Originally posted by OmegaFreak01:

Grind for the sake of grinding versus a nice difficulty and progression system is a very fine balance to hit. Especially since everyone is different and sensititive to these issues in different ways. Some people can just grind for the sake up making a number go up and that's the reward, others needs those numbers to translate into some new action, number goes up is just the path to cool thing x.

I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think (for the most part) that is applies to this game. The only thing I can think of in the game that is grinding to "just make a number go up" is skill level, which I totally ignore because, for the most part, it is just making a number go up.

You probably need to grind to increase your armor quality to survive, but you have complete freedom in how and how much you do that. I always skip leather, and sometimes skip iron. Iron or silver is enough for plains. I haven't hit Mistlands yet, but it sounds difficult, so I'm sure I'll fully upgrade before then.

One guy a while back was trying to complete the game (though plains) on just meadows gear/items. I don't know if he did it, but last I saw he was trying to defeat Yagluth.

There are very few things in this game that require a linear progression. It's difficult to unlock iron items without defeating The Elder, for instance, and it's not possible to unlock most things in the plains without defeating Moder, but, other than that you can do what you want when you want.