>oh man that resist poison for 1 turn item in a turn based jrpg? Cant wait to use it >no one
Correct. If you have items with no real use case, they shouldnt be there to begin with.
>poisoned >use antidote >poisoned again >use antidote >posisoned again >frick it just endure it >poisoned status cures itself with time >damage wasn't even that bad >no consecuenses >no diferent tipes of poison >no weird poisons mechanics >or poison like stats with funky name >rot, cursed, bleed, debuffs in general
yeah poison is geh bullshit every game
So many games fall for this trap. Using an antidote should give you some sort of immunity for X turns because otherwise I just don't see the point. It's a waste of a precious action.
A game like Witcher 3 solves this, were instead of having to constantly make potions throughout the game to replenish your stock, you only have to make them once, and they get replenished with one of three ingredients whenever you meditate. Good design really.
nope, those items were there in the first place to waste your time
it's all pointless resource management to hide the fact that the game was low budget and lacked imagination from the designers
If you can finish a game with lots of items hoarded then those items were not needed. Or they were not rare enough
In a well balanced game this shouldn't happen
In every game I've ever played there were items that weren't strictly needed, but using them increased the fun. This isn't just a discussion of items that are crucial for the game's progression.
easy fix: don't make rare single use items in your game
if something is rare and difficult to get make it reusable, if it's easy to get then make it single use
Yeah, EarthBound is one of my favorite games of all time but my main complaint about it is there’s just so much useless shit. The only things that are really useful are equippables, HP and PP-restoring foods, teddy bears, and things like bottle rockets for Jeff. Nearly everything else will just languish in your inventory. Not to mention all the fricking worthless PSI like hypnosis that you’ll go a whole playthrough without using once
I remember a fanfic based on the Mario and Luigi games that at times it felt like it was describing a playthrough. Especially with how every world they go to has a store and it's autistically described what they buy, which includes some refreshing herbs every time.
The point is that they never use them so in the final store they sell them all. I don't know if he wrote out loud that they were useless but it's funny how nearly 18 years ago the same thought prevails.
The only JRPG out of the dozens that I've
played where I found myself constantly using items was Shin Megami Tensei V, and that's because it's a requirement on hard mode. I don't understand why some people think dampeners are bad design, because no other JRPGs have incentivized me to use items more than those.
This. Most of the time you end up hoarding items because the game is so easy you don't need them. You save rare items for when you really need them, but that time never come up.
This. Most of the time you end up hoarding items because the game is so easy you don't need them. You save rare items for when you really need them, but that time never come up.
I remember back in the day, Ganker's hateboner for reddit was so intense that you would get attacked just for pointing this kind of shit out, ironically making it easier to get away with posting reddit content without backlash. Now it looks like they don't even bother to respond to callouts. Ganker finally shows it's true colors: redditors all the way down.
How would I know this is from reddit if I don't go there?
Also its a general question, but the discussion is on 4nach. it's not like it's a reddit question.
redditors are moronic but with the amount of FED bots, zogbots, shills and discord raiders, the simple redditor isn't that big of a threat.
The only game I've ever played where using consumables was basically required was Arc Rise Fantasia, because of how limited magic was. Fire Emblem doesn't count, even weapons are consumables.
>because of how limited magic was.
Wut? You could do a lot of combined magic spells that broke the game like fire+earth to dispell enemy buffs and Fire+fire to overheal and grant extra health. Water + water healed and cured ailments. If you want an example of a game where items were necessary because magic sucks, then try the wild arms games, you could even afflict status ailments on bosses with items.
For me it was after watching a bunch of FF13 speedruns and then changing my playstyle to try to end fights quickly rather than efficiently use resources. So spamming high power moves, using tents instead of spamming cure, using damage dealing items for super effective damage when available, using encounter avoiding items, etc. I found games were slightly more fun but I progressed a LOT faster which I really appreciate now that life has gotten busy.
Then I fricked it all up by breeding competitive level pokemon and EV training them in Platinum for 40 hours
Stop being a hording moron. This happened to me in 2 games and ykw, I learned my lesson and just started using my fricking ammo. Every single game (at least on normal mode) will throw you tons of ammo so you basically never need to save it.
>So, you used Auto Battle and then grinded for 30 minutes before the final boss fight and proceeded to use the exact same autobattle preset to defeat it
What is Final Fantasy, Alex? And just like you, it's dead and buried.
>Dead and buried
Except FF16 sold 3 million in the first week, and Rebirth sold 5, with the first big FF16 dlc being released this week and FF14 continuing to be one of the most successful MMOs of all time. I'm sorry that you're such a massive, uninformed homosexual.
>goal post moving
What you said is that Final Fantasy is dead. It's not. The past four Final Fantasy games have also been highly critically acclaimed and factually loved by millions. I'm sorry that you're a bitter little homosexual.
Final fantasy style can be good, if they tweet it to make it more balanced, and put a limit to the bullshit objects (Fricking elixir, broken piece of shit) >inb4. B-But grinding
It is made for homosexuals who can't think, so they give the option to waste time...Instead of actually getting good
I didn't even know those could stack. That's cool. I saved so fricking many of those expendable spell books though. Never once needed to use them, but I figured I should hang onto them just in case.
What the other anon said but also they are your extra slots and utility spells when you are playing Sorc. People saying the itemization in DD2 is bad are just moronic, although admittedly it would come off much better if the game was actually difficult more often. Like most of the systems in the game (wtf were they thinking).
I never played as mage or sorc, and I kept my main pawn as mage the entire game. Guess I really never needed them kek. I don't know why they didn't make it so pawns could use them though.
I guess because you'd have a bunch of people giving pawns the books to be carried and then the pawns just blowing through them for no reason at all, or them picking them out of a chest and doing the same thing. Having a sub-inclination that uses healing items was a great idea but they should've done more with the system and included one that utilizes books, or one that pops buff items on you, etc etc.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I agree, that would have been really helpful. I wouldn't have even cared if the pawn used them all quickly, the game throws hundreds of them at you.
What the other anon said but also they are your extra slots and utility spells when you are playing Sorc. People saying the itemization in DD2 is bad are just moronic, although admittedly it would come off much better if the game was actually difficult more often. Like most of the systems in the game (wtf were they thinking).
sounds like bad game design problem. as in, the game is so easy and simple that they don't require using items.
Try games like Reverse Collapse. the only game in my memory that actually incentivizes you to use items.
SMT4 Apocalypse doesn't necessarily require items to succeed, but there is a mechanic that uses (non-healing) items in your bag for you so that they don't stockpile, and the game doesn't feel easier despite this.
>. the only game in my memory that actually incentivizes you to use items.
That's because it's the only way to win the action economy.
Speaking of I need to get around to playing it some more.
>i actually used 'em in elden ring >start to have fun with crafted knifes >having a blast with bombs >suddenly >perfumes >im having the time of my life >start to run off of items >wasting lots time farming items >damage drop cuz i don't arcane or whatever >stop having fun >i go back to my basic sword&bluebar shenanigans
but i still use consumables from time to time
"Saved" implies there was a conscious choice to not use them. It's more like I couldn't be assed to go through the menu to set them up for use. And then you need to do a little bit of trial and error to learn how best to use them properly.
You'll be at the end of the game by the time you've mastered them AND found the one use-case where they are actually worth it.
>RPG has tons of items >literally the only ones worth using are the ones that restore SP and lost max HP outside combat >all the attack items are useless after the first major area of the world (only good for cheesing a single miniboss) >All buff items are so useless they're literally unnoticeable >Ailments are trivial except Confusion so those are meh >to top it off you must waste an accessory slot you could use on an infinitely better element enabler or blocker to hold a bag to use the items at all >and there are 3 different types of bag, one for food (buffs), one for snacks (buff/cures), one for toys (attack/debuff items) >Also you can only hold 30 of each item iirc >literally zero benefit to using them instead of blocking and mitigating with turn heals or just going unga >to top it off they're reliant on your stance being weaker than atk/block, as support stance is faster
And yet I still maxed them anyway.
>when saving up all the consumables pays off at the final boss, and you use up everything you had to bring him down
name the game
for me it was hands of necromancy
Etrian Odyssey IV, I used every single TP restorant and revive item, every HP restorer, everything I had and the final Origin Rune from the last standing party member brought down the Warped Savior with his eye closed (massive damage reduction)
Tents aren't a thing in DQ
And I was talking about in battle, for the final boss. Elfin Elixirs are usually limited to whatever you find unless you wanna grind out the Casino.
Unicorn Overlord
Didn't have a good setup for the final boss, so I had to just keep slamming my strongest unit into him over and over while using all my items.
The first time i beat Star Ocean 3 i used every single revive item i had during the final boss fight, i honestly thought i was going to lose, but he finally died. I think my party setup for that game was absolute ass though. I was using Fayt, Nel, and Sophia, and i probably had their art setups nowhere near ideal.
I’m not gonna lie, I did this with Ganon in totk. The game is otherwise so easy that I never ate food. I had a ton stored up. He took me by surprise and I tanked him with meals.
Underrail is good about this. Using items is not minor, it's a major factor of fights. From grenades to medicines/drugs to traps even like caltrops and buffs like the foods and minor utilities flares.
One major thing about the consumables is that they have real-time durations that can get you to pass skill checks. My funniest example is that there is that you can snort cocaine to pass a whole bunch of Strength checks.
Yeah the boosts on yours stats letting you clinch stat/skill checks is great. All the consumables are notably useful when you use them and have clear moments to use them which is why they become a regular part of your kit instead of "yeah maybe I'll remember to use this one day."
>looks at my personal storage so full of items for crafting, ammo I'll never use, and shittier beartraps and throwing knives, wrapped up in half a dozen armours that are marginally worse than what I'm wearing but "I need to keep in case I need X resistance or Y skill buffed"
Yes. It is good about the specific thing you mentioned.
There's no excuse for holding onto unusable ammo, that's just another form of currency you can exchange for things you do want since it's light, high value, and most traders will always buy it.
Especially in the case of RPGs, if the game is never putting you in a situation where you feel like you need to use them the game isn't very well designed.
I remember when Ganker had the OC. Now people steal from Reddit and Facebook and post it here and homosexuals take the thread to bump limit. I am leaving this shit website, wow. It's totally dead. Normalgay central
>game has a special buff altar where you can buy stat buffs for the final boss fight for every consumable you have
I dont know the game, I made it up, sorry
I had a real mindset shift with this issue when I started viewing unused items as a failure on my part to play as well as I could have. I used to have the attitude I imagine a lot of people do that using items 'makes the game easier' and is therefore less skilful, but I have come to realise that staying on top of item use is actually the more impressive use of game mechanics.
For the record, I'm not talking about things like lollipops in Bayonetta but rather things like blood stones in King's Field.
Crysis 1 >Oh so you saved up all of this special ammo for late game shit? >All these rockets and such? >Too bad, we'll steal all of your shit right before the endgame starts
Pissed me off so much
It's a balance problem too.
STALKER mods are the perfect example. If stepping on an anomaly, especially a hard to see one like a burner, is a guaranteed death then the only option is to reload and walk around it as if it never happened. There's no lasting penalty to your resources for making a mistake so you just accumulate consumables.
Even shittier mods keep this high anomaly damage and increase the resource cost for every tiny bit of damage to compensate, making everything else tedious in the process.
I finished Silent Hill 2 with like 500 rounds of assorted ammunition. The game is way too easy for all the praise it gets, even if you're using the classic tank controls, the spaces are so wide and 99% of enemies are slow moving humanoids. Only enemy that gives some trouble is the bed homosexuals because they're fast, but there's only like 3-4 of them.
>design the game to require resources to continue >at worst make it impossible to continue >bad case make it required to grind to continue >add extra menu fiddling for item usage or management
vs. >design game to be beaten without resources >worst case make it too easy >bad case make it easy to stockpile items you never use in the game
seems pretty simple why designers lean one way
theres an easy solution and thats removing all sources of healing beyond items and magic, so no resting to heal and other such bullshit
also no saving anywhere, either have autosave on and making defeats take stuff from you as penalty, or set save points where dying means reloading back
My favorite thing games do is when you get poisoned mid-fight but it's a waste of time and resources to bother curing it during the battle when you could spam heals or just ignore it.
Has there ever been a game where items were actually useful or important? I always just min-max the most cost effective recovery items and never bother touching anything else.
There are plenty, but you run into the opposite problem of "Oh shit I don't know if this Giga Elixir might come in handy for a WORSE boss than this one" and you wind up hoarding out of concern rather than indifference.
Estus was a mindblowingly good innovation specifically because of this shit.
The general expectation of progression is that things harder as the game goes along so it's always "sensible" to save any worthwhile items unless you can easily farm them. Farming is tedious.
Estus should be the groundwork for nearly all consumable systems, like ninjutsu and magic in Nioh, not gay shit you have to do monotonous tasks to restock on if you need them, like elixirs in Nioh.
I personally really liked how Witcher 3 handled bombs and potions where finding the ingredients to make/upgrade them was an adventure but once you made them it only required the use of a common alcohol item to replenish them after use. It gave you the satisfaction of rare ingredient hunting and discovery but removed the tedium of farming and the associated discouragement of item usage.
Yeah that's how I think it should be done.
A "reward" initial unlock behind a large gate, and then a small or nonexistant gate to actually replenish stock.
And additionally, a shared resource burden limit (points in Nioh, to an extent cracked pots in ER). My ideal system would have the "price" of each additional stock of the same item gradually rise as you , either from 1 or from a low minimum, potentially depending on the individual item, and all items (healing, offense and utility) share the limit for how much stock you could withdraw.
It being relevant that your entire stock was replenished to however many charges you had allocated every time you hit a certain check.
That's essentially how Monster Hunter is, and I don't think anybody but the most diehard autist ever said "Yay, out of mega potions, time to rotate between spamming shitquests/instafails and the farm for a while, although I have no doubt they would complain if it was removed, even though they make every item trivial to mass nowadays anyway. It would be more balanced if you had to abandon a quick sippy to bring a flashbomb in any case.
The single best thing Cyberpunk 2.0 did was change medkits and grenades from consumable items you hoard and never use to infinite items with a cooldown timer (and perks that let you use them 2 or 3 times in a row before you have to wait for them to regen)
Frick no. It's another casual as shit mechanic masquerading as part of a hardcore game. It destroys inventory management because it fits in with the small loops of repetitive gameplay designed around bonfires, and removes the elements of choice and planning. It works fine for Souls games but it's shit in real RPGs.
reminder that if this happens to you consistently either you need to turn the difficulty of your game up or the devs didn't make the game challenging enough if there's no option to do so.
people do this, fight every random battle, never use status moves or change up their strategy and instead just grind if they lose to a boss and proceed to call turn based rpgs a bad/outraged genre btw
Items should have an expiration on them. As well as an easy to use sorting open to show you which are expiring the soonest. If it is a stacked item the older one is automatically selected when used.
I use the items when I need them, I don't care
Hoarding items doesn't make anyone a good player, and in the long run makes the game boring
Some guy I knew always complained that final bosses in RPGs were too easy because he used exploits and glitches to get the best items and austistically grinded to lvl 99
>Hoarding items doesn't make anyone a good player, and in the long run makes the game boring
The problem is that you never know how frequent you get an item until you finish the game. For instance, megaelixirs and elixirs are rare items in FF, so you hoard them only when you need them. And by the time you reach endgame, they are kinda redundant save for one usage during a critical moment.
This hasn't happened to me since like years.
If you play games on harder difficulties and actually bother to assess what you'll need and what you can sell and then actually use the items you have then you'll never have this problem.
Alternatively just play a game that is balanced around using consumables, or better yet a game where all items are consumables like Riveria: The Promised Land. Then you'll get into a mindset of actually using items.
I'll always have a soft spot for this shit because there's just enough BFG ammo in the game to make one full inventory stack, and when you reach the final boss you can just magdump said stack of BFG ammo on him to win in 10 seconds
>DMC1 >save a majority of my devil stars for the last boss >wash the fight without needing a single one
i thought there was gonna be at least another phase
>Game forces you to pick up trash to level up through identifying items >Item hoarding for potions and traps also very useful. >If you horde items however, you're heavy slow and probably going to die to enemies since you can't move, fatass.
Barony fricking sucks (unless you're a high strength melee)
If the game has a limited inventory and a steady supply of increasingly better items are given to you as you progress, then I will use items frequently whenever I find a reason to.
If the game does not have limited inventory, then I will never use items unless the difficulty is high enough to make it so items feel necessary to survive.
I think as humans, we only have so much mental space for remembering or managing a lot of things. If it's smaller, we can handle it. Only the super autists care about management of large inventories. In the real world, we have others who help manage our large organizations and workloads.
In video games, what they need is to have "helpers," whether it's an in game assistant or a virtual UI help that goes
"Hey, you have 5 elixirs. You should use one to not let them go to waste."
I've been spoiled by long JRPG"s. In really long JRPG's, you'll often reach what feels like the end game, but it turns you're only halfway through!
I actually played FF6 pretty late and have been fully acclimated into the long JRPG mindset. I got to Kefka's Tower and felt in my bones that I was being baited into thinking it was the end-game. Surely, Kefka would flee and then we'd fight for real in a completely different place. I was stunned that the game actually ended there. I still really enjoyed it, I'm just at the point where if a JRPG is less than 40hours I stop and think "WAIT WHAT, THAT'S IT?"
>don't use them >feel good that I'm good enough at the game to ignore an entire mechanic >do use them >feel good because I don't just lose due to being underprepared
Works on my machine.
>Get items regularly >Design encounters in a way that forces you to use them or make the items actually useful >Player knows the items are moderately limited but regular so they aren't apprehensive about using them or being forced to use them
Roguelikes solved this 40 years ago. Don't flood the player with them, make them more useful than "+5% fire resistance for 30 seconds" or some other overly specific benefit, and give them to players in regular intervals. Having "+10 strength" items and "+100 strength" items is also going to push the player to horde the bigger number and never use it "just in case" even though a +10 is more than enough for any encounter. Look at the divine blessing in Dark Souls for an example, you have no real reason to use it despite it's perceived power.
Roguelikes enforce it cause you only have one life. So it forces the person to think about each turn closely and what they have. You're more likely to use a big ticket item if it means saving your butt. That's what makes it work.
Maybe the problem isn't with items then and more with the lack of punishment in games. Even the perceived punishment in Souls games isn't enough to overcome item use hesitation because there really isn't any.
Well, you're right. In older rpgs and crpgs, due to less healing and more resource management focus, you had to actually depend more on what you carried. You also had limited space in some rpgs, so that helped, too. However, the difficulty really is the kicker here. Games today are made for the casual audience, even Dark Souls fell into it with their recent games.
This is the real issue. Games today have zero punishment for dying, so why risk an item I might need later when I could survive without it and if I don't it's only a 30 second run back to the boss?
I will use them, but if I don't possess at least one of every single item in the game(not counting things you can't control like losing a key item etc as part of a mandatory game event), then the way I see it I didn't complete the game and I have to start over again to do it right.
Had the reverse of this happen recently while playing Afterschool Tag. Had full life and two life-up items and found another sitting in a room. I sat on it for about half an hour expertly dodging threats before deciding to get repeatedly raped on purpose to consume all of them, then ended up not finding any more for the rest of the night.
Unicorn Overlord in a nutshell >Game gives you a bunch of traps to defend yourself from enemies rushing at you >Doesn't really matter since the game is designs for you to rush them and the boss afterwards before the time limit is up >Literally the only use for it is if you're dumb enough to run out of stamina while there's no other unit pass by or a few "protect the NPC" missions
I wish they made games difficult to the point these things would be necessary, like make it hard as piss to the point that traditional "optional" stuff is more necessary than first appeared.
>You didn't explore all the cave systems and shit in DD2? Well now don't you feel like a fool not having 20+ panceas when you need them...
Consumables might be easy to get in DD but they are useful and I do use them. And since they cost weight I do not carry one billion of them. Much better than most games.
I'm aware, it's one of the few games where items have good uses. Honestly going without a mage and stacking man mode damage classes then using consumes is actually the best way to play.
I can see it. I still don't like it because innately I like to conserve and mages bring echant buffs and useful spells, so it's hard to pass up.
I do want my weapons on fire so the fricking griffon can't flip me off while flying away.
>. the only game in my memory that actually incentivizes you to use items.
That's because it's the only way to win the action economy.
Speaking of I need to get around to playing it some more.
sounds like bad game design problem. as in, the game is so easy and simple that they don't require using items.
Try games like Reverse Collapse. the only game in my memory that actually incentivizes you to use items.
What is reverse collapse? Turn based tactics game?
SRPG type, for example there's these guys with active camo on all the time and you need to throw out a scanner to see them or they'll slash off half a unit's HP and disable skills
I haven't played a while so I am dumb at the game again.
I'm on chapter 2 when you first get 4 dudes. I haven't found a good opening to kill everyone without either getting tagged by a sniper or losing the numbers game.
I'm playing on Challenge+ so fricking up is a full reset.
>What is reverse collapse? Turn based tactics game?
Turn based modern-sci fi tactical rpg. Basically you and 2-5 dudes and all the grenades, mines, and turrets you can carry vs 30-70 Russian commandoes, cyborgs, tanks, and mutant creatures.
I see. It's based on gacha characters right? Is the game actually good?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
yes but it's hard, so much so that they added in easy mode ^squared for people who just wanted to play it as a VN
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Interesting.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Honestly the only thing that fricks with me is not being sure which enemy will act first. It tends to ruin my mine placements.
I think I'm going to fall in love with flashbangs though.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>t's based on gacha characters right?
There is no Gacha, its a fully single player game with set characters. >s the game actually good?
The writing is good, and the gameplay is fun when it "clicks" I haven't beaten it yet so I can say much more beyond that.
Basically unleash your inner Viet Cong and beat ludicrous odds.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>There is no Gacha
I just meant the characters are from a gacha game or universe or whatever, not that there are gacha mechanics in the game.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Bakery Girl actually predates Girl's Frontline and never was a Gacha or even connected to the GF universe until later on.
So I guess they are from a Gacha game universe but originally they weren't if that makes sense?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Right to Bakery Girl (not gacha) was eventually moved to Girl's Frontline universe (gacha). Thanks for the info.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I've been playing it and it doesn't feel that tied to the gacha tbh. Other than collectible references, a few doll cameos and le big bad siscon man that's never onscreen. The main plot is very self-contained, reasonably well explained thanks to the ingame encyclopedia and focuses on the deep glorified background lore that's mostly alluded to in GFL.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Yeah. I was just asking because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a case of >I like these gacha characters so this game is good
instead of >this game is good also it has the gacha characters
Gacha games get alot leeway on their "Gameplay."
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
There is one bit where some Girls Frontline characters make a quick cameo for a mission. Otherwise it's 99% independent.
I do actually use potions and consumables whenever I can, usually the games just throw so many more at me that I still end up with a stash of them at the end of the game despite using them in every fight.
remove all non-infinite consumables from the game
id rather have a shitty unimpactful +1 def drop than potion that restores all hp and mana, can only be used once in my playthrough and feels like cheating who the frick would want that?
for me it's turn based games with buffs, potions, and other cool things but action economy is key so you never fricking use them because they are situational at best
why waste a turn buffing someone/debuffing someone when you could just kill them, why bother drinking a potion and wasting my turn for meagre effect when i could just use hard CC or damage
I was saving the potions for the super hard final boss that never came
Maybe you should have made the final boss so hard i would actually use all my healing potions
But then again, you also added an achievement for beating the final boss without any consumables so
Some of my best rpg experiences have been when the boss is simply too strong and I have to deactivate grug brain and experiment with skills and items that I haven't used all game like status effects, lower accuracy, paralysis and stuns while keeping a balance between MP consumption, replenishment and the right time to use AOE healing spells during the same turn a big attack hits, when the boss finally goes down is fricking sublime, even rpgmaker games have been able to give me this rush.
>Playing Baldur's gate 3. >Horde every smoke powder barrel, rune powder barrel and firework I find in the game back at my camp. >Get to Gortash coronation >Drop all of them around his throne room >Set them all off at once. >Worth it. Best part of the entire game.
played deus ex mankind divided yesterday, finally decided to go frick it and use my consumables, turned out some random moron was the final boss so i barely used anything
I've stopped doing this. If I feel even slightly like I wanna use something, I just use it now. It's very rare to actually get burned doing this in most games.
but the sad thing is, we only discover to do this after playing games for 20+ years (30+ in my case). THough now Im just going to start using whatever I come across when I can. The problem however is that there the cost of using an Elixir vs a simple heal spell that tops me quickly, and is easier to get access to in the menus is always the better choice.
Consumables have to be powerful and plentiful. Striking a balance between these two is very important. Game difficulty also plays a role in this, high difficulty games make the use of consumables mandatory.
If I do anything silly in a videogame, it's always the game's fault for not stopping me. I am a based chad and everything I do is correct and it's the games fault otherwise.
ha ha how relatable
i use an item as soon as i find it
So,
You're not funny
This is unironically a game design flaw.
>oh man that resist poison for 1 turn item in a turn based jrpg? Cant wait to use it
>no one
Correct. If you have items with no real use case, they shouldnt be there to begin with.
>poisoned
>use antidote
>poisoned again
>use antidote
>posisoned again
>frick it just endure it
>poisoned status cures itself with time
>damage wasn't even that bad
>no consecuenses
>no diferent tipes of poison
>no weird poisons mechanics
>or poison like stats with funky name
>rot, cursed, bleed, debuffs in general
yeah poison is geh bullshit every game
So many games fall for this trap. Using an antidote should give you some sort of immunity for X turns because otherwise I just don't see the point. It's a waste of a precious action.
it's just human psychology, we're wired to horde things
A game like Witcher 3 solves this, were instead of having to constantly make potions throughout the game to replenish your stock, you only have to make them once, and they get replenished with one of three ingredients whenever you meditate. Good design really.
Absolute garbage you fricking zoomer. Alchemy in Witcher 3 is so bad compared to the previous games
What are you on about moron, it prevents that specific design flaw
nope, those items were there in the first place to waste your time
it's all pointless resource management to hide the fact that the game was low budget and lacked imagination from the designers
this is literally just your fault lmao, just use those items nowadays games don't really have permanent missables anyway
If you can finish a game with lots of items hoarded then those items were not needed. Or they were not rare enough
In a well balanced game this shouldn't happen
>needed
In every game I've ever played there were items that weren't strictly needed, but using them increased the fun. This isn't just a discussion of items that are crucial for the game's progression.
This. Most items are completely unnecessary unless youre not good at a game and need to cheese your way through. A design flaw
poe has the best flask design. flasks replenish when you kill monsters. not used flask is wasted flask
You're the one forgetting you have tools
easy fix: don't make rare single use items in your game
if something is rare and difficult to get make it reusable, if it's easy to get then make it single use
why doesn't any dev do this?
>10 battle cooldown
>oh I won't use it this fight, there might be one in another 10 I might need it
It helps, but the mindset needs breaking.
Make it recharge faster by the player doing well.
Yeah, EarthBound is one of my favorite games of all time but my main complaint about it is there’s just so much useless shit. The only things that are really useful are equippables, HP and PP-restoring foods, teddy bears, and things like bottle rockets for Jeff. Nearly everything else will just languish in your inventory. Not to mention all the fricking worthless PSI like hypnosis that you’ll go a whole playthrough without using once
I remember a fanfic based on the Mario and Luigi games that at times it felt like it was describing a playthrough. Especially with how every world they go to has a store and it's autistically described what they buy, which includes some refreshing herbs every time.
The point is that they never use them so in the final store they sell them all. I don't know if he wrote out loud that they were useless but it's funny how nearly 18 years ago the same thought prevails.
That sounds gay and you were gay for reading it
And now I'm gay by extension
The only JRPG out of the dozens that I've
played where I found myself constantly using items was Shin Megami Tensei V, and that's because it's a requirement on hard mode. I don't understand why some people think dampeners are bad design, because no other JRPGs have incentivized me to use items more than those.
Nah, cuz what if I didn’t need the items after all and my own skill carried me. Y’know like Dark Souls?
I use them on NG+
>NG+ resets your inventory
Well yeah, I don't use items because the game is too easy.
This. Most of the time you end up hoarding items because the game is so easy you don't need them. You save rare items for when you really need them, but that time never come up.
You must be playing on game journalist mode.
STOP BRINGING THIS SHIT OVER FROM REDDIT
FRICK YOU
I remember back in the day, Ganker's hateboner for reddit was so intense that you would get attacked just for pointing this kind of shit out, ironically making it easier to get away with posting reddit content without backlash. Now it looks like they don't even bother to respond to callouts. Ganker finally shows it's true colors: redditors all the way down.
It's like seeing your racist grandfather who raised you get alzheimer's
I miss old Ganker
Oh no, not redditors!
Redditors are subhuman and ruined this board and this website. Reddit cookies should prevent you from posting here.
How would I know this is from reddit if I don't go there?
Also its a general question, but the discussion is on 4nach. it's not like it's a reddit question.
redditors are moronic but with the amount of FED bots, zogbots, shills and discord raiders, the simple redditor isn't that big of a threat.
The game wasn't that hard if it lets me stockpile shit without ever using it.
guess I didnt need em. make your game harder, pussy.
The only game I've ever played where using consumables was basically required was Arc Rise Fantasia, because of how limited magic was. Fire Emblem doesn't count, even weapons are consumables.
>because of how limited magic was.
Wut? You could do a lot of combined magic spells that broke the game like fire+earth to dispell enemy buffs and Fire+fire to overheal and grant extra health. Water + water healed and cured ailments. If you want an example of a game where items were necessary because magic sucks, then try the wild arms games, you could even afflict status ailments on bosses with items.
Magic was good, its use was limited since there was no MP regen without consumables.
i like that they made magic refresh every mission in three houses. too bad engage sucked dick
Yes, games should give you a score for how much shit you hoarded.
games with ng+ should give you bonuses for hoarding
I had a lot more fun with RPGs when I stopped thinking "Can I win without this item" and started thinking "Will using it now be fun".
For me it was after watching a bunch of FF13 speedruns and then changing my playstyle to try to end fights quickly rather than efficiently use resources. So spamming high power moves, using tents instead of spamming cure, using damage dealing items for super effective damage when available, using encounter avoiding items, etc. I found games were slightly more fun but I progressed a LOT faster which I really appreciate now that life has gotten busy.
Then I fricked it all up by breeding competitive level pokemon and EV training them in Platinum for 40 hours
Stop being a hording moron. This happened to me in 2 games and ykw, I learned my lesson and just started using my fricking ammo. Every single game (at least on normal mode) will throw you tons of ammo so you basically never need to save it.
that means you never needed them
>So, you used Auto Battle and then grinded for 30 minutes before the final boss fight and proceeded to use the exact same autobattle preset to defeat it
What is Final Fantasy, Alex? And just like you, it's dead and buried.
>Dead and buried
Except FF16 sold 3 million in the first week, and Rebirth sold 5, with the first big FF16 dlc being released this week and FF14 continuing to be one of the most successful MMOs of all time. I'm sorry that you're such a massive, uninformed homosexual.
>bro COD 12312 is doing numbers, that means it's as good as ever even if it's now a fornite clone
frick off
>goal post moving
What you said is that Final Fantasy is dead. It's not. The past four Final Fantasy games have also been highly critically acclaimed and factually loved by millions. I'm sorry that you're a bitter little homosexual.
I didn't say anything, that was another anon
FF's shambling corpse is doing well with normalgays, am I supposed to throw a party?
Final fantasy style can be good, if they tweet it to make it more balanced, and put a limit to the bullshit objects (Fricking elixir, broken piece of shit)
>inb4. B-But grinding
It is made for homosexuals who can't think, so they give the option to waste time...Instead of actually getting good
Why do games have items? As in consumables?
you wouldn't have beaten the game if you used any of them
Dragon's Dogma 2...
I saved all of my strength boosts for grigori and killed him in like 5 arc of mights to the head
I didn't even know those could stack. That's cool. I saved so fricking many of those expendable spell books though. Never once needed to use them, but I figured I should hang onto them just in case.
they're mainly good for slimes if you don't have a mage next to you to give you any kind of magic damage
I never played as mage or sorc, and I kept my main pawn as mage the entire game. Guess I really never needed them kek. I don't know why they didn't make it so pawns could use them though.
I guess because you'd have a bunch of people giving pawns the books to be carried and then the pawns just blowing through them for no reason at all, or them picking them out of a chest and doing the same thing. Having a sub-inclination that uses healing items was a great idea but they should've done more with the system and included one that utilizes books, or one that pops buff items on you, etc etc.
I agree, that would have been really helpful. I wouldn't have even cared if the pawn used them all quickly, the game throws hundreds of them at you.
What the other anon said but also they are your extra slots and utility spells when you are playing Sorc. People saying the itemization in DD2 is bad are just moronic, although admittedly it would come off much better if the game was actually difficult more often. Like most of the systems in the game (wtf were they thinking).
>game has strict item count limits
>items are also one of the only sources of elemental damage
Legend of Dragoon absolutely nailed this one imo
Just experienced this replaying Sons of The Forest. I didn't get to use a single grenade.......
sounds like bad game design problem. as in, the game is so easy and simple that they don't require using items.
Try games like Reverse Collapse. the only game in my memory that actually incentivizes you to use items.
SMT4 Apocalypse doesn't necessarily require items to succeed, but there is a mechanic that uses (non-healing) items in your bag for you so that they don't stockpile, and the game doesn't feel easier despite this.
>. the only game in my memory that actually incentivizes you to use items.
That's because it's the only way to win the action economy.
Speaking of I need to get around to playing it some more.
this kind of autism tends to make games harder than they should be. But I can't stop myself.
Name?
amnesia the bunker.
Why hoard fuel? It's the one resource in that game that's actually infinite
>i actually used 'em in elden ring
>start to have fun with crafted knifes
>having a blast with bombs
>suddenly
>perfumes
>im having the time of my life
>start to run off of items
>wasting lots time farming items
>damage drop cuz i don't arcane or whatever
>stop having fun
>i go back to my basic sword&bluebar shenanigans
but i still use consumables from time to time
>perfumes only scale with DEX, no FTH scaling at all
shame, would be a good source of non-holy damage for erdtree bros
>i'll save it for when i really need it
>end game with 400+ items of almost everything
"Saved" implies there was a conscious choice to not use them. It's more like I couldn't be assed to go through the menu to set them up for use. And then you need to do a little bit of trial and error to learn how best to use them properly.
You'll be at the end of the game by the time you've mastered them AND found the one use-case where they are actually worth it.
Remember that when zoomers make these memes they have 4th and 5th gen Pokémon games in mind.
>RPG has tons of items
>literally the only ones worth using are the ones that restore SP and lost max HP outside combat
>all the attack items are useless after the first major area of the world (only good for cheesing a single miniboss)
>All buff items are so useless they're literally unnoticeable
>Ailments are trivial except Confusion so those are meh
>to top it off you must waste an accessory slot you could use on an infinitely better element enabler or blocker to hold a bag to use the items at all
>and there are 3 different types of bag, one for food (buffs), one for snacks (buff/cures), one for toys (attack/debuff items)
>Also you can only hold 30 of each item iirc
>literally zero benefit to using them instead of blocking and mitigating with turn heals or just going unga
>to top it off they're reliant on your stance being weaker than atk/block, as support stance is faster
And yet I still maxed them anyway.
I only use items when I need to and games tend to be piss easy so there's no need
>when saving up all the consumables pays off at the final boss, and you use up everything you had to bring him down
name the game
for me it was hands of necromancy
Etrian Odyssey IV, I used every single TP restorant and revive item, every HP restorer, everything I had and the final Origin Rune from the last standing party member brought down the Warped Savior with his eye closed (massive damage reduction)
Nocturne TDE first run, final bosses took me like 3 hours abd i didnt die once
Megaman Zero 3, clowning on Omega Zero with hacker elves felt like a Ferrari running laps around a Model T
The full MP restore items in every Dragon Quest
>he needs mp restore
Just pop a tent bro
Tents aren't a thing in DQ
And I was talking about in battle, for the final boss. Elfin Elixirs are usually limited to whatever you find unless you wanna grind out the Casino.
Unicorn Overlord
Didn't have a good setup for the final boss, so I had to just keep slamming my strongest unit into him over and over while using all my items.
The first time i beat Star Ocean 3 i used every single revive item i had during the final boss fight, i honestly thought i was going to lose, but he finally died. I think my party setup for that game was absolute ass though. I was using Fayt, Nel, and Sophia, and i probably had their art setups nowhere near ideal.
Pokemon league when I was 10
I’m not gonna lie, I did this with Ganon in totk. The game is otherwise so easy that I never ate food. I had a ton stored up. He took me by surprise and I tanked him with meals.
>Walking right into anomalies in STALKER while inhaling medkits and medication just because I can.
Underrail is good about this. Using items is not minor, it's a major factor of fights. From grenades to medicines/drugs to traps even like caltrops and buffs like the foods and minor utilities flares.
One major thing about the consumables is that they have real-time durations that can get you to pass skill checks. My funniest example is that there is that you can snort cocaine to pass a whole bunch of Strength checks.
Yeah the boosts on yours stats letting you clinch stat/skill checks is great. All the consumables are notably useful when you use them and have clear moments to use them which is why they become a regular part of your kit instead of "yeah maybe I'll remember to use this one day."
>looks at my personal storage so full of items for crafting, ammo I'll never use, and shittier beartraps and throwing knives, wrapped up in half a dozen armours that are marginally worse than what I'm wearing but "I need to keep in case I need X resistance or Y skill buffed"
Yes. It is good about the specific thing you mentioned.
There's no excuse for holding onto unusable ammo, that's just another form of currency you can exchange for things you do want since it's light, high value, and most traders will always buy it.
Especially in the case of RPGs, if the game is never putting you in a situation where you feel like you need to use them the game isn't very well designed.
I remember when Ganker had the OC. Now people steal from Reddit and Facebook and post it here and homosexuals take the thread to bump limit. I am leaving this shit website, wow. It's totally dead. Normalgay central
Let's see your OC anon
>game has a special buff altar where you can buy stat buffs for the final boss fight for every consumable you have
I dont know the game, I made it up, sorry
Captain Black personman
:^)
Here's your new captain america bro
>actually use your items as you acquire them
>reach the boss battle where you needed to save up your items
>get stuck
I had a real mindset shift with this issue when I started viewing unused items as a failure on my part to play as well as I could have. I used to have the attitude I imagine a lot of people do that using items 'makes the game easier' and is therefore less skilful, but I have come to realise that staying on top of item use is actually the more impressive use of game mechanics.
For the record, I'm not talking about things like lollipops in Bayonetta but rather things like blood stones in King's Field.
Crysis 1
>Oh so you saved up all of this special ammo for late game shit?
>All these rockets and such?
>Too bad, we'll steal all of your shit right before the endgame starts
Pissed me off so much
I'm playing Persona 4 Golden and embracing item use as I'm underdeveloped for the bosses by like ten levels
Consumables are gay in any capacity anyways, literal design bloat
what's the issue
he clearly didnt need those items if he beat the game without them
It's the problem with having more than one life. If you got a complete game over upon death, you'd use your items a lot more.
It's a balance problem too.
STALKER mods are the perfect example. If stepping on an anomaly, especially a hard to see one like a burner, is a guaranteed death then the only option is to reload and walk around it as if it never happened. There's no lasting penalty to your resources for making a mistake so you just accumulate consumables.
Even shittier mods keep this high anomaly damage and increase the resource cost for every tiny bit of damage to compensate, making everything else tedious in the process.
Complete game over means having to start from the beginning, not having to reload. Obviously only works with game that don't have cheesy instakills
Then I guess I didn't need them
I finished Silent Hill 2 with like 500 rounds of assorted ammunition. The game is way too easy for all the praise it gets, even if you're using the classic tank controls, the spaces are so wide and 99% of enemies are slow moving humanoids. Only enemy that gives some trouble is the bed homosexuals because they're fast, but there's only like 3-4 of them.
>So, you needed that item and now you're soft-locked.
only games i actively use items are Tales games and SMT and yakuza. i can't remember other games where items are useful beside to frick around.
>design the game to require resources to continue
>at worst make it impossible to continue
>bad case make it required to grind to continue
>add extra menu fiddling for item usage or management
vs.
>design game to be beaten without resources
>worst case make it too easy
>bad case make it easy to stockpile items you never use in the game
seems pretty simple why designers lean one way
HAHA RELATABLE GAMER JOKE
GET IT BECAUSE VIDEO GAMES
US GAMERS AM I RIGHT???
LIKE AND SHARE IF YOURE AN EPIC GAMER
That just means I never needed to use those items. In other words the game was too easy. Something aimed at the mass market.
theres an easy solution and thats removing all sources of healing beyond items and magic, so no resting to heal and other such bullshit
also no saving anywhere, either have autosave on and making defeats take stuff from you as penalty, or set save points where dying means reloading back
Sounds like what Fear and Hunger did, and I liked how it worked
>Reverse image search
>OP got this from a popular reddit thread then posted it here
I miss when the internet didn't suck.
I actually got it from a Discord channel ;^)
Without fail..
I ended BG3 with hundreds of scrolls
I blame Resident Evil.
I consistently used items in elden ring and everyone cried about it.
My favorite thing games do is when you get poisoned mid-fight but it's a waste of time and resources to bother curing it during the battle when you could spam heals or just ignore it.
Has there ever been a game where items were actually useful or important? I always just min-max the most cost effective recovery items and never bother touching anything else.
There are plenty, but you run into the opposite problem of "Oh shit I don't know if this Giga Elixir might come in handy for a WORSE boss than this one" and you wind up hoarding out of concern rather than indifference.
Estus was a mindblowingly good innovation specifically because of this shit.
The general expectation of progression is that things harder as the game goes along so it's always "sensible" to save any worthwhile items unless you can easily farm them. Farming is tedious.
Estus should be the groundwork for nearly all consumable systems, like ninjutsu and magic in Nioh, not gay shit you have to do monotonous tasks to restock on if you need them, like elixirs in Nioh.
I personally really liked how Witcher 3 handled bombs and potions where finding the ingredients to make/upgrade them was an adventure but once you made them it only required the use of a common alcohol item to replenish them after use. It gave you the satisfaction of rare ingredient hunting and discovery but removed the tedium of farming and the associated discouragement of item usage.
Yeah that's how I think it should be done.
A "reward" initial unlock behind a large gate, and then a small or nonexistant gate to actually replenish stock.
And additionally, a shared resource burden limit (points in Nioh, to an extent cracked pots in ER). My ideal system would have the "price" of each additional stock of the same item gradually rise as you , either from 1 or from a low minimum, potentially depending on the individual item, and all items (healing, offense and utility) share the limit for how much stock you could withdraw.
It being relevant that your entire stock was replenished to however many charges you had allocated every time you hit a certain check.
That's essentially how Monster Hunter is, and I don't think anybody but the most diehard autist ever said "Yay, out of mega potions, time to rotate between spamming shitquests/instafails and the farm for a while, although I have no doubt they would complain if it was removed, even though they make every item trivial to mass nowadays anyway. It would be more balanced if you had to abandon a quick sippy to bring a flashbomb in any case.
The single best thing Cyberpunk 2.0 did was change medkits and grenades from consumable items you hoard and never use to infinite items with a cooldown timer (and perks that let you use them 2 or 3 times in a row before you have to wait for them to regen)
Frick no. It's another casual as shit mechanic masquerading as part of a hardcore game. It destroys inventory management because it fits in with the small loops of repetitive gameplay designed around bonfires, and removes the elements of choice and planning. It works fine for Souls games but it's shit in real RPGs.
>Choice and planning
The current system does not offer this lmao
>limited resources that you have to choose when and if to use don't offer choice and planning
lmao indeed
reminder that if this happens to you consistently either you need to turn the difficulty of your game up or the devs didn't make the game challenging enough if there's no option to do so.
people do this, fight every random battle, never use status moves or change up their strategy and instead just grind if they lose to a boss and proceed to call turn based rpgs a bad/outraged genre btw
what games do
>you didn't save those items until the end and now the endgame kicks your ass
Items should have an expiration on them. As well as an easy to use sorting open to show you which are expiring the soonest. If it is a stacked item the older one is automatically selected when used.
MMOs sometimes do this, gacha too
Mostly to make people log in regularly to keep up stock
I use the items when I need them, I don't care
Hoarding items doesn't make anyone a good player, and in the long run makes the game boring
Some guy I knew always complained that final bosses in RPGs were too easy because he used exploits and glitches to get the best items and austistically grinded to lvl 99
>Hoarding items doesn't make anyone a good player, and in the long run makes the game boring
The problem is that you never know how frequent you get an item until you finish the game. For instance, megaelixirs and elixirs are rare items in FF, so you hoard them only when you need them. And by the time you reach endgame, they are kinda redundant save for one usage during a critical moment.
>Soma is super useful
>You only get like 5 per run
That's why.
I blame Dragon Quest.
This hasn't happened to me since like years.
If you play games on harder difficulties and actually bother to assess what you'll need and what you can sell and then actually use the items you have then you'll never have this problem.
Alternatively just play a game that is balanced around using consumables, or better yet a game where all items are consumables like Riveria: The Promised Land. Then you'll get into a mindset of actually using items.
I'll always have a soft spot for this shit because there's just enough BFG ammo in the game to make one full inventory stack, and when you reach the final boss you can just magdump said stack of BFG ammo on him to win in 10 seconds
No I saved all my items because I didn't need them.
if i can make it to ther end of your game without needing any items then the items where pointless or the game was too easy
>what-game-was-this-for-you-v0-p5bcr751kavc1
KWAB
If I'm not forced to use consumables to win on the hardest difficulty then your game is too easy.
that's because I either can't buy them (limited supply) or don't need them
Only happened to me with Fable.
This is part of why limited inventories are better than unlimited inventories
Well gee I guess I never needed them and the devs did a shit job balancing their game
>DMC1
>save a majority of my devil stars for the last boss
>wash the fight without needing a single one
i thought there was gonna be at least another phase
>item now triggers on death
the sovl is gone bros...
>Plays on Easy/Normal
>Man, I didn't need to use this inventory at all! Game is ass.
Play hard mode, pussy.
>stealth game like Metro or Deus Ex HR
>suddenly a boss fight
>am loaded the frick up because I never took a shot before now
love these moments where you can unleash
I saved them for the post game superboss
>Game forces you to pick up trash to level up through identifying items
>Item hoarding for potions and traps also very useful.
>If you horde items however, you're heavy slow and probably going to die to enemies since you can't move, fatass.
Barony fricking sucks (unless you're a high strength melee)
If the game has a limited inventory and a steady supply of increasingly better items are given to you as you progress, then I will use items frequently whenever I find a reason to.
If the game does not have limited inventory, then I will never use items unless the difficulty is high enough to make it so items feel necessary to survive.
I think as humans, we only have so much mental space for remembering or managing a lot of things. If it's smaller, we can handle it. Only the super autists care about management of large inventories. In the real world, we have others who help manage our large organizations and workloads.
In video games, what they need is to have "helpers," whether it's an in game assistant or a virtual UI help that goes
"Hey, you have 5 elixirs. You should use one to not let them go to waste."
>till you needed them
>i never needed them
I'm just that good B)
It's an OCD thing, to need to collect and max out values to their highest; to open every chest and achieve every viable thing.
You wouldn't get it.
Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
I've been spoiled by long JRPG"s. In really long JRPG's, you'll often reach what feels like the end game, but it turns you're only halfway through!
I actually played FF6 pretty late and have been fully acclimated into the long JRPG mindset. I got to Kefka's Tower and felt in my bones that I was being baited into thinking it was the end-game. Surely, Kefka would flee and then we'd fight for real in a completely different place. I was stunned that the game actually ended there. I still really enjoyed it, I'm just at the point where if a JRPG is less than 40hours I stop and think "WAIT WHAT, THAT'S IT?"
>You never needed your items, anon. The power was always within you.
>don't use them
>feel good that I'm good enough at the game to ignore an entire mechanic
>do use them
>feel good because I don't just lose due to being underprepared
Works on my machine.
Oh well no harm no foul
>Fun Fact: Whacka Mole is the only npc programmed to feel pain.
>Get items regularly
>Design encounters in a way that forces you to use them or make the items actually useful
>Player knows the items are moderately limited but regular so they aren't apprehensive about using them or being forced to use them
Roguelikes solved this 40 years ago. Don't flood the player with them, make them more useful than "+5% fire resistance for 30 seconds" or some other overly specific benefit, and give them to players in regular intervals. Having "+10 strength" items and "+100 strength" items is also going to push the player to horde the bigger number and never use it "just in case" even though a +10 is more than enough for any encounter. Look at the divine blessing in Dark Souls for an example, you have no real reason to use it despite it's perceived power.
Item design as a whole is a lost art.
Roguelikes enforce it cause you only have one life. So it forces the person to think about each turn closely and what they have. You're more likely to use a big ticket item if it means saving your butt. That's what makes it work.
Maybe the problem isn't with items then and more with the lack of punishment in games. Even the perceived punishment in Souls games isn't enough to overcome item use hesitation because there really isn't any.
Well, you're right. In older rpgs and crpgs, due to less healing and more resource management focus, you had to actually depend more on what you carried. You also had limited space in some rpgs, so that helped, too. However, the difficulty really is the kicker here. Games today are made for the casual audience, even Dark Souls fell into it with their recent games.
This is the real issue. Games today have zero punishment for dying, so why risk an item I might need later when I could survive without it and if I don't it's only a 30 second run back to the boss?
>playing any Yakuza
>always get to the final boss with a shitton of Tauriner Spark and other health-heat items
>start doing heat move after heat move
I will use them, but if I don't possess at least one of every single item in the game(not counting things you can't control like losing a key item etc as part of a mandatory game event), then the way I see it I didn't complete the game and I have to start over again to do it right.
If you finished the game and weren't forced to use items then the game is unironically too easy.
Had the reverse of this happen recently while playing Afterschool Tag. Had full life and two life-up items and found another sitting in a room. I sat on it for about half an hour expertly dodging threats before deciding to get repeatedly raped on purpose to consume all of them, then ended up not finding any more for the rest of the night.
Unicorn Overlord in a nutshell
>Game gives you a bunch of traps to defend yourself from enemies rushing at you
>Doesn't really matter since the game is designs for you to rush them and the boss afterwards before the time limit is up
>Literally the only use for it is if you're dumb enough to run out of stamina while there's no other unit pass by or a few "protect the NPC" missions
>so you stockpiled a bunch of ammo and healing items in a resident evil game and now the game is over
I wish they made games difficult to the point these things would be necessary, like make it hard as piss to the point that traditional "optional" stuff is more necessary than first appeared.
>You didn't explore all the cave systems and shit in DD2? Well now don't you feel like a fool not having 20+ panceas when you need them...
Consumables might be easy to get in DD but they are useful and I do use them. And since they cost weight I do not carry one billion of them. Much better than most games.
I'm aware, it's one of the few games where items have good uses. Honestly going without a mage and stacking man mode damage classes then using consumes is actually the best way to play.
I can see it. I still don't like it because innately I like to conserve and mages bring echant buffs and useful spells, so it's hard to pass up.
I do want my weapons on fire so the fricking griffon can't flip me off while flying away.
What is reverse collapse? Turn based tactics game?
SRPG type, for example there's these guys with active camo on all the time and you need to throw out a scanner to see them or they'll slash off half a unit's HP and disable skills
Singleplayer rpg? So like you have a set team of people who level throughout the game?
I haven't played a while so I am dumb at the game again.
I'm on chapter 2 when you first get 4 dudes. I haven't found a good opening to kill everyone without either getting tagged by a sniper or losing the numbers game.
I'm playing on Challenge+ so fricking up is a full reset.
>What is reverse collapse? Turn based tactics game?
Turn based modern-sci fi tactical rpg. Basically you and 2-5 dudes and all the grenades, mines, and turrets you can carry vs 30-70 Russian commandoes, cyborgs, tanks, and mutant creatures.
I see. It's based on gacha characters right? Is the game actually good?
yes but it's hard, so much so that they added in easy mode ^squared for people who just wanted to play it as a VN
Interesting.
Honestly the only thing that fricks with me is not being sure which enemy will act first. It tends to ruin my mine placements.
I think I'm going to fall in love with flashbangs though.
>t's based on gacha characters right?
There is no Gacha, its a fully single player game with set characters.
>s the game actually good?
The writing is good, and the gameplay is fun when it "clicks" I haven't beaten it yet so I can say much more beyond that.
Basically unleash your inner Viet Cong and beat ludicrous odds.
>There is no Gacha
I just meant the characters are from a gacha game or universe or whatever, not that there are gacha mechanics in the game.
Bakery Girl actually predates Girl's Frontline and never was a Gacha or even connected to the GF universe until later on.
So I guess they are from a Gacha game universe but originally they weren't if that makes sense?
Right to Bakery Girl (not gacha) was eventually moved to Girl's Frontline universe (gacha). Thanks for the info.
I've been playing it and it doesn't feel that tied to the gacha tbh. Other than collectible references, a few doll cameos and le big bad siscon man that's never onscreen. The main plot is very self-contained, reasonably well explained thanks to the ingame encyclopedia and focuses on the deep glorified background lore that's mostly alluded to in GFL.
Yeah. I was just asking because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a case of
>I like these gacha characters so this game is good
instead of
>this game is good also it has the gacha characters
Gacha games get alot leeway on their "Gameplay."
There is one bit where some Girls Frontline characters make a quick cameo for a mission. Otherwise it's 99% independent.
>Picked up an item
You didn't beat the game
I don't even use rare powerful items on bosses or hard enemies because I think i might need them for an even harder boss that may show up later.
I never liked using characters or classes that rely primarily on consumables like FF5 chemist or FFX Rikku.
I do actually use potions and consumables whenever I can, usually the games just throw so many more at me that I still end up with a stash of them at the end of the game despite using them in every fight.
remove all non-infinite consumables from the game
id rather have a shitty unimpactful +1 def drop than potion that restores all hp and mana, can only be used once in my playthrough and feels like cheating who the frick would want that?
for me it's turn based games with buffs, potions, and other cool things but action economy is key so you never fricking use them because they are situational at best
why waste a turn buffing someone/debuffing someone when you could just kill them, why bother drinking a potion and wasting my turn for meagre effect when i could just use hard CC or damage
If you use a Marvel movie as a meme format you should be shot in the head
>collect all the items to make the item
>not just collecting the item
I was saving the potions for the super hard final boss that never came
Maybe you should have made the final boss so hard i would actually use all my healing potions
But then again, you also added an achievement for beating the final boss without any consumables so
>Weaker Items can be compensated with a healer
>Stronger items for harder enemies are so rare and expensive you never have more than a few at a time.
Some of my best rpg experiences have been when the boss is simply too strong and I have to deactivate grug brain and experiment with skills and items that I haven't used all game like status effects, lower accuracy, paralysis and stuns while keeping a balance between MP consumption, replenishment and the right time to use AOE healing spells during the same turn a big attack hits, when the boss finally goes down is fricking sublime, even rpgmaker games have been able to give me this rush.
As usual Dark Souls fixed the problem, with estus flasks.
Perfect item design.
>Playing Baldur's gate 3.
>Horde every smoke powder barrel, rune powder barrel and firework I find in the game back at my camp.
>Get to Gortash coronation
>Drop all of them around his throne room
>Set them all off at once.
>Worth it. Best part of the entire game.
played deus ex mankind divided yesterday, finally decided to go frick it and use my consumables, turned out some random moron was the final boss so i barely used anything
that just means you were playing baby mode difficulty. Truly hard games force you to expend everything you got
Sounds like a skill issue to me
I've stopped doing this. If I feel even slightly like I wanna use something, I just use it now. It's very rare to actually get burned doing this in most games.
but the sad thing is, we only discover to do this after playing games for 20+ years (30+ in my case). THough now Im just going to start using whatever I come across when I can. The problem however is that there the cost of using an Elixir vs a simple heal spell that tops me quickly, and is easier to get access to in the menus is always the better choice.
Start selling them, you'll always have the best gear.
I didn't use a single explosive throwable or barrel in my first playthrough of BG3
I appreciate tough RPGs like Shiren the Wanderer that don't let you get away with playing like that.
Consumables have to be powerful and plentiful. Striking a balance between these two is very important. Game difficulty also plays a role in this, high difficulty games make the use of consumables mandatory.
nope I used all of those infinite Ring item to one shot the final boss in Shadow Hearts Covenant. It was satisfying as frick
>nearing 50 human effigies
>never spent one
>ring of binding equipped
Yep, it's Dark Souls twoing time.
Not endgame but I'm still saving the castle gallery rpg to one shot Salazar even to this day
So the game was so easy that you didn't need the items. Great game you have there.
>its a twitter screencap tthread
You have to go back.
If I do anything silly in a videogame, it's always the game's fault for not stopping me. I am a based chad and everything I do is correct and it's the games fault otherwise.
I ruined Persona 5 with the SP recovery accessory