作者：Brian Green

玩家经常抱怨MMO变成“刷任务”（游戏邦注：这里的“刷”是指玩家在游戏中为了达到某个目标而进行重复性活动，比如为了升级而不断地打怪就是一种典型的“刷”）。我们有必要了解一下MMO的历史，因为越来越明显，它基本上被玩家判定为“刷任务”游戏。人们嘲笑为“刷”的每一种机制都曾经作为一种乐趣而出现。事实上，有时候甚至某些特别新鲜的特征也难逃最终沦为“刷任务”的命运。

接下来我们就看看什么原本有趣的东西变成了“刷任务”。

《激战2》中有“刷任务”吗？

当《激战2》粉丝Ravious发文抱怨游戏中“杀死10只老鼠”的任务时，我再次思考起这个问题。他认为游戏缺少变化，特别是要每天都在做要完成5件事的日常任务。我给Ravious留下评论称看到“改变游戏本质的东西”这么快就变成“为了成就而做的东西”，我感到很有趣。

Ravious看了到评论后又撰文指出《激战2》的日常任务的“刷任务”成份。他写道，他主要是以自己喜欢的方式玩游戏，但最后总是发现自己按日常任务的要求玩游戏。我承认，我在游戏中也经常遇到同样的事。

虽然日常任务可能现在还不让人觉得像“刷任务”，但以后就难说了。我们来看看其他已经从乐趣变成“刷任务”的东西吧。

GW2(from mmorpg.com)

“刷任务”的历史源头

我们先看看MMO的始祖游戏《无尽的任务》。这款游戏一经发布就获得广大玩家的喜爱。许多没有玩过网络游戏的人成为Norrath世界的忠实住民。这款游戏的世界之大，甚至让那些玩过网络游戏的人都为之惊叹。那时候，还没有人担心“刷任务”的问题，因为一切都是新鲜的，有趣的。玩家们在这个庞大的世界中探索着，他们感到的乐趣是前所未有的。

但时，随着时间流逝，新意也消失了。玩家们不再四处探险了，他们开始思考完成目标的最佳方案。他们只呆在一个小时内能获得最多经验的地方。他们长时间呆在可能掉落自己中意的装备（或者能卖钱的）的地方打怪。最终，探索的乐趣变成一系列特定的活动，也就是在那以后，我们开始抱怨“刷任务”。

然后，《魔兽世界》崛起了。《魔兽世界》中出现了一个新特征：任务日志！玩家不再漫无目的地打小怪，而是由小镇里的NPC指示玩家去某地方完成某任务。事实上，打怪是绝对不够升级的。但是，我们都知道玩家想充分地利用这个过程，并且Blizzard也很乐意帮助玩家这么做。最能体现Blizzard的这种诚意的就是“任务助手”，它给玩家指出完成任务的最理想路径，玩家再也不用探索任务区域了。后来，这种显示任务目标的位置的系统被吸收到游戏客户端中。

什么是“刷任务”

我在以前的一篇文章中指出，“刷任务”的核心特征就是“重复性”。但是，正如我在那篇文章中所说的，所有游戏都具有重复性。当你完全掌握游戏的模式，那么你在游戏中所做的一切就只是执行已知的计划，这时候，你就是在“刷任务”。特别是当你只想完成目标且知道如何完成时，你在这几小时的活动中所做的一切都是“刷任务”。

但是，从乐趣到“刷任务”还隔着一步：优化。效率是乐趣的敌人，特别是在强调成就的游戏中。优化意味着学习游戏和想出完成目标的最佳办法。然而，你知道做某事的最佳办法的时候，也正是你感到无聊的开始。任何你知道如何做好的且有一个可预测的结果的活动都必然会沦为“刷”。问题是，成就者们通常会寻找改进玩游戏的方式，所以他们最终会把一款自己原本觉得有趣的游戏变得无趣。

日常事件

所以，也许你可以看出为什么我会关注Ravious所说的动态事件的优化。自从刷怪和自动寻径变成一种“刷”，所以《激战2》中的动态事件就被认为是一种进化。但是，如果它们在发布几个月后被优化，以至玩家要求更多更新的程度，这就暗示着这种系统不可能为其他游戏所用，因为它似乎存在与其队依靠手动制作内容的方法一样的缺陷。

值得注意的另一点是，ArenaNet曾表示，他们将改变游戏中的日常任务运作方式——不再提供玩家静态的列表，而是让他们从每天变化的不同选项中做选择。这应该能至少小小地拖慢玩家优化游戏的速度。但能维持多久？我说不准。

如何避免“刷任务”

本着实用的精神，我帮ArenaNet想了一些可能避免动态事件短时间内沦为“刷任务”的办法。与平时一样，我是在不了解这个系统的具体设置的情况下想出这些办法的，所以可能与系统毫不相干或根本没办法执行。

1、让玩家按自己的方式玩。ArenaNet曾经明确地提出一条理念，玩家应该按自己想要的方式玩游戏。《激战2》的日常任务不错，因为玩家可能因为自己之前已经做的事而得到奖励。只需要玩家再费额外的一点点努力。强迫玩家放弃自己的方式做新活动可能不是很惯用的做法，即使它可能使玩家更难在短时间内优化游戏方式。

2、使事件更具变化性。添加更多事件是很容易的。只要做一样“模版”事件，添加一些细节就好了。例如，护送小女孩回家的事件就相当合适，也就是把这个基本的模版事件放到其他场景中。当然，考虑到《激战2》严重依赖用声音来表现大量事件，模版事件就不太好做了，特别是这还是有小女孩叫声的模版。

3、降低事件的可预测性。每过一段时间就增加一点变化。比如让事件发生在不同的地方，而不是总是发生在相同的地方。或者让看似相同的事件具有不同的目标—-上次要求杀死育母蜘蛛，这次也可能要求你把它引到别的地方去。又或者，成功或失败后发生的不只是一件事，而是更多事，这样的变化让玩家不会觉得像常规。再者，如果事件可以从周围区域借用其他信息，那么模版可能很实用。

4、让成功的条件更丰富。我最喜欢的设定之一就是，可以通过多件事完成一个目标。比如，你可以杀死一只怪，还可以收集道具，或清理涂鸦，等等。也许在有些事件中，应该让玩家有不同的方式完成同一个目标。

5、改进已存在的事件。当你执行护送任务失败时，游戏却不允许你像重复做其他任务一样可以再接一次，你会感到非常沮丧。我上次就遇到相同的事，那时我正在 做“Fireheart Rise”任务，我走在护送队的前面却被卡在墙里，接着天花板塌下来了，于是我失败了。

6、降低单人执行集体任务的难度。当你看似空白的区域有集体任务时，那你就悲催了。如果你靠得太近，集体任务的BOSS怪就会把你一口吞了。当参与玩家增加时，单一任务会相应地增加难度。那么为什么当只有一个玩家做集体任务时，不让难度相应地下降呢？有些游戏允许玩家激活NPC帮助自己，这是一个解决办法。如果像这样的解决方案再多一些就好了。这样，就会有更多玩家愿意探索更多事件了。

读者们怎么看呢？你认为ArenaNet有办法阻止动态事件被在短时间内被优化，进而变成“刷任务”吗？或者完全避免变成“刷任务”？（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

When fun becomes a grind

by Brian Green

One recurring complaint of MMO players is the “grind”. It’s interesting taking a look at the history of MMOs, because it becomes obvious that it’s mostly player perception that determines what is a grind. Every mechanic that people deride as a grind started out as something fun. In fact, sometimes it is a particularly new or novel feature that eventually becomes the dreaded grind.

Let’s take a look at how something fun devolves into a grind.

Does GW2 have grind?

I started thinking about this topic again when GW2 fanatic Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats posted about dynamic events in the game. He lamented the lack of variety, particularly as he was completing the daily quests that require 5 events be completed per day. I made a comment observing that it is interesting to see how fast “something that changes the nature of the game/” has become “something optimized and ground out for achievement”.

The comment got Ravious thinking and he wrote a followup post examining the grinding aspects of daily quests in GW2. He writes that he primarily plays the way he wants, but then at the end of his session he finds a way to complete his daily quest requirements. I recognized this, as I often do the same thing in the game.

And, while the daily quests might not feel quite like a grind yet, it probably will in the future. Let’s take a look at a few other things that have turned from fun into a grind.

Grinding through history

Let’s go to the grandaddy of the DIKU-inspired MMOs: EverQuest. When it launched, it created a sensation. People loved it. A lot of people who had not had experience with online games descended into the nascent world of Norrath and had fun with the world. The sheer breadth of the world was awe-inspiring, even to some people who had experience with online games. Few people worried about having to “grind”, because everything was new and interesting. People were fumbling around, and they had fun because it was so different than previous experiences.

But, as time went on, the novelty wore off. Instead of going around adventuring, people tried to figure out the best way to accomplish their goals. They’d go to places to get the most experience per hour. Players would go camp certain locations to get gear they wanted (sometimes to sell for real money on eBay). Eventually the fun of exploring around an area was optimized into a series of specific actions, and after that we see people complaining about “the grind”.

Later, you have World of Warcraft. In WoW, they introduced a new innovation: the quest log! Instead of just mindlessly killing critters, NPCs in town would direct you to places to accomplish little tasks. In fact, killing monsters was a terribly inefficient way to level. But, again, we see that people wanted to optimize the process, and Blizzard was willing to help players do so. The most notable expression of this was QuestHelper, which allowed players to figure out the optimal path to complete a quest without having to explore the zone; this system of showing where quest objectives were located was later was incorporated into the game client itself.

What makes a grind

As I’ve written before, the core of the grind is repetition. But, as I wrote in that article: all games are repetition. The grind settles in when you’re done learning the game’s patterns and everything is just an exercise in executing a known plan. Especially when you just want to get the goal and know how to get there, but all that remains is the hours of activity that you’ve come to see as a grind.

But, there’s a step in between: optimization. Efficiency is the enemy of fun, especially in an Achiever-focused game. Optimizing means learning about the game and figuring out the best way to do things. But, so once you know the best way to do things, you get bored. Any activity that you know how to do well and that has a predictable outcome is going to be seen as a grind. The problem is that Achievers will generally seek to optimize their play, so they eternally make the game less fun for themselves.

Daily events

So, perhaps you can see why I’m concerned about the optimization of dynamic events that Ravious talked about. Since camping monsters and directed questing have now become grinds, the dynamic events in GW2 were supposed to be the next evolution. But, if they’re becoming optimized just a few months after launch, to the point where people are asking for more updates, this bodes poorly for them being a viable system for other games to adopt, as it seems to have the same flaw as other methods that rely on hand-crafted content.

It’s also interesting to note that ArenaNet has said they’re going to be changing how the dailies work in the game. Instead of having a static list, you’ll be able to choose from different options that will change during the day. This should hold off on players optimizing the game exactly for at least a little while. Will it hold in the long term? I’m not sure.

How to avoid the grind

In the spirit of trying to be helpful, let me brainstorm a few ways that ArenaNet could make the dynamic events avoid feeling like a grind in short order. As always, these are made without knowledge of how their particular system is set up, and they could be irrelevant or damn near impossible to implement.

Keep letting players just play. One very popular philosophy that ArenaNet has articulated is that players should be able to just play the way they want. GW2′s daily quests are nice, because you get rewarded for doing what you’d probably already do anyway. It just takes a bit of extra effort to do a bit more at the end of your session. Trying to force players to go out of their way to do new events will probably not be very popular, even if it would make things harder to optimize in the short term.

Make events more varied. Adding more events is the easiest way. Putting some effort into creating “template” events where details could be filled in with nearby elements might be nice. For example, the event where you escort a girl back home is pretty neat. Take this basic template and apply it to other locations. Of course, this is hard given that GW2 so heavily relies on voice acting for a lot of the events, particularly this one with the little girl’s cries.

Make events less predictable. Throw a curve ball every once in a while. Maybe have an event happen in different places instead of the same place all the time. Or have what seems like the same event, but with a different goal; sometimes you don’t want to kill the broodmother drake, maybe this time you have to lure it off the path. Instead of having only one event follow up for a success/failure, maybe add in a few variations so that people doing an event more than once don’t feel it becoming rote. Again, templates might work well here if the events could pull in other information from the surrounding area.

Let events have more success conditions. One thing I like about hearts is that you often have multiple things you can do to fill up the meter. You can often kill stuff, but you can also maybe collect items, or clean up graffiti, etc. Maybe have some events where there are a few different ways to accomplish the goal.

Improve existing events. It’s frustrating when you get an escort event and you fail because this particularly one won’t let you revive the escort, like the others. One in particular happened to me last night as I was finishing up Fireheart Rise: I got a bit ahead of the escort and got trapped in a wall when the ceiling collapsed. Enemies surrounded the escort and killed it, making me fail the quest. Sucks when the environment causes you to fail instead of your own actions.

Have solo solutions to group events. It’s really unfortunate when you have a group event happen in what feels like an empty zone. Bosses intended for groups will eat you alive if you get too close. Solo events seem to scale up nicely when multiple people show up, why not let group events scale down if only one person is in the immediate area? A few events do this already, where you can go trigger some NPCs to help you. A few more clever things like this would be nice. This would allow more players to experience more events.

So, what are your thoughts? How do you think that ArenaNet could do to make dynamic events feel less like something to optimize and therefore feel like a grind? What about avoiding grinding in general?(source:psychochild)