Incline What can be done about excessive loot?

[Sunsetspawn]

Developer lynchings

 

[Lyric Suite]

BG2 also has a good moneysink mechanism: buy and shoot expensive arrow/bolts/bullets magical throwing weapons. It's out of action if your party doesnt have good dedicated shooters but good going if you do.

The challenge with this is that most players will horde such special arrows and consumables, like with fancy health potions, instead of using, just because they cost so much.

Even if the game really requires them to use that to move forward.

They will just buy and hold and play very conservatively and fail to progress and not have fun. They will become infuriated with the game and rage quit and rage review it.

It's like the ppl who buy wagyu then leave it in their freezer for years, just don't dare eat it because hey price.

Edit. I ate all my wagyu, will be videos on my tiktok for a while.

But definitely when first played rpgs I also played conservatively like typical, all the firestorm scroll spells were saved until the undead dragon.

By the time I get to the end of BG1, I have magic bolts and arrows coming out the ying yang. Fire arrows, arrows of detonation, arrows of dispel, etc. that I didn't use throughout the entire game. And then I get to the Sarevok fight and am like: well, guess this is it, and then just unload the entire game's consumables all at once. Naturally, the fight is over before I can even use half of it, but whatever.

Yeah i'm a filthy stingy hoarder as well. One way to fix this is not to have finite consumables (I.E. stores will always have them so you don't have to worry about having to save them "just in case") but to make them harder to carry around or use so there's some strategy involved all though that ends up getting into MMO territory, which is its own can of worms, not to mention that if they balance encounters knowing you are always going to use potions than you will be compelled to which could potentially just make potion chugging feel like a chore. Maybe i should learn not to be such a stingy cunt instead lmao.

 

[mondblut]

DE just break every balance there is in JA2.

But muh balinse!!111

 

[Norfleet]

Yeah i'm a filthy stingy hoarder as well. One way to fix this is not to have finite consumables (I.E. stores will always have them so you don't have to worry about having to save them "just in case") but to make them harder to carry around or use so there's some strategy involved all though that ends up getting into MMO territory

If you make them "harder to carry around or use", like in a current shitty MMO I play, where the items are effectively free to obtain, but every time you refill them, you have to change maps, watch them disappear from your hotbar, and put them back, I end up NOT BOTHERING. No, if you want players to consume shit, you have to make the process of using them entirely effortless. If, at any point, I have to consciously exert further thought or action in the process over the baseline of not doing so, I'm going to end up hoarding. That doesn't mean it has to be free.

But what needs to happen once I enable the use of this ammo: Any time I put into port, all of my relevant ammo should be automatically restocked to the desired level at whatever cost. If I have to spend my time thinking of reloading my expensive missiles, I'm going to be reminded that this costs money, AND effort, and I'm going to resist using them. If I can't reliably restock, I'm going to hoard them. The gameplay should be focused on me making sure that my lines of supply are operational, NOT on making me think about the act of resupplying itself. Otherwise it's going to end up as "Plays Gun Game / Only Uses Knife". The reason I even use ammo in shooters is because I rarely have to think about being able to reload that ammo. I just pick some up off the enemy's corpse and I have ammo. If I had to go to a store or base and individually buy the ammo, I'd be hoarding that fucking shit and bayoneting my enemies to death. Or, as is typically the case, using the ammo of the types the enemy drops and hoarding all the bazooka rockets that they don't tend to drop. If you want me to use it, DO NOT MAKE ME THINK THIS IS SCARCE OR INVOLVES HASSLE TO DEAL WITH.

 

[laclongquan]

BG2 also has a good moneysink mechanism: buy and shoot expensive arrow/bolts/bullets magical throwing weapons. It's out of action if your party doesnt have good dedicated shooters but good going if you do.

The challenge with this is that most players will horde such special arrows and consumables, like with fancy health potions, instead of using, just because they cost so much.

Even if the game really requires them to use that to move forward.

They will just buy and hold and play very conservatively and fail to progress and not have fun. They will become infuriated with the game and rage quit and rage review it.

It's like the ppl who buy wagyu then leave it in their freezer for years, just don't dare eat it because hey price.

Edit. I ate all my wagyu, will be videos on my tiktok for a while.

But definitely when first played rpgs I also played conservatively like typical, all the firestorm scroll spells were saved until the undead dragon.

By the time I get to the end of BG1, I have magic bolts and arrows coming out the ying yang. Fire arrows, arrows of detonation, arrows of dispel, etc. that I didn't use throughout the entire game. And then I get to the Sarevok fight and am like: well, guess this is it, and then just unload the entire game's consumables all at once. Naturally, the fight is over before I can even use half of it, but whatever.

Yeah i'm a filthy stingy hoarder as well. One way to fix this is not to have finite consumables (I.E. stores will always have them so you don't have to worry about having to save them "just in case") but to make them harder to carry around or use so there's some strategy involved all though that ends up getting into MMO territory, which is its own can of worms, not to mention that if they balance encounters knowing you are always going to use potions than you will be compelled to which could potentially just make potion chugging feel like a chore. Maybe i should learn not to be such a stingy cunt instead lmao.

I know what you are talking about. But that's because it's too fucking easy, so you can get through battles with gritted teeth and spirit of hoarders.

If you make battles harder (as illustrated with SCS mod in BG2 and IWD2 very hard difficulty) they will use the things. That or die and reload.

Actually, Fallout 2 also prove this method works. At early battles, you just count damage and sticking stimpack like crazy whenever you have the chance to open inventory. It is after you acquire combat armors and power armors that the defense go up enough you can last through battles with gritted and then use cheap healing powders to cure.

Dont worry. Make Battles Harder is a superior design idea~

 

[Trithne]

Look at this shit. And moving items into/out of cargo is done one-by-one. I have a thousand guns and none of them are worth shit.

And note that the "Cargo" doesn't serve as an organisation system either - There are multiple "sections" for the same thing, so if I know there's a specific weapon in there somewhere I need to check each section until I find it, manually.

Ed: Oh, I just found this:

What fucking merchants?

Also "Fraction".

 

[huskarls]

only rpg I can think of right now that didn't feature inventory management as an hours long non value added activity is VTMB. I can understand if its a bethesda game and they sell it as hiking simulator with sex mods, so they want enemies to drop everything they carry then turn into a naked corpse, but every enemy doesn't have to drop loot. Its a massive waste of time that detracts from the game, not even for immersion but just to fit in because every one else has bullshit loot/consumables/inventory tetris.

If I typed 'DOS2' into a search engine I imagine I see some dude swinging a sword/casting a spell, and none of a screenshot of some dude jerking off in an inventory screen comparing his purple epics and vendoring trash even though that is 50% of the gameplay. The gameplay they intended the player to experience is out of touch with the actual gameplay

 

[Sunsetspawn]

If I typed 'DOS2' into a search engine I imagine I see some dude swinging a sword/casting a spell, and none of a screenshot of some dude jerking off in an inventory screen comparing his purple epics and vendoring trash even though that is 50% of the gameplay. The gameplay they intended the player to experience is out of touch with the actual gameplay

This has been my experience with Wonderlands. After factoring in chests and dice, I think the loot drops exceed mooks killed, perhaps by a large margin. I just felt like I was constantly in the inventory screen and quickly lost interest. To be fair, just about everything is wrong with that game save the combat.

 

[Piotrovitz]

If you make battles harder (as illustrated with SCS mod in BG2 and IWD2 very hard difficulty) they will use the things. That or die and reload.

This is one of the more reasonable solutions - don't make consumables a 'easier fight' button, but rather a necessity, at least for harder battles.
And make them more scarce, so you have to actually think twice before chugging a potion or popping a pill before every fight like a fucking junkie (unless you RP a junkie PC)

 

[Camel]

This is one of the more reasonable solutions - don't make consumables a 'easier fight' button, but rather a necessity, at least for harder battles.
And make them more scarce, so you have to actually think twice before chugging a potion or popping a pill before every fight like a fucking junkie (unless you RP a junkie PC)

So basically make potions exactly like the Witcher elixirs.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Currently playing Underrail and I have so many craftable/buyable chems, that I can basically can role play Charlie Sheen in post-apo setting.

 

[Norfleet]

Also "Fraction".

Yeah, that one's a classic error. Although I riff on that in a different game, referring to the partial-factions that are forced to align themselves to a main faction in another game as such deliberately, due to their partial-faction status.

 

[Norfleet]

This is one of the more reasonable solutions - don't make consumables a 'easier fight' button, but rather a necessity, at least for harder battles.

How's that supposed to work? All key battles gated behind a clearly marked consumable you're expected to consume for this battle and this battle only? If I don't know this consumable is meant for this battle, how am I supposed to know to save it for this battle, and then use it in this battle, unless that consumable is so highly specific it can't obviously be for anything else? Otherwise, someone will either use this item elsewhere, and thus not have it for the battle, so they softlock, or the battle is beatable without it, and therefore, it is not a necessity, and therefore, I don't ever need to use it, because....

And make them more scarce, so you have to actually think twice before chugging a potion or popping a pill before every fight like a fucking junkie (unless you RP a junkie PC)

So you want me to hoard them. Because that's why I'm hoarding them, because I might need them later. Conversely, I DON'T hoard mana potions in Diablo because they aren't scarce. I mean, I still resist USING them because it means that I must now personally deal with the hassle of replacing them on my belt (unless I can count on them to autoslot to my open potion slot the next one I pick up), but it's not because I'm hoarding them.

 

[gaussgunner]

only rpg I can think of right now that didn't feature inventory management as an hours long non value added activity is VTMB. I can understand if its a bethesda game and they sell it as hiking simulator with sex mods, so they want enemies to drop everything they carry then turn into a naked corpse, but every enemy doesn't have to drop loot. Its a massive waste of time that detracts from the game, not even for immersion but just to fit in because every one else has bullshit loot/consumables/inventory tetris.

Bloodlines: unlimited inventory and dozens of items to fill it with. That's one solution, but it barely has itemization and only very basic character progression, it wouldn't work for Skyrim clones or proper RPGs.

It's like the ppl who buy wagyu then leave it in their freezer for years, just don't dare eat it because hey price.

Imagine paying a premium for freezerburned beef.

 

[Piotrovitz]

This is one of the more reasonable solutions - don't make consumables a 'easier fight' button, but rather a necessity, at least for harder battles.

How's that supposed to work? All key battles gated behind a clearly marked consumable you're expected to consume for this battle and this battle only? If I don't know this consumable is meant for this battle, how am I supposed to know to save it for this battle, and then use it in this battle, unless that consumable is so highly specific it can't obviously be for anything else? Otherwise, someone will either use this item elsewhere, and thus not have it for the battle, so they softlock, or the battle is beatable without it, and therefore, it is not a necessity, and therefore, I don't ever need to use it, because....

First, you can anticipate/predict an upcoming boss battles in majority of games, either by doing a specific quest (kill X), or just by advancing the plot. Rarely there are huge encounters coming out of nowhere, like by ambush etc.

Second, once you find/craft some uber consumable (say supersoldier drug in Underrail), seeing how powerful the buff is you probably don't want to use it during the first random mobs you encounter. Logic should tell you that if shit's powerful/rare, you should keep it for really special occasion.

Third, I wouldn't go that far and make major battles gated by having particular consumable and lock you from progressing (e.g. 'if you don't have potion X, the boss will be invisible etc, and you're screwed). Such fights should still be beatable, but with considerably more effort/planning and even reloading.

Fourth, I would implement this approach only to higher difficulties, for cRPG veterans who know what are they doing. Easy/Normal/etc I would leave alone and let players swim in potions/chems if they want to.

Good example is Tyranny on PotD difficulty and the chapter 1 final battle, probably the most tough one in the entire game. Without consumables it's extremely hard, it's still early game so you don't have much of them and have to distribute them rationally between the team, and knowing what each of them does, you don't waste them on easier fights earlier, especially that the final battle is anticipated and you know you will have to use whatever you have. First time I haven't used any, thinking that I can get through (having experience in Pillars and knowing that consumables are not necessary, even on PotD). I got my ass kicked and after dozen reloads I just rage quit. Started again after few months, with exactly same party build, and after using most of the better potions/drugs/berries/etc, the fight was manageable.

And make them more scarce, so you have to actually think twice before chugging a potion or popping a pill before every fight like a fucking junkie (unless you RP a junkie PC)

So you want me to hoard them. Because that's why I'm hoarding them, because I might need them later. Conversely, I DON'T hoard mana potions in Diablo because they aren't scarce. I mean, I still resist USING them because it means that I must now personally deal with the hassle of replacing them on my belt (unless I can count on them to autoslot to my open potion slot the next one I pick up), but it's not because I'm hoarding them.

D2 isn't a good example, as you don't have multitude of options with potions, basically mana and health ones. See second point - I'm not for hoarding every bottle of whatever that you can buy/craft/loot, but only the most powerful ones, that you can expect that are limited and meant to be used in boss/huge battles.

 

[laclongquan]

When you use it up BEFORE you need it, the regret is a much stronger emotion than you have it but not use it~ 1 time vs 100 times, kinda like that.

You will remember the one fight you have NOT ONE STEEENKEEENG STIMPACK when you need it, rather than remember 100 times you have a full inventory~

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Don't pick shit up and use just your starting gear if any. Drop the phat lewt you lardass! Starve in perpetual newb state and become a harderned veteran.

Also, HARDCORE game. You die... DELETE! Start again.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Realistically you could loot their weapons, ammo, money, food, drugs, medkits, and the bloodstained clothes off their backs. And most of it would be inferior to anything you already have or could buy in shops more easily than scavenging for it. If some idiot had a great weapon but didn't know how to use it, he already would have been killed by someone who does.

Common solution is random loot drops, one or two items, usually money/ammo/medkits/potions. Problem is when you kill an enemy who's fighting you with an awesome weapon, you don't get it. That feels very wrong.

Realistic solution is limited inventory and low resale value. It's been done, it works, some people just don't like sorting through crap and managing their inventory. But if you feel the need to gather and sell loot, it's a sign that the game lacks better reward mechanics.

Streamlined realistic solution is enemies only drop one or two items of best value to you, that they actually possess. Problem is defining "best value". Say the best handgun in the game is a .44 Magnum, you want one, the guy you just stabbed wanted one, and he was collecting .44 ammo, which is of high potential value to you. But instead the game decides to drop his shitty .38 Special that he failed to kill you with because you only have a knife, and it drops his .38 ammo because now you have that gun.

You forgot you can loot the entire corpse and sell it at town to uh maybe a necromancer, pet store for food, a cannibal, a necrophiliac, one who makes shit out of corpses. We're wasting the dead bodies here. Chuck them corpses into your inventory too.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Two Worlds solved this fucking problem already. If you find two swords that are the same you can just slap those together to create a better sword. Solved. You can lock the thread now.

TO HELP SDG DEFEND CODEXIA!!!

 

[Kliwer]

In my opinion very few cRPG have a good approach to consumables. In general this items are too plentiful and – in most cases – boring. Personally, I only use them when I'm playing an unbalanced team (e.g. without a cleric or something). In most cases skills of our party are enough to handle every encounter.

But I guess it wouldn't be that hard to fix it. Some ideas:



- Make consumables much rarer (and more expensive) but also much more powerful; using them should be exciting and spectacular. Stacks of "+1 potions" to something are boring and do not change the tide of any battle.

- Make effects of consumables unique; there's no point in implementing dozens of scrolls replicating spells our team might have anyway. Yeah, theoretically they can play a role in games where resources (mana, "camp kits" etc.) are limited - but in practice it never works. There's always too much of this garbage. Make the effects of consumables unique and impossible to duplicate. A relatively good example of this are potions of magical protection in BG1/2. Very powerful, quite expensive, rather rare, and impossible to replace with any spell for most of the game. At the same time - due to the short/medium duration - they are still not a panacea for every magician.

- Make combat healing difficult or impossible. Why should we bother, for example, with choosing the right resistance potions (against fire, acid, etc.), when all potential damage can be healed during the fight with healing potions/spells? A healing potion is more versatile than any other - and we can usually "push through" any fight with them. Such a system where you can't heal during a fight (and only after it or while resting) would force more careful and creative tactics. Properly matched resistances would be much more important – and so debuffs to our enemies. To some extent, this works in Pillars of Eternity 1, where you can't heal indefinitely, because our heroes will eventually run out of "real health points" (in practice, I felt it in maybe 2-3 fights in the whole game - and only when playing rogue or barbarian).

Yeah, I think that would be a good solution. The pool of health points could not be renewed during combat - so you would have to focus on defeating enemies more effectively and faster. Even better if we combine it with limited opportunities for rest. Our life pool would be a resource that we would have to manage trough 3-4 battles at last. Surely then consumables would be more appreciated.

 

[laclongquan]

Healing potion does serve its function. Because nobody would waste spell slot on healing spell when they can use it for offensive or defensive ones. And in battles your healers dont always approach in time. So healing potions, despite the prevalence of healing spells in druid, cleric, bard etc... has its own place in battle.

Problem is, outside of IWD series, most games has piss easy combat that you can last until it end and have free healing (with spell or rest) while potions costs. So that's one reason while healing potions were hoarded. Because easy combat and free rest.

In contrast, some non-healing potions sometimes get used in battles despite their cost. Like bad-status removers, or heroism/aids/chant potions, for example. Because their usage can not be delayed until battle end~

 

[Not.AI]

Two Worlds solved this fucking problem already. If you find two swords that are the same you can just slap those together to create a better sword. Solved. You can lock the thread now.

Good point! But to make that plausible, doesn't that just become a complex crafting system in the end?

Spoiler

One problem is that system of just merging two identical items to get an upgraded item made no sense.

Although maybe having to make sense isn't a rule.

Are the swords pure energy and magic? Nanomachine grey goo? How and why do they manage to instantly merge?

How it is to be plausibly explained to the player in a game is the question. Without breaking immersion.

Again, maybe it doesn't have to be explained. Just has to stated as a mechanics and be fun in the game.

Some type of reduction of multiple items might be a skill that can be leveled up, and also have side effects that create plausible new items of other types.
Like the inverse of classic muds / mining / modern survival games where objects can be broken down into other objects and those into other objects. All the way down.

Two small health potions can be merged into a big health potion. Plus broken glass. Etc?
But then the result is a complex "alchemy"/"crafting" system, is it not?

 

[Funposter]

I can understand if its a bethesda game and they sell it as hiking simulator with sex mods, so they want enemies to drop everything they carry then turn into a naked corpse, but every enemy doesn't have to drop loot.

Can't you "give" better weapons to corpses and revive them with Necromancy spells so that they equip them? That would be a niche use of Bethesda's "bodies and containers" approach to loot. Also being able to take everything from all corpses is simply in keeping with the overall design - players and NPCs effectively being the same, sharing all of the same stats, systems, equipment etc.

 

[huskarls]

only rpg I can think of right now that didn't feature inventory management as an hours long non value added activity is VTMB. I can understand if its a bethesda game and they sell it as hiking simulator with sex mods, so they want enemies to drop everything they carry then turn into a naked corpse, but every enemy doesn't have to drop loot. Its a massive waste of time that detracts from the game, not even for immersion but just to fit in because every one else has bullshit loot/consumables/inventory tetris.

Bloodlines: unlimited inventory and dozens of items to fill it with. That's one solution, but it barely has itemization and only very basic character progression, it wouldn't work for Skyrim clones or proper RPGs.

do you really need itemization for a 'proper' RPG? All it does is make items into gameplay - making them, stealing them, comparing stats, collecting consumables, selling them. You could remove all items from F:NV except for armor, weapons, and stimpacks, and the game would still be there. The only argument would be whether or not it suffered from a lack of complexity or realism by removing all item gameplay.

personally i don't like itemization and mostly avoid crafting and consumables. loot is essentially unavoidable inventory management since you need to loot things and sell them to interact with the in game economy, its not like crafting where you can ignore it if you don't like the gameplay.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

durability helps, but only just a bit. badly kept equipment should be worth almost nothing, and repairs should be complicated and expensive, and/or they should sacrifice a sizable chunk of max durability.
for all the totally deserved flak bethesda got, they're going in the right direction: disassembling into basic components to build other stuff. also long term efforts like big housing projects, i've seen several skyrim mods went this way but it's still not enough when a whole manor can be built with 10 logs, a bunch of pebbles and a fistful of money.