History Main / LevelGrinding

* Best example of this come from {{MMORPG}}s originating from Korea, notorious for having an atrocious leveling pace. Prime examples are ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' and ''VideoGame/{{Lineage 2}}'', which has a leveling pace so bad and arduous that there are many private servers that give players ''thirty-two times'' as much experience, money, and loot as the official game yet still contain playtimes roughly equivalent to ''WorldOfWarcraft''. Add the fact that dying will result in XP loss that can de-level you quickly, even when another player kills you. Such games give rise to the euphemism ''Korean flavour'' MMORPG, even when the game isn't from Korea. Examples include :

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', the boys get sick of being killed over and over by a griefer on ''WorldOfWarcraft.'' So they kill boars for a few weeks straight to level up enough to at least be a match for him. It's worth noting that this strategy is impossible in the actual game, as monsters stop giving experience points entirely once the gap between the player's and monster's levels reach a certain point.

* ''{{Willow}}'' for the NES requires you to be at least level 13 to uncurse Fin Raziel so she can upgrade your wand into the [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement Wand of Plot Advancement]].

* Any E-4 in the Army will tell you how this trope fits correspondence courses. You might only get one promotion point for every five hours of classes, but it maxes out at 78 points or roughly 390 hours of classes. And trust us, when you need 798 points just to get promoted, every point counts.

* GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas lets you level up several skills, such as sprinting, biking, and individual weapons, by repeatedly using them. Maxing them out offers various benefits, such as [[GunsAkimbo dual-wielding pistols and SMGs]].

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' takes it a bit further; one can grind skills as their patience allows. Every skill can be increased this way, some easier than others. Skills that require targets can be helped along by summoning monsters to use as target practice. Certain skills, like Destruction and Restoration advance so slowly that unless you grind them regularly they'll remain permanently low. Others, like Alchemy, level so quickly this way that if linked to the player's level results in many many EmptyLevels and can actually weaken the player in comparison to the world's enemies.
** This, in turn, led to the strange practice of deliberate ''under''-leveling, whereby the player increases her skills up to and beyond the point where she ''could'' level up - but chooses not to. The theory is that the opponents will remain at low levels, because the player does, and will have skill values appropriate to those low levels, while the player will have disproportionally higher ones. Thus, a first-level character in Oblivion can become the Archmage of the Mage Guild, Master of the Fighters Guild, leader of the Thieves Guild, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood and Grand Champion of the Arena. At the same time. Oh, and defeat invading demon army. The disadvantage to this is that the equipment and rewards available will always be of the lowest quality.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' focuses on skill grinding AND ONLY skill grinding. There are 18 skill trees; 6 for each of the FighterArcherMage classes, one of each for crafting, and two of each for defense. To level up a skill, players simply had to perform a successful application of a skill (hit the target, deal or deflect damage, buy, sell, and craft items, etc.). Each time a skill was leveled up, the player character would gain a body experience point; get enough of these and the player character would level up, increase 10 points of Health, Magic, or Stamina, and earn a perk. Once again, leveling up the wrong skills could mean that the player character would face enemies that were over leveled in combat skills. However, in the 1.9 patch, players were given the option to "Legendary" any of their maxed skills, resetting it back to 15/100 but retaining the body experience points and perk points earned from the skill.

** It's not really necessary though, as clever usage of skills and accessories will work '''far''' better in combat than level grinding. The bonus dungeon, [[spoiler: Seraphic Gate]], is a very good example of this.

* Since ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' subsists on being a SelfImposedChallenge, you wouldn't think you needed to do this... until you realize that you've used up all your Scarletite, you can't replay the game to get more the easy way, and you need it to get postgame improvements (like being able to chain more than 4 battles together). The only way to get more? Start farming for Dark Matter... which is only dropped by three bosses. And these three bosses aren't any bosses, they're [[spoiler: Reaper Beat, Taboo Minamimoto, and Draco Cantus. The first two are Hopeless Boss Fights that you have to WIN this time and the last is the Final Boss, who can only be fought after fighting three other bosses and you HAVE to watch the long ending and credits afterwards, unless on iOS, which allows you to skip.]] To make it even worse, they're dropped in pathetically low percentages on high difficulties. The only way to bring those percentages up is to not only have a vicious drop rate to begin with, but to chain like crazy in order to multiply the rate further. It may not be level grinding per se, but damned if you're not killing yourself like crazy to pull it off.

** VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn one-upped TheLostAge, with [[spoiler: Tua Warriors, relatively weak monsters, that are the only randomly encountered monsters in the final area of the final dungeon]], by taking advantage of the extra experience from unleash-killing monsters, it is possible to go from the mid-40s (the level you're supposed to be near the end), to the max level in two hours

* The Tower of Valni in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' is, in-story, the place where [[spoiler: the Sacred Stone of Frelia was kept, until the Grado Empire raided the tower and broke it.]] In game, as it's full of low-level monsters, it can be used as this.

* The necessity of this trope is somewhat addressed in ''Manga/SoulHunter''--the BrilliantButLazy protagonist Taikoubou, when tasked to seal ''365'' souls (a good number of whom belong to the local EvilEmpire), tries to [[SequenceBreak short-cut]] the process by taking on the [[spoiler: apparent]] BigBad first. He gets his ass handed to him, and he spends the rest of the plot working his way up the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil and taking levels in badass.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', Driscoll Berci, The Overkill, gets stronger every time he kills something. [[spoiler: He overconfidently thought he was at a high enough level to beat Yamamoto, who easily burns him to ashes.]]

* The Mimics in ''Film/EdgeOfTomorrow'' conquer worlds by resetting time itself to a specific moment whenever an Alpha, one of a special caste of warriors, is killed. This mechanism allows the mimics to win by SaveScumming and adapting to the tactics of their enemies. When Bill Cage, a morale officer with zero combat experience, gains the Mimics' power after killing an Alpha, he uses this ability to learn how to become a better soldier, by dying over and over again. He not only fights the Mimics over and over again, but also learns more about the people around him bit-by-bit. By the time [[spoiler: he loses his power to reset]], he's a OneManArmy.

* ''VideoGame/AirRivals'', and how! The level grinding there is so intense after level 75 and specially at 8x levels that even the own developers of the game (which are, as you might guess, ''Korean''), decided to add new [[PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling maps of power leveling]] for players to get to the so-desired level cap of 110. Even with that, the american server (AceOnline) has a PERMANENT 200% EXP BONUS for everyone below lvl 75 and it gets reduced to 50% on weekends after that point. Geez.

* In the {{NES}} version of ''VideoGame/DoubleDragon'', as you fight and kill enemies, you fill a level bar that gives you new techniques when it resets. At the rate enemies are normally spawned, you don't get all your techniques until late in the game. If you're ''really'' patient, though, it's possible to get the entire moveset with the first two or three enemies you fight simply by punching them a few times and then moving away before you knock them out, and then repeating the process enough times to build up and reset the level bar.

* The classic ''Hero's Quest'' (later ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'') by {{Sierra}} had this. You improved your skills by using them, leading to sights such as the main character working on building up his 'climb' skill by scrabbling (initially ineffectively) at a tree.

** ''PhantomBrave'' has what may be the easiest level grind in existence. Goes like this: There's an easy way to get a character that can easily "steal" objects that are much higher level early in the game. Use it to get high-level items and fuse them together. Use that item to power level the character, then have it get even higher-level items. Before long, all you have to do to level any character up is to hand it your hand-made InfinityPlusOneSword and watch the levels add up. (However, every new character starts with a [[{{Cap}} level cap]] of 100...but this can be easily raised to the 9,999 maximum with a few fusions.)

* One of the easier (if patience-wearing) methods to employ in ''WizardryLabyrinthOfLostSouls'' if you don't want to die as one hit kills (for the [[DemonicSpiders Hayate]] and harder enemies in the above floors) by the fourth floor of Shin's Dungeon, considering the NintendoHard nature of the game. Doesn't hurt to have a Bishop either, as they gain a very useful ability in later levels.

If the game is unbalanced or mean enough to practically require you to level grind, that's ForcedLevelGrinding, not to mention FakeLongevity. On the other hand, there's AntiGrinding, where the developers set up something that stops this behavior, as well as LowLevelAdvantage.

Sister trope of ItemFarming and MoneyFarming.

The traditional way of level grinding is to kill lots of a very low level enemy, for example, rats. However, MetalSlime-type enemies that give out large amounts of [[ExperiencePoints experience]] can shorten the process considerably. Given that the second group are always much more likely to be able to actually kill your character at lower levels, a ladder system is usually employed. Modern {{MMORPG}}s have turned to 'Quest Grinding' instead, offerring both one-time and {{Repeatable Quest}}s with massive ExperiencePoint rewards compared to simply killing hordes of monsters - but this has simply changed the type of activity players use to grind instead of eliminating the grind altogether.

* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'', the best place for grinding would be [[BonusDungeon Moria Gallery]], were the toughest and roughest monsters dwell (and also the ones who give more experience/money). You enter as a little more than a [[KidHero boy of 50 or 60 in level]], and come out as a full grown [[BadAss man of level 90-ish]] with enough money to ignore all the trading sidequests and minigames. Besides, the InfinityPlusOneSword is on the Gallery's last floor, plus [[BonusBoss a couple of powerful summons]]. If you are up to the challenge, no matter how many Cruxis spells [[BigBad Daos]] uses against you, you will be able to kill him with a butter knife.

** “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced ''one'' kick 10,000 times.” - BruceLee

* As the battle system of ''BatenKaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean'' is card-based, it's not nearly as important to have a high level or great stats as it is to have a well-rounded, efficient deck. However, since most of the best cards are only randomly dropped by enemies, the net effect is the same: a lot of time spent wandering around in the wilderness killing random monsters until your deck is up to par.

* Level Grinding appears to have found its audience: a Gamespot review for ''ValkyrieProfile 2'' points out that the game seems designed for fans of the process.

* Commissar Literature/CiaphasCain ('''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!''') once found himself in an escape pod for three weeks while it coasted towards a planet. He spent the time practicing chainsword drills hours at a time, and got even better with it as a result. In another story he is granted access to a SpaceMarine training room for an hour every day (when all he'd been hoping for was an out-of-the-way space in the cargo hold), he is ''very' aware of the impossible honor given to him, and trains assiduously.

* In the ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' tv series, as with the movies, when one Immortal beheads another it's a case of VictorGainsLosersPowers. While many Immortals are content to just live their lives and do whatever, some who are more serious about [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne being the last one left]] purposefully and repeatedly seek out other Immortals who are notable fighters and take their heads, with the intention of becoming stronger and stronger with each one until they're unstoppable. These head hunters tend to be the most dangerous opponents that Duncan faces in the series.

* Learning to do anything well almost invariably involves lots (and lots) [[OverlyLongGag and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots]] of ''repetition''! You have ever hear of someone who reacts 'on instinct', without thinking? That's because they've done whatever it is ''so many times'' that it's already imprinted in their muscle's memory...

'''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.