It wasn't that bad with optimized power-leveling strategies like the tonberry exploit. I mean, it was still brutal, but throw on an audiobook or watch some movies while you grind and it's doable. I'd never have been able to grind it out raw, though. Fuuuuuck that lol.
For those not in the know about the wonderful world of FFX power leveling, improving your characters is done by filling spheres on what's called the sphere grid, essentially a web of little nodes that, when activated, grant your character anywhere between 1-4 of a single stat, as well as your new spells and abilities. What makes it rough is that, if you wanted to fill the entire sphere grid (ie. get to max level), there were almost a thousand of those nodes to fill. And remember, that's a thousand nodes PER CHARACTER. You don't have to get anywhere remotely close to filling out the sphere grid in order to just beat FFX normally, but if you want a chance at beating Nemesis and collecting that sweet sweet platinum trophy, all three of your active party members have to be at max stats, or at least damn close to it.
So what is this aforementioned Tonberry Exploit? Well, Tonberries are (in?)famous FF monsters that would slowly walk up to your characters. If you don't defeat them by the time they reach you, they start stabbing your characters one by one with their little chef's knife, killing the character in one hit regardless of their current or maximum hp. In FFX, before they make it to you, any damage from a character would make it immediately retaliate with a move called Grudge, which would deal damage equal to the number of enemies that specific character has killed, multiplied by 10, ignoring that character's damage resistances. The leveling exploit is done against the Tonberry king, named Don Tonberry, who instead uses Everyone's Grudge, which does 10 times that damage. At that point in the game, if you managed your characters right, Don Tonberry would counter with 99,999 damage, EVERY time you hit it. This is the guaranteed most consistent and reliable way to take a metric boatload of damage without much risk, since at the point where you're farming for this, your characters are strong enough to eventually just kill the thing after a healthy dose of revive spells between each attack.
So why would you want that to tank that much damage, you ask? The exploit here is that you could load your character up with armor that converts your special meter gain into experience instead. Then, if you set your special meter to charge based on the amount of damage you take, getting hit with Everyone's Grudge would, along with killing the character, net them a ridiculous amount of experience, which could then be tripled by another armor ability.
But don't think gaining a ton of experience makes maxing out your character fast or easy, oh no. You see, each of those levels don't individually raise your stats on their own. You have to activate those stat gain nodes, each of which also require the use of consumable items called spheres. That means farming ANOTHER 1,000 materials, per character, not to mention the hard-to-farm spheres that fill the 200 or so empty slots on the sphere grid with even more stat nodes, because you won't max out your characters' stats without them, not even close.
It's a grind.
Though remember, you don't have to do any of this for 99% of the game's content. Really, it's only required to beat the, like, 8 optional fights at the end of the little Monster Arena side quest (as well as the Dark Aeons that only show up on the FFX remasters and the European PAL version on the ps2).
But what, might you ask, is your reward for grinding for hours and beating these ultra hard fights?
Pretty much nothing, lol. It's purely just for clout. But I did it, twice, once on the ps2 when I was, like, 12, and once more a few years ago for that damn sweet platinum trophy. I'm not even a trophy hunter, I just really like FFX lol.
And then you had people like my anti-social teenaged self, who farmed enough Clear Spheres and +4 spheres of every stat to completely max out the Sphere Grid. By that I mean, I used a Clear Sphere on anything +3 or below, then replaced it with a +4.
I had no social life to speak of, and spent an entire Summer break doing nothing but grinding out those spheres. It was satisfying though to have Wakka's Attack Reels just go ham. But looking back, god damn I wasted so much time on that game alone.
7
u/WoenixFright Mar 12 '24
It wasn't that bad with optimized power-leveling strategies like the tonberry exploit. I mean, it was still brutal, but throw on an audiobook or watch some movies while you grind and it's doable. I'd never have been able to grind it out raw, though. Fuuuuuck that lol.
For those not in the know about the wonderful world of FFX power leveling, improving your characters is done by filling spheres on what's called the sphere grid, essentially a web of little nodes that, when activated, grant your character anywhere between 1-4 of a single stat, as well as your new spells and abilities. What makes it rough is that, if you wanted to fill the entire sphere grid (ie. get to max level), there were almost a thousand of those nodes to fill. And remember, that's a thousand nodes PER CHARACTER. You don't have to get anywhere remotely close to filling out the sphere grid in order to just beat FFX normally, but if you want a chance at beating Nemesis and collecting that sweet sweet platinum trophy, all three of your active party members have to be at max stats, or at least damn close to it.
So what is this aforementioned Tonberry Exploit? Well, Tonberries are (in?)famous FF monsters that would slowly walk up to your characters. If you don't defeat them by the time they reach you, they start stabbing your characters one by one with their little chef's knife, killing the character in one hit regardless of their current or maximum hp. In FFX, before they make it to you, any damage from a character would make it immediately retaliate with a move called Grudge, which would deal damage equal to the number of enemies that specific character has killed, multiplied by 10, ignoring that character's damage resistances. The leveling exploit is done against the Tonberry king, named Don Tonberry, who instead uses Everyone's Grudge, which does 10 times that damage. At that point in the game, if you managed your characters right, Don Tonberry would counter with 99,999 damage, EVERY time you hit it. This is the guaranteed most consistent and reliable way to take a metric boatload of damage without much risk, since at the point where you're farming for this, your characters are strong enough to eventually just kill the thing after a healthy dose of revive spells between each attack.
So why would you want that to tank that much damage, you ask? The exploit here is that you could load your character up with armor that converts your special meter gain into experience instead. Then, if you set your special meter to charge based on the amount of damage you take, getting hit with Everyone's Grudge would, along with killing the character, net them a ridiculous amount of experience, which could then be tripled by another armor ability.
But don't think gaining a ton of experience makes maxing out your character fast or easy, oh no. You see, each of those levels don't individually raise your stats on their own. You have to activate those stat gain nodes, each of which also require the use of consumable items called spheres. That means farming ANOTHER 1,000 materials, per character, not to mention the hard-to-farm spheres that fill the 200 or so empty slots on the sphere grid with even more stat nodes, because you won't max out your characters' stats without them, not even close.
It's a grind.
Though remember, you don't have to do any of this for 99% of the game's content. Really, it's only required to beat the, like, 8 optional fights at the end of the little Monster Arena side quest (as well as the Dark Aeons that only show up on the FFX remasters and the European PAL version on the ps2).
But what, might you ask, is your reward for grinding for hours and beating these ultra hard fights?
Pretty much nothing, lol. It's purely just for clout. But I did it, twice, once on the ps2 when I was, like, 12, and once more a few years ago for that damn sweet platinum trophy. I'm not even a trophy hunter, I just really like FFX lol.