Where to put rare items?

[Nutty171]

Let's start by saying: I am very bad at making puzzles. So just rule that out okay?
But either way, I'd like some ideas for, well, where to put rare items. I'm talking about items that are really rare. I can't think of a way to have sidequests that yield these items, because nobody would have them, and those who would have them definitely wouldn't want to give it to you. My "best" idea so far is to have it be from another dimension, so... challenge portals? (Portals that lead to levels with ridiculously kinda over-leveled enemies with the item at the end)

EDIT: Oops, accidentally posted without tags, and it doesn't look like I can add tags, sorry. :/

 

[bgillisp]

For my game, I've gone with hard to find places (maybe an obscure corner in a dungeon), or behind illusionary walls. Though if you go the second route, best to show the player somehow where the first illusionary wall is so they know to even look for them (maybe someone in the party knows where one is. After all, not all need to have rare items behind them).

I've also hidden a few in optional dungeons, near the end, sometimes guarded by a boss, and sometimes not. And finally, you could also have it that the item is in the hands of someone, but they won't surrender it without a fight. In fact, you could probably expand on that and put one of them in a wealthy person's house, and the party has to steal it or convince them to give it to you somehow. After all, a wealthy person might actually have a rare item or two.

 

[GoodSelf]

You can make an NPC appear only after a certain specific set of conditions are completed. For example, let's say your hero purchases every armor piece in a set. That would trigger an NPC appearing outside the shop who when spoken to, gives you a quest to find a Legendary Blade that matches the armor set.

Another example, have monsters have a very rare chance of dropping a precious mineral. This item is only used in crafting to create a legendary chest plate.

Last example, if you have Inns in your game, add a random chance using a variable to have something stolen from the player. This opens a new side quest the track down the thief, and gives you a very rare dagger to boot.

I hope some of these ideas help you to create cool and unique ways to obtain rare items.

 

[Tai_MT]

I've hidden the vast majority of mine behind specific quests to earn them... Or behind a currency (Diamonds you trade for items... you must find the Diamonds yourself)... and finally... Behind skill Challenges.

The "Specific Quests" option is straight-forward. There are two special sets of armor for each character. One is the "Legendary" set of armor which all corresponds to a single Legendary Beast (like a Unicorn, a Dragon, whatever) and you find the pieces along the entire quest path. The second is the "Familiar Armor" in which corresponds to a specific animal (bat, spider, wolf, whatever) and it's given out all at once upon completion of the quest. Decent amount of quests to obtain these armors. The quests, themselves, are also themed with the armors, so that after the first of either is completed, the player knows what to expect the next time one of these comes up.

The "Behind a currency" items are all just these rare items called "Relics" which have powerful effects, but have drawbacks (think of them as the Traits from Fallout 1 and New Vegas if you've ever played those). They are also rare Accessories. Anyway, there's a specific vendor who sells these rare items and they're gated behind finding Diamonds. You might get a Diamond from a boss drop or opening a difficult-to-find chest. But, the system itself, works just like the "Red Gem" system from Illusion of Gaia. You get each reward in turn, no skipping ahead. There are exactly enough Diamonds in the game to get everything, none are able to be "lost forever" unless you decide to sell the Diamonds for 100,000 Gold instead of trading them.

The "Skill Challenges" ones come in the form of simple skill checks as well as two other systems. You may run across a boulder and need a specific strength to move it, once you do, you get the item from the chest and it's a rare item. Or a joke item. Skill challenges can be performed once and only once, and if you fail, they're done, no way to retry them. The other two systems are "Thievery" and "Pillage". Thievery takes place when you've obtained the "Thief" party member and run across a specific chest type (always locked). The way this works is that an "easy" chest to open gives your roll a larger "random number" to add to your Reflex ability in order to get the drop. There is no way to fail opening these chests, but how well you roll determines what drops from them. These chests often have 3, 5, or sometimes 7 possible rewards in them. That is, the loot table has that many items on it. There's no way to know how well you did or what the cap is you needed... but you do always get something. I've hidden some rare equipment behind these chests and not always on the "highest end" of them either (meaning you might need to have enough of a stat, but not too much). "Pillage" works differently. The "Pirate" character can "smash" wooden chests using a combination of his Attack and Speed stat in order to obtain loot. These always have 3 possibilities. The first is you get the normal drop for the chest (you can open these chests without the Pirate, but cannot Pillage them). The second is that you get a decent amount of a consumable item from the chest. The last is that you manage to pull a rare piece of equipment out of the chest.

Oh! I guess I also have "unique" pieces of equipment that also drop from bosses. That's just to add a tiny present to the players who manage to simply get lucky.

 

[Nutty171]

Okay, these do seem to be good ideas, but I definitely wasn't specific enough. I had no idea being unspecific on this matter could have such an impact. But anyway, I'll be more specific. The item is a Phoenix Crest. It's a revival item. (without this item, you can't revive partners during a battle (they automatically revive with 1 hp at the end of the battle)) So it's one item. It's not a set, and not just a bunch of different items that there are only one or two of. There are probably about 8 or so of these items this item. Now that we're on the same page, I can reply to people individually.

@bgillisp My overworld (as in outside of battle, I don't have a proper overworld map where everything shrinks) as of now lacks any sort of interesting gimmicks, (I'll probably make another thread in this forum about that) so I uh, really don't know how to hide things. As for optional dungeons, well, my game doesn't actually have proper dungeons, per se, but I probably could have optional caverns or something, but how would I make it obvious to the player that they're optional? The wealthy person idea is pretty good, I'll probably use that one, thanks!

@GoodSelf Well, for your first suggestion, that doesn't really help. So what if somebody says to go find it, WHERE WOULD I HIDE IT? Monster drops? Nah, I want it to be limited. A thief, maybe, but, as there are limited numbers of them, I need a consistent way to find the item, instead of just throwing your money at the innkeeper until the RNGoddess smiles upon you and sends a thief to steal your item. Thanks for the suggestions.

@Tai_MT This post is what finally told me that I needed to clarify. But don't worry, 'tis not your fault. But let's go through those ideas one at a time and smack them down. Your "Quests" idea: I want an at least slightly different way to obtain each one, as they're just scattered around the world. Your "Behind a currency" idea: So uh... where would I put the currency? Difficult to find chest? Where do I put that? Never played Illusion of Gaia, much less played it. (The forum rules say that when referring to another game as an example, you should explain it anyway, but I'm not a mod, so don't listen to me.) Your "Skill challenges: idea: No perma-fail, that's for sure. I don't have any thief or pirate party members. Your closing suggestion: I reiterate, there are a limited number of these obtainable in the game, so no randomness. Thank you for the suggestions. (How do I say that without sounding sarcastic?)

 

[Tai_MT]

@Tai_MT This post is what finally told me that I needed to clarify. But don't worry, 'tis not your fault. But let's go through those ideas one at a time and smack them down. Your "Quests" idea: I want an at least slightly different way to obtain each one, as they're just scattered around the world. Your "Behind a currency" idea: So uh... where would I put the currency? Difficult to find chest? Where do I put that? Never played Illusion of Gaia, much less played it. (The forum rules say that when referring to another game as an example, you should explain it anyway, but I'm not a mod, so don't listen to me.) Your "Skill challenges: idea: No perma-fail, that's for sure. I don't have any thief or pirate party members. Your closing suggestion: I reiterate, there are a limited number of these obtainable in the game, so no randomness. Thank you for the suggestions. (How do I say that without sounding sarcastic?)

The "Slightly Different" way to obtain each of your "maximum of 8 total of this item in a game" would work as a series of Questlines, provided your Quests were varied enough. However, this sounds more like you have these items like the "Bottles" from the Zelda franchise where there are only a few, a couple are obtained in quests, some through exploration, some through clever use of abilities, etcetera. But, since I had no idea you were talking about a finite amount of items that would be consumables, and thought instead you were talking about Unique Pieces of Equipment, I offered the three things as my method of doing it. As such, each of my examples is effectively moot for what you're trying to do. Communication error on your part, I'm afraid ^_^ I'd have probably not replied if I had thought you were talking about a finite amount of consumables.

However, I will address some of the things you've mentioned here briefly (or as briefly as I can manage. I'm quite long-winded).

A "Difficult to find chest" might be hidden behind a tree, or in a passageway that isn't really apparently visible. My Diamonds are put in all manner of places, including in basic chests right out in the open. It is expected in my game that a player will find enough of them to get most of the Accessories and Relics, but only a specific search will turn up all of them. As in, you need to set out to find every last Diamond in my game if you ever plan to obtain them. The first of which is given to you as part of a Tutorial in order to teach the player the point of these things and what the person who takes them looks like. I have a few bosses that drop them as part of normal progression as well. As for yourself, you can put that currency anyplace you like. Hide it behind a mini-game or in a puzzle if you like. I'm just doing it the way that makes sense for my game. The example wasn't meant to tell you how to design your game, it was meant to give you some ideas... a sort of "launching off point" for your own game.

I did actually describe the system in Illusion of Gaia. You collect Red Gems (wherever they are... I've never collected them all) and you "turn them in" to a specific vendor for a reward. 60 gems in total, you get a reward every so many gems you've turned in, in total. You cannot skip ahead in the list and select something you want towards the end. You take each reward in turn. I explained how that worked in my post, I'm sorry you missed it. Or maybe you had a different question about the game? In any case, no reason to be hostile towards me. I was only trying to help you.

You really don't need to have a Thief or a Pirate party member. Again, my entire post was meant to inspire ideas in you, not tell you how to design your game. Designing your game is up to you. No need to rip my ideas off wholesale or shoot them down on the basis that ripping them off wholesale wouldn't work in the design of your current game. Plus, as your original post says... You're looking for ideas. Just because an idea of mine doesn't work, doesn't mean you can't find a way to make those particular ideas your own. "Skill Challenges" aren't even my idea, I first encountered them in games like New Vegas and loved the idea of them. Feel free to make those systems your own if you like how they work. Feel free to ignore them if they just don't work for your own game. You can make your skill challenges repeatable if you like. Or not include them altogether. Or, introduce them in such a way that feels interesting or unique in your own game. My ideas for Thievery and Pillaging simply come from wanting to give the player rewards for playing well, for giving their characters stats that improve their odds of nice loot (though it is wholly unnecessary).

I'm not actually sure I was offering suggestions. However, since I now better understand what you were asking, I'll provide you a few.

1. Do a little bit of world building. Why are these items so rare? What is their origin? Why would anyone from the standard populace of NPCs ever have one? How have they ever been obtained in the past? Are they even that old, or something recent? This will go a long way towards deciding how they should be distributed to the player.
2. Decide why you have so few of these. What gameplay purpose does this serve? Are you falling into the trap of the Elixirs from Final Fantasy wherein they are such a powerful and rare item that the player never uses them because they are waiting for a situation that is absolutely untenable in which to use them and it never comes? What are you trying to communicate with these consumable items that are so rare and so limited? Are they even worth obtaining in the first place? What makes them worth using in the first place?
3. After figuring out number 2 there, you should decide how much effort a player should put into obtaining them. You'll need to balance frustration with reward to avoid a "Rage Quit" of ever looking for them (a player deciding that finding them isn't worth the effort and ignores them entirely). You'll also have to balance an entire battle system around only 8 of these items existing, so you aren't going to be able to have a lot of bosses that are really powerful if these items are so rare (meaning, if a player can't revive their characters in combat without one, they're likely going to grind like crazy just to avoid party members falling in the first place, this is going to throw your balance of the game off considerably, meaning the more powerful your enemies and bosses, the more time players will spend grinding in order to avoid party members falling in combat since your consumable to restore life is so rare that only a few exist in the entire game).

Beyond that... not sure I can offer any suggestions. A lot of what you come up with is going to be heavily specific to your game and your game only. It's something you are going to probably have to solve on your own, since I don't think any of us have experience in making a game with a limited number of revival items.

 

[gstv87]

try writing a simple story for the reason why that item exists.
say, it's a weapon that belonged to this order of knights who were disbanded.
maybe one of these weapons can be found in a place related to that order, be it a fortress, or a dungeon, or the place of that ancient battle which gave the order its fame.
from there, it should be easy to write that location into your main storyline.
and that is where the player comes in.

from the player, to the place, to the object, except, backwards, via the object's reason to be.

if the game allows it (say, it's comedy, or total fantasy) then you can put a rare item somewhere in plain view, in a hard-to-reach place, yet where nobody else (in-universe) would question or mind it.
but if the game has some sort of main storyline, then you need a story for the item as well.

be careful not to rarify that item too much, that it becomes unique.
if it is unique, then it has to be *the* item you need to complete the final challenge.
what you *can* do, maybe, is unify a group of items as a set.
throughout the game you would find pieces of a collection.... by themselves, they are rare, but together they come up to be *the* famous relic "the collection of xxxxx"

 

[Nutty171]

@Tai_MT I almost burst out laughing at the "I will address . . . briefly" part (after scrolling down a bit). XD
Also before I get into this, another error on my part was indeed criticizing your post based on specifics. I'll try to see more generally.

Difficult to find chest: Wait, behind a tree? Not-easily-seen passageways? Am I overestimating the observant-ness of the average vidja game player?

Well, would'ya look at that? You did explain it. I guess I'm just bad at reading. "Hostile"? Oops. Certainly didn't mean to do (be?) that. Sorry. I was hoping the "I'm not a mod, so don't listen to me" part would lighten it up.

Skill challenges: Again, (as if you can't read ) I did see too specifically, so with that out of the way... I have learned through trying to make my game that I'm not particularly creative. The only way to learn a skill that I can really think of is by level up. So, where do I put these skills? I'm bad at reading. Are the skill challenges just checking whether or not you have the skill? (P.S. I can read, my problem is really that I'm just tired.)

Your suggestions time:
1. I'm thinking that these items (Phoenix Crests) are from another dimension. (Where phoenixes exist) BUT WAIT! (The purple part is me thinking out loud, so you don't have to read it.) The villain summoned beasts (the main bosses of the game) from the dark world. One of them is based on a phoenix. So maybe that beast dropped feathers... Wait. In that case, how would they end up spread around the world? Uhh... Well, I didn't reach any conclusions in that...
2. Uh... You only read the paragraph specifically addressed to you didn't you?

The item is a Phoenix Crest. It's a revival item. (without this item, you can't revive partners during a battle (they automatically revive with 1 hp at the end of the battle))

(That's from the first paragraph) Well, actually, you are being general, and I guess it would be better to ask all of the questions in this process than only half of them, so... ignore me.
Reviving during battle I think is too overpowered to be common. In many other games, you can just revive your partners immediately. That takes away a lot of the tension. However, if there's NO reviving in battle, then it's I think too frustrating. They're supposed to be a last-resort item. That's my real problem. They'll probably just be few and far between actually, and not particularly difficult to obtain. Man, these questions are hard to answer. How do I balance this so that these revival items are last-resort only?
3. I do not intend to include frustration in my game. But that's going to be hard to balance.

Alright! I can see that I will have to teach you what my real dilemma is. (Whoever gets that reference gets a cookie that I have no power to give) I need a way to make revival during battle a last resort only, and not something you use willy-nilly. Of course, in the combat itself, I will account for this, by making enemies do less damage and healing easier. I won't make knockouts a common thing as if you can just revive and shake it off like nothing.

@gstv87 I must ask that you read the forum instead of just the first post, or at least all of my posts. It's really not much to read. But I do get your general idea, which is a really good idea. Thank you for the idea.

 

[Tai_MT]

@Tai_MT I almost burst out laughing at the "I will address . . . briefly" part (after scrolling down a bit). XD
Also before I get into this, another error on my part was indeed criticizing your post based on specifics. I'll try to see more generally.

Difficult to find chest: Wait, behind a tree? Not-easily-seen passageways? Am I overestimating the observant-ness of the average vidja game player?

It really just depends on how difficult you want to make it. I can "hide a chest" behind a tree by merely putting an event "under" it so to speak. The player him/herself is meant to find it by "bumping into it". As in, they notice they can't walk through that single piece of tree and are meant to question it a bit. Maybe hit the "Accept" button to open it. The passageways might be difficult to see just because of clutter, or because of a puzzle. Or, maybe they're difficult to see because of foreground elements. These aren't the only ways I "hide" my Diamonds, these are just simple to do things that take about 3 or so minutes to event or map. But, not everything needs to be "well hidden". It could just be that it's a "one in ten thousand chest chance". As in, you've got a chest somewhere, it's one of the rare chests you open that has the item. The rest... just don't.

Well, would'ya look at that? You did explain it. I guess I'm just bad at reading. "Hostile"? Oops. Certainly didn't mean to do (be?) that. Sorry. I was hoping the "I'm not a mod, so don't listen to me" part would lighten it up.

Yep, quite confusing to me when I'd explained it once. Figured a second pass at explaining would help you out. It appears that it did help.

Skill challenges: Again, (as if you can't read ) I did see too specifically, so with that out of the way... I have learned through trying to make my game that I'm not particularly creative. The only way to learn a skill that I can really think of is by level up. So, where do I put these skills? I'm bad at reading. Are the skill challenges just checking whether or not you have the skill? (P.S. I can read, my problem is really that I'm just tired.)

The way a "Skill Challenge" typically works in the Fallout Universe (other games do this differently, but my example was specifically from Fallout, so I'll use that) is that it checks to see what "levels" your "skills" are. If your "Medicine" skill is of a specific numerical value (in the case of New Vegas) or high enough to have a good chance at success (in the case of Fallout 3), you can succeed and get different rewards, new dialogue, find a different way to complete a quest, gather more information, etcetera. The way I'm using these is purely as a measure of your specific stats since I do not actually have "Skills" like in the Fallout Universe. If you have an Attack value of 55, you can push this particular boulder out of the way. If you fail, the boulder crushes the chest. The only time my game checks for "What Skills the players have" (as in, the way the maker defines skills... as basically your magic spell list) is for specific quests or instances where you are upgrading those particular Skills and it needs to know which ones to offer you, based upon previous choices you've made. It basically says, "Okay, you've got this version of Tier 2 Fire... these are the two upgrade paths that should be offered to you for Tier 3 Fire". Though, you could check for a specific skill if you liked using a Branching Condition in order to complete a "challenge" in the game.

You can actually give your characters skills at any time, so long as you event that they get it. No level up necessary (if you don't want one, anyway). There's a thing in the event editor where you can make characters learn or even forget skills.

Your suggestions time:
1. I'm thinking that these items (Phoenix Crests) are from another dimension. (Where phoenixes exist) BUT WAIT! (The purple part is me thinking out loud, so you don't have to read it.) The villain summoned beasts (the main bosses of the game) from the dark world. One of them is based on a phoenix. So maybe that beast dropped feathers... Wait. In that case, how would they end up spread around the world? Uhh... Well, I didn't reach any conclusions in that...
2. Uh... You only read the paragraph specifically addressed to you didn't you?

1. World building is fairly important, even in a small game. It helps add internal consistency. It doesn't have to be super specific or even entirely answered to the player in game. But, it does help to at least know some generalized (or maybe just bullet points) information on whatever it is exists in your world. If these items come from another dimension, how is it accessed? How do portals from there open up in your game world? And why? What is the interest of the Big Bad in your world, when he's already got his own dimension where he can summon beasts at will? To build a world, you just keep asking "Why? How? Where? When?" and such. You don't have to go in depth, but just being able to answer basic questions is enough to get that process rolling. And, if you hit a dead-end on a story element or explanation... then maybe that should either be "kept secret" from the player... or it should be dropped entirely and replaced with something else. However, at this moment, you are currently stuck trying to come up with a story reason why this gameplay element exists. I'm not sure how you'll solve that, but I expect if you take a little bit of time, you'll think of something pretty impressive.
2. Nope, I read the whole thing. I only stop reading posts in their entirety when it becomes obvious who I'm replying to isn't reading mine in the same fashion. If you'd like a bit of elaboration (I suspect I know where you're having issues with that particular numbered suggestion), I'll be happy to provide it. Your reason for having these items in short supply is as a gameplay mechanic. You don't want players to be reviving members of their party all willy-nilly. From that standpoint, is where I'm asking those questions from. Not from a Lore or Story standpoint. I'm asking from the standpoint of the Dev and of the Player. What gameplay purpose do they serve? They serve the purpose of trying to make combat more difficult. Right? Okay, there are any number of ways to make combat more difficult, more challenging, more nuanced, more revolved around strategy and tactics. Lots of ways. So why have you settled on this particular way to do that? What, overall purpose, does this serve? Is the purpose story driven? It has to be that way to tell the story you want to tell? It has to be that way to make the combat you want to have? That's what I'm asking. The other questions under heading 2 are questions you need to be asking in relation to your players. Will your players see these items as worth picking up? Worth questing for? Worth using?

(That's from the first paragraph) Well, actually, you are being general, and I guess it would be better to ask all of the questions in this process than only half of them, so... ignore me.
Reviving during battle I think is too overpowered to be common. In many other games, you can just revive your partners immediately. That takes away a lot of the tension. However, if there's NO reviving in battle, then it's I think too frustrating. They're supposed to be a last-resort item. That's my real problem. They'll probably just be few and far between actually, and not particularly difficult to obtain. Man, these questions are hard to answer. How do I balance this so that these revival items are last-resort only?
3. I do not intend to include frustration in my game. But that's going to be hard to balance.

I'm going to just disagree with you a little here. We're likely from two different schools of thought on the subject, so don't worry too much about my disagreeing. Just look at it as an alternate point of view. I've never particularly felt like "reviving during battle is too common". Often, the expense of a single party member having to use their turn in order to revive someone is cost enough for me. Do I have my White Mage do a full party heal this turn and leave my ally dead... or do I spend the turn casting "Revive" and hope I don't get wiped out? I've always felt there was a layer of strategy in that. Though, to be quite honest, I haven't really played many games where I've ever needed more than a dozen or so Revives to complete the whole thing. I've usually ended up expending these revives early on in the game and then stockpiling them for the rest of it, since the more opportunities I have to grind, I do grind and get above the stats of the next section or bosses. But, that's just my style of play. I don't rush into the next section of game just to finish it quickly. I take my time, I play cautiously, and enemies rarely knock my characters out.

As for how you'd balance that out. I have no idea. At least, no idea beyond "reworking major chunks of how a standard RPG works in order to make this game mechanic as prominent as it sounds it should be".

Depending on how you design your game and the combat within it, it might either be too easy or too difficult. I'm not quite sure what limiting revival items would do to it.

I'll just tell you a short story of something I did in my own game. See, every RPG I ever played, I found consumables to be practically pointless. Once you hit a certain point, you're just rolling in more money than you can spend and more consumables than you'll ever use. I looked for why. I hit upon "every RPG has a dedicated healer" as my reasoning for it. If I can spend 15 MP to heal everyone to full health, why buy 4 potions for 200 GP a piece? Especially since I can rest at the Inn for 20 GP a night and get a full refill of my MP. With a large enough MP pool, I could potentially go for hours without needing an Inn to recharge... and I'd never need to buy Potions. I removed Dedicated Healers. I removed nearly every single instance of magic that heals. This, in turn, made combat more difficult. Characters now need to spend a turn to heal a single individual. But, the player also has to spend some of their money for those healing items. This lead into, "well, players could then just grind to get to high enough levels to not need potions". I reworked that as well. A level up no longer grants a stat boost to any of my characters. If you want to get more powerful, you complete a Quest for raw stat upgrades or you buy better equipment. That's all I did, I removed dedicated healers. I had to rework a major chunk of my game just for that. It had effects in lots of different places. You still gained XP, but it didn't mean anything since it wasn't tied to stat gain anymore. I had to think of something for level gains to do, to give the player a reason to look forward to gaining them. I tied it to an exploration mechanic. All of that work just to accomplish one thing: Getting my players to spend their in-game currency and use the Consumables.

I suspect you've got something similar on your hands.

 

[Wavelength]

You're overthinking it, Nutty.

If your main goal is to make "revives" in battle into a true last-resort trump card kind of thing, you had the full solution already the moment you decided to make Revive Items limited (assuming there are no skills that can revive allies) to a small number throughout the entire game. Once you decided to do that, there was no need to make the revive items hard to find or difficult to get.

You could simply give the player these items throughout their progression in the game if you want to - when the player gets their third instance of the item 15 hours into the game, they'll understand that it's not an item to be used frivolously, and even if they don't get the hint, they won't be able to make that mistake more than eight times anyhow.

If you're looking for ways to justify the player getting these items from a worldbuilding perspective (since you mentioned the items are something that common folk won't have access to), you could, for example, make the revive items drops from difficult (one-time) boss battles that common folk would never be able to take on, and/or have royal/wealthy/powerful figures give you a revive item to keep you safe as they send you off to do something dangerous that's required as part of the plot.

Again, though, you're kind of overthinking it. Unless you're already heavily implying through the revive item's description (or similar) that it's super-precious, you don't even need a way to justify it. You could have the "Welcome to Bluewood Town!" NPC simply give the player one of these Revive items if you wanted to! If the item simply isn't available in shops or (common) drops, the player doesn't have a way to ask their local grocer to please get that item in stock. They just happen to be obtainable only in limited quantity in the course of your game (not necessarily in the game world itself), and I don't think it's going to break the player's immersion in any way.

 

[Kes]

@Nutty171 Please remember that this particular forum is not for obtaining feedback/ideas on a specific, particular project. It is meant to be much broader than that, so that what is discussed here could be appropriate for several/many games. Certainly you can use your project as a springboard for the discussion, but if ideas do not fit your particular game then that is not a reason to reject them, or to close down discussion of that particular approach.

 

[Nutty171]

@Kes Okay, will keep that in mind.

@Wavelength You do bring up a really good point, but uh... I know this is a bit off topic, but my real problem now is, if they're so limited, then the player will not want to use them because they're so numbered. There was once a man who died of thirst in a desert even though he still had water in his canteen because he was trying to conserve water.

 

[Wavelength]

You do bring up a really good point, but uh... I know this is a bit off topic, but my real problem now is, if they're so limited, then the player will not want to use them because they're so numbered. There was once a man who died of thirst in a desert even though he still had water in his canteen because he was trying to conserve water.

You don't necessarily need to worry about this - the player can choose to use them or not use them. Some players will be more parsimonious about using rare items and some will be more frivolous. When I play games I try to conserve rare items but if I'm worried I'm going to die I will use them as a last resort.

If you want to relax your player about using them (because there will always be the chance to get more), you can offer them at shops at extremely expensive prices and/or limited quantities, which will give the player a clearer sense of "this is costing me 20,000 Gold to use" or "this is something I can only get 3 of from the next town's merchant". But you can also have them completely limited to 8 or so in the game and that will be fine. Your game is an adventure, not an item-collection game; players will still feel success if they complete your game with no Revives remaining in their inventory.

In short - don't worry so much!!

 

[Nutty171]

So you're saying that if the player doesn't use it, then it's their loss? Sorry, but psychology is a thing.

 

[Wavelength]

So you're saying that if the player doesn't use it, then it's their loss? Sorry, but psychology is a thing.

No. I'm saying that if the player doesn't use it "because they're so numbered", they've still done what makes them enjoy your game the most.

Why worry so much about trying to make the player enjoy the game your way, rather than allowing them to enjoy it their way?

 

[Nutty171]

I don't think you understand. The vast majority of players will not use the item because it is so limited.

if the player doesn't use it "because they're so numbered", they've still done what makes them enjoy your game the most.

Just because somebody is doing a thing, or, in this case, not doing a thing, doesn't mean that's what makes him enjoy the game. I'd imagine the player not using the item would go something like this: "Ugh, my partner got knocked out. I could use one of my 4 revives, but I only have 4, and they're nonrenewable. Oh well. I saved before this boss, so I can just try again."
And then they restart and fight the boss again. And fail. And fail. It'd take a couple fights for hem to realize he needs to use it if he wants to win the fight. Losing a boss battle 3 times is not "enjoying the game most".
Now of course this example is very specific and probably a bit exaggerated, but I hope you get my message now. To clarify, I'm saying get my message. You obviously don't have to agree with it. (I might be the one who doesn't get the message, who knows)

 

[Wavelength]

Right. I understand what you are getting at, but I disagree with your assessment of player psychology. I think a small minority of players will refuse to use an item they need because it's limited. I think the average player's thought process in a single-player RPG will be closer to: "Ugh, my partner got knocked out. Do I think I can win the battle without him? If not, I've gotta use one of my limited Revives. Let's do it." It's different in something like an MMORPG which runs on a rarity economy and has far less restrictive gates to progression, but in a single-player RPG this is going to be your average player's mindset.

I also can tell you for sure that you are not creating (well-designed) battles where you need to use Revives in order to win the fight, since your Revives are limited and the player might not have any coming into any given fight. If they are necessary to win boss battles, they shouldn't be rare in the first place. Your "trump card" design was good on day one. Very good, in fact. But now you are overthinking it.

 

[Nutty171]

You're example admittedly does seem more like the truth than mine, which was exaggerated. But I think the player would at least be reluctant to use it at first. Trying to imagine myself in that situation, if I hadn't gotten very far in the battle, and I was sure that I would lose without that character, I would restart and try again once or maybe twice. But, then again, if I ended up deep in the battle with a fallen fighter, losing, I would probably just use the revive... If I had more than one. What can I say? My brain works in strange ways.

I realized that I was making it seem like you need them after I wrote it. You will never need to either use a revive or grind. (I did say it was exaggerated, right?) Either way, I admit defeat. But even still, I think that it could be handled better.

 

[Oddball]

Crafting them from materials accumulated through the adventure could be a good choice. Items that upgrade themselves after certain points in the adventure could be another. Or you could hide it in plain sight, make it look bad, but it be actually amazing (You might want to drop hints somewhere in the game). Also, an NPC could think a certain item is a piece of junk and throw it away, so... dumpster diving could be an option.

I'lll try to come up with other ideas

 

[mauvebutterfly]

As someone who has played a lot of RPG games, I think that game balance is an important factor. A game series that wants consumable item usage of limited rare items to be a part of the game really needs to inform the player that items in this game are handled differently than in most RPGs.

The main problem is game balance. Does the player need (or is intended) to use the item to beat a boss?

If the answer is yes, and they've already used it up, they are stuck (or given a negative play experience by now having to do excessive grinding or get lucky combat rolls to proceed.)

If the answer is no, then I suspect a lot of players will never use the item, since they will probably recognise that it isn't necessary (and they won't know when/if it will be necessary in the future.)

Personally, I would try to save such items for post-game content or the final boss, since that's the time a player is most likely to actually feel good about using the item.

If you want the player to actually use this item, there are some things you should probably consider:

Scarcity. If the player has multiples, or is reasonably confident that it will be replenished before the next boss, they are much more likely to feel safe using it now. Here are some ways this can be done. You could have one copy of the item hidden in each dungeon, so the player knows that one use per dungeon is probably okay. You could have a recharging item instead of a consumable item. This would effectively be the same, but would psychologically feel better to the player. "If I drain the power of the relic now, I can power it up again next time I see that wandering priest character during plot exposition segments of the game. If I don't use the relic before seeing the priest again, I've effectively squandered one use of it."

Power. The more powerful or unique the effect is, the less likely the player is to use it. If a regular potion gives 100 life, and the limited potion gives 110 life, it doesn't feel so important to save. If the limited potion instead restores a character to full health, casts a shield on the user, and removes all negative ailments, the item feels important and needs to be saved. Finding a balance here will be tricky.

Alternatives. Can the effect be replicated in another way? If yes, then it is safe to use, since if you need the effect you can probably find it elsewhere. Another twist on this is to give the item itself mutually exclusive uses, so that the player understands they can never save for everything anyway. "This item gives us a huge combat bonus, but it could also be used as a crafting ingredient to make some powerful new gear. We can't have both." An example of this is when a quest offers two mutually exclusive rewards.

Overall I think it is a bad idea to have a rare consumable powerful item in your game, especially if game balance is built around the player having it available for a specific battle.