So what I'm saying here is that back in the days of say, Final Fantasy 1-6 or other older jrpg's did the developers not consider grinding a thing? Was it more that they expected the player to run around looking for the next objective and by doing so would naturally level? I know old guidebooks existed but with the huge amount of resources available to us today, if you follow a guide you can just play the game with no wandering around at all. Not everyone plays glued to a guide but some do, and I wonder if the guide-less would need to grind less on average. Curious about everyone's thoughts.

TLDR: Do you think grinding is more player created or developer created?