RPG Grind Time – RPGs Shouldn’t Feel Like Work

Life can be a grind. You get up, go to work, take care of your household, and find some moments for yourself in between. When we play games, we often play them as a reprieve from the essential responsibilities of our everyday lives. Games are inherently fun, and they should engage us in some way. Otherwise, they’re no better than just another duty in our lives. 

I’ve always been drawn to RPGs because I feel like they offer this intimate experience that you just can’t get with many genres. They combine storytelling and epic battles, while offering a layer of strategy for me to ponder and obsess over, whether it’s in how to build my character or what my next move should be in battle. However, one place I see the RPG genre struggle with is its ability to engage players for the long haul. This is no secret as I just discussed in my last column how I felt social systems were helping dissipate some of this because they give players a way to feel more connected with the experience. While it was important to celebrate that achievement, it also got me thinking about where RPGs often get it wrong – and it’s when they feel like work. Too many times I hear people say they couldn’t stomach grinding anymore, forcing them to give up on the game altogether. 

Progression is one of the most exciting parts of playing an RPG. You start out with merely a few skills, but then take your character to greater heights by getting stronger and learning new moves. Experience is the system that allows you to measure your growth, appropriately giving your character a number to encompass how much you’ve achieved in the world. For the most part, I love gaining experience and revel in seeing how far I can take my character, but too many times I’ve seen RPGs take the fun out this by offering unexciting ways to get there, or more appropriately making you feel the grind tenfold. Battles often play out too similarly and predictably to offer the player anything beyond just going through the motions to get through them. But I’ve always thought it doesn’t have to be that way, and some games have offered ways to combat the grind. Bravely Default allows you to turn off encounters, Trails of Cold Steel lets you weaken enemies if you lose a battle, and even early games like Earthbound allowed you to instantly defeat an enemy if you were overpowered by knocking into it.

While those are godsends for modern RPGs, the best way for games to avoid the repetition that can often dull the excitement is by offering the player choice and variety in how they obtain experience. I like that in games from Dragon Age to Elder Scrolls, you gain experience for exploration, whether it’s from discoveries or finding different artifacts. Exploration is such a vital part of RPGs that it makes sense that you would be rewarded for doing so. All RPGs should provide different ways to up your battle prowess, whether that’s letting you take on more story-focused side quests, engage in challenging-but-thrilling optional bosses, or explore hidden dungeons. When I finally beat a dragon in Dragon Age: Inquisition it felt so much more rewarding and exciting than any other battle I pursued until then – just because the stakes were higher and it made me take full advantage of my party’s skills up until that point. The days of just battling waves of enemies over and over should be long gone. You should be able to choose when you want to fight and it should just be a natural thing that happens in the world. Grinding to beat something should never be a strategy a game requires; instead, battles should be about skill and your ability to strategize correctly. 

Players shouldn’t be dreading battles or feeling like they’re “just another chore to get through,” and this is what I would like to see improved. I don’t mind stepping into encounters, but they need to be spread out and have some sort of variety, whether that’s merely in facing off against a few enemies to a whole bandit camp. Or they should actually make the fight stand for something by adding some storytelling so you’re provoked to take down a villain or help a town in need. The Witcher games do this wonderfully and even just talking someone out of battle can earn you experience and make you feel like you made a change. I like that in The Witcher games, it doesn't always have to be a battle. I'm also rewarded for being able to talk my way through problems. 

I don’t detest having to battle enemies – that’s a big part of all video games. I just hate when RPGs lose their allure and fizzle out for people just because a game put up unnecessary grinding roadblocks. If you think about it, only until recently did we start finding some ways to dissipate these problems. It needs to be something developers constantly consider: Are they giving the player something to pursue at all times that will entertain them, test their curiosity, and challenge their skills? The challenge shouldn’t be that you got through the grind in an RPG; it should be that you learned the game’s systems and mastered everything so well. Oh, and of course, you should be entertained while doing that.