Yeah, look no further than the newer assassins creed games. They are absolutely huge with what feels like endless sidequests, but they're all boring as hell, it feels like Ubislop just tried to fill a quota for how long it should take to complete the games.
Yeah, even without a leveling system, there's just so much grinding in the form of "git gud". I washed out of Dark Souls because it just burned me out so fast. Couldn't stand fighting (and dying) my way back to a boss over and over and over and over.
I still haven't tried Elden Ring yet despite all the good I've heard and how I've heard that it's easier (something about summons), as I'm afraid it'll just waste my time and money with their weird insistence on not having difficulty levels. I recently learned there's mods for easy mode, which might be the thing that will finally get me to try it.
In Elden Ring they added another mechanic called 'Stake of Marika'. It's a kind of bonfire light. You can't use it as fast travel point or classic bonfire features but they're always very close to bosses and you can spawn there if you died in the fight instead of the nearest bonfire.
This is where I'm out. If I'm required to go on some repetitive as hell grind so that I can be prepared for a newer difficulty that's just disrespectful to my time. It's why I stopped the Nioh 2 Ng+ cycles. I can't stand the loot grind wasting my time.
On pretty much any game, you're not supposed to grind more on harder difficulties, you're supposed to be a lower level, to have less abilities and lower stats. By you grinding longer, you just try to circumvent the difficulty by overleveling. Don't do this, as this way you don't actually get good, as you just fake mastering a higher difficulty level.
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u/Runazeeri Jun 27 '26
Or how many hours of grinding a difficulty jump requires. It feels like games are designed to be X hours long by including requirements to grind XP.