The Case For Grinding in RPGs

[ssjdkcrew]

It depends. I feel ATLUS is god damn brilliant at this. Look at Persona 4, unless you know how to exploit it (which every Man and his mother claims is obvious) the game throws absurd amounts of encounters at you between bosses. BUT, it doesn't throw checkpoints, nor does the checkpoints heal you. This is very important, because it means you are constantly struggling to manage your leveling, your SP because your god damn useless without any, your HP and your dating sim remaining days which are precious and painful to lose but losing one can restore every other problem...but you lose precious social link days by doing so.

That's a good point. A game with lots of grinding can be made difficult by simply making the grinding difficult.

It feels like you're calling a learning curve or perhaps leveling as a whole and grinding the same thing, and they aren't.

The latter, not the former. Any time you do the same thing multiple times, in order to achieve some advantage, it falls under what I've heard people call "grinding."

What I would call grinding is certainly a bad thing. Look at Persona 1, you have a random encounter every two or three steps in dungeons in that game and by the second dungeon you have to run through it three or four times to be able to take on the boss simply because the game can't properly balance them to a reasonable level range. Or the older dragon quest games where you had to walk out of town, farm slimes and go back to town to heal for three+ hours, and only then would you not get one-shot by the first dungeon's basic mobs.

Dragon Quest's grinding was of the most basic sort, but it wasn't the worst that I've ever seen grinding done, because at least there was some sense of progression for your character. I've seen RPGs where levels made far less of a difference most of the time.

The game doesn't get any more difficult, or require increasing skill on the part of the player, it's not giving greater intellectual stimulation or thought, it simply demands your numbers to be higher.

Because it's an RPG. Sure, it's nice when the player can be directly involved in the choices of your character's moves (Chrono Trigger, Shining Force, etc...) or in the action itself (Secret of Mana, Kingdom Hearts, Beyond Oasis, etc...) but engaging with the player is simply not the purpose of an RPG in the way you're suggesting. The player becomes engaged in the world of the RPG because he/she becomes engaged with the *character.* The *character* faces challenges and overcomes them, and this is rewarding to the player as well, because it gives the player a chance to step outside of themselves for once. It's simply not the purpose of an RPG for the player to improve, but for the character to improve.

Nobody's asking to be handed everything at once and blow through it, they just don't want a time sink between the parts of the game that are fun or actually matter.

Again, you're attempting to co-opt the word "fun," as though the things I find "fun" don't matter. It won't work.

As for events that "actually matter," it's a video game. None of this matters. The objective is that we enjoy it, and if I enjoy spending time training a character to make them stronger, why is that a problem?

Another way to put it: Would you watch a movie that made you watch six hours of a white screen between every act? That's what a grind is.

No, in a grind, you're not on a white screen. You're doing the same action multiple times, in order to gain some benefit.

Interesting, but I would contend that there's more to role playing as a character than leveling up their stats.

I have no problem at all with there being *more* to role playing than this, just so long as there isn't *less.* Yet, so often, they remove the stat-leveling, or include it mainly as an afterthought, as though it makes no difference at all.

Player choice, player urgency, and the strength of the story matter more.

Agreed, but only with respect to the third one; the strength of the story. Player choice and player urgency are just ways to make the player feel more involved in the life and quest of their character, and certainly, they serve their purpose, but neither one is as important as the feel of the character experiencing improvement, and gaining rewards in exchange for their work.

In Dark Souls your character is a blank slate, allowing you to design their personalities, race, and beliefs. It's similar to Bethesda that way. The difference is that, while you can soul farm (grinding), the game expects the player to improve along with the character. Even more impressive, they manage to make all of this fit into the narrative of the game.

Sounds like my kind of game, though I'm sorry to say, I've never played it.

Does it really make sense for the cast of ff7 to stop in the middle of a shinra base so they can workout for three hours?

This is a problem with the *pacing* of the game. When a game stresses urgency too much, forgetting that it's an RPG, and training will play a central part in it, absurdities like this creep in.

And does it really show character progression when when the only thing that changes is that Cloud now does 500 damage instead of 200?

Sure it does. Cloud has been training hard, and now he can hit the enemy harder than he could before. Indeed, if the character himself doesn't gain greater power, either in this area or some other, there is no character progress at all.

I won't say that makes the game "not an RPG," but it's certainly much less like what I want to see in RPGs.

If the story and writing is good enough, then the focus should be on either the protagonists or the world they inhabit anyway.

Lots of games have good stories these days, and many of them, without character improvements, or with only minimal character improvements, are not RPGs. You don't need to play an RPG to get a good story anymore. These features are not unique to RPGs, nor should they be allowed to interfere with the core gameplay mechanics of an RPG.

I don't think relying on player skill somehow robs the protagonist of their central role

That depends.

If you mean "relying *only* on player skill," then yes, I do.

If you mean "relying on player skill *as well as* having character skill improvements," then no. I really don't.

Remember, this is a video game, not a book. The game's story may be great, but it's the gameplay elements present that ultimately determine many things, and this is one of them.

Keep in mind that I'm not against leveling up as a concept, I'm against having to stop what you're doing in order to meet arbitrary level requirements. There should be more to difficulty than what level you are.

In real life, some tasks are harder or easier, on the basis of the level of your skill in that area. RPGs are just taking that to its logical conclusion, by allowing difficulty of some tasks to be dependent on numerical values, associated with the skill of the character. These numbers are usually associated with fighting skill, but not always, and in my view, RPGs are at their best when they have *many* skills to grind, such as the Elder Scrolls or Quest For Glory series'.

If a game focuses on player skill then it typically allows for more complex boss fights that require more thought and strategy, as opposed to simply hitting the opponent harder than before. Improved enemy A.I. and more complex boss fights should be encouraged. Dark Souls does this wonderfully, and I don't think it's any less of an rpg because of it.

Agreed, and as I've said before, it's possible to do grinding well, and to do it poorly.

Putting in time and effort to work towards being able to blast through the next few stages in a God-Mode-esque way is very satisfying.

Sure is, because you worked hard, and were rewarded for it.

Having to put time and effort in just to be able to survive the next Boss encounter is frustrating and bad game design.

Truth be told, I sort of agree, but only in theory. By this I mean that I almost never notice the difference between the two, since if a game will let me grind, I grind.

If you say "yes", I have nothing else to say except "well enjoy your digital bowel movements".

I did find it more realistic, so if the goal is total realism, then yes. It adds something.

However, unless the point of the game is indeed to be realistic in that sense, I wouldn't waste the time adding it. However, I do love when games require you to eat and sleep, and sometimes, when they require you to drink. It's one of my favorite things about the first "Dark Cloud" game.

Third, just because many games omit one thing, doesn't mean they should also omit a completely different kind of thing, or they'd end up omitting everything.

Slippery Slope

Omission of one facet does not imply omission of all, otherwise there would be no game.

Exactly, and in the same way that this would be a fallacy, it's also a fallacy to say that because most games omit bathroom breaks, they should also omit character-training.

You don't see many TV repair or sheep shagging simulators. Gaming is a luxury in the free market.

Actually... That's false. In fact, games are *not* a luxury. Anyone can make a game with a pencil and a piece of paper. I designed one myself using OpenOffice Spreadsheet and two Word Documents. I haven't finished ironing out all the rules for monsters yet, but it's got 8 attributes, dozens of skills, a virtually limitless ceiling for gains, ten armor types, at least six types of weapons, not counting hand-to-hand, and a combat system with custom rules for charging, shooting, gaining advantages based on the terrain, and the distance from the enemy. I haven't quite ironed out some of the monster mechanics and content, but in every other respect, it's totally playable, and I did it all without paying anyone a cent.

So I ask; why is my game to be treated in an inferior way to actual RPGs, if they can't offer half of that?

Like the setting and mechanics.
Of course, there's a limit, as determined by what is or isn't a necessary level of detail for a given production.
Why? Because there's an added burden of cost associated with the added level of detail desired.

Right, and the precise cost will vary depending on the *kind* of detail desired. Sadly, many game companies tend to prioritize detail of *graphics* over other details, which matter more and cost less.

Why should the character care? They aren't real.
If you aren't "training" the player in use of mechanics or rules (or challenging them), then why bother?

Because that's what an RPG is. If the character isn't being played *as though the character mattered,* you're not really playing a role, and therefore, there is no "role-playing" going on.

You had better distinguish then, because until you provide something that does so, there is no such thing as "good grind".

I provided several examples in the OP. Check it out.

As "grind" specifically refers to "arbitrarily needless repetition".

"Grind" means "doing the same activity multiple times, in order to gain a benefit."

Super Mario Bros never felt the need to mandate a minimum score to progress to the next level.

Super Mario Brothers isn't an RPG, and no one's stopping you from playing a non-RPG if you just don't like RPGs or how they're played.

Except there is work, or effort involved in everything we do.

That's not true at all. Lots of activities aren't work. Sleeping, for instance, or breathing, or thinking, or talking, recreational reading, watching a movie, listening to a book on tape, going out for a bite to eat, etc, etc, etc...

Story has absolutely NOTHING to do with grind, as grind is a purely-mechanics centric element.

Then you shouldn't have brought it up.

That's true, but true "personal" progress must come from recognizing our changing capabilities as we grow older (better and worse) and experience life. If games aim to emulate that even at its most basic level, mindless repetition and arbitrary time wasting is NOT acceptable.

I certainly don't think that the repetition in grinding needs to be mindless, nor the time spent in it arbitrary. There are many good ways to grind in a way that demands intelligent thought (the Elder Scrolls and Shining Force games come to mind,) and as for it being arbitrary, you have a set goal, which you want to accomplish, and through performing the same task multiple times, you gradually accomplish that goal, recognizing your changing capacities as you train (for better or for worse.) That's far from arbitrary.

Why? How about the fact I am aware that I have a finite amount of time to live and thus have a greater appreciation and value for it?

Yet you're here on a message board arguing about something that will probably make no difference in the long run. I've never insulted your intelligence, have I?

I don't want "instant gratification", because without challenge or build up there's no purpose.

That's part of it, yes.

 

[Scootinfroodie]

OP what you're running into is the fact that much of the western core market isn't interested in repeating actions for higher numbers as a central mechanic. This idea features more prominently in the mobile and eastern markets
The difference between what is acceptable grind-wise is going to depend on the game and the person. While I accept that I need to level up characters in a JRPG, I won't accept it so readily in a CRPG, and wont tolerate it being at all central in an online shooter.

Additionally you seem to be under the impression that it's an "RPG" thing. It isn't
RPGs are named after, and built upon, the classic Pen and Paper games. These games had another living breathing human being who could tailor the experience to the strengths (or weaknesses) of the party. At no point in a typical DnD module would there be a section that said *and then the party fought goblins for an hour so they could level up and the fighter could get a totally boss new ability*. Grinding is generally "added" to lengthen a game, or to lock content away for the sake of providing bonus content to reward more dedicated players.

Your comment on work depends on what we're talking about work-wise. Your body is moving and expending energy to have you breathe, but you don't become a super-breather as you get older. RPG mechanics are abstract, and were necessarily so to get so many ideas across with limited tech. This is why things like "hit points" exist. It's actually kinda funny seeing people get the crap kicked out of them for half an hour in a JRPG when HP was meant to be, conceptually, both a matter of injury and of overall stamina.

As far as the utilization of player skill over character skill goes, I think both are totally valid if handled well. Ultimately short of neutering the depth of gameplay, player skill will always factor in. Knowing the optimal ability/gear combos and how to get them quickly in a game like Saga Frontier allows me to beat the game faster than somebody who just decided to grind right on through. Additionally, the more you make character skill abstract, the greater risk you have of not allowing the player into the experience, or even outright removing them. Personally, I can't get into games like Diablo, Borderlands, Torchlight etc. because their "RPG mechanics" essentially boil down to "increase a number on a random interval" and this interval directly affects how long it will take me to get through content. I'd rather just load up Quake and level up my personal ability to strafejump

 

[-Dragmire-]

You can grind in Shining Force!?

Ahem, I tend to like grinding to the point of overleveling myself rather consistently in games so I agree with the points given.


...Might be time for another Disgaea series playthrough.

 

[ssjdkcrew]

I find grinding to be entertaining in itself only if the difficulty level is suitably challenging for it to force me to concentrate on what I am doing. Lots of games just make the grind boring by making it too easy. Games that do grinding well give you options to make it more difficult for a correspondingly increased reward (though they also give you the option to make it easier, because I can understand some people enjoy easier content because it's relaxing to play).

I'm okay with it when a game opens up your options like that; sure.

The worst thing grinding can do is mix it with travelling time, as most MMOs still do. What is the gameplay in forcing players to press the forwards button for 10 minutes in between collecting 9 bear asses? That's not to say longer travel times as a game mechanic is always bad, but it is bad when used as padding for what is already padding.

I like how they did it in Morrowind; there were lots of shortcuts, if you were willing to pay, but the land still felt large enough. I certainly agree, though, that other gameplay mechanics, done poorly, can certainly make bad grinding even worse.

As long as the fighting is fun I'm okay with grinding. Like in Dark Souls...Grinding can be fun, because very fight is fun. So as long at is not some random encounter fights with eternal animations going on I'm fine.

Yup. That'd be my position. Grinding that's done well makes a good game better.

I'm playing skyrim again and I discover a few caves and ruins that never found with my first few play thoughs!

That's typical of Elder Scrolls games. The game worlds are big, to give players a lot to explore.

I don't see any reason for it to exist at all from a design perspective. One could argue that requiring grinding is actually a massive failure on the part of the designers, as from naturally progressing through the game the player has not been given enough resources to complete the next challenges, requiring them to go out of their way and perform monotonous and repetitive tasks in order to be able to continue. It's stupid, frankly. It doesn't need to be a thing and it shouldn't.

I get the impression that you didn't read the entire OP. I already addressed this position sufficiently, by pointing out that in order to properly simulate the factor of a character growing in skill or power through training, some form of repetition is helpful. I don't see any other means of simulating the same thing, and you don't offer one. All you've done here is address grinding from a perspective, which says that we should be able to just pick up and waltz through a game successfully, without any process of character growth being involved. There's absolutely nothing about that statement that I can sympathize with.

Grinding doesn't even make sense to me for rare random drops. Why are rare drops from, say, dungeon bosses a thing? Why are you forcing your player to replay the same thing over and over again? Why not make the attainment of this item require a feat of skill rather than attention span?

Well, first off, on the topic of your first question, random drops are *much* different from grinding. Grinding is about doing the same thing multiple times, in order to acquire a reward. Random drops are about doing the same thing multiple times *not knowing whether* you'll get a reward. Big difference.

On your second question, the player does the same thing many times, to simulate training on the part of the character, as I explained in the OP.

On your third question, the answer is that that's not the point of an RPG. The point of an RPG is for the *character,* not the *player,* to progress. The player is involved in the development and life of the character, insofar as the player has the attention and imagination needed to put themselves in that character's shoes. Of course, not understanding this about RPGs does lead to confusion, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with RPGs.

I'm of the mind that you should not have to 'grind' to play through the core of the game. As long as you don't ignore every enemy on the path towards completing the main game, you should be about ready to fight the final boss when it comes down to it.

Those two sentences are two different kinds of statements. The first one, I can understand, and even sympathize with, but not the second. I certainly don't agree that you should always be ready to face everything a game world can throw at you, because this excises difficulty and the need for training from being depicted in games, and I don't feel it's right to restrict gaming as an art form in this way.

I don't mind grinding for side-bosses that are supposed to be tough as long as it is not a consistent need to grind in order to progress.

Well, as I've said before, I don't mind when a game gives you an *option* to have an easier time with progression, but as I grind every chance I get, I just don't take advantage of that option very often when it's available.

The issue I have with grinding lately is that it seems to be the only way many developers seem to know how to keep players invested. This is not just an issue with RPGs anymore, CoD and more recently Destiny seem to be all about keeping players on a treadmill rather than taking them on a hike to visit somewhere completely new. Both methods keep things 'healthy', but the treadmill requires a lot less effort on the part of the developers and publishers.

Yes, yes. I've said it before; there's good grinding and bad grinding. Not every game needs grinding, and Call of Duty, in particular, could do without it, because the point of that game isn't the development of the character. However, I certainly think that grinding provides a form of investment in games that other methods and game mechanics don't.

Player growth should not always be about levels and loot.

*Player* growth is for platformers, shooters, racing games, sports games, fighting games, action games, strategy games, etc, etc... RPGs are about *character* growth, and yes; leveling in some manner is going to be part of that, though it need not involve actual "levels" as such. (Quest For Glory, for example, didn't rely on conventional "levels," and in my view, its grinding was some of the best I've ever seen; especially in the remake of QFG2.)

 

[Duck Sandwich]

Grinding = boring.

If I'm playing a video game, and it's not fun, I'm wasting my time. Games that have grinding should take a page from movies. There's a reason why movies have montages instead of showing every minute of a character training for some kind of mission, competition, etc. Imagine if a Rocky movie was 10 hours long because 8 of those hours were dedicated to showing Rocky hitting the bags, lifting weights, running, etc.

 

[Rozalia1]

Those that state JRPGs as being the top example of grinding...I'm unsure if they have actually played any...or if they have than they need to get a bit better.

I've played a great many JRPGs in my time, and in the large majority all that is needed is to do every enemy encounter as you go through the dungeons. Just need to know how to play. When I was young I had trouble with the likes of Lolithia, Boomerang, Gaia Core, Melfice, Seymour Natus + Flux...in my most recent playthrough of those games however they posed little threat.

That isn't to say there aren't ones that won't be problematic if you don't kill a couple of guys extra here or there...but I wouldn't say they are the majority.

 

[ssjdkcrew]

CAR theory seriously. From Glued to Games.

It helps us satisfy the needs in our lives.

Grinding is basically part of competence: The feeling of mastering. The sense that you're growing, learning, and progressing.

The growing and progressing part is what's part of grinding. Since you grind for exp (grow) and grind to get loot to tackle the harder aspects of the game (progression).

Right. Insofar as you empathise with the character in the game, you share in the experience of his/her victories/accomplishments in this way.

the meaning behind Bruce Lee's quote is that by practising one type of kick you are able to understand pretty much everything related to that one kick, all the pro's and cons and just what you are capable of

you don't get anything from sitting on a chair moving a mouse and typing all day

Right. I agree with all of this. I just don't see that this is in any way a reply/refutation to what I said in the OP.

so how exactly do you train anything other than micromanagement and move the mouse around (plus clicking)

your character gets better, not you

Here, you pose a question, and then immediately answer it. In my original quote, I said...

1. Simulated training.

Imitating this factor of skill or character improvement in a natural way (rather than, for example, buying new skills at the local shop, a-la Spider-man 2,) is going to involve repetition, to simulate the repetition that would be involved in *actually* training that skill.

In short, I draw a distinction between *simulated* training, and *actual* training. Your evaluation of the meaning of Bruce Lee's quote, and your analysis of the actual benefits of grinding for long periods succeed in proving that grinding in a video game is not *actual* training. However, they don't prove that it's not *simulated* training, which is all it really needs to be.

Any story that involves a complex issue such as time travel can be difficult to follow. Ultimecia knew that you (Squall, etc) were going to kill her, so her plan to compress time is a means to becoming a God. Which would give her the power needed to defeat you. Her defeat causes time to loop, because she is still going to be born in the future and the cycle starts itself all over again.

I was able to follow that part of the story just fine. My issues are to do with the behavior of the "heroes" in response to her. They hire an assassin who's never killed anyone to perform this enormously-important political assassination, several characters have motivations that make little sense, and the fact that they really have no plan for winning during their fight with her really made the whole thing feel off to me. Also, I wish they'd just come out and said that the gunblade was magic. It's the only way to explain how it works.

Random battles are a major hindrance to exploration. If I want to go over and check out a corner of the map, I have to go there fighting enemies (fine), check to see if there is something worth anything there (which is probably not), then I have to come back to my starting location fighting enemies along a path I just fucking cleared (not fine).

This is easily resolved by giving the characters a spell of "return" or something like that. I've seen this done effectively in many games, so it's not really the random encounters that are the problem, but the way some games force you to backtrack. I certainly agree that forced backtracking can be frustrating, and detract from the game.

Also, random battles are totally immersion breaking in the fact that the world is supposed to be teeming with creatures and yet it is barren with nothing.

This totally depends on how random battles are done. In some games, you can see the bad guys from a distance before they attack you (Tales of Symphonia, Legend of Zelda 2, Morrowind, etc...) yet the type and number of enemies encountered can be largely random still.

Just because a game doesn't have random battles does not mean you can't have random encounters where say an enemy pops out from under a bridge and stuff like that.

Oh, I see. You're using the term "random battles" to mean something different than I am.

Several RPGs don't have random battles and aren't any less fun. A game like XCOM has enemies at random positions on the map, but the battles aren't random. And, I can predict that almost every battle in your standard JRPG will play out just like 99.9% of other battles regardless if the game has random battles.

I'm thinking of something more along the lines of a game like Shining Force, where every battle is in a set place, and there are never any random factors in them. Sure, games like that can also be fun, but I just don't see that random battles are a real problem, in and of themselves.

OP what you're running into is the fact that much of the western core market isn't interested in repeating actions for higher numbers as a central mechanic. This idea features more prominently in the mobile and eastern markets

I guess I'm a little confused. Are you saying I should buy a mobile gaming device, or are you saying I should learn to read japanese?

Additionally you seem to be under the impression that it's an "RPG" thing. It isn't RPGs are named after, and built upon, the classic Pen and Paper games. These games had another living breathing human being who could tailor the experience to the strengths (or weaknesses) of the party. At no point in a typical DnD module would there be a section that said *and then the party fought goblins for an hour so they could level up and the fighter could get a totally boss new ability*. Grinding is generally "added" to lengthen a game, or to lock content away for the sake of providing bonus content to reward more dedicated players.

This is really just a distinction in terms of the way you describe it. GM's don't *describe* questing that way, but they may have you get attacked by kobolds on multiple occasions, giving you more experience when you defeat them.

In any case, the fact that no human being is GMing your game is pretty much a necessary part of all single-player games, so the issue isn't that, but rather, how do you simulate the other functions of an RPG without a supervising GM?

Your comment on work depends on what we're talking about work-wise. Your body is moving and expending energy to have you breathe, but you don't become a super-breather as you get older. RPG mechanics are abstract, and were necessarily so to get so many ideas across with limited tech. This is why things like "hit points" exist. It's actually kinda funny seeing people get the crap kicked out of them for half an hour in a JRPG when HP was meant to be, conceptually, both a matter of injury and of overall stamina.

Three things feed into this, I feel.

First, the time scale of battles in JRPGs is heavily stylized; particularly when battles are turn-based, and the same is true of battles in PNP RPGs. However, this need not be the case, and in games like the Elder Scrolls, it's often not.

Secondly, part of this is to indicate difference in strength. A man, for example, could punch a bull until he's blue in the face, and as long as he doesn't get gored, he might keep it up for hours, without making any headway. The same is true of one character trying to fight another, with vastly-greater endurance or durability.

Finally, many RPGs feature healing spells and/or potions, which further increase the amount of time that one can get pounded for during a fight.

I certainly agree that there are many things in RPGs that can be un-stylized, to the benefit of the player, but grinding isn't a stylization, but rather, the reverse.

As far as the utilization of player skill over character skill goes, I think both are totally valid if handled well.

Do you mean "both player and character simultaneously" or do you mean "player" and "character" *each* work in an RPG? One of those I agree with, the other not.

Ultimately short of neutering the depth of gameplay, player skill will always factor in. Knowing the optimal ability/gear combos and how to get them quickly in a game like Saga Frontier allows me to beat the game faster than somebody who just decided to grind right on through. Additionally, the more you make character skill abstract, the greater risk you have of not allowing the player into the experience, or even outright removing them. Personally, I can't get into games like Diablo, Borderlands, Torchlight etc. because their "RPG mechanics" essentially boil down to "increase a number on a random interval" and this interval directly affects how long it will take me to get through content. I'd rather just load up Quake and level up my personal ability to strafejump

I can get into Diablo II, because leveling involves strategy in that game. Less so, though still somewhat, in torchlight, and as I've said before, not all grinding is created equal. Grinding in Oblivion/Morrowind, QFG or Shining Force, I find more engaging, because the character/skill which is ground, is the one which receives the benefits, so player choices have consequences, even though it's ultimately the character who experiences the improvement through repetition.

 

[ssjdkcrew]

You can grind in Shining Force!?

Sure. As I said, grinding is just doing the same thing multiple times, to earn some reward, and in Shining Force, this can be done by using the spell "Egress" near the end of a battle. You'll return to the last church, with all the XP you gained from the fight. Then, go back and play the fight again, and all the enemies will have respawned. You can use this technique to grind up quite a bit of XP, though in Shining Force, the XP gained does decrease after a while, forcing you to move on to stronger enemies.

Grinding = boring.

Well, I don't agree.

Those that state JRPGs as being the top example of grinding...I'm unsure if they have actually played any...or if they have than they need to get a bit better.

I've played a great many JRPGs in my time, and in the large majority all that is needed is to do every enemy encounter as you go through the dungeons. Just need to know how to play. When I was young I had trouble with the likes of Lolithia, Boomerang, Gaia Core, Melfice, Seymour Natus + Flux...in my most recent playthrough of those games however they posed little threat.

That isn't to say there aren't ones that won't be problematic if you don't kill a couple of guys extra here or there...but I wouldn't say they are the majority.

The point is that those games offer one the *chance* to grind, which I like.

 

[-Dragmire-]

You can grind in Shining Force!?

Sure. As I said, grinding is just doing the same thing multiple times, to earn some reward, and in Shining Force, this can be done by using the spell "Egress" near the end of a battle. You'll return to the last church, with all the XP you gained from the fight. Then, go back and play the fight again, and all the enemies will have respawned. You can use this technique to grind up quite a bit of XP, though in Shining Force, the XP gained does decrease after a while, forcing you to move on to stronger enemies.

Ah right, forgot about that. Been a while since I played Shining Force for the Game Gear (towns were just menus in that one).

Odd though, I should have totally remembered that. I remember never using Egress for grinding initially because I didn't think of it. I used to play by focusing on a few characters to get all the experience because the game felt easier with a few powerhouses than a lower but even spread of levels. Going back to play the game a few years later, I saw the usefulness of Egress. Such a lightbulb moment. Granted that was about 15 years ago and I've come to associate grinding in strategy rpgs to games like Disgaea where, to grind, you get to choose a stage to play for the specific purpose of grinding.