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.

[rewells]

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.

I think that's kind of what I set up in my project. That system creates a kind of artificial level cap, where it's possible to continue gaining levels but doing so would take ridiculously long considering how much EXP current monsters are dropping. Most JRPGs do this pretty naturally, I think.