Should I grind?

[Conrad]

Where is the best place to grind? I am currently at chapter 1 where Olivier have just joined my party. It feels kinda weird that his level is above my estelle and joshua (he is 14, while estelle and joshua are 13).

[Pafti]

No, the game scales XP gain so that you quickly catch up if you're behind where it wants you to be, or prevents you from easily overleveling. Grinding is a waste of time unless you're going for Sepith or specific items for whatever reason, but even then it makes more sense to just progress in the game for better opportunities later.

[Berahlen]

Yeah don't grind unless you're going for a specific material gain. XP scales exponentially. You'll catch up VERY quickly if underleveled, but get almost nothing the moment you're past the monster. In addition, leveling itself carries pretty marginal gains because most of the big stat changes are frontloaded into gear, accessories, and orbment expansions. There aren't direct level-difference modifiers appended to all calculations like in Ys or anything.

Not only is grinding too penalized and marginal to be worth it, but it actually hurts you later. Leveling refills HP/EP, so staying near the level of the surrounding monsters in a longer dungeon lets you burn spells more often -- and this game already rewards playing aggressively to end fights before you get overwhelmed. If you're overleveled, you lose those periodic freebies but the fights aren't really made significantly easier, and you'll feel worse resource strains.

[Dragon]

Yes, you should grind, but with a specific method.

In fact, the game is specifically designed to encourage you to grind, which is why they put Shining Poms as special monsters into every Chapter, whose sole purpose for existing in the game is to be a reward for your grinding.

How the game is intended to be played is: you find (meaning: look it up online) the Shining Pom location for each Chapter, and then you keep grinding that Shining Pom mob until you level up a lot, and then it eventually starts giving you very tiny amounts of XP.

After your XP gains eventually become very tiny, then it means you are supposed to stop grinding...but only until the next Chapter.

But when you reach the next Chapter, then you are supposed to grind again, on the new Shining Pom mob, because now you will start getting high rewards again.

And this grinding not only takes care of all your exp/level problems, but it also takes care of all your money/gear/quartz problems as well, since the Shining Poms give you tons of sephiths of every color, which you can use for any quartz, or to sell for money that you can then use to buy any gear that you need.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Yes, you should grind, but with a specific method.

Stop giving bad advice to people just because you are bad at the game and have OCD compelling you to grind.

OP, ignore anything Dragon says.

[Berahlen]

Not just on this game, but on all the other Falcom forums he's been whining on for the last 2-3 years. -_-

This game can be completed on the hardest difficulty without grinding at all -- even there, we actually end up running from most fights because they're so quickly not worth doing. 99% of fights are decided before the first round by your loadout, plan, formation, and whether you got surprised by being attacked from behind. And remember, fleeing is guaranteed, so if you do get surprise attacked you can just walk away and either continue on your way or hang around a bit and surprise them instead.

[Dregora]

OP asks where to grind, then y'all saying ''don't do it''. If he wants to grind, let him grind. And for that, Dragon gave the best way to do so.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Dregora:

OP asks where to grind, then y'all saying ''don't do it''. If he wants to grind, let him grind. And for that, Dragon gave the best way to do so.

OP did not ask "where to grind", OP asked, "SHOULD I grind", and the answer to that is "no, because experience scaling removes the need for it."

[Berahlen]

The title asked if they should, the post asked where. One answer negates the need for the other. There, needless pedantry solved. -_-

[Conrad]

wow sorry for the misleading question guys haha, thanks for the advice tho, really appreciated

[Ant (Spearhead)]

Hold on, am I missing something? I'm basically a beginner to this game, having only completed the first chapter. I started on Nightmare which I quickly regretted but stuck with it. I found it practically impossible to win the boss fights if I didn't grind.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Ant (Spearhead):

Hold on, am I missing something? I'm basically a beginner to this game, having only completed the first chapter. I started on Nightmare which I quickly regretted but stuck with it. I found it practically impossible to win the boss fights if I didn't grind.

A few things here.

The first is that Nightmare and Hard were added later, they were not part of the initial release. The difficulty is just flat stat boosts across the board, which makes bosses get especially troublesome.

The second is that you're playing the game on the hardest difficulty without experience with the mechanics and the enemy. Nightmare is intended for those who know what they're doing already. Of course you're finding it difficult.

I would restart, because there is a lot more game, and it gets much more difficult from here.

[Berahlen]

Also you don't have to grind on Nightmare either, at least not in this game -- but you do have to know what you're doing and where everything is (sidequest rewards etc). SC Nightmare borderline requires some grinding in the prologue, and you might have to grind a bit in one of the Star Door side stories in 3rd, but those are the only parts of all three Sky games where it even helps that much, much less is needed.

So yeah, you're probably missing something. Also maybe don't do first plays of Falcom games on the hardest difficulty. It wasn't even tuned in this game, but even in the ones where it was, it's usually a bad idea because it'll kill you too quickly to learn much.

[Koby]

LoH discourages grinding levels by scaling EXP to the point that you'll stop gaining EXP at a certain point. If you're roughly 5 levels above the enemies in the area you'll basically be getting so little EXP that you'll be grinding for weeks for a single level up. So anyone saying the game encourages grinding is either brain damaged, trolling, or intentionally providing misinformation.

[Ant (Spearhead)]

Huh, I see. Thanks for clearing things up.

Also, I agree that a first play on Nightmare was not a good idea. I died to the sewer rats a couple of times. However I enjoy a challenge which is why I did it and stuck with it.