games with investment systems are NOT designed to be (Destiny)

by Claude Errera , Friday, December 19, 2014, 11:00 (3629 days ago) @ Cody Miller

What I find interesting is the people who seem to enjoy Destiny the most tend to be people who don't use the word 'grind'. It's not a grind if you don't treat it as such - it's just playing. (You can tell me "if you do the same thing over and over it's a grind no matter what you call it", but I disagree with that argument. I eat every day (well, almost every day), but it's almost NEVER a grind to do so. There were times in my life, though, where eating took away from time for other things, and I resented it - and it WAS a grind. I didn't spend any more time on it than I do now - in fact, I spent less - but I saw that time in a completely different light.

There's lots of stuff in real life that is a 'grind'. Take working out for example. However the difference is that these types of activities give you tangible benefits, in this case to your health. You can even make these types of things more fun, by working out in a different place or a different way. Grinding in a video game gets you absolutely nothing of worth.

Again - if you consider it a 'grind', maybe you're doing it wrong. I'm doing THE SAME THING YOU ARE, but I'm having fun doing it. (I'm doing far less of it - but that means my progress is even slower, so there's that tradeoff. I can live with it. ;) )

I'm not trying to tell you how to play video games. I'm simply saying that if the only part of a game that you enjoy requires doing large amounts of things you DON'T enjoy... why not just find a game that has a better proportion of fun/not-fun?

(You've said a number of times that there are lots of Destiny that you like a lot - but I'm having trouble figuring out what, besides Raiding, is on that list. At one point multiplayer was, but you said recently that you were tired of it.)

Further, a lot of the grindy stuff in real life cannot be avoided. All grindy stuff in video games can be avoided, since you can simply make the game without them.

There is very, very little in my life that I consider 'grindy'. The fact that the dog needs walking twice a day, even when it's pouring... that might be considered grindy (but only on days when the weather sucks; on other days, it's an enjoyable break from sitting in front of my computer or running electrical wire or whatever it is I'm doing at the time). Pretty much nothing else in my day-to-day existence is 'grindy' - so 2 15-minute spans per day (many of which are handled by my wife or my son), on days when the weather sucks (which is less than half the days, I'd guess) is a level of grind I can live with. Maybe the issue here is not the grind, but perception of grind.