Quote Originally Posted by James24 View Post
I think that Nintendo made a big mistake by having those arbitrary secrets in their first NES Zelda game. And it seems to me like they learned from that mistake and never repeated it again in any future Zelda games. But even then, there are mitigating circumstances. First, the NES quests aren't kaizo mode so the player is free to explore in comfort. In your game, not only do I have hordes of very powerful enemies to deal with but I also have search for your secrets. Second, in the original Zelda game, secrets were confined to bombs, candles and whistles. And you had a fixed size of overworld. But in Zelda Classic, there is no restriction on the item that can be used to trigger a secret and the overworld can theoretically be of infinite size.
This was pretty standard, back in the day. Most games were loaded with secrets--this is how they endured. They forced the player to repeatedly play the game, until they mastered it, finding all of the hidden goodies.

Think about all the times you've played quests. Don't you hate getting stuck and then having to search for the answer online or ask the creator of the quest? The best quests I've played can be played without any player/developer interaction. There should not even be a help section in the forums - that's how good they are!

The other thing about grinding is that it ruins the difficulty balance of your game. If someone grinds too long then they can artificially make your dungeon much, much easier than you had intended. Similarly, if someone doesn't grind then they'll be playing a dungeon much harder than you had intended. I think that before you enter a dungeon there should be a "standard" set of equipment. Items that you've tested the dungeon with and know that this is the game balance that you had intended the player to play on.
I don't see anything wrong with allowing the player to set their own pace. This is often an ideal solution, IMO: Let people who want to challenge themselves, do that.

This is why I don't mind having absurdly OP items, and absurdly OP enemies. They're ultimately optional.