Glory of Heracles 3 is balanced around multi use consumable items for buffs, healing and attacks. Most last 8-9 uses, which makes them very economical.
Depends on the game (which is why this is a bad thread).
Many times, consumable items are extremely powerful and optimal. Other times they’re straight up essential.
Wild ARMs 3 has really useful attack items in its elemental gems. They're guaranteed drops any time you kill an enemy with an elemental attack (even with another gem) and scale the on the same formula as the actual spells. Given spell selection is limited in that game (no one can double up as they're tied to specific equipment), they're very useful.
4 and 5 also have them but they're less useful.
items suck because you can just use magic, and magic is mostly unlimited thanks to MP recovery items.
i actually like games that make items useful. typically they're only useful in the very beginning of the game until you learn a few spells, but there are some where they are helpful throughout. Items are great in Persona and SMT, as a way to heal without needing healing skills, or to target an enemy weakness when you don't have the right spell.
I'd really like to see an RPG based around items. if only one existed...
Items are basically mandatory in The Legend of Dragoon, because magic is extremely limited. Your characters can only cast spells when they're transformed into Dragoon. You need to fill up a special bar to be able to transform first (kinda like the Limit Break in FF7). The transformation only lasts for a few turns too. So you can rarely use them and usually you'll keep your transformation for boss battles.
This means that you need to items to heal or do magic damage (there are items that are basically magic attacks and are actually pretty good). The healing items are also very good because because they are percentage based instead of number based. An item that heals 100 HP in other games quickly becomes useless because eventually you have like 1500 HP. The most basic healing item in The Legend of Dragoon heals for 50% of your HP which is good regardless of what your max HP is. You also get healing items that heal the whole party.
The game also has an inventory limit because without it the game would break too easily as you'd just keep a stack of 99% items that heal whole party for 50% of their HP and be unkillable. The limited inventory is balanced well so that boss battles sometime have you survive to the last of your items and need to clutch it out. When you get back to a town you'll usually buy a new batch of healing items out of necessity.
Similarly, Defending also heals you a bit on top of reducing damage, so it's more useful than in other JRPGs.
Items are good when you have a very limited number of inventory slots and the items give you powerful limited-use effects that are vital for surviving long dungeon treks. Pretty much only roguelikes get it right and even then not all of them but the potential is clearly there.
Yeah. In a normal RPG if you have a 10% chance to get killed, a lot of the time it's fine to just roll the dice. If you die, call it bad luck, load your save, and try again. In a roguelike a 10% chance to be killed in any encounter needs to be regarded as a dire threat, and the smart move is almost always to do whatever it takes to reduce that 10% chance to as close to 0% as possible at any cost, even if it means burning a valuable and irreplaceable item.
I've never seen any non-roguelike RPG that handles consumable items even half as well as Shiren the Wanderer and Brogue do.
>But then you don't use because they are more valuable.
You don't want to use them because they are valuable and can't be reliably replaced, but you have to use them to reliably survive. I think those two qualities together are the key to a good item system.
If you can get good items easily, the cost of using one doesn't really matter and they're effectively just more spells your party knows. If they're not powerful and important then you don't have a reason to care in the first place.
Because it's simply very difficult to find a balance between usability and limitations. I always like Suikoden's idea of party inventory and individual inventory that was actually usable in combat, for example.
Dragon Quest does a decent job with that too, since each character has their own inventory. Items are far more useful in DQ than most other JRPG series. Always a good idea to have healing and status remedy items given to every character since you never know when you'll need your warrior to cure your healer's paralysis. Many weapons and equipment can also be used in battle to cast a spell. Being well stocked and having a array of items equipped on each character can make all the difference in battle
yeah I kinda got over that mentality. if using an item would be helpful, use it. that's why the devs put them into the game. and chances are you can always get another one if you really need it. don't end up with 30 unused Megalixirs at the end of the game, you will be just fine with 20 unused ones
Glory of Heracles 3 is balanced around multi use consumable items for buffs, healing and attacks. Most last 8-9 uses, which makes them very economical.
Depends on the game (which is why this is a bad thread).
Many times, consumable items are extremely powerful and optimal. Other times they’re straight up essential.
Most RPGs can't be bothered to tune their economies correctly.
Is there any rpg that does it right
Most of the time, healing and buff related items are nice to have. If anything, it’s attacking items that seem to suck a lot of the time.
Wild ARMs 3 has really useful attack items in its elemental gems. They're guaranteed drops any time you kill an enemy with an elemental attack (even with another gem) and scale the on the same formula as the actual spells. Given spell selection is limited in that game (no one can double up as they're tied to specific equipment), they're very useful.
4 and 5 also have them but they're less useful.
items suck because you can just use magic, and magic is mostly unlimited thanks to MP recovery items.
i actually like games that make items useful. typically they're only useful in the very beginning of the game until you learn a few spells, but there are some where they are helpful throughout. Items are great in Persona and SMT, as a way to heal without needing healing skills, or to target an enemy weakness when you don't have the right spell.
I'd really like to see an RPG based around items. if only one existed...
Ielevens made them obsolete
Items are basically mandatory in The Legend of Dragoon, because magic is extremely limited. Your characters can only cast spells when they're transformed into Dragoon. You need to fill up a special bar to be able to transform first (kinda like the Limit Break in FF7). The transformation only lasts for a few turns too. So you can rarely use them and usually you'll keep your transformation for boss battles.
This means that you need to items to heal or do magic damage (there are items that are basically magic attacks and are actually pretty good). The healing items are also very good because because they are percentage based instead of number based. An item that heals 100 HP in other games quickly becomes useless because eventually you have like 1500 HP. The most basic healing item in The Legend of Dragoon heals for 50% of your HP which is good regardless of what your max HP is. You also get healing items that heal the whole party.
The game also has an inventory limit because without it the game would break too easily as you'd just keep a stack of 99% items that heal whole party for 50% of their HP and be unkillable. The limited inventory is balanced well so that boss battles sometime have you survive to the last of your items and need to clutch it out. When you get back to a town you'll usually buy a new batch of healing items out of necessity.
Similarly, Defending also heals you a bit on top of reducing damage, so it's more useful than in other JRPGs.
>itens
Brazil please no.
>iten
oi br?
Items are good when you have a very limited number of inventory slots and the items give you powerful limited-use effects that are vital for surviving long dungeon treks. Pretty much only roguelikes get it right and even then not all of them but the potential is clearly there.
But then you don't use because they are more valuable.
Roguelikes teach you to temper that mindset. The next floor isn't guaranteed, your top priority right now is to not die.
Yeah. In a normal RPG if you have a 10% chance to get killed, a lot of the time it's fine to just roll the dice. If you die, call it bad luck, load your save, and try again. In a roguelike a 10% chance to be killed in any encounter needs to be regarded as a dire threat, and the smart move is almost always to do whatever it takes to reduce that 10% chance to as close to 0% as possible at any cost, even if it means burning a valuable and irreplaceable item.
I've never seen any non-roguelike RPG that handles consumable items even half as well as Shiren the Wanderer and Brogue do.
>But then you don't use because they are more valuable.
You don't want to use them because they are valuable and can't be reliably replaced, but you have to use them to reliably survive. I think those two qualities together are the key to a good item system.
If you can get good items easily, the cost of using one doesn't really matter and they're effectively just more spells your party knows. If they're not powerful and important then you don't have a reason to care in the first place.
Because it's simply very difficult to find a balance between usability and limitations. I always like Suikoden's idea of party inventory and individual inventory that was actually usable in combat, for example.
Dragon Quest does a decent job with that too, since each character has their own inventory. Items are far more useful in DQ than most other JRPG series. Always a good idea to have healing and status remedy items given to every character since you never know when you'll need your warrior to cure your healer's paralysis. Many weapons and equipment can also be used in battle to cast a spell. Being well stocked and having a array of items equipped on each character can make all the difference in battle
>item seems useful
>eh, I can handle this fight anyway, better save it for later
>end game with inventory full of unused items
every fricking time
yeah I kinda got over that mentality. if using an item would be helpful, use it. that's why the devs put them into the game. and chances are you can always get another one if you really need it. don't end up with 30 unused Megalixirs at the end of the game, you will be just fine with 20 unused ones
Play better games
Consumeable items are your lifeline in Underrail, especially if you're not using psi.