Level Grinding, What do you think? Options

[rewells]

I'm thinking of writing a post on games that require level grinding v.s. games that don't. When playing rpgs, do you like having to just fight a bunch of battles to continue? I never grind unless I have to because I think it's fun to try to beat the game at the lowest possible level - it makes it more challenging. But I don't mind level grinding if the game is fun. I really like rpgs with difficulty levels (like *cough* Persona 4), but it's kind of hard to adjust the math to change the character's growth curves and enemy hp and such in RM.

[Shaddow]

grew up with the era of grinding, such as the Dragon Quest series, which pretty much require it, so it doesn't bother me. I personally like to balance out the EXP to next level track, so that it grows quickly.

for example it takes maybe 20 EXP to get from level 1 to 2 and 50 to get to level 3, then it takes 150 to get to 4. Enemies in the first area give maybe 4 EXP each, and you can fight up to 2 of them at a time. This makes leveling quick for lower levels but if you stay too long it gets almost pointless. It's a useful system to keep grinders happy, but make it a challenge for the player to be too overpowered.