Grinding in games is when you basically have to repeat an action or activity, like killing a specific type of monster or going to a specific spot to grab something, to get some kind of item or material you need lots of in order to progress. An easy example is upgrading a weapon! In most games you need some kind of material to do that and said material might only come from one kind of enemy, so in order to upgrade that weapon you need to kill that enemy over and over again to get enough materials to finally upgrade your weapon. If that sounds rather tedious and annoying, that’s because in most cases it is. Grinding of that nature is usually added to a game for padding in order to get players to play more and artificially extend that run time. But it grinding always a bad thing?

Depending on the game and genre, grinding can be very common. In games like RPGs it’s almost always expected. Very rarely will an RPG be perfectly balanced all the way through and not require the player to grind out some levels here and there. Honestly, grinding can be expected in just about any game with a level up system! It’s something that people don’t even really complain about anymore since it’s so expected to be there. And normally, it’s not even a big deal. A little grinding, at this point, isn’t something to be too upset about. But for some games, they can take it a little too far. Especially if that game is free to play…

Like many people, I started playing Zenless Zone Zero, or ZZZ, when it first launched last month! While I haven’t played any of the other free to play gacha games from ZZZ‘s developer, miHoYo, I got hooked into trying this new one by its awesome art style and fun looking game play! And I won’t lie, I’ve really enjoyed it since picking it up. The characters are fun, that art style is absolutely amazing, and the game play, while repetitive, is also a ton of fun too! However, one thing I have hated about the game, especially now that I’m further in, is not only how much grinding there is but how many different things you have to grind for!

For a lot of games with grinding, you generally don’t have to grind out different stuff. An RPG might have you grind for levels, money, and upgrade materials, but ZZZ has all that and then some more! So, let’s try and list them out here just to show you what I mean.

First there’s grinding out experience points for leveling up the player, then there is grinding out material to level up your characters, then you need different material every ten levels to keep leveling them up, then you need another set of materials to level up some passive abilities, then you need another set of materials to level up your active abilities, then you need to grind out discs for your Engine that helps power up your characters even more, then you need another completely new set of materials to level up those Engines and those discs, and I’m going to stop here but I promise you there is SO much more than that…

This isn’t even mentioning the fact you need to grind out even more materials to attempt to unlock these characters and their Engines through the game’s gacha mechanic, which is basically a lottery, and how long that can take especially if you have really bad luck like I do but that is a whole other topic for another time!

Like just look at all these different things you need to grind for! It’s crazy…

Now all that probably sounds egregious, and it is, but it’s also extremely common for this kind of game. Free to play games like ZZZ always have these sort of mechanics and they are always meant to be annoying and tedious. This is because they want you to play the game at least once a day. Often times the means to grind out these materials have a limit, and that limit has a timer. This is all to get players to sign in daily and play for even a little bit so that they can keep a steady number of daily users. It’s a good stat for free to play games like this. Not only that, there is almost always a way to spend money to get a lot of these materials instantly instead of needing to grind. It’s a messed up system that basically exists to bleed players of their cash by making the game needlessly more annoying and tough on players that don’t want to pay. And while I will stand by the fact that it’s pretty messed up… I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t also understandable.

Like I said before, Zenless Zone Zero is free to play, you don’t have to pay a thing to pick it up. As such, the developer needs some way to make money off the game to keep it going. And the way most games like this do it is by making certain parts of the game annoying or straight up unfair. And while I do think ZZZ could honestly tone down a lot of their grinding, it at least makes some sense why it’s so bad to begin with…

Now games that charge full price to play and still have a crazy amount of grinding? Yeah, they have no excuse…

Does anyone even remember Anthem at this point? BioWare’s big new game that was suppose to be crazy good and revolutionary but was dead even before release with a terrible beta that killed a ton of interest? Yeah, well, it might not come as a surprise to know that it also had a terrible amount of grinding in it as well! While I did not play the game myself, it was hard not to hear about this when other people were actually playing it. At some point in the latter half of the game, the player is meant to go through these Tombs and complete some tasks in order to progress. These tasks were honestly just busy work. You had to do things like kill a certain number of enemies, open a certain number of chests, and do a bunch of repeat missions. All just to progress the story! Not even to unlock something extra like a cool new weapon or piece of armor. This right here is the definition of bad grinding as it was clearly just thrown in to pad the game time and keep players playing a bit longer. And this is just tossed at the player all of a sudden! It was literally a road block in the most obvious way. From what I can tell it wasn’t even really tied into the overall story despite the fact you needed to do it in order to progress said story! It was so bad and players were so upset that BioWare eventually updated the game to make it so players could start doing these tasks earlier in the game so that there would be less of a grind later on. Which says a lot about how bad this must have been if they felt the need to do that!

What I think makes this truly one of the worst examples of grinding in a game is the fact that it’s mandatory and obviously so. Grinding is at its best when it’s something extra you do in order to get something you normally wouldn’t get. Like grinding out materials to get the best weapon in the game or something like that. Not only is the grinding something you don’t have to do, you are working towards something you normally wouldn’t get. Anthem‘s grind is literally locking the story, that I hear wasn’t even good, behind a needless wall just to keep people playing. And again, it’s so obvious that’s what they were doing!

For some games, grinding can be mandatory but with the way said game is structured, it might not feel that way. In fact, the grinding might be so much fun that people play the game just for it. Which brings us perfectly to the king of grinding, good grinding, in video games… Monster Hunter!

Monster Hunter is a game where you, shockingly, hunt monsters. It’s honestly kind of hard to put it in a genre though as all you really do is hunt monsters! The main draw of the game though is how different each of the monsters are from their designs, behavior, and strategies you need to employ to beat them. It’s a game about preparing and executing a plan and it’s all extremely satisfying! I haven’t played many of the games but the ones I have played I enjoyed quite a bit. And I say that despite the fact that the vast majority of the game is grinding.

As I was saying before, Monster Hunter is a game about preparing and part of that prep will involve grinding out certain weapons and armor sets you’ll need to face whatever monster is coming next. There really isn’t a perfect armor set or weapon for every kind of encounter in Monster Hunter, the game wants you to be changing up your build to match each situation. And how you go about doing that generally has you grinding out hunting monsters to get materials from them to craft new weapons and armor to face the next monster! That is the game loop of Monster Hunter. Hunt a monster, get materials from beating them, make new items with materials, hunt new monster. Rinse and repeat. This loop hasn’t really changed through out the series. New entries generally add new mechanics rather than trying to spice up that loop. Why? Because this loop works!

Monster Hunter is a game that is built around grinding, it’s not included to pad anything out, it’s the main reason you play! And while that means it might not be a game for everyone, it does mean that the developers have gotten really good at making that grind perfect!

The grind in Monster Hunter is always satisfying. And while it can be a bit tedious when the material you need doesn’t seem to drop no matter how many times you take out a certain monster, the feeling of satisfaction is always worth it when you are able to make that new, shiny armor or super powerful weapon! Unlike a game like Anthem, Monster Hunter‘s knows what you need to make a grind feel worth it and have players constantly coming back for more each and every entry. After all, whenever a new game is announced, you’ll only hear about how excited everyone is while no one complains about needing to hunt for more gear for the hundredth time. That right there shows you that sometimes a grind in games isn’t all that bad.

Grinding will always be a part of gaming. For some games it’s basically a requirement. However, games like Monster Hunter show that grinding doesn’t always have to be something we groan about. It all comes down to how it’s implemented. For free to play games it’s always going to be an annoying slog but at least there it’s somewhat justified. But games like Anthem need to just stop when it comes to throwing in needless grinding for the sake of getting people to play their terrible game just a bit longer. In those cases I think it’s more than okay to call out how terrible grinding can be! Hopefully developers like BioWare will learn not to use grinding as a crutch.

That is very wishful thinking though! Some developers are always looking to extend their games just a bit longer no matter how awful they are making their games in the process. Thankfully, the developers over at Capcom who work on Monster Hunter have shown us this doesn’t always have to be the case.

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Do you think grinding should be removed from games? Has there been a game where you enjoy the grind? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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