I somehow ended up having 48 lesser healing potions after clearing out the shield maze in WOTR.
Frick it's just heavy and my playstyle is "what's the use of armor if I take damage" and "you don't need armor if you never get it"
Force the player into situations where they basically need to use certain items if they don't want to suck shit. For example, in Dark Souls, you need Poison and Toxic moss to get through Blight Town if you're not a fricking masochist, and using elemental damage items that do stuff like apply lightning to your weapon makes a load of boss fights much, much easier.
Make the items disappear e.g. once you exit the dungeon. The player will learn to use them regularly or to throw everything he has in a boss fight - no point in saving them past that point.
That's immersion breaking discourages looting makes no sense outside of VERY contrived settings and most importantly makes areas disconnected from each other when combat providing context is the chief reason it's in RPGs.
Not a horrible suggestion for other genres but for RPGs specifically its bad.
[...]
Give the items alternative uses like you can drink the health potion yourself OR you can give it to a party member and tell them to explore a well or some shit
>immersion breaking
Ditching your supplies and making room for treasure is exactly what explorers, adventurers, deserters and marauders do when they make a run for it. You keep your bare essentials and stock up later when you're preparing for another expedition. I don't know why roguelikes feel the need to justify disappearing gear with some bogus lore e.g. cursed objects found in a magician's maze.
By making items expensive, scarce, and useful.
I somehow ended up having 48 lesser healing potions after clearing out the shield maze in WOTR.
Frick it's just heavy and my playstyle is "what's the use of armor if I take damage" and "you don't need armor if you never get it"
Tell yourself you can always get more.
Go get more.
Use items.
Hur dur, stop hoarding.
Ramp up the difficulty so you actually need to use them.
Force the player into situations where they basically need to use certain items if they don't want to suck shit. For example, in Dark Souls, you need Poison and Toxic moss to get through Blight Town if you're not a fricking masochist, and using elemental damage items that do stuff like apply lightning to your weapon makes a load of boss fights much, much easier.
Make the items disappear e.g. once you exit the dungeon. The player will learn to use them regularly or to throw everything he has in a boss fight - no point in saving them past that point.
That's immersion breaking discourages looting makes no sense outside of VERY contrived settings and most importantly makes areas disconnected from each other when combat providing context is the chief reason it's in RPGs.
Not a horrible suggestion for other genres but for RPGs specifically its bad.
Give the items alternative uses like you can drink the health potion yourself OR you can give it to a party member and tell them to explore a well or some shit
>immersion breaking
Ditching your supplies and making room for treasure is exactly what explorers, adventurers, deserters and marauders do when they make a run for it. You keep your bare essentials and stock up later when you're preparing for another expedition. I don't know why roguelikes feel the need to justify disappearing gear with some bogus lore e.g. cursed objects found in a magician's maze.
Weight.
I know the answer and I don't want to talk about it
Play traditional roguelikes, that will put in the habit of using your items.
This.
agreed
Essentially force the player to use them by making fights hard enough to require healing/buffs while also making actual healing/buff spells limited