Okay, let me ask you a question: how often
do you finish a game with an inventory that looks something like this? It happens to me all the time, and that is
because I almost never use consumable items. While there are a few exceptions, pretty much
as soon as I get one, it sits in my inventory, gathering dust. And that has me wondering: is this a fault
with the way a lot of games are designed or is it a problem created by players like me? So, join me as I explore whether or not it
is all my fault. While consumable items operate differently
across various games and genres, one common factor always holds true: the more often a
player is put into a situation where they need to use an item, the more often they will
use that item. Which, yeah, duh. Items that address specific problems, like
having low health or suffering some sort of status ailment, get used frequently because
a) players are put at a huge disadvantage if they don’t address the issue and b) it
is obvious when players should use them. If a character is poisoned, use an antidote,
or lose health every few seconds. If cursed, use a purging stone, or have half
HP. If blinded, use eye drops, or miss every single
attack. By providing a clear solution to a problem,
players know that as soon as an issue arises, they need to address it. These are what I’ll call reactive items,
which, as the name suggests, are items that react to some sort of affliction. Of all kinds of consumables, reactive ones
are what I find myself using the most, especially in early parts of a game before I have more
reliable ways, like spells or gear, to deal with a problem. On the other side of things are what I’ll
call active items, which are items that the player uses to gain some sort of advantage,
whether it be augmenting a characters stats and abilities or putting an enemy at some
sort of disadvantage from a debuff or damage. These kinds of items are usually the most
interesting because, unlike reactive items which really just set a character back to
where they started, active items can change up gameplay, allowing for more ways to interact
with a world. Reactive items sustain, active items enhance. Despite that, I almost never use active items
because, in most games, I never need to. I wait and wait for a moment where I will,
and more often than not, that moment never comes because most games are designed to be
beaten without needing any sort of boost. Active items are meant to make various situations
easier and more exciting for players, but if the game is already relatively easy, then
there’s no real reason to use them. Why waste an item when hitting baddies with
a sword gets the job done? So, what can games do to encourage players
like me to use active items more frequently? The best answer I have is by disrupting the
repetitive yet effective strategies players often fall into, and one of the best ways
to do that is by adding difficulty spikes throughout a game. There are a ton of different ways to make
a game more difficult, and every game will call for a different solution, but regardless
for active items to matter, there needs to be some sort of urgency to use them, which
difficulty can provide. When players actually have something to lose
by not using an active item, they will use them more frequently. I've started to get into the habit of choosing
the harder difficulties whenever I get the option to because I find that they typically
push players to interact with more in-game systems than easier modes do. Take the Witcher 3. In it Geralt can create and drink potions
and decoctions, which do everything from giving him health to increasing the amount of damage
he does while on horseback. The effects are vast, and a lot of them are
useful in very specific situations. Each potion or decoction has a different toxicity
level, making it so Geralt can only use a certain amount before being poisoned and losing
health, meaning the player really needs to prioritize what they are choosing to have
Geralt drink. On my first playthrough, which I played on
normal, I found myself really only using the health potion because I was able to muscle
my way through everything fairly easily, and I didn’t want to spend time gathering supplies
to make consumables that would only make things feel easier. This bummed me out because I like the idea
of researching a monster’s strengths and weaknesses and then gathering supplies to
create something that would be effective against them, but doing it never seemed like a good
use of my time. Since then, I started a file on a higher difficulty,
and had an entirely different experience—one where I constantly found myself crafting potions
and oils in order to not get obliterated by every enemy in the world. I interacted with systems and items that I
had previously ignored, and I enjoyed the game much more because of it. My experience with The Witcher 3 helped me
realize that active consumables often act as a way to accommodate different kinds of
players, and, for them to be useful, players need to know what difficulty is right for
them. For whatever reason, I’ve always found it
daunting to choose a difficulty above normal on my first playthrough, but I’ve come to
realize that, for most games, playing on normal will just lead me to fall into easy and uninteresting
patterns until I beat the game. One way to get around this is by adding more
customization to difficulty. Instead of just having progressively harder
modes where everything becomes more difficult, a lot of games could benefit greatly from
having different elements that the player can toggle. For example, Dragon Quest 11 gives players
a variety of options from earning less experience points from easy fights to letting the player
flee from easy fights. A system like this let’s players consider
what aspects of difficulty they would like to engage with, allowing them to curate a
challenging experience without having to suffer through aspects they don’t want to deal
with, like, enemies with absurdly high health that aren’t challenging to beat, just time
consuming. On top of a game’s difficulty, it is also
good when games give an item multipurposes. A solid example of this comes from the greatest
Earthbound-inspired RPG ever made, LISA. One of the major consumables in LISA is called
Joy. Any character who uses it becomes incredibly
powerful for a handful of turns, which can be a life saver due to how difficult the encounters
are in the game. What makes Joy even more interesting is that
characters become addicted to it, and if they don’t get another fix, they will go through
withdrawals, and become less powerful for a hand. This gets the player to think a lot about
Joy management. If they doesn’t control the pace of each
battle, their party can get messed up quickly, and, in some cases, permanently die, making
Joy an incredibly useful way to get out of a bad spot. It also gets players to consider if it is
best to save Joy only for those tough situations or to use it more often in order to avoid
letting characters go into withdrawal? Even if the player chooses not to use Joy,
there are moments in the game when the main character is forced to have it, meaning no
matter what, he will go through withdrawals at some point. By giving Joy both active and reactive aspects,
LISA solves issues common with both kinds of items. It gives players a reason to use Joy because
it remedies a problem and it leads to a more interesting result than just being back to
normal. Along with this, LISA ties Joy into its narrative. Joy is a commodity that is constantly talked
about, and players are regularly reminded that using it will lead to ruin, but they
are also put into situations that are exceedingly difficult to get through without it, acting
as an interesting view of addiction. When done right consumable items can have
a major impact on both gameplay and narrative, creating experiences more personalized to
the player. Of course, there are other ways to get players
to use items aside from difficult encounters. Consider Breath of the Wild. It made nearly every item in the game a consumable
item. Swords, shields, food, elixirs, all of them
have limited uses, which, admittedly can be a little frustrating at times, but it does
get players in the mindset that nothing is too precious to hold onto forever. On top of this, it is really easy to replenish
supplies, making it so there is no real fear about wasting something useful. Furthermore, the low durability of Link’s
weapons often leave players with a weak arsenal, making it far more important to power Link
up through foods and elixirs to get through certain situations. Breath of the Wild also creates optional obstacles
that can really only be overcome with active items. For example, dishes and elixirs that increase
speed and stamina make it possible for Link to reach places that would otherwise would
be out of reach, which almost always leads to some sort of useful secret and reward. Furthermore, due to the fact that Breath of
the Wild doesn’t require players to complete any sort of questline in order to beat the
final boss, it is possible to to just stock up on active items that allow Link to hit
harder, move faster, and glide longer to beat the game, which gives players a lot of choice
in how they want to play. With all of this said, it is really hard to
strike the perfect balance that encourages players to use active items. If a game makes things too easy, players won’t
need them, but if it makes things too punishing, players will be afraid to waste them. Ultimately, the best ways to get players to
use the various things in their toolkit is by providing challenges where they need to
think creatively; challenges that have and require many different answers. When games don’t have these challenges,
using consumable items makes an easy task even easier. So, to go back to my original question of
is this all my fault—I’m still not entirely sure. I think a lot of games aren’t balanced in
terms of difficulty as well as they could be, and while it is good for games to have
various difficulty options, most would benefit greatly from offering more customization when
it comes to difficulty. When games don’t provide strong and diverse
challenges, consumable items and the systems that exist around them like crafting and even
buying and selling things lose some of their value. With that said, items in games are included
for different reasons, and while I love when they add to a narrative, offer different ways
to engage with a world, and help me overcome challenges, the fact of the matter is that
they aren’t always made for a player like me. I guarantee that there are items in games
that I might never get any use from that a different player uses all the time. I also think I sometimes focus a little too
much on time efficiency when playing a game, and not always on, ya know, having fun while
playing a game. So while there are definitely things games
could improve on in terms of their consumable items, I also need to get better at doing
things in games simply because they’re enjoyable. I guess what I’m trying to say is sometimes
you just need to inject yourself with some red stuff and kick the shit of people just
for the sheer fun of it.
I usually don’t use them because I save all of them thinking I’ll need them later on and always finish a game with way too many consumables and items that I never ended up using.
This was a wholesome video on a topic not fairly often addressed.
If you ask me, I agree with the statement. Games often feel to lax with difficulty, to be inclusive, but the thing is.. sometimes you need to see the beauty in death to appreciate most aspects of the game. That's what games like the Souls series reminded us, but even them couldn't get us to use all the variations of items. Therefore often a "New Game+" approach is needed to appreciate all the item glory a game has to offer.
On the other hand there are just simply people that are saving at heart. You could throw all items and situations at them and they would ignore the consumables.
If my character has magic pocketslike final fantasy, I tend not to use any items. But if you have to choose but a few like in old games made by FROM tenchu stealth assassin where you get limited carry though still abundant.
As a massive hoarder. I have found myself actually using consumables for the first time in Divinity Original Sin 2. The reason is less to do with difficulty, and mostly to do with the incentive to use scrolls to use up spare action points each turn when your skills are on cooldown.
It's an interesting problem, I definitely hoard consumables unless I'm given a very good reason not too.
Honestly, if you're not designing your game with them at the core, just leave them out. Examples of consumables being done well, or at least being useful:
- RE2: Remake, because you HAVE to use them to survive
- Breath of the Wild, because creating them is fun, and they're made from renewable world resources
- Witcher, because their integral to the world-building
- Dragon Age Inquisition, because they're properly used as a dungeon-diving resource mechanic and aren't rendered irrelevant by healing spells, and also replenish without risk of losing currency. As much as I resent this game, this mechanic was done perfectly.
The only game I used 'active' items was the Witcher 3. Edit: Never mind, just continued watching the video....sorry.
I've had this problem before too and one time I decided just stop worrying so much and just consume mostly the health items right on the spot where I picked them up. After a while, it starts to feel like it's somewhat more realistic as basic hunger goes. Despite the fact the games I play doesn't or does have hunger system at all.
After watching this video... it does made me realize I should start playing on harder difficulty for first time I play a new game. At least one step harder than normal.
I almost never used consumables, too. Even when my Pokemon is poisoned, I rarely use an item to solve that problem. I am more likely to go grind a few more levels or learn a skill to fix the status than to use an item for it. I have also just swapped out that Pokemon for a non-poisoned one and continued doing whatever I was doing instead of curing them, knowing that they'll be cured for free soon anyhow.
In my head, this is because if it's consumable, I could run out and then have to trip back to town for more, spending money that I could better use for something else.
The exception is when there's no other way to accomplish that need, such as reviving or healing in Pokemon Go. There, I *hate* the mechanic, especially since those things take up valuable inventory slots, but I use them.
That said, I've gotten better at using offensive items in battle when I know I'll just end up saving them for no reason. Things like grenades or throwing knives get used willy-nilly now, because I'll likely never use them otherwise.
I tend to play on "easy", though, and like the OP, I rarely need anything other than button-mashing to complete the combat. I'm there for the adventure more than the combat, so that makes sense.
Link's breakable weapons was my #1 hated thing about that game. It would be massively improved by removing that "feature", IMO. That makes me wonder if removing consumables completely would actually make me happier. Luckily, most games they are optional and I don't really have to worry about them. That they *aren't* optional in Zelda is the big problem, I think.
Ive started just using consumeables all the time. My thought process changed from "What if I need them later" to "Well, what if I DONT need them later?"