I remember being proud of having a record of beating every game I played in nes and snes(it was broken later by Jurassic Park the only snes game I have played I haven''t beaten ). Now it''s like, wow you haven''t beaten that game yet! before you were a pro if you did. Maybe games are being too easy.

And I think secrets should be a reward for better players. Normal players are the ones that should play a normal game, but of course walkthroughts break the game sometimes, tought they are of great help when you are stucked in one place for 1 week because you missed a tiny but important detail.

If you are going to give a über weapon, you could at least make it aviable after you beat the game and say in the ending, now look for the special weapon!

And about preventing going back for your über weapon is ok as long as the game has a nice replay value. If it doesn''t then it''s better to just make it harder to get in the lastest part of the game(but not imposible!), and not making it strong enough to make it too easy.

In Zelda Majora''s Mask, just before the final battle, you can to beat the 4 main bosses to achieve the strongest mask. I knew it existed but I didn''t knew that was the way to get it. Actually I tought that fighting with them first was obligatory. But when it came to fighting the last boss with the strongest mask, I started to use it at first but got tired. Too darn easy. So around the middle of the fight I took it off and fought without it to make the battle at least fun. I think that if you are going to give the strongest weapon in the game so easily you could at least make it, not too strong.

Like... umm.. if the boss has 100 hp, your normal attack deal 5 points of damage, and when you get a new weapon you usually can deal 1 more damage point, adding 2 points, like making it deal 7 damage would be fine, but not doubling the damage.

Or even better make a weapon that is stronger based on the tactics you use. For example, if your 2nd best weapon deals 5 damage, you get your ''über'' weapon just before the last boss and deals 3 damage and makes you attack just after everyone has attacked. However, the damage it does increases by 1 point everytime someone in your party attacks the same person you attack, if someone dies it increases by 3 just for that turn, and if the weapon weilder goes through two turns without receiving damage the weapon increases by 1 the damage it deals, but if the player receives damage after getting that advantage it resets back to 3. Sort of a weapon that is related to life energy and that''s why it changes it''s power like that. So it sort of makes the player to use a strategy that he usually don''t use.

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Original post by tieTYT
But i can not think of any situation where it would actually be impractical to make sure that everything really desirable is in some place you can still return to. Why would this ever be impractical? There are many ways you can go about this. Make the secret item appear somewhere else if you didn''t get it the first time that you can always return to. ALWAYS make sure that a secret item that can not be returned to is never the best of its kind. The list goes on and on.

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Hmmm.... making secrets appear elsewhere if you missed them earlier is an interesting idea, and might be quite doable actually. However, depending on the kind of secret, it might only really be appropriate at one place in the game.

Also, what I meant by impractical is probably better stated as undesireable. You could make sure all the important or interesting secrets were in areas that were still accessible at the end of the game, however that would leave a large portion of the game a little sparse perhaps. I''m not just talking about ultimate equipment type of secrets. There are often plenty of things in games that might be useful, unique, but not unbalanced enough that it''s only appropriate that you have access them by the end of the game. Saving all those secrets up for the end might make the rest of the game more dull. It often adds a nice feel to have at least a little something interesting to find in the various areas that you will travel to over the course of the game. Nothing overpowered, but just a couple ''oh that''s cool'' items scattered around for people to find if they look hard enough.

Also, prehaps it might add something to the experience to have most clues to the location of most secrets; clues vague enough so that the location was not immediately apparent, yet not so vague as to almost neccesitate looking up the answer. That''s often a fine line, but it could make the game world a little more interesting if you knew there were lots of cool things out there to find, if only you could figure out where they are. This is perhaps better suited to more open-ended exploration rpgs, though

Where is it written that a secret has to ruin the game? Why must the item be the Platinum Uber-Sword of Doom? I''d like to see a ton of little secrets throughout the game that can be accessed any time. Really, I''d like them to be strings of events, like miniature quests.

In Escape Velocity, there''s a secret mission that can only be had in one spaceport bar from a guy named Lucas, who needs discreet transport to a dangerous section of the galaxy. You drop Lucas off no-questions-asked and he says "Thank you, I am pleased that you can keep a secret. Now I need you to do me another favor." This sets you up on a string of rescue, espionage and courier missions that culminates in you and a few other small ships taking on a huge pirate fleet. It''s awesome. Afterward you get a million credits, but considering that the ship you need to complete the mission costs ten million and you used about 500,000 credits'' worth of missiles, torpedoes and fighter escorts in the course of that last battle, it''s not that great a prize. You take that mission to boost your reputation and to kick pirate ass, not for gear or money.

That''s an awesome secret, and it would be cool to have secrets in-game that not only don''t give you a world-saving axe, but actually cost ssomething. Maybe you''ve got to pull a Seven Samurai and protect a village from raiders. You get the job done, the town gives you a bag of rice and you hook up with the mayor''s daughter, but then you''re back on the road, having gained nothing but a bag of rice, a few dozen friends, and Chlamydia. Way to go, hero. Maybe you''d benefit from it as far as getting lower prices for the (suddenly critical) medical herbs that are sold there, or maybe they let you stay at the inn for free, but your magnanimity doesn''t help you slay any dragons.

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Original post by tieTYT
I still think there is something wrong with it. Sure they''re optional, not necessary, etc. But it is less fun to too many people (like myself) to make them "one time only secrets". Is there anyone out there that prefers to find out they missed something 30 hours back and has to restart if they want it? I highly doubt it. Therefore, to make the game more enjoyable to everyone, the game should not be designed with "one time only secrets".

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I was playing Serious Sam: The Second Encounter the other day. After completing an area, they told me how many secrets I missed and how many enemies I didn''t kill. In all honesty, I have no idea where those other secrets are. I can''t say that I prefer that I didn''t find them (that''s just silly), but I did like being told that there were things yet to find. Granted, that isn''t an RPG, but the idea''s the same, no?

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Extrarius
I also don''t think special items need to be entirely better than anything you could otherwise have.

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"I defeated Ruby Weapon and all I got was this stupid T-shirt"

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tieTYT
Make the secret item appear somewhere else if you didn''t get it the first time that you can always return to. ALWAYS make sure that a secret item that can not be returned to is never the best of its kind.

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Doesn''t this cheapen the story telling nature of RPG''s?

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I always love using FF4j as an example because IMO it is the most perfect RPG out there. It had places you could never return to again, but these places never contained the strongest anything of its kind.

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I prefered FF6, and it made you choose between the best sword in the game and an Esper. (i.e. you couldn''t have the best equipment and satisfy your "gotta catch ''em all" need, or, to use a cliche, you couldn''t have your cake and eat it, too)

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Coz
[ Why give you an uber-1337 sword that makes the final boss easy? ]

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I think it''s worse that the "Weapons" (whatever they be in a given game) give you equipment. I remember getting the pumice from Ozma and thinking "Great, what am I going to do with this?".

I think the main problem with one time secerts is not knowing they are there. On one hand it is a great feeling when you discover some new secert for the first time. On the other hand it would be better to have some clues that there is secert to discover in the first place. For instance if there is a zodiac secert where there are 12 instance where you have one chance to get a zodiac item, each one provides a bonus and collecting all 12 opens up a new secert. Then there should be clues about each item before you get to the oppertunity to collect. For instance if bob has a zodiac stone and the only chance the player has to get it is to trade him a moon lilly on the day of his mothers funeral for it. Then the player should have some knowledge in advance about this, and not discover the secert out of pure luck. There should be some clues that Bob has the stone and also how to get it. Or if the tarus stone is in a dungeon that can only be entered once, then there could be a small tarus carving near the entrance to the dungeon. There is nothing worse then a secert that can only be obtained by luck, trying everything on everything or cheating.


Also a secert doesn't have to be a super powerful item, in fact they can be bonus items that give you a slight advantage. Such as in "secert of evermore" when the player is about to enter the collusim there is secert passage way with three chests in it. In those chest where equipment that was always one level higher then your current equipment. If you had the best equipment available at that time then you got two pieces of that wheren't availble else where, and a rare item that you couldn't get else where. It was not an over powering secert but it gave the player a nice little boost until the they reached the next town.

I personally would like to see more little secerts early on in games and less end game secerts that made you super powerfulx10.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project: Ambitions Slave


[edited by - TechnoGoth on April 3, 2004 3:47:01 PM]

TechnoGoth makes a compelling point. Hiding little "easter eggs" in a game is a cheap substitute for concealing secrets. If the PUSD is tucked into a dark corner of a level you run through while escaping an inexorably expanding fireball, then it can''t really be found without a walkthrough or a hundred tries. That''s ridiculous.

If there''s a sword out there that can slay a thousand dragons with a single slash, odds are that there are people in the world who have heard about it, and there might be a number of people collecting evidence and searching for it. I''d rather be able to investigate and hunt out a secret item then have to depend on chancing across it. That''s the sort of thing that makes players feel compelled to do every stupid little quest and hit the "search" button on every little spot on the map.

In the first Dragon Warrior game on the NES, you got "Erdrick''s Token" which game you the coordinates of Erdrick''s Armor (or maybe it was his sword). You could use that to wander the map and try to find a way to grab that item. It turned out to be buried in the very center of a humungous poison swamp, in a place that nobody would have searched if they didn''t have a clue as to where the item was hidden. That''s a good secret. It''s an item you''ve been hearing about all through the game, and one that you know exists, but you have to go through a series of steps to actually gain access to it. Delightful.

So it''s okay to have one-time secrets, but if your game has incredible artifacts or spells that are essentially easter eggs, then that''s roughly equivalent to putting cheat codes in the game. You read the walkthrough, you go to the right spot and hit "dig", and then you''ve got a sword that makes you God. Cheap crap.

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Original post by Way Walker

I was playing Serious Sam: The Second Encounter the other day. After completing an area, they told me how many secrets I missed and how many enemies I didn''t kill. In all honesty, I have no idea where those other secrets are. I can''t say that I prefer that I didn''t find them (that''s just silly), but I did like being told that there were things yet to find. Granted, that isn''t an RPG, but the idea''s the same, no?

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Well in my opinion, it''s not. It''s not at all. There are so many reasons why i don''t feel like making a list of them. But i think there is an obvious difference between missing a kill in a FPS and missing the strongest weapon/spell of a 70+ hour rpg.

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tieTYT
Make the secret item appear somewhere else if you didn''t get it the first time that you can always return to. ALWAYS make sure that a secret item that can not be returned to is never the best of its kind.

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Doesn''t this cheapen the story telling nature of RPG''s?

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Why would it? The story doesn''t usually revolve around the secrets of the game. If they did, it wouldn''t be a secret.

I''ve just realized something. This thread raises a very good point.

RPGs are too hard and too long!

Let''s face it, nobody wants to play a game where you have to spend 20-30 hours to get to the end of and, GASP!, risk missing stuff if you''re not careful (which is obviously a flaw in the game; the player should be able to get everything in one sitting and should have unlimited chances at getting what they''ve missed).

Jesus fuskin'' christ people, a game isn''t supposed to hold your hand and point out every little thing. :/

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Original post by tieTYT

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Original post by Way Walker

I was playing Serious Sam: The Second Encounter the other day. After completing an area, they told me how many secrets I missed and how many enemies I didn''t kill. In all honesty, I have no idea where those other secrets are. I can''t say that I prefer that I didn''t find them (that''s just silly), but I did like being told that there were things yet to find. Granted, that isn''t an RPG, but the idea''s the same, no?

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Well in my opinion, it''s not. It''s not at all. There are so many reasons why i don''t feel like making a list of them. But i think there is an obvious difference between missing a kill in a FPS and missing the strongest weapon/spell of a 70+ hour rpg.

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My mistake, I got confused into thinking about two related, but off topic, topics. Those would be "gotta catch ''em all" types who want to find all secrets for the sake of finding secrets, and "cool, but not ultimate weapon" or "ultimate, but not unblanacingly ultimate" secrets. And please note, that I wasn''t just talking about "missing a kill" but also about "missing an invunerability" or "missing the machinegun I''d otherwise have to wait for" or "missing the serious damage". These can make a big difference. So your opinion is wrong (before you point out the definition of opinion, realize what means)

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tieTYT
Make the secret item appear somewhere else if you didn''t get it the first time that you can always return to. ALWAYS make sure that a secret item that can not be returned to is never the best of its kind.

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Doesn''t this cheapen the story telling nature of RPG''s?

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Why would it? The story doesn''t usually revolve around the secrets of the game. If they did, it wouldn''t be a secret.

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I wasn''t talking about the story of how Bob is going to save the world, I''m talking about the story of how Sir Frank''s sword got its power and why Bob would want to look for such an old POS. Now, if the game supposedly has a strong story (not that I''ve seen many lately) making sure Sir Frank''s sword is still available may require weakening the plot. In a story based game (as RPG''s typically are) this is a serious problem.

I don''t see any reason why the story would be compromised by making certain items inaccessible after a certain amount of time or sequence of events. I hold that any good RPG will have a degree of globe-trotting in it, and if you can walk the earth, then you should be able to find treasure there.

The problem with this system, of course, is that you wind up with a situation like the one in Fallout. I can start up a game of Fallout, and within about two months of game-time I can have Power Armor, a Turbo Plasma Rifle, and a .223 pistol. That''s because I know where these things are, and who gives them to me.