Can you make grinding fun?

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

JRPG's are known for having a grinding aspect be a main part of the gameplay.

But nowadays many people's biggest complaint for games is having a need to grind.

In older games I think grinding wasn't as much of an issue, because at the end of the day
you're playing the game.


But if you're going to grind I expect/believe there needs to be a good reason
for doing so.

Either something extra to gain from it, or a nuanced battle system that keeps
you from just turning your brain off.


This idea came to me when I was reminiscing about some old ps1 games I played.
Digimon world 3, is still one of my favorite games even with how old it is.

It has a lot of grinding and leveling but it never really gets boring.

because you're adventuring questing or pursuing some other thing,
and for the most part because you choose, to not because you're forced to.



So are there ways to change the average pokemon game, to gain the benefits of some jrpgs like that?
So grinding doesn't become boring?

 

[Incudust]

I'd say make all of the trainers and gyms rematchable. Maybe even give Pokémon experience points for using hm's

 

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

I'd say make all of the trainers and gyms rematchable. Maybe even give Pokémon experience points for using hm's

thanks for responding, and yeah I've always liked the idea of making everything rematchable, but more as a qol feature than as a fix for grinding.


and I'm not exactly looking for more ways to gain experience as that's just cutting down on the grind itself,
I'm looking more for things to improve the experience without just removing it.

On second thought I do like that experience from HM use thing, could be a good way to keep pokemon that may only be used
for HMs combat ready.

Oh and welcome to the site. :)

 

[Incudust]

I just thought of another idea. An in game script that increases the level that wild Pokémon encounters are based on the combined level of Pokémon in ur party, and/or based on badge number. up to a certain level of course so that u won't be able to catch insanely high level Pokémon whenever u want. It would probably be a scripting nightmare but perhaps skilled modder will read this post and try it. I also like the crystal clear hack method of raising trainer Pokémon levels based on gym badges.

 

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

heh yeah level scaling is actually a common feature for rom hacks nowadays.
everyone doesn't use it, but the means for how to do it has been archived.

if you take a look around rom hacking help, in the tutorial and development threads you'll find a lot of cool stuff.

 

[Incudust]

Thanks ill check that out. I think im going to end up learning how to mod these games. there are too many changes to the type charts that i want to make to not. You know what could be cool for gaininng extra xp? making it so when u hatch an egg of a pokemon u have bred, let the pokemon in ur party, and any future mons u catch, gain more experience per battle if they have one or both of the types that the hatched pokemon has. It could simulate the trainer learning how to train the types that he breeds faster.

 

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

Thanks ill check that out. I think im going to end up learning how to mod these games. there are too many changes to the type charts that i want to make to not. You know what could be cool for gaininng extra xp? making it so when u hatch an egg of a pokemon u have bred, let the pokemon in ur party, and any future mons u catch, gain more experience per battle if they have one or both of the types that the hatched pokemon has. It could simulate the trainer learning how to train the types that he breeds faster.

very cool, sounds like you've got some nice ideas, good luck on your way. :)

if you need help figuring out where to start feel free to send me a message,
but there's also usually a lot of people in the help section willing to help too.

 

[Corveone]

You can try making it feel rewarding and less tedious, but I don't think you can make grinding actually fun.

At least it seems very complicated if we're talking about Pokémon games, because of the way many mechanics work. The developers are aware of this, which is most certainly the reason why the games don't require grinding at all, and players can actually have more fun without knowing anything about IVs, EVs, and breeding stuff. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Those who want to get into competitive, however, have no choice but to deal with that (or cheat). That's also a mistake certain fan games / rom hacks make, when they're designed with a much higher difficulty that does expect the player to care about optimal IVs and EV spreads, natures, Hidden Abilities, etc. but don't give you the tools to properly integrate the competitive team building features into the game, so you'll have to waste a lot of time on stuff that's no fun at all in order to have a good team.

 

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

You can try making it feel rewarding and less tedious, but I don't think you can make grinding actually fun.

At least it seems very complicated if we're talking about Pokémon games, because of the way many mechanics work. The developers are aware of this, which is most certainly the reason why the games don't require grinding at all, and players can actually have more fun without knowing anything about IVs, EVs, and breeding stuff. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Those who want to get into competitive, however, have no choice but to deal with that (or cheat). That's also a mistake certain fan games / rom hacks make, when they're designed with a much higher difficulty that does expect the player to care about optimal IVs and EV spreads, natures, Hidden Abilities, etc. but don't give you the tools to properly integrate the competitive team building features into the game, so you'll have to waste a lot of time on stuff that's no fun at all in order to have a good team.

thanks for the response, and I didn't exactly mean grinding as in breaking through the rng for evs ivs, abilities etc.

what brought this up is I was watching some youtube game analysis of the early smt series.

where they were talking about how the nuanced combat, was exciting and never got boring,
even though its still essentially the same core process repeating.

I came to the conclusion that there was a sweet spot, of enough going on to keep the player mentally engaged,
in deciding how to go about battling.

Along with having a reason to grind, as I think they said you could get points for move, item or stat upgrades or something of the like.


As far as the base challenge, I think the only time pokemon had something similar that forced the player to be mentally checked-in
was for rotation battles, and maybe hoard & double battles.

But I don't think making everything a rotation battle would work out,...
well actually maybe a version of that could work??



So I was wondering if or how could those principles (or some other idea someone had) be applied in pokemon
to make the core loop of leveling pokemon more engaging or less likely to feel tedious to players,
without just reducing the need to grind, like the new exp share method.

 

[ThomasWinwood]

I take a hardline stance - if the player has to grind out levels, something has gone wrong. I replayed Xenoblade Chronicles 2 recently and it's an absolute masterclass in how to avoid grinding. Here's the things it does to remove level grinding in addition to a simple scaling formula to encourage taking things on which are slightly higher level than your current party.

• There's a couple different types of experience. Regular experience works like in basically every other game with levels, and is gained by fighting enemies. Bonus experience is gained by finding locations and completing quests, and goes into a separate pile which you can only access when you rest at an inn. (Once you hit the level cap, all experience becomes bonus experience.) If you're bad at the game, you can use your bonus experience to shore yourself up as you play; in New Game+ you can use bonus experience as a currency to acquire items which are otherwise hard to acquire normally.
• If during a chain attack you overkill the enemy, your attacks build up an experience multiplier which is applied to the experience gain from beating that enemy. You can easily gain a couple levels from one story boss this way.
• Unique Monsters are harder to take down than a typical party, but give substantially more experience and are trivially rematchable by interacting with their gravestone, so if you do need to grind levels then you have a substantially better option than roaming around smacking Rattata repeatedly.

 

[Meister_anon~Master_o f_None]

I take a hardline stance - if the player has to grind out levels, something has gone wrong. I replayed Xenoblade Chronicles 2 recently and it's an absolute masterclass in how to avoid grinding.

Well that's probably more in your definition of what grinding is.
grinding is just a repetitive task needed to receive some in-game benefit and is typically a core or intrinsic part of the main game loop.

(and none of those points really translate that well to pokemon I think)

I'm not trying to remove it, just give it some new life so to speak?
If you've played any mmo you know grinding is just a part of how you play the game.

It's not some hated extra task, its literally how the game is meant to be played.
and people still love it.

I'm trying to see what's missing from the core gameplay of pokemon compared to games like that, smt or other older jrpgs,
that make people tire of pokemon so easily.

(other than just having quest systems in addition to their main story)

 

[Swordsguy]

I'm thinking if there were little fun minigames that gave your Pokémon some exp. like 2% of there max needed exp. to level up or something, along with some EV's would be neat. you know instead of grinding on very specific Pokémon which can be a pain when the one you need is on the rarer side of appearing. just think Monster rancher 2, kind of like that.

 

[Hiroshi Sotomura]

There's a reason Exp. Share has been changed in the recent games. You could almost conclude it's been put in so people can think less about grinding. And X/Y became fairly easy to clear — you could almost think their level curve at the time was for those who would battle the fewest amount of trainers and wild Pokémon.

If reality suggests that most people don't want to think about grinding, don't brush off other approaches to it, just saying.

(Worth noting: a good handful of players won't care because they have a fast-forward button.)

 

[Zeostar]

You could always add a rematchable trainer with a chansey.

 

[klue44]

If reality suggests that most people don't want to think about grinding, don't brush off other approaches to it, just saying.

Other approaches are great, but often approaches that remove the grind are undercutting the heart of an RPG: progressive growth through experience. They're an overcorrection to a real problem. Forced EXP share and awarding exp to party Pokémon for new captures, for example, try to eliminate the grind in a fashion that breaks the premise of Pokémon in my opinion. You have to train them to get stronger, but EXP share rewards them experience without them actually experiencing combat. It doesn't feel like my Pokemon's strength has been earned at all when they're leveling up and evolving without ever having left the ball. Gaining experience from captures doesn't even make sense. Experience from what? What did they experience? How did that make them stronger??

There are methods of solving the grind problem that don't take away this fundamental part of the game. Creative use of gyms, re-battlable trainers that let you focus on building specific stats or give boosted XP, cutting the XP needed for individual pokemon to level but also adding level caps so you end up swapping out to other pokemon. Etc etc.

But I think at the end of the day, there's only one wrong way to handle this issue: refusing to give the player options, so they can choose to play the game the way they like.

 

[Hexx17]

miksy's dark energy has a really neat idea in the pokemon centers that has you battle against " random" trainers.

edit

I'm thinking if there were little fun minigames that gave your Pokémon some exp. like 2% of there max needed exp. to level up or something, along with some EV's would be neat. you know instead of grinding on very specific Pokémon which can be a pain when the one you need is on the rarer side of appearing. just think Monster rancher 2, kind of like that.

like if x/y's super training gave exp candies or something?

 

[Megan]

No, you can't make grinding not boring. It's very much the essence of repetition that relates more to actual work than it does to fun freetime activities. The reason why people took it for granted in the old RPG days was the lack of options (what better game was there that didn't require grinding?), the limited possibilities due to memory etc (padding out the game so the price tag felt worth it) and the fact that kids have a higher tolerance towards busywork.

Sure you can add "fun" to it by introducing some sort of gambling aspect. That's how mobile games hook you into their game loop before it becomes (intentionally) annoying and people are willing to spend money on making it go away.

But you also gave an option yourself, didn't you? By offsetting the need for grind with another gameplay element like exploration where the grind itself becomes just a minor activity done while you keep finding other things in the overworld. The battle system itself is unfortunately very limited in its capabilities. You could try and make it more like puzzles you need to solve but even that will sooner or later cease to be fun; especially when the player has figured out the pattern and just mindlessly pushes the buttons that lead to success.

 

[Duck]

I don't think grinding can be fun per se, but you can make it feel like less of a chore.

Max Raids in Sword and Shield are actually a great answer to this problem - a short 10 turn max battle where if you win you get a bunch of experience candies + TRs + other items. So, something engaging (like say, Battle Frontier, minigames, competitive trainers, etc. - basically something where there is more variability in how it goes instead of "press the A button until you run out of PP") can certainly help with the issue, but it doesn't make it go away.

Another thing to keep in mind is that giving options to the player helps. Sometimes you need to grind just because you don't have any answers to the problem and need to brute force it, but if you have access to competitive items and moves as well as a bigger pool of Pokémon, you can craft more complex strategies that allow you to equalize the level difference.

 

[klue44]

I think an important point that needs to be made, as well, is that "grinding" seems to have various meanings among different players. Some seem to consider a grind to be having to do something repeatedly over a long period of time, while others seem to think it's having to do literally anything they don't want to do to achieve a result if it would require a bit of their time.

I feel like the grinding question is masking a bigger disagreement in the fandom. There's two extremes on a spectrum, and everyone finds themselves at different points along it.

1. On one side, the idea Pokemon are unique with their own independent stats and characteristics (IV), gain unique stat advantages from unique opponents (EV), and to make them usable, it should require time and effort on the player's part (EXP through repeat battling). Like classic RPG characters. You are a Pokemon Trainer.

2. On the other side, the idea that all Pokemon of the same species are interchangeable (no or flat IVs), have no unique stats that require doing certain things to gain (no or flat EVs), and catching them should be all you need to do before using them in battle (no EXP, or EXP gained automatically). Basically like cards in a trading card game. You are a Pokemon Catcher and Battler.


The main difference between the two points appears to be time, repetition, and "tedium". AKA, the grind.

The Pokemon franchise established itself on the former side of that spectrum, but it feels like as time passes, ROM hacks are sliding more and more toward the latter.

Earlier rom hacks were celebrated for how many QOL improvements they added that helped reduce the grind, but it seems players have decided even those improvements aren't enough anymore. They want even less "grinding", so we keep moving slowly down that spectrum.

What I'm afraid of is at a certain point in our desire to eliminate this dreadful grind, we end up with Pokemon versions that are closer to Pokemon Go than an RPG. Which, for me, is exactly why I started with ROMhacks. To get away from the main series slide in that direction.

But I'll say it again: there's only one way to handle this problem incorrectly and that's by eliminating options for the player to play the game the way they want to play it. Most of us are here because we want something from the franchise GF won't deliver, so I think devs starting to make ROM hacks with GF's mentality (forced QOL changes without options to disable) is going in the wrong direction.

 

[Hexx17]

i can agree with that, imo forced exp share and exp capture without a way to turn it off if i want is horrible. there are alot of thing that can be done for convenience, like making berries that can change any thing youd want to change about a pokemon, or ability pills, or having a move tutor/ relearner in every pokemon center, making exp candies/ rare candies a prize you can get for various things... theres an endless list.

but too much convenience can easily become a bad thing. personally i hate natures and evs because the make me feel like i cant just catch em and go, but i do like games that dont bend over backwards to let you do whatever you want.