History GoodBadBugs / RolePlayingGame

* In ''{{Earthbound}}'', there is a bug concerning the use of the condiment items with any food item in the bottom two slots of a character's item-list during battle which can be exploited to use the random-stat-increasing "Rock Candy" item infinitely. Additionally, due to one condiment being able to double the increase effect of Rock Candy, this allows even HP-lacking characters like Paula and Jeff to easily exceed 1000 HP with about 30 minutes of abuse and a subsequent level-up. Earthbound's HP display is limited to three digits.

* ''TalesOfSymphonia'' had an interesting skill system where each skill basically had two different skill trees, but the skills from each tree were mutually exclusive. There was a glitch, however, that allowed characters to learn the highest-level skills from both trees at once, which was especially useful for the resident magic-user, Genis. Sadly, this glitch was fixed in the [=PS2=] remake.

* ''TalesOfTheAbyss'' had an interesting glitch that allows you to play as Asch longer than you're supposed to. From time to time, you switch from the [[DesignatedProtagonistSyndrome Designated Protagonist]] Luke to the AntiHero Asch. During a sidequest in mushroom forest, if the player ejects the DVD but keeps the game running and have Asch exit the other way, he'll be able to exit the forest, go through mountains, go to a city, save the game, and continue with the main story, ''as Asch''. There are no side effects in doing this aside from a few weird moments since the lines that are supposed to do with Luke is switched, so the player can complete as Asch. It is sort of advantageous, since Asch, unlike Luke, is a MagicKnight, though later on, his usefulness decreases.

* ''TalesOfGraces'' keeps up the good glitches with one that lets you use your [[LimitBreak Blast Calibur]] over and over again. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cir_rNqcANI Observe.]]

* ''WildArms'' has an item inventory glitch where if you switched places of items during battle after having other characters use them, it reduced the number of the wrong item. How this works is that an empty inventory space is still marked as "containing" the item that once occupied it (at the beginning of the game all the empty spaces are marked as duplicators or something), so if you used an item marked as "0", it'd roll "back" to 255.

* ''TheElderScrolls IVOblivion'' had a bug that let you duplicate any object hundreds of times. Cue [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmszTpK54Mk Youtube videos]] of players flooding cities knee-deep in watermelons and human hearts.

*** As bizarre as it may sound for what would now be considered a simple act of PVP on a dev who didn't realize his power was turned off, at the time this was a BIG HUGE DEAL. There were articles about this event in mainstream PC gamer magazines, interviews with the perp in question ('Aquaman') and more - it turned into a huge debate over [=PK-ing=], the act of 'Player Killing', whether or not it was fair and what could be done about it. The article in PC Gamer magazine itself treated PKing as a threat to the average gamer and something that could turn people away from this relatively new genre of game. Re-reading these old articles is exactly as quaint as you'd imagine, proto-MMO'ers 'discussing' (read: arguing bitterly over) what could be done about what would eventually become one of the largest draws to the MMO market, PVP.

*** As bizarre as it may sound for what would now be considered a simple act of PVP on a dev who didn't realize his power was turned off, at the time this was a BIG HUGE DEAL. There were articles about this event in mainstream PC gamer magazines, interviews with the perp in question ('Aquaman') and more - it turned into a huge debate over 'PK'ing', the act of 'Player Killing', whether or not it was fair and what could be done about it. The article in PC Gamer magazine itself treated PKing as a threat to the average gamer and something that could turn people away from this relatively new genre of game. Re-reading these old articles is exactly as quaint as you'd imagine, proto-MMO'ers 'discussing' (read: arguing bitterly over) what could be done about what would eventually become one of the largest draws to the MMO market, PVP.

** ''Ultima VII part two: Serpent Isle'' had a copious amount of bugs, due to the rushed completion. The most noteworthy ones are the "False Coin" spell, which is supposed to make illusionary money but fails at the "illusionary" part, "Vibrate" which doesn't do damage but makes people drop ''all'' their possessions (including some things they're not ''supposed'' to drop) and "Serpent Bond", which allows you to bypass script triggers. This can be used to, among other things, carry stuff out of a dream, and save a temporary party member from his scripted death.
** Once upon a time there were a lot of dupers in UO, who would dupe all kinds of things, like scrolls that cast a magic arrow for 1 pt of damage. There were also slimes that would split in half every time they took damage. One enterprising player wrote up a script, barricaded himself behind some boxes, and promptly crashed the server.
* The steaming pile of code known as ''{{Ultima}} IX'' had a few bugs and glitches that turned out for the benefit of the player.

* DarkSouls Pre 1.04 had a pretty crazy exploit that involved the Dragon Stone you get for joining the path of dragons covenant that could net you infinite souls and humanity while using it.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' has a bug with alchemy that can quickly prove to be a gamebreaker, on two fronts. First, while simple alchemy ingredients are available in unlimited supply for 1 gold each, the potion created by combining two of these ingredients with alchemy sells for substantially more than 2 gold, making for a source of unlimited money right from the start of the game. Second, the potency of potions is partially based on your intelligence score, which can be boosted by an effect called Fortify Intelligence...and it just so happens that you can find the ingredients to make Fortify Intelligence potions in unlimited supply in the first major city you reach in the game. By creating potions, drinking them, and creating more potions, the player could easily create potions of horrifying power (boosting statistics by tens of thousands of points, or restoring thousands of points of health per second for literally days) within minutes of starting the game. Combined with the first alchemy bug, the money needed to buy these ingredients was no object...the free master alchemy set lying around for the taking in the mage's guild of another town only made it easier.

* ''TheElderScrolls IV: {{Oblivion}}'' had a bug that let you duplicate any object hundreds of times. Cue [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmszTpK54Mk Youtube videos]] of players flooding cities knee-deep in watermelons and human hearts.

** Oblivion has magic spells that spawn enchanted ("bound") armor and weapons. They have very strong attributes and zero weight, but the game balances this by making them only last for a while - then the spell wears off and they disappear. But if you let the item get damaged, repair it and then drop it, it won't vanish when the spell wears off. You could then pick it back up and have it [[GameBreaker permanently in your inventory]].

* {{Skyrim}} wasn't out for even a week before people found out that, due to how the new game engine handles eyesight, you could put buckets on people's heads and they won't see you stealing.

* SaGa2 fixed those bugs, but added a few more, most of it Robot-related (new class). Robots get stat bonuses for their equipment as long as they have it equipped. Wearing martial arts weapons gives Agility, but they don't deal the progressively higher damage per use. But once a Robot uses up said weapon, it disappears and they still keep the stat bonus.

** In another Pokémon related example - the Acid Rain glitch that blurs the line between GameBreakingBug and this trope - in short, if Pursuit KOs a withdrawn 'mon while any weather effect is in play, the game goes insane - all weather effects are turned on and Pokémon get harmed by their own abilities that aren't meant to do damage ("Pikachu was hurt by Static!", etc.) - in short, {{Hilarity Ensues}}; but if Castform or Cherrim are sent out, the game will make them keep switching between their various forms until the game is turned off.

* In the first ''Baldur's Gate'', one can export and import characters, and in the tutorial area there's a simulated Party that has good items for the low level (plate mail, a + 1 shield, wand of heavens, etc). Normally, any attempt to loot and walk out is thwarted since "Those items are illusionary". Clever players figured out you can save in the party tutorial stage, export the character, and then import them into a new game, allowing them to have equipment they should not have at that point, or enough vendor junk to buy good items your character shouldn't be able to buy - making the game up until the Mines a breeze. Sadly, they made the tutorial items in ''Baldur's Gate 2'' unusable if you tried the same trick.
* ''Amulets & Armor'' has a great bug dealing with the "death cam", the red-tinted view of the world you see when you die. Your character is actually still alive, the game just disables the keyboard. However, A&A has mouse navigation too, which it doesn't disable, letting you explore (and even beat) levels while dead.

** This worked for forging swords too. Lots of Ore (=Money) ensues.
** Gothic 1 also has a bug where if you strafe while falling you will not take fall damage upon impact. Good for getting around faster and getting to areas normally inaccessible.

** Gothic 2 the night of the Raven had mage staves that increased your magic points when equiped. Problem is, they did it permamently.

* In the Playstation version of ''Azure Dreams'', careful use of a certain transforming Mon can allow the player to duplicate items as long as their monster has enough MP to morph (intentional). Less careful use of the same monster can allow the player to [[GameBreakingBug freeze the game]] (unintentional).

** QuestForGlory V has a couple of bugs: The first is an item duplication bug, where you stand in an area and remove a single item in your inventory. The character, for some reason, throws the item up in the air. While it's still in the air, it's also still in your inventory--which means you can remove it again and watch the second inventory item sail through the air. If you're really quick, you can use this to duplicate a number of them before the first hits the ground. You can then sell the duplicates to the shopkeeper. Naturally this is best done with the expensive items in the game, like magic chainmail. It only works with a single item, though; if you have multiples of the same item, you'll just remove those multiples from your inventory. I believe it also only works with items that can be bought and sold to the centaur shopkeeper. The second bug occurs after the player completes the game once. After starting a new game, the PC can walk out of Silmaria and find the hot-air balloon already made and waiting for him.
* The Apple II version of ''Wizardry'' had a bug where successfully identifying the "item" in slot #9 (you could only carry 8 items) would give your character 100 million experience points. This became an AscendedGlitch when it was intentionally included in the IBM PC version.

** In Dragon Age II, you can infinitely increase your armor stat by repeatedly un-equipping and re-equipping a shield. Any shield.
** The infinite gold bug is back in DAII, and it joins a new one: if you turn in a FetchQuest at the same time you sheath your weapon (you have to draw and then wait for Hawke to put it away), you can get the quest reward repeatedly every time you [[ButtonMashing press the interact button]]. Do this for an arbitrary amount of experience and money and then buy the {{Disc One Nuke}}s from Bonny Lem and the Black Emporium to make you a killing machine.
** Again in ''DragonAgeII'', it's possible to gain infinite talent points, due to some bugs that give player character some talents back for free after they reset their character, save, and reload. Continue resetting your character and you can have enough talent points to max nearly every talents you have.
** In DragonAgeII's final boss fight, the boss will repeatedly paralyze all combatants in order to monologue... but if you've invested into Aveline's defensive skills, and have her in you're active party, she'll be immune, and proceed to smack around said boss. It's as if someone asked: "[[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why don't you just hit em?]]"

* In the original {{Mass Effect}}, there is a glitch on the planet of Noveria when you speak with the turian named Lorik Qui'in. You do the mission he tasks you with, then speak with Gianna Parasini before reporting back to him. If you have enough Charm/Intimidate skill points, you can use either option to persuade him to testify against his boss. The glitch starts if you immediately talk to him again and ask him about Matriarch Benezia. Afterwards, you get the same options to convince him to testify again. Depending on whether you use Charm or Intimidate, you get [[KarmaMeter Paragon or Renegade points]] every time you speak with him. You can fill up one or both bars in minutes.

* {{Wasteland}} has the super loot bags, filled with the rarest items in the game, the Red Ryder easter egg gun, and a lot of non-items with names like NAME and RUSSIAN. The NAME item is particularly useful: Depending on how you equip it, it can function as impenetrable armor or a gun with the maximum damage, and can be sold for $32,000.

* A glitch in ''Secret of Mana'' on the SNES enabled a player willing to risk game save corruption the chance to fight the very first boss all over again - provided they made use of the cartridge's in-built soft reset feature - and obtain a ninth sword orb. As other ninth-level weapon orbs were dropped by enemies in the final dungeon, this was the only way to obtain the last forged incarnation of the game's legendary blade.
* A programming oversight in ''BatenKaitos Origins'' can make a large portion of the game much easier. Mountain Apples raise your entire party's HP by 5% each. The effect will stack if you take multiple. Given how you have about twenty free inventory slots and never need more than two or three slots open at any time, you can carry around ten or so apples and get tremendous boosts to your HP, trivializing large portions of the game.

*** This bug is inherent to the physics of the Gamebryo Engine ([[BlatantLies which Skyrim's engine is not at all based on]]) and has showed up (much less frequently) in previous games using it, such as ''FalloutNewVegas''.

** Due to a bug in the physics engine, getting killed by a giant's club will launch you a few miles into the sky

* ''TheElderScrolls {{Oblivion}}'' had a bug that let you duplicate any object hundreds of times. Cue [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmszTpK54Mk Youtube videos]] of players flooding cities knee-deep in watermelons and human hearts.

* ''[[TheElderScrolls Morrowind]]'' has a bug with alchemy that can quickly prove to be a gamebreaker, on two fronts. First, while simple alchemy ingredients are available in unlimited supply for 1 gold each, the potion created by combining two of these ingredients with alchemy sells for substantially more than 2 gold, making for a source of unlimited money right from the start of the game. Second, the potency of potions is partially based on your intelligence score, which can be boosted by an effect called Fortify Intelligence...and it just so happens that you can find the ingredients to make Fortify Intelligence potions in unlimited supply in the first major city you reach in the game. By creating potions, drinking them, and creating more potions, the player could easily create potions of horrifying power (boosting statistics by tens of thousands of points, or restoring thousands of points of health per second for literally days) within minutes of starting the game. Combined with the first alchemy bug, the money needed to buy these ingredients was no object...the free master alchemy set lying around for the taking in the mage's guild of another town only made it easier.
** By 'juggling' weapons that grant stat bonuses, it's possible to have the effect stack with itself and render you nigh-godlike. This allows you to complete the game in a [[http://speeddemosarchive.com/Morrowind.html matter of minutes]].
** The hero could shoot arrows through closed doors to overcome staggering odds.
** Alternatively, once you owned the spell Soul Trap, (or a piece of equipment that would cast it,) and a spell to fortify an attribute, you could create a spell to fortify your strength/speed/intelligence etc. for one second and then soul trap yourself to permanently apply the fortification. Doing so could allow you to increase your attributes, skills, etc far beyond the scope the game would normally allow, and make it so you could jump over Red Mountain or cross Vvardenfell on foot in a matter of minutes.
*** This works with spells other than fortify attribute, as well. Combining it with a spell to summon a golden saint, for instance, will summon a ''permanent'' golden saint to run around with. This can be done multiple times, to either slaughter them and take their gear or to stomp around followed by an army.
** Another endless gold trick involves selling gold pieces to merchants. Clicking the gold to sell it one piece at a time, then taking it all back at once, will result in the merchant buying it for face value then giving it back at a bulk discount. You can't have a transaction without buying or selling anything, though, so the end result can be selling one gold piece for as much as you have the patience for.

* {{Skyrim}} hadn't been out for even a week before people found out that, due to how the new game engine handle eyesight, you could put buckets on people's heads and they wouldn't see you steal stuff.

* A glitch in ''Secret of Mana'' on the SNES enabled a player willing to risk game save corruption the chance to fight the very first boss all over again - provided they made use of the cartridge's in-built soft reset feature - and obtain a ninth sword orb. As other ninth-level weapon orbs were dropped by enemies in the final dungeon, this was the only way to obtain the last forged incarnation of the game's legendary blade.

* ''[[TheElderScrolls Oblivion]]'' had a bug that let you duplicate any object hundreds of times. Cue [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmszTpK54Mk Youtube videos]] of players flooding cities knee-deep in watermelons and human hearts.

*** Another Fade exploit comes from the various fonts and essences, each of which permanently increases one of your attributes by 1 when used. Rapid-fire clicking, however, can get you additional stat boosts, ranging from two or three points to double digits, depending on the font.

* Dark Souls Pre 1.04 had a pretty crazy exploit that involved the Dragon Stone you get for joining the path of dragons covenant that could net you infinite souls and humanity while using it.

** An interesting quirk in KotOR2 is that you can get equivalent results by making your party-members ''hate'' you as you can by making them ''like'' you, including conversation benefits and Jedi training. It is also arguably easier than getting everyone to like you. This allows you to have a team of both Dark and Light Side Jedi, and access to the full selection of buffs and debuffs therein at maximum potential. Want a Sith Exile with Atton Rand as her dedicated Jedi healer? No problem!

* Many of the spells in ''[[{{Ptitlenhv310a8odku}} Baldur's Gate 2]]'' were broken, making mages godlike, even more so than they are supposed to be. For example: