Hunting for a fun grindy thing.

[TaRix]

Possibly for reason of insanity, I'm looking for a grind-like game. Specifically, one that's, well, itemized.

I mean in a vein similar to Oblivion and Skyrim--you improve on the stuff you practice. NetHack and some of its decendants were similar in exercising attributes and proficiencies, and most of the Ratchet and Clank games let you grow your arsenals.

Some ground rules first, I guess:
1)If it must be an MMO, there must be a way to be completely isolated from all other players and still be able to play the whole thing.
2)Microtransactions? Nuts to that. I'm not averse to spending money, but I don't like paying (repeatedly) for temporary things.
3)Grinding in different aspects must involve different activities, i.e. working on speed or cooking is not done by simply allocating monster-kill xp in those slots.
4)It's got to be fun. Silly is nice, but not required.
5)Oh, and growth in one thing should not prevent growth in a different thing. I wants my do-it-all guy.

Some games that I've played that have scratched this itch in the past include the Rune Factory series, the freeware Elona, the DS title Contact, and a few computer Flash titles.

If you can grow your kit like in R&C (or even Drakengard), that's a big plus.

Any ideas?

[The_Jackal]

Possibly for reason of insanity, I'm looking for a grind-like game. Specifically, one that's, well, itemized.

I mean in a vein similar to Oblivion and Skyrim--you improve on the stuff you practice. NetHack and some of its decendants were similar in exercising attributes and proficiencies, and most of the Ratchet and Clank games let you grow your arsenals.

Some ground rules first, I guess:
1)If it must be an MMO, there must be a way to be completely isolated from all other players and still be able to play the whole thing.
2)Microtransactions? Nuts to that. I'm not averse to spending money, but I don't like paying (repeatedly) for temporary things.
3)Grinding in different aspects must involve different activities, i.e. working on speed or cooking is not done by simply allocating monster-kill xp in those slots.
4)It's got to be fun. Silly is nice, but not required.
5)Oh, and growth in one thing should not prevent growth in a different thing. I wants my do-it-all guy.

Some games that I've played that have scratched this itch in the past include the Rune Factory series, the freeware Elona, the DS title Contact, and a few computer Flash titles.

If you can grow your kit like in R&C (or even Drakengard), that's a big plus.

Any ideas?

It appears you're looking to pick up Diablo 3. With the Reaper of Souls expansion and a series of content patches, it's in a pretty good spot.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Mmmm. Warframe is really fun, but it doesn't meet a number of your requirements. It's all combat (there is crafting, hut there's no skill for it and it just involves fighting to get the resources). Multiplayer is basically required for certain mission types, but you generally don't need teamwork, just the extra guns.

Also, you haven't said what platforms you have. Rune Factory 4 sounds like exactly what you want, it's on the 3DS. RF3 is the other game in the series I can recommend, on the regular DS.

[TaRix]

Oh, I didn't specify platforms because I have most of them. Anything but Xbox and cellphone/tablet are fair game for me. Even a Facebook-ish game might work (friendwalls are right out, though.)

I've played all the Rune Factories, numbered and otherwise; maybe I should just get four going again.

But with Diablo 3, isn't your character locked into a role like in 2?

Thanks for the replies.

[Draken]

Oh, I didn't specify platforms because I have most of them. Anything but Xbox and cellphone/tablet are fair game for me. Even a Facebook-ish game might work (friendwalls are right out, though.)

I've played all the Rune Factories, numbered and otherwise; maybe I should just get four going again.

But with Diablo 3, isn't your character locked into a role like in 2?

Thanks for the replies.

Well, you are locked into the role of killing stuff in troves regardless of class in D3.

And I guess you might enjoy FFXIV? It is an MMO, and you would have to take part in some group content due to the main quest, but other than that, you can grind all of the classes (including crafting and gathering classes) in a single character (crafting and gathering does not involve combat, although gathering materials on your own would in a variety of cases).

[Grif]

Possibly for reason of insanity, I'm looking for a grind-like game. Specifically, one that's, well, itemized.

I mean in a vein similar to Oblivion and Skyrim--you improve on the stuff you practice. NetHack and some of its decendants were similar in exercising attributes and proficiencies, and most of the Ratchet and Clank games let you grow your arsenals.

Some ground rules first, I guess:
1)If it must be an MMO, there must be a way to be completely isolated from all other players and still be able to play the whole thing.
2)Microtransactions? Nuts to that. I'm not averse to spending money, but I don't like paying (repeatedly) for temporary things.
3)Grinding in different aspects must involve different activities, i.e. working on speed or cooking is not done by simply allocating monster-kill xp in those slots.
4)It's got to be fun. Silly is nice, but not required.
5)Oh, and growth in one thing should not prevent growth in a different thing. I wants my do-it-all guy.

Some games that I've played that have scratched this itch in the past include the Rune Factory series, the freeware Elona, the DS title Contact, and a few computer Flash titles.

If you can grow your kit like in R&C (or even Drakengard), that's a big plus.

Any ideas?

Wakfu and/or Dofus might be your thing. It's an MMO(TBG) and has a lot of crafting and harvesting. As far as I know, Wakfu allows you to do everything on one. The only sticker is that if you want to reach the top-tier of anything, you WILL need to partner up to raid dungeons and stuff.

[Leecros]

Honestly, my first thought was Runescape. That's still a thing, right?

*does a quick google search

I haven't played it in a long time, but it does seem like a game that may be in the vein of what you're looking for.

It IS an MMO, but it has free access to about half the skills and admittedly a very small portion of the map. If you do wish to subscribe it's $5/month(at least the last time i played) and opens up a lot of things to do. As far as interacting with other players goes. Well, i've personally never felt obligated to group up with other players and many, if not all of the quests in both free and members are geared towards single players(although more players might be helpful). You can also pretty much turn off chat. At least the last time I played. There are some team things and The Wilderness which is an area of the map designed for PvP is not a place you want to go into for long without others, unless you want to get eaten like a delicious cake.

However, it does have the skill system that you might be yearning for. You need to use a skill in order to improve it and each skill has various tasks you can do. For example, to improve your cooking skill and get access to more advanced ingredients, you have to collect the ingredients and cook. If you wanted to craft your own weapons, you would have to use the appropriate skill to collect material(Mining for metal and crafting for leather) and craft the equipment with Smithing and crafting(for leather again). I think there are 26 skills right now?


As far as fun goes. Well, Your Mileage May Vary. I know many people who absolutely detest Runescape for various reasons. The Grinding, The Poor Graphics(It does try, but it still looks ugly even after several visual upgrades), and the community(lots of spammers and bots and other generally selfish and unfavorable people. They gear towards an all ages audience, so plenty of younger kids that play it). However, i certainly enjoyed my time with it when i used to play it and i probably will go back and play it again someday in the future.

My Girlfriend likes to play it

[Pronounceable]

I'm looking for a grind-like game
This should be more than good enough (http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/).

[Starwulf]

The Disgaea series is one of the most grindiest(but fun doing it) games I've ever come across :)

[TaRix]

This should be more than good enough (http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/).

THAT's what I got last time I asked for this kind of thing. Now I was looking for a doing-fun-and-different-things-and-become-all-powerful sort of thing.
(It's up to v2.0? Maybe I should load that up again...)

Disgaea(s) is(are), admittedly, close to my requirements, and I've got one-and-a-half games in the series that have yet to be played. I have to learn to swallow my pride and twink like a munchkin if I want to pretend to beating the final challenges in those.