Stockpiling

[SometingStupid]

I think the good sir Yahtzee, of Zero Punctuation, illustrated this point fantastically in his video review of Fallout 3. FRom what I remember his words were something like this.

"So you've got a pile of ammo and weapons about three times the size of you, packing enough explosives to demolish a small country, and yet you're flicking peas off of a massive spider, just incase behind the massive spider, there's an even bigger one."

Now I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, other examples include:

Never using any kind of weapon or equipment to make a first person shooter easier (never using flashbangs, stun grenades etc)

Leaving three quarters of your army back at your base in an RTS, just incase of evasion and the seventy watch towers weren't enough.

And hoarding phoenix downs, ethers, chocobo feathers and mega-potions in Final Fantasy (also works with Elixers, X-Stats and Super Revives in Pokémon)

So does anybody see the issue here, game developers are actually making the game easier for us, and yet time after time we ignore their hints. I believe that there is obviously some psychology behind this, but not only is it a comical topic, it's an interesting one too. What do you say? Should we spam our rocket launchers and Ethers? Or should we save our tanks and our high power pistols for the last boss fight?

[Nachimir]

I definitely have the habit of hoarding things in games. I never want to use the really powerful, rare stuff because, indeed, there might be something bigger beyond the thing I'm up against right now.

[CaptainFish]

Sorry for the long post, this is something I thought about a lot recently.

This is a huge problem I've always had with games. If given health items, I will use spells, stations or save points. If given direct damage items, like bombs, in a JRPG, I'll use spells until the bombs are so weak that they are no longer relevant. I'm a hoarder, although less than I used to be.

I think part of it comes from me wanting to prove that I'm great at the game by not using any items. It's a problem that has been compounded by Capcom games like Devil May Cry where using items actually lowers your rank, and buying them makes them more expensive. It's quite tricky there, because your currency for upgrades and items are the same (something they changed in DMC4). It's also present in games that give you score bonuses based on how many bombs you have at the end of the level (Beat Hazard), or your pistol-only run (Winback).

I think in a lot of gamers there are one of two mentalities.

1. Using items or limited powers makes the game easier and it is more hardcore to struggle without them.

2. This part is doable, albeit tough, but there's gonna be a really crucial fight where these resources will be required.

The first one is a dumb fallacy that has caused me to reload games and replay chunks of gameplay, just to avoid help. The second usually proves to be wrong too, either with the hard part being so easy that the items just make it moot, or just unaffected by their usage in any drastic manner. It also usually ends up with you having saved up 100 'x' for the BBEG and ending the game with 75 'x' left.

Weirdly enough another Capcom game, Mega Man 9, weaned me off this problem. I'd gotten so used to just using a charged buster to deal with everything except bosses' weaknesses. Taking away charged busters, and allowing e-tanks to be purchased, encouraged me to try all the different weapons in regular situations, and use e-tanks when the boss door is just a few screens away. It added strategy to what used to be an entirely reflex/memory driven experience for me. I didn't just have a generally easier time, I also enjoyed it a lot more.

Odin Sphere is also great for countering this, because eating food is part of your health bar xp progression, and making potions releases weapon xp.

I've kinda learned that these things are all resources, along with your skills and time. If you don't exploit all your in-game resources you'll usually have to spend more time and/or just perform much better than normal. Just don't ask me how much BFG ammo I had left by the end of Doom 3.

[Orv]

If any of you remember Gamespy's Daily Victim, there was one that boiled down to "If you give me quicksave, I am GOD." He would reload the moment he wasted a single round, or took damage, etc.

I really don't fit either of your mentalities, CFish. In fact, I have a sort of opposite problem. I'll often use too much of a type of ammo (Fallout leads to this a lot, where I'll have a big running firefight and end up with a clip or less left in my weapon of choice.)

I can't think of a game where I've saved liberal amounts of items/potions/etc, except maybe on replays (BG2 for instance, since it's pretty much ingrained in my soul in full) when I know I need ~X amount of things.

[elmuerte]

I rarely use throwables (grenades, spells), but I do collect them. So usually my inventory is riddles with those things. The most recent game I did that was DeathSpank. I only really used health potions.

Usually when I reach the end of the game I start wasting potions, spells, grenades, etc. because it doesn't matter much anyway.

The reason why I rarely use these items is that I don't really need them most of the time. I think I do, but in the end I manage to get through there without using them.

[SometingStupid]

I think my best example was in Final Fantasy X, all the way throughout the game "Sin" is described as the hardest thing since obsidian in Minecraft. Apparently he plunges into the world, kills a few thousand people and then goes away for a couple of years.

So throughout the game I do hoard all of my items, my phoenix downs and my mega-potions. Only to finally get to Sin and kill him with 4 hits (one to get inside him, one to kill a weird thing inside, and then 2 [one just to knock him into his final mode, otherwise would have been one] to actually kill him)