Good Grind and Bad Grind - Discussion thread

gradii

IMO there's a good kind of grind and a bad kind.

Many people say STO is becoming too much of a grindy game, and I both agree and disagree depending on the kind of grind in question.

For instance, the Rep projects and Doff assignments, things you set up going in the backround, then forget about as you play the game until they complete, are a good mechanic I think. The biggest factor determining if a grind is a fun grind or a fun killing grind, is the mechanics behind it, how likely it is to get boring quickly.

For instance, I'm glad STO isn't big on rare drops, and I can get awesome gear with no need for RNG using the rep system, even if it takes a long time.

I do think the dilithium refine cap should be raised given how many things use dilithium nowadays.

shadowwraith77

The only grinds for say, that I myself see, is grinding for dilithium/EC's/R&D mats. Now granted, you need not really grind for these for say, as they can be obtained by other means outside of grinding alone and/or, by more efficient means of grinding so, I cannot say I am un-happy by any means when it comes to grinding on this MMO, when you compare it against RNG loot rules everything types of MMO's.

However, the specializations are an entirely different matter and, one that is fairly grindy!!!

gradii

Yeah I mostly feel that STO got its form of grind done right, although it could be improved by better balancing things like dilithium refining/gain vs consumption, as well as standardizing/perfecting the requirements for rep requisition projects.

drakethewhite

I have just a few areas that are rough for me.

-Summer and Winters events are too long. IMO they should be 3 weeks with 2 weeks of daily required for the ship. But I'd settle for 30 days and 20 days respectively.

-Spec Points are *slow*. This single mechanic has killed working significantly on alts for me. Double XP weekends are about the right speed IMO.

-Crafting is too slow to level. And grinding for the right modifiers takes too much time and effort. Again, an alt killer.

-Fleet Holdings take too long and too many resources in today's game. The large Fleets have blown through them a year or two ago, and given that a simple invite to the holding invite is all that's needed for the gear- the cost and time nor longer serves a valid purpose except to discourage small and new Fleets.

But in general, I get by. I've all but abandoned my alts to do so however.

farmallm

Leveling was kinda slow as it took me a long time to get to Lv60. So that could be fixed some. However the loot payout was unreal. However this did shelf my alts as it just took too much time where I could work on them. So I'm only doing a Fed, KDF, and Romulan. My others including the Delta are banks for now.

Reps, if they have a story to progress it or additional stuff as you hit a tier. Then I will do them. With out this, they are just too boring and I don't do them.

Some of the grind is OK, but at least not as bad as others.

gavinruneblade

If a player enjoys the action,it is not seen as grindy at all no matter how repetitive even if it gives zero reward. Example, angry birds,Tetris, checkers, monopoly, surfing, etc.

If the player dislikes the activity but enjoys the reward and sees it as fair for the level of effort it is seen as "good grind". Though this does lead to burnout over time.

If the player dislikes the activity and finds the reward " necessary before I can do a more fun activity" or "just barely good enough" then it is bad grind and will immediately cause complaining and if extended or repeated for tiers of similar rewards will cause burnout very fast.

If the player dislikes the activity and sees the reward as insufficient for the level of effort, they will simply avoid it altogether.

Many activities start out as fun and enjoyed but through repetition drift farther and farther down the scale as novelty wears off. Thus in the long run the reward becomes more and more important nomatter how "good" the original design.

iconians

The grindiness I have the most problem with is how they have their reputation grinds arranged.

1: They have way more queues than reputation currencies.

2: Certain queues are run ad nauseum as a result of efficiency and payout. The faster missions mean they're run more often since they are so quick.

3: By the time you finish a reputation, you are so sick of fighting the enemy group/missions/queues to get the Reputation to Tier 5, that getting all those space and ground sets and shiny things... you can't help but wonder, "Why did I do all of this again?"

You basically grind your aft off for equipment specifically designed for a particular enemy group by running that same exact content to the point you just don't want to do it anymore. You then are sitting on really expensive and hard-earned equipment that gathers dust because you're seeing Undine/Vaadwaur/Voth/whatever whenever you sleep at night and doing missions to get the most out of that equipment just adds to the sensation of getting burnt out.

Cryptic has sort of addressed this by offering sets that have become more utilitarian and less involved around specific enemy groups (the Delta ground set for instance is good for fighting multiple groups, not just the Vaadwaur). The Undine ground set is another good example, as its Toxic resistances make it a very attractive option for running Bug Hunt (for Iconian/Delta Marks).

But they need to do more of that. Sets that are able to share a niche with multiple enemy groups (particularly future reputation systems), put more value on their acquisition. If the Temporary HP mechanic of the Iconian Resistance set is really useful against whatever reputation comes after, then there's more value for grinding out the Iconian Resistance set even though by the time you're finished you're already sick of running Brotherood of the Sword or Gateway to Gre'thor. But that equipment can be used for queues/missions/battlezones that come later? Hey, that's not so bad.

praxi5

Having to do the same thing, over and over and over again, is not fun. Like "Flying High", for this Summer Event.

Or even what they've turned the FEs into; 4 weeks of the same missions, played again with 0 changes or difference. More, if you're playing it on Alts as well.

Rep grind is silly as well. Log in daily, drag a few sliders, and wait 20 hours. Not fun.

tekehd

gradii wrote: »

I do think the dilithium refine cap should be raised given how many things use dilithium nowadays.

Have to disagree here, the largest complaint I see happening is people bitching about the dilithium exchange..... raising the refining cap would make the value of dilithium sink even lower. As a Zen supplied I'm all for that mind you..... means more dil for my Zen........ but I imagine many would not like that.

s2racing

drakethewhite wrote: »

I have just a few areas that are rough for me.

-Summer and Winters events are too long. IMO they should be 3 weeks with 2 weeks of daily required for the ship. But I'd settle for 30 days and 20 days respectively.

If you catch the races on rollover (and maybe spend a small amount of lobi), the ship can be gotten in 20 days. The Summer Event is a worse grind because there're no DOff missions for lolnuts, the prices of most everything they buy is too high, and many cannot be used off of Risa.

-Spec Points are *slow*. This single mechanic has killed working significantly on alts for me. Double XP weekends are about the right speed IMO.

-Crafting is too slow to level. And grinding for the right modifiers takes too much time and effort. Again, an alt killer.

These. These are the big ones that most of the people above have missed/ignored and people, myself included, haven't kept Cryptic's feet to the fire on actually fixing those issues like they said they would after removing the ways players made the grind more bearable. When you have to do over 50 PvEs or mission replays or kill over 700 cruiser or battleship mobs (solo, if you team, that's more needed) for one spec point out of 105, that's a bad grind. Not the worse by far but still bad.

-Fleet Holdings take too long and too many resources in today's game. The large Fleets have blown through them a year or two ago, and given that a simple invite to the holding invite is all that's needed for the gear- the cost and time nor longer serves a valid purpose except to discourage small and new Fleets.

Fleets shouldn't be a grind unless only a few people are doing the donating, which honestly is less a problem with the grinding of the base and more a problem of the low effective income of Dil that's pretty much used for everything in end game. Find 100 or so active donators and that problem will disappear quickly.

Also, the refine cap does not need to be raised. Raise more pylons instead.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

chiyoumiku

Okay I don't mind grind, but if it's done right. I'm going to use specialization points here. In the get go, they were originally 50k per point and now it's what, 150k per point? In Final Fantasy XI Online we have merit points, essentially the same thing here. But every merit point is 10k EXP per point. Reasonably dooe in endgame zones for players. Hard to get 10k but not impossible even solo (I'm looking at you Beastmasters.). 50k was doable, hard but easy in groups or solo. By adding more to the grind, it becomes less fun to grind out points. You can lower rewards on patrols and I don't mind but that extra 100k to max out my pilot tree is very daunting even to a player like me who is used to MMO grinding.

sennahcherib

well personally, i stopped most of the grind stuff. i use the same build for almost all my toons (r&d weapons, fleet consoles, nukara gears <- no need for bnp, datacore etc, and it is easy to earn nukara marks). I want to be tier5 for the iconian rep only for the dil; i don't want the new gears, because i don't want to grind for them.

i use the r&d system, but now i don't try to upgrade the weapons (crtdx3 or crtdx2 pen), they are for the exchange, currently i sell one epic MK XIV crtx3 pen + 1 crdx3 and 1 crtdx2 pen. the r&d system is not really boring, only the random mods are a pain in the a.. <- but now i understand the reason, but not for these crappy pvp mods .

i like the summer event thus for me the grind during this event is not a problem, but i don't do the winter event. this event is really boring, fight, fight, fight, + i hate the race.

I don't grind for xp. i don't want to be a dpser, so i take my time.

angrytarg

The only good grind is repeating procedually generated content with random occurences, enemies and objectives, gaining loot in the process which can hold gems and unique sets as well as vendor trash. Bad grind is "working" for virtual currency and go to a store, buying the stuff I can see presented in the windows. The latter is what STO does. And it's boring.

greyhame3

For me, dilithium is fine in that when I put my mind to it I can get enough to hit the refining cap for a few days.

Reputation isn't bad if you're not planning to make anything from the rep. If you are, then it can be very grinding, but levelling it is fine.

DOFF isn't bad either, in that it's fin bit there's not much to do with it anyway.

Crafting is a horrible grind to level.

Levelling from 50 to 60 I'd also call a grind because of the XP it takes. Same with spec point.

peterconnorfirst

Working for a few thousand Dyson marks under the options available is a miserable grind I hate.

Receiving a few thousand Omega Marks by playing the related contend is a nice income while I’m on a activity I love.

The error is either on my part or the Dev’s.

Decide for yourselves!

lingeringsoul888

I like the grind when I'm testing/refining build. I don't like it when I have to grind with my alt because non of them are geared properly to do any damage.

gradii

angrytarg wrote: »

The only good grind is repeating procedually generated content with random occurences, enemies and objectives, gaining loot in the process which can hold gems and unique sets as well as vendor trash. Bad grind is "working" for virtual currency and go to a store, buying the stuff I can see presented in the windows. The latter is what STO does. And it's boring.

Well then your opinion of good and bad grind is inverted.

dgdolph

In my opinion ANY grind related to balance is the worst and the biggest enemy to a competetive gaming environment. In STO these ginds would be:
- Leveling
- Rep grind
- Leveling crafting
- Spec points
- Dil/Zen/Lobi grind for p2w items

Im 100% fine with any grind that only effects cosmetics but not gameplay at all like:
- Uniforms
- Weapon&Ship Skins
- Emotes
- Titles and names

I believe a game should never reward you with better items/traits/ships/whatever for playing it. Playing (and beating) the game should be the real reward.
I'd love to create a maxed out character, grab anything available in the game I need and jump directly into the competition. I guess STO just isn't the game I'd like to play.

angrytarg

gradii wrote: »

Well then your opinion of good and bad grind is inverted.

Well, I see it this way - in the first model (see Diablo and other hack&slay games) I actually play the game and improve myself in the process. In the latter model (STO) I work through the content to buy set items which I then use to do the exact same content I already did to earn the currency faster, this time however without reward/point.

So... it's debateable

EDIT: COME ON, h-a-c-k is being censored?

Unknown

This content has been removed.

sheldonlcooper

I think the best grind we had was the delta recruit. Doing all the missions with my only friend was the most fun I've had in my starfleet career.

thatcursedwolf

Level 156, 67 of which require level 59-60 xp, which is 154,800 skill points per level, (which means earning as many skill points as doing 1-60 6.92 times) is a bad grind.

virusdancer

Grind is in the eye of the beholder. Two folks can look at the same thing and see it completely differently...can even work in a third person to have it being more than just two things.

Half Empty!
Half Full!
The glass is twice as large as it needs to be!

Discussions just tend to go around and around until the inevitable fighting breaks out because some folks can't accept that other folks might have a different opinion than they do...it's already started a wee bit. Oh well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG0oBPtyNb0

jivedutch

105 spec points per character (and 30 more with the next specialization) ....
The daily reward boxes for reputation marks are a very good way to help reduce the reputaiton grind, along with reputation sponsorship.

"Reducing" the grind for the specialization system ... make it more Alt-Friendly and add the same systems to that.
Finish a (30) Specilization tree, unlock half/part of the tree on Alternate characters.
Add a (bigger) expertise reward to the daily reward boxes (1 box of the whole line worth) , then people will progress faster, and be "rewarded" more for doing the QQ events.

Improve the regular rewards for kills etc ... they currently feel quite unrewarding , especially at lvl 60.

As for the winter/summer event jobs ... the daily skate was 1 thing, the flying is 4 .. very annoying, this does not feel equal.

Doing the event "job" 25x is ALOT of runs with a VERY annoying "minigame" ... 25 runs in 42 days of summer event ... if you have bad luck and cannot participate for 1 week (due to bugs for example) this quickly becomes a problem. (altho the current 1 char, unlock for the rest is a very good mechanic). And the spreading of the accolades over the list means its hard to commit to be a Master Relaxer as well.

The big cincher is the big amount of RSI inducing "games" to play in this event .... and lack of Doff-Jobs for the favors.
Risa event is not as fun as it could be ....

thatcursedwolf

Allowing activities required to advance reputations to have decent skill point gains so you could actually gain spec points at a decent rate while doing them would help a lot.

foxrockssocks

What I really hate about STO is that I can't work on a character for more than a half hour or so per day. I can't just play several Borg Red alerts in a row, I can't do anything as I want because everything is on this annoying cooldown now. I have to go do this or that to make use of my playtime.

That is a grind to me, the daily grind, the half hour grind, whatever. It is the forced flow of things. I'm not done when I want, I'm done because the game says so. And because of that, I need to resume the next day or I'm not getting things done that I want to get done. It greatly disturbs the flow of things, go stop, go stop, go stop, and reminds me I have to do things on someone else's schedule.

And I know people think it is crazy to call Flying High a grind, but it is. You have to do it every day, around the same time every day, 25 days in a row. It isn't like it requires a lot of effort, but it is always in the back of the mind, did I do that silly thing today or was that yesterday? Great I forgot, let me drop what I was doing, go to Risa and check. Lets not even mention the forced event schedule on Risa.

It isn't like you can do it for hours on end and really have fun flying around through the courses and get a single pearl each time. You can't ride that roller coaster again in this theme park till tomorrow. Its just one and done. Each day blends into the next. Put in your time card. It causes burnout, the daily thing.

Personally, I know I tend to play less after the events than before. Rep/spec grinds are always there, at least, so skipping a few days or neglecting alts doesn't make you wonder if you skipped too many.

With oldschool MMOs, you could get into that zen state during a grind and go for hours, but STO constantly forces you out. The battlezones come close to being good here, and mostly let you go as long as you want, but most of the game isn't like that at all.

bobbydazlers

I believe its the players that makes it a good or bad grind both in their method of play and their attitude towards it.

if the player has a certain amount of marks to gain for reputation or specializations or ship mastery they will often play the parts that offer the most marks for the thing the player is aiming for in return for the time spent in an effort to finish as quickly as possible, this quickly becomes repetitive and boring and makes the grind a chore and then the player gets to the stage where their attitude is that every form of repetitive content even if its only once a day for 25 days is a grind they cant face.

if the player plays the content that is fun and doesn't worry so much about what rewards are needed at times playing content for lesser marks or sometimes even playing content that doesn't even give required marks and doesn't worry so much if it takes twice or even three times longer to reach the end goal the play is more varied more fun and far less likely to become repetitive and boring, this turns the players attitude to grind as looking at the grind as a non-grind and any type of repetitive play even daily is far less repetitive to the player by being broken by a variety of content.

this is why the devs put cooldowns into play, to try and force the player to vary their play, sadly there are to many ways to get around the cooldowns by using multiple characters, maybe the devs should look at making certain cooldowns account wide for some content to avoid this workaround.

hojain2020

As a f2p player Ive managed to enjoy " playing and repeating " portions of the game and mindlessly finishing parts I did not enjoy just for the solid rewards (this part is the GOOD grind). All games are like that at the moment and thats fine.

For me personally the grind becomes BAD with the gamble/crafting like nature involved at endgame to 'refine' end game builds. It feels less like a game feature made to look interesting and more like a game feature present to make sure players hit a large glass ceiling that only will power, time and (cryptic hopes) keys may overcome. I cant help but feel my ships crew are a bunch of complete idiots secretly working against me and intentionally bleeding my resources for some 'nefarious gain' ;-)

TBH as I mentioned above I don't mind repeating stuff for solid rewards, but when it comes to refining end game weapons and gear the chance/luck element is too much. I dont mind the grind for solid rewards but grinding just to have a 'chance' at something is annoying and a great source of resentment towards game designers.

OP cryptic may have given up on "rare" drops but in the case of crafting/upgrading weapons and gear especially to higher rarity the rare chance drops for mods is still very much present.

commanderkassy

Good grind is grind that's fun enough that you don't realize you're grinding. Example: City of Heroes.

RIP

thecosmic1

I do not mind the Rep grinds because you can basically do 2 Rep missions per week and have enough points for a week's worth of leveling to the next Tier. So a 15 minute mission on Monday and another on Wednesday and I am done with that Rep for the week.

The post 55 leveling grind, and the Spec Tree grind, is another thing entirely. But a lot of that issue is lack of Content to make it feel less grindy. When you are limited to doing a handful of things the grind factor goes up each time you do them.