Hello! I'm putting together a list of reasons why people these days are disgusted with 'grinding'. I am a college student aspiring to be a video game designer, and finding pros and cons to current games will help me a lot in the designing process. Please feel free to add or comment on any of the points below!

( Problems listed in red and subproblems underlined. Possible solutions in blue.)

People hate 'grinding' in mmorpgs because they...

-Do not feel attached to their character
Small ammount of character customization
1. Abysmal choices for physical attributes at character creation screen
2. Have to replace their character when making a new class, severing many connections with player and character

> Interchangable classes avalable for every race

3. Too few races to choose from, causing players to settle for a race they dont really identify with, too many and flavor or specific races are lost

Armor while leveling is un-attractive and makes people feel those levels arent important
1. Epic end-chain quest/low level pvp rewards or leveling instance gear looks mediocre at best and should be more visually satisfying
2. At high levels, class armor looks decent but similar. Dyes are a bandaid fix

> Armor that grows with weapon or spell skill levels?

-Arent submerged in the game world
Tired of mobs with the same model only different levels and names
>If reusing mob families, add to their baseline appearance. Cute crab at level 1 =/= spikey, monstrous pincer-snapping crab from hell at lvl 50 in both look and abilities they use

Players have little reason to explore, or little benefit from exploration
>Add rare items for gathering professions that grow/spawn in out-of-reach areas
.Mob AI too predictable
1. Little to no mob intimidation on a global scale (inteligent humanoids or dragons need to raid player and npc cities)
2. Little to no reason to return to an area after leveling past it other than to gather materials or power level a friend
3. Zones with no flavor and/or not at all breathtaking

-Are fearful of gear becoming outdated with another expansion or new tier
Repuation/fame grinds for factions becoming useless
>Should take time to level and rewards need to scale with current content (patch or expansion)
>Repuation factions should always carry 1-2 items/form of upgrades (gear, spell adjustments, crafting items etc) players feel they *need*

Tier gear, be it from raids, instances, crafting or pvp being completely replaced

>Impliment an upgradable relic system. You need to gather gear from tier 1 to advance gear to t2
[Epic quest line (in the form of pve or pvp depending on how gear was obtained) for players who already have t1,t2,t3 etc on one class to bypass this rule for another class they decide to take up. Item is bought from npc vendor at a very high price, which aslo acts as a tool to hamper currency inflation]

-Feel crafting is monotonous under most conditions
Items are created by the hundreds in order to skill up
1. People use the most cost-effective items to level with because the products they make are useless and vendored

>Emphasis on products created with X craft needed in Y craft to make items possibly used in Z craft
>Durable products made from crafts need to be comparable at the low levels to be near equivalent to quest/pvp/instance rewards of the same level

Items made by high level crafters are sub-par to any if not all tier gear
>Every craft type should have at least 1 durable item that players feel is irreplaceable, or extremely hard to replace
>Every craft type should have consumables used in high level activities that cannot be purchased from vendors
[In essence, every craft type should find be able to find multiple niches in the market to fill in order to make money]

Work in progress. Will add more and analyze points later

(reserved)

Interesting. I selected these out of interest:

2. Have to replace their character when making a new class, severing many connections with player and character

[b]That isn't too much of a problem as you can still invite the new char to the guild or to friends-list with a note or something. It is nice though sometimes to know just one identity like FFXI has multi-jobs for one name or whatever.

.Mob AI too predictable
1. Little to no mob intimidation on a global scale (intelligent humanoids or dragons need to raid player and npc cities)
2. Little to no reason to return to an area after leveling past it other than to gather materials or power level a friend

[b]1) I agree with that, it would make things interesting/more dynamic.
2) I agree with this also, it is easier in a very linear way to have all the same lvl mobs in one area, but it can be nice having different levelled mobs in an area. (In Everquest spectres and gryphons in low level zones so you had to keep an eye out)
3) "Mobs AI" in itself I'm not sure can be improved unless the game was made skill-based or fighting multiple mobs at a time is more standard- and have an interplay how they will kill you.

I'll add to this and say combat could be more dynamic. Vagrant Story you could junction abilities to buttons and if you pressed the button as either you were attacking or defending you could intiate a secondary ability.(this incorporated an element of real-time skill as you needed to time these abilities and could have strategic significance)

The game could have key gameplay additions upon levelling to certain levels- maybe this could mean an increase in status(with a new title) and more important quests or roles in the game. Perhaps for instance you could now be a defender of a town(when mobs or players attack). (or an important messenger- once only chance and it's an event all players know about- whether this players succeeds or fails)

Crafting as you say is pants. Its a nice system when it's gives random rewards(with random stats) and everything is actually sellable to players.

Going back to the mob AI point, there needs to be more fun. For instance, in mmorpgs it's very standard that woo you go to a new area, woo you get a new mob type doing exactly the same thing as every other mob- attacking you and you're engaged in the same old ocd routine of killing it. What about mobs who maybe sneak behind you and pickpocket you, or beckon you over and maybe trick you.

The whole thing just needs more variance than watching your xp bar move up and performing the same combat sequence over and over. It just gets too apparent the game is wanting you to waste hours on very little actual gameplay.

I might be just a crazy person talking here, but why have classes and levels? Why not remove them? They seems to be the source of the whole problem.

I agree with Daarco.

Who said your game would have to be an EQ-clone?

LoL because then it isn't actually a mmorpg anymore :D

Neyon:

what you wanted to say is: "then it BEGINS to become an MMORPG"

as much as alot of people dislike vanguard, its the largest game ive ever played. theres a ton of places to explore and many things to see in this game. the character customization is rather decent and theres a good number of races and classes to choose from. i agree with daarco as well. get rid of the class/level system and go back to the old kings quest days etc... where you had to practice the skills you wanted. if you wanted to swim you had to go swim and raise your skill in it etc...

I'm with Daarco too. Excellent summary especially the part about Retarded AI mobs that just there and wait to die.

I hate:

1) Static mobs that never invade the town or do anything cool. They just exist purely to waste my time and make me grind

2) Lack of custimization. I look like everyone else. What is the point? Why do you need me to grind out some character that will look like 50000 others

3) Lack of Choice. Why does every single game have to be Class based? Why can't I make my own and why are Devs just now looking into this (Fallen earth, WELL, Champions, DFO, etc). We should have had more classless options all these years I'd like to play something else besides EVE

4) Static worlds where pvpers cannot invade towns and cities.

I also hate (yes looking at you sandboxes)

1) Being stuck on one character. Please put in a cap or make it viable for people to make different alts. I like to try different races, etc or be like City of Heroes where you can be any look you want on your character.

2) Want a true skill-based system where I can be anything I want. Like Fable game series has or Elder scrolls

3) Want some fun content. Grinding on mobs all day long is not fun. One thing WAR did right was allow people to progress via PvP

I like grinding, gives me time to perfect my fighting style and play with different ways of fighting.

I loved grinding in EQ, hate it in WoW.

It's not the concept of grinding that's the problem... it's the way in which it's presented.

I would like to throw in the, Dependence on other players, I think people hate grinding now b/c they dont have to interact with others while sitting in a field killing 100 rabits.

At the start people would grind and camp for hours at a time, and didnt mind it b/c it was 1) new and 2) they were doing it with 5 other people, and they would talk and BS in chat with eachother ie: socialize with people they would never meet or talk to in Real Life.

Newer MMOs place no requirement for the player to interact with others, and the 2 factors that made grinding / camping fun are no more. We have been doing it for 10 years now, its a bit boring without other players.

You can throw in the social aspect being taken out of every aspect of the current MMO, no longer do you need to make friends and find people to grp with outside of your guild.

~HappyGaming

I believe all of you have great input. Some seem to condradict one another though, so I might make a new thread to gather 100% non biased information from about what what exactly their dream mmo would be like. Deffinately keep posting here though. A second rough draft list of problems is in the works.

One question I might ask the population is if they feel the typical 2 major factions per game, played as good vs evil is overplayed and if adding a third or fourth faction to the mix would bring anything interesting to the table? I think by the time I'm done with college and have gotten enough footing from a current successful company, servers will be able to handle loads of 50k + people online at once. I think having 3+ factions would give people the option for faster que times for mini games, more danger lurking at every corner and at least more diversity.

Originally posted by Krogg

I like grinding, gives me time to perfect my fighting style and play with different ways of fighting.

          I think it depends on what game your coming from......When I started in EQ1 I never thought of playing my character as grinding, even though it would take quite awhile to gain levels at times...... To me it was time to hone my casting and weapon skills, to learn how to use new found spells, to make money for future spells and gear, to explore new areas where Id never been before.......

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I think having 3+ factions would give people the option for faster que times for mini games, more danger lurking at every corner and at least more diversity.

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Originally posted by nomadian

 

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I think having 3+ factions would give people the option for faster que times for mini games, more danger lurking at every corner and at least more diversity.

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suppose it depends on the game but my problem with this it divides people up. I mean lets take WoW for instance, at some level ranges there is few people that maybe you wish there was a double count of people(ie. without the divide) However, with a skill-based system I suppose this isn't a problem if anyone is perhaps able to group up but then that could be being overly idealistic how such a system could work.

 

Do you feel such system would only be beneficial if there was FFA grouping regardless of faction and FFA pvp but with repremands for killing your own faction?

hmm this reminds me I actually made a suggestion on the WoW forum amusingly once that players could decide to be neither affiliated and be sort of outcasts-meaning they could leisurely go in either city and group with whoever. It was an interesting idea though perhaps defeats the purpose of the game.

Anyway, to your point when you're saying ffa grouping. I think generally when two factions are war it doesn't make sense them just grouping up. Unless you're saying everyone can kill everyone type thing in a pvp, that would sort of make more sense and with the penalty thing certainly.

I believe there is room for some grinding in MMOs. Grinding does give another option to leveling up other than just doing quests. You can do as much or as little at a time that you want. Stopping in the middle of a quest because you have to log off breaks the immersion. It also helps if you have a worthwhile reward for doing the grind (increased character attributes, armor . weapons, etc.). Grinding just to level up can be extremely boring.

Star Wars Galaxies implemented a collection system. Part of the system is the 'kill collections'. For these collections you must kill x amount (around 500) of creature x. The reward is a character title. This reward is insufficient. Very few people are grinding these collections.

On the topic of crafting, do you guys feel crafts should mainly produce consumables and leave the gear up to pve/pvp activities, or do you think they should be on par and/or occasionally exceed their pvp/e counterparts? (but with a high material cost of course)

Originally posted by Nixish

On the topic of crafting, do you guys feel crafts should mainly produce consumables and leave the gear up to pve/pvp activities, or do you think they should be on par and/or occasionally exceed their pvp/e counterparts? (but with a high material cost of course)

The crafted stuff should exceed lootable items in some areas but be less good in the other ones.

Make it so that good crafters will be famous in the gaming world. Maybe some complicated experimentation and stat system? I know I would like it.

Also put in item decay or a way to lose items. This will result in a true player economy.