History Main / LevelGrinding

LevelScaling can invert the trope, with monsters that scale according to the character's level. This negates the need to grind, but introduces [[EmptyLevels its own set of problems]]. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', the ''{{SaGa}}'' series, and ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' are all examples of this.

* Because ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' was [[NintendoHard really difficult]] from the get go, grinding was the only way to survive the first real mission. This is partially because the game had the [=PCs=] starting out as weaklings who got offed in the first battle, and partially because the leveling system was ''radically'' different from virtually any RPG today (except the ''{{SaGa}}'' series, which may have grown directly from ''FFII''); characters gained HP by being damaged, attack skills by attacking with certain weapons, etc. As a result of its odd system, ''FFII'' has a very unusual grinding method: having your party members beat each other up to get HP bonuses. The game also had an [[{{Gamebreaker}} exploitable bug]] in which choosing to attack, canceling your selection, and repeating 100 times would register for leveling purposes as attacking 100 times and would level up the character's skill with the weapon in question. While some consider exploiting bugs to be cheating, the tedium of building up skill levels "honestly" causes most players to not care.

->'''Kyle''': Dude! Boars are only worth two experience points a piece. Do you know how many we would have to kill to get up 30 levels?\\

* In ''Film/GroundhogDay'', BillMurray's character Phil relives the same day over and over. To fill the time, he learns how to sculpt ice, throw playing cards into a hat, perform CPR, perform the Heimlich maneuver, play the piano, get the girl, be a decent human being, etc. He has none of these skills at the beginning of the story. The implication is that Phil spent the equivalent of decades reliving the same day, giving him the time to perfect these abilities.

* Stern Pinball's ''[[Pinball/TheAvengersStern The Avengers]]'' requires this to recruit some of the heroes. Arguably, the Black Widow is the worst, as you need to spell B-L-A-C-K-W-I-D-O-W repeatedly throughout the game.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' is no exception to the trope; not only do you have to level grind just to get access to higher level quests, but if you plan to take on side jobs like cooking or weaving, you have to level up your skills in those jobs as well just to be able to make better items.

* ''KingdomHearts'' almost begs you to Level Grind for some side-quests, like Sephiroth in both games or Terra and the Data Battles in Final Mix + : while the final boss can be defeated at level 50, most players will need to reach lv. 99 before being able to defeat these [[BonusBoss bonus bosses]].
** Then amped up by KHII's Forms. Suddenly you need to grind not only your level but also your Valour Form's levels. Or possibly your preferred summoned creature's.

-->'''Accelerator:''' Guess the secret to leveling up is to face a strong opponent, huh?

** And if you want to beat Nemesis, prepare to rip out the entire sphere grid and grind to replace all those piddling +1 sense (once you reach the stat cap for the point, you have to take slightly more drastic measures to increase them). Magic, on the other hand, is ''never'' capped, and if you're willing to put the effort into it, you can have a level 20 fire spell before you're finished the first quest.
* There is a bit in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' where players can force the game into a loop of fighting an unbounded number of low-level monsters, with a party member who can heal the entire group for free as much as he wants. As a result, simply putting a book on top of the 'A' button and going away for a few days will leave the player with four maximally-leveled characters quite early in the game.
** The problem with this is that you will have awful base stats, as you won't have any summons to have [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII Junctioned]] to your characters, which gives them all the good stat bonuses and spells. Doing this can actually make the game harder by the very end and make the bonus dungeons very difficult.
** A desert patch next to Doma Castle in the World of Ruin (SNES version) has an endgame grinding area where a bug causes experiece points gained are boosted to extraordinary amounts when you fight with a lower number of members, with a solo fighter gaining maximum exp and leveling up like mad from a single fight. As the result, a player may have a character/a duo taking turns grinding to level 99.
** Late-on in the World of Balance, once you have your (nearly) complete party and GlobalAirship, returning to the Haunted Forest from Sabin's Scenario grants a high chance of encountering a single, low level monster... which gives 3 AP quite reliably upon defeat, but is worth little to no EXP, meaning you can have a party who have learnt all of the available spells from Espers within a relatively short time, without becoming extremely over-levelled.
* ''FinalFantasyX'': not only do you have mundane level grinding (mixed with the complicated and often annoying sphere grid system), you also have level grinding for your blitzball team! And trust us, you'll need it.

* Semi-averted in ''EveOnline''. While your skills train passively at a rate determined by your attributes, there is significant grinding to be able to obtain enough cash, faction reputation, raw materials, and other such things to be able to purchase or build any items.

* Somewhat averted in Guild Wars 2. Though the level cap is much higher, experience comes at a pretty quick pace. Though you might have to do a bit of grinding to match the level of the main quest, you'll probably spend most of the game "side-kicking", or being in an area with a lower level than you're current level; you get bumped down to that level.

** Grinding for weapons and armor is not necessarily true. If a player was good enough, a skilled player could take down monsters with an inferior weapon, albeit at the cost of time. Some event(side) quests even require the player to fight without armor thus highlighting the game's focus on dodging rather than blocking.
** Averted with Monster Hunter Tri. Monster Hunter Tri's online multiplayer required you to grind "Guild Points" to unlock the more next "level" of quests and monsters.
*** Averted both ways in the same game. Since you used the same character for both single and multiplayer, a maxed out singleplayer character would find the early game multiplayer trivial since you had already grinded the same monsters in the singleplayer. But it also made the singleplayer trivial since a maxed out multiplayer character fought advanced forms of the same monsters as well as multiplayer exclusive monsters and unlocked equipment far better than anything in the singleplayer. Lesson to be learned? Jump straight into multiplayer, come back later and curb stomp your way through the singleplayer.

* In {{Minecraft}}, experience gained by killing mobs gives experience levels. Although these are pointless for the first part of the game, once the player obtains diamonds they can make Enchantment Tables. These allow weapons, armor, and tools to be enchanted with special abilities, such as reduced damage from use, extra damage when attacking monsters, protection from certain types of damage (explosions, fire, water, fall, etc.), and increased item drops. The problem is that experience gained from monsters is worth much less at higher levels, and dying makes the player lose almost all their experience. As a result, even with structures built specifically to spawn and damage mobs automatically, it can take days to get enough experience for the best enchantments. Made worse by the [[RandomNumberGod Random Number God]] deciding what enchantments are received, which can absorb large amounts of exp only to give a common, less useful enchantment or even ''ignore up to one quarter of the experience'' (but still take it) when calculating which enchantment will be given.
** There is at least one mod that partly rectifies this with a fairer enchantment system, and the latest versions of Minecraft reformed the enchantment system so that the enchantment level better matches its cost in experience points. This trope is further averted by the fact that experience is easier to come by now, with even mundane tasks like mining and smelting yielding experience points.

** On the first playthrough, anything two levels above you is actually pretty easy to kill. Anything four or more levels above you will murder you. On the second playthrough, anything ''one'' level above you will massacre and defile your corpse if you're not using proper tactics and weapons.

** ''[[DragonQuestIX IX]]'' takes this UpToEleven. Each character can reach Level 99 in each job. There are 16 jobs. For comparison, beating the final boss is feasible at Level 50. After completing the main game, Level 99 characters can restart at Level 1, but keep all of their skills. This is the only way to maximize all of the many in-game skills.

->'''Kyle''': Dude! Boars are only worth two experience points a piece. Do you know how many we would have to kill to get up 30 levels?
->'''Cartman''': Yes. 65,340,285, which should take us 7 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours and 20 minutes, giving ourselves 3 hours a night to sleep. What do you say, guys?

* This is basically what Accelerator was trying to do in ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' with the [[CloningBlues Sisters]]: Killing 20 thousand level 2 espers to advance to level 6. Sure is a loooong grind. Though the thing that actually got him within a hair's breadth of the Level 6 Shift was [[spoiler:[[NiceJobBreakingItHero getting punched in the face by Touma a few times]].]]

* This was necessary in the DeathGame that was ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline''. The minimum safety margin is to be at least ten levels higher than the floor you're on; so if you're on Floor 40, you need to be at least Level 50. By the time the Clearers hit the Level 75 Boss, most of them are around level 90.

Forget trying to figure out the right combination of elemental attacks; just walk around a certain area and kill monsters for a week, then pound away at the boss as if you were the Incredible Hulk.

In video game plots, only the hero ever has this advantage. It never occurs to townspeople to walk around their village and bash slimes until they're strong enough to face the pirate who's taken over.

* ''{{The 7th Saga}}'' for the SNES is known for the insane amount of time it takes to level up.
** The monsters are difficult, the experience is low, and if you level up too much, due to a [[GameBreakingBug bug]] the game is {{Unwinnable}}.
** The bug in question: The other potential [=PCs=] would level up as you do. At somewhere around level 45, the cleric type learns a spell that restores all his HP... and for no good reason, also all his MP. He's essentially immortal at that point. The other potential [=PCs=] would also sometimes steal your plot coupons, requiring you to duel to take them. If the Cleric ganked one late in the game, he'd be literally impossible to beat, since the AI isn't dumb enough to forget it has healing spells.
* ''GinormoSword''. You spend more time level grinding than you do fighting bosses, upgrading equipment, and moving around the map combined.
* In ''StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime'', the highest level your characters can reach is 255, so it goes without saying that much LevelGrinding is needed to achieve this level without the aid of a cheat disk. Luckily, for normal gaming purposes, there is no need to reach such a high level unless you plan on taking on [[BonusBoss Freya]].

** Woe to the poor player who started the DQ series with ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII DQVIII]]''. After many, many J[=RPGs=] where you basically just went from one dungeon to another with no stops in between, going directly to the first dungeon immediately in ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII DQVIII]]'' will result in death ''on the way there''. Grind, you poor bastards! '''GRIND!'''
*** And, of course, in doing so, you'll earn King Toede's stern disapproval for taking forever to get things done.

->'''Cartman''': "Yes. 65,340,285, which should take us 7 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours and 20 minutes, giving ourselves 3 hours a night to sleep. What do you say, guys?

[[quoteright:290:[[CtrlAltDel http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Grind1_587.jpg]]]]
->'''Kyle''': "Dude! Boars are only worth two experience points a piece. Do you know how many we would have to kill to get up 30 levels?"
->'''Cartman''': "Yes. 65,340,285, which should take us 7 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours and 20 minutes, giving ourselves 3 hours a night to sleep. What do you say, guys? "
-->--WesternAnimation/SouthPark, "Make Love Not [[WorldOfWarcraft Warcraft]]"