Yoshi P, is this what you wanted? (Terra Branford Blues)

[DarkDedede]

At least for me, I enjoy collecting, grind or not, as long as it's fun (a subjective term, in this case). If it's not fun, I'd prefer it have some sort of worthwhile incentive attached to all that work. For me, it was the rank increase upon reaching 60 cards. I now have much less motivation collecting cards, especially since most of the cards that I don't have I won't be using anyways. If I get any additional cards, hurray. However, until I have a better reason to collect cards, there's plenty of other things that are a much more profitable use of my time. I'm going to assume that some others feel this way, since the mobs of players surrounding the TT NPCs have all but dissappeared.

[Niwashi]

True, but what's to keep them around once they get the thing they want?

Ideally, you'd think the thing that would keep them around is them having fun, not that they have content being held hostage behind luck and old instances/trials.

But once you've gotten everything you wanted and no longer have any goals to work towards, it stops being fun.

RPGs (either single or MMO) are a very goal-oriented genre, one that's almost exclusively focused on progressing your character in one way or another. That might be progressing through a storyline, advancing their level, gaining wealth, upgrading gear, acquiring whole whole collections of cosmetic or vanity items, etc. But there are always goals to achieve. Once you've achieved your current goal, you move on to another, and once you've achieved all your goals in that game, then you've finished the game and it's over.

On that last point, the single and MMO versions of RPGs are rather different. A single-player RPG is supposed to be finish-able. That, too, is one of its goals, a kind of meta-goal of completing all the others. An MMO, on the other hand, is supposed to be ongoing, where you should never finish it. So completing all of your goals there is a failure condition, indicating the game didn't have enough content to keep you.

I'm thinking they should have multiple ways to obtain a certain card (trials, npcs, packs, achievements, buy it with MP, etc). That way, people can choose a grind to their preference, and possibly enjoy what they choose.

This I completely agree with, though. We need grind in an MMORPG. It would be completely boring without it. But giving people more choices, so each can do whichever type of grind they personally most enjoy, would be a big help. Grinding only annoys people when they face having to grind content they don't like in order to then be able to grind the content they do like.

[Moqi]

But once you've gotten everything you wanted and no longer have any goals to work towards, it stops being fun.

I have joined countless primal and CT runs just for fun. Or to help other people, new FC members are always asking for someone to come with them. I had over 700 hours on Pokemon X before I started it again. I don't even battle online, I just like to min/max and breed the Pokemon I find cute and then let them rot in a PC box.

If the content is fun people will play, especially Triple Triad. People play card games all the time for no rewards/achievement online or irl, only because it's fun to play with your friends. If anything, getting all your cards would mean you can finally start to play with a proper deck. It would be the beginning of TT, not the end.

[Welsper59]

I have joined countless primal and CT runs just for fun. Or to help other people, new FC members are always asking for someone to come with them. I had over 700 hours on Pokemon X before I started it again. I don't even battle online, I just like to min/max and breed the Pokemon I find cute and then let them rot in a PC box.

If the content is fun people will play, especially Triple Triad. People play card games all the time for no rewards/achievement online or irl, only because it's fun to play with your friends. If anything, getting all your cards would mean you can finally start to play with a proper deck. It would be the beginning of TT, not the end.

But see, you have a reason to do those things. Friends want to do it (an activity to enjoy with people you know), helping someone, etc. Even if it's just out of boredom, you still had a reason to do it once (or several times) in one sitting. Heck, maybe you are the oddball of the statement. Can you really see yourself doing this content without a single need for a reward for months? Or would you eventually tire of it faster because of that?

I'm quite certain however, you won't find many people that will do content like raids repeatedly without it negatively impacting them for not having some actual goal to reach (e.g. gear/quests). A group of friends doing something repeatedly is an exception to that, of course. But we're implying more towards the DF system with pugs, which is the bread and butter for nearly every player in this game to do group content. Ask someone if they would run Ex primals repeatedly for "fun" if there was nothing they could get or needed out of it though, and I have a feeling they'd say no lol. Things like Pokemon battles (rewarding you with leveling up, stat adjustments, etc), TT, etc are content designed to be fast paced and over with quickly. It's like gambling in Vegas, there's really nothing that requires you to be attentive for more than a few minutes (exceptions with poker tournaments or whatever other obviously different things).

In the case of TT for this game though, your proper deck is actually not hard to get and doesn't require you to get all cards or anything. It's not like you can use more than one 4-5 star card afterall, regardless of rules in place, which are the problematic ones to get. If this were traditional TT, then yeah, completely agree with you lol.

[Moqi]

Can you really see yourself doing this content without a single need for a reward for months?

The reward is fun, anything else is a bonus. I tire of content when I'm made to go back for reasons other than I want to do it like relic, cards, desynthesis. I know it's there and as long as it's fun I'll keep subbing, I don't have to have SE make me all these grindy lists of things I need to do daily in order to progress. Heck, I don't want to have to play every day to get anything done! But lately it's what it feels like, the amount of stuff keeps getting inflated by always longer grinds and if you don't go at it immediately.

I figured a 3 month patch would take around 1 and half/2 months to complete (and I mean get everything done, with all classes, like the first 2 steps of the relic were) and the rest of the time till the next patch would be left to enjoy all that we just got, think of new vanity stuff, try to get that couple of rare things you missed, work on your house, make some money and go back to the new dungeons/primals that you enjoyed the most with your friends.

Even if I don't have any achievements to unlock, if the content is fun I will do it again. When you get everything new under grinds that make me go back and run stuff a dozens time, then I get bored.

[Welsper59]

The reward is fun, anything else is a bonus. I tire of content when I'm made to go back for reasons other than I want to do it like relic, cards, desynthesis. I know it's there and as long as it's fun I'll keep subbing, I don't have to have SE make me all these grindy lists of things I need to do daily in order to progress. Heck, I don't want to have to play every day to get anything done! But lately it's what it feels like, the amount of stuff keeps getting inflated by always longer grinds and if you don't go at it immediately.

I figured a 3 month patch would take around 1 and half/2 months to complete (and I mean get everything done, with all classes, like the first 2 steps of the relic were) and the rest of the time till the next patch would be left to enjoy all that we just got, think of new vanity stuff, try to get that couple of rare things you missed, work on your house, make some money and go back to the new dungeons/primals that you enjoyed the most with your friends.

Even if I don't have any achievements to unlock, if the content is fun I will do it again. When you get everything new under grinds that make me go back and run stuff a dozens time, then I get bored.

I agree for the most part. Please keep in mind though, the person you quoted was someone replying to another player replying to me, where I was replying to someone else that was talking about F2P games and people enjoying getting things immediately. So it has nothing to do with the process we encounter here, since there is no real bonus through the process.

[Nova_Dresden]

As I stated in that reply, you're referring to something being easier by comparison to the other methods already required to do it.

And again, do not confuse or misinterpret what I say to your own ends. You invited that comparison because, again, you specifically said...

Do you really believe people would enjoy the grind more if they knew they would get said item at this exact moment latest?

You specifically asked if we would enjoy the grind more if it was quantifiable instead of random and invited a comparison between the two. The answer will always be quantifiable. Do we enjoy a quantifiable grind? Probably not because light grinding sucked, but it didn't suck near as much as atma or these card grinds. A numeric grind has a definitive end and an RNG grind has no defined end and literally can take forever if the numbers don't go in your favor.

Every RPG requires A random number generator to simulate dice rolling in tabletop RPG gameplay, but an RNG-only loot system is outdated and needs some manner of adjustment to even out the outliers where players run the same content ad nauseam with zero drops and others run it once and get the drop.

[Welsper59]

And again, do not confuse or misinterpret what I say to your own ends. You invited that comparison because, again, you specifically said...



You specifically asked if we would enjoy the grind more if it was quantifiable instead of random and invited a comparison between the two. The answer will always be quantifiable. Do we enjoy a quantifiable grind? Probably not because light grinding sucked, but it didn't suck near as much as atma or these card grinds. A numeric grind has a definitive end and an RNG grind has no defined end and literally can take forever if the numbers don't go in your favor.

Every RPG requires A random number generator to simulate dice rolling in tabletop RPG gameplay, but an RNG-only loot system is outdated and needs some manner of adjustment to even out the outliers where players run the same content ad nauseam with zero drops and others run it once and get the drop.

All right, fair enough. Though it seems you're implying that even with RNG, it's impossible to have a sense of enjoyment, such as obtaining something like Atma after the very first attempt, instead of after the boring set amount that'd be required without RNG. I'm sure you've encountered something like that at once in your life. I know I have had many occasions over the course of 12 years in the genre where RNGesus has resulted in great enjoyment, but maybe I'm the only one alive that finds any sense of enjoyment through a tried and true system. Honestly, I really don't get much enjoyment out of set amount requirements. I feel they're absolutely boring because seeing the number is like watching the clock tick or watching grass grow. Obtaining long term goods that are quantifiable is more of a sense of relief than enjoyment, but the same can be said about the RNG aspect I guess. I'm simply on the other side of the spectrum, I suppose.

Still, do you really want every single thing in the game (loot or reward related) to be obtained as a guarantee by something like being bought/obtained from an NPC/quest? That seems even more like a chore or job than RNG could show lol. Work for a month (or 2 weeks) and get paid X amount of dollars to get that much closer to what you want. It makes the task itself boring as all hell because you can predict every single outcome, and you generally won't have the opportunity to "beat" the system by obtaining something before that. I get that you might be implying they can leave in the RNG, as long as every item is something that can be bought/obtained as a guarantee elsewhere, but... you don't see anything wrong with that? For starters, only a fool would think players wouldn't complain about the RNG, despite the eventual guaranteed acquisition. What's the point of "random" when you'll have a guaranteed win? On the other end, what's the point of giving everyone what they want quickly, when the intent is to prolong? That's how the genre works, otherwise, you have the playerbase be more akin to an F2P game, where they play for a week (maybe a month) get everything they want, and never come back. If they were to add more to a set quantified requirement to prolong, it would just makes the task even more daunting, so how would they keep the players around and happy realistically in an MMORPG like this one? Asking for more content is ridiculous, given development time, QA, and planning.

Where's the satisfaction in spending the time getting said item, when it's nothing more than generic? Seriously, do you think something like the Terra card would be anywhere near as special as it seems now, if it were easily obtained? I don't see people hailing a Spriggan, Ultros, or Sahagin card as anything special. They might be RNG, but they drop very often when you put the effort in, so it's a generic item. I don't see anyone praising something quantifiable like their Behemoth or Ahriman mounts as anything special (unlike the primal ones, even after the drop rate nerf). The reason? Everyone gets it after a specific amount of time. They're fun for a little while, but that's about it. Off to oblivion because there's no actual personal story behind it.

Heck, let's go with something like the Vaan or Squall card. Do you think everyone finds it special to get them for what they are? I doubt anyone will look at a Vaan card and say "that was a struggle!" a month after they get it, unless the struggle was dealing with how mindnumbingly boring it was as they counted down the wins needed. I'd say the majority of people that have the Vaan card, got it by having another account/player lose matches on purpose. Fun for everyone! (/sarcasm) If they have something like the Terra card though, one of two things will come to mind, depending which applies. 1) They'll have a story behind obtaining it after so long of an unknown struggle, just like the OP here. Or 2) They'll have that sense of relief and enjoyment behind the fact they didn't have to go through what the OP did.

RNG is rarely seen as good, but it's a necessary evil for the genre to exist for what it is. In fact, it's a psychologically manipulative system when you get down to it, similar to RL gambling. If, for example, obtaining Odin only required you to beat the NPC at TT ten times or beat the Trial once, big whoop. That card goes into oblivion. No unique or memorable stories to tell about a struggle, no nothing. The Odin card itself, because of the current level of RNG and difficulty of the NPC, has some personal worth behind it. If you take out the true RNG aspect from it completely, as in there's no way around RNG for certain things, then just like gambling IRL, people (the business included) will realize there's no reason to stick around for long. It won't stimulate us in the same manner because we know we'll win and obviously, no business will bother to continue it if they're losing money by having people win and walk away.

TL;DR: RNG is indeed required, but there must an RNG-only system to a subjective minimum degree for the game to last.

[Divine_Intervention]

Wait... people are farming the same npc for over one thousand five hundred wins?

Holy crap. I thought I enjoyed cards, but damn.

[RobinRethiel]

Wait... people are farming the same npc for over one thousand five hundred wins?

Holy crap. I thought I enjoyed cards, but damn.

They don't enjoy it, it's the only halfway effective way to earn MGP beside pure luck. Some people have won a few tenthousand MGP by lottery (beside those ultra luckers, who have won the jackpot and got ~11.000 (= ~1M+ MGP with cards) wins against this NPC for free), but most not and if you want to have more than just a new hair cut or one of those other cheap things, there is no way around insane grind. This may change in 1,5 weeks, though.