There are few things that bug me more in games that a bunch of useless items. For some reason RPGs in particular have always filled their game with so much useless junk, maybe to make the game world feel less empty, I don't know. It gets much worse when you combine useless crap with limited inventory, cause nothing is more fun than having loads of loot in a cave you can't carry out. Why the he'll do they do this, who uses half this crap they make us collect.
The latest game to piss me off was witcher 2, here is a game with loads of items around but at least here you can quickly scan the room an see where all the items are. At first I was gathering everything, I figured all this crap would help me craft some super sword or something. About 15 hours in I noticed I rarely if ever used any of my crafting items, I had been wasting all this toime searching every corner just cause maybe iget so ethnic useful. Almost all the best stuff in the game you get from quests so what is the point of all this crap. By the end if the game I had enough crap to create a near infinite amount of potions. Speaking of potions about 3 where useful the other 20 are pointless, why have them. I know you could say I can just ignore it all but what happens if I so happen to miss something important in this sea of uselessness. Of course all junk you can sell which becomes your main cash cow but now you have to carry all this crap back and forth to a trader.
Remember in LOTR where Gandalf opened his magical cloak of caring capacity and took 15 Orc swords and 25 bone fragments to sell for money. NO cause that is STUPID. Where the he'll did this item idea come from. Just give me a few weapons, armor and ONE healing item, DONE. That is all I need. Spells or recharchable skills are the way to go, items that get used up suck cause you either use them up too quickly or always save them cause maybe you need it later, of course you never do so you end up with 100 potions at the end of the game. My character should have skills, he shouldn't need to carry an alchemy shop with him.
When a game removes all the crap and only focuses on useful items now every object in the game world is more important, more exciting. Now I am focused more on my actions and not managing some boring inventory screen. All the stuff items do can be done without them and be done better. It is a Terrible arcaic system. Mass Effect ditched all that crap and it was so much better for it. Zelda games have always only had a few useful items, which is why finding everything in the game world is fun and meaningful. Enough with gathering 500 pieces of cloth, WTF.
The latest game to piss me off was witcher 2, here is a game with loads of items around but at least here you can quickly scan the room an see where all the items are. At first I was gathering everything, I figured all this crap would help me craft some super sword or something. About 15 hours in I noticed I rarely if ever used any of my crafting items, I had been wasting all this toime searching every corner just cause maybe iget so ethnic useful. Almost all the best stuff in the game you get from quests so what is the point of all this crap. By the end if the game I had enough crap to create a near infinite amount of potions. Speaking of potions about 3 where useful the other 20 are pointless, why have them. I know you could say I can just ignore it all but what happens if I so happen to miss something important in this sea of uselessness. Of course all junk you can sell which becomes your main cash cow but now you have to carry all this crap back and forth to a trader.
Remember in LOTR where Gandalf opened his magical cloak of caring capacity and took 15 Orc swords and 25 bone fragments to sell for money. NO cause that is STUPID. Where the he'll did this item idea come from. Just give me a few weapons, armor and ONE healing item, DONE. That is all I need. Spells or recharchable skills are the way to go, items that get used up suck cause you either use them up too quickly or always save them cause maybe you need it later, of course you never do so you end up with 100 potions at the end of the game. My character should have skills, he shouldn't need to carry an alchemy shop with him.
When a game removes all the crap and only focuses on useful items now every object in the game world is more important, more exciting. Now I am focused more on my actions and not managing some boring inventory screen. All the stuff items do can be done without them and be done better. It is a Terrible arcaic system. Mass Effect ditched all that crap and it was so much better for it. Zelda games have always only had a few useful items, which is why finding everything in the game world is fun and meaningful. Enough with gathering 500 pieces of cloth, WTF.
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travo (6m)
Just don't play RPGs. There's no need to ruin genres you don't like just so you can play them.
It would make RPGs better though.
No I want stupid useless crap removed from my games.
You guys have actually found items useful??? You dont end your games with hundreds of unused items?
Fixed.
Name me one RPG where items are useful.
This.
And yet I dont see one argument for loads of crappy items in RPGs. Well guys?
It feels like you just assume it needs to be there cause it has always been there. They serve no function, it can all be done in a far more efficient way, Its all clutter to fill in play time, to make you feel happy for collecting crap. Oh yay I got an item, I did something important, yay me. No you didnt you accomplished crap cause that item is totally worthless.
FFXIII had hundreds of seemingly useless items, but you could combine them to increase weapon upgrade multipliers or something. That's pretty cool, right?