I’m about to say something controversial—I don’t actually think grinds in MMOs are all that bad. There’s a bit of a wider resistance to the idea of having to grind for anything in a modern online game, a resistance to the very concept, even. We’ve all certainly got less time than in the days of attunement questlines.
But that doesn’t mean an MMO can be entirely grindless, right? Depending on how you define the term, after all. They’re, typically speaking, RPGs—RPGs have levels, slow-burn goals to achieve, and so on. For the sake of ease, let’s just define a grind as a repetitive activity you need to do many times in a role to achieve a goal.
Even then, has that sort of thing been entirely stamped out? Not exactly. We aren’t quite at EverQuest levels of quests being rare breaks from the eternal mobbing, but those archetypal grinds have morphed into new forms. Battle-pass like reward tracks, seasons, world quests, or, in the case of Final Fantasy 14, relic weapons.
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I recently had to sprint to catch up on my relic weapon step, which required me to gather a bunch of crystal paste from dungeons. If you’re unfamiliar with FF14—basically, I had to get 600 of a thing to get a cool weapon, if you’ve played an MMO you recognise the kind of activity I’m describing. You’ve been there.
Given I wanted to hop into the patches’ new content and start working towards my next step right away, I looked up the easiest way to get it, and it turned out to be grinding low-level dungeons. I settled in with some snacks, put on a playlist, and you know what? I had a lovely time.
It was completely mindless, sure. Absolutely none of my technical skills were challenged at any point. But as I bobbed my head to some tunes and pressed my 1-2-3 rotations, I felt a familiar zen wash over me, a kind of mindless fog that left me feeling rejuvenated. More to the point, I wondered if I actually minded grinding at all. Maybe I just had to get into the right grindset—sorry, mindset.
That’s not to say I have a newfound tolerance, or anything. I don’t think I could go back to the days where the only way to level involved copious amounts of mob-whacking in the same open fields. But I have to wonder if some grinding in an MMO can be good for it. Like getting enough fibre in your diet.
But what do you think? Do you like zoning out and making some (in the greater scheme of things) meaningless numbers go up for a few hours? Or does the very concept of busywork in your MMO fill you with apoplectic gamer rage? You can answer via the poll below, but I’d also be keen to hear your opinions in the comments, as well.
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