Poll: Expendable/Limited Use Items

[gsilver]

If I can easily buy them (ie, not too expensive and commonly available) I'll use them, but if they're rare and/or prohibitively expensive, I avoid them unless I have to.

Even if there's no good reason to save them, like the summons in South Park: The Stick of Truth.
I hoarded my "once per day" summons (that did insane damage, but didn't work against bosses) even though due to their nature (once per day, on weak mobs) there's no reason to not use them.


...I end up having ridiculous stockpiles of the better limited-use items.

 

[Gamerpalooza]

In MMO's I farm expendable items because they have their short term boost.

In other games like Fire Emblem where weapons have limited use I manage my inventory.

If it has a purpose and a use there's no harm in using them and see if it fits and benefits ones playstyle. Outside of that it becomes a case by case issue.

 

[meiam]

I try to use them more cause I know I always hoard them, but there's still the occasional game that screw you if you don't have a lot of the very rare item. For example tales of grace F has a boss in the middle that's literally impossible to beat on higher difficulty unless you have a certain number of a very rare item that stop any monster. If you've been using these things occasionally before fighting that boss you have no choice but to reduce the difficulty setting to beat the boss.

I think my favorite system with item is to have very few rare item but at the same time to have limited inventory space, legend of dragoon was like that, you could only carry a limited number of items (20?) but they were easy to replenish. Part of the difficulty in dungeon was to get trough them while conserving enough item for the boss fight. I think I'd improve on it slightly by attaching a weight component to the item (a sever one, unlike elder scroll ultra generous one).

 

[Saelune]

I should add, I do use items that though rare or limited use, only are useful if used then. Such as those potions in the Fable games that increase your HP bar, or the Life Gems in Terraria, since they are character upgrades that are technically always in effect forever.

 

[Akytalusia]

if it provides a permanent benefit, i'll use it. if it's a finite resource with a temporary benefit, i'll save it. if it's an infinite resource with a temporary benefit, i'll sell it.

 

[MCerberus]

Most games I hoard.
KOTOR I never did. Roll up to boss time and it was DRUGS! MORE DRUGS! ALL THE DRUGS!

There's an article on cracked about the "tweeker with landmines" method of KOTOR boss fights

 

[Lightspeaker]

Most games I hoard.
KOTOR I never did. Roll up to boss time and it was DRUGS! MORE DRUGS! ALL THE DRUGS!

There's an article on cracked about the "tweeker with landmines" method of KOTOR boss fights

KOTOR was hilarious for buffs. I never used a buff syringe in that unless I had a spare. Which meant I went into the final fight with at least one of every buff syringe in the game. And I was a light-side, force-buff heavy, dual-saber user.

ALL the drugs and ALL the buffs and I had stats through the roof. Just this massive stack of up arrows on my character portrait showing all the buffs. The boss died so quick it was ridiculous. X-D

 

[conmag9]

The more rare and powerful, the less likely I am to use it. This is partially the "but what if I need it later" thing, partially a a matter of pride that I don't need to expend non-renewable resources, and partially this weird role playing thing I do where I want my characters to have a ton of stuff when their adventure is over. Like, let them have all these weird items that remind them of their quest, or maybe mix all megalixers together and serve it at the afterparty or whatever.

It's the same reason I have a rule in Fire Emblem where grinding is possible: everyone comes out a badass, so that for the rest of their lives, they're special. Even the characters I hate. I like doting on my characters like the benevolent extradimensional entity that I am to them.

 

[Worgen]

Unless I have an excessive amount of them or know I can get more easily, I tend not to use them. Because you have to make sure you have them just incase that giant robot crab shows up.

 

[FalloutJack]

I just remembered an item that I used a VERY lot of. I'm going to make a topic about it.

 

[Stemer]

It depends, if I'm playing an open ended game like Skyrim that doesn't really have an ending then I'll never touch them.
On the other hand if I'm playing a game that ends after the final boss dies and I know I'm facing the final boss then I'll use all of them in the final battle and completely flatten the boss

 

[Sean Renaud]

I might need them later. It's always a bit annoying because generally later never comes and I'm stuck looking back at some boss I fought earlier in the game and thinking 'Gee, I wish I hadn't been so bloody stubborn about saving the materia for the guy who would obviously be harder than this guy!

Note: This guy is generally brutal but later in the game I've either leveled up or gotten more tools or both. Alma in Xbox's Ninja Gaiden comes to mind. Even with the diving swallow she's a beast but without it that's just a monstrous fight that'll leave you in tears. By later in the game you're a god.

Unless I have an excessive amount of them or know I can get more easily, I tend not to use them. Because you have to make sure you have them just incase that giant robot crab shows up.

Why is Rarity fighting a crab monster?

 

[Worgen]

I might need them later. It's always a bit annoying because generally later never comes and I'm stuck looking back at some boss I fought earlier in the game and thinking 'Gee, I wish I hadn't been so bloody stubborn about saving the materia for the guy who would obviously be harder than this guy!

Note: This guy is generally brutal but later in the game I've either leveled up or gotten more tools or both. Alma in Xbox's Ninja Gaiden comes to mind. Even with the diving swallow she's a beast but without it that's just a monstrous fight that'll leave you in tears. By later in the game you're a god.

Unless I have an excessive amount of them or know I can get more easily, I tend not to use them. Because you have to make sure you have them just incase that giant robot crab shows up.

Why is Rarity fighting a crab monster?

Because no giant crab is going to show up her.

Actually awhile back someone commissioned a bunch of rarity vs giant crab pics and it kinda became a meme.

 

[MHR]

Yes, I try my best to use most things.

I recently re-opened Skyrim today after almost a year of not touching it. I was quickly intimidated by the huge number of potions I was carrying around and decided I wanted to play something else instead. It was mentally draining. Because there really were situations in which I would use almost every one of those potions of resists frosts and poisons of staminas weakness, and all those spells and items in my favorites, but it takes a while to acclimate your mind to remember such things in tense situations.

When I stopped playing, it was all fresh in my mind and planned. I actually trim the number of potions I carry with me -- there are far more I left back at the house, so besides those I had looted along the way, I didn't have more potions than I needed. But now I literally have to study my inventory for a while before proceeding on my quest (which I thankfully had a grasp on the order I wanted to do things in.)

Not using such things is foolish in most cases, but there are many times where something is so easy it doesn't need any consumables, and you end up hoarding them. Death comes from underestimating circumstances and not considering all options.

 

[FPLOON]

I've never used any of the tent-related items in Kingdom Hearts only because they can only be used when you're not in a battle-type sequence... Fuck that shit! Unless they're buffing up Sora's stats like a mofo, I'm selling those shits for more munny to buy REAL items like Hi-Potions and Ethers so that Donald and Goofy can span those shits to their heart's content for all I care... It's not like I'm always fighting a [secret/bonus] boss on the highest difficulty all the time, anyway, especially when it's just Sora vs whoever's not allowing him to bring along his friendship posse into the battle as well and the Elixir count isn't as expendable as fuck...

Other than that, I do have the habit of carrying at least one of every [potential] item just because I fucking can...

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

One game I've been playing recently is Fire Emblem: Awakening. That game is a constant gamble of useable items. I tend to be the hoarder who just keeps everything until really really needed, and by the time the credit rolls I have an abundance of everything including cash. But in FE:A literally *everything* is limited use, which means balancing out lower end weapons against the higher.

Even that is a gamble because the higher weapons don't necessarily do more damage but may just up your chance to crit, so if you didn't land a crit then it was a waste. Not too bad in most cases, but if you're banking on it, and it results in the perma-death of a character in a situation which was not planned or strategically erred, yeah it can get pretty frustrating. Of course, there are many factors that can affect your chance to crit, including the enemy stats, but there's always a chance of whiffing it. Much more stressful in XCOM 1 and 2, which is why I don't play those games on Ironman.

 

[Headsprouter]

It's complicated...

In Pokemon GO I have dropped many a potion and some revives in favour of keeping inventory space for Pokeballs. I'm eager to buy bag upgrades so I don't have to drop so often.

In Fallout, healing items are fair game, as long as they don't feel too powerful for general use. This includes stimpaks and similar food items.
One strange quirk I have is to "accidentally" perform badly in combat to give myself an excuse to use certain healing items to give myself inventory space. It's really illogical, I might as well just drop them in that case but who knows what chimp part of my brain says this is the right thing to do.

However, one item's ingredients were the bane of my existence due to my incessant desire to hoard them. Two scrap metal, duct tape, wonderglue, scrap electronics and a wrench gets you one weapon repair kit. And despite only needing those kits every so often, over encumbering myself with the ingredients regularly and only carrying a few with me at a time anyway, I could not ever give it up. Something in me needed those kits.

So, it depends. Generally I will want more inventory space to keep dropping to a minimum but I will use items when I can, sparingly so and will load back to avoid what feels like unnecessary waste. You may judge me for that.

But I can go mad for particular items and components and can do some pretty strange things as "compromise" between dropping and waste.

 

[MCerberus]

Most games I hoard.
KOTOR I never did. Roll up to boss time and it was DRUGS! MORE DRUGS! ALL THE DRUGS!

There's an article on cracked about the "tweeker with landmines" method of KOTOR boss fights

KOTOR was hilarious for buffs. I never used a buff syringe in that unless I had a spare. Which meant I went into the final fight with at least one of every buff syringe in the game. And I was a light-side, force-buff heavy, dual-saber user.

ALL the drugs and ALL the buffs and I had stats through the roof. Just this massive stack of up arrows on my character portrait showing all the buffs. The boss died so quick it was ridiculous. X-D

I guess what makes the difference is if you can break the game with consumables. If you can, DRUGGGGGGGGGS! If it just makes the numbers better than other numbers, meh. KOTOR had more cheese than Wisconsin, and Elder Scrolls games let you take things past the line of wrongness, and those are the two franchises I use the most consumables in.

 

[Pyrian]

I tend to hoard them. Usually the only thing that brings them out is a really hard fight or lack of inventory space. If, for example, you can only carry 3 grenades, I tend to throw the third grenade at whomever just so I can pick up another one if I find it.

Killing KotOR bosses with a stream of thermal detonators was amusing. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you fall down again?"