The endgame grind, perceived or reality?

Silver Gale, casual means with limited time, ok?

While I understand your statement, the idea that playing a game I enjoy playing, in any way, can be a 'grind', using the term in a detrimental fashion, really is just funny to me.

I just don't get it. I have been playing MMOs for many years and heard the term and the rationale behind it for that entire time. I play for fun, when it's not fun, I stop playing, or I stop playing the that part(s) I don't find fun.

I simply do not understand people that would keep playing something they do not like. Really, I do not understand why someone would ever do it. I have heard the reasons for years, they simply don't make any sense to me.

Play if it's fun, stop if it isn't. In my mind there are no other options.

There are too many fun and interesting things to do and play in this lifetime to spend time doing something you find to be a drag, IMO.

This is official definition of Grinding so we can all be on the same page:

Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive and/or non-entertaining gameplay in order to gain access to other features within the game, or to allow the player to "grind" better/faster.[1][2] The most common usage is in the context of MMORPGs, such as Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft and Dragon Quest IX[3] in which it is often necessary for a character to repeatedly kill AI-controlled monsters, using basically the same strategy over and over again, in order to advance their character level to be able to access newer content. MUDs, generally sharing much of the same gameplay as MMORPGs, encounter the same syndrome. Grinding can also appear in other games in which features can be unlocked.

Yeah, I know I've been trying to reach you for a couple of months now, but you always seem to be busy with something else

I agree with your point in the general sense - there really isn't much that can help after seven years short of a HUGE influx of new content. However, this doesn't exactly bother me anywhere outside the incarnate system. My goal remains what it has always been - to get all of my existing and future characters to the "end," to complete them, in a sense. This approach suffered a drastic setback when I deleted three level 50 Blasters and condemned a couple in their 40s, but it's getting there. So long as I have characters who aren't 50, I'll have something to play.

That's really the sum total of my incentive to play - the illusive goal of "finishing" all of my characters at some point. Yes, I may have already tried most of the powerset combos from the four ATs I play, but this doesn't leave me with nothing to do. So long as those characters are not 50, I can still play them.

And, hell, even when those characters are 50, I can still play them, if there's something to do which they haven't yet run (and it isn't "repeatable"). I brought up both Sam and Zik (my only two 50s at the time) and played them through the Rikti War Zone when I10 rolled around. I'll eventually do the same for them if and when Incarnates have more content than I can run through in a couple of days.

Note I say "content to run through," not "rewards to earn." There is already enough of a time sink to keep me at it until I turn grey, grinding for rewards, but this gives me nothing new to actually DO. OK, not "nothing," but very little.

New TFs - being what they are - are always designed to be quick and painless, because people don't want to commit entire days to them. As well they should. However, miring your progression system only in game systems which require a commitment just serves to undermine it all. A Story Arc can be long. 20, 30, maybe even 40 missions? World Wide Red is 25-ish, after all. No, people cannot do it in a single sitting, but they aren't required to do so. They aren't required to commit the time to run through 15 missions without getting off the PC, going to dinner or sleeping. Not so with a TF.

I'll stick with the part of the game which still promotes the playing of many alts, until and unless such a day comes when the rest of the game embraces it, as well. When people ask me why I don't deal with Inventions, this is my answer as well - I do not pool my resources from all characters into one "main," because I have no main. Not even my own namesake.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

MP, you seem to be in the period of your life where everything is all fun/positive. That is a great period in your life. Enjoy it for as long as you can :-)

I just want to point out that this doesn't constitute new things to do at level 50. Even on the off chance that we haven't, in fact, done all of those things on the way up to 50, there's a finite amount of those available. Once you run them all, you have no option but to repeat, and I know for a fact that all the game's level 50 content is not enough to make meaningful progress in the Incarnate system. That was intentionally designed.

There can be no argument about whether the end game system is a grind. It is. It's built around repeating content many, many times. This is different from the pre-50 game which allows you to play different content the entire time. It's not a question of whether it is or isn't a grind, it's a question of how much of a grind it is and how much "we" are willing to accept. This, clearly, differs from person to person.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The Incarnate system is open-ended - there's no "finish" to it.

Even assuming that you casually team (eg just weekends a few hours) I still see it as unrealistic to obtain in a few months. The more important question to ask is what kind of end game is the Incarnate system leading to? I honestly thought that Alpha was a step in the right direction. But now with the new announced incarnate slots, I have my doubts.

What do you mean open-ended? We can't go past 54, right? There aren't more slots coming that was originally published? Can you elaborate on your comments more? Nothing is unlimited.

Official? *shrug*

Again, if I am not being entertained, I stop playing.

All MMOs are repetitive, I like MMOs, so I guess I like what the 'official' definition of 'grinding' is in some fashion, but I stop playing anything that is not entertaining.

Killing bad guys is generally always entertaining after dealing with RL all day.

Again, while I comprehend what others call a grind, I do not consider playing the game a grind and if it's not entertaining, I don't do it. In game or in RL, really.

As for everything in my life being fun and positive, nothing could be farther from the truth. However, I can choose how to spend my free time. Why would anyone spend their free time doing something they do not enjoy?

My playtime is just that, mine. I spend it doing fun things. I do not understand why other torture themselves over these things. My RL is full enough of drama and pain. Playtime does not get to cause me pain.

It really comes down to content. It always does. This has been the argument about "end game" since the game's very beginning, poetic as it might sound. The old argument against it remains true to this day: They cannot produce enough content for an end game to subsist on without it being slow, hard and repetitive, or in other words, "a grind." This was as true then as it is now. They cannot and could not produce enough content, so they didn't. Instead, they gave us rewards on the cheap, relatively speaking, for which we would repeat the same small pool of content, saving art team resources, writer time, mission designer load and so forth.

This isn't the cop-out solution, however. It's the ONLY solution which exists to make end game a reality, so I don't blame Positron and his team for going with it. I blame myself for expecting something else, but that's my egg to stand on. However, it does nothing to dissuade me from believing I was right all along - end game in this game or any other MMO hurts. And it does. And I don't foresee it ever being any different.

Including existing 45-50 content would be a nice gesture, but it would not make the Incarnate system much less of a grind. As it stands now, it takes about half the 45-50 content to get to 50 hero-side, and about 3/4 to do so villain-side. I cannot expect what remains of it to be sufficient for Incarnate advancement. This would require its own content, but this content doesn't exist and cannot exist, short of a paid expansion.

And it seems Paragon Studios blew their load on a new player's experience, instead, though judging the difficulty level of said experience, one has to wonder if it was not originally intended to BE Incarnate content. 1-20 Praetoria could possibly have been enough content to bring us through at least one, maybe two slots if the earning curve weren't evil.

But this does put things in perspective - what it takes to introduce sufficient(ish) content for a brand new game progress bracket is a paid expansion. And, frankly, I think we may have paid for the wrong thing. Can't eat your cake and have it, too.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

It takes 60 to craft a common; another 100 to get an uncommon. For a soloer, that sucks, but for someone who groups? Please, that's nothing. Convert everyday, do a trial here and there to earn merits for the rare components and before you know it all four slots will be filled.

But hey, don't believe me. I really know how this is going to play out. For all the complaining, come Issue 20 I know people will be playing these trials a lot, having fun, and earning threads via conversion through any content they do. It's going to be a lot of fun and I hope it's soon.

You obviously don't get the difference between "slower" and "probably not in the lifetime of this game unless you play all day every day" do you?

Six days. I could have gotten it faster if I had run something other than my daily allotment of tips. If I cared how fast other people got things I'd PL and do speed runs. I don't. I care how fast I get things. Nobody else. 2.7 years or however long someone calculated it will take to "finish" these four slots without running trials is too long. Period. Note that the stupidly long time frame they calculated assumed ten shards a day, every day. I think I've earned ten shards in a day exactly once.

Look, I'm not saying having trials is a bad thing, I'm not saying having trials that reward well is a bad thing. I'm saying having a reward that requires running nothing but these trials, that is limited to one playstyle and two pieces of content, with the only alternative being a very very long slog, is a bad thing.

I also don't care what "other games" do. I'm not playing those games. I'm playing this game. I care what this game does.

The new system creates pressure on the users. I used to play CoH once a month, now I play minimum three times a week now and I dedicate 1 weekend a month to close "gaps."

1. Maintain my 50s/WTFs - NA Freedom
2. Maturate my others to 50 - NA Freedom
3. Mature my others to 50 - EU Union.

The slots I could handle, the weekly TF mandates a regular monthly paying, playing user and time in the game. The slots I could brute force but the WTFs can't be so I have to be online everyweek to do this. I had to come online monday after playing this weekend because the teams I was on just couldn't finish the WTF.

The devs have said that there are 10 slots to start with - they can add more slots as they think they're needed - and the current slots can be expanded, and there's a limitless number of Trials that they can add - they've already said that they're looking to add one Trial per Issue.
The Incarnate system is going to end when the TF and mission system ends.

Users create pressure on themselves.

No one has to come online to play the game, period.

*shrug*

I don't understand why one would put this sort of pressure on themselves over a game.

I Just Don't.

As a stated up-thread, I have heard the reasons for years. The reasons are still funny to me, and illogical in the extreme, IMO.

All I am going to say is that it may change in the near future *Gemini 2099 gracefully bows out of this thread*.

You almost got me there Golden Girl.

Verizon says you can have unlimited downloads and talk but if you go over a threshold they will cut you off. I'm just using this as an example. The devs cannot create unlimited trials unless they live forever, right? Realistically, if this game has 5 years left that's 60 trials(5x12 months) but you said per issue, which means 20 trials(5x4)...that is not unlimited.

The pressure is natural. The desire to keep pace/stay in control and stay modern. Also, the fear of falling behind is another pressure. This is why you work and pay bills and maintain your relationships in life.

I just ask this to cover my bases. How long will it take the devs to roll out these 10 slots? I know we're getting 4 more soon with I20 I guess. Will we be getting 4 slots per issue roughly? That would be 16 slots per year.

In RL the pressure is natural, for many, I know. Personally, keeping up with the Jones' is stupid, IMO.

This is not work, nor is it RL. This is my point.

This is pretendy-happy-fun time, not real life.

The City is the place to get away from these pressures, not to add more of them, IMO.