Grinding or not grinding... that's the question

[jack1974]

Yes, well said. I like both those ideas. Implementing them correctly of course is another thing, but I am willing to try since seems very good solutions!

[deathknight1728]

Grinding is always a good thing in moderation. However, when I had too much grinding in Avernum Escape from the Pit, I found the game to be dull. The reasoning was that there basically was no present story after the intro dungeon. No grinding is bad too though as you dont get a chance to powerup before the big fight. So yeah, moderation.

[P_Tigras]

I had two significant reasons for grinding in Loren:

1) Gold to buy the best equipment.
2) After Karen wiped the floor with Loren's derriere repeatedly in the queen's challenge at level 18, I advanced Loren four levels via grinding so I could get all of her best combat abilities for a rematch. I won the rematch of course.

The most enjoyable thing about grinding for me is the ability to simultaneously have all the best talents/abilities and to experiment and compare them in the exact same situations so I can better optimize my character at lower levels when I can't have them all.

[evaliant]

Hey Jack : )

I really like the ideas going on in this thread, and I think one possibility you could have would be storyline time limits that are affected by grinding.

Aside from the various difficulties you offer in your games, grinding could be used as a tool to help relax the difficulty curve, one that doesn't make the player feel like a bad gamer by having to step down the difficulty (though to be honest, I feel your difficulties divide the various tiers of challenge quite nicely). So, one possibility if you want to allow grinding would be a hidden timer that keeps track of the amount of random encounters and extra levels that players have effectively grinded.

Once the player hits certain numbers in the timer, maybe a small storyline sequence occurs, and may ultimately affect the type of ending the player receives at the end (traditional good, bad, 'true' ending sort of deal), aside from the various endings you already offer.

Additionally, you could make certain achievements for completing the game under certain average character levels (who doesn't love achievements!)

Just some thoughts, but the nice part about allowing grinding in the games is that players such as myself will eventually get to experiment with builds at the otherwise unreachable 'max-level', just like some usually like to do after completing the game.

Thanks again for such quality games! : D

[jack1974]

Thanks, some very good suggestions. I like the idea of having some achievements locked to a maximum level, or maybe time (though not real time but more like in-game time).

[Jaeger]

I like to keep grinding to a minimum whenever possible. The way level caps were imposed in Chrono Cross was interesting. The level was shared among the party rather specific to each individual. Characters will get small gains in their stats after a battle, however after a certain number battles, they won't make any more gains until they reach the next level, which requires defeating a boss.


Perhaps you can consider a variation of the that level system, for example:

Level 1
-1st set of stat/skill points gained after winning X number of battles
-2nd set of stat/skill points gained after winning X number of battles
- no more stat gains until Level 2
↓
Progress further into the game by completing a main quest
↓
Level 2
- 1st and/or 2nd set of stat/skill points gained if not obtained at Level 1
- 3rd set of stat/skill points gained after winning X number of battles
- 4th set of stat/skill points gained after winning X number battles
- no more stat gains until Level 3
↓
Progress further into the game by completing a main quest
↓
Level 3
- 3st and/or 4nd set of stat/skill points gained if not obtained at Level 2
- 5th set of stat/skill points gained after winning X number of battles
- 6th set of stat/skill points gained after winning X number battles
- no more stat gains until Level 4

[jack1974]

Yes that's an interesting system. I am not sure if that's what Anima intended but looks very similar. Personally, I think there should still be some grinding allowed but not for XP, maybe for resources or money.

[DunKalar]

Grinding is an aspect that ruins games for me somehow. I do not want to ... waste ... my time with repeating actions like a bot. Random Encounters for traveling are ok but the XP and Moneygain should be limited, as was said before. It is always difficult to balance the necessary number of encounters for a journey. On the one hand, you want to have the player get the feeling of his pc - that it is really hard and tiresome to fight your way through a mountain of demons. On the other hand, you do not want your players to be bored by repeated encounters that tire you out.

Maybe you can introduce "strategic key points" like in DAO2, that supply your charakter with a certain amount of materials for crafting every timecircle. So a game of domination can be integrated, if you are not strong enough to hold all positions at once but can manage a militia to buy you some time. This might be some sort of grinding too, but has a more strategic feeling than just running from a to b and back for a hundred times, just hoping to get a random encounter.

If you want to set up a sequel of fights it would be nice if you alternate the combination of enemies so that you have to use different strategies each time. This could make "grinding" a bit more interesting than just turning off your head and mowing down waves of enemies with the ever repeating same movecombination (that's the reason why I dislike asian RPG's somehow ^^). E.g. the first encounter is set up of lots of front-line-fighters. They can take an increadible amount of damage but do not deal much damage themselves. The second encounter may consist of mages who spam your group with aoe and debuffs. In the third encounter you can set up a combination of ranged fighters and frontline tanks, while the ranged fighters may set up debuffs, too. and so on. In this way, the alternation of fombatsituations will be more challenging and interesting.

[jack1974]

Well you confuse "grinding" with "bad encounter design"
Grinding means killing random enemies to accumulate more experience. But doesn't necessarily mean doing repetitive battles (even if I have to say that in many RPGs that's what happens in practice).
I know many people that like grinding, so I still plan to include it somehow in the game but that can be useful only in harder difficulty setting, or using the system posted by Jaeger above. In many missions of Planet Stronghold 2 for example there are side missions. They're NOT needed to go on with the story and can be ignored, but they will provide extra stuff, and of course extra battles. I always think that whenever possible you (as game designer) should offer players a choice, the only way to make everyone happy

[DunKalar]

sounds fine ^^ as long as it stays in hard so I know how to avoid it ^^