On "Farming"

[medierra]

BAM!

I have absolutely no problem using other people's ideas and have no idea why it would hurt my pride. Success as a game designer is more about having good judgement and making good decisions in accordance with the vision of the game and your target audience than it is about generating ideas. Being able to recognize and advance someone else's better idea over your own is just basic professionalism and people who can't do that generally don't last long in this industry.

A big part of being a good decision maker is maintaining a healthy balance of self-confidence and self-doubt. I base my self-confidence on my past record of good decision-making. Self-doubt is just built-in.

I've had too many experience in life where I've watched friends or managers in either social or professional situations force a decision that was opposed by everyone or nearly everyone around them. People often think they know better than everyone else, that they have an understanding or perspective that those around them lack and they just continue forward, unrelenting, on a course toward failure. It is all too easy to fool oneself into thinking that. I've seen it many times and, while I believe I do have somewhat of a knack for sometimes seeing angles that other people don't, I also really don't want to be the guy that goes against common wisdom and gets burnt. There is no better way to ruin your credibility. I mean, I don't design by committee and I do sometimes find myself making decisions against the majority, but I will virtually never force a decision if it is against an overwhelming majority. If you're going to consider doing that, you need to think about it like a president considering the "nuclear option". There is just too much risk involved for various reasons. It is fairly rare outside of movies and television for a lone individual to be proven right against a large group of people. It happens but not often, so odds are already against you in such a situation. If you force your decision and are wrong, you will look like an arrogant asshole who recklessly disregarded the wisdom of everyone around you. Good luck restoring their faith in you as a leader. Even if your decision works out, in many cases it doesn't necessarily prove the other option was wrong, which means people may still think you're an arrogant asshole and resent you for not listening to their feedback. On the other hand, if you agree to accept the majority decision over your own and it works out, people will generally respect your professionalism and feel good that you trusted them. If you agree to accept the majority decision over your own and things go badly, typically you can course correct and you will likely earn greater respect and future influence as a decision-maker. Of course, don't rub it in people's faces that you were right or you'll still look like an arrogant asshole.

Sorry for going off on an overly long discourse about decision making but the point I'm trying to make here is that if you present an idea and it is being met with significant disapproval, it may be beneficial to re-evaluate your perspective. Ideas are generally the result of creative thinking and problem solving that is built upon a certain set of fundamental assumptions. Sometimes, while an idea and all thinking behind it might be completely logical and make perfect sense, there is the possibility that one of the base assumptions is not accurate. There is a particularly strong possibility of this occurring in game development because we're often building products in a certain way to suit the personal preference shared by the largest segment of our audience. It can be difficult sometimes to recognize that a larger portion of your target audience has preferences that differ from yourself. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to understand why a group of people have different preferences that might make no sense whatsoever to you and all you can hope to do is accept the reality of it and adjust your work accordingly.

In this case, we're talking about a system that allows people to save money and work toward unique items they want as opposed to basically gambling with their time to get unique items. The first thing that strikes me about this proposal is that it seems to more strongly promote grinding. I mean basically you're talking about taking the slot-machine anticipation that you could, at any moment and especially when facing bosses, see a unique item drop, and replacing it with the slow, steady accumulation and savings of money to earn rewards.

Consider the current financial crisis we have in the U.S., which has resulted largely from people's inability to save money and buy within their means vs. their desire to follow a riskier path toward immediate gratification. Consider also the ubiquity of lotteries, scratch tickets, and casinos. Gambling is incredibly successful despite the relatively well known fact that the odds are always stacked so that the "house" wins in the long-run. Most people believe they are special and can beat the odds somehow. Then, the more money they invest, the more compelled they feel to continue because, you know, they have to win back their losses...

Anyway, the beauty of ARPG loot gambling is that the "house" always loses in the long run. If the player keeps at it, eventually they will win. So, it is an addictive time-sink but ultimately it always rewards.

Of course, there are also a lot of people who don't want to risk investing time without more of an assurance of a reward and some measurable indicator of their progress towards it. This often works better for casual players who are easily put off when their efforts do not result in immediate success. I guess this is a big factor in the success of facebook games like FarmVille and MMO's like WoW. Of course, this supports a case for more straight-forward grinding.

I'm not sure it is in our best interest to tip the game too far in this direction though because then we run the risk of catering towards the preference of a large audience segment that may never buy our game. We have a core audience that we can almost guarantee will buy this game if we build it right. We're designing the game within a scope that can be profitable just selling to this audience. We don't have a lot of marketing money that we can use to advertise this game to a non-existing audience that currently has no idea they might want to play an ARPG. So, it is irrelevant whether there might be a larger audience that would buy the game if we added a more straightforward work-reward system. We'd much rather cater toward the proven audience. We'll leave the pursuit of hypothetical larger markets to people with more money.

Going back to my original post though, I wasn't highlighting the problem of grinding / farming and advocating the search for a solution. Quite the contrary, I was talking about why grinding / farming plays a valuable role in the game and how it does bring a certain type of enjoyment to a portion of the audience.

These terms have gained a negative connotation because some players have become fed up with the extremity of grinding in certain games, most notably MMOs. However, I don't think that means those mechanics are absolutely negative. They just need to be used more appropriately and moderately.

My belief is that casual players should not really need to grind or farm much if at all to complete normal difficulty so long as they are clearing a reasonable portion of each level they pass through. In higher difficulties, I think some level of grinding / farming is desirable. I feel like it is integral to the whole experience of overcoming a higher difficulty mode that at some point the game becomes so difficult that you cannot progress further through the world without going off and grinding a bit to advance in level and collect better gear. I mean, wtf would Karate Kid / Rocky be if Ralph Macchio / Sylvester Stallone didn't suffer some crushing defeat and then have to go into a "training montage"?

My conclusion is that I think this proposal is a little confused but might be more amenable to everyone if some aspects of it were conveyed differently and more moderately.

It sounds like one of your main points is essentially for merchants to sell some pieces of equipment that are still desirable at high level and potentially for the ability to put items on "lay-away". I don't think this is really needs to be a new system, just better merchant balancing. I think perhaps the pacing of equipment drops also needs to be improved. However, for higher difficulty modes or people who just "gotta catch em all", I think some grinding / farming is desirable.

One thing I've already been planning to do (which I had sort of intended for TQ but which never really happened) is for some types of equipments to primarily be obtained from merchants vs. drops. I think some level of diversification in the source of loot will help a lot here. Weapons and most armor will probably be best dropped from enemies and chests while you might have a better chance of finding an awesome belt, gloves, boots, or whatever on a merchant.

I think the crafting system will also help to create more guaranteed rewards where players can see incremental progress toward their goal in the collection of crafting materials.

There are other subtle points to this topic but I think much of that has already been brought up by other people - primarily concerning the psychological aspects of farming for random drops vs. straight-forward grinding for money to buy known items. There is definitely a certain exciting element of mystery that we want to preserve.


(wow, I spent way too much time on this..)

[3B0L4]

Wow Medierra. That was a HUGE post Nice to read a little into the mind of a Game Developer. Or should i say psychopath? :P

Anyway, about the looting part. For me, the complete charm in Titan Quest are the loot drops. If a good weapon drops from an enemy or a chest guarded by a guardian, you feel so much better and it really feels as if all your time and trouble was well-spent.

Merchant items.. I've spent some time looking through the amulets and rings, but I just don't see any charm in looking through any item he has to offer, in the hopes that there's a rare item.It just doesn't feel as satisfying, because it doesn't give you the feeling you've found it during your quest.
I do, however, see, that this would make the world a little bit more believable, as there are probably a lot of other heroes or monster-slayers walking around, who sell items themselves, which the merchant would have to offer to the player. There's also the fact that it would give you something to do with all the money you gather.

Basically, what it boils down to, is that looting good weapons off of an enemy's corpse or out of a chest is way more satisfying than buying it...

On the loot progression subject: I've been playing TQ again, last week, with a few friends, and I remember vividly that the game changes a lot in the first 5 minutes. First you loot for any weapons, but within minutes you only want special (yellow) items. A few hours into the game, and you're only into green items. I'd rather see a better build up for this in Grim Dawn, as I'm in China now, and i don't even look at the names of yellow items anymore. There could be a lot more to that, which would keep the feeling of 'a good item could drop any moment' up.

[Renevent]

Originally Posted by Kardiophylax

Am I the only one finding Radnen's comments towards us particularly insulting? His posts just exude a feeling of superiority that taste foul, like seaweed on my tongue.

In nearly every post he makes, he goes through an enormous amount of effort to include how rudimentary our way of thinking is and how, if we were only intelligent enough to understand, we would be able to see his proposal as the only obvious answer.

You have told us good day, told us we don't understand the word compromise, told us without your system medierra is not doing his job, and told us how we don't seem to understand your ideas. Yet you continue to come here and post your revolutionary ideas and thoughts about how Grim Dawn should be in order to suit YOUR wants and desires.

I'm not going to attempt to tell you how to feel about farming. Honestly, I don't care how you feel. I only care how the devs, like medierra (who incidently, IS doing his job) feel about the game as ultimately they will be the ones determing the drops system. That said, there is nothing wrong with you modding in a drops system for yourself. In fact, as you have stated you are in college for computer design, I encourage you to do so. It would certainly be an impressive bullet point on your resume if it as wonderful as you perceive it to be.

As for the argument that the game would reach a broader audience with your system, let us turn to Torchlight which had fantastic success as a indie developed ARPG title despite not including your system. Perhaps Titan Quest's failures (though from what I've heard, it WAS a profitable game after all) have more to do with other issues such as Greece being too long and repetitive for an introductory act, the mythological basis being uninteresting to some people, and some people preferring a randomized world to a hand crafted one.

There are certainly advances that can be made to make farming for items a bit more involved and exciting experience. Many excellent suggestions have been made during the course of this thread in that regard. For instance, Furycat made some great suggestions regarding scrolls that teleport you to an alternate existence where you can complete a mini-level and fight a boss. The fact remains that many ARPG fans actually ENJOY grinding and farming for gear. The feeling of getting that drop you've been hunting for after so long is uplifting. The feeling of waiting day after in-game day for your wishlist item to show up in the shop for sale... not so much.

I am not a "sick puppy for the dev team" either (your words, not mine), but I am looking at a large amount of ARPGs being released in the coming year or so, and thus far have not seen a single one using your system. This should tell you something, and if doesn't, I'm sorry I can't help you any further.

I was going to respond after reading his retort towards me (and others), however you summed up my thoughts exactly

[3B0L4]

Yes, I just read the "Balancing the Grind"-text, but can't really say i like the way you look at grinding.

The thing I remember the most IS the grinding and farming of Typhon, Telkines, Gargantuan Yetis. It's what made, and still makes, the game fun for me to play. Also, the games are meant to be played like that.
As Medierra says: On normal, they want the character to just be capable of beating the game, without much grinding. On epic you just need to, because you'll die. Let's not even start talking about Legendary because the moment you realized that the Satyrs need 2 to 3 hits to die made you shiver about the sheer strength you needed to kill even the Cyclops or something like that.

It's the farming and grinding that makes you level up, which gives you the skills and items that are needed to finish the game; and there's a good reason for that.

Not to bring you down, though. It's a good trait to own to think and see further than the others do, because in the end it's as Apple said years ago:

"... Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

[Kardiophylax]

Thanks for the lengthy post medierra. I can imagine how long it took to write. My post took a little while and I don't have to be as cautious about my words since I'm not the Crate spokesperson. I'm glad you posted it, but on the other hand I know it took you away from doing something productive with Grim Dawn. Being an interactive developer on the forums when your team is so small can not be an easy task.

Originally Posted by Renevent

I was going to respond after reading his retort towards me (and others), however you summed up my thoughts exactly

Thanks. I had tried to ignore it at first, but eventually just had to say something.

[Radnen]

@Medierra: God damn you are a genius. I understand what you mean, and I'll take the advice to my heart next time I try to impose a new idea.. Or sound too imposing.

@Everybody: I didn't want to sound imposing... Even though I did. I'm very passionate about the topic. I've also wanted to go for an English degree, and when someone publishes an article - I expected people to quote from it (or acknowledge it) and lay arguments in either approval or disapproval with suggestional support. Everyones posts seemed to me that they looked at a keyword and went off on a tangent about that rather than the entirety of my point. The member 3BOL4 is my hero in all of this. A quintessential example of how I wanted the discussion to go (for his latter post). I'm chiefly surprised some people attempted to combat my opinions... Not everyone had a thing for "speech and debate" in Highschool. A lot of courageous speakers here. I went into this thread thinking a lot of people out there may have great opinions but don't know how to articulate their ideas in a manner of precision and acuteness. Call it elitist, but I'm very serious in the way I handle argument building. From punctuation to publication. Many classrooms I've been into, writing was not many peoples thing. Only a small minority were able to write comprehensively... This is a forum of gamers. I think this can be considered my first mistake. My article I felt had some good rebuttal statements that would have helped to reconcile grinding casually and hardcore grinding. I felt that some of my core ideas were not brought up in the discussion... I felt combative and boxed into a corner. What do I say? What can I say? How can I build awareness of my points to people I thought wouldn't be formal in their reply? I don't mind being wrong, but there wasn't much to go off of due to people talking more about what they liked to see instead rather than expand or extrapolate from my thoughts. I'm the one with the 5 page thesis here, not a few "I believes" or a few sentences... It could not be taken lightly. I was getting annoyed.

@Kardiophylax: Look, I know you mean well. I'm sorry if I said "sick puppy for the dev team" But I've seen people like that before for other games. Some acted really immature, and well, I wasn't certain of your personality. Honestly, I was pretty irritated because I thought I've fallen on deaf ears. (Which to not sound imposing, I still feel). I hope you can understand and forgive me. I'm just glad I've gotten your attention, and the attention of everyone else.

I once came across a guy that wrote very wittingly. Every time I made a suggestion, he turned it into a laughable matter. It took me a few years, but he was right. The way he wrote and the manner of his speaking were highly sophisticated. I realized that his opinions couldn't be shaved down in one simple response. I thought he was jerk, because I hated feeling inferior. But as a more mature man, I looked back at that history and saw that I wasn't really argumentative. My being inferior to him caused him to be cocky and even though it didn't make the situation better... I still learned to read everything this person said and do a little digging before I said anything. I had to cover all of my bases. I consider people like him very critical sorts. Who write sharply and straight to the point.

I'm finding myself acting more like that guy every day. Ideas don't always happen in passive manners. Whenever great ideas are proposed they are usually met with fierce opposition, until many years later. I thought I could have this reconcile sooner. But yes, it did make me sound arrogant. Honestly if it makes people feel better... I did come to act like an asshole, I was passionately blinded. My only hope out of all of this was to lay some eyes onto 4 topic areas:

1. Is grinding... God, I don't want to sound so bad... but... Why? Why grinding? Why does it have to come down to this? Why can't there exist alternate methods - just as rewarding?
2. The shop system does need attention!
3. Item sets do need attention. Even grinders were finding it hard to always complete sets.

4. And mainly, why can't there exist a solution for item acquisition to grinders and non-grinders (with compromises, of course). You guys make it seem so clear cut its either one way (broken) or the other (as it was). This made it really hard for me to respond to some peoples observations.

Also, does everyone agree that 4 hours of grinding is better than 1? I mean... I know its a specific community, but look at my perspective. I love playing ARPG's, but I don't like grinding. I can't seriously be the only fish in this pool. I'm also not new to ARPG's. TQ was a hand crafted world - It felt wrong grinding in it. Or farming bosses - Why does Typhon even respawn? It's very detrimental to its story. I feel that the villagers die each time I quit playing! Or Diablo respawning... All the evil to never, ever be fully defeated. The game always felt unbeatable... I know I killed him... But he keeps reappearing!!!

---

Also something new to the mix. I also hoped in TQ that on epic mode you could socket epic items.. And on legendary you could socket legendary items. Could this be another angle? But then what I fear is your items would "stagnate", if you know what I mean. Oh, and be traded for character to character.

[Kluga]

Ok, I'll ignore the past debate in the thread and simply try and address your 4 points. I have read your proposal and applaud your drive in trying to offer an alternative. There will never be a perfect system, however. I don't think people weren't trying to just shut you down but rather give constructive criticism, keeping in the spirit of the whole forum. Anyway...

Originally Posted by Radnen

1. Is grinding... God, I don't want to sound so bad... but... Why? Why grinding? Why does it have to come down to this? Why can't there exist alternate methods - just as rewarding?

I actually like heavy grinding as you term it, as I'm sure others do. But it isn't even necessary to grind to complete the game (using TQ as example). You could probably beat legendary just with drops along the way plus the occasional shop. You may have a few more deaths than usual, but then you may die farming a boss that you thought you could kill...

2. The shop system does need attention!

I thought TQ was not bad with its shop system. You obviously couldn't get epics and legendaries (and I feel you shouldn't) but you actually get some very nice greens. I often got weapons or rings/amulets that would take me through multiple acts with greens from the vendors.

I see what you were getting at with your shopping system, but I wouldn't enjoy it for the same reason I don't enjoy twinking characters; you have a wide array of good weapons available to you at any time.

3. Item sets do need attention. Even grinders were finding it hard to always complete sets.

Here, you are certainly right. But as I stated above it is unlikely a perfect solution for these problems will ever exist. It's just a conundrum. In TQ, you probably couldn't finish a set with one character unless you farmed multiple bosses until you reached the level cap (or so I would imagine). I actually liked what you proposed, but with tweaking. I wouldn't make it too easy to complete the set, but that's just changing the scaling of %chance to drop the next piece; the core of your idea is quite nice .

4. And mainly, why can't there exist a solution for item acquisition to grinders and non-grinders (with compromises, of course). You guys make it seem so clear cut its either one way (broken) or the other (as it was). This made it really hard for me to respond to some peoples observations.

Basically the same answer as number 1. Casual players could probably finish the game without grinding.

I feel as thought aRPG's are more geared to a hardcore audience who have the patience to grind. Medierra basically stated that he feels safer aiming at us "hardcore" aRPG fans (or at least thats how I interpret it). This is where this "clear cut" concept crops up. Farming definitely isn't a perfect concept but it works for a lot of players. A lot of casual players probably dwindle away because they aren't interested in the game in the first place or get bored quickly. That's likely why little alternative has ever been offered.

Also, does everyone agree that 4 hours of grinding is better than 1?

Not necessarily. My interest may dwindle after only 20 minutes of farming, an hour, or 4 hours for that matter. If you mean better in term of 4 hours vs. 1 hour and you'd get the exact same amount of quality loot then obviously 1 hour is better. But then imagine what you could get in 4 hours if the drop rate was 4x better! In that sense, its a vicious cycle and the farm will never end.

[PinkFrog]

Radnen, it's a forum. People don't come here for a formal debate. And i don't think this something that should be judged. You don't go to a steakhouse to start a discussion on the merits of being vegetarian either. Every discussion has it's own place. This is one here is a non-committing and casual one, most of the time. It just is that way, its not a good or bad thing, it's just why people come here.
Still i think its cool if people try anyway. But like the vegetarian in the steakhouse, you shouldn't be surprised when things don't go as planned. And you certainly shouldn't blame anyone for doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing in a forum, i.e. talking casually and picking random topics and basically not having a formal debate.

And, i don't think there is a thing like "gamers". Sure, people who come here play games, but they are people

And i'm in ranting mode again.... i'm sorry.

I must say that i was amused by your statement with the respawning bosses. Of course you're right: the hero just defeated Typhon, basically a god, and then he goes back and casually does it once or twice more. It IS taking the drama, the pathos, out of the game. Or killing the immersion in game-speak. But i think we are all very much used to this mechanic that no one really thinks about it. At least in aRPG's. There are other games that deal more heavily with consequences and decisions and that sort of thing, but aRPG tend to be pretty casual about story and immersion. I wonder if you can't really combine both. But the pure mechanic of a single hero that runs like a bulldozer through armies of enemies and single handedly kills all mythical creatures of ancient Greece is kinda not a good basis for heart warming pathos and emotional drama. I haven't played God of War but i heard they are doing a good job but i'm not sure. So, anyway, many players are happy if the combat is good the loot motivating. And it doesn't seem to matter much who's the bad guy. The typhon is just a big dude with lots of loot. And it doesn't matter if you put 10 typhons one after the other in a long corridor or if you farm the same one 10 times. In the end you clubbed the same big dude to death 10 times to search his pockets for coins. It's what people want to do. Personally i'm very happy if the story makes sense. And i felt a little bit disappointed by the TQ story, tbh, as it didn't seem very convincing to chase the telkins all over the world and then there was the story with the weapon and how dangerous it could be and the sparkling stones that turned the Centaurs mad... it's all not adding up too well. But i liked the setting, the mood. And the way the combat felt. So, it got the important part right. So, maybe the aRPG is fine without the drama.

i should stop ranting...

[R3D]

Wow this has gotten to be a bit tldr,

grinding loot is fun, maybe we need a gamble/lootslotmachean in towns too maybe a black market dealer, a better way to craft truly unique weapons that are hand made/chosen from the pieces used in its construction and the art is pieced together from parts assigned to the recipe?, weapons that can be combined like the Tq essences to upgrade say 5 levels? and more that I can’t be bothered thinking of.
Also thx for the orange post.

[Radnen]

I loved how the last few posts went. I'm starting to see a smile on my face now!

So, while I do play casually I'm not too concerned with beating the game. It can be done regardless the system. But I'm concerned with beating the game with loot you wanted. I've beaten TQ with pieces to armor sets, and some cool items. I found out that socketing green items is better than most epic items that you will find (so I ended up never using the epic items). My character just looked strange, as if this great warrior wasn't technically looking like his class. There is a game, Hellgate London that had dye kits, at least your characters had a color theme going on.

In some games, like Oblivion, one can instead quest for a great item. Sometimes killing a certain enemy will yield a great item. One of my proposals was to have a great item drop with a boss monster. But dropped only once. A great example would have been that sickle in act III of TQ. When dropped it was just a basic item with interesting req's. It could have been a great legendary item. Because in actual history/mythos it was. I had trouble believing a burning dagger had better stats. And then there are things like Chirons bow. He could have like given it to you as a reward: "here you go hero, this will do you well". Same with the family heirloom in act II.

One thing I disliked about TQ was the large chests or the orbs. Whenever they were opened I'd get all yellows, and if I'm very lucky a green or epic item. I thought that there'd at least be one item forced as an epic. Would this make farming a little easier? Yes. But that's part of the compromise. There were just so many epic items in TQ, it wouldn't have hurt to do this.

Originally Posted by Kluga

But then imagine what you could get in 4 hours if the drop rate was 4x better!

You wouldn't (shouldn't, rather). It's part of the compromise I was talking about. You'd do that and you would believe how much of a hack grinding actually is. After that first hour you should feel satisfied with the loot that there would be no more reason to go another three hours. While I play casually, I don't mind grinding "casually" As Medierra said, it's usually needed in the upper difficulties.

Also, TQ was a hand crafted world, so grinding made it worse as I would see the same rock, tree and river. Grim dawn would be somewhat the same with dungeons being random, I think. I don't actually mind killing all so much. AoE spells are always fun to use. But it does get boring after a time. I' rather keep the fun while it lasts rather than to grind the fun away.

A lot of you said its about finding that one item. I can see that, but it's also question about elation. Can the same amount of elation be achieved in less time, or in another way?