Hello all! I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how I go about focusing my grinding to make the most sense for results in the long run. In loo of what’s going on in the world, I figured I’d get it all jotted down so you can have your own grindfests!
In this article, I’m going to be referencing Final Fantasy X as that is my biggest grinding game at the moment.
1. You have to truly love the game.
If you’re grinding, you can’t have a character that drives you up the wall or a battle system that you just can’t seem to get down. Trying to grind on a game that you are not 150% in love with will not make for a fun time, which means you probably won’t come back to the grind.
2. Find the biggest goal you have and put mini goals inside that goal.
The hardest thing to goal setting is making a goal that is too hard. If you make a massive goal that you want every character to have the best armor in the game, but you don’t put into account the sheer amount of items you need for everything you’ll become lost and off track and never complete what you want.
So find a goal, put a goal in that goal, and a goal in that goal; just like a Russian nesting egg! Here’s an example:
I’m currently playing Final Fantasy X and want all my characters to have Ribbon Armor
- 7 characters with Ribbon / Auto Haste / Auto Regen / Break HP Limit Armor (Main goal 1)
- Let’s start with Ribbon (Sub Goal 1A)
- Each time Ribbon is customized, it requires 99 Dark Matter. So I need to farm 696 Dark Matter
- Dark Matter is a rare drop for all Monster Arena created fiends, so I need fight those as much as I can.
- After Ribbon, the next customization is Auto-Haste. (Sub Goal 1B)
- Each time Auto-Haste is customized, it requires 80 Chocobo Wing. So I need to farm 560 Chocobo Wing.
- Chocobo Wings are a common steal from Cactuar King in the Area Conquest from Thunder Plains.
- After Auto-Haste, Auto-Regen is next up. (Sub Goal 1C)
- Each time Auto-Regen is customized, it requires 80 Healing Spring. I would need to far 560 Healing Spring
- Healing Springs are a common drop from Kottos in the Area Conquest from Mi’ihen Highroad.
- Finally, Break HP Limit is the last on the list (Sub Goal 1D)
- When you customize Break HP Limit, you need 30 Wings to Discovery. To have everything needed, I’ll have to get 210 Wings to Discovery.
- Of all the reagents, this one is the hardest to get. I either get really good at Shinryu, a super boss limited to Rikku, Wakka, and Tidus, or I bribe Malboro half a million gil for 4.
Overall Plan:
- I’m going to start with the Cactuar King until I have 90 Chocobo Wings. As the steal for that is a higher rate then the Dark Matter, I’ll hit the needed amount from there. I also don’t want to go much higher than 90 because of the 99 cap, won’t want to waste!
- Once I have 90 Chocobo Wings, I will switch roles to Kottos. From my research, I found that this will rise very quickly. I’ll most likely be done with both Chocobo Wings and Healing Springs before I get a chance to get 99 Dark Matter.
- Once I have my 90 Chocobo Wings and 90 Healing Springs, I’m going to sell all the armor and weapons I earned from the battles above to make extra Gil.
- Using that Gil, I’ll wander the Calm Lands, as I’m already there because of the Monster Arena, and bribe away Malboro to get the Wings to Discovery. I’ll continue this until I have less than 600,000 gil.
- If all above has been done and I still don’t have 99 Dark Matter, I’ll switch gears and continue to get the Sphere Grid Attribute spheres that I covered in this blog post here about sphere grid spheres until I have enough.
Thinking two or three steps ahead in your grinding will not only make it so you obtain your goals faster, but also setting up a master plan like you see above is extremely helpful to make sure you are successful in your grind!
3. Plan for all the eventualities.
In my plan above, you can see I’m not only planning for drop rates to suck, but for them to be awesome. If I end up getting nothing but Dark Matter for my Ribbon armor, then that means I can just start right over and continue back from step 1.
I’m also fully expecting for drop rates to be abysmal, as Dark Matter typically is. I’m preparing my Sphere Grid for getting the spheres needed to max everyone and continuously leveling up my people so I can start the full grind stat maxing while I’m also working on getting all of my armor where I want it. That’s not even including the weapon grind for later.
4. Be aware of the time you’re investing.
Some of the goals you’ll have will take time, a whole lot of it. Sometimes it’s hard to break away from the game when you haven’t gotten enough for even one of the sub-goals you have. That’s why #2 is so important. Making sub-sub-sub-sub-goals will make it so you don’t feel like you’re spinning your wheels and then make the game less fun because then you’ll never finish your grind, which is #1.
5. Breaks from your grind are needed every once and a while.
Sometimes, when I’m really feeling annoyed on drop rates on my grind, I’ll take a step back in the game and do something completely different. Can’t get my drops of Dark Matter? I’ll go and battle my aeons to get them up and slowly lower their 600 needed for stat maxing, or play a couple games of Blitzball, or attempt some Dark Aeons, or anything else that’s not directly related. A breath of fresh air is sometimes all you need.
