What are some games where unique, high-quality or rare equipment can remain useful for large portions of the game, if not the entire game? Especially if it can be obtained relatively early on. An example from recent memory is the falcon blade in Dragon Quest 11. It can be found like halfway through the game's first act and has comparable damage to swords with much higher attack power thanks to its unique ability to strike twice, making it useful throughout a good amount of the second act.
brotherhood in FFX, waterstrike aside it's very debateably tidus's strongest weapon all the way up to the caladbolg, his ultimate weapon, gained quite early and as part of the story
>>4049251One obvious example is the Souls series, where equipment power scaling is done through commodity upgrades rather than full item replacement.Ornstein's Dragonslayer Spear does extra poise/stamina damage vs a normal spear. It has lightning properties, faith scaling, and a lightning projectile attack. A plain spear has none of those special traits. However, a fully-upgraded Spear+15 has a much higher raw damage potential than the Dragonslayer spear with no upgrades.So basically, weapon choice is about picking your desired moveset, damage types, scaling properties, and damage/weight ratio. And then you're expected to have your weapon(s) of choice upgraded to the level of enemies you're up against.
>>4049251>Dragon Quest 11
>>4049471Rude.
>>4049471too good for you?
Radiance, WotR
Pillars of Eternity has a good assortment of weapons that you can get in act 1 and 2 and can become your mainstay for the rest of the game.Famously Cladhalíath, Tidefall is maybe the best two-handed sword, but you can also get The Hours of St. Rumbalt around the same time. Tall Grass can also be bought in Act 2, an amazing pike.
>>4049297Tbf weapons and armor don't work in FFX the way they do in most games, they're vehicles to give your character passive rather than bring stat sticks.
>>4049396And for non-uniques, the best straight sword in the game can start being farmed for the drop within an hour of starting the game. Going to be a while before you get it though, drop rate is low.
>>4049251BG3 is like this, unique gear ability matters nore than rarity or enchantment level so the best equipment from Act 1 is basically never replaced and you may use something you had the entire game towards the end because new gear near the end has synergized mechanics.
>>4049251Pokemon
>>4049251KOTOR2 shopkeepers roll random items, so often you can buy really powerful upgradeable weapons early on and use them for most of the game, swapping out the upgradeable parts as you raise your skills.An item that fits the thread in particular is the War Bowcaster. For DEX builds it's absurdly broken and often obtainable immediately after leaving Peragus, the tutorial dungeon.>1d10+1 damage, which is decent as a base>19-20 x3 critical threat, which turns into 17-20 x3 with Keen>fully upgradeable so you can give it broken as fuck energy cells and chamber and pamp its base damage into the stratosphere while still benefiting from x3 crits like a not-as-upgradeable ion weapon at twice the crit rate of them. You pretty much never have to replace it until you start getting endgame-tier items, and even then it's pretty competitive
>>4050576Can upgrade any weapon and generic weapons have more open enchant slots, though you do miss out on unique special effects.Still, it means you can bring any weapon to end game and not feel like you're missing out. At least in terms of raw damage.
>>4050616I fucking hated that. You're basically forced to keep all the loot you find, because there might be a point where you have gathered a set of items that suddenly click together and offers a massive damage output or whatever. Reminded me of ARPGs, where it's fine, dumb shit for a CRPG.
>>4050818COMBINE THE GOONING SET TO BUILD UP SEVENTEEN GOONING CHARGES THEN UNLEASH A MIGHTY DRAGON DILDO BLAST"Raised the bar for cRPGs" btw
>>4050818>>4050882The shit some of you complain about is incredible at times, this kind of thing is 100x better and more engaging than your standard linear gear progression.
>>4051009>this kind of thing is 100x better and more engaging than your standard linear gear progression.Categorically false. It was absolutely jarringly stupid and immersion-breaking, much in the same way as DOS2’s random loot system.
>>4051033>much in the same way as DOS2’s random loot system.Which is an example of a braindead linear progression system...
>>4051035No, an example of a braindead linear progression would be going from a shotgun +1 to a shotgun +2 to a shotgun +3, etc.DOS2 juxtaposed very stupid randomly generated Diablo-style loot with some interesting and cool unique items (that could be upgraded to stay relevant for the entire game)BG3 had very obviously MMO-inspired “sets” and “build charges” gimmick gear which were wildly out of place in a cRPG. It also was sorely lacking the cool iconic and memorable gear from its namesake games.
>>4049251FF5, especially if you're doing a four job fiesta; literally every piece of equipment your party members can wear is worth holding on to if it has some special attribute. But even in a regular playthrough, stuff like the elf cape and main gauche can be gotten in the first quarter of the game, and remain some of the most useful items throughout. Status prevention is at a premium in this game, and even the ribbons don't block everything, and can't be used by every class.The problem is that the menus won't tell you what special abilities or attributes that your equipment has, and most people will just go through the game letting the auto-equip slap on whatever is the strongest, stat-wise. Maybe the PR has fixed this, but I wouldn't know since looking at the PR makes me vomit uncontrollably.
>>4050601+10% strength and sensor tho>>4050818it's because it works the same way D&D does where you're carrying gear as long-term investments or stuff you're going to be using for a very long time, and by that i mean BG3 is literally just running 5e under the surface, like older baldur's gates and 2e or 3e
>>4049251Squall´s Lionheart from FF VIII can be crafted as soon as disc 1 as long as you have the materials.
>>4051096>and by that i mean BG3 is literally just running 5e under the surface, like older baldur's gates and 2e or 3eWhat did he mean by this
>>4051223D&D5E
>>4050627pokeyman??
>>4051223I think it's like when someone says something so obvious you think it has extra meaning. If he's talking about "actual 5th ed DnD magic items" they're not really the same as BG3 since there's things like only being able to attune 3 unless they have a pretty minor effect or are just +1-3 items, and a lot of the effects you see in BG3 go pretty above the scope for non-artifacts. I think it's true for most campaigns that you don't ever sell magic items, but obviously that just depends on the group. Buying and selling magic shit is pretty much only built into 3rd ed (maybe 4th too idk)
>>4049251>What are some games where unique, high-quality or rare equipment can remain useful for large portions of the game, if not the entire game? Especially if it can be obtained relatively early onBoulders Gate I & II
>>4050692And iirc the dudes that board your ship at the end of Peragus have the ENTIRE game's loot table, not just Peragus's, so you should shoot none of them, kill them in the ship, and see what you get.
>>4051527I never bothered to figure out how they work, but I did find KotoR 2's loot tables kind of frustrating for how random it was. You could end up with great stuff early on, but some playthroughs I just couldn't find shit
>>4051545Loot tables in Kotor 2 are based on a complex formula that someone finally figured out like 7 years ago, but basically it's down to a combination of effective character level and some kind of rng roll system. But the Sith Troopers in the Ebon Hawk have wonky code so they just use the game's general loot table meaning in theory, you can get the best shit in the game from them.Likewise due to the RNG, it's possible to get one of the best Jedi armors (the ones that look like samurai armor and let you use force powers while not being in robes) in the Harbinger, though rare.
>>4051577Depending on your build, robes can eventually be better than those since they had a max dex iirc, but yeah I've definitely gotten those pretty early on rare occasion. I'm really more a fan of fixed loot locations because of stuff like this, but I think that's a little outside the scope of what the OP is talking about
>>4051582Fixed loot locations works in a game like say Diablo 2 (which does used specific Monster item Levels based on zone, not your character level) where the game is played linearly, because it's not like you can just skip 2-3 zones of content for the better loot. It doesn't work as well when you can play the planets in any order because it means either you need to make the gear around even on the planets (so you have nothing but shit drops by planet 3 because you've far outscaled them), or you will always play the planet that drops the best shit early so you can get overpowered fast.
>>4051624I don't know if that's entirely true at least in KotoR's case. If you take off the space themed wallpaper it's not any more crazy than something like baldur's gate 2 where you could do any of the major sidequest locations in any order.It really just depends on what gear actually means in the given game.
>>4049251You can get the Sword of Marvels early on in Star Ocean 2 if you know what you're doing and it will carry you through most of the game
>>4051582The random drops are the main reason I replay KOTOR2 so much. It's a lot of fun seeing whether you can get powerful items early and tailoring your build around them. One run I got a really sick ion rifle from one of the random rolls on Peragus, and it led to me doing Nar Shaddaa first because I was disproportionately powerful against droids. That kind of gameplay decision wouldn't be possible if the loot followed KOTOR1's structured design
>>4052068I tend to do Nar Shadaa first anyway because you get easy lightsaber parts and 2 companions there.
>>4049251DQ used to be so good9 is the best jrpog ever
>>4052309>9 is the best jrpog everOn one hand it's probably the most sensible one when it comes to stuff like character stats and elemental resistances, but on the other it's also the most unsatisfying game in the series I've played.Incoming rant>no cool, unique equipment or other treasure to be found, everything can be bought or made with alchemy (except the useless cutscene armor and sidequest items)>no monster taming/vocations, no casino, no T 'n' T boards, no monster arena, absolutely no side activities>sidequests are "bring 10 bear asses" tier cancer>main villain gets away with everything and runs off with his waifu while you're left behind to clean up infinite, randomly generated hallways like some kind of janny>everything in postgame revolves around level grinding which is made as miserable as possible>quite literally doesn't have "the end", you just quitThat said, I'm feeling like picking it up again one of these days for some reason.Maybe it's the gyaru fairy.
Morrowind
>>4049251In Castlevania: Aria Of Sorrow, you get new weapon upgrades as often as your standard RPG, but they go back and forth into either having a small but very fast attack animation, or a big but slower one, or anything in between (rapiers vs broadswords, etc). So you might prefer not to use your strongest weapon because it doesn't fit the fighting style you enjoy most, and wait instead for the next uprade that has the same attack animation. I personally never use the strongest weapon in the game because i don't like to use big weapons in that game, and the weaker swords make up for it by being able to swing more often.
>>4049251Lyn's Mani Kati in fire emblem.
>>4049251>>4057465Speaking of Castlevania, Heaven's Sword from Portrait of Ruin comes to mind. You can get it as early as before the fifth boss as a rare enemy drop, it's fast with a ridiculously good reach and holds up as one of the better non-holy weapons even during the endgame.
>>4051577had no idea, tyvm
