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Random encounters in t1 and t2 and a dissertation on the nature of grinds.
qutsemnie
Member Posts: 419 Arc User
Hi,
I have come to the conclusion this game could benefit from a little more randomness in instances, but to get there I first want to right a book on grinds.
I have seen some people call this game grindy. Which is odd to me because having played a lot of MMORPGs this game doesn't feel very grindy. I have heard it said that a free to play model makes a game grindy, but that too is odd to me because a monthly subscript model only makes income if people play for months. This makes me believe a monthly subscription model is more likely to make task take months to complete than any other type of game, and I suspect that is why this game doesn't feel to grindy to me.
I started thinking about altneratives. This imagined game where free to play has not made neverwinter grindy. I thought, what would such a game look like? I thought, "Well apparently since you don't have to grind for your gear you get all your stuff quickly." Okay, 15k gear score and full boons in a weekend because you got into an uber group. Rock on.
You get your gear, no grind, free to play has not polluted your life. Okay, but then I asked myself, "Why play?" You got all your stuff because the game wasn't "grindy". Now you are just going to a) play for fun, or b) play something else. Well b) just made this whole conversation pretty silly because you fixed the game by making it a short little thing that you never play again. That means a) play for fun.
Okay! Now you are full gear and playing for fun. Super! But, if you can have fun just playing in full gear than why can't you have fun playing in incomplete gear? What about the full set of gear made that the point where you could just log on and have fun? I figure nothing. Nothing is keeping you from just playing for fun without full gear.
I thought, "What makes a coop game fun to play if you arn't getting gear?" For example, is "Left 4 Dead 2" "grindy"? You have to conclude Left 4 Dead 2 is not grindy because there is nothing to get. You play to just play. If you don't like you don't play, but then suppose we added gear to left 4 dead 2 that took months to get, but it was still the same fun coop (magically). Does it suddenly become this horrible grindy experience that you just want to skip to the end, and you refuse to be sucked into the grindiness? That just seems illogical. You can't just add things people have to wait months for and then suddenly what was fun is now not.
So, the question is how can the game be more fun to just play, not how come free to play makes it grindy or how grindy it is. If a game is just fun to play how long it takes to get gear is almost irrelevant.
Actually, I think this game is among the most fun games of any MMORPG to actually play. The act of delving is amusing at level 60. That is largely due to the aRPG elements of the game.
This whole thing got me thinking though: this game could use some randomness in the instances. I mean left4dead2 wouldn't even be close to the amusing coop it was if it wasn't for the AI director. Now I don't expect an AI director in a mmorpg, since part of that AI directors goal was to punish you for being awesome, but it would be nice if you wrote some scripts to shake up the dungeons a little bit. Mini-bosses here. Swarms there. An odd chest in a weird spot. A triggered set of roamers that have some threat that sometimes don't exist. Things to keep you thinking, "Ehh wasn't like this last time."
Anyway, stop complaining about grinds, and complain about game play fun factor. It makes a whole lot more sense.
I have come to the conclusion this game could benefit from a little more randomness in instances, but to get there I first want to right a book on grinds.
I have seen some people call this game grindy. Which is odd to me because having played a lot of MMORPGs this game doesn't feel very grindy. I have heard it said that a free to play model makes a game grindy, but that too is odd to me because a monthly subscript model only makes income if people play for months. This makes me believe a monthly subscription model is more likely to make task take months to complete than any other type of game, and I suspect that is why this game doesn't feel to grindy to me.
I started thinking about altneratives. This imagined game where free to play has not made neverwinter grindy. I thought, what would such a game look like? I thought, "Well apparently since you don't have to grind for your gear you get all your stuff quickly." Okay, 15k gear score and full boons in a weekend because you got into an uber group. Rock on.
You get your gear, no grind, free to play has not polluted your life. Okay, but then I asked myself, "Why play?" You got all your stuff because the game wasn't "grindy". Now you are just going to a) play for fun, or b) play something else. Well b) just made this whole conversation pretty silly because you fixed the game by making it a short little thing that you never play again. That means a) play for fun.
Okay! Now you are full gear and playing for fun. Super! But, if you can have fun just playing in full gear than why can't you have fun playing in incomplete gear? What about the full set of gear made that the point where you could just log on and have fun? I figure nothing. Nothing is keeping you from just playing for fun without full gear.
I thought, "What makes a coop game fun to play if you arn't getting gear?" For example, is "Left 4 Dead 2" "grindy"? You have to conclude Left 4 Dead 2 is not grindy because there is nothing to get. You play to just play. If you don't like you don't play, but then suppose we added gear to left 4 dead 2 that took months to get, but it was still the same fun coop (magically). Does it suddenly become this horrible grindy experience that you just want to skip to the end, and you refuse to be sucked into the grindiness? That just seems illogical. You can't just add things people have to wait months for and then suddenly what was fun is now not.
So, the question is how can the game be more fun to just play, not how come free to play makes it grindy or how grindy it is. If a game is just fun to play how long it takes to get gear is almost irrelevant.
Actually, I think this game is among the most fun games of any MMORPG to actually play. The act of delving is amusing at level 60. That is largely due to the aRPG elements of the game.
This whole thing got me thinking though: this game could use some randomness in the instances. I mean left4dead2 wouldn't even be close to the amusing coop it was if it wasn't for the AI director. Now I don't expect an AI director in a mmorpg, since part of that AI directors goal was to punish you for being awesome, but it would be nice if you wrote some scripts to shake up the dungeons a little bit. Mini-bosses here. Swarms there. An odd chest in a weird spot. A triggered set of roamers that have some threat that sometimes don't exist. Things to keep you thinking, "Ehh wasn't like this last time."
Anyway, stop complaining about grinds, and complain about game play fun factor. It makes a whole lot more sense.
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