No weapons or armor? Is this a bad this?

I want to know what you think about buying no weapons or armor within a game.

Taking for example Final Fantasy X-2 where you switch jobs but do not need to buy weapons or armor, of course there was accessories.

Can this work or does it dumb the game down a bit?

Well, it's a hard question to answer without knowledge of any other potential systems in the game.

If you do not include equipment like weapons or armor, then you need to include something as a "stand in" for those things.  Otherwise, like FFX-2, the only interesting thing about its battle system was the ability to change jobs as the stats didn't really matter at all (because stats were permanently set by level and there was no way to guide growth, so no real customization beyond figuring out who had the best stats for which jobs and making sure that's all they had equipped).

Most players want to be able to customize their characters in some way and make them feel "unique".  Weapons and Armors are an easy way to do it.  It allows you to customize stats, resistances, attack types, special bonuses (like health regen or counter attack), and other things.

So, you're going to need to invent some kind of system to take the place of Weapons and Armor so that players still feel like they can make important decisions about their characters.  Final Fantasy X-2 does not do this.  Sure, they let you determine the buy order of most of your skills...  But, you're going to get all of those anyway.  There's not really any way to "break the mold" in terms of the game and feel clever about doing so.  It's like the Crysterium from Final Fantasy 13.  Sure, it looks like you're customizing your character, but you're not.  What you're doing is moving only along the lines the game devs wanted you t move along and giving you only the stats they want you to have.

See, most battle systems in RPGs run as two types: "grindtastic" or "gimmicky" systems.  Grindtastic systems are systems that allow for very little customization (many of these even include lots of weapons and armors to use!).  So, you will find the way the devs wanted you to play the game and only ever play it like that.  You'll essentially be mashing "Attack" 90% of the time.  That's not a good battle system.  "Gimmicky" systems are systems that have a lot of random number crunching or weird features that make the player feel like there's a lot of work put into the system... even if the system is still fairly repetitive.

So, what you essentially need is a way to make players feel like they can completely customize how they want to play... while also removing weapons and armor.  It can be done, fairly easily in fact.  It's just... doing it well that might be the challenge.  So, what if you adopt a system that uses "Passives"?  As in, you gain a level, you maybe obtain two passives that you could only equip one of.  Or, maybe you could obtain 3 passives and you can only use 1 at a time.  What if your passives fell into categories?  Offense, Defense, Movement, Special, and Skills?  What if as you leveled up, you could equip more Passives under those headers?  Maybe an Offense Passive would be to grant a 30% critical hit rate bonus.  Maybe a Defense Passive could be to have a character automatically "cover" another character with low HP and take hits for them?  What if a Movement Passive was something that gave you a chance at an extra turn after you used attack?  What if a Special Passive could allow you to absorb lightning damage and turn it into MP?  What if your Skills Passive was just the type of Skills you could equip on a character (Magic, Sword Skills, Necromancy, Thievery, etcetera)?

You could easily eliminate Weapons and Armors, but you'll need to replace them in terms of what they were meant to do (they're meant to add diversity to combat and to give the player a level of control over their characters).

Open up some options and think hard about how to give the players things to do with their characters since they cannot choose what equipment they can use.

I would put in my two cents about my current project, but it's an adventure game with no combat whatsoever, so it wouldn't apply.  I also agree with Tai.

Weapons and equipment don't make an RPG an RPG. They are merely customization options and/or a method of character progression.

Yeah. So true. You can even have an RPG without any customization at all and make it still count as an RPG... After all, it's a ROLE-PLAYING GAME. I'ts just that most RPGs come with weapons and armors. Possibly because it's both logical and easy to do while giving the players "control".


Most players will surely look forward to what customization your game offers so if you want to have a good player-base, it would be wise to add other options if you remove weapons/armors.


In a previous idea thread of mine, it came down to things like having more skills which the user would need to "learn" etc.


Personally, I like the idea of no weapons/armors mainly because I watch too much anime, and in those, most people don't change equipment...

Don't get him started on "The Definition of RPG".  You'll be here for hours debating him.  He's like me, very rigid in his opinions.

@OP - I'd really like to see an upgraded Dress Sphere system. I really like that system from FFX-2, but as Tai said, it was pretty much lacking... Heck, when I got Yuna's Floral Fallal I used it in all boss battles after that.

I think the core engagement for most JRPG combat/chararter-building systems is in the interesting choices that the player can make.  So figure out whether you have a way to make the equipment into something that offers more interesting decisions than boring busywork.  If so, it's probably a good idea to have equipment in your game.  If not, nix it.

You could make interesting character choices if, instead of armor and weapons, perhaps characters could upgrade their DEF/ATK/whatever directly and permanently.  These could entail trade-offs to preserve game balance, or would only be given out in limited quantities or when certain quests were completed.

For example:  "Strength Training:  +6 ATK, -2 EVA", "Defense Upgrade: 10% damage resistance" or "Elemental Resistance I:  10% resistance to Fire/Ice"

The net effect is, as the game progresses, the party gradually becomes stronger, as if they were using equipment, possibly using Passive states assigned to the party members.  But the player still has a great deal of control over how the party grows and develops, as if they were using equipment.

Of course, balancing this would be difficult, but it offers viable alternatives to using armor and weapon upgrades.

Perks. You're describing perks.

Or feats, if you're a Pathfinder fan.

Whatever you call your build options: feats, perks, *equipment...* doesn't matter. What matters is that the player has build options. Equipment are merely among the oldest and most widely-recognized examples of build options in RPGs.

It's up to you.