Line #5 Main/ItemFarming


1	Items can be used for many things. But sometimes you need to get a lot of them for various situations. So what do you do? You go [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Item Farming.]]
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3	Item farming is where you use various methods to gain items, like killing enemies for their {{random drop}}s or go VideoGameStealing to grind for various items. This can also include going around and exploring various places to collect items.
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5	Since this is done in almost all [=MMORPGs=], no straight MMORPG examples please. (Notable subversions are fine.)
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7	Sister trope of LevelGrinding and MoneyGrinding. In many cases, ThatOneComponent will require a ''lot'' of this.
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9	----
10	!!Examples:
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12	* The ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' series has this both literally and figuratively in where you must collect and farm various resources to go forward in the games.
13	* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'', dear gods. All equipment, including ''spells'', was randomly dropped from enemies. To make matters worse, many bosses were practically unbeatable without certain spells or being up-to-date on your equipment. If you wanted to survive, you could expect to be doing a lot of this.
14	* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'':
15	** Many pins have abysmally low drop rates, but 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.
16	** You can't replay the game's chapters to get more Scarletites through story events, and you need this item to get postgame improvements (like being able to chain more than 4 battles together). The only way to get more is by farming Dark Matter... which is only dropped by [[spoiler:Reaper Beat, Taboo Minamimoto, and Draco Cantus. The first two are {{HopelessBossFight}}s that you have to WIN this time and the last is the Final Boss, who can only be fought after fighting three other bosses and forces the player to watch the long ending and credits afterwards (except on iOS, which allows you to skip it).]] To make it even worse, they're dropped in pathetically low percentages on high difficulties, meaning chaining multiple battles is necessary to raise the drop rate.
17	* This is how train upgrades are obtained in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks''. By collecting ShopFodder. Also ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass Phantom Hourglass]]'' as well, to a lesser extent.
18	* 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.
19	* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiImagine'' removes the need to farm monsters by letting players gather "remains of Tokyo" (basically, refuse) which can be sold to [=NPCs=] or recycled to craft weapons.This is surprisingly the fastest way to earn money:completing a level 70-ish dungeon rewards the player with the equivalent of 20-30.000 Macca, while the same amount can be gathered in about 15 minutes while standing in a level 14 zone.
20	* Starting with ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'' one can easily re-teach Pokémon moves of their respective natural learnsets, but the NPC's services come at a price: depending on which game you play they want either Heart Scales or Mushrooms. Getting these requires the Player to hunt for either Luvdisc (for Heart Scales), digging them up in the Underground (Gen IV only) or battling Paras/Parasect (for Mushrooms), hoping the encountered 'mon has the desired item and catching them/ using moves to get enemies' items. Given the usefulness of these items, some ambitious move restructuring would involve scooping these little creatures up by the teamful. It was possible to have Pokémon relearn moves in Gen II as well, but it required a N64, ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium 2'', a Transfer Pak to [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment transfer your team over]], beating the Elite 4 plus Champion using all six of your Pokémon at least once in battle...all for one single 'mon to be able to remember one move and finally transferring your team back to your GB cartridge if you so desired. It's been simplified since, no doubt.
21	** Berries come in handy, too, particularly since a Pokémon can use it, rather than forcing you to spend a turn using a Full Heal or other status-healing item. The Lum Berry in particular is useful since it can cure any status problem. Unfortunately, this berry takes several days (in real time!) to grow.
22	** There are a few items that some wild Pokémon may hold that are worth farming out, including ShopFodder, 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).
23	* Happens a lot in things like ''VideoGame/{{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.
24	* ''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]].
25	* 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 ShopFodder 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.
26	** Since ''Going Commando'', the series has worked to alleviate this with the Death Course and Arena battles, which can be refought for extra bolts, and a Bolt Multiplier in New Game Plus, which increases as you kill enemies (but resets when you take damage).
27	* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' has numerous examples of this over its long history.
28	** ''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, they have a good chance of dropping a DiscOneNuke bow or the GameBreaker Toad spell.
29	** One of the earlier examples is the best equipment in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV''--not just the infamous [[RandomlyDrops Pink Tails]] and Adamant Armor combo, but also gear like Crystal Rings, Ribbons, Wyvern Lances, and Dragon Whiskers, all found from rare drops from enemies ranging from semi-rare to ludicrously rare. Also added to this are the Golden and Silver Apples and Soma Drops, [[RareCandy consumable items that permanently boost HP and MP]]. the [[VideoGameRemake DS version]] added ''even more'' ludicrously rare tail/armor combos, as well as Rainbow Pudding, necessary for ThatOneSidequest. Basically, if you are interested in HundredPercentCompletion in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', you're going to spend a looooooong time parked in dungeons with Sirens.
30	** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', enemies in [[ThatOneLevel the Pyramid of Moore]] can be farmed for Elixirs, and enemies in the Phoenix Tower can be farmed for the best Dancer equipment and Ribbons.
31	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' gives us the [[SummonMagic Ragnarok Esper]]'s special ability, Metamorphosis, which transforms an enemy into an item and is a good source for more rare equipment, like Safety Bits and Ribbons. The downside is that in order to take advantage of this, the player is going to spend a ''very'' long time farming on the Veldt.
32	** Much like ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has enemies that can, if killed using the weak Morph command, be turned into items. Most notable in this regard are the [[BonusDungeon Sunken Gelnika]] enemies, the majority of which turn into valuable [[RareCandy Rare Candies]] that permanently boost stats.
33	** Enemies in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' can be turned into Cards, which can subsequently be [[ItemCrafting refined]] into spells that can be junctioned to your characters' stats to boost them and add effects to their attacks and attributes while handily avoiding the LevelScaling penalties--it's a [[MinMaxing Min Maxer's]] dream come true!
34	** The items you can use to [[ItemCrafting upgrade and modify your weapons and armor]] and upgrade your [[SummonMagic Aeons' stats and abilities]] in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' you can generally only get by [[VideoGameStealing stealing]] from or bribing particular monsters, in addition to the standards drops and whatnot--particularly, Level 3 Keyspheres. If the player didn't take the opportunity to steal a bunch of them from a boss, they're going to spend quite some time in [[spoiler:Zanarkand Ruins]] looking for the monsters that rarely drop them.
35	** 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. There is also ''Zodiac Age'' version with trial mode, where you can steal various useful things from enemies such as Wyrmhero Blade from Famfrit at stage 50 (ie. available much sooner than in base game), but only with 6% success rate at most.
36	*** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' uses the Bazaar system for all equipment, but gives no no control over what items you're getting, so it only kind of counts.
37	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' is similar to ''XII'' in that all money comes from ShopFodder, 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.
38	** In ''Videogame/TheatrhythmFinalFantasy'', a RhythmGame spin-off, playable characters are unlocked by collecting specifically coloured Crystal Shards, which are randomly dropped by bosses in randomly-generated Dark Notes. So if you want, say, [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV Kain]] on your team, you'll have to be doubly or triply lucky.
39	*** This is thankfully made easier in the sequel, where the shards are much easier to get (you're guaranteed to get at least 3 from beating most Chaos Maps, you can get an infinite amount of them from Rhytmia rewards and you always get ones you don't currently have all of with the possible exception of Black Shards and if you're not having luck with your own maps, you can always ask for someone to help you by having them attach a map you need which you can then get by playing online with them), you only need half as many to unlock a character in general and you can get several at the same time. Finally, when you collect enough shards to unlock a character, you generally can choose one out of several characters that're unlocked with shards of that color, although in exchange, all the characters outside of the 4 you choose initially need to be unlocked seperately, as opposed to the representative characters of each game being available at the start.
40	* In ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'', uncapping characters, (and the final uncaps of weapons and summons) require a number of materials found by completing quests, and defeating enemies... And they are element-specific. Additionally, Showdowns and Events feature items, weapons, and summons which can only be obtained by collecting and trading quantities of event-specific materials.
41	* A large portion of ''VideoGame/RecettearAnItemShopsTale'' is geared to item gathering in dungeons. Then there's being selling what you've farmed.
42	* In the ''VideoGame/AtelierSeries'', you need to farm items to find ingredients for your items.
43	%%* Farming items isn't ''necessary'' in ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', but it can be helpful.
44	* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' games saw a fair bit of this - some items and all spells could be bought, but most of the cool stuff could only be collected from dead high-level monsters. A twist: monster drops were determined randomly when you looted the corpse, so by saving just before looting, you could reload and try again if you were dissatisfied with the take. If you were determined enough, you could use the fact that some creatures occasionally dropped more than one item (the corpse didn't vanish after the first drop) to outfit your whole party with super items from ''one'' dead dragon... if you had the patience.
45	** Regarding spells, there is an exception in ''VI'' - the strongest spell of Dark Magic, Dark Containment, can be obtained only from Obelisk Puzzle treasure in single copy. If, [[UselessUsefulSpell for whatever reason]], you want more, be ready for some farming.
46	* Often necessary for crafting/upgrading certain items and equipment in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia''.
47	* The skill system in ''VideoGame/RogueGalaxy'' requires you to find certain items and use them to learn/power up your skills. Most can be found in chests or bought in shops, the rest require you to rely on monster drops. Probably the most egregious example are the Lucky Clover; every character requires several of them (some characters up to a half dozen) and you only find about half of the amount you need during the course of the game. To find the rest you need to kill a specific somewhat rare monster that has a drop rate of less than 5%.
48	** It gets even better if you wait until later in the game and go back later. The list of enemies that can be encountered is expanded, meaning that the enemy you want to encounter has an even lower chance of even appearing. (much less dropping anything)
49	* If you want to make good equipment in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', you're going to spend a ''lot'' of time wandering around looking for forma.
50	* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' has a LOT of this, particularly if you want to get (closer) to OneHundredPercentCompletion. There are locations on the map where items can be collected, reappearing after a while, RandomDrops from enemies (including very difficult {{Optional Boss}}es), items found in blue chests (some of which have a 1% chance of appearing in Rank 10 chests, the rarest), items obtained from completing quests (some of which [[SocializationBonus require connecting with other players]]) AND items that can only be found through DLC. And some of these items must then be transformed through alchemy.
51	* Invoked in ''VideoGame/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.]]
52	* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'':
53	** Players who want a reliable food source can set up literal crop farms that can be harvested for wheat, carrots, potatoes or beetroots. There are also pumpkins and watermelons whose harvest can be ''automated'' thanks to the magic of pistons.
54	** Chickens lay eggs every so often, and those eggs have a 1/8 chance of hatching a new chicken if thrown. This means with a gaggle of chickens, a redstone contraption to gather and spit eggs via hoppers and droppers, and some carefully-placed lava, you can have a machine that ''generates cooked chickens'' for you and all you have to do is wait.
55	** A similar contraption allows you to trap several villagers and a zombie in an enclosure where said villagers will continually summon iron golems in a "kill box" that guides them into lava and kills them, generating an infinite stream of iron ingots.
56	** Players can 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.
57	** For basic resources, grinding materials to build with is generally satisfying as digging for resources is ''the'' way to find hidden underground areas. By following a vein of diorite or granite, or digging deep for cobbled deepslate, you run a ''very'' strong chance of finding a massive underground area like a Deep Dark with an Ancient City, a mineshaft full of treasure and free mine tracks, a lava lake, or a room full of amethyst. It's actually rather rare to ''not'' find such a thing while digging for resources, thus the game handily combines item farming with exploration in this regard.
58	* Players in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' 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.
59	* Played straight in ''VideoGame/DungeonMakerIITheHiddenWar'', big time. Food is one of the biggest, since the players raise their stats by eating and most food items have to be gathered from dungeon creatures. It's also required to grind for items to boost the stats of some items, such as shields and the stat-boosting root sprites. There's also a lot of farming required to gain normal items too, thanks to a system where the drop rate of an item is much lower until after the first time you collect that item.
60	* The loot system at the end of a heist in ''VideoGame/PAYDAY2'' 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.
61	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' plays the trope straight with the rare and exotic items and gear, but the majority of the gear you obtain from quest rewards or dungeon loot are easily obtainable so that you don't have to grind for equipment just to be able to take on the main content.
62	* Once you get to Chapter 3-1 of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'', the game's difficulty tips its 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.
63	* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'', in addition to the carves and rewards from hunted Monsters (and severed parts thereof), also had ores, plant materials, fish and insects which needed to be mined, picked, or caught during the course of the hunt. The second game in the series added options of the player to hire people to work for you to gather these materials while you hunted, making gaining even rare stuff much easier.
64	* Overcoming the {{Hopeless Boss Fight}}s early on in ''VideoGame/LufiaTheLegendReturns'' requires you farming for items in the game's RandomlyGeneratedLevels. The first fight requires at least eight (or nine without [[PercentDamageAttack Head Crush]]) Hi-Bombs to defeat him. The second fight, since you have three characters, can also be done by stocking up on Revives and CherryTapping Gades.
65	* ItemCrafting and the Hunter's Guild requests in ''VideoGame/LufiaTheRuinsOfLore'' requires going into the randomized Ancient Cave and finding a RandomDrop inside. Figuring out which floors can have items appear is a GuideDangIt.
66	* Prevalent in ''VideoGame/PathOfExile''. Each OptionalBoss has a few proprietary unique items that only they can drop. There are also the Divination Cards, which will drop only in specific area and can be traded in sets for a specific reward.
67	* ''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 ShopFodder rather than the food you're looking for. Do the math.
68	* ''VideoGame/{{Earthlock}}:'' Weapons and potions are crafted from plants that you harvest at base camp. They drop 3, 6 or 10 items depending on how often you harvest them, and after reaching 10 they will eventually drop a seed for a more powerful version.
69	* ''VideoGame/GrimDawn'' has Monster Infrequent items that drop only from certain enemy types or bosses. These items have both their own inherent properties and the normal RandomlyGeneratedLoot modifiers, so finding a MI with the right affixes can require a lot of farming. A similar amount of farming is needed for rare crafting materials and components.
70	* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' has an example that crosses over with TwentyBearAsses in the ''Bloodmoon'' expansion. An armorer tasks you with hunting Snow Bears and Snow Wolves for their pelts. He will then turn those pelts into Snow Bear or Snow Wolf armor (medium armor and light armor, respectively) which is high quality and comes with a useful Resist Frost enchantment built in. To get both sets, you'll need 22 of each type of pelt. Snow Bears and Snow Wolves are uncommon enemies and are not guaranteed to drop a pelt upon death. Happy hunting.
71	* ''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, each quest has at least two to three different classes 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.
72	* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}''has 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.
73	* 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 ShopFodder. 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.
74	* ''Fanfic/IWokeUpAsADungeonNowWhat'': Most of this setting's economy is built around harvesting items from dungeons, both by drops from their minions and by loot from the treasure chests. On a couple of occasions, Taylor has to set up operations to let the villagers butcher her minions in an almost industrial fashion because they need large quantities of some specific monster part in a hurry.
75	* Every ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' game to-date has featured some manner of enemy that infinitely and repeatedly spawns from a fixed piece of level architecture and, typically, hurls itself at Samus, starting with the Zeb enemies from ''VideoGame/Metroid1''. These things are utterly ideal to use to farm health and missile pickups, especially since the first game lacked recharge points and would start you with only 30 energy no matter how many energy tanks you possessed. Later games have since included places and pickups that fully restore energy, which are placed strategically about levels and often before each boss, but these infinite-spawning enemies persist and are now often ''deliberately'' placed in difficult areas to give Samus an opportunity to recharge on the fly.

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