Rare Items and Weapons?

[Harmill]

My own take on "rare" items is that if you include any sort of 'Item Book' like Tales games or Disgaea games do, and give in-game incentives to complete those item books, then I'd actually move away from "rare" items. Nothing pisses me off more than spending 4 hours fighting the same enemies over and over again trying to get that 1% drop rate item and STILL not getting it -- I don't even bother anymore because random chance mechanics like that are not worth my time and effort.

I'm a much bigger proponent of having conditional drops whose requirements are not always easy or simple to meet, and then tying "rare" drops to meeting those conditions. A huge reference for this is the Etrian Odyssey line of games. Check out this link for a list of conditional drops with some basic ideas:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/709464-etrian-odyssey-untold-the-millennium-girl/67782905

There's a lot more you can do than just, "Kill with X element" or "Kill enemy while under X ailment". You can have a "summoning" type monster, who only summons a specific monster (a monster that does not appear in battles otherwise) under theses conditions, too, and then tie that rare drop to the summoned monster.

I just think there are so many better ways of handling "rare" things than taking the frustration-inducing RNG route.

 

[bgillisp]

I'm a much bigger proponent of having conditional drops whose requirements are not always easy or simple to meet, and then tying "rare" drops to meeting those conditions. A huge reference for this is the Etrian Odyssey line of games. Check out this link for a list of conditional drops with some basic ideas:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/709464-etrian-odyssey-untold-the-millennium-girl/67782905

My counterpoint: The EO games frustrated me with that as they never gave any clues as to how to make those requirements happen. It might as well have been random, as you had no idea what the conditions were, so all you had to do was either spam every possible condition, or hope you got lucky, or consult a guide.

And, some of those in the EO games felt so random that you almost had to have a guide to even know to attempt what was required for the rare drop. We tend to call those Guide-Dang-Its, and those tend to frustrate the player too, probably even more than a bad RNG for drops.

 

[Wavelength]

My own take on "rare" items is that if you include any sort of 'Item Book' like Tales games or Disgaea games do, and give in-game incentives to complete those item books, then I'd actually move away from "rare" items. Nothing pisses me off more than spending 4 hours fighting the same enemies over and over again trying to get that 1% drop rate item and STILL not getting it -- I don't even bother anymore because random chance mechanics like that are not worth my time and effort.

A question for you, since I've never been a "completionist" type of gamer and I sometimes have a hard time putting myself into their mindset as a designer.

If this kind of in-game reference (item book) didn't give you any percentage, or any sense of how close you were to completion (or even whether you were complete), would you still feel the same way about it?

I like being able to provide the player with a reference of things that they've seen, collected, etc., but I don't want to trigger the "yeeeargh why won't it let me get this last thing?!" reaction that can come with a rare drop, missable, or just really well-hidden element.

 

[Harmill]

My counterpoint: The EO games frustrated me with that as they never gave any clues as to how to make those requirements happen. It might as well have been random, as you had no idea what the conditions were, so all you had to do was either spam every possible condition, or hope you got lucky, or consult a guide.

And, some of those in the EO games felt so random that you almost had to have a guide to even know to attempt what was required for the rare drop. We tend to call those Guide-Dang-Its, and those tend to frustrate the player too, probably even more than a bad RNG for drops.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea - just that's its implementation wasn't perfect. Based on your own problems with it, you can re-use that idea but improve on it. Remove the elements that were frustrating but retain the elements that worked well. That's what being a designer is about. For me, I will try to eliminate as much random chance such as loot checks as possible because I hate them as both a player and a designer. Conditional drops is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction, and even if EO's implementation of it was flawed, it does not prove that it's the wrong direction. I see a LOT of potential in what you can do with it.

A question for you, since I've never been a "completionist" type of gamer and I sometimes have a hard time putting myself into their mindset as a designer.

If this kind of in-game reference (item book) didn't give you any percentage, or any sense of how close you were to completion (or even whether you were complete), would you still feel the same way about it?

I like being able to provide the player with a reference of things that they've seen, collected, etc., but I don't want to trigger the "yeeeargh why won't it let me get this last thing?!" reaction that can come with a rare drop, missable, or just really well-hidden element.

If the game promises me a reward, I want a percentage to know how close I am. But I don't want those BS 1% item drops. If there's no reward, and it's just a menu with a % completion... I don't really care.

 

[Omnimental]

Depends, are we defining Rare as in "arbitrary random chance at acquiring", or Rare as in "unique, hard to acquire"?  I'm all for the latter, not much for the former.  I'm alright with having a chance to get later game weapons earlier than usual via chance, but I'm really not fond of the "farm rare monster until it randomly drops the item I'm looking for".  That just seems like the designer padding out their game with filler.

My preferred method would be be acquiring them via sidequests that are only hinted at via lore spread throughout the game.  Then give me optional bosses where having the rare gear is near required to beat.