lot of grinding in co-op missions to unlock. Not going to do that. Also had to do a lot of grinding in raids to get weapons and upgrade mats. I spent 20 hours dipping my toes into farming for one of the Eternals, Niyon, but the silver weapon farm was just the first part of the grind and I needed gold bricks to continue, so I decided not to continue down that rabbit hole. I have not done any Magna weapon, Dark Opus weapon, or Guild Wars farming.




Granblue Fantasy Relink: I sank 300 hours into this game. I mained Vaseraga, with a team of men of Siegfried/Yodarha/Id. After beating the story, I then went through the 3 more tiers of quests. I had to first farm the slime mission over and over to get everyone to level 100 and then max out their skill trees. Then I had to farm the Goblin boss mission over for sigils with good substats. Fortunately this part could be done AFK with your character set to auto and your AI party members taking care of it, and the mission set to auto-repeat up to 10 times. So I could alt+tab out and only have to click back to restart the mission once every 40 to 50 minutes. Once I had good enough sigils, I then had to manually farm Proto-Bahamut for 10 or 20 hours to get my Terminus Weapon. I made the mistake of unlocking most of the cast before farming for Vaseraga's weapon, so I got mostly everyone else's weapon before his. I listened to Youtube podcasts while doing this. Then I had to briefly farm upgrade mats for his weapon. Then the Behemoth and Lucilius patch came out. I had to spend about 10 hours farming Behemoth to get the Warpath sigils. Then I spent 2 hours attempting the Lucilius true final boss over and over, and wound up having to switch from Vaseraga to Siegfried since I was able to leap around and dodge while still dealing high damage. I farmed Lucilius a few more times and got kills as Vaseraga, got my alpha/omega sigils and maxxed them out, and then I was done and uninstalled.




Honkai Star Rail: logging in every day to use my daily stamina to farm for character upgrade mats, and once every few weeks using my charges to farm for relics and hope I get good substats. Fortunately like GBF this can be autoed. I have finished maxxing out the main character (Rememberance class), Dan Heng, Blade, Sunday, and Hyacine. I am nearly maxxed out with Phainon, just haven't gotten far enough into the story to unlock the boss fight that drops the last mats he needs. I am about to start prefarming for the Castorice rerun. It really sucks that further character upgrades - namely the character's unique light cones and eidolons - cannot be obtained through gameplay, but instead must be gambled for.

These are just the ones off of the top of my head. Not counting others like EVE Online, Perfect World, Diablo 3, etc.

==========

Are there any MMOs without grind?

Guild Wars 2, since you reach level 80 pretty quickly and you only need to level a few masteries (first few tiers of glider, first few tiers of the base PoF mounts, a couple season 3 masteries) to go through all of the expansions and beat the story.

Final Fantasy XIV if you just focus on the main storylines and ignore the class storylines and the rolequests, though the Endwalker rolequests feature the nation leaders so I'd imagine people would like to see those which means having to level at least 3 or 4 other alt jobs.

For WoW you have to do very little ilevel grind if you want to see how the story ends in a raid by doing LFR, but then you will get a bifurcated experience since you teleport into chopped up wings. If you want a coherent experience of walking into the raid and going through it all in one go, then you have to do some delve or M+ farming to raise your ilevel to join a normal PUG.

Something that GW2 also has, sadly, as there are dozens of idling characters surrounded by turrets farming mobs in some areas.

Yeah, turret botting still persisted when I last played in 2023. Botting is also a thing in retail WoW, with dozens of moonkin with nonsense names running around on the Eastern beach of Zuldazar starshowering the mobs there. Bots are also a thing in FF14 with dozens of lalas with nonsense names glitching under the map and attacking mobs from out of sight.

[Xenich]

I think one of the first games I grinded heavily in was Dragon Warrior on Nintendo. My OCD got the best of me, and so I pretty much just killed mobs in the local area collecting cash and exp until I could buy everything at that current cities store. Then I would move on to the next area. Problem I found out though was not only did my level make it where later content was retardedly easy, but most of the high end items I saved to buy in the stores dropped throughout the dungeons. Once I realized this, I just focused on doing the dungeons for the gear rather than bothering chasing the the store bought.

It almost seems like the game would have been better if EVERYTHING (other than starter gear) was dropped in the dungeons. /shrug

[rusty_shackleford]

I wonder how many literal, actual years of my life I have spent grinding in videogames. Live service games in particular are a black hole of time.

One of the last few times I played WoW I typed /played and felt very, very depressed by what I got back.
Tried to cope that I wasn't active most of the time or whatever, but yea

[Xenich]

I wonder how many literal, actual years of my life I have spent grinding in videogames. Live service games in particular are a black hole of time.

One of the last few times I played WoW I typed /played and felt very, very depressed by what I got back.
Tried to cope that I wasn't active most of the time or whatever, but yea

Now add up how much time you have spent at stop lights. lol