Poll of the Day > Think I'm starting to realize why I avoid playing RPGs

(+) Yeah! (+)

I don't like level grinding. I'm still playing Persona 5 Royal and my current level is like 6-7 lower than network average lol. I'm always dodging as many fights in Mementos instead of trying to gain additional experience. Hmm, I'm going to try to break out of this and seek out more battles along the way.

I am, however, very skilled in ranking up my Confidants

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For royal specifically if you can get instakill from ryuji's level 8 confidant you can grind without fighting. Basically you grind for like 1 hour once, and then you stay 7-10 levels above everything for the rest of the game without having to fight any random battles. Instakill is awesome. You just need to be 10 levels above the enemy to instakill them.


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YoukaiSlayer posted...

For royal specifically if you can get instakill from ryuji's level 8 confidant you can grind without fighting. Basically you grind for like 1 hour once, and then you stay 7-10 levels above everything for the rest of the game without having to fight any random battles. Instakill is awesome. You just need to be 10 levels above the enemy to instakill them.

Oh yeah, I've had that for a while!

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http://vgperson.com/games/lieat.htm
Pretty much no grinding, these are very short games. Even if you want to grind, you will be seeing the end within an hour.
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RCtheWSBC posted...

I don't like level grinding. I'm still playing Persona 5 Royal and my current level is like 6-7 lower than network average lol. I'm always dodging as many fights in Mementos instead of trying to gain additional experience. Hmm, I'm going to try to break out of this and seek out more battles along the way.

I am, however, very skilled in ranking up my Confidants

What difficulty are you playing on?

CaptainStrong posted...

What difficulty are you playing on?

Easy, lol. I'm a big RPG scrub.

I'll add that I'm not stonewalled by the game or anything (just finished the Hawaii trip and am prepping for the next palace), and I do feel that it's fairly ramped up in difficulty throughout the playthrough. I haven't died in a fight yet.

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I also dislike grinding. Not all RPGs are grindy. Just look for ones that aren't.

Suikoden series from the very beginning was awesome for being anti-grind. You level up every 1000 xp and the xp you get varies HEAVILY based on the level of the enemy compared to you, down to a min of just 5 xp and a max of many thousands (and thus many level ups, just from one fight). You can be like level 50, put in a new person who's level 10 in the back row, and within a few battles, he'll be like within 5 levels of the people you used all along.

Xenoblade Chronicles 1 had the opposite problem of grind -- doing side content to much extent or exploring and fighting a lot meant a lot of people got overleveled stupidly easily. It was such a "happy problem" that they added an "expert mode" to the Definitive Edition to hold back sidequest xp and let you manually choose to apply it, in order to keep levels where they should be (by withholding it).

Been playing Code Vein lately, and levels in that do very little compared to equipment and stats, so you can go through the game without level grinding at all (in fact since your "gifts" -- ie, skills -- are mastered quicker the lower level you are compared to enemies, it's actually more beneficial to not level up too much).

Just some examples. Plenty of RPGs w/o grinding.

i level grind while listening to podcasts or music

i hate the open world "go from x to y" shenanigans (looking at you AC), that feels like a complete waste of time even when i'm listening to a podcast while doing it

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I dont mind some grinding but as an adult I ain't got no time for that really. Been playing xenoblade and that shits gonna end up taking me like 3 months to finish and there isn't even that much grinding in it

Don't grind then - beat the game at lowest possible level

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I actually don't mind grinding at all. I don't mind repetition like that, and I enjoy seeing gradual improvement in my character. Very often I've put over a hundred hours into an RPG before I'm anywhere near the end.

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My in-game timer says I've hit 100 hours, but I've fallen asleep with this game running more than once >_>

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Grinding is really weird for me. Sometimes I love grinding and can do it for hours and hours straight and sometimes I hate it. I think theres a lot of factors that contribute. At it's best for me I'm making minor optimizations to my grinding strategy every few minutes. You know like, on this encounter set up I can have these two characters attack the earth elemental and this character burn 5 mp to hit everyone and the last character hits the other target with a 6 mp fire move and that'll win the encounter without taking any damage. But then I level up a few times and I don't have to use the 6 mp fire move, I can find a different strategy allowing me to only use 3 mp for that character and now my characters speed is high enough that I have to change it up again.

All those micro adjustments for efficiency along with satisfying character growth can make it a lot of fun but it also needs to be simple enough that even if I make the wrong move, it doesn't have any real consequence aside from slightly slower xp gain or having to go heal slightly more often. If it requires too much thought than it isn't nearly as fun.

On the other side though, theres a bunch of minor annoyances that can add up. Like a long battle transition or a delay in the menu somewhere, or an overly long pause on the victory screen. Little things that mean virtually nothing when you are playing through story content but add up quickly when you are grinding. Really any sort of time waster in battles gets really frustrating. I remember in the trails in the sky the grid system makes grinding super annoying for me.

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Sometimes I love grinding and can do it for hours and hours straight

that's how you know the game is good

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Grinding is really weird for me. Sometimes I love grinding and can do it for hours and hours straight and sometimes I hate it. I think theres a lot of factors that contribute. At it's best for me I'm making minor optimizations to my grinding strategy every few minutes. You know like, on this encounter set up I can have these two characters attack the earth elemental and this character burn 5 mp to hit everyone and the last character hits the other target with a 6 mp fire move and that'll win the encounter without taking any damage. But then I level up a few times and I don't have to use the 6 mp fire move, I can find a different strategy allowing me to only use 3 mp for that character and now my characters speed is high enough that I have to change it up again.

All those micro adjustments for efficiency along with satisfying character growth can make it a lot of fun but it also needs to be simple enough that even if I make the wrong move, it doesn't have any real consequence aside from slightly slower xp gain or having to go heal slightly more often. If it requires too much thought than it isn't nearly as fun.

On the other side though, theres a bunch of minor annoyances that can add up. Like a long battle transition or a delay in the menu somewhere, or an overly long pause on the victory screen. Little things that mean virtually nothing when you are playing through story content but add up quickly when you are grinding. Really any sort of time waster in battles gets really frustrating. I remember in the trails in the sky the grid system makes grinding super annoying for me.

That reminds me of the Vesperia scenes you can't skip because they were technically within a battle. So fucking annoying.
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I don't mind grinding in action RPGs with fun combat. In turn-based RPGs, I'm not above using OP equipment and strategies to break the game. In Persona 5 Royal in particular, I played on Hard, but I abused SP Adhesives and the free DLC Personas to steamroll the game

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I find grinding to be a soothing exercise, depending on the game.

I can play Disgaea for hours and accomplish nothing in terms of story, but still feel happy.

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I play RPGs but not like I did a few years ago. After playing, I get bored with them unless the story line is really good and keeps me interested.

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i feel like most jrpgs these days are balanced around not grinding, with a slightly easier experience if you do

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Most modern RPGs don't need grinding.

Yeah, I dont really like grinding. Maybe Ill try watching a movie or smoke some pot while doing that next time.

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I actually dont mind level grinding. My issues with RPGs is I just dont have time, theres just sooo much to explore in most of these games now its way too daunting. Thinking of AC odyssey/origins, fallout, andromeda, Witcher. Even Skyrim. Sooo much shit to explore

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Meanwhile, here I am playing Disgaea, which is basically nothing but grinding >.>

streamofthesky posted...

Xenoblade Chronicles 1 had the opposite problem of grind -- doing side content to much extent or exploring and fighting a lot meant a lot of people got overleveled stupidly easily. It was such a "happy problem" that they added an "expert mode" to the Definitive Edition to hold back sidequest xp and let you manually choose to apply it, in order to keep levels where they should be (by withholding it).

Eh, Xenoblade still has its fair share of grinding, just not for levels. Affinity takes some serious effort to level up, and if you want to fully deck your characters out in BiS gear and gems, there's definitely some grinding in there. Fortunately, grinding for drops is made a lot easier by the fact that drops are rolled as you open a chest, dropped chests don't despawn if you reload a save from right before opening it, and the enemies that drop them do respawn (albeit at a sub-100% rate). It makes for some very efficient save scumming, since you can save before opening the chest, reload if you don't get the desired item, then open two chests on the second attempt (and so on).

Now, none of that is actually necessary unless you're going after optional superbosses (and even then, it's far from mandatory, aside from being able to resist the automatic status effect the ultimate superboss applies on being hit (instant death)), but it's there for anyone that wants to delve into it.

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adjl posted...

Meanwhile, here I am playing Disgaea, which is basically nothing but grinding >.>

Eh, Xenoblade still has its fair share of grinding, just not for levels. Affinity takes some serious effort to level up, and if you want to fully deck your characters out in BiS gear and gems, there's definitely some grinding in there. Fortunately, grinding for drops is made a lot easier by the fact that drops are rolled as you open a chest, dropped chests don't despawn if you reload a save from right before opening it, and the enemies that drop them do respawn (albeit at a sub-100% rate). It makes for some very efficient save scumming, since you can save before opening the chest, reload if you don't get the desired item, then open two chests on the second attempt (and so on).

Now, none of that is actually necessary unless you're going after optional superbosses (and even then, it's far from mandatory, aside from being able to resist the automatic status effect the ultimate superboss applies on being hit (instant death)), but it's there for anyone that wants to delve into it.

Well yeah. There's still "grindy" stuff you can do to optimize.
But it's not even for levels and it's totally unnecessary.
Optional grinding for optimization is way different than needing to do it just to keep up w/ the main story battles, and I don't see why it's a bother to anyone. Caters to the completionists and people who *like* grinding, without saddling other people w/ monotony.
And affinity grinding isn't that bad (between party members; area affinity is basically "do a crap load of side quests and is). Just change up your teams so everyone's fighting together at some points, and when you talk to NPCs to receive / turn in side quests, make your lead character and other two pairings w/ low affinity to get some quick and easy gains just from the interaction. You might not max people out, but getting them up a few stages of affinity is quite easy, and all that's really needed.

Slow and steady wins the race, yeah?

Maybe I'll give fucking Pokmon another shot after finishing this

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Suikoden had one of the best leveling system imho.

When you entered a new area, the monsters usually gave enough exp that within a few battles your characters levels would have increased enough for you to catch up.

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streamofthesky posted...

Caters to the completionists and people who *like* grinding, without saddling other people w/ monotony.

Yep. It was pretty much ideal in that regard.

streamofthesky posted...

And affinity grinding isn't that bad (between party members; area affinity is basically "do a crap load of side quests and is). Just change up your teams so everyone's fighting together at some points, and when you talk to NPCs to receive / turn in side quests, make your lead character and other two pairings w/ low affinity to get some quick and easy gains just from the interaction. You might not max people out, but getting them up a few stages of affinity is quite easy, and all that's really needed.

You can manage it that way, but I've never been a huge fan of the whole "rotate people through your party to distribute resources evenly" thing, and as such, I spent most of the game with just Shulk/Reyn/Sharla before I started experimenting with other combinations for min/maxing purposes (also subbing Melia in for Shulk periodically because she was just fun), and by late game I did still have quite a bit of affinity grinding to do to get everyone maxed out for optimized chain attacks/gem crafting and to see Heart to Hearts. It went fairly quickly (there's a unique enemy that puts people to sleep if they attack him, letting the AI members attack him and waking them up builds affinity pretty efficiently), but it was a bit of a pain.

Now, it was nothing compared to grinding Blade affinity in Xenoblade 2. That was awful. My understanding is that later updates have improved it so it doesn't involve hours upon hours of buying and using vendor items, but when I did it, I was not a fan.

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RCtheWSBC posted...

Slow and steady wins the race, yeah?

Maybe I'll give fucking Pokmon another shot after finishing this

The levelling/stats system in Pokemon is so fucking shit

I get that it's for kids and more about collecting shit but I can't think of an RPG that feels less engaging from a numbers standpoint

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JRPGs are one of my favorite genres. I hate grinding. But I like doing side quests and exploring, so I find I usually unintentionally end up grinding while doing the things that more appeal to me. I'm almost always way over leveled for the final boss. Especially in modern RPGs where I usually do most or all side quests prior to beating the game.

adjl posted...

Yep. It was pretty much ideal in that regard.

You can manage it that way, but I've never been a huge fan of the whole "rotate people through your party to distribute resources evenly" thing, and as such, I spent most of the game with just Shulk/Reyn/Sharla before I started experimenting with other combinations for min/maxing purposes (also subbing Melia in for Shulk periodically because she was just fun),

Personal preference. I liked trying out different teams and playing each character so I knew how they worked and what arts i should give them and enhance.

and by late game I did still have quite a bit of affinity grinding to do to get everyone maxed out for optimized chain attacks/gem crafting and to see Heart to Hearts. It went fairly quickly (there's a unique enemy that puts people to sleep if they attack him, letting the AI members attack him and waking them up builds affinity pretty efficiently), but it was a bit of a pain.

Well yeah, but you don't need to do any of that. And Stormy Belagon does indeed make affinity grinding to max a lot faster/easier late game.

Now, it was nothing compared to grinding Blade affinity in Xenoblade 2. That was awful. My understanding is that later updates have improved it so it doesn't involve hours upon hours of buying and using vendor items, but when I did it, I was not a fan.

I don't think updates improved it. The DLC gave a ton of bonus legendary cores and 10 of a consumable item that basically maxed out affinity of any blades assigned to that character instantly, that's about it, and you have to pay extra for that.
And Xenoblade 2 was grindy in many ways. Not just blade affinity, but the merc missions in general (sort of related, but sort of not), and farming for the blades to unlock as well. Xenoblade 2 was one of the grindiest games I've ever played, like the polar opposite of XC1, and I strongly don't recommend it to anyone put off by grinding.

I haven't played Royal, but in Persona 5 normal levels became a non-issue once you can enter mementos during a flu day.

The reaper can be inflicted with flu, and after 3 turns it auto dies and gives a ton of exp.

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Final Fantasy2389 posted...

I haven't played Royal, but in Persona 5 normal levels became a non-issue once you can enter mementos during a flu day.

The reaper can be inflicted with flu, and after 3 turns it auto dies and gives a ton of exp.

Unfortunately they made the Reaper immune to that in Royal. Now you gotta beat him normally.

CaptainStrong posted...

Unfortunately they made the Reaper immune to that in Royal. Now you gotta beat him normally.

Ahh, that's a silly change.
I get it. But it's silly.

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I actually like grinding, it is like a long car drive on a empty highway, or sitting and listening to an album you have listened to over a dozen times. It's basically a way to just get lost in your thoughts and just think about how life is going and the challenges you will meet in the future.

But then again my first RPG was Final Fantasy, and my second was Dragon Quest/Warrior so I am used to spending over half your game time grinding.

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streamofthesky posted...

I don't think updates improved it. The DLC gave a ton of bonus legendary cores and 10 of a consumable item that basically maxed out affinity of any blades assigned to that character instantly, that's about it, and you have to pay extra for that.

I believe there's some repeatable sidequest you can do for an item that gives a buttload of affinity, which was added as part of a free update. I could be wrong, though. The DLC stuff also helps, but I consider that a bonus, since most will be getting the season pass for Torna and the Challenge Arena and not the extra items.

streamofthesky posted...

merc missions in general

In general, I was okay with merc missions, with the very notable exception of trying to max out Ursula. She should really have been an automatic early-game blade, possibly even introduced as a way of introducing merc missions, since that would allow her to be gradually maxed out over the course of the game. She was one of the last blades I got, though, so there was a ton of waiting involved in completing her, which was miserable.

streamofthesky posted...

and farming for the blades to unlock as well.

Honestly, I expected that to be much worse than it actually was. Once I got late enough in the game to make filling out the roster a reasonable goal, it took very little time (like <30 minutes) to farm a full stack of Legendary Cores, and once I had them I only needed ~55 to get everyone. The process of opening them all sucked (I was very happy for the update that allowed the cinematic to be skipped), but the actual grind wasn't too bad.

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this is the reason I prefer the "easy" dificulty over the "normal" in Darkest Dungeon. The enemies dont actually become easier to beat, you just have to grind out less for upgrading your town.

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