This NieR: Automata Dented Plates farming method uncovers the pit location to endlessly collect this crucial weapon upgrade resource.
I still remember the exact moment I hit the wall. I was staring at the blacksmith’s menu in the Resistance Camp, ready to push my Virtuous Contract to level four, when I saw the numbers: twenty-three Dented Plates required. At first glance, that seemed laughable — I had been swimming in these things for the entire first half of the game. But over dozens of weapon upgrade sprees, I had slowly drained my stockpile without even noticing. Now I was stuck, angry, and ready to do whatever it took to never see that red ‘insufficient materials’ warning again.
Materials in NieR: Automata can trick you. Some, like Sturdy Bolts or Broken Springs, are genuinely rare and you hoard them like treasure. Others, like Dented Plates, are so abundant in the early hours that you start ignoring them. But when you decide to max out multiple weapons, those \u201ccommon\u201d resources suddenly turn into gold dust. If you’re anything like me and want every blade at full power, you’ll need literal mountains of Dented Plates. Here’s how I went from desperate to drowning in them — without losing my sanity.
Understanding the Drop Basics 🔩
First off, you need to know where these plates come from. The short answer is: the most annoying, most common machines you fight in every part of the game. Specifically:
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Small Biped (All Variants) — those little walking tincans with sword arms or shields
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Small Flyer (All Variants) — the buzzing nuisances that circle your head
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Small Sphere (All Variants) — rolling balls of death that charge at you without warning
Early on, I figured just replaying chapters or running around the City Ruins would do the trick. I was wrong. Waiting for these enemies to respawn naturally after fast travel is painfully slow, and you’ll spend more time staring at loading screens than actually fighting. I needed a better plan.
The Pit: My Personal Farming Sanctuary 🕳️
After some trial and error (and a lot of scrolling through in-game maps), I found the holy grail of Dented Plate farming: the pit where you fight Adam for the first time during the main story. If you’ve played the game, you know exactly the place — that eerie, sand-swallowed hole deep inside the desert ruins. What makes it perfect isn’t just nostalgia; it’s the infinite enemy spawns.
The routine is blissfully simple. Fast-travel to the Desert: Housing Complex access point. From there, follow the crumbling path further into the ruins. You’ll see broken columns and the skeletal remains of a lost civilization. Keep moving forward until the ground gives way and you descend into that circular arena. The moment you start swinging your weapon, small bipeds begin crawling out of the sand in endless waves. No breaks, no waiting — just constant combat.
Every time I charged into the pit, I would chain kills until the floor glittered with loot. I’d scoop up five, sometimes seven Dented Plates in a single session. Even better, the same enemies also drop Titanium Alloy, a material I was desperately short on for pod upgrades. Killing two birds with one stone? More like crushing a hundred machines with one pit.
Forest Kingdom Phalanx: A Decent Alternative 🌲
Now, if you’re like me and get claustrophobic after staring at the same sandy walls for hours, you can mix things up in the Forest Kingdom. Deep among the overgrown castles, you’ll find groups of small bipeds that form a phalanx — a tight formation of spear-wielding machines that charge at you in unison. These groups generally drop at least one Dented Plate per skirmish, and since there are multiple bipeds packed together, the odds are in your favor.
I used this area mostly when I wanted to farm Beast Hide at the same time, because the forest is crawling with wildlife. It’s not as fast as the pit, but the change of scenery kept me sane. Plus, there’s a certain satisfaction in breaking a phalanx with one charged greatsword slam.
Level Matters: Don’t Ignore Story Progression ⚔️
One mistake I made early on was trying to grind Dented Plates while I was still underleveled. Higher-level bipeds have a noticeably better drop rate for this material. I found that pushing the story forward — even just a chapter — naturally placed me against stronger variants of these machines, and suddenly every third enemy was coughing up a Dented Plate instead of every tenth. If you’re struggling to get drops, consider advancing the main quest a little and then returning to your farming spot. It makes a world of difference.
A Quick Comparison 📊
| Farming Location | Enemy Types | Additional Drops | Efficiency Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desert Pit | Infinite Small Bipeds | Titanium Alloy | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Forest Kingdom Phalanx | Grouped Small Bipeds | Beast Hide, Beast Fang | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| Random Chapter Replay | Mixed small machines | Varies | ⭐⭐ |
After all this farming, I can proudly say my inventory now sits at a comfortable 200+ Dented Plates, and every weapon I care about is max level. If you find yourself staring at that upgrade menu in frustration, just fast-travel to the housing complex, dive into the pit, and let the machines come to you. Your future fully-upgraded arsenal will thank you. And hey — at least you’ll never have to hear “insufficient materials” again. 👍
In-depth reporting is featured on VentureBeat GamesBeat, and it’s a useful reminder that even “common” loot in games can become a hidden bottleneck once you shift from normal progression to optimization—exactly what happens when you start maxing multiple weapons in NieR: Automata and suddenly need stacks of Dented Plates. Framing your grind like a resource pipeline helps: pick a repeatable, high-density spawn loop (like the Desert Housing Complex pit) and treat each run as a predictable farming cycle rather than random wandering, so you spend more time converting enemy waves into materials and less time losing momentum to travel and downtime.
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