How should Nintendo balance Rupees?
How do we keep them rewarding, yet not have the player rely too much on them?
There's a fine line between making Rupees have actual value, but not so much that players are encouraged to mindlessly grind for more.
Most Zelda games have rupees as the default "reward" but they usually end up being the most worthless thing in the game.
Workshop that you can add new bonus effects to items for a number of uses for a price each time you apply them.
Optional but fun items being buyable for large sums.
Cosmetic add ons that can be bought with rupees.
Make rupees power certain items and weapons again.
They could decrease the drop rate of consumables, or stop them from dropping at all.
That way, you have to actually spend your rupees.
The downside to this, is if you run out of bombs or arrows or something in a dungeon, you have to run back to town to get more, and if you're strapped for cash, you have to farm rupees.
Not exactly ideal in Zelda, since it's casual as fuck, as most people would get sick of that pretty quickly.
The big issue is that there's never any reason to use them.
Out of arrows?
Cut some grass.
Need more mana?
Break a rock.
Low on health?
Smash a jar.
The issue is that everything you need in the game is readily available in your immediate surroundings. You never have to spend a single rupee in most games to not only beat the game, but complete 99% of the sidequests as well. The only game I can think of that utilized rupees appropriately was windwaker since you needed them to transcribe the triforce maps and use at the auction house. You could also buy Hoi pears which were fun as fuck.
They could add some kind of item that acts as a delivery service for extra rupees, allowing you to make up for poor planning or just giving people with more money than they know what to do with an extra convenience.
I think the universal magic meter that A Link Between Worlds has is an interesting take on it. I think it makes things like bombs and arrows more enticing to use in combat. When they also act as key items for puzzles, I try to avoid using them so often
Have quality of life item upgrades like Skyward Sword.
This might be cool, too.
Heck, you could unlock new area music by buying it at a Hyrule music store.
but of course, why do that when you can charge people real money for DLC?
Just give the player something to actually BUY.
Unless you're under the age of 8 or are literally retarded, you shouldn't be running out of any supplies. Usually, all major items can be found for free; if not, it's a one-time cost that barely hurts your wallet.
The game just needs sinks for your money even if it's something trivial like cosmetics.
A link between worlds handled this in the somewhat right direction seeing as shit was ludicrously expensive and you WANTED that shit.
This. Magic Armor in Twilight Princess was a good way to spend the ridiculous amount of rupees that game threw at you.
>Optional but fun items being buyable for large sums
I agree with this, having a large money sink helps fix the problem. LttP has the fairy fountain that upgrades your max consumable item space. Practical but not required. Zelda games should all have something like this in them
Grind for rupees? Fucking hell, apart from Link Between Worlds my problem was that I had too fucking many rupees. My wallet was always full, or close to full. I'd fine chests with purple, silver and gold rupees and sigh as Link either wastes it by picking it up and only taking 4 rupees from it since his wallet was almost full or just put it back in the treasure chest since I literally couldn't carry any more.
I think we need more things to spend rupees on that isn't shit like consumables you find while breaking shit or cheap minigames. Part of why I think I always had so many rupees was that there was never any reason to spend them on anything, except for maybe a minigame or something. And that only costs 20 rupees, which I will gain in the first 5 minutes I'm in a dungeon. Give me more things to buy and I'll spend more, it's why I didn't have this problem with Link Between Worlds. I wanted to buy all the weapons instead of renting them, so I had to actually spend money. I'm not saying bring the whole weapon buying thing back, but give me something worthwhile to spend my rupees on.
>Heck, you could unlock new area music by buying it at a Hyrule music store.
So like Ragnarok Odyssey ACE?
This. I never use bombs unless I have to, either to solve a puzzle or kill an enemy that is only weak to bombs. Same with arrows. You never know when you need them for something later, so you never use them at all.
I actually like how the bombs operate purely on a cooldown in BotW and seem to have an extremely valid use in combat seeing as they're remotely detonated.
Pretty stoked for that game.
Unlimited bombs I can handle. Unlimited bombs with remote detonation seems a bit overkill.
No, that's a recipe for grinding.
Nerf the fuck out of grass cutting. It's an age old mechanic for the series but it's not doing it any favors and hasn't since no later than Wind Waker. Hero Mode had the right idea by removing heart drops altogether, now do that for your general resources. Also, make it to where Rupees AREN'T the default reward. I think I heard that BOTW is doing this actually - something like a trading system to make money or some shit like that.
There's a good 5 second delay between bombs, if not longer.
Let me change the question a bit and see how we can work backwards from there.
What are some games that use their in-game currency as a reward and that reward actually feels like it has value?
In other words, what games do currency right?
I hate to say it because every faggot compares it to everything. But the souls games.
You need that shit to level up, buy shit, and repair shit, and you can lose it all in a moment if you fuck up in combat
What if there was a system where, instead of finding items in a dungeon, you bought the item with Rupees? And if you died, the item became lost?
Then Rupees would function almost as an "extra lives" system with a risk/reward. Buy lots of items, and you become very powerful, but if you die, the cost of restocking is much higher. Sounds pretty good, if you ask me. It makes every Rupee worth collecting!
BotW seems to be going all the way with your suggestion. There straight up aren't any grass drops at all from what we've seen.
Make them only available from selling stuff/finding stuff in chests. Make consumables not drop from cutting grass or optional cosmetic add ons only available from buying them. Upgradeable property that costs money to make better.
>When they also act as key items for puzzles, I try to avoid using them so often
Whenever they're needed there's usually some way to farm them nearby so holding on to 20+ of them "just in case" is pretty dumb
Cosmetic shit.
In the new zelda, have a tailor that can alter the look of the generic armor drops you find. Maybe pay him with some mats and rupees to unlock different looking costumes. Integrate social media functionality by including a camera/screencap item that can post photos of you in your cucco costume fighting Ganon or whatever.
Similarly, maybe you can build a base/bases in the new game that functions as a place you can warp to/replenish hearts whenever you want. Maybe even get a quick stat boost. Make the bases cost money. Maybe even require upkeep money because monsters keep destroying them. Mooks you can hire to protect it for you too I guess?
Make dropped rupees not a thing. Make ammo, bomb, heart drops not a thing. Link now needs medicine, and he needs to purchase supplies with rupees from stolen caches. Now Link has to survive instead of being given 200 rupees that you can buy nothing with because you're given everything you could possibly need for free.
That's how it worked in 3DO Zelda games.
Easiest thing is make good items near impossible to find on the overworld.
In Ocarina you can just turn over a Fairy Fountain, in Majora's Mask they give them out for free at Owl Statues. You want a fairy? Either get luck in a dungeon, buy one or go cold turkey.
MM had a few things that you needed to buy like upgrading the sword (temporarily and permanently) and the shadow mask thing and buying back weapons that you *lost* but other than that yeah most other Zelda games seem to make rupees next to useless if your not lazy.
and MM has even less reasons to buy ammo or bombs due to the fact that resetting makes you loose all your consumables anyway.