What is a good multiplayer game that is both (almost) endlessly replayable AND with less grinding as possible?
There is a game i would recommend called Mechabellum. It’s a mecha auto battler where you can’t really move units between rounds. You build up a bug army trying to constantly counter your opponent with the 20ish available units.
SpiderHeck!
honestly check out archipelago, it’s a framework that allows you to play a lot of different randomized games with your friends. you can play synchronously or asynchronously, and if you’re handy with code, you can even add any game you want to it
appendix
“what’s a randomizer?” a randomizer is a method of scrambling the items in a video game, while keeping it solvable, to be able to re-experience the same game with a fresh sense of progression. an easy game to think about this with is something like metroid or zelda. you need powerups to unlock certain parts of the game, but what if you could find those powerups anywhere you found a missile expansion or a chest? that’s what a randomizer is
“how does that work with multiple people?” now imagine that, between you and your friend’s randomized games, the items for both games could end up in either game. if we use the metroid/zelda idea from earlier, metroid might have zelda’s boomerang, while zelda might have metroid’s morph ball. the logic to ensure the games are solvable is still there, but you might be stuck waiting until your friend finds your key item. this is called “being in burger king” or 'being bk’d"
other vocab
check: any spot you can collect an item in a randomizer (think all collectibles and powerups in metroid, for example)
burger king: when you have run out of checks of your own and are waiting for someone else to send you a critical item you need to make any meaningful progress again. named after the first multiworld randomizer, where someone was stuck for so long, they were able to go to burger king for six hours and return only to still be in the same situation
Thanks, that’s interesting
Unreal Tournament 99.
To this flavor: splitgate
I’ve spent countless hours in the 2004 version
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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.Checks out
lichess good
What do you want? Lots of games fit that description.
In some shooters, you basically only grind for cosmetics, like Overwatch, Marvel Rivals or Counter-Strike. Dota 2 is a Moba and also only has cosmetic unlocks, I think.
Maybe Minecraft or Terraria? I don’t think you really grind in these games, but you do very similar stuff all the time.
I consider digging hours for diamond as a form of grinding, and you have to get it for crafting advanced stuff. I could play creative mode, but at that point it’s more like a 3d Paint than a game
Vintage story has grind also but it makes it way more interesting and satisfying.
These are the features that I want to avoid: grinding for resources, cosmetics, and anything that require repetitive and/or mindless action. Any genre is good, the question is more like a test to see if a game like this can exist
No cosmetics pretty much disqualifies almost every game, because all of them have it, even old games.
In my comment before, I probably wouldn’t describe cosmetics as a grind. You just unlock stuff on the side, as a bonus, since most of it is random. It’s not like you’re going to play a thousand games of Ursa in Dota to unlock some rare skin.
A bit of cosmetics on the side is ok. What I want to avoid is cosmetics like in Sea of Thieves, where the main reason to gather resources and completing mission is unlocking them
The obvious answers are the games we endlessly replayed historically: Mario Kart, Goldeneye (VS mode), Halo (VS), Smash Bros.
If you specifically want ones on PC, I’d suggest Starcraft, Age of Empires, and probably Counter Strike (I wasn’t into that one, but it had a huge following).
Many board games fit the bill as well. Codenames (physical or online at horsepaste.com) comes to mind, and another commenter also mentioned chess.
Basically any games that were made before endlessly grinding became a thing (yep, that’s only been a thing for a decade or two).
Old School RuneScape.
Some people will say it is grindy, but those people are just weak minded.
People who imply rs has grind in it disgust me
In all honesty, Rainbow Six: Siege is as ungrindy as any game could be, and it is as endlessly replayable as there are combinations of all the active players. The whole game is about finding ways to use the deep sandbox to outsmart your opponent, utilizing yours and your teammates abilities in unique combinations and it’s wonderful
Titanfall 2
Tetris effect connected.
It made game of the year for a reason.
I think I’ve sunk 200 hours into tetris this year alone, I have it on like 4 systems including my SP handheld clone
Edit: my phrasing here was unclear, there effect connected has not been ported to portmaster or the ports collection, I use Tetris RR, a custom patched og GB tetris to have all the same amenities (hold, hard drop) as modern tetris.
If you like tetris and want tetris RR, find a GB tetris ROM and patch it yourself
A link to the Romhack (for the mods, this is a link to the patch, not the rom, i know VL has pirate content but this aint it, it does however have a link to their archive, where the rom does exist) https://vimm.net/romhacking/hacks/5813
Deep Rock Galactic!
I’ve played it, but it has become a bit of a grind. The only reason for doing mission has become unlocking stuff
I had issues with grind as well since the unlocks system required every single person to start at the same time and not play alone, as everyone had the same missions.
I play FF XIV online. There’s as much or as little grinding as you want there to be. I’m in a really chill social FC.
Can you advance in the game without any grinding?
Yes, they give you the gear you need to make it each step of the way through the story.
Crafting and gathering are optional. Relic weapons are optional.
There are some players who like to role play. There are casuals, hardcore, and everything in between.
I’m obsessively playing guild wars 2 at the moment, and it is arguably similar, in that you don’t absolutely have to grind to enjoy the game. You can get a character to top level very quickly (a few days), and you can gear them up to play a lot of the end game content fairly quickly (exotic gear is about 5% weaker than the best gear in the game and significantly cheaper and easier to get. You don’t have to craft or collect resources to play and have a good time.
Does Factorio count? It’s a good game, you can play multiplayer, the factory can always grow (at least until your hardware, or in the extreme the software, can no longer handle it) and if you’re grinding for something rather than automating it, you’re doing it wrong.
I guess it counts because you are not grinding, the factories are grinding for you. The problem is that it’s a niche game and not many of my friends would play it
