How Can I Stop Item Hoarding In Games?

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Item hoarding is a problem that happens in tons of games across lots of genres, and can cause unnecessary anxiety for players. Not all players are affected the same way, but item hoarding is a problem that designers can address and reduce. Some techniques are simple, some are complicated, and some can cause other knock-on effects down the line. Let's talk about item hoarding in games, and the design choices that you can use to tackle the problem.
Games by order of first appearance
0:19 Persona 4
0:22 Dragon Quest III
0:27 Pokemon Sword & Shield
0:30 Final Fantasy X
0:38 Paper Mario (N64)
0:43 Skyrim
0:45 Fire Emblem: Three Houses
0:50 Animal Crossing New Horizons
0:55 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
0:59 Skies of Arcadia
1:03 Just Cause 2
1:10 Dishonored
1:16 Paper Mario: Sticker Star
1:18 Resident Evil 2 Remake
1:22 Dragon Quest XI
1:29 Enter the Gungeon
2:40 Moonlighter
2:46 Zelda: Breath of The Wild
3:08 Demon's Souls (PS3)
3:13 Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2
3:38 Final Fantasy VII
3:46 Doom 2016
4:00 Final Fantasy IX
6:21 Tales of Vesperia
6:27 Shin Megami Tensei IV
6:46 Resident Evil 4
7:21 Dark Souls 3
11:21 Kingdom Hearts 3
11:25 Terraria
11:38 Monster Hunter World
12:40 Final Fantasy VIII
14:52 Rogue Legacy
14:59 The Binding of Isaac
15:01 Spelunky
15:47 Don't Starve
16:14 Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition
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#finalfantasy #papermario #monsterhunter

[@rainpooper7088]

At first glance, I thought this was an actual self-help video for the players hoarding the items and was like „Yeah, I could use that.“

[@plet0707]

Man, I kind of wish it was.

[@jaydenliberty9536]

I find learning stuff like this helps me train myself not to do it. Now you know WHY you hoard items, and HOW the game fails you. So, you can choose to actively play around that, based on the game’s reputation

[@Isenlyn]

I used to have problems with Bethesda games. Then I realised it was way less stress not looting in Skyrim. How many people are constantly 99% load all because it cost money ! Then not being able to sell it all because merchant don't have enough. I solved it by not picking up armor and weapons, and only if it haven't a 10gold per load point at least. Then the game seems faster. ^^

[@codyallen43]

The video we really need

[@IKMcGwee]

Man I item horde like nobodies business. I really should stop.

[@HeeminGaminStation]

“I’m out of MP” “Then use an ether” “But you can’t buy ethers” “IT’S THE FINAL BATTLE” “But I only have 85 of them”

[@The5lacker]

"It's the final battle!" "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT! THERE COULD BE A SECRET SPECIAL FINAL BOSS THAT'S EVEN MORE DIFFICULT!"

[@peardude8979]

You think it’s the final battle, but the boss may actually have5 stages, and then there might be another boss after the “final” boss. It’s impossible to know. And that boss will be even MORE difficult, so you should save your ethers.

[@SarcasticTentacle]

@@The5lacker "YOU ARE LITERALLY FIGHTING THE ULTIMATE GOD OF ALL CREATION IN THIS GAMES SETTING!" "Yeah but that joke character looks shifty, what if he's the super-super boss?"

[@darthtace]

@@SarcasticTentacle That damn gas station attendant.

[@MapleFried]

Mind goblins are at it again

[@KitsukiiPlays]

Yeah, I can recall the exact moment I've become an item hoarder: Young me: I used ALL my potions, but I was finally able to defeat the boss, yay! Boss: now, my final form! Young me: wait, what...?

[@EskChan19]

The original source of trust issues. Never trust any game that this final boss is actually the final boss.

[@leonidas14775]

**sends me back to the save point I made hours ago** Alright stupid game, its gameshark time

[@therranolleo468]

this is pretty much me with ANY JPRGs especially the ones that gave you limited resources in characters not wanting to blow your raised characters into a boss fight only to have a second phase that needs a different set of characters from your previous ones

[@saifuusuri]

So what you're saying is: hoarding stems from trust issues? Just like real life!

[@Pandora_The_Panda]

Cry in Castle Crasher's Chest-Spider.

[@Evil_Wizard]

Mother 3 has a great anti hoarding system. Every character has a limited inventory and each item takes up one spot. You also get items consistently enough that you’ll use old items to make space

[@RiskierGoose340]

Same goes for Mother 2, aka Earthbound. I used up food items a lot of times, more than I probably would if I had unlimited inventory space, and having each party member only use what’s in their specific inventory is an awesome idea.

[@ogeidnomar4601]

All three Mother games implement this system

[@pikachufrankie]

@@RiskierGoose340 Issue with Mother 2 is that all the equipment takes up backpack slots too, which SUCKS.

[@Stothehighest]

I wouldn't call that great anti-hoarding, because it leaves the incentive to hoard, you're just physically prevented from hoarding.

[@keeganseck7751]

Item usefulness is probably one of my biggest hoarding hurdles. "Potions heal 100 hp!" "But I have 3500 max hp. Why are these things still dropping?" "Use a green herb to heal!" "But what if there's a red herb around the corner? What if there's also a YELLOW!"

[@sinfulhealer2110]

yeah those aren't even designed as "top up" potions late game

[@TheDeadOfNight37]

Items that will be dropped through the duration of the game should heal a percentage

[@pinkliongaming8769]

In Horizon Zero Dawn there are potions that make you take less damage from elements, fighting a fire robot? Use a Fire resistance potion, they're easily craft able and cheap to purchase anyway. Except I usually just brute force it until the monster dies, I can't be bothered to scroll to the potion to use it

[@mrocto329]

@@pinkliongaming8769 Old post, I know. Anyways, I feel horizon zero dawn was one of the few games that made me actually spend resources. I never felt like different weapon ammo, potions, or any resource was scarce. I always ran out at some point, then I just harvested stuff on the way to some quest, and by the time I arrived I was stocked up. Honestly the systems in that game with resources made me explore the open world a bunch.

[@nicholasmorgan7609]

If you use them out of battle, you can save your better healing items for later, just spamming basic potions til you're fully healed.

[@Sakurabliss7]

The root of my hoarding problem is without a doubt TMs in Pokemon (prior to gen 5). Look I get they’re supposed to be used, but I’ll never get some of them again and I want a complete set! And I’m not wasting it on a Pokémon who might learn a better move down the line!

[@patrickeid1689]

Saks same and that’s why I now feel disturbed whenever I replay one of the older games.

[@matiasrivas1692]

I'd argue that gen 5's solution isn't great either. If I get a great TM like earthquake, that fact that it's infinite means there's little reason not to teach it to every mon that can learn it without sacrificing a move slot for something more useful. My idea is to make TMs consumable again but this time you can get at least one copy of each in the main game through shops, sidequests, exploration or pickup. Then at post game, maybe after that segment's story, all TMs can be bought at a store because what's left are tough optional challenges and PvP, a point in which not having access to a specific move on a specific Pokemon can put one at a disadvantage. Thus you raise the skill ceiling for team building in the main game. You could even use the oportunity to promote breeding for egg moves, make all the neccesary info available ingame for convenience.

[@shannonrussell898]

@@matiasrivas1692 I agree so hard. I've thought this for like, 15 years. I wouldn't mind a TM 'recharge' mechanic - maybe a station in each PokeCenter where after you've used a TM you pay a fee based on the move's strength to then recharge it for another use. It kills two birds with one stone - the obvious TM problem you highlighted, but also gives the player a decent way to spend money other than buying ultra balls.

[@matiasrivas1692]

@@shannonrussell898 That's even better!

[@Rogeryoo]

I'd say the TRs in pokemon swosh is how it was supposed to be, or at least closer to it. There are TMs, which are infinite use, yeah, but there are also TRs, which are usually more powerful moves, but are one use. They aren't limited to one, though, you can always grind some Watts (a sub currency in the game, if you didn't know) which are pretty easy to come by, so it doesn't take much time grinding, to buy them. Defeating special pokemon also can drop a TR of the type(s) of said pokemon, so you can do a 2 for 1. I just personally like the TR system in swosh.

[@teslobo]

I think some people hoard consumables without even trying just due to how the UI discourages using items. The "item" or "bag" button tends to be as close to the bottom of the list as possible, and then you have to scroll through items to find the right one. Combine the sheer number of button presses with the fact it normally takes your turn in applicable RPGs, and the common-sense response to a stat-debuff or low hp can often be "this isn't an issue if I hit the enemy hard enough and end the fight." A lot of the items players do use frequently, like the Estus flask or equivalent blood vials, are hotbar'd from the word go. Games like darkest dungeon give your inventory of consumables ample screen space and ease of access which can make you much more inclined to use them. There's nothing too unique about these consumables, it's just how they're contextually presented.

[@gonderage]

Yeah, I also find that navigation and accessability through UI is important for streamlining the economy of items. I'm not very fond of games who don't have easily accessible categories or lack the ability to instantly drop to the bottom by going up at the top of a list. Quality of life things like that can mitigate the hoarding issue.

[@charleouel9012]

Well true tho I do think Doc make a good casse for most hoarding situation... Game difficulty, regen of recource, number cap on recource (if you can only carry so much may as well use it) tho too low cap can also make you hoard so there that exemple if you can only have 1 or 2 really good item you may not want to use it because it may be rare) Any way in general Hoarding is like in real life hoarding. (if the player NEED to use it they will Exemple someone whitout alot of money that life on the money they are makeing every day won't hoard there money for later they just CAN'T... but someone that can hoard there money because they don't life at the edge of not being able to survive will be more likely to hoard there money for a "worse moment") But I won't lie the UI does sometime help hoarding Exemple whit real life If it hard to find a way to get your money quickly and you need to sign up something to get it back or something along those lines it can leave you hoarding since you don't want to make that step to get your money back. so you use hoard it where it is. Any way good point

[@migueeeelet]

This is prolly the main reason I didn't use many 'special' consumables in Dragon Quest 8. They're just further down the list and the more basic items do the job pretty well.

[@powercore2000]

Ease of use and usefulness I think are two ways most games can tackle hording through their systems. Hording becomes an issue when you gave too many items, and most of them are probably lower tier items since they're more common. If the game never presses you to use them, then its just not worth fiddling with a menu to find the item to make an already manageable fight, maybe 10% easier. Currently replaying persona 3 and most of the status effect and elemental attack items are like this. Once you get one of every element, you basically will never use the elemental gems since 1. Getting to them in the list is a pain in the ass 2. They don't scale with your damage and are typically weak 3. You can just use your spells for the same effect. The result is a bag filled with even more clutter than I'm less interested in sifting through to actually find the maybe 5 total useful items.

[@Zekana0]

I never thought about this but ya, I tend to not use items because of how clunky it is. A game I did use items a fair bit was persona 5 because it was a face button to get to that menu.

[@danielevans7439]

Here’s one more: bad item descriptions cause hoarding. There have been a few Final Fantasies where I get one battle item that “deals a lot of damage”. I don’t have extras to test it out, so I save it. But when I use it on the final boss, it does maybe 50 damage. If it told me it deals about 50 damage, I could have used it in the very next fight and at least have enjoyed the visual effects. Healing items are even worse, because I’ll use them in an emergency, only to restore a measly number of HP and consequently get wiped out. (I’m looking at you, “lapis,” whatever you are.)

[@Arlesmon]

lapis? Why= Because healing items, the usefull ones that heal you 100% shouldn't have said issue of you getting whiped out, that's more of bad luck.

[@danielevans7439]

assholemon The point is that it wasn’t 100%. (I’ll edit my post to clear that up). Lapis wasn’t game-specific, but it shows up everywhere. No matter the game, it usually heals the party for 50-200 HP, but I didn’t know that the first time either. Again, the description might only say, “restores a lot of HP to the party.” But by the end of the game, it’s a lie. Now When a megalixer says “Restores all HP and MP to the party,” I don’t have to test that out beforehand.

[@Blirre]

@@danielevans7439 Reminds me of Ore in FF9. It heals a two figure amount when used ("Restores HP") but it's effect is actually indirect because the amount you have in your inventory affects Odin attack. But the game doesn't tell you this. FF9 is also infuriating because of the synthesis recipes which in late game requires some early items which are no longer available in shops so if you didn't hoard them too bad. This is the lesson I was taught as a kid. This is also why physical game guides used to be a thing before the internet.

[@VanStolin]

I think what more devs need to do, is have an option for players to see the damage formula in an advanced tooltips. That way, they would at least have some idea of how much damage you would be doing and it gives a much better idea of what is and isn't an upgrade. A real big problem that games have right now is hiding what should be relevant information. Like Xenoblade. For physical attacks, it's pretty obvious that more auto attack damage translates into higher physical art damage and that strength has some part in the calculation as well. But some people assume that Ether attacks, only use the Ether stat and will keep weapons that are far worse, just because they have three slots instead of 1 or 2. If they had known how the damage was calculated, they could make better, informed decisions. Hording is almost always a case of a lack of information.

[@rmsgrey]

@@Blirre FF9 in particular appears to have a number of deliberate "Guide Dang It" aspects - things that you need a guide to look up rather than being able to figure them out in-game. It also went a step further, with the official Piggyback guide repeatedly referring readers to the new PlayOnline service for various details.

[@AnotherCamilo]

"No, i need to save all these recovery and power up items when i get to the final boss!!!" ...The final boss is a QTE.

[@Fluffkitscripts]

We’ve got to remember that gamers gravitate towards the most likely chance of success, not the most fun one. If a situation can be solved without using up a finite resource, they’re gonna do that.

[@sinfulhealer2110]

where's this behaviour towards the world, capitalists, aaa.

[@TheDeadOfNight37]

@@sinfulhealer2110 but leaving problems for future generations is so much easier!

[@pinkliongaming8769]

@@TheDeadOfNight37 I would never leave future me without a healing potion lmao

[@criptych]

@@sinfulhealer2110 Funny, since capitalism is how people today have enough time to care about "the world" and not just where their next meal is coming from.

[@E_Fig05]

@@criptych Why are you a capitalist?

[@HeeminGaminStation]

“Hoarding is a pitfall” flashbacks to earlier animal crossing games where I would hoard pitfalls.

[@fubu72]

Nice

[@jules9424]

Interesting Manouvre

[@Stephen-Fox]

So, how are you with the fact pitfalls are a craftable item in New Horizons? I forget the quantity, but weeds and sticks, which makes a ton of sense for pitfalls.

[@akluv2403]

@@jules9424 Spectacular, you "amaze" me.

[@justaname9330]

Oh yeah, you could do that in previous Animal Crossing games, couldn't you? I wonder if I ever did that. *boots up New Leaf game for the first time in forever* Holy crud, why do I have so many pitfalls?!

[@cetais]

"This potion heals 50 hit points". When you have 100 hit points: Oh nice, it's half my life. When you have 1000 hit points: what's the point of using them? A few recent Final Fantasies resolve that problem by just giving percentages instead. It also doesnt make item kinda useless in the late-game.

[@marcobering3945]

I agree with that. After a point, i just start selling regular Potions I amass in FF games. I'll start selling the Hi-Potions too, eventually. FF's healing magic is usually strong enough to not need the healing items with the rare exception of an emergency elixir/megalixir.

[@AubriGryphon]

@@marcobering3945 I typically use them to top up between fights, to save MP.

[@Abysslord1234]

The issue with doing percentages instead, is it either makes healers obsolete or makes them useless in battle (due to action economy). The best way to do it, imo, is to make it so you can't shove potions down your most powerful character's throat, and if Joker/Cloud/Rean/Locke want to heal without waiting on the white mage, they can drink their own ****ing potion.

[@RyanJW001]

There's a lot of nuance to this, honestly. I'd argue that percentage based potions are better than flat health potions in most any game where health is a value that scales over time. Better they be relevant than just sit there taking up a slot when you've outscaled their usefulness. This is especially true in rpgs, which tend to see their numbers scale by multiple orders of magnitude. There's also things like action economy and scarcity, which go into determining how useful these items are. A lot of times, they just aren't as efficient as other options the player readily has available. There's a lot of ways you can make a healer preferable to an item as well. The healer could have a more efficient action economy, such as being able to aoe heal the whole party. The healer could heal for larger percentages than the potions. The potions themselves could be more limited in use than the healer's spells. Potions could also come with larger out of battle costs, with stronger potions just being costly enough that you might have to grind for them. There's really endless ways to allow specific character builds to shine.

[@painedfetus8210]

*hoard them for later bc imma have more HP therefore it'll heal more* *hoard them because i can sell them bc they heal so little HP*

[@ganaham9144]

Astral Chain had a really nice anti hoarding system by having items in each chapter that disappear from your inventory at the end of the chapter. They're gonna disappear, so you might as well use them!

[@alanthieris4447]

Also helps that, unlike most Platinum games that precede it, there's no score penalties for using consumables.

[@LadyAhro]

@@alanthieris4447 Ugh yep. Bayonetta's hard difficulties could get frustrating like that.

[@donbionicle]

@@alanthieris4447 Yeah, he didn't even touch on that one. I think it makes sense in a lot of Platinum games and similar styles though! In those games items are an admission that you're not at the skill level needed to clear a stage without making mistakes, and the half the fun is replaying on harder and harder difficulties to test yourself and improve. Now this does interfere with a more casual play style of penalizing your first try to just beat the game, which is why I'd like to see it disabled for Normal-mode equivalents. Beyond that I don't think it's needed but it's a step in the right direction.

[@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz]

@@alanthieris4447 to be fair chugging an HP item isn't exactly stylish.

[@percher4824]

@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz Neither is getting frustrated and snapping your controller/keyboard in half.

[@Julia-lg8dt]

I love the item descriptions in spiritfarer. When you find items in crates or while fishing, some of them specifically say "should be sold", so you never wonder whether you'll need them for crafting later.

[@sinfulhealer2110]

flufftext for that outgame interaction is sooooo soothing. pog

[@oo8962]

Me whenever game said something could be sold "really?"😒 I would keep them in my inventory just in case but when my inventory is full I'll sell it eventually while still wondering " Are you really exist just to be sold? It doesn't make sense"

[@sinfulhealer2110]

@@oo8962 damn ikr- fantasy 0, sus af

[@One.Zero.One101]

There was a game that had a button called "Sell all junk", with just one click you can clean up your inventory. It's one of my favorite features in RPG history. I think the game is Grim Dawn but I'm not too sure, it might be something else.

[@AubriGryphon]

Here's a subtle thing that I've noticed: suppose you have Potions that heal 50 hp, High Potions for 200, and Mega Potions for 500. Assuming these can be purchased, you'll typically see that the higher-level items end up more expensive per hp, which makes it feel like a waste to use them if you don't REALLY REALLY need it. You can use low-level potions to top up after battle, after all. Instead, try flipping that script. If you make more powerful potions MORE money-efficient, you encourage their use! As long as you're hurt enough to not waste any of the healing, you want to use the most powerful items in AND out of battle, and the lower-level items are relegated to topping-up duty and backup healing. Which is FINE, because if you're at the point in the game where a normal potion is only worth a tiny fraction of your total hp, you're not going to bother with them during gameplay anyway and they're ultimately just "press the button 100 times to heal up after battle" instead of "press the button twice". Now if only you can convince that potion-seller to part with his strongest potions...

[@jessecross8548]

I think you forgot the part about why 500 hp potions cost a lot more per hp that a 50 hp. Say a 50hp potion cost 100 gold. A ratio of 1:2. And a 500 hp potion costs 2500 gold. A ratio of 1:5. Now say you have 1000 hp if you are in combat and need healing and enemy deals an average of 90 damage per turn a 50 hp would be useless resulting into needed to use the higher version. And if gold is not easy to come by then you have to choose between 1 hi potions useful in combat or 25 only useful outside of combat. If we changed the ratio to 1:3 for the low and 1:2 for the hi potion we get a price of 150 for low and 1000 for hi. Now with 2500 gold you can get 2 hi potions and 3 low with 50 gold leftover. So now you can heal twice as much as before in combat for the same amount of gold. Making the game difficulty drop. All rates are just for reference to make a point and not to be taken as fact.

[@AubriGryphon]

@@jessecross8548 So the concept is broken if you... invent a broken scenario for the sake of argument. Good to know.

[@jessecross8548]

@@AubriGryphon okay I’ll use actual numbers from a game i just started playing 3 days ago “The witch and the hundred knight RE” I have am level 21 I have 186 HP U can buy hp items You can carry 10 20% hp heal items and 5 50% heal items. A 20% heal is 1389 shell A 50% heal is 23150 shell I went to area my level and killed everything and harvest every gathering point i came across for about 20 mins. Monsters killed give mana and drop weapons. Mana can be used to level up weapons and armor or convert 1,000 mana to 10,000 shell. I got 2489 shell selling all the drops including 2 epic grade weapons. 3600 shell from stage bonus nd 2616 mana. If i exchange all the mana i get a total of 26,089 shell. Which can buy me one 50% healing item or 18 20% healing items (if it let me buy more that 10 which it doesn’t.) Now lets talk rates of healing to cost. At 186 HP 20% is 37 and 50% is 93. At 1389 for 20% comes out to about 37 shell per 1 hp. At 23150 for 50% comes out to about 249 shell per 1 HP. If we compare costs 1hp is 6.7 times more expensive for a 50% healing item to a 20% healing Item. Now your idea is to flip the script around by making the more powerful healing items cost less per HP compared to the lower healing items. Then lets make the more powerful item 40% more cost efficient which is about 149 per hp. Now we have to make the low item 403% more expensive to match the powerful one so we will increase the price by 500% so 185 per hp. The new prices would be 13,857 for 50% and 6,845 for a 20%. Now i can buy 1 50% and 1 20% and have 5,387 shell left or 3 20% and have 5,554 shell leftover. Lets try making the efficiency of the powerful be times 2 of the base 37 of the low potion so 74 and we will make the low just 1 factor more expensive at 111. The new prices are 6,882 for 50% and 4,107 for 20% so i can now buy 3 50% and 1 20% or 6 20%. At which point buying 20% would become a complete waste of money unless your so bad at the game u need that 200% hp heal that carry limit of 10 will give you on top of the now more affordable 250% the 50% heals give u. So in the end the game balance is still ruined. If your bad at the game you will need to do more grinding to buy HP points. And will probably be over leveled sooner than later. TL;DR even with an actual scenario my point still stands.

[@AubriGryphon]

@@jessecross8548 Slow down there. Percentage healing items are a COMPLETELY different matter. They scale by level automatically, so yes, a 50% heal should cost more than 2.5 20% heals for simple action economy reasons. But in general, you talk as if you, the game designer, are not in control of how much loot an average enemy of level x produces when defeated, or the price of that Rune Saber the player's going to want to buy before they leave the area. There's nothing fundamentally game breaking about the player carrying around 50 hi-potions instead of 250 regular ones. It's just one of many currency sinks to be adjusted, and it would be nice if it were adjusted in the direction that feels better to play.

[@jessecross8548]

@@AubriGryphon in a turn rpg yes in a game like the one i gave above, no. An off example is Pokémon if u have 50 full restores and ur fighting a gym leader who can almost 1 hit ko your Pokémon you can use x amount of full restores to stall long enough for his Pokémon to run out of PP for that near kill attack compared to having 999 hyper potions. Which can’t heal fast enough to stall. Granted the enemy doesn’t get a Critical. But my whole point is you can’t just swap the cost efficiency of healing items without having to rebalance the whole games fighting mechanisms and currency cus it will ruin the games difficulty balance. Then again i try to never use items unless its a must use after serval game over attempts.

[@PuppetMasterIX]

The boss-killing stickers in Sticker Star is just one of way too many systems in Sticker Star that actively punishes trying to have fun. That game honestly felt like an attempt to include as many clashing design choices as possible.

[@yoshifan2334]

And let’s also remember that the actual “fight” part of these bosses was flimsy at best. Once you get the silver bullet thing sticker out on them the fight is effectively over, and the fight up to that point is a pretty obvious easy phase 1 anyways. They’re more puzzle/exploration check than boss tbh and color splash is guilty of this too

[@Bane_Amesta]

I've never played it before, so I tried it the other day, and I quit it almost on the first fight... I think I understand now the reason xD

[@DemonRaticate]

And when defending it, they had the gall to say something like, “We don’t need the opinions of 20 year olds for a game made for children.” ITS A BAD GAME EVEN FOR CHILDREN! I would have gotten so frustrated since as a kid I loved using the flashiest moves to just see the animation. Doing that and then suddenly fighting a boss that can take 45 minutes without a thing sticker would be torture. Especially since I only had 4 hours of videogames a week while sharing my console with my sibling.

[@crimsoncat8244]

@@DemonRaticate I never got that argument in any context. Sure, not everything is made for everyone but like... If they don't want adults' opinions because the target audience is children, but children aren't often given the platform (or eloquence or even sometimes the understanding) to express why they liked/didn't like something... Isn't that just kind of saying you don't want feedback at all?

[@tomlynmathewsjr7514]

@@DemonRaticate People: Paper Mario is for children Paper Mario: Has a Nihilist trying to destroy the world because his love was cruelly taken away from him, and a legitimate psychopath fuse with Luigi as the final boss. Saying these games are just for children is blatantly false. Everyone can enjoy them. The ones who need to grow up are the ones saying games are only for children.

[@rmsgrey]

One way hoarding manifests in Breath of the Wild is finding yourself constantly using the weakest available weapon and shield (or the Master Sword once you have it) rather than risk not having the strong ones when you need them.

[@anthonynorman7545]

Too true

[@joshclarke1218]

This comment called me out

[@ragunral]

This was the game that actually broke me of my item hording ways, both in BotW and in other games I have played since. I never found the inventory upgrading guy till the very end of the game, so I played just about all of it with 6 weapon slots. Hording all the things I needed just wasn't viable, and suddenly.... I was free.

[@ryanpratt8568]

That’s why the Island shrine where you lose all your equipment and have to start with nothing is so much fun. It gives you freedom from your anxiety-inducing inventory of stuff you don’t want to use Xd

[@rmsgrey]

I did end up using the Hylian Shield enough that it broke and I needed to replace it. At the other extreme, before getting hold of the Master Sword, there were times I avoided groups of basic enemies simply because my worst weapon was already better than anything they were likely to have, so fighting them would mean downgrading my equipment...

[@indraservo5764]

Game : "you can sell any item you don't need" Every enemy drop useless item A Player : sell every item A except 5 for backup if needed 3 hours later.... Game : "you need to gather 10 item A to continue sidequest" No enemy drop item A until before final dungeon

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Items are one thing... Cosmetics... That's another matter.

[@quippits3201]

I mean, what the hell are you supposed to do with a pitfall seed?

[@armandostockvideos8386]

It's funny because in Dragon quest 9 you need to use a seemingly useless sword to make one of the best ones. You can only find few of them in the game.

[@wouldntyouliketoknow99]

This is the kind of thing that gives me trust issues

[@Naixatloz]

You can say Xenoblade, it's okay.

[@MythlyInari]

I hoard items in games due to a weird state of "I *don't* need this." What I meant by that is, when I have to use a item, I feel like it's fixing a mistake I could've otherwise learned from, it can make me feel dishonorable using items (especially if they're VERY useful) regardless of the situation. I have broken this self-imposed accidental rule a couple of times, sure, like when I used a one time full party heal in Persona 5 that I got at the *start of the game*... and didn't use it until 135+ hours in.. at the final boss. If I didn't hold onto that particular item for that long, though, I wouldn't have been able to beat the final boss on my first try. Playing Paper Mario recently, I try to hold off from using items in battle at all so I can try to play better without them, but it's a vicious loop of always never sometimes using items.

[@zx-dx719]

i feel like PK MD rescue team DX kind of fixes it as if you have oran berries a party member asks if they can use it on a hurt ally. and the games Revival seeds do the same thing but dont take up a party member's turn. also they can only be used if a party member just "died". so they are more like an extra life. also you can only carry a total of 42 items at a time and you lose all of them if all party members go down

[@sinfulhealer2110]

ah the "i wanna get good- not cope with being bad" anxiety item hoarding

[@NinjaKingAce]

"Quick use a potion!" "But we might need it later!" "We have 1 HP, and it's the final boss!!!"

[@DavidCowie2022]

But what if it has a stronger second form?!?!?!?!?!?

[@lukedelameter7961]

If we can dodge them, then why do you need a potion?!

[@snoote533]

Me about to quit and load back in- Haha, no. Me who also hasn't saved for the past hour- OH F###

[@jessecross8548]

@@lukedelameter7961this comment reminds me of my aura kingdom character that had a 98% chance to evade an attack from enemies of the same level.

[@TamotoLover]

Games that have multiple "final bosses" at the end sequence don't help. I've been traumatized by using my consumables too early, only to find there are more levels or bosses. Pretty much never used megalixirs or somas unless I'm on a second playthrough.

[@sofaris576]

I cant say I am not gulty of hording. But that makes it actully satisfaying to use rare Items like Elexirs ore Somas. That I might need it later does not help me now so using it now is the smarter move so I am actully proud of myself if I use it.

[@ShouldOfStudiedForTheTest]

Yep. Health bars make this far better. I think the spoiler about a "true final form" is a price that I would pay for healthy use of my finite resources. I hate boss fights without healthbars. Even if they include other visual information (like cracked armor), it doesn't stop the boss from changing his from and doubling his damage. For example: In Octopath Traveler only 2 out of 8 characters could find out how much health the boss has. As in an actual number. One of them can only do it indirectly via a damage over time effect. And you would have to know that it removes exactly 1% of the final health to determine it's max health. I think many people were caught off by Winnehild when she suddenly started attacking 7 times per turn. At least the consumeables were pretty weak in this game. 💁‍♀️

[@omaisho]

Persona 4 has a few "final" bosses that turn out to not be the final boss and it screws me over lol

[@HeyHeyChey]

Cant you run away?

[@theinvisibleskulk4563]

It's even worse when every game in a series pretends multiple dungeons and bosses are the last one until you beat them. That's another problem with Final Fantasy that OP forgot.

[@Marenthyu]

Goes a long way in speedruns as well: In RPGs, "Boost" Items often are quite a lot more powerful than people realize. In Speedruns (Be it Pokémon or Hyperdimension Neptunia), "Boost" Items are often used to cheese the game, throw its Balance out the window and just beat the game on a really low level. Why can speedrunners do this? Because they know the exact place and time to use the items properly without "running out". It makes speedrun routing interesting, but that usually assumes you know the game in and out, which a casual playthrough often doesn't have. As the video mentions, MHW does a good job of informing the player of where to get items if they need more and i don't think it has any non-renewable resources. A simple step in the right direction might be telling the player "This item is renewable." or "This item only exists x times in this world!". The latter would encourage hoarding, but tells the person if they are good to use up their current supply because there are another 200 they can get later down the line.

[@LibertyMonk]

Yeah, speedrunners never have a hording issue because they steep themselves in knowledge about the game until they get a time they're happy with. It also takes 40-hour games and turns them into permadeath rougelikes, where items are only good for a run and are "easy" to collect. Games have to balance the need to inform players how the world works and how ok they'll be using consumables with the need to surprise them and maintain suspension of disbelief. I don't think I've ever seen "x or this item exists" in a game before, unless it's one-of-a-kind or a mythical collectable.

[@eddiemate]

OceanFlex Gamer Yeah, and it would be very strange to see a specific number regarding an item. Especially in game, being told "There's only 8 of this thing" is weird because if it’s an NPC/book then how do they know? If it’s an item then how did my character know? It wouldn’t make sense.

[@CraZCraft]

@@LibertyMonk The only time I've seen a similar mechanic was with the rewind clocks in bowser's inside story where it told you there was only a finite amount, it didn't specify how many, but it just said there was a limited amount... so obviously I never used one.

[@Jikkuryuu]

I run into this when I'm participating in the FF5 Four Job Fiesta. I'm not a speedrunner, but I've beaten the game a bunch of times and know the threats I'm going to face. It helps that Elixirs are a rare drop from one of the earliest enemies in the game, I know I'm never _really_ going to run out. I can credit the fiesta for really relaxing my item hoarding tendencies in every game. As it turns out, a lot of devs want you to beat their games and will provide you with assistance in the form of conveniently-located items.

[@akiradkcn]

lmao no, stat boosters in pokemon are fucking useless 90% of the time

[@udime123]

I love Kingdom Hearts 2 and 3's approach to MP. Your MP recharges when you run out, but ONLY when you run out, which means that if you want to get back to full MP, you have to cast more spells instead of less. Furthermore, Cure always costs your remaining MP, so if you're low on HP and you have half your MP left, you're encouraged to try to sneak in a few more spells before healing, since the more MP you have left when you use Cure, the more MP you "waste".

[@nozomechanm5169]

Yep! Combine that with the fact that ethers are easily buyable at a fair price and you have one of my favorite magic systems in any game series! This is a far cry from Final Fantasy which always seems to make ethers unbuyable or prohibitively expensive. Though I do like the way they handled ethers, mega potions, and Phoenix downs in FF7 remake buy always having them on sale at every vending machine!

[@CharlotteMimic]

I agree! When I was a kid though, I was terrified of needing to use Cure when my MP was recharging, so I never used any other magic just to be sure I could always use Cure if I needed to xD

[@seangoldman6833]

I'm the opposite when it comes to KH. In KH1 I constantly used magic because the game recharges the MP as you attack enemies so I never worried about not having enough for an emergency heal. Not using the mp for spells means you're wasting mp recharge. In KH2 the fact that mp doesn't recharge until the gauge is emptied pushed me to not use magic because I always want to have an emergency Cure just in case.

[@shitemastermike]

i always just set mp charge to only work with magnet so i always had a cure, i really like both systems for what they were (especially 1 were your mp is also your mag str), i wish 3 combined the two like how kool would it have been if you had the MP charge by atk of the 1st with the auto charge of the 2nd

[@TheOneMillionthRoger]

I like how in Sekiro, divine grass is really useful, but there's literally 2 of it in the entire game, so there's never a situation where it's useful enough to outweigh the risk. Same with the bundled jizo statue and dragon's blood droplet.

[@BingBangPoe]

"Hi everyone, my name is Brad and I've been item hoarding in RPGs for 15 years..."

[@Alaneeeeee]

"Hi Brad"

[@lostmarble540]

Don't talk to me or my 87 greater mana potions ever again. (not even playing a magic user class)

[@dream_weaver6207]

Me: How am I supposed to afford this? Game: Just Sell your mana potions. Me: But I might need them! Game: You haven't put a sigle skillpoint into magic. Your spells deal no damage.

[@cericat]

@@dream_weaver6207 but my melee skills still require MP despite that making no sense.

[@tehzerp]

I have to disagree about being able to keep less items makes it more likley to use those items. I've always found it to be the exact opposite. If i can only hold 5 of an item, and I do not know when I can next get another of that item I will horde it all the more for the few chances when I REALLY need it. Where as if I have 70 of an item I feel far more comfortable using it as there is not a scarcity of it. The best way to deal with hording in my mind is to make all the items far more available and affordable so if you use that item its no big deal I'll grab another for a pittance. Though this can break difficulty depending on the game.

[@aquapendulum]

"If i can only hold 5 of an item, and I do not know when I can next get another of that item I will horde it all the more" This is the actual issue, not the item limit. You not knowing when you will get another one of that item is the real reason why you hesitate to use them.

[@AlphaSquadZero]

If I can only hold 5 items then I make sure to always hold 4 of them, so when I do find another I can use it at the earliest relatively useful scenario. If the game is hard enough I will use it when things get tougher, but I will hold 1 or 2 for when I'm on death's door.

[@LutraLovegood]

The best way I saw of doing limited items is in Fell Seal: you start with items being limited by 1 or 2 use per fight each instead of having an entire stock of items. Early fights you can use potions twice per fight, pheonix feather once, etc. But out of fights you can upgrade them so you can use them more often and strengthen them (potions go from 50hp to 75 to 100, etc).

[@QuintaFeira12]

Fucking stickers in Sticker Star. Of course you're going to avoid combat and hold on to your "Thing" attacks.

[@_GLXC]

i think you just want to think about it differently. I remember playing through SMT4 and ended up finding a use for a lot of consumables, partly because of the higher difficulty of gameplay and the fact that it hurts to come across a rare consumable, only to then realize that im full and can't take it. even small scale consumables found use where a lot of them in combination equated to a big heal, making them useful when you're outside of battle and cant use your healing abilities

[@TamsmitSam]

Games where you lose all the consumables you used after a game over really encourage hoarding too. Like in Mother 3, after your party faints and you reload the save, you lose everything you used up during a battle. Though unlike a lot of other games, it's balanced out in Mother 3 by a general abundance of most usable items.

[@NA-xp2cr]

I hated this in Zelda BotW

[@devonwilliams5738]

I'm reminded of Chuggaconroy's story about Mario and Luigi Partners in Time. He didn't want to run out of MP when fighting a boss, so he only ever used magic on bosses, and won every normal encounter just by mashing the attack button.

[@PB-N-Jenny]

Lmao I had that issue with the first few bosses in Superstar Saga where I only used Bro moves during bosses for fear of not having Bro Points for bosses but then I was like "Wait I'm not using these moves too well I need to practice so I can get the most damage" and now I'm always using them to stay good at the timing

[@devonwilliams5738]

@@PB-N-Jenny Not even the worst thing he ever did in that game. Only leveling up HP (not the only person to have ever done this, funnily enough), not checking shops later in the game incase they stock up with better items is another one.

[@PB-N-Jenny]

@@devonwilliams5738 Oh I remember lmao I used to love watching him play Superstar Saga and Partners in Time

[@sinfulhealer2110]

"i won the game, yay" *despises the game*

[@Zohnedout]

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone acknowledge the Persona Franchise when it comes to anti-hoarding behavior. Because any amount of time in the dungeon takes only one Timeslot in the game's time system, it encourages players to actively stay in the dungeons for as long as possible, so that they can spend more timeslots out of the dungeon getting additional story, or making themselves and their allies stronger. Because of this, when you're running low on resources in a dungeon, you start to look at your stockpile of consumables as a way to extend your time in the dungeon, rather than to extend your time in a bossfight.

[@dynamicworlds1]

Yup, much like the inventory space solution, it's about changing what your players are optimizing for. Change what is relatively scarce, and behavior will change from there.

[@nybxcrotona]

Within base Persona 5, I found that I would stay in dungeons until I was low on HP early game, and then SP once I had someone that can heal. Problem was, was that SP restoring items weren't too common, and by the time I got SP-restoring accessories, I was just hoarding all my consumables. They needed SP-restoring items to be more common.

[@badtiming2208]

I also appreciate when Persona tells me something is there just to be sold. "Good, I clean my inventory up."

[@garansbabarans]

Persona 5 made me use one of my most expensive consumables, Time.

[@ryn7782]

@@nybxcrotona note, most palaces in P5 can be cleared relatively easily in one day on any difficulty and the SP item scarcity encourages players to use other tactics than "Let's use -dyne spells and sweep" and to regularly switch up party formation to save resources. I'd say try clearing palaces on your first day (or as far as you can get due to story) by rotating party members and using physical skills and the gun system to clear rooms it makes the game much more fun.

[@MiloKuroshiro]

Really, what the hell were they thinking with Sticker Star

[@Triforce_of_Doom]

honestly the worst part of Sticker Star's formula is how it does not do a good job, if any job, of telegraphing that bosses are essentially puzzles with how they introduce Megasparkle Goomba. There are practically no hints that you need fan or scissors for that fight before said fight has started & when that is the first boss of the game, that's a problem.

[@steveh1474]

@@Triforce_of_Doom AND, when you "fail" the mechanic of "solving the puzzle" but still beat the boss, Kirsti will ridicule you that there "mustve been an easier way" but wont hint towards what or why. they dont tell you anything, and they tell you youre wrong and bad, because you didnt already know the answer. its absurd.

[@Stephen-Fox]

@@rhowiththeflow3889 In theory, sure. But combat in RPGs are (usually) resource drains at the best of times, and when the resource drain doesn't correspond with a resource gain you can't get elsewhere, engaging with combat at all is a hard sell. No matter how fun the combat system is, even in ones where attacks don't use resources.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Easy. They weren’t thinking. Or rather, they were thinking the ability to have single-use items and punishing puzzle bosses work well together.

[@painedfetus8210]

the game was intentionally designed to make you run away from everything and save stickers for bosses. Bad design.

[@ookazi1000]

My friends at me in minecraft: I think you have enough cobblestone. Me, sat atop my throne built from 60+ double chests full of cobblestone: Moar.

[@dnomy]

Try modded minecraft. Hoarding gets even worse there.

[@TheLegless101]

Then some random dude on the server wants to buy 50 dubs of cobblestone for some reason.

[@Fluffkitscripts]

Every time I start a building project I’m always surprised by the amount of blocks I need, so maybe keeping ridiculous amounts of stuff is a good thing.

[@ookazi1000]

@@Fluffkitscripts No, you don't understand. I don't have these chests to build things. I have these chests to have these chests.

[@ShibuNub3305]

I R E Q U I R E M O R E M A T E R I A L S.

[@InMaTeofDeath]

I started hoarding in games due to a little game called The Legend of the Dragoon which only allowed you to carry 32 Items total for the ENTIRE 4 DISC GAME. After that If I can pick something up and keep it for later I do.

[@Dhalin]

This is a good point too -- there's a trope for this, and it is called "Inventory Management Hell". And these games tend to make the player breathe a huge sigh of relief when they play another game that doesn't do that, and yes, we tend to hoard items when those limitations are suddenly lifted. Though, at least in LoD's defense, it wasn't 32 items total, it was 32 usable items, 32 weapons, 32 armors, and 32 accessories. So at least your weapons and armor weren't counting against the 32 consumable limit. But that didn't help much when nearly every stupid enemy dropped weak ass magic attack items that DID take up precious room and the UI at the end of battle was atrocious. "Enemy dropped a rock." "Your inventory is full!" "Discard this or drop one of your items?" "Discard" "Are you sure?" **Siiiiiigh I just wanna end the battle before I forget which way I was going in this dungeon, kthx....**

[@dragoniraflameblade]

Yeah, you can get thru most of the game without using items thanks to the Guard system if you use it right (one guard; two fight and switch if things go south). I did a soft challenge run to see if I could keep from using items and Dragoon form. I was also doing a 100% run. At east Four bosses required item use (Divine Dragon stands out in my memory).

[@elienkoy2924]

Imagine in secret of mana where you could only have FOUR of each item

[@Dhalin]

@@elienkoy2924 SoM was mechanically balanced around that though. You had 99MP Max and you didn't really need magic for most common mooks and the bosses you could go all-out on and there wasn't much else to spend the girl's magic on. So for all intents and purposes, the girl had 49 Cure Water casts and each was like 80%+ healing for the whole group. If you need a full-heal more than 49 times in one dungeon..... go get some levelups lol.

[@alexandersen1372]

LoD hype!! i bought my ps1 copy thinking it was actually a fire emblem game (i was a kid at the time and going off of what i saw in the eldest son of my parents friends room. i only saw gameplay and boy was i suprised when it was a different game :P) love/hate that combo system, VOLCANO!!!

[@gyrhunt]

I think my favorite is the Dark Souls/regenerating resource thing. One of the problems that encourages hoarding is that if you're already struggling to get through a thing, and you use a consumable, it's gone and your next attempt is -even harder- or impossible without grinding or something because now you don't have it. Regenerating resources encourages experimentation because there's no 'cost' outside of this specific attempt(or stage, or encounter). Coming from a tradition of tabletop gaming, the same is true. Regenerating bonuses often see more use from players than tasty 'use once and it's gone' things cause it's never the right time. Players are more open to using what you give them and engaging with whatever item use mechanic there is if items are either plentiful or regenerating.

[@BandanaDrummer95]

One of my favorite anti-hoarding techniques is to make it easier to get the items if you have fewer of them. If it's noticeable, it ends up giving you a soft cap, and it feels less wasted than a hard cap

[@EzloMinish]

I remember a weird version of this from when I was a teenager: Sonic Rush (no wait hear me out) I think it was the first sonic game to make the boost bar a main gameplay feature, charging it up and consuming it to get a speed boost and semi-invulnerability from a lot of enemies. You could charge up to 3 bars, which my young hoarder brain could have dealt with, but there was an extra layer: when you maxed out the third bar, it would glow. While the boost bar is glowing you can boost for as long as you want, but when the glow fades (after 10-15 seconds or so) you lose an entire bar at once, even if you only use the boost a little. It's a pretty cool way of encouraging the gameplay that makes the game fun: boost a ton while killing enemies and doing tricks to refresh the glow for basically unlimited boost power to blast through the level. I did not do this. I *always* waited until the bar stopped glowing so that I could guarantee a 1:1 cost to use ratio, thank you very much. I eventually broke the habit and realised how much better the game was if you made use of all of the mechanics (who'da thunkit) but it took a while because the situation of losing more boost than I'd used felt *so bad* to me.

[@SobutaiPlays]

I just like seeing the "99" next to everything. In FF I do everything in my power to just use magic and never use my items so they can stay at their cap or keep building them up.

[@laytonjr6601]

Getting all weapons at 99 is very expensive, I confess I grinded a lot.

[@justinwhite2725]

Using magic costs MP. I do everything in my power to finish fights without using resources.

[@jeffd.683]

@@justinwhite2725 FFVI: *laughs in Osmose*

[@Urthdigger]

Another example of hoarding I've seen is on a more micro level: Holding on to powerful abilities with a cooldown "just in case." Even though the ability may be infinite use, the idea of not having it for an emergency that may never come may drive some players to never use them at all. I play a healer in FFXIV, and the biggest thing that helped me improve was realizing that I should get over this behavior, that using these cooldowns now means I have a better chance of NOT getting into a dangerous situation later, and that if I only use them during a clear emergency they may not be enough to salvage it anyway.

[@teecee1827]

Or see it as efficient. If you use it soon after the cooldown ends, then you get more uses out of it in a set time frame than if you use it sparingly. You get more "value" out of it.

[@blackRupee]

@@teecee1827 this is exactly how youre supposed to heal in ffxiv. you exist to dps as much and possible and heal as little as necessary, so you are absolutely encouraged to use healing ogcds like indom, sacred, essential, co, ci, etc. gcd healing is a dps loss

[@MrSuckeragi]

I had this problem for a long time and now do the opposite I cast long cool down skills asap as I can use them because doing the math that means I get to enjoy them more in my playthrough.

[@One.Zero.One101]

This is the exact same problem with per-mission abilities in XCOM. You have this powerful ability but you can only use it 2 times per mission. 90% of the time I finish the mission without using the ability once, because I don't know how many enemies are left in the map and I'm saving it for an emergency.

[@MercuryEclipse54]

I'm a really big fan of how the Etrian Odyssey series fights hoarding. With difficulty and limited inventory space that makes it feel almost like a survival horror game, your gameplay is paced around exploring until your inventory is full of enemy materials, returning to town, selling them all and continuing. If you're keeping a ton of old healing items around, you can't keep exploring as long or get as many of the enemy drops that let you improve your equipment. The "crafting" system is also tied to selling your collectable materials to the shop, so not only do your crafting materials not take up inventory space, it doesn't feel like a waste if you don't use them-you can't keep track of what the shop has stock of outside of what you need to get your next piece of equipment. Each area has a predictable endpoint with a boss, usually every four or five floors, and the difficulty generally incentivizes using your nicer items for those fights.

[@franciscodelico]

A great anti-hording technique in games with crafting is a Wishlist. In Moonlighter, as long as you have 1 item to craft something, you can add it to your wishlist, and after that, any item needed to craft that will be marked with a star. You can wishlist as much stuff as you want, so you may just wishlist a whole weapon-progression tree and save anything you need in advance, but sell/use everything else.

[@redlunatic2224]

I've been playing P5R and I find that having the days go by makes me much less likely to hoard because I want to push ahead instead of letting time pass even if that means using resources. I imagine that limited saves or time sensitive events can have a similar effect.

[@Vinicius0560]

In the original P5 I always saw myself using SP healing items just to push further in the dungeon (well, until having SP Adhesives...), in P5R I didn't even need the SP Adhesives, the Will Seeds always appear when I am about to use any healing item. By the end I had coffee from the beginning of the game...

[@redlunatic2224]

@@Vinicius0560 it's true that the will seeds help quite a bit, but I still find myself trembling after some red shadows. I could be smart, reload and prepare, but I enjoy the extra challenge.

[@ButterscotchPenguin]

With ryuji’s insta kill skill ive never even gotten close to needing sp items

[@Vinicius0560]

@@redlunatic2224 I kinda over-prepare, it was a pain to get a game over in Persona 3 or 4, having to start from the last save (and if you didn't save for a while... Oh boy...). So I reflexively prepare before a dungeon in any Persona game just to be safe.

[@JAWA63]

I hoarded somas and never once used them. It was really a bruh moment because I took some time buying it from jose at times... the reason is because I just clear palaces in one-two days the moment it’s accessible. Ryuji’s insta-kill helps a ton and coffee making is re-balanced to make it more usable for a palace rush. I become over leveled in a lot of cases that somas are deemed useless to me now.

[@MrNovascar]

Xenoblade has an other system to prevent hording. It tells you what you need. Every item that is/will be required for a quest is marked. Maybe hard to implement an explanation like Xenoblade with its "I can see the futere"-stuff.

[@Wuscheli0]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the game only tells you about some relevant items but not all of them, which would make hoarding still an issue.

[@lykalykoi]

@@Wuscheli0 Pretty much every other item it doesn't warn you about in advance is pretty common to find, and others can simply be found using the item tracking system in DE. I've been throwing items around as gifts to raise Affinities forever and so far I've encountered no real roadblocks in completing side quests.

[@toooydoeur]

@@lykalykoi it is actually a real issue because it doesn't tell you about half the stuff and some can be hard to find

[@toooydoeur]

@@Wuscheli0 you're right, half the time a vision doesn't appear making hoarding still an issue

[@Phoenixmage50]

TheCrazyNintendoMan ! If you need an item for a quest, you can find it quite easily with the quest tracker, so thats a non-issue. With the collectopaedia, thats also not an issue because you get one and immediately put it into there. Hoarding isn't an issue in XCDE.

[@magicsword49]

Final Fantasy has another problem: elixirs are often non-renewable. Related to the point on Dark Souls, but not exactly the same. There is a number of them in the game, and that's it. If I'm in a situation where "I could need it more later", I should be able to say, "Well, I can always grind for another if I really have to." That little extra push would go a long way to making the decision to use the item.

[@zoealanna3603]

Pokemon has a similar problem. PP restoring items are rarely, if ever, available for purchase. So you end up never using Elixirs or Ethers because the alternative - to just go to a Pokemon Center and heal that way - isn't going to use the items. I think that lends itself to another point. Systems that make nonrenewable items redundant just promote hoarding even more. Why heal yourself with items when there's a building dedicated to healing on every corner?

[@tristanneal9552]

Pyroclasticman Pokemon also has a limited number of Max Revives that can be found in the wild per game and that afaik are not able to be purchased anywhere. Once you use em, they’re gone forever. What’s weird about PP restoring items is that it doesn’t even make sense for them to be that rare. Because of the frequency of Pokémon centers it’s rare to ever run out of PP, and even when you do I don’t see that being much worse than any status condition, so I can’t understand the reasoning behind making Ethers/Elixers so rare. In 20 years I’ve probably used like 3 tops.

[@Dhalin]

I think most of the newer Final Fantasy games.......6? onward has ways of getting infinite elixirs. Usually by stealing from enemies or the coliseum in #6. Granted, it's a lot of work usually but then an item that full-heals HP and MP should take a bit of work to get.

[@steveh1474]

Elixirs actually ARE renewable in every FF game except 13. you can buy them in FF1, 2, 5, 8, and 15. bribe monsters in FF10 to get tons, basically a straight conversion of money into elixirs, same as buying. you can steal them from some late game monsters in 3, 4, 7, and 9. 11 and 14 are MMOs, so just buy them from other players. 12 had respawning treasure chests, and tons of ways to get more elixirs through monsters and the bazaar. FF13 had 4 elixirs, and 0 megalixirs. the elixirs were missable, with 2 of them being gone for good if you didnt grab the Doc Codes, or sold them. so really, just use them. why do you say they were "often non-renewable" when they were always infinite?

[@magicsword49]

@@steveh1474 Ah, my mistake. I guess I didn't scrub through the games as thoroughly as I thought I had when I played them. Most of the sources are pretty rare drops, so I guess I never got lucky or missed them from clicking through the menus.

[@checkmate058]

DON'T have items that are "Use to win." In no instance where I used a powerful item correctly did I feel clever or smart. It feels shallow, like I robed myself of a challenge. Also items that are also necessary and finite aren't fun either. The Divine Confetti in Sekiro is basically REQUIRED to fight some key bosses. The confetti is a rare drop early in the game that allows full damage to be dealt to spirit type enemies, who are a very common type of boss by the way! Its finality means there are only so many proper attempts one can make at a boss before grinding for more. It could of been a recharging item like the anti curse potion but no. And to add insult the game gives you the ability to buy more AFTER beating the hardest spirit enemy in the game!

[@Bulletproof222]

Divine Confetti isn't required to beat the game though. I'd say it's really only required while fighting the Headless, but they're optional and aren't even worth the trouble imo.

[@RaycerkGamer]

Yeah, divine confetti isn't mandatory, the apparitions are optional mostly. I never had a problem with running out of confetti because those were easy to farm in Ashina Castle.

[@calvinmills4069]

I totally agree. The last time I played pokemon, I had 8 masterballs. I passed them up through each generation, but would never use them. Maybe for a shiny? But how often do you really have that chance.

[@ifergot]

I feel like this is something the video misses. There's 1) usefulness of the item and 2) rarity of item. People like to use low level, less rare items because it's practical to use them. There isn't much of a chance to use high level items unless you're in a really dire moment. Sure you could limit storage space and do everything around storage, but what about actually creating situations where players have a reason to use rare items???

[@the333gamer333]

Yeah, I think Devil May Cry 3 specifically scarred me when I was younger, considering that game hits you with a "ur bad lmao" whenever you use an item because you're struggling

[@PangolinMontanari]

The Precipice of Darkness series had an interesting take on RPG items in its later entries- items refilled to their max after each battle. Finding a single potion in the overworld was a big deal because that meant you could use one more potion in battle, which itself would regenerate. Combined with the fact that all battles were predetermined encounters, it made each of them almost like an HP management puzzle.

[@magnocicanto]

One thing that it help is keep just a few type of itens. Instead of a potion that heals 100 points of HP, it heals 30% of HP, so it is still useful later in the game. Or limiting other resources, so you have to use items.

[@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz]

percentage healing is my spirit animal

[@Nukestarmaster]

Grim Dawn has only one type of health potion and one kind of spirit (mana) potion.

[@marceeeeeeel1030]

I really like this style of video, presenting a game design problem, showing examples of games which fail to solve it, others which succeed or avoid it entirely and then analyzing why for each example. Pretty nice video overall !

[@cmrunicorn]

"the elite 4 using full restores is bs" -me, shaking nervously as 20 full restores sit in my bag untouched

[@ARSP333]

I find that having the consumable in question be fairly easy to replace solves hoarding for me. Remnant from the ashes for instance, aside from a few items in particular, all the consumable largely only need scrap to replace. So I just stop by the store when I'm out of bandages or bloodwort, or ammo boxes

[@blazera]

5:34 I feel like there's no reason I should get the reference for "what am I saving fooooor!?" but I did

[@Patrick-ValBlanc]

Every now and then, I am surprised that arrow to the knee references are still being made. And then I remember X4.

[@PlentyofFodder]

So in the video you mentioned that Xenoblade has no in battle consumables. i want to talk about the items and materials that you can collect, however. So in the world of Xenoblade, you can find little blue orbs all across the map that represent individual items. they have a couple of different uses, you can grab one of each of these different orbs, compile them into a book of collectables and get equipment from them, they can be used in trades to get other items, or you can straight up sell them. the problem, however, is that often times these items are also required for quests, and theres no way of knowing which items are required, or how many, until you happen to stumble upon a given quest. Xenoblade's solution to this is... well, they straight up tell you when you pick up an item that there'll be a quest later that requires this item, so you should hold onto it, and that item, will have an exclamation mark next to it in your inventory. The game conveys this by giving Shulk a vision of the future. Granted, most other games don't have characters that get visions of the future that would make this work narratively speaking, but theres no reason they couldn't just forgo the narrative convenience and just have a pop up on the screen saying "hey you should hold onto this item for a quest later". I'm surprised that ten years after the game came out, that to my knowledge, no other game has done this for their own game.

[@SaberToothPortilla]

The main way I try to temper my hoarding is thinking about it in terms relative to how many I have. Example, maybe I have 4 Elixers, and I'm contemplating using one, I'd ask "Am I okay with using 25% of my stock". It's clear how impactful using the item actually is. If you have a decent amount, you aren't losing much value in using it, so might as well. Of course it's all relative to the most extreme case, "When do you use the last one", but that's so far from hoarding that I don't think it really needs much consideration as being an issue. In the case that it's *known* that there's only one, you'll have to use the last one eventually, and if you can potentially get another, no harm in saving it.

[@grammarmaid]

I do something very similar. I tend to keep an arbitrary "backstock" of stackable items in games which allow large stacks. Don't allow the Hi-potions to get lower than 5. Don't let your Antidotes get lower than 10. But anything over that arbitrary limit is free use at any time I please. This way I soothe hoarders' anxiety, but can still actually use the damn items when I need them. If I am forced into a situation where I need to consume items past my backstock limit, then I know for certain I really needed them AND I still have a few left over afterwards!

[@namenlos4198]

Then you get punshed by a sidequest saying you need x but you have by your backstock only k

[@SaberToothPortilla]

@@namenlos4198 Yeah, that does happen quite a bit. I guess that's less of a concern in games where consumables aren't normally, if ever, used as quest items, but this also applies to crafting materials, and those are *very* common as quest items.

[@joorak6366]

Games like Escape from Tarkov and Hunt Showdown have a hoarding issue we call Gear Fear When you go into a match, if you die, your gear is lost permanently. Winning gets you money to buy more weapons and items, but a lot of new players are too scared to spend their money on good gear. So they hoard all their funds and store all the good gear they get and never use it because if they die, it's gone.

[@Malroth00Returns]

Pretty much the entire design space of Eve online, the first thing a veteran will tell a new player is to never undock any ship you aren't ready to immediately see explode.

[@masterofdoom5000]

I use items as I see scenarios that would need them appropriately, if I never get so dumped on that a full 100% heal on both HP and MP is very much needed it's never getting used. When I think about it that's not even a hoarding problem, that's a problem of overpowered healing items in a easy enough game.

[@etopowertwon]

I like how potion management done in Slay the Spire. By default you have just 3 spots for potions, so if you don't use them regularly and find a potion that you like more than you currently have, one of the potion is wasted.

[@glubritz]

I think one of my favorite examples for how item hoarding could be handled was in Devil Survivor 2. There's no in-battle items, but for demon fusions, you could use some items that were obtained as random battle rewards to boost stats or give access to skills on a demon you're about to fuse. They were rare, but you could only hold six. And due to their rarity, you could feel confident in using them when you're ready to. That, and they got better as the game progressed, making it so saving up old ones was less viable, as you'd rather make room for the better rewards.

[@hugofontes5708]

damn, that's awesome

[@deathshot7623]

I agree on this statement but my only problem is that the game doesn't tell you it's a one time used other than that the game is pretty great at it's time.

[@ceresgc]

"You can't hoard on rogelikes" until you put legacy mechanics in. "I would experiment with this weird build, but in my previous run I got a big legacy boost for this one, so I will take the true and tried build" and this run I again get a decent legacy boost... and another... and another one...

[@Nukestarmaster]

Yeah, I like my meta-progression permanent thank you very much.

[@Stephen-Fox]

@@Nukestarmaster I tend to prefer no meta-progression, honestly.

[@MrShukaku1991]

A weird pseudo-hoarding mechanic in a roguelike is the Note in the Wall in Slay the Spire. Basically, you put a Card in the slot, and there's a chance in future runs that you find the note and card, and can replace it with a new one. That is, until you put a card in there that fits a very niche build and you just can't take it out because you really want to do that build some time.

[@landis9767]

the damn blood vials in bloodborne

[@Nukestarmaster]

@@Stephen-Fox It's down to taste, some people like rogue-likes where the only progression is player skill, others like rogue-lites where no run is wasted.

[@dragofand]

You can buy Thing Stickers from a toad in the town btw. He's to the left of the area where you transform your things into usable stickers. They really should have done a better job at telling people about that option.

[@rainpooper7088]

Aren’t those fakes though? I know that in Color Splash, if you use a replica card on a boss, you lose because it’s not the original.

[@Chris-jx4ij]

Those are real. The cards you get from squeezing items at the port are also real. Only thing cards which you don't get from squeezing things are replica cards which don't work for bosses.

[@toooydoeur]

@@rainpooper7088 not in sticker star

[@toooydoeur]

@@lilylopnco better than what I'm think he thought he meant which is in the levels also besides backtracking there doesn't take long at all

[@CastorGaming]

My name is Castor, and I'm a hoarder. I can tell you exactly when it started too. Final Fantasy VIII. I did a full run of that game, refining every card into items, then into magic to buff my stats. Little did I realize that in doing so, I ended up locking myself out of Squall's final weapon because of how I played the game. In hindsight, I probably could have found another means to get the necessary items, but hindsight is 20/20. So, the thing is, in games like Pokemon, I rarely use healing items. At first, this was because of my natural tendency as a hoarder. But as time went on, and I got more and more used to the core loop of the game's battle system, I found myself longing for more difficulty. So, that hoarding actually helped me make the game harder for myself, and I enjoy that. In doing so, when I get into a truly sticky situation, I'm actually NOT afraid to use items anymore. When I was a kid, in Red and Blue, if I got poisoned or paralyzed, I just fought through it. Nowadays, I will heal that off immediately! But my favorite game of all time, Trials of Mana, fixes hoarding for me in a VERY clever way. You can stockpile up to 99 items, much like Final Fantasy. The best healing items (Poto Oil) are a dime a dozen, and can be bought fairly early in the game. HOWEVER, once you're in battle, you can only access the items on your current item ring menu, and you only have access to 9 of them at a time. To add to that, the vast majority of the items in the game are just proxies for the game's variety of magic spells, replicating their effects, and depending on your party, many items might be utterly useless, because the game regularly gives the players restore points. They explicitly built the item ring menu to be a utility belt of supplemental items to enhance what your party is naturally capable of.

[@ironer100]

One of my favorite ways i found to prevent hoarding is simply “atlus hard”... i’m half joking, in most rpg i hoard like a maniac every single consumables, but for the shin megami tensei, and especially persona and Tokyo mirage session, i SPAM those. I usually keep healing items and offensive item for missing type coverage of my team and healing in case my healer gets deleted... and most of the time 1 small mistake WILL cause a wipe so these item are often used in do or die situations

[@willd1790]

I've never played on Hard or higher but given how useful buffs/debuffs are and how late in the game you get efficient ways of getting them partywide, the items that give you a full party buff I just use whenever I need them. I don't do that in other games, even ones where it's still a good idea.

[@ironer100]

@@willd1790 It's an old comment, had to reread that, but yhea late game it does get much easier with the buffs/debuffs and other things you have, but in the case of the early parts, my comment still applies fairly well

[@dragofand]

Also in Monster Hunter world you can downgrade equipment you've made in the past and get all the parts back. This is great if you wanna try various weapons but they all require a certain part. No need to choose just one or grind. Just choose them all.

[@sacredyveltal4688]

Yeah, that mechanic is very useful! Man, I miss my palico! I've not been able to play because of the quarantine :( (Sorry for bringing that up, I couldn't help it)

[@alxjones]

I didn't know that! To be fair, I never really explored the mechanics of that game since it was considerably easier than past games IMO. I do need to go back for Iceborne though, I've heard that has some real challenges.

[@alan-daniel]

@@alxjones Iceborne (and Master Rank/G rank in general, essentially another tier that's traditionally been the real Monster Hunter endgame that exists after the low rank -> high rank system from the base game) is DEFINITELY more difficult than base game. The monster AI becomes much more aggressive, including the base game monsters. It's an incredible expansion that easily doubles the amount of content in MHW. Go play it ASAP. Trust me. Edit: it's also getting more content next week: a new (to MHW) elder dragon is coming, which will ultimately raise the number of elder dragons in the game from 7 in base game to 17, though a few of those new ones are closely related but different versions of base-game elders - like a new Nergigante called Ruiner Nergigante that's just a souped-up Nerg.

[@L7vanmatre]

For some reason I was under the impression that you had to pay parts+money to get it reverted. That's actually really cool, once I get back to the game I just might do that, thanks for sharing!

[@appelofdoom8211]

Me and weapons in fire emblem have this dynamic. Unless i can freely buy/repair a weapon i rarely use it. A lot of the early games in the series have a early joining paladin that comes with a silver lance. Said silver lance will always rot in my inventory until i can actually buy silver weapons. Three houses thankfully let me do just that and repair every weapon in the game using common resources. Except the legendary weapons. Those require is special resource you have to farm: as a result the lance of ruin was sitting in my convoy from chapter 5 till the final map on my blue lions run.

[@alinaj5278]

I have the exact same problem, I don't think I used a relic in FE:3H even once. What made it worse was that I always had my units carry them around in their inventory because "What if something goes wrong and I'll need just a little extra damage" but that just never happened. I honestly have the same problem with regular weapons and always check what the weakest one that I can use is even though by the end I was swimming in money and materials. As a result all of my units had three or four different weapons of the same type in their inventory. Hoarding at its finest.

[@bens5093]

I find that playing on harder difficulties helps you break the hoarding habit. In games like FE6 and FE7, it is much more difficult to survive a map without using your paladin and their better weapons which guides the player in learning how to use their strong resources judiciously

[@sunnyeong]

I would argue that there are reasons not to hoard in Three Houses, given that there are some instances where weapons are repaired for no cost at all. The Sword of Creator gets repaired twice and all weapons that are on the character's inventory slot gets repaired during the timeskip. Using that knowledge in mind I feel more at ease to use combat arts with the relic weapons before timeskip as they will be repaired after timeskip for no cost.

[@anonononononymoushippopopo5673]

Hahaha, it did the exact opposite for me. Oh broken weapons don't vanish now? Guess who's beating the game with only broken training weapons. Doesn't that I have a tendency to 100% games.

[@Timmio.]

@@bens5093 harder difficulties don't do too much. Neither fe6 nor fe7 is hard enough to warrant really using strong weapons. Apart from certain (often stationary) bosses, most of the times you're doing just fine with iron weapons (that usually one round anyway, for at least your good units). Apart from that. Fe6 also heavily encourages hoarding, albeit only for the legendary weapons, as losing any of those items loses you the Best ending in that game

[@Rpground]

My technique to stop hoarding is to hoard SO MUCH that it loops back around into itself to the point that I literally can't run out of them anymore. Can't run out of resources if those resources are technically infinite.

[@lincolnmiller4757]

In Omori, battles are hard enough that using items is often a great option. For example, some bosses try to gain an advantage by manipulating party members' emotions, so using the right item can turn the tide of battle.

[@onadaTotihotiH]

I feel the Tales of games kinda have the wrong idea when it comes to items since yea, they do have rather low hard limits on what you can carry, but at the same time, they actively discourage using items in battle since it gives you a Grade penalty for every item that you use

[@artman40]

Limited inventory can actually be detrimental, especially by having items appear much faster than players could use. And it still might cause a player to throw away a rare item because they already had one.

[@ifandbut]

The same issues are with "per-rest spells" in CRPGs. I always find myself holding onto my spells way too long cause I never know when I will be able to get them back or when I might absolutely need them.

[@utes5532]

"hoarding behavior goes away in roguelikes" Could you send my brain an email about that or something because I will cling tooth and nail onto any and all consumables possible until I'm against the final boss, even if it makes my run that much more painful.

[@arnvonsalzburg5033]

Collecting the random items needed to be able to beat nethack always killed the fun of it for me :-/

[@RavenousAardvark]

I love your mention for giving players information in the game that they will otherwise look up online anyway. Collectible maps in open world games have been a brilliant addition for someone like me who has absolutely printed off maps from the internet and manually crossed out each think I pick up. Spreading that idea to other areas of the design is a great idea.

[@sanfransiscon]

A fairly easy way to encourage rare item use in a classic JRPG is to just stock them in shops for high prices, or make them less rare enemy drops later in the game. Simply letting the player know that a certain consumable item can eventually be obtained infinitely will relieve a lot of the pressure to hoard.

[@mrmarioscatman]

I really like the solution used in Astral Chain. You have two inventories composed of field items, and normal items. Field items have a cap of 99 each, but you lose all of them at the end of the chapter, so you're encouraged to use all of them before then. Even if you save every item you find that chapter until the boss, the games high difficulty means the fight doesn't become a cakewalk just because you hoarded. Normal can be kept between missions, but have much lower caps, typically from 3-9. This means you'll want to use some of your stock to avoid wasting any new items you pick up. It's a neat way to give the player a good amount of expendable items, while also allowing them to strategically bring some of their favorites to a difficult part of the game.

[@idealm477]

I love how The Witcher 3 handles crafting and consumables. When I started playing the game, I wasn't really using the bombs, oils and potions. But once I figured out that you only need to craft them once, and they then regenerate based on a very available resource (alcohol), you start using them a lot. Applying oils in every fight, using the various potions to your advantage. In a game built around knowing your enemies' strengths and weaknesses, and using your alchemy to adapt to things, it would've been really hurt if you ever felt the need to hoard. A major part of the game devoid of enjoyment for a lot of players. But this way, you still feel like you are constantly looking to craft new things and improve your alchemy, while never being afraid of running out

[@Insert.Oregano]

The Animal Crossing storage footage hit me pretty hard. I have almost 300 stones in my storage that I should probably sell most of

[@Airigh]

Craft it into an item (ie. a statue) and then sell that, it's more efficient. Especially if you get a stone-requiring item as a hot item.

[@Stephen-Fox]

I tend to just keep a stack of everything (except weeds. Only got 30 weeds)

[@jaywu4804]

Whoa man, what if you have to use them later?

[@Methrael]

Dragon Quest Builders 2 had an interesting system; once you ventured out to non-story islands and surveyed them completely, you had access to infinite of two crafting items specific to that island, like stone or iron. From that point on you never had to worry about going to get more to make a specific block or piece of equipment. Beyond that you could spend islander devotion points to re-purchase any item in the game.

[@lottedenboon6717]

I recently stopped hoarding branches in Animal Crossing New Horizons because my storage space is limited and branches can be shaken out of trees infinitely and now I'm always short on them and i need to 'grind'' shake the trees, so I started hoarding them again

[@gromigur]

I was really happy that Witcher 3 took a note from Dark Souls and made all potions refreshable for just one strong alkohol, but made me have an inventory full of ingridients in case the next stage of the potion would require it.

[@One.Zero.One101]

Exactly. When I saw I had 3 stacks of strong alcohol, I realized how common it was and that's when I started using potions lol.

[@SarcasticTentacle]

"Xenoblade Chronicles has no items to hoard" [Laughs in colony 6]

[@orangejuice3235]

Bronze wood gave me ptsd. Would’ve been nice if definitive edition let you track the materials for the quests, but they’re just as annoying as vanilla.

[@ultima2399]

@@orangejuice3235 I mean if I'm being honest I like that you don't track it. You have to explore for it. I never understood why games have these big open worlds when people always want to be told exactly where to go and what to do like a delivery boy.

[@PTp1ranha]

Ultima That’s partly true, but I’ve found that knowing how to get something and actually achieving it are two very different things.

[@_GLXC]

those items aren't really consumable, meaning its not really the same problem. you only need to use them once, and you dont ever use em again, so there is no real remorse for using it or not. at most, you'll need an item 2 times or multiple copies of an item to complete a quest.

[@orangejuice3235]

The rarity of some of the items (ice cabbage) almost guarantees backtracking even after fully exploring the areas. Later in the game, for spoiler reasons, some of the areas get sealed off and because of it the only way to get said items (if you miss a specific quest giver) is to find them as much rarer collectables in colony 6.

[@beeniecat9411]

Item hoarding sometimes makes me feel all powerful. As long as I'm paying attention, at times I overestimate myself and take on bosses I don't realize I'm up against a super boss and I'm both not strong enough and I'm wasting time delaying the inevitable.

[@doubleg281]

I like how tunic handled it. Every 10th consumable used gave you a reusable version that recharged at checkpoints. Consumable versions weren't used till you ran out of the reusable.

[@th-bk8ez]

I remember playing an Atelier game a few years ago. I can’t remember the specific game’s name, but it has a system where you need to collect items to craft better items. However, every action, including gathering, individual turns in battle, and even crafting, caused time to progress. You need crafted items to beat the bosses and finish story quests, but if you take too long, you won’t meet deadlines like catching a boat or finding a traveler before they leave, and you can’t get the good ending. It definitely stopped me from hoarding and over gathering, but it was also super anxiety inducing.

[@cericat]

It's easier to list the Atelier games without time pressure TBH. It's something of a peeve since the limits in games often aren't obvious and are fail states you're not expecting.

[@princelykei]

One of my friends hoards in their mmo to the point they pay a bunch extra a month JUST to have more storage space for their craftables xP it makes me sad and frustrated bc FFXIV could do so much better with their crafting to avoid it

[@diersteinjulien6773]

In my opinion, the huge amount of crafting materials in FF14 is a design choice to push players toward using the in-game auction house. What's the point in hoarding an item that you can buy for a cheap handful of gils? It's just very hard to balance that since it involves player economy

[@Christopher-eq1rn]

tis the life of an omnicrafter

[@facetween513]

There's so many stuff in FFXIV that you basically can't just get away with 2 retainers as an omnicrafter sadly, even when you're not hoarding

[@TeaquestSagas]

I havent specificly thought about this yet, but I know it from myself, so... What I did in one instance when the player had no access to a shop anymore... I made sure to give a bigger amount of chests or some healing items lying around on tables. So if they forgot to shop beforehand they're not completely lost. But, if they DID shop, and they have x amount of said healing item, they will obtain gold instead. This gold is less than the price of the item, but since you can reinvest gold in any way you want and selling healingitems would loose you 50% of its price I think it's a pretty fair trade. This also happens really early in the game, so I hope I can take away the player's fear somewhat..

[@wouterW24]

I´m replaying octopath again, and I´m trying to hoard far less, especially when SP is involved. Holding on to SP restores is a habit I have because quite a few games have limited ether-type items, or they are too expensive to constantly use vs random encounter mobs. Even though the SP restorative in Octopath is always buyable, fairly affordable, and can stock to 99, during my first main playthrough I hardly used them. The game gives you a few SP regen tools and thieves can both steal and restribute SP. But once I realized it make zero sense at all I just resolved to be as petty as possible and spam the restoratives whenever possible. and it turns out you have to try really hard even make a sizable dent before you can stock up again. Octopath actually really lenient resource wise, but it shows just how strong a default hoarding habit can be. Players don't even always properly experiment if a resource turns scarce or not. Tales of teaches you to use the healing items often well enough. They cap out quickly, drop often from enemies an chests, but they are also percentage based. This means you eventually get a feeling of how much an item does for you. With many games using MP/SP, the healing items have a set point based value, which stresses people out whenever the more costly spells and abilities are involved. Because the value of items and spells changes throughout the game, it's easy to stay stuck some suboptimal or overly cautious approach that you needed before. With tales you quickly learn to use a lot of them to keep your combat going. Writing about it I think the gameplay cycles surrounding SP/MP are worthy of a video all on their own. So many games have both good and awkward gameplay system with spending and regaining them, and restoratives naturally a large part of it. With items in general, I wonder of a few players also just dislike basing their strategies around items in general, instead of mere hoarding. Quite often items are either a bit weak or a fallback option, or it's the reverse and your your potions are so efficient you never really need your fancy healing spells, which often look cooler/more plausible and can be more engaging to plan around. Compared to that items break immersion a bit, if the game isn't that centered around having to use them that is. For example Pokemon I eventually stopped using healing items mid battle entirely, unless the enemy trainer start using them, because they are so strong, and the setting makes it so easy to headcanon sportsmanship. It's something I also see other players around the web mention doing. And beyond mere healing items, you can also spam enough revival items outstall any storyline opponent, and you can buy strong stat boost inducing items as well. Since pokemon stat boosts are both stackable, and last for the remainder of the battle after,wards it snowballs quickly . recent games for some reason buffed to give a 2 stage boost, when even the single stage was strong enough. This is all slighty of topic, but it might be why players tend to only use items when they really have to.

[@christian5256]

Good thoughts. I felt the same way at first with Octopath Travel, because I love Final Fantasy so much. I just found myself needlessly hoarding the Spirit Plums. When I started using them more freely it felt really great! I agree that it's just not as fun to use items, though. Like imagine if all those consumable items were just straight stat-boosting items instead. Then your focus is back on what's fun: using abilities, managing BP, and balancing equipment/stats/jobs.

[@hotpawsmathsandscience3124]

item hoarding made games incredibly stressful when I was a kid (and I was an RPGs fan, too) and letting go of that desire to hoard made a lot of them a lot more enjoyable so this is actually a personal growth tool

[@ToadalChaos]

Horizon Zero Dawn exemplifies hoarding beautifully with its health regen systems. On the one hand you have your medicine puch, which you can refill relatively quickly but is limited. On the other, you have health potions, which are rare consumable items. Guess which I never used? The added bonus of the medicine pouch is that needing to look for herbs to refill it promotes exploration, which is super satisfying in the beautiful world of Horizon Zero Dawn.

[@YamiBakuraT3M0]

I see this problem in the cosmetic aspect of Ninjala: weapon's skins are consumables that only lasts one game, after that they disappear and you have to wait for another drop of that specific skin. It's such a shame because it discourages the use of the skins that you like because you never know when you'll have another drop again and what's the point on having awesome weapon's skins if they'll only gather dust in your inventory.

[@raquelfernandez5533]

I actually enjoy hoarding as a player? Like, the feel of having 80+ elixirs gives me peace of mind that I just can't get from real life.

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

I kinda agree for some games

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

I kinda agree for some games

[@noahmalburg1790]

I came down here to say this. My favorite anti-hoarding method is simply to stop treating it as a problem and accept it as how some players just prefer to play the game. I was certain someone already said it though, considering how long this video's been up.

[@Alaneeeeee]

I have like 300 explosive arrows in Breath of the Wild and I sometimes allow myself to use one or two for fun. I also go farm electric arrows at Zora's Domain because I just like having a ton lmao

[@bijnahonderdeuro]

Amusingly, the earlier Paper Mario handles this decently well. You have a small inventory and when you pick up too many, the game makes you quite literally throw away an item which feels like such a waste. On top of that there's a lot of damage going out, which is most easily mitigated using items or FP. Throwing a status on all enemies, restoring FP for a big AoE bomb or straight up using an AoE item that kills them is often the most turn efficient way of handling problems. ... That said when I first played the game when it came out I was running back to heart blocks and grinding levels instead. You could argue I was a dumb kid, but it is also kind of a sign just this is not exactly the perfect solution.

[@zjzr08]

You also have the tendency to use Mushroom or Honey Syrups then retrieve the thrown item so it still doesn't feel wasted.

[@introprospector]

Dynamic drops might help too. If a item dropped recently you can lower the drop rate for a while to discourage farming. Could also set up a ledger that tracks items dealt out and consumed and lowering/raising drop rates based on how many the player has access to. A ledger might work well for consumables and special items with specific constrained uses, but wouldn't work for crafting if you can immediately craft the drop into something else.

[@KevinTurner-aka-keturn]

Glad to see clear descriptions of how design choices influence these behaviors. Incentives to hoard have often led to me spending a lot of time in inventory management, which is rarely fun. Though I have to disagree on roguelikes as a category that discourages hoarding. You've clearly never seen one of us item-hoarders play Nethack.

[@superjinyaj1266]

This really helped! Did this in BOTW with the foods and weapons. I ended up never using half of them.

[@Blurns]

2:38 is when the promo ends.

[@patrickeid1689]

I think Pokémon fans can confirm we all have this problem with the master ball.

[@greatestcait]

I always just use it on a roaming legendary (or a regular legendary in the rare instances in which there are no roamers).

[@MiloKuroshiro]

I don't think so. Because you know the Master Ball is a unique item. You know it's function and how many you gonna get.

[@lewis9s]

Use it on a shiny or a legendary.

[@ugh5880]

I just use it on the pokemon I plan to put in my sixth slot

[@somestranger4287]

@@MiloKuroshiro you're never using it in case you'll need it more later. That's the definition of hoarding, though I see where your coming from

[@theunknowndrummer2972]

One of the best games that discourages hoarding is Lisa: The Painful (10/10 game not just for this). It does this through two main methods. 1) the game is HARD. One of the hardest RPGs i’ve ever played. without using the items you get, you’re party will wipe to even the basic enemies. and in Lisa even if a single character KOs, there can be some disastrous consequences. 2) This ones a bit of a spoiler mechanically, so if you want a 100% bling experience playing (which I recommend wholeheartedly), good luck! if you’re still reading, at various points in the game you are forced to chose between losing ALL of your items, or, the lives of some of your party members. and you DO NOT know when these events will occur. by hoarding your items, you are almost forced to sacrifice your party members. after your first encounter with this happening, I can almost guarantee you’ll try to not hoard. I know that’s what happened to me. if you got anything out of this, it should be that you should play Lisa. it’s an absolute masterpiece.

[@iandakariann]

Ff5 actually broke me from my mo hoarding. I used to be bad with hoarding spells out of fear of not having enough mp for later. It made some games impossible but I never realized it was because of the hoarding. So when ff5 came to me and I made a team of mages to build their job exp I realized I couldn't do any damage without casting. So while cringing I spent my spells. Then realized by the time I was out of mana I was at a save point or recharge. It made me realize I could cast spells freely without the fear of "running out". It not only made playing with half of the classes fun but allowed me to play other games I thought were boring or impossible because I now felt I could use the mana. So one way to discourage hoarding: put the players early on in a situation where they NEED to consume the resources then make sure it's apositive experience.

[@rasta7655]

I was doing a Terraria playthrough when this came out. I feel called out.

[@migueeeelet]

Hahah, Terraria will call you out during Hardmode. Chugging down potions before a boss fight there is pretty much mandatory! No, seriously, stop hoarding ironskin potions. Use them!

[@QyfieK]

migueeeelet You don’t hoard ironskin you hoard the potions that are more difficult to craft. Potions like endurance, inferno and lifeforce almost always end up unused. I always use ironskin and regeneration and save the other potions for “later”.

[@migueeeelet]

​@@QyfieK Yeah but Ironskin costs iron ore and that's waay more important than any of the other ores :( Until I realize that by then, I'm fully decked in hardmode dungeon gear and iron is something I can get by sneezing at the ground lol

[@KingdomTerrahearts]

@@QyfieK I always use endurance, it's not that hard to craft, the others are not as usefull (to me at least)

[@FalseRed7]

Especially in master mode, USE. YOUR. POTIONS. even when just exploring in the early game; potions are extremely vital to your survival. For boss fights; bring every necessary combat buff potion you have

[@redfive3277]

I feel like you never really made it clear why item hoarding is something to worry about. You pointed out a couple game-specific situations, like in Dishonored. However, I'm struggling to see what the big deal is for most games. So players like to hoard up a lot of items, why is it important for the developer to stop them from doing that?

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

I want to add to this, in games I did not horde they become a joke. Many of the challenges people face are due to hording and when you can for example... use those 99 Elixers or even just 5 of them it is comparatively too easy. Imagine being able to in a 5 inventory slot game heal your team 5 times in a boss fight. 5 free turns of attacks.

[@dustpal]

Wow, this puts a whole new perspective on gaming design for me and how much hoarding can be an issue. Just like you mentioned, Final Fantasy is one of the main culprits of encouraging hoarding.

[@yppahdalg2397]

Another big culprit I would say is Tms from the early Pokemon games.

[@mrjoe7908]

I remember one interesting way to discourage hoarding (purely in a long term sense) was a when I was playing dark wood (by no means the only game that does this but I remember it in particular) and the item stash from the first part of the game wouldn’t carry over to the second, forcing players to consider only the essentials when transitioning to the new zone. Even though resources were still somewhat generous in the new area, that limitation meant that suddenly the player had to prioritize and kick the hoarding they’d done up to this point. It also discourages excessive hoarding on any future playthroughs as the player knows that they can’t keep everything after that point, which I think is an interesting way of doing things.

[@skylark.kraken]

It’s situations where I may use a consumable but there’s also no guarantee that I’m even going to win the encounter. If I were to use a consumable and then lose, if I were to get that consumable back I’d definitely use them more. I’m fine using consumables, I hate wasting them. I played a mobile game the idle slime thing and the keys aren’t used up if you fail the mission. You can just reuse the key on a lower level, so you can just try out the hardest without worrying that you’re going to lose the key. It’s pretty rare that bad mobile games actually do something new and good.