Chests staying open or disappearing?

[Aerianr]

I'd like your opinions on chests in RPGs. You open one, get your loot - now should it stay there, open and useless? Or should it disappear?

In my game the main town is one where the player will spend a lot of time when not off saving the world. The idea of the chests scattered around the town just sitting there all open and useless is kind of driving me nuts. So I'm thinking about having them disappear.

Which led me to wonder how I should handle chests in dungeons. Personally, when I'm playing a game I use an open chest as a reminder that I've already gone that way. So maybe leave open chests in dungeons?

Does that seem too weird? What are your preferences?

 

[FirestormNeos]

It's a lot easier to keep track of what I have and have not opened if the empty boxes are still there afterwards, so I personally prefer that.

 

[Wavelength]

I do like the Open Chests remaining on the map. It makes wayfinding easier, because you know if you've circled back into an area you've already been to; it can be disorienting if the chest is now gone and the room looks visually different (and therefore new) because of it.

One of my favorite little spins on this is in Trails in the Sky which has a unique message for every chest in the game if you examine it once you've already looted it, such as "I have nothing left to give you!", "Somehow, you almost feel like you've been here before." or "This chest is empty... like your heart."

 

[Juanita Star]

Yeah, gotta go for open. They sirve as a mark in long maps and dungeons and are a nice decoration to have around. And since chest normally dont dissapear even in fantasy settins, having them around gives the feelimg of "realism".

 

[Aerianr]

It's a lot easier to keep track of what I have and have not opened if the empty boxes are still there afterwards, so I personally prefer that.

I do like the Open Chests remaining on the map. It makes wayfinding easier, because you know if you've circled back into an area you've already been to; it can be disorienting if the chest is now gone and the room looks visually different (and therefore new) because of it.

One of my favorite little spins on this is in Trails in the Sky which has a unique message for every chest in the game if you examine it once you've already looted it, such as "I have nothing left to give you!", "Somehow, you almost feel like you've been here before." or "This chest is empty... like your heart."

I really like this idea! It reminds me of the Atelier Iris series where whenever you interacted with a barrel, one of the characters yelled "Barrel!" It was cute.

Yeah, gotta go for open. They sirve as a mark in long maps and dungeons and are a nice decoration to have around. And since chest normally dont dissapear even in fantasy settins, having them around gives the feelimg of "realism".

Glad to see I'm not the only one that uses the open chests for wayfinding, but do you all feel the same way if it's within a town that you're in for the majority of the game?

 

[Juanita Star]

Glad to see I'm not the only one that uses the open chests for wayfinding, but do you all feel the same way if it's within a town that you're in for the majority of the game?

I don’t fancy the idea of chests eternally open around the exterior of a town. Always wonder “what, nobody who lives here clean this?”

If they disappear right after you open them, I don’t like them (instant disappearing chests, me don’t like them xD). But if they disappear after you abandon the room, I can get behind it as someone cleaned them.

 

[Aesica]

Considering I also like chests to block off things, I like them to stay once opened. For example:

Spoiler

Players won't need to discover the FF4-style false wall to get the "good" loot if chests just disappeared after opening them.

When you think about the fact that most RPGs, past and present, seem to use the open-and-still-there model, I think it's safe to assume that's generally the more preferred approach.

I suppose it also depends on what the "treasure box" actually is. If it's a chest with crap inside it, then yeah, the chest remains because you're not taking the chest too (at least I hope not). But if it's something like a sword in a stone, an orb on a pedestal, or a potion on a counter, then it probably should disappear. Since, you know, you took the only visual indicator of its presence, and all.

 

[fluffymonster]

Personally idm either way. Chests aren't really something I think too much about. If they make a hub area look cluttered, that could be annoying, but it certainly more realistic to keep them there until you find a means to remove them.

 

[Manik Rooster]

I definitely prefer chests staying on the map. It just kinda looks goofy when you open a chest and then it magically disappears. It's not exactly realistic, but games definitely don't have to be realistic. It's a good way to keep track of what's opened. I could certainly see in a sci-fi fantasy type setting where the chest would disappear because of the material it's made from.

Chests staying on the map kind of reinforce to me " Okay, I've opened this up and I've been over there already."

 

[Animebryan]

I have an example where keeping the chests there is important. Ice areas with slippery floors. If you're using Yanfly's Slippery Floors plugin to make slippery floor puzzles then you know how important it is to have a solid object when in a slippery area to act as a stop & turn point. If you make one of these areas you can have chests just setting out on the slippery floors & also acting as stopping points.

In this situation, taking those chests away would take away those needed stopping points. Also, keeping chests around comes in handy if you plan on having them openable again, like in a randomly generating dungeon. Just alternate between 2 randomizing floors & set the chests to actual switches instead of self-switches & turn those switches off if you want to reset those chests.

 

[Aesica]

I have an example where keeping the chests there is important. Ice areas with slippery floors. If you're using Yanfly's Slippery Floors plugin to make slippery floor puzzles then you know how important it is to have a solid object when in a slippery area to act as a stop & turn point. If you make one of these areas you can have chests just setting out on the slippery floors & also acting as stopping points.

Actually, in this case disappearing chests could add a level of complexity to such a puzzle that persistent chests cannot. For example, to get to chest D, you have to open A to remove it, but B and C need to be left intact as barriers until you've claimed chest D.