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How Do You Manage Consumable Items in RPGs?

Falk said:
You joke about it. But then you realize you did an amazing thing in consideration for postgame bosses.
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Speaking of which, for the hoarders do y'all use them for the post game secret bosses?

It also looks like from this thread that when on the rare occasion people do use them they only use recovery items.
 
Use a decent amount early game

Horde a ton of them midway and stop using items

This means extra money to blow on equipment at shops if I don't feel like waiting/taking a risk at a dungeon
 
Horde them and only use the cheap ones that can be purchased from a shop or dropped regularly. More often than not, I don't use any.
 
never use them, though in lords of the fallen i had to use the ghost shard. didnt want to risk it specially when is xp youve been hoarding for days (2hrs per day)
 
I just started Dragon's Dogma, and I think what bugs me in a lot of RPGs is that I can start gathering crap to flood my inventory in minute 1, but I won't know what to do with most/all of it for who knows how long. So I end up hoarding piles of wood and flowers and bug droppings and then find out 25 hours in that it's mostly just to sell, or crafts equipment that would have been useful 20 hours ago.
 
I recently got into the habit of using items like crazy if it means I spend less on SP/MP. I've learned from Atlus games that your spell pool is a far more precious resource in battle, simply because it's inherently more versatile than single-use, single-purpose items that will most definitely be useless when you get surprise attacked while your HP is at a single digit.
 
I started with games like FF1 (NES) where having tons of potions was almost required to get through some of the early dungeons if you weren't properly leveled. That imbalance trained me to think that all games afterward would behave similarly, so I overcompensate.

The other thing is items that give you a permanent stat boost (I forget what they are called, but FFVII has them). I tend to pump those entirely into the main character ONLY, and never share them with anyone else. That's probably a bad habit too.
 
Horde everything, just in case / for when I need it. End up never using anything. My fridge in Megaton is like a bottomless pit, with more items then the entire wasteland, likewise, I have a chest in Gransys packed with rotting meat.
 
In Final Fantasy games, sell early Ethers I find for some major cash in the early game. Sometimes it's like 1500 gil apiece, which makes buying new armor and weapons easy. Usually Ethers drop like rain later in the game, when I actually need them.
 
Unless they boost stats, I usually just don't use them. Why? I try and save them for pinch situations where I absolutely need it. I'm actually doing this in my DQ3 iOS run right now. What ends up happening is when I know a fight is lost I reset and go back in and change it up till I win. So just like my DQ1 and 2 run before, medicinal herbs are likely to get sold or dropped when my bags are full.
 
Aeana said:
Using items is a perfectly valid strategy. They're in the game for a reason.
Honestly, people complain about RPGs "requiring grinding" so much, so the cognitive dissonance between that and the number of people saying they don't use items is blowing my mind.
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I agree and I have no problem with people using them lol. I'm not one of those that complains about grinding, on the contrary, I always try to avoid it and I always say that grinding ruins the fun and balance. I just have more fun self-imposing things like those, but I know its me.
 
Never use them until I get to the last boss "wow he was easy" I say with x57 Hyper Mega TurboTurbo Everyone 999+ potions
 
Blasian Persuasion said:
Just a random thought really. How often do you use items in RPGs? Do you horde them and almost never use them, do you use them immediately, or are you somewhere in between? In just about all RPGs I think I fall somewhere in between. I tend to hang on to consumable items a lot unless they are relatively cheap to buy and the items that I tend to use are 90% of the time healing items. Most of the time I use healing potions when I'm outside of battle unless they are high level healing items which most of the time I horde until the end of the game. Speaking of which items like Ethers, Full-Ethers, Mega Potions, and Elixirs in Final Fantasy games typically don't get used until the last few boss fights of the game and for secret bosses.

I never found much use in using items that deal damage to enemies or some that basically act like weaker versions of spells in the game. In Pokemon I basically never used healing items until I played Emerald when trainers and bosses started to constantly heal their pokemon.
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It really comes down to how the game is designed really. If my characters can handle well off on their own without the use of items or its more of a waste of an actual turn to use an item instead of a character ability. I usually wind up with "99" of everything.

In games that are balanced where you are pushed more towards using items I use them depending on the situation / stock left.

Example:
Hardly Use them - FF games.
Use them - Wizardry / DRPG titles.
 
Macstorm said:
I keep everything forever in case I need it...and then I never do.
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Yup.

Came in expecting this to be the majority. I don't know what the solution is, but in any RPG I just don't use a goddamn thing because I figure I'll need it at some point but never do. And if I do go through a fight and eat up an elixir or something rare/expensive, I feel like I've wasted it.

Divinity did this to me with regards to resurrection scrolls.
 
In Dark Souls, everything I have is in denominations of 1, 3, or multiples of 5/10.

For example, if I were to have 77 arrows, I'd either chuck 2 in the bottomless box/drop them, or buy another 3.

I hate seeing random numbers in my inventory.
 
Unless there is no non-consumable substitute or the game is balanced VERY carefully around the consumables, I would rather just not have them in the game.

Basically, consumables almost always fall way beyond the line of 'useless' or 'the easy way out' option. Why play good in pokemon when you can just spam heals and revives? Why even bother with any cure materia in FF7/FF8 when you have infinite megalixers? But in the same token, who ever honestly uses antidotes and stuff in most RPGS? I don't , who gives a shit when you're losing 20 health a turn but have over 500, and you can just cure it all back anyways with a spell.

They honestly remind me of those F2P boosts you can buy to rob the game of any challenge.
 
Unless I need them to survive in an encounter gone bad, I never use generic items. I prefer to rely on my abilities and skills in engagements. An exception to this is when items allow you to do things beyond your level. I recently played through Final Fantasy 4, and inside the ninja castle there are incredibly good items, but you have to fight impossible battles, at least that early in the game. Using bronze houglasses and Break allowed me to clear that place with ease. When you get a character later that uses Throw, I bought 99 shuriken for him to use, and replaced the attack command with throw.
 
I use them as needed. Most games are designed with this in mind, may or may not have a stock limit, and give you them in a fairly steady stream provided you do sidequests and explore a bit.

I learned my lesson in SMT IV.
 
Use them when I lose a good amount of health because that's the way the majority of games with potions are designed to be played.
 
I didn't know there were so many other people who horded shit for emergencies and never used them. I feel a little better now.
 
I have been playing Final Fantasy since the beginning and I have never used an elixir. I just can't bring myself to use those precious beauties.

I used one once, instant remorse, reset to last save immediately
 
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