History Main / ItemFarming

* Farming items isn't ''necessary'' in ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', but it can be helpful. In particular, many (non-{{speed run}}ning) players like to exploit the respawning mechanic at the beginning of the third room of [[BrutalBonusLevel Sacred Grounds]] to collect enough hearts to refill their health.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' has earned a FanNickname "Warfarm" due to copious ItemCrafting requiring loads of resources that are hard to acquire if you're aren't searching every nook and corner for crates to break and lockers to open. Getting just the blueprints for some of the warframes requires fighting the same boss ''at least'' three times.

* This is how train upgrades are obtained in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks''. By collecting VendorTrash. Also ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass Phantom Hourglass]]'' as well, to a lesser extent.

** There are a few items that some wild Pokémon may hold that are worth farming out, including VendorTrash, the aforementioned berries and items to trade for move tutors, held items that can make the game much easier, and even in a couple of cases otherwise one-of-a-kind evolution items (like, as of Generation IV, the chance that a wild Relicanth could hold a [=DeepSeaScale=]). A player particularly intent on getting those items can do various [[EliteTweak Elite Tweaks]] to cut down on how long and how much is spent to farm these (the most popular of which is to put a fainted Butterfree[[note]]Its ability increases the likelihood of wild encounters holding items[[/note]] first in the team and something with Frisk and Thief[[note]]Frisk lets the trainer know what, if anything, is held by an opponent in battle[[/note]] second).

* Happens all the time in ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'', especially if you want all the weapons, upgrades, items, and equipment, you need to grind through side games and levels to afford the bolts for everything, lest you want to keep going through NewGamePlus over and over. This however is not necessary for completion (though the game will be a lot harder if you've not saved up for the stronger weapons). On the other hand, in several games, you can collect VendorTrash for money. ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando'' had two areas where you were required to gather a number of crystals to proceed (ten in the first area then twenty-five out of a hundred in the second area) in order to give these crystals to get required gadgets and level progression. The spare crystals you've not gathered can then be later gathered for money, an amount that's increased tenfold in the NewGamePlus.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' is similar to ''XII'' in that all money comes from VendorTrash, and you need certain specific items for ItemCrafting--most notably, the catalysts that transform weapons into their ultimate forms. Either you pay ''millions'' of gil for a single one of them, or you farm the [[BossInMookClothing terrifying turtle monsters]], whose rare drop is the catalyst.

* ''VideoGame/MasterOfTheMonsterLair'': Owen and Kate raise their stats by eating food. Almost all decent food requires at least one ingredient you can't purchase in town. Half the time, fighting an enemy gets you equipment or VendorTrash rather than the food you're looking for. Do the math.

* Zig-zagged in the ''Franchise/{{Gundam}} Breaker'' games. Getting parts is relatively easy--they can be broken off your opponents regularly, and destroying an opponent will often reward parts of that machine, and enemies come at you in droves. It's not hard to amass at least ''some'' parts of a Mobile Suit by the end of a mission, and if all you want is part of a particular suit, you can buy it in the store after collecting a few bits of it. Building most of the Mobile Suits in the game is not hard. The real challenge is grinding for ''good'' parts, because the odds are that any given part that RandomlyDrops will be VendorTrash. At least you can fuse parts together to increase their rarity and transfer abilities between them, but that still requires getting higher tiered parts in the first place to sacrifice as upgrades for the part you want to enhance. The generosity with drops and requirements for fusion will vary from game to game in the series, and as such, so will the amount of grinding required.

* This could possibly be considered ''subverted'' in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou''. While many pins have abysmally low drop rates, it's very easy to raise the drop rate, by either lowering your own level, or fighting multiple enemies at a time. Once you hit the AbsurdlyLowLevelCap and pick up the "chain 16" sticker, there are only two drops in the entire game that can't be raised to 100%. The real grinding is StatGrinding, so that you can actually ''win'' the 16-round battles against the most powerful enemies in the game at level 1.

** Link's equipment in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'' can be upgraded in the same way with materials. You need some bugs (and a Net to catch them with) for upgrading your potions.

** Most obvious is ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', in which the only way to get usable amounts of money is to sell loot from monsters. There's also this Bazaar thing, which allows the player to unlock certain maybe rare, maybe valuable items. The best items might require multiples of items only available via the Bazaar, making the full recipe be something like [[TwentyBearAsses 21 Bear Behinds]], 39 [[TwentyBearAsses Ursus Buttocks]], 9 [[LuckBasedMission Rare Vicious Monster Ultra Rare Drop Fangs]] and so on.

* Zig-zagged in the ''Franchise/{{Gundam}} Breaker'' games. Getting parts is relatively easy--they can be broken off your opponents regularly, and destroying an opponent will often reward parts of that machine, and enemies come at you in droves. It's not hard to amass at least ''some'' parts of a Mobile Suit by the end of a mission, and if all you want is part of a particular suit, you can buy it in the store after collecting a few bits of it. Building most of the Mobile Suits in the game is not hard. The real challenge is grinding for ''good'' parts, because the odds are that the vast majority of the parts that RandomlyDrop will be VendorTrash. At least you can fuse parts together to increase their rarity and transfer abilities between them, but that still requires getting higher tiered parts in the first place to sacrifice as upgrades for the part you want to enhance. The generosity with drops and requirements for fusion will vary from game to game in the series, and as such, so will the amount of grinding required.

* Zig-zagged in the ''VideoGame/GundamBreaker'' games. Getting parts is relatively easy--they can be broken off your opponents regularly, and destroying an opponent will often reward parts of that machine, and enemies come at you in droves. It's not hard to amass at least ''some'' parts of a Mobile Suit by the end of a mission, and if all you want is part of a particular suit, you can buy it in the store after collecting a few bits of it. Building most of the Mobile Suits in the game is not hard. The real challenge is grinding for ''good'' parts, because the odds are that any given part that RandomlyDrops will be VendorTrash. At least you can fuse parts together to increase their rarity and transfer abilities between them, but that still requires getting the higher tiered parts you wish to sacrifice in the first place.

* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': This is pretty much what players do 90% of the time, since skills can only be upgraded by using materials, and many Servants need an obnoxious number of materials. The drop rates of obtaining the materials isn't particularly great, so it takes ages to max out a Servants skills. This trope even applies to ''LevelGrinding'', since the only way to level up Servants is by using EXP cards that can be dropped by the Hand enemies. While every Hand enemy that appear in Daily Quests will drop an EXP card, quest has at least two to three different classe of enemies and they drop only the respective class EXP card, so for cost efficient leveling, you still need to rely on RNG to level up a Servant. Events allow players to farm currency to buy materials from event shops, or play missions to get materials as rewards or fight certain enemies that drop lots of good materials.

Item farming is where you go [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin use various methods to gain items]], like killing enemies for their [[RandomlyDrops random drops]] or go VideoGameStealing to grind for various items. This can also include going around and exploring various places to collect items.

* Half of ''VideoGame/RecettearAnItemShopsTale'' (the other half being selling what you've farmed).
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' series you need to do this to find ingredients for your items.
* This isn't ''necessary'' in ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', but it can be helpful. In particular, many (non-{{speed run}}ning) players like to exploit the respawning mechanic at the beginning of the third room of [[BrutalBonusLevel Sacred Grounds]] to collect enough hearts to refill their health.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', players ''construct'' colossal [[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials/Mob_Farm Mob Towers]], which are focused mob-spawn areas, and Mob Grinders, to kill off the resulting mobs. These can produce (in extreme cases) hundreds of items per minute and allow the player to just stand there and gain items. The most helpful drops include gunpowder, arrows, and Ender Pearls. Notably, XP is ''not'' given, and players either have to modify their designs to only mostly-kill mobs (so the players can land the [[CriticalExistenceFailure final blow]]), or just do without.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' players can farm for very powerful or useful 'Legendary' weapons and equipment from enemies that usually have ludicrously low drop rates for those items. So it's a bit less boring, there are various involved ways to make the odds of a good item better, for instance feeding kills to a berserk Goliath to make it level higher.

* ''Franchise/{{Sonic|TheHedgehog}} [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Adventure]] 1 & [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 2]]'' required you to constantly play through old levels to get rings to use as money to buy equipment and items to improve your Chao. Though the Chao themselves were in no way necessary to advance in the game, they were necessary for HundredPercentCompletion, and some players [[JustHereForGodzilla were only interested in the Chao to begin with]].

Since this is done in almost all [=MMORPGs=], no straight MMORPG examples please.(Notable subversions are fine.)

* ''Franchise/{{Sonic|TheHedgehog}} [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Adventure]] 1 & [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 2]]'' required you to constantly play through old levels to get rings to use as money to buy equipment and items to improve your Chao. Though the Chao themselves were in no way necessary to advance in the game, they were necessary for HundredPercentCompletion, at least in VideoGame/SonicAdventure [[VideoGameRemake DX: Director's Cut]].

* The loot system at the end of a heist in ''VideoGame/PAYDAY 2'' gives either money, weapon mods, masks, or mask mods from picking cards with random results. Players have farmed short and easy heists to get the cards quickly every time.

* The loot system at the end of a heist in ''PAYDAY 2'' gives either money, weapon mods, masks, or mask mods from picking cards with random results. Players have farmed short and easy heists to get the cards quickly every time.

* Happens a lot in things like ''{{Farmville}}'' and ''VideoGame/MafiaWars'', you need to repeatedly do jobs to get the loot items needed to do the new jobs. Gets ridiculous towards later goals.

* In ''AtelierSeries'' you need to do this to find ingredients for your items.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' has [[TheEmpire Imperial]] Captains occupying the city of Fynn, near the start of the game. Talking to one ([[TooDumbToLive which you're explicitly warned not to do]]) initiates a battle and—if you're underlevelled—[[GameOver a prompt reload]]. If you ''can'' defeat them, either by being overlevelled or exploiting [[CrutchCharacter Minwu]]'s spells—you can defeat the Captains, who have a good chance of dropping a DiscOneNuke bow or the GameBreaker Toad spell.

* Invoked in ''EternalDarkness'' when a note from Edward Roivas says that you'll have to find 88 keys around the mansion to unlock the next chapter - [[spoiler: and you unlock the chapter by closely examining a piano.]]
* In Minecraft, players ''construct'' colossal [[http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials/Mob_Farm Mob Towers]], which are focused mob-spawn areas, and Mob Grinders, to kill off the resulting mobs. These can produce (in extreme cases) hundreds of items per minute and allow the player to just stand there and gain items. The most helpful drops include gunpowder, arrows, and Ender Pearls. Notably, XP is ''not'' given, and players either have to modify their designs to only mostly-kill mobs (so the players can land the [[CriticalExistenceFailure final blow]]), or just do without.

* This could possibly be considered ''subverted'' in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou''. While many pins have abysmally low drop rates, it's very easy to raise the drop rate, by either lowering your own level, or fighting multiple enemies at a time. With the right preparation, many drop rates can be raised to 100%.

* Once you get to Chapter 3-1 of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'', the game's difficulty tips it's hat and bids you farewell. The chapter starts you out in a vast lake on a boat with ''tons'' of goodies and a free ''rocket launcher'' to collect and, once you figure out the enemy spawn points, it's entirely possible to go through without encountering a single enemy. All in all you can make close to $25,000 dollars without firing a single bullet and, since the game doesn't take items away when you quit a chapter, feel free to replay it as many times as you want for unlimited money and rocket launchers.