Let Us Discuss...The GRIND

Well, singleplayer - so multiple games rather than multiple servers - but the sick grinding part seems true :laughing: Yeah, getting some thoughts from our more knowledgeable friends would definitely be good - they might actually understand things instead of just making it up like we do :grin:

Yeah, I know what you mean. Iā€™ve still never had the Sword of Crom or the Final Breath of the Red Mother in all the time Iā€™ve played. Maybe I havenā€™t fought the Red Mother enough times, but Iā€™ve definitely been through the four skeleton bosses over and over. Like you (I think) I donā€™t mind the resource grind so much - I mined out whole cavern systems in 7days to die with a hand pick - and I usually seem to have systems in the way I play that make that feel less grindy, but the RNG grind can still feel tough.

That said, itā€™s also difficult to come up with a truly great replacement - the RNG grind artificially pushes replaying the same encounters, as a way to lengthen the game. But when I think of some of the non-RNG encounters, such as the Witch Queen which you only really need to do once per playthrough, there winds up being little reason to go back (unless you happen to just feel like doing it againā€¦).

One idea that could be cool would be if there was something more to do with some of these endgame items. Fragments of Power have some uses, though of course mostly as tokens for the Dark Slotmachine (sorry ā€˜Libraryā€™). But it might be cool if the keystone artifacts (or the keystone itself), or skeleton keys could have some other fun uses. But then, of course, the downside of this idea is that it risks simply turning these into additional grindā€¦ (Though I suppose these artifacts/excess skeleton keys could potentially provide a possible way to set up counters to the influx of Siptah items that is worrying various people right now - a bit off topic here, but just occurred to me as Iā€™m writing this.)

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I cannot agree with you enough! Unnamed City used to be my favorite place in the whole Exiled Lands. I find its ambience unsurpassed by anything else in the game. And yet, I came to almost loathe it, thanks to the RNG-induced grind.

The problem on official servers is that this upkeep you mention is completely decoupled from your ownership of the land.

In a game where everything respawns and is renewable, the only limited resource is the land. And thatā€™s precisely the resource that you can deplete without any limits and keep it depleted without any effort.

Thatā€™s how you end up with official PVE(-C) servers that are absolutely choked by unlimited building. Thatā€™s how you end up with one clan covering half of the map with their endless pyramids and other theme parks. Thatā€™s how you end up logging into a server where thereā€™s no decent space to build and the server FPS tanks down into the red every couple of minutes.

In short, thatā€™s how you get new players to form a really bad first impression of the game.

I agree with you, but with a qualification. @Frillenā€™s suggestion, as-is, would only increase the frustration and grind. However, if they made legendary items not repairable, but also not hard to get (i.e. not subject to slot-machine ā€œpray to RNGeezus for a dropā€ mechanics) and also really worth it, then it would be great!

Yeah, hard pass on that, too. Especially given the fact that your thralls can be engaged in battle even when youā€™re offline. Nope, no thanks :slight_smile:

I mean, I donā€™t have access to the source code, so I canā€™t be 100% sure thatā€™s not the case, but Iā€™m convinced it isnā€™t.

Letā€™s start with the most obvious problem with it: the devs would have to go out of their way to implement things this way, because thatā€™s not how itā€™s normally done.

Second, thereā€™s evidence that points to this not being the case: the loot tables are freely accessible, you just need to download the DevKit, run it, and look at the data.

Third, there is no benefit from doing that, which is why itā€™s not how itā€™s normally done. Thereā€™s no good reason to do this.

To sum it up, someone would have to come up with an insane idea of generating a specific RNG seed for each character and then have the game logic somehow modify the rolls it would make on the loot tables that we can all see, based on this hidden RNG seed. Then someone else would have to approve this insane idea. Then many others would have to waste their time implementing a more complicated solution instead of a simpler one.

All in all, this is almost certainly not the case.

In future, what might help you reason correctly about how the game works is to keep in mind that a lot of the game logic doesnā€™t run on the client, i.e. on your device, but rather on the server. The main responsibilities of your computer/console are:

  • Display what you should see, based on what the server says.
  • Play what you should hear, based on what the server says.
  • Tell the server what youā€™re doing or trying to do, so the server can decide how it worked out.

In a multiplayer game, itā€™s recommended for the server to be the single source of truth, otherwise you can cheat easily by modifying the game on your client to make decisions that are favorable to you.

Anything else that your device does on top of the responsibilities I described is basically just an optimization. For example, the game on your client tries to predict what the server will tell it, so that you donā€™t have to wait for the server to send the data, because that would result in a boatload of other problems.

Thatā€™s why youā€™ll sometimes see scorpions ascending gently into the sky: the server told your client that the scorpion is climbing a dune and your client keeps it moving in that direction, waiting for the server to tell it that the scorpion changed the direction. When the server doesnā€™t send it (or that bit of info gets ā€œlostā€ due to a packet drop), you get Infinitely Levitating Scorpions :wink:

At any rate, sorry for the digression, but I hope this explains why itā€™s unlikely to have the RNG seed for each character: that seed would have to live on the server, because thatā€™s where the loot drop must be calculated (unless youā€™re okay with people hacking their game to get a Yogā€™s Touch every time they kill a T1 exile cook), and thereā€™s absolutely no reason for the server to keep an RNG seed per character.

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very interesting topic

As an individual we all have more distant interests, but I would be hypocritical if I said that I not seeing the level grind go down
You are referring to a realistic view, I made exactly the same comparison and that made me laugh. The current inflation and the shortage of raw materials that we can experience in our daily life looked to me a great wink.

I really liked the questions you raised.

Funcom is a company and as all organization, it seeks are a delicate balance, well I hope so
Because even if we can have different points of view, keeping in balance remains our first and hard common learning
Even if we keep that little memory, see not.

Now if I have to express myself on my ideals and my feelings, I will start with frustration.
itā€™s recurrent on this forum but not that. it seems to me that itā€™s generalized.

Our recent technological advances have profoundly changed our temporal reference, the instantaneous has become the norm, the time of the present. We have to go faster always faster with ever more optimization, with constant solicitation.

The questions you raise are therefore very insightful to me.

These are highly phylosophical questions which currently fascinate me enormously, such as for example ā€œthinking about speedā€ which for me is found in the thought of Paul Virilio.
The video game isnā€™t for me a simple tool of distraction, it allows me, but also a simulation tool.
I donā€™t know the real motivation and interest of the developer and others involved in the design and operation of this game but it seems to me that certain ideology emerges.

Finding, testing, crafting, and mining doesnā€™t always happen instantly.
we would all like a magic stick? right? Why?
Because we are all aware of many issues that arenā€™t always easy to apprehend.
No need to name them but the reality can be brutal

The second point which seems important to me is the culture of individualism which today strikes our societies with full force.
And it seems to me that this is a choice of the developers, I hopeā€¦
To promote the cooperative action and give again the possibility of uniting in hostile environment, the union is strength, you can largely realize it on this game.
So, yes, some piece of craft is exorbitantly expensive and not always balanced but that helps to realize this harsh reality, I really like this idea.

And, yesterday a player could not keep his city, he offered me a lot of ressource
My first feeling was sadness for him but now he will be present in each of my craft no matter what he was as that human and player.
I donā€™t know if this will bring him comfort or discomfort, I would tell him that at least his work will serve and will not fall into the void.

Thatā€™s life

Now, I express myself in a language which is not mine in a real difficult context

But yes I think that as a player see the level grind to reduce.
Is this the right balance ?, I donā€™t know, weā€™ll see.
But for the moment itā€™s ok for me
Funcom will respond to it according on its interests
But I really like the debates that it generates, the question to raise
Personally, I didnā€™t like the change of NPCs artisant and purge.

But for the moment I like to play, there are bug , lag , problem whith players but itā€™s a life, maybe one day itā€™snt the case and conan exile will be difinitely in my past. Maybeā€¦
As maybe is marketing plan , playing only on psychological and neurological aspects in order to create an addiction, Maybe hahaha
or maybe they adapt, play time to better position themselves on the platforms

Now there is a lot of possibility to play and a lot of different server, and Funcom seems to progres

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Mumbo jumbo :rofl::rofl::rofl:. Unfortunately on consoles we donā€™t have the opportunity to read and understand the mechanics of the game, even if we did, I would not be able to understand again :rofl::rofl::rofl:, so it is very good that this forum has brilliant minds that can understand how mechanics work and comfort us from our demons. Playing so many hours alone, creating demons is the most normal thing, I guess :man_shrugging:. A lot of times I felt like Tom Hanks yelling, Wilsoooon :rofl::rofl::rofl:. Yet some times I see things that I just have to mention, no matter how silly they are and believe me I never regret it, never. There is always someone who will give me a reasonable explanation and help me understand more and more the game. So, once again thank you @CodeMage, you just toss another demon of mine :wink:

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If weā€™re going to talk about philosophy in game design and balance. Letā€™s look at this from another angle.

I maintain the best philosophy is that if a mechanic or feature isnā€™t fun it shouldnā€™t be present or should be redesigned to be fun. The issue of course with this is how do we define ā€˜funā€™? Some of you donā€™t like wacking rocks for a few hours. Some of you do.

But how many of you would do it if you got nothing for it? Now weā€™re getting closer to a general agreement on what fun is. Sort of.

A great example is Super Mario Bros. 3. Everyone knows about the warp whistles to take you from World 1 to 8. But those of you who have played the game extensively will have played through worlds 2-7 at some point.

Even having access and knowledge (and lets be honest, the knowledge was there before the game released thanks to a movie) of the skip to World 8, we still wanted to play the previous worlds.

Why? Because they were fun. But why were they fun?

Hitting that first Goomba in 1-1 is fun, for the first few times you do it. But hitting a few dozen goombas gets boring if the stage is just a flat terrain. If you can get one, you can do five, or ten, or a hundred.

But thatā€™s why the stages are varied, and the Goombas are lined up in creative ways.

Same thing with whacking rocks for stone in Conan you can find different ways to do it. And of course we get the tools to help with that. But like the skip to World 8, sometimes you need to change that up a bit and make things more efficient. Unfortunately we donā€™t have Wizard to show us how to do that. We have to kinda figure it out. And being a more complex game, its going to require more digging into for our individual playstyles.

One thing that is hardly ever fun however is RNG. When you hit the Unnamed City for equipment, the first time is fun. The next time is fun. But when youā€™re running it dozens of times a week. It does get old. Imagine if World 8 had a stage (the tank stage, so you canā€™t lakitu cloud past it) before Bowserā€™s Castle that would only complete like 5% of the time. That means on average youā€™d need to run it about 10-20 times to get passed it.

Sure you can warp whistle to it. But youā€™re always going to have to run this stage a dozen times to progress. Is that fun? The first time is. The second time kinda is. The third timeā€¦ and then after your next few play throughs of the game it does get a bit old, you dread that grind.

But there is a way around this. What if there was a few optional stages in the various worlds where it would let you skip the RNG? Youā€™ve got 7 stages, one in each world that if you complete each one. The RNG is skipped? You canā€™t really skip to the end without a grind, but you have a fun and varied trip that also takes more time or the same time as the RNG.

Now you have something the players can work for.

Another example of this was World of Warcrafts first two expansions. In Burning Crusade, there was a grind of faction to do specific heroic dungeons. You literally did the same repeatable quests for days to get in. Next you did the dungeons over and over to get the gear you wanted. Grind on top of grind. Oh and you needed to do this several times for different sets of dungeons. Bad design.

In Wrath of the Lich King, the faction was still needed (at first) but you got it as a matter of fact through normal leveling questing. Assuming you didnā€™t get a PL, you had the faction you needed, or just needed to do a simple questline to get it. When you ran the dungeon, the RNG of gear was still there. But you also had the option of getting tokens that dropped to purchase gear for slots the RNG wasnā€™t filling. And you could get those tokens from any other dungeon.

So instead of grinding the same spot over and over, you simply ran your favorite dungeons. Youā€™re doing them anyway as a matter of course as you want to play the game. This is better design, and one that Final Fantasy XIV currently uses.

And I should mention that it is currently being used in Conan Exiles. Many private servers have veteran tokens from mods that drop from boss creatures that can be used to simply purchase gear that RNG doesnā€™t seem to want to drop.

So instead of farming the red mother over and over. Waiting for it to spawn. Players are encouraged to kill a variety of creatures in a series of their choosing to maximize the rewards. Killing the same boss over and over gets boring, it loses its fun. But killing different bosses in different areas helps keep things fresh.

Probably something that needs to be considered for the base game.

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Thank you so much! Appreciate it.

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RNG is RNG, but our brains are wired to look for patterns and we often find ones that donā€™t actually exist

Now for an extra annoying thought, that last breath of the red mother or sword of Crom, or whatever your particular personal white whale is, some other player got that literally the first time it could drop.

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Thanks, i think itā€™s good

Your first sentence is putting the cherry on the cake, but I just donā€™t want this to be done again, I like the conversations in this topic, the mood so allow me to explain why we create things in our mindsā€¦
If I remember correctly at 2004, after a 3 or 4 years break in gaming, since I had no time for hobbies back then I decided to play final fantasy 10. This game was back then a pve single player aspect, that was giving you 2 choises. Either finish the story without much grinding or kill the extra highest boss but grind for months to do it. You could go and finish the game with more or less 8.000 hp and 9.999 hit from every character, if I remember correctly you had 7 characters. But to kill the extra highest boss you needed to have 99.999 hp and 99.999 hit to every player. Yet I manage to kill it with no less than 25.000 hp and damage and my best man and friend just couldnā€™t believe it. There was a way to do it, that I accidentally find out, since I always liked to play not so safe and I was putting my team in challenges way higher than their strength.
What I am trying to say here is that in my youth I was really enjoying the game breaking thing and I can give you more and more examples for other games but this is ego and I donā€™t quite funcy it. Devs of all the games the past years always left some windows for game breaking, always. Or to put it in another way maybe they didnā€™t think that this could happen.
Letā€™s go back to our game now.
Once I read I comment of one Dev saying that our players are very skilled manage to use the undermase, very polite position from him I would say.
About me in this game, all that I manage to break in this game, no matter how much I burn it is 0. Why?
First of all I am not a skilled player and second I do not need it. The balance is great, the game is great and the updates in a way are always game breaking and challenging enough, but not in the bad way. Except the rng grind that must be checked a bit again, for all the others the game is perfect(pve) , NUMBER 1.

Ps. This is just one mans opinion and as we say in Greece do not expect a bird to bring the Spring :wink:.

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Sorry for being off-topic, Iā€™ll keep it short: we have an almost identical saying in Serbia. Iā€™m always happy when I see a similarity like that :slight_smile:

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I love that, you guys, and this place.

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Thanks! I will do it soon!

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My dear @linhotl I am so sorry but I didnā€™t understand either of your 2 posts :rofl:. First of all welcome to the forum :+1:t6:. If you want to reply to a post at the end of it on the bottom it has an arrow, press on it and you can type your reaction to this post. If however you need to speak to more persons you can press@ and then the name of the one you want to address your thoughts, so he(she) will be noticed and answer. If however you knew all these, itā€™s a happiness to have you here and welcome again :+1:t6:

Ah like in Canada, ā€œwhatā€™s that honk sound? Crap itā€™s spring, the hissing cobras are back run!!!ā€ (Canadian geese) :wink:

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@Achillesroar , Isnā€™t the world a small place after all?
@Croms_Faithful, sorry we went a bit of topic here, thanks m8 :+1:t6:

Ps. Achilles is the name of my father and my Son, in Greece it is pronunced Ahilleas.

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