History Main / AntiGrinding

** Traded Pokémon are a variant of this. Traded Mons above a certain level won't obey you unless you have enough badges, which is explained by the idea that since you aren't its original trainer, it has little reason to respect you until you prove you're actually a capable trainer. As such, it will do whatever it wants in battle, this usually being to ignore you and just laze about, making it difficult to level grind them all. Of course, this isn't meet to restrict level-grinding per se, as it is to prevent you from quickly beating the game with a friend's Level 100 Legendary Pokémon. There's nothing stopping you from catching a random Mon and grinding it to ridiculous levels without worry. So long as you got it at a low-level that is, as ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'' would extend the disobeying mechanic to wild Pokémon that are caught at high levels as well.

* In ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', this was initially only done with traded Pokémon. Traded Pokémon of certain levels will only obey you up to a certain level unless you have enough badges. Otherwise, it'll do whatever it wants in battle, this usually being to ignore you and do absolutely nothing. This isn't so much to restrict level-grinding per se, but rather to prevent you from just quickly beating the game with a friend's Level 100 Legendary Pokémon. There's nothing stopping you from grinding any Pokémon native to your save file up to ridiculous levels in Gens I-IV and Gen VI.
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' and from ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' ownward, all Pokémon receive an additional experience modifier based on the ratio between user and opponents' respective levels; as your party members level up, the same opponents (e.g. wild Pokémon) award fewer experience points than they did before. On the flipside, this means that low-level party members (such as freshly bred Pokémon) level up faster when you defeat high-level opponents. This also stacks with other modifiers such as the "traded Pokémon" bonus and Exp. Share.
** ''Black and White'' and [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 its sequels]] specifically have the Pokémon Audino, which is available in numerous locations and yields high EXP when defeated, to reduce the need for grind sessions.
** From ''Sun and Moon'' onward, catching Pokémon also yields experience, meaning you won't miss out if you choose to capture a high experience yielding Pokémon instead of fainting.
*** Dojos in Join Avenue also lets you just ''pay'' to have your Pokémon level up[[note]]You could do this before with the Daycares, but that required taking thousands of steps and could accidentally delete moves you can't replace[[/note]], although there is a limit to how much you can do this in a day and they can't learn level-up moves this way (necessitating going to a move relearner) nor will they evolve when reaching the needed level.

** In the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games there was a limit on each floor of the dungeon. After a certain number of turns you will get a series of warnings. If you fail to heed that warning you are automatically kicked from the dungeon, which has the same effect as [[ContinuingIsPainful dying]].

* ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight'' uses skill caps at certain stages of the game to do this: Leveling earns you skill points you can apply to a number of skill trees to improve defense, offense, special abilities, etc., which are arranged in three tiers. Once you max out a given tree, no matter how high you level you ''can not'' begin applying skill points to the next tier until you pass certain plot points ([[spoiler: defeating Crepusculum earns you tier two, while slaying Nox unlocks tier three]]). You ''can'' continue leveling even after maxing out a tier, but until you complete the required plot point you can't apply your acquired skill points.

* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': While Olberic and H'aanit can challenge just about any NPC, the ones with low star counts give only small EXP payouts to keep the player from fighting entire towns indefinitely for quick levels.

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/Persona3 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tired.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Your characters need to take a rest too...]]

* In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'', while you can still get experience points from battles, eventually you stop leveling up your jobs that give you new skills and abilities if the monsters are too low a level relative to yours. There is one area at the end of the game that will ''always'' give you EXP for your jobs.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'' worked exactly the same way (job ranks are advanced by fighting a certain number of battles instead of experience), and the DS remake removed the level limit from even more areas, allowing you to max out your jobs even earlier.

* ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' doesn't let you farm bosses or resources unlimitedly, you have a Resin system, every boss or dungeon you have to spend some resin, your have to wait minutes or hours to refill your resin again.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}''

** Falcom did the same thing with the ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'': All monsters have a level, and the experience gained from killing them is a function of the monster's base EXP and the difference between the party's level and the monster's level. This means that an under-leveled party gets extra experience to help level up to where they should be, while an over-leveled party gets virtually nothing.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' has its LoadsAndLoadsOfSidequests who, along with money and equipment, also give XP to all members of your party. Granted, you can still grind, but these sidequests give several times more XP than enemies would give you.
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'':
** On the punishing side, killing low-level monsters is horrible if you want to level grind, as experience scales based on both the player's and enemy's levels. Killing anything 20 or more levels below you gives a negligible amount of experience. What if you come up with a tricky way to kill something more powerful than you? Anything 20+ levels above you gives only a small amount of experience as well. Given everything else the game offers, however, level grinding is very rarely needed.
** Completing side quests and mercenary missions gives you bonus experience. It isn't redeemed automatically, but whenever you stay at an inn, you can cash out that experience to level up, so if you've been doing quests and reach a point that you're underleveled, that can be fixed very quickly.
** When it comes to actually getting experience from killing enemies, chain attacks are your friend. Getting a big chain attack going allows you to overkill the enemy, and all the damage you do beyond what's necessary to kill them provides a multiplier to the experience you get from killing them. Done right, it's possible to get multiple level ups from a single story boss.
** [[SkillTree Blade affinity charts]] have a ton of requirements to power up their skills and special attacks, usually of the MassMonsterSlaughterSidequest variety. For any blades that you can send on merc missions (and most of them can be), most of these requirements will be filled in on said merc missions, even if there's no logical connection between the mission and the requirement. Since merc missions happen in the background, all you need to do is remove the blade from your party from a while, send them on missions, and they'll come back stronger.
** Finally, there are many ways to make your Drivers and Blades stronger without level grinding. Spending points to level up arts or a Driver's affinity chart or equipping accessories, core chips, and aux cores will all greatly improve your battle capability without the need to do any grinding.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Ys}}'' series, the amount of XP granted from a given enemy is a function of the monster's level relative to Adol's level. After a while, defeating a monster will only yield 1XP, with hundreds or thousands needed to level up. Most versions of ''Ys I'' also have a 10 level cap that is maxed out so quickly that there's usually no point in grinding (even without trying, you'll end up within one level of reaching it by the time you find the third book of six).

* The ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' series ties most of your better spells and stat boosts to how many Djinn you have equipped, and you can only find Djinn at specific points in the game. While you ''can'' LevelGrind to at least some degree, and there's a couple of times you definitely want to like before attempting to [[MarathonBoss cross the Karagol Sea]], it's rarely a better alternative than just pressing forward and powering through using buffs and debuffs until you find more Djinn: a few extra stat points won't help you nearly as much as finding your fourth Mercury Djinn and having Mia learn Wish, to name just one example. The first game takes this a step further, but only once, and actually limits the number of enemies you can possibly fight in the first dungeon; after so many, they just stop appearing. The cutoff is tied to your character's level. However, killing Jenna prevents the cutoff, since dead characters gain no EXP.

* The UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS features a pedometer that rewards you with "steps" for taking it with you on walks (not to mention the ability to gain other peoples' Miis on StreetPass). You get "play coins" for walking enough (or just shaking the device up-and-down and side-to-side), which you can use in Mii games, but you can only get 10 a day, and can only store 300 at maximum. This was probably implemented so that people [[AntiPoopSocking wouldn't spend all of their days farming for points]], and possibly also suggesting that the owner of the system just take a nice, long easy walk, and not risk a wrist cramp.

** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'', once the character gains a level, monsters lower than that level no longer give experience points, thus forcing the player to move on to harder areas to continue leveling.

** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' gets rid of "Tired" status entirely and instead the lobby will no longer heal the party's HP and SP. SP restoring items are hard to come across early game until you are given a way to heal SP in exchange for Yen by the second dungeon, however it costs a large amount of money until you increase the Hermit Social Link, but by then you probably will not need it anymore, since you gain a few methods of recovering SP after battle.

* ''Videogame/TacticsOgre'' has a similar system to the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' ones above, with the general standard being that striking a unit the same level as yourself earns you 10 XP, and working from there. However, the game developers were wise enough to include a "Training" mode, accessible from the main map at any time, that pit your units against each other and allowed everyone to grind up, with the only penalty being that enemy units would be the same level as your highest-level character (terrifying in the late-game secret dungeon). Although plot enemies would, with only some late-game exceptions, cap out at level 30 anyway, so it was still possible to grind up and beat the game.

* The ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'' usually has some form of this. ''VideoGame/{{Tales of Symphonia}}'', for example, cuts your EXP gains if you're at too high a level compared to the enemies you're fighting. At most, this can halve your EXP gain, making the 10x EXP upgrade in the NewGamePlus more like 5x EXP.

* The ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' series calculates the experience a character receives in combat based on how powerful the opponent is compared to them, so if you grind your party members to high enough levels, you will end up getting a mere 1 point of experience for each fight. Conversely, defeating enemies much stronger than you gives massive amounts of experience, with many lower level party members able to level up after getting just one kill, and almost all party members getting a level up if they defeat a boss. Since most Fire Emblem games only contain a certain number of enemies, this also helps to prevent grinding. Moreover, in Fire Emblem, the missions are non-replayable, effectively preventing grinding except for Arenas. Arena-grinding itself tends to be rather slow and tedious, and in some games, it can even be extremely dangerous.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' averts this trope, not only allowing the player to backtrack to past shops, but giving them a tower that seems to be specifically made for grinding! Not to mention that you get chances to fight past battles over and over again, allowing you to get money and weapons AND allowing the player to run through these with the cheapest weapons money can buy (iron weapons/fire tomes cost almost nothing, and have enough uses for multiple battles). However, Manaketes (arguably the strongest units in terms of attack power) are impossible to grind, as their Dragon Stones have limited uses and cannot be repaired, bar certain bugs.
** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'', the developers seem to have learned their lesson from ''Sacred Stones''. You can grind in skirmishes all you want on Normal mode, but on Hard or above the item that summons [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Risen]] costs so much gold to buy that even with the RandomDrops you get from enemies, you'll always lose money in the process. But [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] is especially cruel about this: not only are Streetpass teams rigged to give out almost no exp, but regular random skirmishes throw Lv 20 promoted enemies with maxed out stats at you when you aren't even a quarter of the way through the game! Even worse, while there is [[BribingYourWayToVictory DLC specifically designed to EXP/money grind]], it doesn't help that the enemies' levels, stats, skills and abilities scale with how many chapters you've completed (including repeat plays of grind spots), forcing you to min/max and make the most out of every single chapter.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' plays with the trope. You can freely level grind like you could in ''Sacred Stones'' and ''Awakening'', but there's a limit to it. Heart Seals (''Fates''[='=]s version of ''Awakening''[='=]s Second Seals) still allow you to class-change for new skills, but ''don't'' reset you to level 1 like they did in Awakening, so you can't just continually grind for max stats as easily as you could in ''Awakening''. However, the Eternal Seals do allow you to go beyond Level 20... but they cost a whopping ''12,000'' gold to obtain.

[[folder:Visual Novel]]

* ''{{Videogame/Xenoblade}}'' has its LoadsAndLoadsOfSidequests who, along with money and equipment, also give XP to all members of your party. Granted, you can still grind, but these sidequests give several times more XP than enemies would give you.

* In Spiderweb's ''VideoGame/{{Exile}}'' it's pretty much impossible to gain levels beyond 47 because of the seriously diminished amounts of experience enemies give (sometimes none at all), the fact that baddies from random encounters start to flee from you more and more often, and due to (apparently) a bug that occasionally causes your experience to start decreasing instead of going up. Fortunately, experience doesn't change at level-up (like other games that reset it to zero) so there's no getting negative experience or losing levels. However, there's still those handy Knowledge Brews that give you skill points, so you can abuse those while grinding for gold.

* ''VideoGame/OCtopathTraveler'': While Olberic and H'aanit can challenge just about any NPC, the ones with low star counts give only small EXP payouts to keep the player from fighting entire towns indefinitely for quick levels.

* In the ''VideoGame/MysteryDungeon'' games there was a limit on each floor of the dungeon. After a certain number of turns you will get a series of warnings. If you fail to heed that warning you are automatically kicked from the dungeon, which has the same effect as [[ContinuingIsPainful dying]].

* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' does this on occasion, particularly in the Near Future chapter. Each time Akira levels up, the PreexistingEncounters he can run into on the world map increase in power and use better monsters to fight you with. Akira's abilities are cool, but you may want to save the grinding for the final chapter. In addition, the experience you gain at each encounter is based on your level, to a constant total of 100 for each level up, making this one more example of diminishing returns.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun1'' actually limits the number of enemies you can possibly fight in the first dungeon; after so many, they just stop appearing. The cutoff is tied to your character's level. However, killing Jenna prevents the cutoff, since dead characters gain no EXP.

** The Directors Cut version of the Playstation 2 remake of ''VideoGame/{{Tales of Destiny}}'' surprises level grinders of the tape-the-analog-stick-to-the-right-and-set-all-characters-to-auto kind by greeting them with Barbatos, a BonusBoss [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aApNG5RB2s&mode=related&search= fight]] which is [[HopelessBossFight literally impossible to beat by normal means]]. It is possible to beat him in the BonusDungeon, but not on the overworld map where he appears to punish auto-levelers. He even kicks off the battle with the page quote above.

** The Playstation 2 remake of ''VideoGame/{{Tales of Destiny}}'' surprises level grinders of the tape-the-analog-stick-to-the-right kind by greeting them with Barbatos, a [[HopelessBossFight near impossible]] BonusBoss [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aApNG5RB2s&mode=related&search= fight]]. It is possible to beat him in the BonusDungeon, but not on the overworld map where he appears to punish levelers. He even kicks off the battle with the page quote above.
** A slight example exists in ''[[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World]]'', where the player characters of the first game do not gain EXP whatsoever and only have different levels and equipment based on your point in the story. This however, doesn't stop you from leveling the two new characters or the [[{{Mons}} monsters]].

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun2001'' actually limits the number of enemies you can possibly fight in the first dungeon; after so many, they just stop appearing. The cutoff is tied to your character's level. However, killing Jenna prevents the cutoff, since dead characters gain no EXP.

* The ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' series calculates the experience a character receives in combat based on how powerful the opponent is compared to them, so if you grind your party members to high enough levels, you will end up getting a mere 1 point of experience for each fight. Conversely, defeating enemies much stronger than you gives massive amounts of experience, with many lower level party members able to level up after getting just one kill, and almost all party members getting a level up if they defeat a boss. Since most Fire Emblem games only contain a certain number of enemies, this also helps to prevent grinding. Moreover, in Fire Emblem, the missions are non-replayable, effectively preventing grinding except for Arenas.