Poll: Grinding

[octavius]

Defining grinding as fighting either the same fixed encounters, or just provoking new random ones in an area you have fulle explored, to safely get more XP, how much grinding do you do?

 

[Siveon]

Honestly with most CRPGs I get lost or "explore" so much I rarely have the chance/reason to grind. The game already did it for me. Especially later ones that have a more than plentiful amount of side quests.

 

[YES!]

What fucking games are you playing that can be labeled as crpgs and have grinding? Please list these grind crpgs so I can know what you are talking about.

 

[Haplo]

Not much.
Most games don't need that. I'm pretty thorough while playing, so no additional grinding necessary in 90% of the games I play.

I'm much more likely to grind for better gear then for levels though. And the levels tend to come as a side effect anyway.
I did grind a fair bit for better stuff in Stranger of Sword City for example.
But I tend to get stuck in final phases of blobber post-games due to requirement to grind to reasonably proceed further. Elminage Gothic Ibag Tower 18th floor, Elminage Original Old World ethereal lords/gods. Stranger of Sword City elemental gate bosses.

The game I actually grinded quite a bit for levels+AP was Final Fantasy VII. Well, beating the optional bosses there was all but impossible without level 99 and multi-use top summon + mime (copy) commands.

 

[sin]

What fucking games are you playing that can be labeled as crpgs and have grinding? Please list these grind crpgs so I can know what you are talking about.

Planescape:Torment.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

What games do even require grinding?

I can't remember a lot of games where I ever had to resort to grinding, mostly older JRPGs like the first two Phantasy Stars (none of which I finished). I had to grind for a bit in the beginning of Wizardry 6.

Can't say I find it particularly fun to mechanically go through the motions for hours without real progress, just so a few numbers go up. Once you achieve what you were aiming for its hard to distinguish whether you are feeling reward or relief.

I suppose grinding these days has been properly wiped from most RPGs, maybe for the better.

 

[Jacob]

Honestly, I thought grinding are MMORPG's unintentional invention. Even with old JRPGs the grinding are usually minimal and not painful at all and I barely noticed it since I simply thought that's how these games are played. Only when I start being exposed to MMOs that I began to notice the painfully boring leveling process.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Honestly, I thought grinding are MMORPG's unintentional invention. Even with old JRPGs the grinding are usually minimal and not painful at all and I barely noticed it since I simply thought that's how these games are played. Only when I start being exposed to MMOs that I began to notice the painfully boring leveling process.

Grinding in Korean MMOs is(was?) entirely intentional. I wasted a lot of time in various Korean MMOs(notably, Lineage 2)

 

[Luckmann]

What fucking games are you playing that can be labeled as crpgs and have grinding? Please list these grind crpgs so I can know what you are talking about.

All the Infinity Engine games, for one.
Grimrock.
All the Witcher games.
Practically every single ARPG.
Fallout 1, 2, Tactics - probably FO3 & New Vegas too, but I don't remember how/if things respawn.

Seriously Roqua, there's tons of fucking RPG:s in which you can potentially grind with ease. Don't be such a fucking retard.

Honestly, I thought grinding are MMORPG's unintentional invention. Even with old JRPGs the grinding are usually minimal and not painful at all and I barely noticed it since I simply thought that's how these games are played. Only when I start being exposed to MMOs that I began to notice the painfully boring leveling process.

Grinding was never necessary but were still fairly big parts of most (all?) major JRPG:s long before MMO:s came around. Now, MMO:s have some of the worst grinding, and some of the most grinding that is practically mandatory, but it really wasn't their invention, nor is the question whether you need to grind or not, but simply whether or not you engage in it.

I voted "rarely", because although I usually end up grinding a little bit in each game that allows it, it's barely noticeable in each game, usually I just top off whatever level I'm on and move on before it gets boring, because if you grind past the point of it being enjoyable, there's really no point to playing.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

can potentially grind

Obviously, there is a big difference between potentially being able to grind and having the need to actually do it.

 

[Luckmann]

can potentially grind

Obviously, there is a big difference between potentially being able to grind and having the need to actually do it.

Exactly, and the question was how much do you grind, to which Roqua asked what games that can be defined as CRPG:s have grinding, just to emphasize that he's either retarded (and didn't understand the question) or doesn't actually play any CRPG:s (not realizing that tons of CRPG:s have grinding).

A lot of games have grinding, but it doesn't mean you need to engage in it. If a game requires you to engage in grinding, the question would be largely superfluous, since anyone that played those games with grinding would - bar cheating - have to engage in it.

 

[Zed]

grinding and listening to some good music is life

 

[Abu Antar]

I voted rarely. If there's a game that allows it and I totally hit a brick wall, I may grind for a level or two. This rarely happens, though. Like Siveon said, I mostly explore everything I can and try to complete all side content I find. That means that I don't really do any actual grinding per se.

 

[CryptRat]

I rarely turn around looking for encounters but there are certainly tons of players much better at games than me who spend less time in the first areas and get back to town less often than I do in Bard's Tale or Might&Magic.

 

[unfairlight]

Actual honest to God grinding for the sake of grinding is mostly a JRPG thing. You can grind, but it's not how it was designed to be played and generally you are still doing something else to supplement that core gameplay. I rarely if ever actually willingly grind unless the game is shit, the "grind" is essentially invisible to my brain because I am always doing something else like quests or exploration and killing those on my path is rather just a thing I have to do to go and do the thing I actually wanted to in the first place.
But that's just my retarded hot take on the subject.

 

[Reinhardt]

Of course i grind as much as i can. I need to fill my inventory with drop after all. All those beautiful things i will never use.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I suppose it's my "strategy" in the sense that I have this urge that I need to be sure my character/party have mastered the area in the sorts of games where it happens. Like, I'd go back and forth between two bonfires/the same one until I feel like I'm tough enough to breeze through it so I feel comfortable with how "adjusted" I am for the area.

But then there's that OTHER kind of grind, the sort where it's more like a huge mountain where it ends up just feeling like a chore. Like, I replayed Final Fantasy X a while back, and if I'd gone about to do all the optional content stuff I'd probably have used the built-in cheats to skip the part where I'd spend days total IRL in Omega Dungeon just killing random encounters for XP. I suppose the same sort of thing happens in Souls types too, where eventually I tend to end up finding some place which is good for farming XP and just doing it for hours and hours before getting back to whatever else.

 

[Alkarl]

I picked rarely, which is mostly true. It doesn't feel satisfying to just brute force every encounter because I over-leveled. However, anytime I fire up another Wiz 6-7-8 campaign, I spend the first few days rolling characters and the next 20 grinding skills. I like to get up to about 40-60 in all my core combat skills before I even take that first level. Lot's of spinning in place. Lots of fountain drinking. The pay off? Less fizzle and misses, more skill points to place in other skills earlier, and smoother class changes, but all of this is honestly negligible and unnecessary.



Edit:
Also, that last option, hahaha! RpgAddict reference, yeah?

 

[Jimmious]

My usual approach is to completely clear each area I go through and 99% of the time that contains enough grind to progress the character to the necessary power level intended by the devs. Usually a bit higher too.
Unless of course we talk about JRPGs which are designed so that you have to actively grind in order to reach the level you need to defeat certain encounters etc

 

[Sigourn]

In cRPGs I rarely have to grind. Mostly because there's a lot of content available so I never find myself fighting against the same enemies over and over again for the sole purpose of getting EXP.

 

[Background Character]

I haven't grinded since I played a JRPG and that was a long ass fuck time ago

Always remember:

 

[Gregz]

Some lying motherfuckers in here.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Some lying motherfuckers in here.

Would work as the motto of the whole Codex.

 

[DavidBVal]

If the game has fun & interesting combat, and loot is well designed, grinding is OK. why not. But I am unable to choose among the provided poll options as it really depends on the game.

 

[Brozef]

What fucking games are you playing that can be labeled as crpgs and have grinding? Please list these grind crpgs so I can know what you are talking about.

All the Infinity Engine games, for one.
Grimrock.
All the Witcher games.
Practically every single ARPG.
Fallout 1, 2, Tactics - probably FO3 & New Vegas too, but I don't remember how/if things respawn.

Seriously Roqua, there's tons of fucking RPG:s in which you can potentially grind with ease. Don't be such a fucking retard.

Than I must have a very different understanding of Grinding. Grinding is a pure JRPG/MMO/Popamole thing, not seen in true CRPGs. Especially in the Infinity Engine games with (mostly) fixed encounters. Clearing out the map and all quests isn't grinding. Grinding is farming the same area over and over again for random encounters. Which is soul crushingly boring.