In last week’s Choose My Adventure, MOP’s Chris penned a perfect paragraph summing up the paradox of MMORPGs – it doesn’t even matter what game he was talking about.

“And yet I started to get the sensation that the progression slope was turning upwards into a much steeper curve, as if I were nearing the point of maximum tension between my movement through the game’s story (such as it is) and my equipment. Anyone who has played survivalboxes or RPGs or even certain MMOs knows what I mean: that uncomfortable realization that there is a lot more progress to be made but getting there will turn into a part-time job.”

Many of us landed in the MMORPG genre precisely because it wasn’t quick and easy. Persistent worlds reward long-term thinking and strategy and dedication. But they also demand time – a lot of time. And only the best demand that time without making you feel as Chris feels: as if the game had taken on an outsized and undeserved role in your life.

For this week’s Massively Overthinking, I want to talk about MMOs that take up a lot of our time and what we get from them in exchange. Which MMORPGs navigate this problem best? How do you, personally, stop MMOs from feeling like – or becoming – a part-time job?

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): I think the trick here, or at least what’s always worked best for me, is finding those MMORPGs that reward time but don’t require that time be played time. Anything with offline skilling, harvesting, crafting, leveling, and so forth is rewarding your skill and effort while still respecting your time. Anything with heavily account-wide offerings, likewise. Everything you’ve put in keeps mattering no matter how often or scattered your play might be, no matter how many characters that playtime spans.

This is why Star Wars Galaxies – which is incredibly time-intensive! – always stays in my back pocket. For every hour I put in, I’m often getting days back in other ways because I’m not physically clicking to harvest and manufacture every little last thing. Same with MMOs like City of Heroes, Guild Wars 2, and Lord of the Rings Online that at least from my perspective heavily weight the midgame and midgame-esque play, or at least don’t over-emphasize a tedious endgame. There’s a reason these MMOs stay on my PC.

Games that are primarily grind, force you to rely on others for every bit of content, embrace gates and powercreep, or require you to log in daily for barely disguised chorework usually fail to meet that burden, and so they make you feel as if you must keep swimming or drown. We have real life for that. No thank you!

Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch): With my getting into Throne and Liberty, I’m very paranoid about this. It happened to me during my days in FFXIV, and it also happened when I was deep into Black Desert Online. The same stuff happened when I got into all of those gacha games over the summer. I do have a tendency to get into that “work grind” when it comes to MMOs. It’s also one of the main reasons I couldn’t get into Lost Ark as much as I wanted. Lost Ark is great and all, but when I watch a guide video and most of it consists of “get x done by Monday, y by Wednesday, and z by Saturday so you’re on track on efficient progress,” that’s a red flag for me. I’m soooo over being efficient in my video games. I just want to stop and AFK somewhere, yenno?

For Throne of Liberty, my biggest strategy is to take more breaks and be very mindful with my activities. When I log on, that’s because I’m in the mood to actually play the darn game rather than “oh I need to get on because my dungeon currency is at cap and I need to spend it or I won’t be able to maximize on my weekly dungeon token allowance or some poop like that.” Efficiency is on the bottom of my list this time around.

I’m also going to take more frequent breaks. I just hit 50 on Throne and Liberty, and I’m taking 3-4 day break from playing because I need to digest all the systems, and I want a solid plan for my endgame activities.

Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): The MMORPGs that feel like they navigate the feeling I describe the best are Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Elite: Dangerous, and especially Lord of the Rings Online.

ESO’s smaller contained stories and side quests (I’m actively ignoring the base game’s whole deal) as well as its level scaling basically let me focus more on adventuring instead of levels or earning points. But even that illusion wavers when I’m grouped up with those who have no-lifed this game.

FFXIV’s systems are the usual time-locked progression trinkets (tomes, weekly raid gear gets, etc.), but I also have the other side activities of my choice like leveling alt jobs or clearing other side stories to keep me busy when I feel like turning on that grindset mindset. Elite also has time gates but those are mostly about long-tail sandbox goals, so I’m given leave to pursue any number of them at my own speed.

LOTRO, meanwhile, manages to make itself all about the measured pace of a journey across a wider world and not about some blitz to an endgame grind. One can argue that trek is a grind in and of itself, but the vibes of LOTRO kind of tamp down that line of thinking more often than not.

As for what I do in order to avoid a game turning into a part-time job? I just… stop playing. I’ve cut my teeth on Final Fantasy XI and know what it’s like to lose hours and hours just to gain a level or two or one piece of artifact gear. It’s a foundational part of my affection through this genre. But if I’m going to live in a world, I’m going to do it on my own terms and at my overall own pace. Again, Elite has pretty much shown me how to approach most sandbox games nowadays, so a lot of them have a very specific mental hurdle to clear, whether fairly or not.

Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I think the key to this is “perspective.” MMOs are, like all hobbies, a temporary (yet beneficial) distraction. We’re not investing our time into these because they’ll pave the way for retirement or assist with our conquest of the real world. Always keeping MMOs in perspective as games, as hobbies is healthy. We should never be beholden or answer to a hobby, and they really shouldn’t dictate our schedules. It’s OK to say “no” to them when they try to tempt us to cross that line, especially because it really won’t matter in the long run. Or, let’s be honest, in the short run.

Sam Kash (@thesamkash): Overall I typically felt like Guild Wars 2 did a good job with rewarding me for my time, at least as far as the main PvE content went. With PvP, it was usually kind of swingy and annoying. And nothing in the game was more annoying than gaining the skyscale.

Way way back, I thought Star Wars The Old Republic did a good job, but I haven’t played that seriously in a decade.

I guess in small spurts, even Harry Potter Magic Awakened did well. I certainly wouldn’t have played as long as this otherwise. Overall, I spent a good chunk of time, but I think since I would do it in bite-sized parts, it never felt so onerous.

Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!