> A typical RPG example is defeating the same monster over and over again to get experience to reach the next new area.
A great RPG however, provides you with the tools to advance without ever grinding.
Most Fire Emblem games for example, are carefully tuned (thanks to a pretty interesting experience point formula) to rig your "active members of the party" to a particular level. Fire Emblem effectively asymptotes your character's level to what is expected for a particular map.
In Fire Emblem, 100 experience points is a level up. However, a stronger character gets less experience points, while a weaker character gets more. So weaker characters grow much faster, maybe leveling up after defeating just one foe. While a strong character ("the Jeigen" as Fire Emblem fans call it), may need 20+ wins before they level up.
As such, most Fire Emblem games feel like "there's no grind", because the experience point system is designed to never have a grind to begin with. Weak characters feel weak for their first few combats, but exponentially level up and catch up to the rest of the party in just a few maps. While your strongest characters feel like they're "wasting the precious enemies" (there's only a set number of enemies per map. Killing an enemy for +5 exp on your strongest character is just not good tactics when the same enemy is +100 exp on your weakest character).
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Even Pokemon to a large extent does this well. You can defeat all the gyms without ever "Grinding". It gets harder and harder to advance, but the game has enough tactics (Swords Dance, X Attack, etc. etc.) to allow you to win even with 10-levels or 15-levels behind the computer.
I think "no grind" Pokemon playthroughs are pretty fun. It completely changes the game and kind of provides the player an entry point into the competitive scene (you need to use competitive meta strategies vs the CPU if you expect to win with 10-to-15 level disadvantages against them).
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EDIT: It should be noted that Fire Emblem / Pokemon does offer a grind, but only as a method of last resort. Children who are incapable of ever understanding advanced tactics like Swords Dance or Calm Mind, are given a "grind" which guarantee progress.
Similarly, Fire Emblem has "grind levels" that serve as a way to increase your character's strength. But a lot of "hardcore" Fire Emblem fans try to avoid the grind levels and beat the game "grind free".
From this perspective, "Grind" exists as a way to allow casual players to advance, while trying to stay balanced so that stronger players (on their 5th or 6th playthrough with deep understanding of the mechanics of the game) can play without that "emergency escape hatch" so to speak.
That's the general theme among turn-based RPGs. The games are either too undertuned to warrant grinding for skilled players, or they are tuned so they do require some form of grinding. It's an inherent problem with stat sticks and fairly simplistic strategies. Almost no moderately difficult RPG is tuned to not have some of its player base grind, bar introducing difficulty selection.
Pokemon is absurdly easy because the story appeals to a wide variety of players. Most of which include "just give a single fast Pokemon 4 coverage moves and blast everything to pieces". Only gen 5 had a counter mechanic to this by adjusting experience to level difference.
Fire Emblem doesn't really have a grind because you fight the mobs you need during the campaign, and beyond higher difficulties the games have changed to accommodate lesser skilled players into not having to restart the entire campaign. Because it turns out, few people are looking forward to replaying 20 hours only for your 1-5 super pumped up units to not be able to beat the game (read: leaving almost all your other units underleveled or dead, no skirmishes / arena to catch up, and your remaining party can't clear the map).
Paper Mario, you can beat the entire game skipping every non-required battle and still have room to spare. Strategies are even based around keeping your HP low.
And despite not needing to grind, the former two still suffer from similar issues (beating weaker enemies with no sense of strategy to stall getting to the meat of the game). Beating required Geodude trainer number 30 with Tackle and Rock Throw may as well be grinding.
> The games are either too undertuned to warrant grinding for skilled players
That's a good thing. Players who figure out the system "properly" shouldn't have to grind.
Ex: Atelier series generally have "alchemy engines" that create absurdly powerful creations, if you spend some time mapping out how alchemy can pass back and forth and mastering the alchemy minigame (main game??). Yeah, you can grind another +10 levels, but the game is about crafting items and rewards you with way more damage from well-crafted items (from +Quality loops) rather than from trying to bash your head against enemies for 10 hours.
The only games that seem to "force a grind" are these crappy phone-RPGs / gatchapon games, where escaping the grind literally costs money.
> Beating required Geodude trainer number 30 with Tackle and Rock Throw may as well be grinding.
A decent speedrun of Pokemon is only a couple of hours long at the most. I don't think any skilled RPG player would call any decent run of Pokemon (of any game) a "Grind".
>A decent speedrun of Pokemon is only a couple of hours long at the most. I don't think any skilled RPG player would call any decent run of Pokemon (of any game) a "Grind".
I'll articulate what I mean, since it hasn't come across. The problem isn't with grinding itself. It's with the things associated with grinding.
Grinding itself can be immensely fun and satisfying. Doing the same repetitive, thoughtless actions to advance the game, not that fun for most. I can sink hours into Monster Hunter grinding because I'm still put on my toes with most endgame monsters. It does get annoying, but it gets annoying way later (and for different reasons, mostly).
Pokemon? Let's set aside speedrunning, since that implies I already have a strategy prior to even booting the game. You'll go through various non-random battles with trainers which have Pokemon with no random moveset whatsoever. They all have the same algorithm-determined moveset or some inferior version of it. Most of the time, they play out the exact same way they do at the current point as they did 10 levels ago. Most of these battles aren't mentally challenging past first occurrence, they just drag the game out. The clear exceptions are trainers with Pokemon you've never seen, and story-relevant trainers (hopefully not for the former reason, but for having unique movesets / themes). Remove all those trainers, and you could probably cut the level curve in half along with the playtime.
You either care enough about that padding to dump the game over it, you bite through it despite the padding, or you like the padding. But it's the same thing as grinding: it's padding. It isn't inherently necessary beyond ensuring players have garnered some experience with the battle system before giving them a larger challenge. And even there, it's entirely up to the designers to ensure previous challenges match the current state.
> You'll go through various non-random battles with trainers which have Pokemon with no random moveset whatsoever.
In my experience though, most of those trainers are easily avoidable if you don't want to deal with them.
I think that's what I'm going for. They're there as "grinds" if your the type of player who wants to capture a whole lot of experience points and/or money throughout the game. But if you're "against the grind", then you simply walk away from those trainers, and they'll never challenge you.
There's exceptions of course. You must fight the gym leaders (each with a specialization on a particular typing. Brock for Rock, Misty for Water, etc. etc., ensuring forced diversity through the game). And the Elite 4 at the end force you to fight against 4 trainers (again with elemental specialties), before facing the champion (who breaks the mold and fights with a well balanced, supported team across multiple elements/typings)
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In Sword/Shield, its an explicit strategy to run away from fights in fact. You're not really expected to fight against the most powerful Pokemon, and Poke-dolls (aka: run away from fights) are plentiful.
A great RPG however, provides you with the tools to advance without ever grinding.
Most Fire Emblem games for example, are carefully tuned (thanks to a pretty interesting experience point formula) to rig your "active members of the party" to a particular level. Fire Emblem effectively asymptotes your character's level to what is expected for a particular map.
In Fire Emblem, 100 experience points is a level up. However, a stronger character gets less experience points, while a weaker character gets more. So weaker characters grow much faster, maybe leveling up after defeating just one foe. While a strong character ("the Jeigen" as Fire Emblem fans call it), may need 20+ wins before they level up.
As such, most Fire Emblem games feel like "there's no grind", because the experience point system is designed to never have a grind to begin with. Weak characters feel weak for their first few combats, but exponentially level up and catch up to the rest of the party in just a few maps. While your strongest characters feel like they're "wasting the precious enemies" (there's only a set number of enemies per map. Killing an enemy for +5 exp on your strongest character is just not good tactics when the same enemy is +100 exp on your weakest character).
-------
Even Pokemon to a large extent does this well. You can defeat all the gyms without ever "Grinding". It gets harder and harder to advance, but the game has enough tactics (Swords Dance, X Attack, etc. etc.) to allow you to win even with 10-levels or 15-levels behind the computer.
I think "no grind" Pokemon playthroughs are pretty fun. It completely changes the game and kind of provides the player an entry point into the competitive scene (you need to use competitive meta strategies vs the CPU if you expect to win with 10-to-15 level disadvantages against them).
--------
EDIT: It should be noted that Fire Emblem / Pokemon does offer a grind, but only as a method of last resort. Children who are incapable of ever understanding advanced tactics like Swords Dance or Calm Mind, are given a "grind" which guarantee progress.
Similarly, Fire Emblem has "grind levels" that serve as a way to increase your character's strength. But a lot of "hardcore" Fire Emblem fans try to avoid the grind levels and beat the game "grind free".
From this perspective, "Grind" exists as a way to allow casual players to advance, while trying to stay balanced so that stronger players (on their 5th or 6th playthrough with deep understanding of the mechanics of the game) can play without that "emergency escape hatch" so to speak.