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TREASURE CHEAT, OR NO TREASURE CHEST, THAT IS THE QUESTION.
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meisam
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CloseDo you think, the whole idea of treasure chest in every explorable area is a good idea? Did you ever wonder why there is a treasure chest in a natural cave or a forest?
There are some instances where treasure chest make sense, like after defeating a dragon, or in a locked room of an abandoned castle.
Does treasure chest have any purpose, other than encouraging player to explore unnecessary places. and what can be the alternative?
I suggest an alternative: Instead of adding treasure chest, make natural resources, for example in a mine/cave I can find rare ores witch I can dig and use in crafting, in a forest I find rare herbs witch I can use to make potions that have permanent effects.
Or even more general question, to what extent should we try to keep realism?
There are some instances where treasure chest make sense, like after defeating a dragon, or in a locked room of an abandoned castle.
Does treasure chest have any purpose, other than encouraging player to explore unnecessary places. and what can be the alternative?
I suggest an alternative: Instead of adding treasure chest, make natural resources, for example in a mine/cave I can find rare ores witch I can dig and use in crafting, in a forest I find rare herbs witch I can use to make potions that have permanent effects.
Or even more general question, to what extent should we try to keep realism?
Chests don't CHEAT! :P
That said, if we go by realism, there aren't that many treasure chests to be found in natural environments and man inhabited ones. And the ones that one potentially could find would be normally locked, so that you would require to break the chest, use some keys or lockpicking skills to open them to get to their contents. It is more likely, you'll come across items lying around or inside some sort of bag, because somebody left them there and forgot about them, or maybe they had to run away because they were threatened.
While getting rest (sleeping in inns, tents, etc.) gets its fair share in RPGs, eating and drinking don't get represented too much nor does those OTHER human needs (ehem, bodily functions!). Also, doing sort of exercise would be useful to keep in shape that could affect certain stats. Plus, you would need to wash your clothes as well as either take showers or bathes to keep clean.
As an alternative to have treasures with chest, you would have to find resources wherever you go (you could even trade them for other useful resources, buy or even steal them) and the corresponding skills to transform them (or you would take them to somebody who you pay to do it for you). Thus, you would need to obtain/learn some sort of recipes that define what components are needed you would as well as obtain/learn the skills that allow you to do the transformation. Although I don't think the components have to be necessarily rare: many of them could be common, but others could be rare (the ones that result in very good items). Plus, you would have to take into account that all these activities take time.
In summary, we would be talking about a life simulation!
To what extent these elements are to be included is up to the developer's vision for their game. I suspect many of you would normally not choose to focus on these mundane activities, as important as they are in real life ...
EDIT: Not to mention that normally you can't enter people's houses without being invited ...
That said, if we go by realism, there aren't that many treasure chests to be found in natural environments and man inhabited ones. And the ones that one potentially could find would be normally locked, so that you would require to break the chest, use some keys or lockpicking skills to open them to get to their contents. It is more likely, you'll come across items lying around or inside some sort of bag, because somebody left them there and forgot about them, or maybe they had to run away because they were threatened.
While getting rest (sleeping in inns, tents, etc.) gets its fair share in RPGs, eating and drinking don't get represented too much nor does those OTHER human needs (ehem, bodily functions!). Also, doing sort of exercise would be useful to keep in shape that could affect certain stats. Plus, you would need to wash your clothes as well as either take showers or bathes to keep clean.
As an alternative to have treasures with chest, you would have to find resources wherever you go (you could even trade them for other useful resources, buy or even steal them) and the corresponding skills to transform them (or you would take them to somebody who you pay to do it for you). Thus, you would need to obtain/learn some sort of recipes that define what components are needed you would as well as obtain/learn the skills that allow you to do the transformation. Although I don't think the components have to be necessarily rare: many of them could be common, but others could be rare (the ones that result in very good items). Plus, you would have to take into account that all these activities take time.
In summary, we would be talking about a life simulation!
To what extent these elements are to be included is up to the developer's vision for their game. I suspect many of you would normally not choose to focus on these mundane activities, as important as they are in real life ...
EDIT: Not to mention that normally you can't enter people's houses without being invited ...
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Here are some very legit gameplay issues which are either solved or at least mitigated by the presence of findable treasure in dungeons:
- You almost always do not want 100% (or even 80%) of the player's power to come from repeatedly grinding on normal enemies. This leads to several problems, including the game having no challenge and becoming boring because it accepts the player spending more time bored as an alternative to skill/tactics; excessive punishment if the random number generator is mean to them; and making it very difficult for you as the designer to estimate how strong the player is at any given point. Findable upgrades solve this by disconnecting some of the player's power from how much time they spent grinding, and instead connecting it to how far they are in the game.
- Putting all your equipment in shops mitigates the above problem, but not by very much. To buy stuff from the shops, players need to earn gold, which they do by grinding enemies. This puts a maximum cap on how long grinding stays effective, since once you can buy everything in the current town, your grinding is only half as useful (you're still gaining exp but not equipment if you continue grinding). But it still encourages some grinding, unless you make enemies drop enough gold that just fighting the minimum number of battles gives the player enough money to afford everything he could ever want (in which case you might as well just remove money from the game and give the player the upgrades for free at the end of each dungeon).
- If your dungeons have no options, your game will feel like a giant hallway. Giving the player a little control over their destiny goes a long way, and "do I spend some time exploring and look for loot, or go straight for the exit?" is a way of doing that that's proven very effective in thousands of RPGs. Even something as simple as "do I go get that treasure chest that has an enemy in front of it, or skip it?" is giving them something, but more complex, non-binary choices feel better.
- If you want MP to be meaningful in a game where the only way to recover it is to stay at an inn or use an item, you need to make the MP recovery items really expensive, or possibly even unbuyable. If the player can just buy 40 ethers before going into a dungeon, he effectively has unlimited MP. However, if he has no ethers, then he feels like he can't use any skills until the boss, which is boring and crappy. An obvious middle ground is to give the player recovery items gradually over the course of the dungeon, allowing him or her to use some skills and then recover, but not to do so indefinitely.
- If you have a challenge coming up where the player needs certain things to succeed, you can give the player some (but not all) of those things in treasure chests. For example, if you have a very long dungeon with high-attack-power enemies, and the player's going to need a bunch of revival items, stick five revival items in a chest. Or if they're going into a dungeon full of enemies that deal fire damage, give them one fire-resist shield and maybe a couple powerful healing potions. If they continue onward unprepared, this will give them room for error; they will be able to see what the enemies do and beat them once or twice by expending their limited supplies, and from that they'll realize they need to go back to town and buy more.
- Putting gold in treasure chests gives you way more control over how much gold the player has. This can be good if you want to, say, make sure the player can always afford to fully upgrade at least two of his four characters, but make it almost impossible to fully upgrade all four. You can set the price at 2500 gold per character, and put 5000 gold in a treasure chest, but make enemies only drop 10-20 gold each. (This may just encourage grinding depending on the player, though.)
- Quite honestly, finding stuff just feels good, and getting something powerful mid-dungeon breaks up monotony a little. There are alternative ways besides treasure chests to do this, though - items that are dropped or stolen from enemies are an obvious one.
- You almost always do not want 100% (or even 80%) of the player's power to come from repeatedly grinding on normal enemies. This leads to several problems, including the game having no challenge and becoming boring because it accepts the player spending more time bored as an alternative to skill/tactics; excessive punishment if the random number generator is mean to them; and making it very difficult for you as the designer to estimate how strong the player is at any given point. Findable upgrades solve this by disconnecting some of the player's power from how much time they spent grinding, and instead connecting it to how far they are in the game.
- Putting all your equipment in shops mitigates the above problem, but not by very much. To buy stuff from the shops, players need to earn gold, which they do by grinding enemies. This puts a maximum cap on how long grinding stays effective, since once you can buy everything in the current town, your grinding is only half as useful (you're still gaining exp but not equipment if you continue grinding). But it still encourages some grinding, unless you make enemies drop enough gold that just fighting the minimum number of battles gives the player enough money to afford everything he could ever want (in which case you might as well just remove money from the game and give the player the upgrades for free at the end of each dungeon).
- If your dungeons have no options, your game will feel like a giant hallway. Giving the player a little control over their destiny goes a long way, and "do I spend some time exploring and look for loot, or go straight for the exit?" is a way of doing that that's proven very effective in thousands of RPGs. Even something as simple as "do I go get that treasure chest that has an enemy in front of it, or skip it?" is giving them something, but more complex, non-binary choices feel better.
- If you want MP to be meaningful in a game where the only way to recover it is to stay at an inn or use an item, you need to make the MP recovery items really expensive, or possibly even unbuyable. If the player can just buy 40 ethers before going into a dungeon, he effectively has unlimited MP. However, if he has no ethers, then he feels like he can't use any skills until the boss, which is boring and crappy. An obvious middle ground is to give the player recovery items gradually over the course of the dungeon, allowing him or her to use some skills and then recover, but not to do so indefinitely.
- If you have a challenge coming up where the player needs certain things to succeed, you can give the player some (but not all) of those things in treasure chests. For example, if you have a very long dungeon with high-attack-power enemies, and the player's going to need a bunch of revival items, stick five revival items in a chest. Or if they're going into a dungeon full of enemies that deal fire damage, give them one fire-resist shield and maybe a couple powerful healing potions. If they continue onward unprepared, this will give them room for error; they will be able to see what the enemies do and beat them once or twice by expending their limited supplies, and from that they'll realize they need to go back to town and buy more.
- Putting gold in treasure chests gives you way more control over how much gold the player has. This can be good if you want to, say, make sure the player can always afford to fully upgrade at least two of his four characters, but make it almost impossible to fully upgrade all four. You can set the price at 2500 gold per character, and put 5000 gold in a treasure chest, but make enemies only drop 10-20 gold each. (This may just encourage grinding depending on the player, though.)
- Quite honestly, finding stuff just feels good, and getting something powerful mid-dungeon breaks up monotony a little. There are alternative ways besides treasure chests to do this, though - items that are dropped or stolen from enemies are an obvious one.
A game is all about adventure, in an adventure you find things and you learn thing, then you use them to remove the obstacles. Now I think the "find things" become the center of attention, and the "learn things" is either forgotten or become a natural outcome of "find things" as for finding things you need to face random encounter and receive EXP. So you search every barrel in a town and cabinet in a house to find something. Why these houses exist, if they don't have any purpose other than giving player a potion. Finding should not be only about weapon and armor they can be natural resources or alternative way to reach your destination. Learning should be more about using your available Option, of course with more options it should be easier to pick the right choice in a giving situation. When we didn't add eating and drinking as edchuy mentioned, we are removing unneeded processes and skip them, anything that look like a chore should be automatic. So why we don't remove those unnecessary houses, only giving the player access to places that have a reason to exist.
A lot of game mechanic that LockZ mentioned come from weak and lazy designs (no offense), IF there is some tactic and strategy in game, a smart player don't need to grind, and if someone come and complain that the game is hard, I can show him that I can play the game. It make that player to think "what is wrong with me" rather than "what is wrong with game". The whole fix exp is very wrong (in my view) you won't learn anything from defeating the same guy over and over, it's the concept of "diminishing return", it should be in every game to prevent player from spamming the same thing over and over.
Choice is the very essence of any RPG, witch is somehow forgotten. There are unlimited ways to give the player choices that change his destiny witch is not good or bad. It's very important that balance the choices, so there won't be "best choice" because then, player does not have a choice. Why MP does not regenerate? why MP should be such a important commodity, why magic should be strong and physical should be weak? World of Warcraft solved this very easily, a fighter is not weaker than a Mage offensively, they just work differently, balancing the choices and making them a preference solve all this problem. witch is easy to say but very hard to implement.
Gold, The only way I know for now is to not let the player buy military objects with gold, inventing another source of currency, Or mixing them together, like if you are soldier you can buy weak version of weapons and armor, if you are a general you can buy top notch equipments.
What i am saying here is only theory, making them happen is very hard and sometimes may seems impossible. Using treasure chest to cover this problems will never solve them, People always horde their MP for the boss, even if you give them 200 magic potion.
A lot of game mechanic that LockZ mentioned come from weak and lazy designs (no offense), IF there is some tactic and strategy in game, a smart player don't need to grind, and if someone come and complain that the game is hard, I can show him that I can play the game. It make that player to think "what is wrong with me" rather than "what is wrong with game". The whole fix exp is very wrong (in my view) you won't learn anything from defeating the same guy over and over, it's the concept of "diminishing return", it should be in every game to prevent player from spamming the same thing over and over.
Choice is the very essence of any RPG, witch is somehow forgotten. There are unlimited ways to give the player choices that change his destiny witch is not good or bad. It's very important that balance the choices, so there won't be "best choice" because then, player does not have a choice. Why MP does not regenerate? why MP should be such a important commodity, why magic should be strong and physical should be weak? World of Warcraft solved this very easily, a fighter is not weaker than a Mage offensively, they just work differently, balancing the choices and making them a preference solve all this problem. witch is easy to say but very hard to implement.
Gold, The only way I know for now is to not let the player buy military objects with gold, inventing another source of currency, Or mixing them together, like if you are soldier you can buy weak version of weapons and armor, if you are a general you can buy top notch equipments.
What i am saying here is only theory, making them happen is very hard and sometimes may seems impossible. Using treasure chest to cover this problems will never solve them, People always horde their MP for the boss, even if you give them 200 magic potion.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
There are multiple ways to address any given problem, yes. But if you aren't already using any other way of addressing them, and you're thinking of removing treasure chests, check yaself before ya wreck yaself.
I'm not sure what the advantage would be of not including any findable treasure in dungeons in a traditional RPG. If you wanted to create a more action-oriented game or a game with very fine-tuned pacing, it might make sense to not have exploration, but you could still give the player items as they continue through the dungeon (dropped from minibosses, for example).
As for not including treasures in towns... well, yeah, I can see why you'd remove them. As you said, they are "automatic". There's no real choice of whether to get them or not; every player will get them because there's no downside. However, the real purpose of them is usually something different. They draw the player into wholly exploring every town, and in the process the player will probably talk to almost everyone, and definitely see every building. If talking to most of the NPCs and seeing all of the buildings are things you want the player to do, then filling the town with random goodies is an effective way of doing it. Alternate ways of doing the same thing would be an exploration bar that fills up as you uncover the map by walking around, having random people around town give you quests when you talk to them, or having some kind of forced task that requires going to a number of different places around town as part of the story. However my personal favorite is just making every visitable part of the town useful. You already made the town have 7 buildings instead of a more realistic 1500 buildings because all those extra buildings and roads served no purpose; why can't you remove the two pointless residences also? Just keep the two shops, the inn, and the two buildings that are involved in the plot.
I'm not sure what the advantage would be of not including any findable treasure in dungeons in a traditional RPG. If you wanted to create a more action-oriented game or a game with very fine-tuned pacing, it might make sense to not have exploration, but you could still give the player items as they continue through the dungeon (dropped from minibosses, for example).
As for not including treasures in towns... well, yeah, I can see why you'd remove them. As you said, they are "automatic". There's no real choice of whether to get them or not; every player will get them because there's no downside. However, the real purpose of them is usually something different. They draw the player into wholly exploring every town, and in the process the player will probably talk to almost everyone, and definitely see every building. If talking to most of the NPCs and seeing all of the buildings are things you want the player to do, then filling the town with random goodies is an effective way of doing it. Alternate ways of doing the same thing would be an exploration bar that fills up as you uncover the map by walking around, having random people around town give you quests when you talk to them, or having some kind of forced task that requires going to a number of different places around town as part of the story. However my personal favorite is just making every visitable part of the town useful. You already made the town have 7 buildings instead of a more realistic 1500 buildings because all those extra buildings and roads served no purpose; why can't you remove the two pointless residences also? Just keep the two shops, the inn, and the two buildings that are involved in the plot.
Avee
5794
I think the key here is consistency.
If treasure chests wouldn't be realistic in a given game, then there probably shouldn't be any flame-bladed swords, airships or pet Behemoths.
Edit: Yeah and as you guys said already, there are numerous ways to execute an idea and deal with design problems.
If treasure chests wouldn't be realistic in a given game, then there probably shouldn't be any flame-bladed swords, airships or pet Behemoths.
Edit: Yeah and as you guys said already, there are numerous ways to execute an idea and deal with design problems.
Everything is only representational in a game. Players have come to accept "treasure" as something exciting.
In recent games, commercial game companies would place treasure chests in every environment in order to give the player some kind of exciting unknown to suddenly discover. Even when the contents are often banal, like healing items worth 50 gold pieces, players still pursue treasure. This is because "treasure" is "something to find" in a game... any nice items gained from said "treasure" are just a bonus.
It's similar to score. The concept has no meaning on its own... it's something for the player to experience. Aside from advancing the storyline, becoming stronger, and vanquishing the opposition, finding treasure in RPGs is how to play an RPG.
Unless you'd like to introduce something new. But it would have to be as good as or better than "something to find".
In recent games, commercial game companies would place treasure chests in every environment in order to give the player some kind of exciting unknown to suddenly discover. Even when the contents are often banal, like healing items worth 50 gold pieces, players still pursue treasure. This is because "treasure" is "something to find" in a game... any nice items gained from said "treasure" are just a bonus.
It's similar to score. The concept has no meaning on its own... it's something for the player to experience. Aside from advancing the storyline, becoming stronger, and vanquishing the opposition, finding treasure in RPGs is how to play an RPG.
Unless you'd like to introduce something new. But it would have to be as good as or better than "something to find".
@LockZ I completely agree with you, its hard to fill a place if I don't want to use treasure chest, I need a plan. But is it worth it? what people like to see, the final product (a mighty sword in a chest) or an Ore that can be used to create the same weapon, consider two situations:
1-A great blacksmith give me a blueprint, I noticed that I lack a particular ore, I find that ore and I create a mighty weapon.
2- I find the same weapon in a treasure chest, simple and effective.
from exploration perspective what's more interesting (personally I like the first one).
@Avee, Airships and dragons are very different than looting a treasure chest in capital of a mighty kingdom. I mean why anyone else didn't loot the treasure chest before? and who ever set foot in that natural cave and put that sword in a treasure chest? and why owner of house don't care if I take his belonging. this means NPC does not really exist, they are incapable of thinking and doing anything, the world does not respond to your action. But a dragons can kill you and can be killed, action and reaction.
@Zachary_Braun I disagree with you, people like to make them self stronger, and that's why they look for treasures, they like to find something worth their time, if i put a potion in the end of a long dungeon, everyone will hate me. Gold is a treasure, but in most RPG people don't care that much about gold, but they care a lot about a Sword with higher Attack.
1-A great blacksmith give me a blueprint, I noticed that I lack a particular ore, I find that ore and I create a mighty weapon.
2- I find the same weapon in a treasure chest, simple and effective.
from exploration perspective what's more interesting (personally I like the first one).
@Avee, Airships and dragons are very different than looting a treasure chest in capital of a mighty kingdom. I mean why anyone else didn't loot the treasure chest before? and who ever set foot in that natural cave and put that sword in a treasure chest? and why owner of house don't care if I take his belonging. this means NPC does not really exist, they are incapable of thinking and doing anything, the world does not respond to your action. But a dragons can kill you and can be killed, action and reaction.
@Zachary_Braun I disagree with you, people like to make them self stronger, and that's why they look for treasures, they like to find something worth their time, if i put a potion in the end of a long dungeon, everyone will hate me. Gold is a treasure, but in most RPG people don't care that much about gold, but they care a lot about a Sword with higher Attack.
My goal with Tundra is to make it as realistic as possible, which is to say it will contain as few unexplainable things as I can do without sacrificing fun. However, some good points have been brought up in favour of treasure chests even when they don't make logical sense in the world of your game.
Master of the Wind did this really well by explaining that the chests were put there by the fairies who are dotted around Solest to help you (who also save your game, sell items, and tell you how many treasures are still in a dungeon). Then they put this into overdrive by making the little save fairies an integral part of the plot. I've never seen another game marry story and a seemingly-minor gameplay element this effectively.
In the end, I think I'm going to experiment with having monsters drop parts of themselves and dungeons with collectible items that make sense in the setting (like ore in caves as already suggested) from which the player can choose to make equipment. Or they can sell them for cash if they need to buy items in town. I'm not really planning on having equipment shops as such since it's not particularly realistic to have someone's battle prowess jump when they switch from a sword made of iron to one made of some other metal, so I'm looking at alternative methods of character progression.
Master of the Wind did this really well by explaining that the chests were put there by the fairies who are dotted around Solest to help you (who also save your game, sell items, and tell you how many treasures are still in a dungeon). Then they put this into overdrive by making the little save fairies an integral part of the plot. I've never seen another game marry story and a seemingly-minor gameplay element this effectively.
In the end, I think I'm going to experiment with having monsters drop parts of themselves and dungeons with collectible items that make sense in the setting (like ore in caves as already suggested) from which the player can choose to make equipment. Or they can sell them for cash if they need to buy items in town. I'm not really planning on having equipment shops as such since it's not particularly realistic to have someone's battle prowess jump when they switch from a sword made of iron to one made of some other metal, so I'm looking at alternative methods of character progression.
I prefer dead bodies or bags for non-traditional RPGs. But if I'm going traditional, I like me some chests, even if it doesn't make 100% sense.
Crystalgate
694
I prefer to have things laying around in dungeons, but ideally in packages that makes some sense. Mine-able ores and corpses has been mentioned. In a world with monsters, it makes sense that there's valuables laying around that hasn't been retrieved.
That said, it doesn't matter that much to me. I just want there to be something useful at least occasionally. There has been games where I stopped going for chests that looked even slightly complicated to get because I learned that chests never contains anything I can't buy already anyway.
That said, it doesn't matter that much to me. I just want there to be something useful at least occasionally. There has been games where I stopped going for chests that looked even slightly complicated to get because I learned that chests never contains anything I can't buy already anyway.
Mihel
0
author=Crystalgate
I learned that chests never contains anything I can't buy already anyway.
I hate when I buy a weapon or an armour in a shop, and then find that very same piece of equipment in a chest in the next dungeon.
Lot's of RM games don't pay any attention to the redundancy of chests' content.
I always prefer chests over corpses or barrels or boxes. Chests are colorful, chests are more interesting, I always know there will be something good in it, you can recognize it as the standard reward-giver in your game. And, you can mess around with chests so they sometimes subvert your expectations. Chests are fun.
Any of you guys do trick chests?
Like, you open it up, and most of the chests you only open once, but the second time you find a compartment (which may involve a puzzle of some sort to open).
Or, the chest itself is part of a puzzle (like, you open it, and it casts a shadow/blocks something).
Like, you open it up, and most of the chests you only open once, but the second time you find a compartment (which may involve a puzzle of some sort to open).
Or, the chest itself is part of a puzzle (like, you open it, and it casts a shadow/blocks something).
Oh now mimic are only for chest? technically mimic should be able to mimic anything :P. though I won't be the one who animate it ;)
Yea, but the reason they focus on chests is that people get close enough to touch it (and thus close enough to attack). Doors are also good options.
But yea, I like the Mana Khemia model of foraging too.
But yea, I like the Mana Khemia model of foraging too.
I recently played "Chain Of Retribution", I really liked how they mixed the treasure chest with humor and mini games, somehow they make fun of how player, search everything to find something, in the end developers knew that player expect to find something so they add some items :). In my view it add a lot of life to the game. although this does not work for me as I am not good in writing.
