it depends the ones im talking are from just daily login rewards, im sure you can straight buy them or get them from loot crates, but i have hundreds of them just from logging in regularly
they also have a event right now with +100% exp just clicking the event item
I don't have an issue as long as the process of getting the ingredients aren't the sole domain of bots. When that happens I lose interest. I loved making food and crafting in general so consumables in Everquest 2 were always something I used both food and drink.
Lol , so this week's article wants to remove RPG elements from MMORPGs and Last week's article wants to remove the MMO from MMORPGs , ironically strange approach considering where we are and how we got here .
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Lol , so this week's article wants to remove RPG elements from MMORPGs and Last week's article wants to remove the MMO from MMORPGs , ironically strange approach considering where we are and how we got here .
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
While I am happy we look at anything, it would be more productive if the articles looked at what we are losing if the changes were made. Also of course what could be done to keep the old system and make it viable. What the articles tend to do is just look at the problems which certainly are there with consumables in some games.
There are so many ways to implement them, from a braindead and annoying mechanic (a few clicks, extra minor stat boost, repeat every hour) to very involved and complex designs.
GW2 has very interesting cooking. The crafting is fairly annoying and convoluted, with layers upon layers of component crafting in case of some meals, but the thing is, they actually resemble real recipes. You could take any of them and broadly have an idea what that meal is and how to make it in real life. But it still sucks to gather the mats and make the stuff and it could use a bit more creative design. Other games are completely lost in this area and just slap it on for the sake of having it in, without any deeper thought.
And then there are games like The Witcher, where potions / mutagens / buffs can be very significant and in W3 they actually designed pieces of armour specifically for the alchemy builds. That shows how much potential such systems have. The amount of players that would actually play such wild and unorthodox builds is probably fairly limited though (but they can be very powerful), so it's always a question of how much the devs want to invest into developing such mechanics and whether they'd be better off instead investing their time into other systems - especially in MMOs, which tend to be on the more simplistic side compared to traditional SP RPGs.
But the potential is clearly there and some RPGs show that systems based on buffs / debuffs and similar mechanics can give you a completely different playing experience, so I wouldn't reduce this topic to a simple yes / no question.
Help me here, exactly how and what are you rping when you use consumables? Are you rping as someone who eats food? Drinks liquids? There is nothing inherent in consumables that lends them to rping. Consumables are a relic (mostly) of single player games where there was no other source of healing or buffing. Further, they have been twisted from a core function to support economy sinks and to expand soloing.
Even if you look at them in a raid context, they at best establish a shadow level achievable by everyone. So if everyone has access to them, what's the point? You add a level of grind and economy sink to inflate health, damage, etc. when that buffed status could and should be the final evolution of your character. And if for some reason you feel compelled to have that design, why not put those buffs on a player class/archetype so there is at least some semblance of skill or input involved?
While we have been conditioned to see consumables as normal, they are quite silly if you think about it. Are you going to stop in the middle of your berserker rage to drink or eat something? You are holding a sword and shield with 10 mobs on you, but you still can stop and pop a pot? Consumables are an outdated crutch and need to go the way of the dodo.
i think consumables in ESO are used pretty well and often. like food buffs, exp buffs, potions, and everything. i use them quite frequently
It's been a long time since I played ESO are the xp consumables cash shop items?
Ambrosia as an XP consumable is crafted, scrolls an XP consumable are cash shop.
The scrolls are also given out often via daily login bonus, and event items are a common rotation for additional free xp bonus.
Fallout 76 has an xp buff items that work like this too. Lunchboxes can be purchased or obtained from certain events and their scoreboard. They provide XP and at least one other random buff. Then there are a few different XP items that can be crafted.
Even if you look at them in a raid context, they at best establish a shadow level achievable by everyone. So if everyone has access to them, what's the point?
Consumables are just another tool in the game for people to use to customize their characters performance. Who cares if everyone has access? Some people dont know how to use them correctly, or time them correctly, or forget to use, or are just plain lazy.
Whats next, you want to get rid of active roll dodges, blocks and parry? These things allow people to distinguish themselves.
Maybe we should just go to 1 button pushes and let the game play itself? Fun right?
While I'm not big on using potions, as I tend to think of them as a sign I goofed up while playing if I have to, I do think consumables in general are actually a perfectly fine concept. What I might levy is that they have been skewed by the notion of boosters and min-maxing player performance, where their past value was a combined element of consumables as a survival resource and consumables as a rare enhancement for finite scenarios.
Just roll back to look at D&D and tabletop gaming. There's a reason for healers in a group because not everyone is stocked like a potion shop, those things are/were expensive and could only be held in limited quantities as an emergency tool, not as something you chug like they're strapped to a beer hat.
And when it came to consumables like food it wasn't buffs people were looking for, but to stave off negative challenges of starvation, disease, and otherwise.
The simplification of RPGs lost a lot of these classic RPG principles, and it damaged the fundamental value and purpose of facets of their design such as consumables.
So I don't think getting rid of them is the answer necessarily. I think reassessing lazy simplified game design is.
As with all things, implementation is the key. There are two main angles I can think of: economic and gameplay.
If consumables play an important part in an in-game economy, then keep them! Someone out there will enjoy crafting them, so as long as there is good balance between seller and purchaser then it's all good.
But if you only ever buy consumables from NPCs, then their only value is as a cash sink. There are better ways to design cash sinks!
From a gameplay POV, what are consumables adding? Back when I was playing LotRO, there was only one health potion, and it was on a 2min cooldown. This added depth: you couldn't just spam potions, you had to carefully choose when to use. But something like the "remove poison" potions? Not only were they bought from NPCs, but there was no decision making - if u had a removable poison, use a poison potion. That's just bloat.
My preference is either to go full-on economy with consumables (like SWG), or to do away with consumables and just give us a "health potion" skill (if warrented for combat design).
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Customize? Are you serious? You see, there is this thing called meta, and everyone is doing the same shit. Everyone is using the same consumables at the same time. Hell, your raid leader is normally calling it out and there is very little brain power involved in figuring out when to use them. You are comparing a seasoned raider with a first timer, which is a weak argument. Even if someone uses them a few seconds off mark, the lack of production (be it dps, hps, etc.) isn't going to affect the outcome 99.99% of the time. Suggesting consumable use is some kind of skill that separates the leet kids from the rest is laughable.
And to be clear, the way you distinguish yourself in mmorpgs is your block or evade roll timing, right? Because rolling around like a spastic chimp is the epitome of skill. What about bunny hopping and all the other nonsense that "active" play brings. All of that is fine and good, and can be fun in some games, but imo, it's not the play set that blends best with mmorpgs.
As to your final witty comment, no, I'd like to 24-36 skills in use, with a large portion being positional and reactionaries skills. But you know what, you have fun with your 5 skill active combat where you actively take advantage of bad coding and network to distinguish yourself.
As others have mentioned. One key element in MMORPGs is economy. If you remove consumables, you remove a lot of your typical professions, which in turn increases the amount of players who specialise in the remaining ones, which lowers the value on those.
I've never been a fan of using consumables myself, but I do feel like they have a place. The main issue with consumables in lets say, World of Warcraft, is that you lose the buffs when dying (not all buffs). That is annoying.
As others have mentioned. One key element in MMORPGs is economy. If you remove consumables, you remove a lot of your typical professions, which in turn increases the amount of players who specialise in the remaining ones, which lowers the value on those.
I've never been a fan of using consumables myself, but I do feel like they have a place. The main issue with consumables in lets say, World of Warcraft, is that you lose the buffs when dying (not all buffs). That is annoying.
Great point, I realized that NW let's you keep your consumable buffs after a death, my kind of QOL improvement.
I like consumable buffs like NW has with one except, their silly 25 second elemental wards, makes you have to spam them which I have no problem with except that we only have 4 consumable slots with 3 almost permanently filled with 2 type of healing pots (instant and over time) and food.
I normally slot blight cures but would love about 4 more to slot corruption, and a couple of others weapon coatings and defensive wards.
Another great example where designing for controllers (despite not being a console game) is unnecessarily limiting IMO.
Hell, sell me more slots, I'll pay for them dammit.
(Snap, another reply I had to edit to get past the damn box)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I don't think you necessarily have to yeet them entirely, I just don't think they should be a component in combat. You can have alchemy used for poisons, procs, reactives, etc. but food/drink should just be QoL items imo (out of combat movement speed, crafting and harvesting speed/returns/quality, etc).
As to your final witty comment, no, I'd like to 24-36 skills in use, with a large portion being positional and reactionaries skills. But you know what, you have fun with your 5 skill active combat where you actively take advantage of bad coding and network to distinguish yourself.
Interesting you want all these skills (which I agree with), but dont want other tools like potions. I dont understand how you see the difference between a spell and a potion. Its just a graphical difference. So if I told you the bottle graphic on the bar was actually a spell, it would be ok?
How is it bad coding to have other tools other than just spells?
I say more the merrier. Give me all kinds of different ones. Make the gameplay fun, as long as the item/spell whatever makes sense, do it.
No, I think consumables are ok. That said, I don't want to have to sort through 20+ different types. Some games should seriously consolidate that mess.
It's a role playing game. A common role is the herbalist, who can duplicate some of the magic effects of magicians. Say a stealth scout who can brew up some buffs if there is no wizard around.
So that role would be eliminated? Why?
If necessary, look at how potion/food buffs stack with magic user buffs.
Help me here, exactly how and what are you rping when you use consumables? Are you rping as someone who eats food? Drinks liquids? There is nothing inherent in consumables that lends them to rping.
Are you going to stop in the middle of your berserker rage to drink or eat something? You are holding a sword and shield with 10 mobs on you, but you still can stop and pop a pot? Consumables are an outdated crutch and need to go the way of the dodo.
Yes, I do.
The latter part of your post is just the fault of the developers. They need to make it so that consumables aren't "immediate" and that you actually do have to stop and injest something.
They are not outdated, the way they are implemented in games is outdated.
I will add, I don't like it when I "need" consumables to win an encounter. Some special type of food that a player makes but charges wayyyy too much for. I hate that stuff.
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Consumables can play a big part in builds and tactics in Hogwarts Legacy. The implementation is well thought out. Both potions and plants felt like a natural extension of a wizard's arsenal. They are especially helpful in the souls-like boss fights of the Trials.
It's a role playing game. A common role is the herbalist, who can duplicate some of the magic effects of magicians. Say a stealth scout who can brew up some buffs if there is no wizard around.
So that role would be eliminated? Why?
If necessary, look at how potion/food buffs stack with magic user buffs.
I don't think that removing consumables would remove jobs like that.
Like the entertainer in SWG could provide buffs. Why couldn't herbalists do the same without having to create various items that just clog your inventory.
If end game has to revolve around having certain consumables and using them at the right time and people getting pissed if you don't, it makes sense why do many people never stay past end game and just wait for more content and the power creep to catch up.
I don't hate consumables they are just too pointless to use. I also hate a million different currencies for all kinds of different items. One of the main reasons I left GW2 it's like every week there's a new currency or item that just sits in your bag or bank forever.
But that's a different topic.
Plus I hate having to use like a half dozen consumables and you get like 100% damage for 2 minutes. If a whole encounter requires that 2 minutes of 200% damage with specific items, it's just a shitty encounter.
While I'm not big on using potions, as I tend to think of them as a sign I goofed up while playing if I have to, I do think consumables in general are actually a perfectly fine concept. What I might levy is that they have been skewed by the notion of boosters and min-maxing player performance, where their past value was a combined element of consumables as a survival resource and consumables as a rare enhancement for finite scenarios.
Just roll back to look at D&D and tabletop gaming. There's a reason for healers in a group because not everyone is stocked like a potion shop, those things are/were expensive and could only be held in limited quantities as an emergency tool, not as something you chug like they're strapped to a beer hat.
And when it came to consumables like food it wasn't buffs people were looking for, but to stave off negative challenges of starvation, disease, and otherwise.
The simplification of RPGs lost a lot of these classic RPG principles, and it damaged the fundamental value and purpose of facets of their design such as consumables.
So I don't think getting rid of them is the answer necessarily. I think reassessing lazy simplified game design is.
"And when it came to consumables like food it wasn't buffs people were looking for, but to stave off negative challenges of starvation, disease, and otherwise."
This is the kind of thing that I want for food. There can be a variety of diseases, most of them simple to prevent and cure, and a few from powerful demon and undead types that require a special meal/drink type, plus maybe a ritual.
I don't want it to be complicated for the regular player, that falls on the skilled cook, but not complicated so much as getting ahold of the special ingredients. And having the skill, of course.
For basic diseases, I think as prevention, foods should last a RL day. Just log in and eat/drink and get a boost to saves for the playing sessions all day long. If you fail a save and get a disease, eat another portion to "save" vs. the disease for an instant cure.
The powerful deamon/undead caused disease cures might require fresh cooked special meals, and maybe even a ritual for really tough ones. But those diseases might start out not so bad, but get worse over time. A few NPCs might be strategically placed in the world to help out with relief from those effects. Powerful Druids, oracles, dryads, Hermits, and the like.
Just spit-balling here.
Some special attention to the game design towards player owned taverns might be nice, too.
Comments
yeah one of the worst
Sounds like we'll need a new genre soon so we can leave RPG, and MMORPG alone.
The scrolls are also given out often via daily login bonus, and event items are a common rotation for additional free xp bonus.
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
GW2 has very interesting cooking. The crafting is fairly annoying and convoluted, with layers upon layers of component crafting in case of some meals, but the thing is, they actually resemble real recipes. You could take any of them and broadly have an idea what that meal is and how to make it in real life. But it still sucks to gather the mats and make the stuff and it could use a bit more creative design. Other games are completely lost in this area and just slap it on for the sake of having it in, without any deeper thought.
And then there are games like The Witcher, where potions / mutagens / buffs can be very significant and in W3 they actually designed pieces of armour specifically for the alchemy builds. That shows how much potential such systems have. The amount of players that would actually play such wild and unorthodox builds is probably fairly limited though (but they can be very powerful), so it's always a question of how much the devs want to invest into developing such mechanics and whether they'd be better off instead investing their time into other systems - especially in MMOs, which tend to be on the more simplistic side compared to traditional SP RPGs.
But the potential is clearly there and some RPGs show that systems based on buffs / debuffs and similar mechanics can give you a completely different playing experience, so I wouldn't reduce this topic to a simple yes / no question.
Even if you look at them in a raid context, they at best establish a shadow level achievable by everyone. So if everyone has access to them, what's the point? You add a level of grind and economy sink to inflate health, damage, etc. when that buffed status could and should be the final evolution of your character. And if for some reason you feel compelled to have that design, why not put those buffs on a player class/archetype so there is at least some semblance of skill or input involved?
While we have been conditioned to see consumables as normal, they are quite silly if you think about it. Are you going to stop in the middle of your berserker rage to drink or eat something? You are holding a sword and shield with 10 mobs on you, but you still can stop and pop a pot? Consumables are an outdated crutch and need to go the way of the dodo.
Whats next, you want to get rid of active roll dodges, blocks and parry? These things allow people to distinguish themselves.
Maybe we should just go to 1 button pushes and let the game play itself? Fun right?
Just roll back to look at D&D and tabletop gaming. There's a reason for healers in a group because not everyone is stocked like a potion shop, those things are/were expensive and could only be held in limited quantities as an emergency tool, not as something you chug like they're strapped to a beer hat.
And when it came to consumables like food it wasn't buffs people were looking for, but to stave off negative challenges of starvation, disease, and otherwise.
The simplification of RPGs lost a lot of these classic RPG principles, and it damaged the fundamental value and purpose of facets of their design such as consumables.
So I don't think getting rid of them is the answer necessarily. I think reassessing lazy simplified game design is.
And to be clear, the way you distinguish yourself in mmorpgs is your block or evade roll timing, right? Because rolling around like a spastic chimp is the epitome of skill. What about bunny hopping and all the other nonsense that "active" play brings. All of that is fine and good, and can be fun in some games, but imo, it's not the play set that blends best with mmorpgs.
As to your final witty comment, no, I'd like to 24-36 skills in use, with a large portion being positional and reactionaries skills. But you know what, you have fun with your 5 skill active combat where you actively take advantage of bad coding and network to distinguish yourself.
I've never been a fan of using consumables myself, but I do feel like they have a place. The main issue with consumables in lets say, World of Warcraft, is that you lose the buffs when dying (not all buffs). That is annoying.
I like consumable buffs like NW has with one except, their silly 25 second elemental wards, makes you have to spam them which I have no problem with except that we only have 4 consumable slots with 3 almost permanently filled with 2 type of healing pots (instant and over time) and food.
I normally slot blight cures but would love about 4 more to slot corruption, and a couple of others weapon coatings and defensive wards.
Another great example where designing for controllers (despite not being a console game) is unnecessarily limiting IMO.
Hell, sell me more slots, I'll pay for them dammit.
(Snap, another reply I had to edit to get past the damn box)
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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Interesting you want all these skills (which I agree with), but dont want other tools like potions. I dont understand how you see the difference between a spell and a potion. Its just a graphical difference. So if I told you the bottle graphic on the bar was actually a spell, it would be ok?
How is it bad coding to have other tools other than just spells?
I say more the merrier. Give me all kinds of different ones. Make the gameplay fun, as long as the item/spell whatever makes sense, do it.
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Like the entertainer in SWG could provide buffs. Why couldn't herbalists do the same without having to create various items that just clog your inventory.
If end game has to revolve around having certain consumables and using them at the right time and people getting pissed if you don't, it makes sense why do many people never stay past end game and just wait for more content and the power creep to catch up.
I don't hate consumables they are just too pointless to use. I also hate a million different currencies for all kinds of different items. One of the main reasons I left GW2 it's like every week there's a new currency or item that just sits in your bag or bank forever.
But that's a different topic.
Plus I hate having to use like a half dozen consumables and you get like 100% damage for 2 minutes. If a whole encounter requires that 2 minutes of 200% damage with specific items, it's just a shitty encounter.
This is the kind of thing that I want for food.
There can be a variety of diseases, most of them simple to prevent and cure, and a few from powerful demon and undead types that require a special meal/drink type, plus maybe a ritual.
I don't want it to be complicated for the regular player, that falls on the skilled cook, but not complicated so much as getting ahold of the special ingredients. And having the skill, of course.
For basic diseases, I think as prevention, foods should last a RL day. Just log in and eat/drink and get a boost to saves for the playing sessions all day long.
If you fail a save and get a disease, eat another portion to "save" vs. the disease for an instant cure.
The powerful deamon/undead caused disease cures might require fresh cooked special meals, and maybe even a ritual for really tough ones. But those diseases might start out not so bad, but get worse over time.
A few NPCs might be strategically placed in the world to help out with relief from those effects. Powerful Druids, oracles, dryads, Hermits, and the like.
Just spit-balling here.
Some special attention to the game design towards player owned taverns might be nice, too.
Once upon a time....