Get to the Point: Reducing and Replacing the Pains of Grinding

NOTE: A better-formatted version of this article is on Google Docs here!

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Forenotes

Grinding has been synonymous with some forms of video games since the 1980s, especially with JRPGs (eastern role playing games AKA Japanese role playing games).? In more modern times, MMOs and mobile games have also gained infamy as being grind-heavy.? For the sake of a common understanding, what is grinding in games and why is it commonly perceived so negatively?

Grinding, sometimes also called farming, means doing a set of repetitious, normally boring tasks for the sake of some future benefit or set of benefits.? Unlike a typical gameplay loop, grinding is a distraction from a game's normal flow.? Grinding can come in many forms, such as grinding for EXP, grinding for levels, grinding for abilities, grinding for in-game currency, grinding for reputation, grinding New Game+ cycles, grinding for items, or grinding for achievements.

For example, if you want to finish a game's story, you may need to grind hours for levels to be powerful enough to overcome the game's challenges enough to witness and enjoy the game's story.? For another example, you may need to grind to obtain every rare item in a game for the sake of 100% completion.

I purposely differentiate grinding from real world game-related skillbuilding, practicing for speedrunning a game or playing professionally.? Due to the repetitious nature of the activities, there is a great potential for overlap between grinding and skillbuilding as I call it.? Grinding also has the connotation of being for personal progress instead of training for a later showcase of skill or interpersonal competition.

Finally for this section, I am writing this article from the position of someone who has played many games with grinding mechanics and made some games with grinding mechanics.? My typical stance is that grinding in games should be optional, but its rewards should be useful enough to justify my time and energy.

Factors Determining a Grind’s Pleasantness?

When grinding, something will win - either the obstacle of the grind or the goal of the grind.

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How negative or positive an experience grinding is in a game depends entirely on its context:? Grinding can be negative in one moment and positive in another moment.? These are the main factors that determine the pleasantness of the grinding experience.

• How much does the user want to do this?? Some people just want to grind or want to avoid grinding in this context.? (Daniel Pink would call this a mixture of agency - your opt-in ability or free will - and purpose - what sort of meaning you assign to grinding.)
• What is required for each grinding loop cycle?? What tasks are involved?? How much time and active effort are required?? In general, the less time and effort needed per grind make the grind more pleasant.

For example, if you can automate this grind somehow, like with cheat codes or rubber banding the controller buttons down to continually have characters perform the same actions, this reduces the amount of effort - and maybe also time - needed to grind.? For another example, if you're grinding for items that each have a very low drop rate, and you need to pay active attention to ensure you got exactly the right number, this increases the amount of effort (and also likely reduces the pleasantness) needed to grind.

Let’s also disrupt the previous hypothetical example with another theoretical factor:? The game innately lets you grind for resources manually, or if the game is ‘off’ - you’re logged off, the game is in sleep mode, etc. - the game will automatically generate those same resources for you at a much slower rate.? Now which option do you pick?? That still depends on the situation since context is still king.

• How important is this grind?? Some grinds solely exist for bragging rights or as optional time sinks that don't much matter to the game.? Some of the most painful grinds are the ones the game simply requires or heavily expects users to do simply to proceed.? ?
• How frequent is this grind?? The more often you're expected to grind, the more likely users are to believe that this game was poorly constructed and poorly paced.
• What do users understand about the situation?? Based on my understanding of what will likely happen in the game and sometimes also the real world by grinding or not helps determine how much grinding I do and when.? After all, opportunities come and go, and opportunities are not all equal.? Not even close.

? ? Maybe I'm on an especially long vacation or medical leave and have the time and inclination to grind, or maybe I simply don't feel comfortable betting my Roguelike character's life by not grinding, meaning I grind.? Maybe I want an achievement and grinding now seems like the best means to get it.

In another case, maybe I’m going through a game with which I’m already well familiar, and I have a pretty good idea of where, when, how, and why to grind.? This eases the situation immensely!

• What are the rewards for grinding?? Let's assume I grind out X completely.? What thing(s) should I expect to get from this process?? What can I do with them that are valuable to me?? How worthwhile are the end results of my effort for this set of rewards?? Let’s also assume I grind out X only partially.? How does that change things?

? ? For example, in World of Warcraft (WoW), I've spent the equivalent of days or weeks of real time grinding PvP battlegrounds to gain honor, the game's currency to buy PvP equipment, just so I could have a set of useful gear obtainable without a reliable raid schedule.? It may have been worthwhile soon after I got it, but it hurt my real world school progress so much that it made me realize WoW - and MMOs in general - just encouraged large-scale grinding, and also inspired me to quit.? Overall, I can't say for certain it was worthwhile.

? ? For another example, in Final Fantasy VI, I can grind for hours in the early game on the Leet River/Lete River/Lethe River (depending on translation) to get EXP and levels for my current party, but if I grind for hours, I can make my current 4 member team a very high level, and because of how FFVI handles characters joining the party, they'll join at or close to the party's average level.? Thus, I could leave the game on overnight and automate the grind to give those characters (near-)maximum level, and ensure that any character that joined my team after this would be very high level - likely in the 70s - or more than enough to trivialize most the rest of the game.? I did this, and even though the process was boring to do semi-manually, it proved worthwhile overall!

• What alternatives exist to grinding?? Grinding is one way to seemingly extend the amount of content a game has, as well as to instill in users a sense of having earned their victories afterward.? The next section considers a variety of factors as ways to reduce or remove the grind for the sake of greater player enjoyment.

Alternatives to Grinding

Pit the computer against itself by using a script, a mod, or third party tool to fix your situation.

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Depending on the context, some or none or all of these may apply.

• Allow user skill to replace the grind.? Dark Souls is a famous example in recent history of a difficult game whose difficulty can be notably lessened by lots of grinding.? There are plenty of videos of players who totally avoided grinding while still beating the game, and it's still possible to beat the game at the minimum character level.? It's also quite possible to grind for hours or days to get enough in-game items and currency so that the game becomes easier.
• Use the right character builds.? A game’s difficulty is directly determined by what meaningful options players can perform at the right time.? Character builds determine character options and character power.? Among other things, player skill and character abilities each contribute to a player’s success in a game.

Character builds are partially skill-based in knowing how and why you as a player use them.? Character builds are somewhat chance based, because players can discover character options that worked especially poorly or well in their circumstances.? Character builds can also be taught in guides as mentioned below.

• Check a guide.? Sometimes, if you don't know the result of your actions, checking a guide is all you need to determine your reward or how to act optimally.? Perhaps your reward is simply cosmetic, or a cutscene, or something else that has no stats that you could simply check on YouTube or elsewhere online.

Perhaps - like me - you regularly check guides for character and party creation to ensure you’re making characters well-suited for their circumstances, thereby reducing the need to grind due to being more powerful overall than if you had chosen unwittingly.

Perhaps you check guides because you simply want to know what to do, when, and how.

• Chance-based mechanics.? Some game makers believe a viable way to avoid unpleasant repetition is simply for players or/and characters to get lucky.

For example, let’s assume you’re determined to get an important item that has a small chance to drop upon killing a certain foe.? You may need 1000 tries… or 2.? This was my experience when I was determined to get the Crusader enchant formula in WoW:? I headed to the area where the enemies were that dropped this item and it dropped after my second kill.? Alleluia!? I later learned this item had less than a 1% chance per kill to drop.? Even more alleluia!

A major downside to this chance-based approach as a replacement or mitigation for grinding is that it can quickly make players feel like they’re doing something wrong, the game is bugged, or/and they’re simply unlucky if they don’t get what they want quickly, especially if they believe others are getting similar or better results with less input.

There are ways to reduce the negative impact of chance-based mechanics.? You could ensure that the result will come within X tries - like an item has a 10% chance to spawn on the first try, a 20% chance on the second, a 50% chance on the fifth, etc. - but these debatably change chance-based mechanics into purposeful delay mechanics, another form of undesired gaming for many.

• Use codes/mods/options to change one user's experience.? Whether you call them cheat codes, game mods, accessibility options, or otherwise, the main purpose of these things in this context is to remove or drastically reduce the grind to get to the interesting parts sooner.? With these things, there is plenty of ability to add grinding requirements or/and increase difficulty, but if you're turning to these, then I assume it's because you want to make life easier on yourself.

While I call this 'one user's experience,' many users could use the same setup - the same mods, codes, and options - to have a similar experience, either separately or in the same game together.

• Change the vanilla experience for most or all.? If you're making or maintaining the game, you can change the code to reduce the need to grind or/and the pain of grinding.? Unlike the previous option, the standard experience changes for all or most players.?

Perhaps you change the EXP values so that players of some RPG are very likely to reach maximum level with a full party by the end of the game instead of about 75% of the max level.? Perhaps in this same game you keep the previous EXP values as a higher difficulty or a separate mode for those who want it.

• Outsource the grind.? Automate the grind - like by rubber banding or taping a controller button in place - or by using some third party program/script to grind for you.

Alternatively, have another person or set of people do your grinding.? Maybe you're playing some MMO where your little brother levels your characters in your absence, or you pay someone to powerlevel you.

? ? This option doesn't change the fundamental want or need to grind, but makes some machine or other person do the unpleasant stuff.? Some online games have had thriving paid services for character leveling, gold/in-game currency farming, and more due to this.

• Pay a convenience fee.? Freemium and paid games often purposely include time sinks so players will get mad and pay.? Sometimes, this is purchasing something directly from the game's official store, like EXP boosts or the target of your grind (items, abilities, etc.)? Sometimes, this means buying premium currency and using it to trade with players directly or via an auction house for what a user wants or directly buying something from an in-game real money shop.? While this method is not necessarily pay to win, paying to skip to the 'fun' points is definitely intended by the game makers, and players and onlookers may believe this system to be pay to win.
• Do without.? Depending on what your goal is regarding grinding, you may be better off without it.? You're still spending your time - meaning your life and your energy - to get something, and your real life resources may be better allocated elsewhere.
• Quit.? There's a very high chance that a user is playing this game with the intent of enjoying themselves, and a lack of need to play combined with a lack of enjoyment from playing for enough time and with enough impact means that user quits.

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