INVENTORY HOARDING

You know, that reminds me when I did something like that. I remember doing a No Items challenge (well, a ridiculous version of it...Single Character, Initial Equipment, No Items, No Accessories, No Escape) for FFVII. My god that was actually really difficult (even with no items normally it'd be really difficult). Then I tried it with Items (replaced No Items with No Materia) and well...that actually went really smoothly for the most part. It was ridiculous just how good some of the items actually are. It just sucks that 90% of the time either you don't know the item exists, or when you CAN get it (or do, depending on if you know about it), by the time you do so, you'll never use it anyways.

Most of FFVII was just hold the circle button on attack for the most part anyways. There really wasn't any tactics or strategies for the most part in THAT game (can't say that about other games like X, XII, or III). In a way, even though I HATE the game (even though I reference it and use stuff from it in mine), FFXII kinda did it right I think with items...ok, maybe not. It wasn't particularly hard to get MP back if you knew how. But until you KNEW how, items were really important in that game.


But I do understand where you're coming from. Though most of the tactics/strategies tend to fall to "Use Blitz/Tools/Magic for the entirety of the game" (just an example, but VI pretty much fell into that). I'd say V holds the best for that category (XII kinda does too in a way).

author=LockeZ
The no-magic-no-items-initial-equipment-no-accessories-no-limit-breaks-no-level-ups-fox-only-final-destination challenges for FF7 are right in line with something I mentioned earlier: removing strategy from the game. While it's true you don't need the strategies that these resources provide, and there's definitely a challenge in finding a way to win, you're removing so much gameplay. So many tactics, so many strategies, so many effects that build on each-other to give the battles more substance. Gameplay that was originally in the game disappears. To me this is a really negative effect! Massive amounts of your game are being ignored, deleted by the player. Yes, the player is choosing to do it on their own, because they find it more fun... but they're doing so because the game that the designer provided them wasn't fun enough the way it was designed. They had to make a choice between having access to all the tactics and having a reason to need any tactics, because the game didn't give them both at once.

But you don't need people inventing crazy challenge modes to cause this effect of ignoring huge parts of your gameplay and losing access to tons of tactics. All you need is people not using the stuff you put in the game, for any reason. Thus: this topic. I guess.

I agree with the second part, but I believe the challenge-seekers play like that on their 5th+ playthrough, when they already went through everything the game has to offer they now know it so well it would be more boring to play it in the same way again as intended by the developers. They are trying to find a way to "game" the game, surpassing how the developers usually foresaw how the players would play the game... while the ones who ignore features do it on their first playthrough and every subsequent ones on every game that they play.

I keep my rare consumables and rarely use them. In many big production RPGs like Final Fantasy, there are a limited amount of certain consumables in the entire game, and once they are used, they are gone for good. I don't even touch them unless I really need it or save them for the boss of the game or a secret boss.

I remember reading about the risks of having limited rare consumables. Without a way to reproduce the item, players will be discouraged to use the items in critical situations. Maybe it is a design choice that is not friendly, but I think that risk is pretty fun. When I am in danger, I have a hard choice to make. Should I use my limited trump cards or find another way to win?

Some RPGs allow you to reproduce rare consumables:
-rare shops (Kerokero Cola from Super Mario RPG)
-creating them (Rare items from the Atelier series)
-rare drops (runes from Diablo 2 expansion)
-random chests (Dragon Quest 9's randomized dungeons with random chests)
-spawn points (Dragon Quest 2's World Tree that spawns 1 world leaf at a time)

Sometimes the spawn point for rare consumables will dry up and you can't get the item anymore. The "Whaka Bump" from Paper Mario can only be harvested 8 times before the source is gone forever.

This topic is great. It's another aspect of game design to think about in video games. God, I love video games.

author=Avee
I believe the challenge-seekers play like that on their 5th+ playthrough, when they already went through everything the game has to offer they now know it so well it would be more boring to play it in the same way again as intended by the developers. They are trying to find a way to "game" the game, surpassing how the developers usually foresaw how the players would play the game... while the ones who ignore features do it on their first playthrough and every subsequent ones on every game that they play.

This. I did my FFT/FF7 challenge after my 3rd playthrough ONLY because I want to see what will happen. Will I still survive this I wonder? That's because I'm HOOKED to the game. Not because it was bad. It's just me being a challenging player.

It's about a player's playstyle really. I remember there's a better explanation for this from a friend of mine. It's just not WINNING it but HOW you win it. And if the player likes the game enough, they would do crazy challenges, just because they can. There's no need to think of that as a negative thing IMHO since they're doing different things for your game and replaying it over and over.

I do the same thing with school, I don't want to pick a generic topic for my projects, I take an obscure one and make people aware of it and get surprised, etc. I want to be challenged, that's why I do the same thing to the RPGs I love.

I'm the type of person that thinks players have the right to discover shit about your game and exceed your expectations, this in no way makes that game bad.

TLDR;
A player would impose challenges on themselves if they really like the game

Yeah, I know. But I feel like the reason the players make those challenges is because the game has a lot of depth but no reason to ever explore that depth.

no...just no. It's up to the player whether they want to explore the depth or not. And besides a game that forces you to explore their depth that sucks and limits your audience since some will find it too hard, some will find it tedious, some might feel like it's work blah blah blah.

The Depth we're talking about seems different from each other though. I'm thinking more along the lines of FFT/SMT games where challenge and combinations are fun than the one you're saying.

Of course it's a developer's role to make sure that they explain the mechanics by either spoon feeding (bleh) you, or letting you discover.

But LockeZ was saying about depth losing because of self-imposed challenges, when it's not. That's the one I was mostly retorting to.

I'm not a fan of items in general. I feel like the cleric/paladin/healer/etc's curative skills are useless if anyone can pull out a hi-potion and recover 2000 HP. Not to mention people tend to hold onto their items for dear life even when death is staring them in the face.

So I made it my personal philosophy to not even have items. No potions, no ethers, no phoenix downs, not even an item command. Rather than trying to fix the issue of how to balance the use of items and make players actually use them, I'll just focus on making the player put full use to the other parts of the battle system. Fight smart and make use of the given battle mechanics to their full potential instead of fumbling around and then pulling out a full recovery after(Or not even not).

Utterly unforgiving, probably, but it's one way to take care of the problem. Even if it amounts to 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater'.

author=LockeZ
Well, this'll make the game more challenging, for sure. One of the most obvious measures of how challenging a game is is how many errors the player can make and still win. Strong healing items, in most games, allow the player to make up for errors. Each item allows you to cancel out one error, essentially. You can think of phoenix downs as extra lives. It's part of why I think 99 items is just way too many.

Of course, on the other hand, weak healing items don't serve this purpose - if they heal less damage than you take in a round, they exist only to heal between battles. So probably carting around dozens of those is fine. They help create the attrition challenge present in dungeons. You want to be able to carry however many it takes to get you through a dungeon. (Which is probably closer to 25 than 99 in most games)

This is true. But I wouldn't even allow consumable items on the field. Instead, I'll just heal the party to full after each battle. In this way, each battle is a challenge to the player to use the mechanics in the best way they can to win. Especially since they can't just pull out a hi potion whenever they want.

Essentially this means that the margin for error is much narrower than it would be in a traditional RPG. But I think I'd prefer it that way. On the other hand, this also pushes the creator to craft a challenge in a way that is not completely artificial or otherwise unfair. But I certainly don't mind. Challenge seems to take a backseat in most games these days. Couldn't hurt to try and apply such a thing back.