10 Video Games Ruined By Excessive Grinding
3. Battlefield 4
Pretty much every online FPS these days has some sort of ranked progression system, but in Battlefield 4 the time investment required to reach the game's max level of 140 is ridiculous.
Even while taking advantage of generous XP boosts, you can expect to invest anywhere from 500-700 hours reaching 140, given the enormous caverns of XP between levels. Considering that you unlock gun attachments as you level up, this is blatant carrot-and-stick game design.
In turn, it encourages players to basically play the same "meat grinder"-style maps - namely the tight, chaotic Operation Metro and Operation Locker - ad nauseum in the hope of maximising their XP gain.
After a while you have to stop and consider whether you're actually having fun or just mindlessly pressing the feeder button for another pellet.
As tight as the core gunplay is, the progression system is designed to funnel you into one particularly repetitive style of play and keep you there.