After 12 years, why do people still refer to grind as "content"?

[ItachiZaku]

If you haven't done it, it is content. Simply as that. so obviously, the grind is clearly content.

[Maudib]

The issue isn't that "grind" isn't content... it is that content is seen as grind if the rewards aren't commensurate.

What is NOT content, is grinding Ancient Mana, which is then used to grind Nightfallen Rep via Wither Army Training to unlock mythic dungeons, which are ground for gear. A triple grind for gear. That is broken.

The other problem with Legion's definition of grind, is that it is "gated grind". A person who can play every day for an hour can make more progress in his 7 hours a week, than a person who can play twice as much on SAT and SUN only (14 hours).

Grinds should NEVER be gated.

If you find something you really want behind a grind... you do it... and when you get it.. WOW! A feeling of accomplishment.

When you realize that the grind is there is there as an illusion, and you'll just get the item when they feel damn good and ready to give it to you.... it's discouraging.

Then you realize that ALL of the grind... is really gating... because if you stop playing for a year and come back you have all sorts of mechanisms to "catch up". So if you LIKE to grind because the activity is fun.. great.

Otherwise... knowing that someone can simply do half the work a little down the road... and get the same rewards... you just ask yourself.. why?

[Deleted]

I dont consider "the grind" content.
Because the grind is a means to an end.

Grind--->Gear or ArtPower--->Dungeons or Raids

The "actual game" or the place where you use all your skill or the reason for player progression is Raids or Dungeons.

Does someone really consider farming world quests for Artifact Power actual content? I mean it is content but it's called a time gated grind.
It's not endgame.

If there was no dungeons or raids the grind would be meaningless.
Imagine a game only with grind and nothing else to do. Is that even a game?

[Eurhetemec]

Imagine a game only with grind and nothing else to do. Is that even a game?

If there's gameplay to the grinding, sure, it's a game as much as WoW is.

Imagine a game with no level cap, no specific endgame? Well, you don't have to - they exist. Arguably EVE Online is the perfect example of this. By the definition of "grind" in this thread, all of EVE is grind, nothing else.

The idea that the endgame of an MMO has to "raids and dungeons" is completely spurious. Dark Age of Camelot was perhaps the greatest MMO of it's time (better than EQ, for sure), and it's real endgame was PvP - there was no real "gear grind" at all at max level. You gained RPs to buy RAs (what WoW might call PvP Talents) and to raise your Realm Rank (title and so on), which was arguably a "grind", but it was also the main gameplay - PvP - or more specifically, RvR.

There were dungeons and raids and so on as well, but they were largely either for getting very minor upgrades or cash to maintain your gear and so on, or really cool LOOKING stuff (until ToA came in, but that's a whole other story).

Similarly, in early WoW, this idea that you were "GRINDING TIL ENDGAEM" wasn't there, not for 99% of the playerbase (including most raiders). You were playing WoW. Leveling up, gearing up, farming reps, etc. - that was GAMEPLAY, not "grind", even if it was "grindy". Some people never reached raiding and still had a great time.

Only in really post-WotLK stuff has there been this notion that "ITS ALL GRINDY SHIT UNTIL ENDGAEM!!!!!". It's not an ideal way of thinking of a game. It's not the way all MMOs are. It's not the way all MMOs should be.

[Teaklog]

Mats farming
Rep farming
Artifact farming
Level farming
Gold farming
Gear grinding
Achievement farming (the pointless shit, i.e. anything almost everything not PVP)
Daily farming
etc

Any action which consists of repetitive actions which require no real personal skill (aside from knowing your class combos and not to stand in fire) nor offer any challenge, which simply required time wasted to be completed.

Where are the in-game lore books, where are the parties of enemies attacking different outposts with different strategies each time requiring player intervention, where are the secrets aside from something to summon another mount boss, where is the new mounted/aerial/naval combat based on skill and not memorized rotations, where are the Wintergrasp style PVP world zones with different tactics to breach your enemies' keeps, like tunneling, ladders and flying machines?

It's been 12 years of the same, same grind, to the point I see people actually cheering for fucking REP GRINDS, like you didn't get enough of it during BC, and daily quests. Why are these grinds so LOVINGLY referred to by people as content?

Because to me it is content.

[Deleted]

If there's gameplay to the grinding, sure, it's a game as much as WoW is.

Imagine a game with no level cap, no specific endgame? Well, you don't have to - they exist. Arguably EVE Online is the perfect example of this. By the definition of "grind" in this thread, all of EVE is grind, nothing else.

The idea that the endgame of an MMO has to "raids and dungeons" is completely spurious. Dark Age of Camelot was perhaps the greatest MMO of it's time (better than EQ, for sure), and it's real endgame was PvP - there was no real "gear grind" at all at max level. You gained RPs to buy RAs (what WoW might call PvP Talents) and to raise your Realm Rank (title and so on), which was arguably a "grind", but it was also the main gameplay - PvP - or more specifically, RvR.

There were dungeons and raids and so on as well, but they were largely either for getting very minor upgrades or cash to maintain your gear and so on, or really cool LOOKING stuff (until ToA came in, but that's a whole other story).

Similarly, in early WoW, this idea that you were "GRINDING TIL ENDGAEM" wasn't there, not for 99% of the playerbase (including most raiders). You were playing WoW. Leveling up, gearing up, farming reps, etc. - that was GAMEPLAY, not "grind", even if it was "grindy". Some people never reached raiding and still had a great time.

Only in really post-WotLK stuff has there been this notion that "ITS ALL GRINDY SHIT UNTIL ENDGAEM!!!!!". It's not an ideal way of thinking of a game. It's not the way all MMOs are. It's not the way all MMOs should be.

So if it takes 2 years to get all Artifacts leveled up and world quests are infinite you consider that there is enough content for the rest of the expansion?

Because...it is content

[Vash The Stampede]

Yeah! Because all those free to play games are so amazing!!!! Oh....wait...they aren't.

Spoken like someone who does not know what he's talking about and believe me I know what this is like. There is not a free MMO that does what you just claimed would happen.

Except it's not free. You still buy the game, you just don't pay for the monthly subscription. The subscription was suppose to cover server costs from 2004, when servers consisted of Pentium 4 like Xeons and AMD's Opterons. Today, Blizzard could replace their old 2004 servers with a single 22 Core Xeon CPU.

So Blizzard went from paying for servers to paying for nothing. Most games today host servers for free, including some free MMO's. As for content patches, well remember that's part of the game you buy. Remember that $50 nearly full price expansion you bought? Turns out, it's an unfinished product. Besides, it's not like Blizzard doesn't have the in game store either.

The idea of removing the subscription fee is to remove a problem for game developers. Remember, they gotta produce content fast enough for you not to cancel your subscription. To fill that content gap quickly, they will resort to grinding and time gating.

[Aleax]

Ok, Lets pretend for a moment you are right Offer an alternative. What kind of content can they hope to produce at a speed that keeps up with player consumption?

Grinds are used because they extend the life of content, they offer something for players to work for. Its why EVERY mmo (not social media games) has them.

check GW2. GW2 promised back then, to add new content every 2 weeks or so. And it's definetly a MMORPG (if it matters). I dunno if they indeed did it since I heard it though, and continued since then, to do so..

[Topornic]

After 12 years, why do people still not understand the mechanics of how an MMO-RPG works?

This. Everything in MMO is grind, weekly raid resets too. You'd want a new raid every week so you wouldn't call it grind?

[muto]

Life is a grind

[SirCowdog]

thats just a stupid argument. the game is purely subjective, there isnt inherently a downside to playing it as there is with fast food. but if you wanna use a stupid argument go for it.

Feel free to disagree with me, but please refrain from namecalling.

I'm perfectly aware that what people find fun is purely subjective. But we're talking about game design and what is acceptable in terms of the core gameplay loop compared to other games in the genre. Some repetition of types of gameplay is acceptable, but using grind as blatant filler in the manner that Blizzard, and other MMOs do, just plain isn't good, especially when it's placed as a requirement which locks other gameplay.

It's one thing to set it in front of a reward. But it's another thing entirely when it actually locks content, such as Blizzard has done with the Arcway and Spellhold. There was a very good reason why long attunement chains with heavy grind components were removed back in WotLK and TBC. Because it was junk design, and while a certain amount of players are going to claim to enjoy it no matter what, overall it's not a good design technique.

And it's not even that great when grind is used to lock out rewards, especially when the reward is made powerful enough that the community begins to expect players to have it, such as with the legendary cloak or ring. In those cases the problem is compounded by multiplying the grind required with hard time-locks on how much progress you can achieve.

You can like whatever you want. But don't try to tell me that mindless repetition is good for the game when it's clearly being used as nothing but straight up filler to artificially extend the lifespan of otherwise weak content(or lack of content) with the sole purpose of making more subscription profits.

[Kul Tiras]

Life is a grind OP.

Sleep 8 hours
Drive through traffic
Work/school 8 hours
Pay bills
Cook food
Clean self
1-2 hours of free time
Go back to sleep

Wow such engaging content.

The only truly shit grind content in WoW is Voidtalon mounts. You're paying Blizzard money for standing in a spot tabbed out for 6+ hours a day. Of course, you don't HAVE to do this.

So then why do we make our video games the same? We masochists, or what?

[Deleted]

So then why do we make our video games the same? We masochists, or what?

Yes, all WoW players are masochists. Me included.

[impending doom]

After 12 years, why do people still not understand the mechanics of how an MMO-RPG works?

This. Everything in MMO is grind, weekly raid resets too. You'd want a new raid every week so you wouldn't call it grind?

Just because a game is MMO-RPG it doesn't mean it Must have lot of grinding, there isn't any definition that says so. The biggest reason for any game to be grindy, is that it's simply much easier to tell people to repeat same content, than create something completely new.

Content = something new to do
Grind = repeating same trivial Content over and over

For example I don't consider progression raiding as grind, even if I have to wipe 300 times on same difficult boss, but if I have to kill same easy boss 300 times just to get some piece of gear, that's what I call grind. Some people may like grinding, but there are many people who don't like grinding but still enjoy parts of the game that are less grindy.

[Otimus]

Some people enjoy eating fat and grease-laden fast food. That doesn't make it good.

Yeah, that's true.

But also, what you're essentially doing is going inside of McDonalds and complaining about it's grease laden food. Don't be that guy!

[Deleted]

tbh I don't mind one or two grinds in the backround. It's something to do when I just want to play the game outside of group content.

What I did not like was the way WoD did them. Because almost everything in WoD was a grind of some sort. And I am not talking about the "okey, do some dailies for me"-kind of grind. I am talking about literally killing shit until you are done. Nothing more.

[kyoloco]

its not as bad as it used to be

[Deleted]

I stopped playing not because the grind, that's reasonable in any RPG but the "content' in Legion isn't polished enough to my taste and while there are many aspects there that are done well there are many issues with the game that made me stop playing it, still subscribed though but I'm thinking on ditching WoW completely.

WoW looks like multiple different games than one whole game, old content is never relevant to current expansion and there are many quality of life things that just keeps me away from the game.

I think this is the expansion with best presentation and polish ever.
Class Halls, Artifacts, Quests, Suramar, World Quests. The presentation is excelent and is polished to no end.

But the my main problem is still in the game.
The problem that nothing is fun outside raids and dungeons...and there is no community.
The game could have leaderboards to at least know some famous people of the server.

I don't know. I think WoW needs to change drasticly for it to be a better game but the problem is that it's never going to happen because change is risky and not good for business.

[SirCowdog]

Yeah, that's true.

But also, what you're essentially doing is going inside of McDonalds and complaining about it's grease laden food. Don't be that guy!

Ahhh...food analogies. Here we go!

What I'm doing is more along the lines of telling people that if they're going to eat at McDonalds, that McDonalds could at least stop putting so much chemical filler in their meat, and lacing their combo-meals with so much grease and salt. And people respond with "Well I LIKE chemical fillers and grease and salt! Screw you if you don't like it too!".

I'm not going to sit here and lie and say I've never eaten fast food. But that doesn't mean fast food couldn't still be less bad for you.

It's an unpleasant mental image. The concept that how things are now is the best they'll ever be, and that no improvements can ever be made.

[CaptainV]

After 12 years, why do people still not understand the mechanics of how an MMO-RPG works?

Perhaps the issue there is that archaic mechanics need to be changed to adapt to a new world, much like how you cant continue to think the way you did about the world of old.

Grinding definatley -has- become a dated method of content continueation, its not healthy for the future of any MMO anymore, as it usually leads to stagnation of interests and people just not -caring- enough to progress.

There are better more streamlined ways of progressing content, things honestly needed to be brought back, like the way Wrath did things.

Example: World Questing is a softcore version of the way Wrath did things, in Wrath, if you farmed heroic dungeons enough you would -definatley- get the content you needed to progress to further content. But what made Wrath effective, is that you could do it -when- you wanted and to some extent -how-.

If I wanted to get gear, I could farm dungeons, I could tabard farm rep in the dungeons aswell, I could do dailies, I could go to Wintergrasp for pvp gear and do the pvp raid, I could farm BG's and Arena's, but the thing was, I didnt at any point feel like I was barred off by RNG based Grinds.

See thats the issue with Legion and indeed with most of recent WoW, RNG has become -so- dominant that theres no -fixed- way to progress. The grind would be okay, if it was at least, relevent.

But when your doing content 10 times over only to get no loot, no progress, then yes, its not surprising at all that people are quitting and -not understanding- the mechanics.

Because its dated, mate.