Hi everyone, this is a topic that maybe has been discussed at length without me noticing but it actually seems to be something that either only I and maybe a few other people have an issue with or something that is actually more annoying than people realize. I'm talking about "Consumables" in games.
For "consumable" I'm defining any item the game provides you in order to receive a one time bonus. This goes from your average health potion to items that change the gameplay for a brief amount of time; really it can be anything as long as the effect is temporary, one time and tied to an item.
The problem with consumables (or rather the reason why I think they are problematic) is that I think they are used mainly or entirely as a crutch. Let me explain:
In most situations the reliance on consumables really stifles and even ruins gameplay systems. It feels like even in the most well designed systems you are only as good as how much stuff you're able to carry and how much preparations you make.
The most egregious example of this is the fact that many games' combat or challenge is reliant on the fact that you can recover your health with consumables turning every encounter at max difficulty as a chugfest.
Other games give you so many different consumables that you'll be carrying them around everywhere and either hoarding them until the right moment or just trivializing things with the right consumable.
They are more often than not things that actually limit design rather than expand it. They force designers to think that every player has easy access to consumables and thus they need to consider that when making the combat and other gameplay systems.
First and foremost I'd like to see many more games simply do away with them altogether. Not every game needs a way to recover health in combat; you can make a very cool and exciting combat system this way.
Case in point my favourite way to play Yakuza 0 is without every using consumables. That game's combat system turns entirely on its head that way, especially at maximum difficulty.
Suddenly every hit matters instead of simply chugging down items to increase health and the "heat meter" which suddenly becomes an interesting mechanic since not every move is available at any "heat level" so you have to learn how to manage it instead of just hopping into the inventory.
This is basically impossible in many if not all of the "new" Yakuza, including the Judgement series, because the devs have designed the game with heavy amounts of consumables in mind making avoiding all hits an impossible feat. The over reliance on consumables makes the devs make encounters more deadly because players have access to crazy power buffs and health regeneration.
I feel that these kinds of games would benefit more from not having consumables and making the player improve by engaging with the combat mechanics.
Then in games that don't want to (or don't need to) do away with consumables I would urge developers to seriously consider what impact each and every consumable has in your game. If you just want your players to have every possible crazy scenario possible then sure go ahead but adding consumables "just because it's cool" or "because every other game in the genre has it" is not really a good reason to have them.
Also keep in mind the availability of the consumable; making a very good consumable very rare might seem like an obvious idea but it basically makes the player paranoid about using it instead of keeping it for "tough encounters". On the flipside making them too abundant trivializes most encounters.
An example would be Morrowind which made levitation potions (or magicka potions for levitation spells) so easy to find and make that you could be spending the entire game in the air if you wanted.
I think a good idea on how to make a consumables system is The Witcher 3's (I mean it's a good direction to aim for, not necessarily a good system by itself).
In the Witcher 3 (and the Witcher 2 aswell) the need for potions and oils and bombs is known in advance because once you know you have to deal with a certain monster then you make the consumable you need and the entire fight is designed around using the consumable. There's no need to hoard it in case you need it and they have very specific uses instead of being general improvements and bonuses. There's also the toxicity mechanic which limits the abuse of potions.
Still I think there was too much reliance on consumables for healing and that the ingredient hunting for consumables gets tiresome easily.
In conclusion I simply believe that too many games have consumables in them because "you gotta have'em" instead of having a good reason to have them. Make them work and design them into the systems rather than making them something that works in spite of the systems.
