Since when was not power-levelling a bad thing?

[Biosophilogical]

Spoiler: Feel free to skip this bit. It is just the backstory to my question

I've recently been playing Dark Souls (a lot), and I made a 'sort of' low level character, maxing out at about 40-45 for a New Game (probably going higher in NG+). The reason for this is because in other characters I've levelled a bit too high (about 55-65), and I cannot summon anyone.

The problem is, I'd like to join the Darkwraith covenant (not to invade, just for the armour and stuff) before I go get my Sunbro on, and I'd like to not talk to Frampt, meaning I can't level up, because then I'd be too high for all the other areas I need to finish, and I can't not level up, because otherwise I'll be too low to summon for the Four Kings.

So here's my question to you all, now that you've heard my sob-story (possibly). Have you ever read up on a boss, or an area, or whatever challenging section of a game you've approached, and realised that somewhere along the line you have been left behind by every other player, that you've missed some key weapon, or completely skipped part of the usual game progression, and you just really don't want to bother with catching up?

My earliest example would be FFX, against Yunalesca. How on earth was I meant to have Quick Hit and Holy by this point, exactly?

Some come one, come all. Share you stories of low-levelling, or under-powering.

EDIT: Also, am I the only one who finds it a bit upsetting that almost EVERYONE dies in Dark Souls? I mean, you summon them to help (Solaire, Beatrice, Tarkus) and then you find their corpse just sitting there, or you kill them (at which point you loot their armour, so I guess it isn't all bad). Also, Sif, when s/he starts limping at you? Broke my hear to kill her/him at that point.

 

[Space Spoons]

It's happened to me before, yeah. The times that stand out most vividly are a few occasions in Final Fantasy Tactics, various Pokemon games and Super Mario RPG.

It doesn't bother me, though. The way I see it, if you aren't into level grinding, you probably shouldn't be playing that kind of game to begin with. Heck, power-leveling is actually one of the reasons I enjoy playing Final Fantasy games.

 

[krazykidd]

It's happened to me before, yeah. The times that stand out most vividly are a few occasions in Final Fantasy Tactics, various Pokemon games and Super Mario RPG.

It doesn't bother me, though. The way I see it, if you aren't into level grinding, you probably shouldn't be playing that kind of game to begin with. Heck, power-leveling is actually one of the reasons I enjoy playing Final Fantasy games.

Rule of thumb, if you fight all the random battles, you'll never need to grind for the main story bosses in ant FF game.


This happened to me with Grandia 3 , Oh my goodness do i remember this screw up. I got to the end of the game and i was level 25 on my first and only playthrough. Then i was having trouble with the final boss ( i didn'T know it was the final boss) i check on game faqs and i'm not suppose to fight him under level 50 . I WAS HALF THE LEVEL I WAS SUPPOSE TO BE AT THE FINAL BOSS ! How the hell did that happen ? no fucking clue, EXP is so scarce in that game and i never bothered grinding, and i was way too underleved for EVERY FIGHT and i still made it to the final boss. had to spend the next 12 hours grinding to get to lvl 50 . NOT A FUN DAY

 

[demoman_chaos]

Dark Souls, if you don't get the Drake Sword, you cannot win. It is a very early weapon that does 200 damage (the closest weapon at that point does 110) that you get by shooting a dragon's tail 20 times. If you fail to do so, you will not be doing enough damage to the enemies to survive. This is at a point where most enemies can kill you in just a few hits, so every extra swing you need to take is a big deal.

 

[Darkstorm13]

Resonance of Fate, I saved outside the final area then entered it (you have to get through the whole thing in one go with the supplies you have) and spent hours struggling through it bit by bit, finally giving up near the end. I reloaded my save and levelled up each character from around 90 to 120 (max is 300) and breezed through it the second time

 

[Lunar Templar]

only time i've had this issue was in pokemon white -.- at the end -.- it sucked

 

[BlindedHunter]

The most recent Pokemon games were a little unforgiving about this, since you couldn't re-battle NPCs, meaning the only way to reliably get a lot of EXP was to run around to make shaky grass appear and battle Audinos over and over and over.
It was especially bad with the final time you fight... N, was it? And all the battles after that. Mostly the battle right after that, since you needed to be able to field a complimentary team that could handle both N and the person after him who had significantly higher level Pokemon, and powerful ones at that.

 

[BishopofAges]

I actually had the opposite happen to me in Bioshock 2, I explored the place so much that I had too much ammo, found most of the secret gene tonics and plasmids and took the time to escourt and save each little sister at the beginning of each level so near the end I just had to run-n-gun shotgun everything while idly tapping medkits occationally, not that it made it too easy, but I really felt like a 'Big Daddy' if you catch my meaning.

To be honest, I had that issue with every character after my main in WoW, because I ended up trying different quest paths, and found out that A) I apparently chose the best, easiest, and least Enemy faction filled path the first time around, and B)Looked very attractive to enemy players to slay, so everything else felt like unwelcome harshness in my rear end.

 

[Veylon]

Oh, geez. Final Fantasy Tactics was terrible about this. There are several battles where you'd simply get curbstomped if you hadn't spent some time training and racking up abilities.

Other than that, about the only time when I got smacked in the face for not grinding was Pokemon Blue. I managed to make it all the way to the Final Four more-or-less on the strength of one 'mon. There I discovered that a sole Blastoise cannot take on five trainers in a row. After a few tries, I realized that I had to back out into the world an build up an actual team. That took a while.

 

[Strain42]

I've been playing Persona 2, and honest what I've been doing is just grinding myself like crazy in the free roam dungeon. I'm getting everyones Persona to have 99 in all stats, and naturally by the time that happens the levels are pretty high.

This lets me just breeze right through the actual dungeons in the game and I can just enjoy the story and boss fights.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Well just today I found out I'm the least sneaky argonian ever in Skyrim. Played a story quest that required some stealth, but I hadn't leveled my stealth at all, holding it back so I could focus on other skills. I had to kill every mother fucker in the Thulmer embassy.

 

[Aurgelmir]

My earliest example would be FFX, against Yunalesca. How on earth was I meant to have Quick Hit and Holy by this point, exactly?

Some come one, come all. Share you stories of low-levelling, or under-powering.

You are not, not really. And you can defeat her without either of those.

But FFX is one of the simplest games to Power Level in though. If you find Omegas cave that is.

You HAVE to be high level to get through the cave. So what I did was to figth one fight next ot the save point, and heal up. Then fight another one a bit further away, realize I still was not strong enough, go back to the save etc. In the end I got to the Omega.

Oh yeah each fight gave something like 3-4 levels pet fight. So by the time I got to the end boss Yuna could One-shot him

Now over to under-leveling, I would say Oblivion. At lvl one you could one shot things with an arrow from stealth, at lvl2 you had to use at least 3. The enemy leveling with you curve just didn't work, and I found the game more enjoyable at lvl1 than lvl 10... Thank god Skyrim fixed this.

I had to kill every mother fucker in the Thulmer embassy.

I did the same but the Thalmore deserved it, pesky elves!

 

[Dimitriov]

Not power-levelling has always been a bad thing. I learned that as a youngster back in the early 90s playing Squaresoft games.

Me? I over level myself like a champ in any game that will let me. Cuz grinding is fun! ;D (Disclaimer: the last statement may sound sarcastic. It isn't. I LOVE grinding out levels and resources in games.)

I always got Luminaire for Crono waaaaay early in the game in Chrono Trigger.

 

[UltimaEX]

I enjoyed FF8 for this reason.
If you powerlevelled you had to fight higher level foes,
Whilst if you avoided combat, the enemy level stayed low.

 

[Biosophilogical]

My earliest example would be FFX, against Yunalesca. How on earth was I meant to have Quick Hit and Holy by this point, exactly?

Some come one, come all. Share you stories of low-levelling, or under-powering.

You are not, not really. And you can defeat her without either of those.

But FFX is one of the simplest games to Power Level in though. If you find Omegas cave that is.

You HAVE to be high level to get through the cave. So what I did was to figth one fight next ot the save point, and heal up. Then fight another one a bit further away, realize I still was not strong enough, go back to the save etc. In the end I got to the Omega.

Oh yeah each fight gave something like 3-4 levels pet fight. So by the time I got to the end boss Yuna could One-shot him

Now over to under-leveling, I would say Oblivion. At lvl one you could one shot things with an arrow from stealth, at lvl2 you had to use at least 3. The enemy leveling with you curve just didn't work, and I found the game more enjoyable at lvl1 than lvl 10... Thank god Skyrim fixed this.

About FFX. I always used to have trouble with Yunalesca, so when I played through again, I looked it up, and the person was like "By now, you should have quick hit on Tidus, so use your skill spheres to give it to characters X and Y. Also, you should have Holy." It was absurd.

And for Skyrim, do the enemies still scale? I've heard a lot about the game (good and bad) and even played a couple hours at a mates place (loving the graphics, but the lower amount of customisation did make me reminisce about Oblivion).

OT: To those people saying that power-levelling is always a good thing, what about in Dark Souls? If you level too much you will be too high to summon/get summoned, and the only real help you could get would be NPCs.

Dark Souls, if you don't get the Drake Sword, you cannot win. It is a very early weapon that does 200 damage (the closest weapon at that point does 110) that you get by shooting a dragon's tail 20 times. If you fail to do so, you will not be doing enough damage to the enemies to survive. This is at a point where most enemies can kill you in just a few hits, so every extra swing you need to take is a big deal.

Actually, while the Drake sword is amazing at that point in the game, a +5 Claymore is almost as good and has bigger range (as well as a thrust attack so you don't bounce off walls), and if you are playing a Dex character, the Bandit's Knife has absolutely amazing Criticals and a really fast bleed build up, and being a Dex based weapon, you can also use the bow to deal with the Parish Channeler.

So the drake sword isn't necessary (and with the recent patch, I think they made the enemies easier, and it gives you about double the souls, and increased carry load), it just helps a lot for non-physical builds (because you don't get decent spells until after the Gargoyles[footnote]Though as an aside, if you use a bow to lure out the shield enemies near the Armoured Boar, they won't close the portcullis-thing and you can just take that shortcut (which takes you straight to the basement key) meaning you can completely skip the Channeler, the Baldur knights, and the Gargoyles and go straight down to fight the Capra demon (which is also where the earliest good sorcery teacher is[/footnote]).

 

[Aurgelmir]

About FFX. I always used to have trouble with Yunalesca, so when I played through again, I looked it up, and the person was like "By now, you should have quick hit on Tidus, so use your skill spheres to give it to characters X and Y. Also, you should have Holy." It was absurd.

And for Skyrim, do the enemies still scale? I've heard a lot about the game (good and bad) and even played a couple hours at a mates place (loving the graphics, but the lower amount of customisation did make me reminisce about Oblivion).

Don't remember when you get quick hit, but Holy at Yunalesca is a bit overkill I think.

As for Skyrim, yes they still level with you so some extent, but in a different matter. In the beging you might meet only Dragnr in ruins, but later you meet more of the tougher Restless Draugnr and so on.

Not sure what you mean about the customization lacking in skyrim?

 

[DracoSuave]

Low leveling or NOT Min/Maxing is how you let down other players that you are playing with to defeat bosses/big challenges or ruling PVP.

That's why it is bad, if you like to play a low leveler with friends of the same mind that is fine but don't cry when you get ganked or fail to progress in the game.

It is absolutely soul crushing when playing Final Fantasy X when someone groups with you and they have such poor gear and knowledge of their character that they can't hold their weight, forcing you to carry them in order to stay alive. Against Yunalesca, this will always end up in wipes


Fortunately, this never has to happen because FFX, and the sorts of games the OP is refering to, are single player games, and the situation of being held back by an undergeared or underbuilt player HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC