#1: FFVI - prior to final fight w/ Kefa. Grinding Levels/Stat bonuses with appropriate Espers in the Forest with Dinosaurs. (9999 dmg ICE/FIRE/BOLT 2's on Relm)
#2: Space Rangers 2 - Any time once you can kill a Dominator. Finding Dominators or Pirates to kill for thier spare parts.
#3: MechWarrior IV - Farming uber weapons on exceptionally replayable lower levels. (Salvage all M****F****!)
#4: FFXIV - Initial quest to get a relic weapon, and it's first upgrade. (everything after has been pretty much crap)
Grinds Done Right.
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04-11-2015, 06:12 AMradioactive_legoGrinds Done Right.
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04-11-2015, 06:14 AMLemuria
Hmm, this needs to be a fairer comparison. How about comparing it to other MMO grinds and we'll see how well they compare. I do agree that FFXIV doesn't have the best grind out there, but this comparison serves it more of an injustice than it deserves.
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04-11-2015, 06:16 AMRisvertasashiHonestly though, I think MMOs comparing themselves to each other is a big reason for the genre's homogeneity. I really wish more MMOs would look outside their own genre for ideas and ask, 'That looks fun...How we can do that in a massively multiplayer world?'Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemuria
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04-11-2015, 06:18 AMmyahele
how about dodging 100 lighting bolts in FF10?
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04-11-2015, 06:18 AMradioactive_legoI dont think It's an unfair comparison. I put 99+ hours into Grinding max stats in FFVI. Just because it's not an MMO doesn't mean it's not a grind worth doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemuria
Furthermore, I dont have a lot of grind experience in MMOs. The only comparable would be card grinds in RO. -
04-11-2015, 06:20 AMIlitsa
I don't think that the relic quest has been all THAT bad, to be honest. WoW's Legendary Ring quest is quite a lot more frustrating to be honest.
Also, if you wanna go farther back, Ragnarok Online's Valkyrie Helm was a hell of a lot more tedious and not nearly as rewarding Click (make sure to CTRL+F Valkyrie Helm once there) as the cards had a 0.01% drop chance, and you needed 10,000,000 Zeny (In game currency, like our Gil is now) and they didn't have quests/roulettes that rewarded cash at all, you had to rely on selling junk to npcs, or getting lucky and finding a drop other players would want to buy, there was also no market board. -
04-11-2015, 06:23 AMLemuriaAs I recall, it was 200... and one of the reasons I never got Lulu's celestial weapon upgrade.Quote:
Originally Posted by myahele
While I understand the sentiment, it's important to understand the distinction between a single player experience and a multiplayer online experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Risvertasashi
There are a lot of mechanics which simply don't transfer well because the onus is to encourage party play. Furthermore, in a single player game you pay once for the game and there's no subscription. With an MMO, the company needs a steady income to maintain the service we all know and love. To do this, it needs to keep people playing, which is why a lot of the grinds often take longer.
Grinds also need to consider this longevity in their rewards. They can't go making everyone a super powered warrior dealing 9999 damage on every strike, so things have to be balanced over time. As a result, the grinds are designed to bridge the gap between today's gear and tomorrow's gear.
Now, despite this I won't go saying that I love the relic grind. I loathe it. I'm currently grinding light for my nexus and it feels like it's taken an eternity already. It's not very well paced, and it's not very fun. But despite not enjoying it I understand why it exists in its current form. -
04-11-2015, 06:25 AMHeavensSword
At least it's not FFXI relics/mythics.
People complained about WoW's Legendary Cloak quest being grindy, but it's really a joke in comparison to other MMO grinds including XIV's. I'll give Blizz credit in that at least that particular quest for the cloak included interesting story and cutscenes as well as it's own fights and objectives. It had some "Do X content for a chance at Y token" for some parts, but was just enough to break the monotony.
In XIV it starts out fine; we were getting some lore with our weapons and I thought it was going to be something cool, but after Gerolt they may have well just handed my character a laundry list and said "Okay, Go". -
04-11-2015, 06:27 AMDoctorPepper
I agree that the relic grind is terrible, I recently started my zodiac dungeon grind and I got lucky, got my 1st item on my 5th dungeon or so. After that I've done around 40 dungeons in a row now without any more items dropping and as a result I've pretty much stopped playing this game aside from fcob out of frustration.
Grind with a clear endpoint is one thing, I can handle that. Grinding the same set of dungeons that give literally no reward at all to my character over 40 times with absolutely no progress is another. -
04-11-2015, 06:29 AMHeavensSwordIt was 200. Honestly Tidus' Caladbolg was more annoying requiring a time of like 0 with the chocobo race. There is a spot in Thunder Plains north of the Al Bhed hut near like a small pond or something that had a very predictable rhythm to it's lightning strikes. Just needed a little patience and the ability to keep a beat.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemuria
I'm recalling this all from my childhood so hopefully i'm not too incorrect. I have the HD edition of FFX in my bookshelf... i should actually play it. I'm getting all nostalgic. :( -
04-11-2015, 06:31 AMKuwagamithis one was not a grind. Try againQuote:
Originally Posted by radioactive_lego
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04-11-2015, 06:36 AMLemuriaThat depends on your definition of 'grind'. There are a series of tasks which need to be completed to obtain your relic weapon, so yes, technically, it's a grind. You could argue it's a quest reward, but then if you go down that road then technically everything on the relic line is a 'quest reward'. Nexus grind? Part of a quest. Zodiac item hunts? Part of a quest. Atma and Mahatma hunts? Part of two separate quests...Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuwagami
That you can enjoy it just makes it a well-made grind. Grind is in the eye of the beholder. -
04-11-2015, 06:51 AMStrejdaTom
#4 wasn't a grind in my opinion. In my opinion grinding means an activity that requires someone to do something not extremely hard for a long period of time.
EDIT: So in my opinion Animus - Zeta was grind and as Lineage II veteran I must that it reminded me of good ol days. :D -
04-11-2015, 06:53 AMKuwagamidid I repeat over and over the same steps in order to get results ? I think not. The first part of the relic contains no grind. A succession of trials, that's it. All of them are only to be done once and it's over. Like, regular progression... The only step remotely close to a grind is the 24 beastmen murder before hydra. The zenith step isn't what I'd call a grind either, even though it would have taken 3 weeks of tome capping back in days (or 2 weeks after 2.1). Though you weren't forced to cap tomes every week.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemuria
All the following steps though were totally grinds. FATE grind (atma), tomes grind (uncapped tomes for books) + 100 mobs per book, light grind, zodiac drops, and then mahatma. repetitive steps. again, and again, and again (gunosaji much ?)
But no, 2 first steps of the relic were not grinds -
04-11-2015, 08:05 AMWhocareswhatmynameis
Theres only so much they can do to make a "grind" fun. And if they give everything away super easy, then ppl will finish everything and stop playing the game, or only log on during raid time.
There has to be some things that are difficult to achieve or obtain, because if not what would you do after you capped poetics for the week and got your weekly World of Darkness drop. What would there be to keep you playing more than a few hours a week? -
04-11-2015, 08:14 AMNektulos-Tuor
Only way to keep players playing is player made content like in "Starwars Galaxies" unfortunately since this is a Themepark game and no MMOs wish to make or go towards a more sandboxy theme it will never happen.
As soon as they stop trying to make them "Games" and more like "Adventures and worlds" and give players the power to change things you will always be bored. Its unfortunate but developers cannot develop content as fast as players can do it.
SWG is no longer a thing anymore, it was canceled and SOE isn't around anymore.
Examples of player made quests in SWG:
Crafter: Hey, can you escort me across a dangerous planet so I can place/or check my harvestors?
Crafter: Can you defend my harvestor's for "X" Hours until I return?
Crafter: I need to create an item, and I can only create it in X zone, can you escort me there so I can craft this?
Crafter: Can you gather X hide for me so I can create this? (Since there was no broker.)
These are just one of hundreds of examples. The MMO market and genre has pretty much shot itself in the foot by making games less social, more anti social and added features like Duty Finder to make the game easier. All they have done is made it so players no longer need eachother - and added tags like "unique" to items so they can't even give each other items.
These are all just game design choices, and what the MMO Industry is going for these days.
If I give you a pattern, and you do it you might think its fun. However if I tell you to do that same pattern 100 times, you probably most likely will be bored with it. Thus it becomes a Grind! Its human nature. However these patterns are all that developers can create in their time limit and restrictions. This is for every MMO - even big ones like WoW. -
04-11-2015, 12:10 PMXoriam
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04-11-2015, 06:24 PMLTEvil
I'm sorry not seeing the issue at all. Want the relic go do the grind. Don't want to do the grind you don't want it. Its worth it to some people not to others. I could say ffvi grind was done wrong because it was single player game and was just a time sync. But then that's because I didn't think it was worth it. Crazy how that works. /Thread
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04-11-2015, 06:55 PMFelisDepend of if you started the relic quest during 1.22 or 2.0Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuwagami
For many people doing Hamlet Defence 50 times was already a grind (including getting enough points to be in the hamlet delivery highscore to get a chance for the keyitem drop) -
04-11-2015, 06:59 PMKuwagamiConsidering OP's joining date on the forum, I assumed it was 2.2 or 2.3. When it wasn't even worth calling a grind as the zenith was uncapped already.Quote:
Originally Posted by Felis
1.22 people had it hard, but 2.0 relic was all but a grind -
04-11-2015, 07:18 PMGumberculesmain reason wow legendary grinds are worse is the "weekly gate". It comes down to around the same amount of "time" but with ff 14 you can decide how you allocate said time. RNG was also an issue, i remember doing one week of no token outta the thunder palace XDQuote:
Originally Posted by HeavensSword