Level Grinding: Is It Worth It?

[Cracka Jack]

This is about something that comes up in just about every RPG, and even in some other games as well. For when you come up against a boss who, no matter how well you strategize against him, kicks your ass every time until your party is stronger. For when you can easily handle enemies in one area, but get destroyed by those in the next. This is when the game forces you to do something drastic, something known as level grinding. It's usually when you fight enemies you know are much weaker than yourself, over and over for an extended period of time, to the point that the game isn't really fun anymore, just to level up and kill some bigger enemies.

I love RPG's, but this is something they do oh-so-often that I simply hate. Forcing me to kill some lower leveled baddies just raise my stats, all the while being bored to sleep, is not my idea of a good time. I'm sure some people enjoy it, but I'm not one of them. Some games, thankfully, do a good job of avoiding this, usually by having a gradual slope of difficulty that fits right in with how your characters should be progressing through the game. One game I felt did this extremely well is Final Fantasy VII. I never felt like I needed to go out of my way to get more powerful and able to fight my enemies, it just felt like I was already there, and strategy was what mattered.

Level grinding has been a big part of RPG's for as long as I've been playing them, but I feel it should be done away with in some capacity. What do you think?

Does level grinding annoy you? If so, what would you propose developers do differently in their games?

 

[Dr. Stinger A. Zoidberg]

Level grinding has become something that I've gotten quite used to over the years when playing Pokemon. Up until the most recent generation, if you couldn't beat someone, you would have to go into the wild grass or face a trainer. Most of the time, they had lower leveled Pokemon than you. From these battles you'd get minimal experience and it would piss you off. You would sit there playing the game for a while just trying to level up your Pokemon to a high-enough level. In the most recent generation though, they've done so many things to make it easier to level up. They've allowed you to get multiple "EXP Shares" and "Lucky Eggs." EXP Shares allow Pokemon not in battle to still gain experience, and Lucky Eggs allow the Pokemon who wins the battle to get extra experience. But a Pokemon by the name of "Audino" was introduced in the latest generation. When you beat an Audino, you would get tons of experience. Usually more than you would get from just beating a regular trainer. Audinos are very easy to run in to, and make the leveling up portion of the game so much easier.

 

[Bioshock Infinite]

To be honest I love level grinding. Its one of my favorite things to do in rpgs. I can't really remember an rpg where I didn't grind except maybe Final Fantasy IX (besides the part where you prepare to take on Ozma). I noticed that you said you didn't really feel the need to grind in FFVII, but I remember grinding anyways. I always would master a bunch of all materia to sell them at shops for high prices. In fact I remember grinding alot to master every kind of materia to get master magic materia and master summon materia. Especially 2x cut materia so all of my party members can have 4x cut materia. Now that I think about I don't know if all that grinding was necessary to progress through the story I'm pretty sure I did all that for the pure joy of grinding my favorite video game and to beat Emerald and Ruby weapon of course. Bottom line, if an rpg has good gameplay I love level grinding.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Level grinding does get old sometimes. Having to throw away two whole hours to level up enough to either be powerful enough to clear the next temple or even as something to do while gathering up money for new armor. It does need to be taken out, much like random encounters which also got phased out of the genre. In my video game Division Blade I made it to where certain characters earn some level ups along the way automatically during various points in the game due to most people not having the patience to grind levels for 12 heroes, and the end game events are nearly impossible if you aren't maxed out in levels.

 

[Fizzy]

While I very much enjoy level grinding and the repetitiveness that comes with it, I agree some games overdo it. Grinding is fun when you only need to do a few levels at a time. The Final Fantasy Series is guilty of both the repetitive nature and the fun nature. In a game like Final Fantasy 3 for the DS, it is overdone quite a bit where you sometimes must grind out ten levels at a time to complete a certain part of a game. An example of a good grinding system would be Final Fantasy 4 on the PSP. You only need around three levels between dungeons and it takes it to the brink of being boring but does not cross the boundary.

Games such as Maplestory perfect the grinding system. There is a plethora of monsters that are perfectly suitable to grind on at every level and there are other ways to level outside of grinding. That I feel, is the way to perfect the system. Give the game multiple areas with many different monsters that requires different tactics to kill each type. This way, it isn't the same old thing every time and it actually requires some skill and attention to kill each different monster. That is much better than just going to hack and slash the same enemy over and over.

Overall, I have no qualms with grinding. I feel awesome when I level up and watch my attributes grow and my characters getting new skills. I do feel however, that some games overdue the whole grinding thing and it can be easily reconciled by making monsters give more experience per kill, or setting up multiple areas with many different types of monsters to grind on. A good battle system helps as well.

 

[Hardcore Heathen]

I don't really play any of the RPGs that you all talk about but I understand what your all talking about with my experience (some say too much) at pokemon. All you simply had to do was get to lvl 10 before u entered the city with the gym in (some pokemons game require change to this tactic) and that's near enough all the grinding you do because you are always 3-4 levels above the gym leaders pokemon. It sounds like if I times that by 20 I would only start getting close to the grinding you all do lol (don't try that tactic on gold silver or crystal if you want to beat guy at mount silver. You get beaten pretty easily)

 

[Notorious718]

Level grinding was a concept I never really picked up on until Pokemon Black and White came out. Before that, I always figured that if my Pokemon party were at a certain level by the time I reached some point in the game by fighting all the trainers up to that point and avoiding wild Pokemon battles, then I was okay. I do agree that level grinding can be repetitive in some cases and I do think Pokemon games are especially guilty of this at times when the only way to gain levels when you can't rematch trainers is to train in the wild. Final Fantasy games have given players the benefit of taking side quests in order to gain additional levels while still keeping it interesting by adding an objective or optional boss fight. It's something that I usually take advantage of when I feel my characters just aren't up to par with the enemies within the main storyline. And if I overdo it (which I've done), then it makes it easier for me.

That said, I do think level grinding can sometimes take away from the enjoyment of a game by taking away the challenge. Of course, that's not always the case as one could argue that being too weak to take on a boss and continuously losing is frustrating itself. Ever since I beat Pokemon White, which I admit was the first Pokemon game I've done level grinding on, I've started a new game on Black without level grinding and focusing all my training by beating other Pokemon trainers instead of wild Pokemon. Others might disagree but so far I've found playing the game without level grinding and with underleveled Pokemon to be both challenging and enjoyable. It's a good way to test myself.