Posted January 22, 2021
Yeah, I also do this, to the extreme. Collect everything, hardly ever use anything. :/ And in reality, it only ever happened to me once in my gaming life that I could not finish a game because I ran out of required resources near the end, and it wasn't even potions but ammo that I ran out of (in Albion). But then again, who knows, maybe it never happened to me again because I've become such a hoarder. ;P
Although, now that I think about it, another bad thing once happened to me in Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, when I let a party member learn a spell by making them consume a spellbook, and then that spell turned out to be important, but the party member left the party, shortly before I needed it ...
I really disliked how in Knights of the Chalice it seems you're supposed to craft and use consumables in order to survive in some dungeons, and on top of consuming the items, crafting them also consumes XP ... That was the worst.
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That being said, IMO finite resources should never be made necessary for beating a game. (Well, that's an exaggeration, of course, as some games are all about resource management, but those tend to be the games I don't really enjoy that much.)
Although, now that I think about it, another bad thing once happened to me in Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, when I let a party member learn a spell by making them consume a spellbook, and then that spell turned out to be important, but the party member left the party, shortly before I needed it ...
I really disliked how in Knights of the Chalice it seems you're supposed to craft and use consumables in order to survive in some dungeons, and on top of consuming the items, crafting them also consumes XP ... That was the worst.
.
GeraltOfRivia_PL: There are, of course, finite consumables like water or food, but they are in abundance.
Another good way would be to reward the player with a small amount of XP for each consumption.
Apparently I'm one of only few here to whom your XP reward idea sounds rather appealing (like the opposite of KotC), that would definitely encourage me to make use of consumables more often. And I actually like it more when using consumables is encouraged and I don't feel like I have to hoard them. So far only two things have been able to encourage me to ease up on my hoarding habits: straightforward game design that presents me with situations that I think would call for using the consumables I've picked up, or, like you said, an abundance of those consumables (if I've collected 115 healing herbs, I guess using up a couple of them is still okay, right? As long as I keep more than a 100! XD). Another good way would be to reward the player with a small amount of XP for each consumption.
That being said, IMO finite resources should never be made necessary for beating a game. (Well, that's an exaggeration, of course, as some games are all about resource management, but those tend to be the games I don't really enjoy that much.)
Post edited January 22, 2021 by Leroux