Best risk-reward mechanics?

The one that springs to mind for me is Spelunky's ghost. If you don't know, a ghost starts following you around once you've spent a long time in a given level. It kills you instantly, but also allows you to get significantly more money.

The reload mechanic in gears of war is a memorable one.

In Shovel Knight, you can smash the checkpoints in each level for extra cash, but if you die you go back further.

The most recent example I can think of is Bloodborne's regaining health by counterattacking mechanic.

The XP cache that drops when you die in Lords of the Fallen reducing in value the longer it takes you to get to it.

On harder difficulties, I enjoyed the risk-reward nature of trying to take down a Big Daddy in the original Bioshock. It'd always be a tough and resource-demanding fight, but the reward was always too good to pass up.

Hacking in Deus Ex HR, rushing/overwatch in XCOM EU (offset by run'n'gun).

I don't know if manual docking vs. autopilot in X3 counts. You can save some time at the risk of wrecking your ship against the station. Once you've done it 100 times it starts getting old.

Oh man, so many good ones in this thread already. Risk/reward mechanics get my blood pumping lol How about late braking in Assetto Corsa... and every other racing sim lol yeah, I know that doesn't count.

I have fighting games on my brain at the moment, but there are so many amazing risk/reward mechanics in them. Command grabs on low health characters are a personal favorite, even if it gets me killed a lot (RIP MAKOTO).

There's also some fun characters that have their effective position close to the opponent. You are always in the danger zone, risking your life. But that's also where you are strongest to combat your opponent and get the win. Though to be fair, this is a very common mechanic in good game design. Souls and other hack'n'slash games do the same thing very well. One of the reasons I think Bayonetta is so amazing. Witch time and dodging is a genius mechanic to make the player want to stay close and risk everything on their reflexes and timing.

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: That totally counts. Driving on the absolute edge is the best risk/reward in gaming i can think of :)

I also loved the latest Hitman game and the scoringsystem. The riskier path you take the better score you get.

The Spelunky ghost is a great example, yeah.

Elite's mass vs jump range creates some decent risk-reward too, as shields, armor and weapons are the heaviest modules you may want to remove them in order to do much longer hyperspace jumps. The early cargo ships in the games can get more than twice as long jump ranges if they're entirely defenseless.

God Hand's difficulty system is kind of weird reversal of the concept. For taking risks and doing well you are rewarded with a more difficult challenge.

The Binding of Isaac's deal with the devil. You sacrifice hp for items. Spelunky's ghost is also pretty great. It's scary because you cant afford to make a single mistake.

The time to difficulty in Risk of Rain. You can get so much out of a single level but you'll pay for it and soon as you progress if you take too long.

This mechanic was really cool. Also the "XP multiplier" thing where the longer you kept fighting without banking your XP, the higher the multiplier. Would love to see this, or similar in the real Souls series.

Burnout (Especially Burnout 3) has a great risk/reward with driving on the wrong side of the road, the longer you do it the faster you go and more boost you get, but of course you're driving on the wrong side of the road so you have a much greater risk of getting into an accident.

Persona 4 and how the cards could totally screw you over.

The way you choose difficulty levels in Kid Icarus Uprising, where it's essentially like gambling. Difficulty is chosen on a sliding scale rather than preset levels, and the higher the difficulty the more XP and weapons you get out of a stage.

Risk reward is definitely something that games can do very well. I like a lot of the calculated risk/reward mechanics like the reload in Gears, because it feels like you're in control and not just throwing something up to chance.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater's combo system where botching a trick can lose you hundreds of thousands of banked points. You know what, many games with a combo multiplier that can reset at the point of one screw up. Like the Ratchet and Clank games had one that multiplied the amount of currency you get as you kill more, but would reset if you managed to get hit (delicious bolts). Also, countless numbers of shmups. Or character action games like the Devil May Cry games where you gotta weight the risks of getting a higher rating. A lot of the concept stem from arcade games, so it's probably one of the oldest risk/reward mechanics I'd guess.

Not washing an apple before eating it.

I really liked playing as Krieg in Borderlands 2, to the point he became my main character in the game. A lot of his skills become better as he's injured or lit on fire, so the more you're hurt as him, the better your abilities.

Almost everything in Darkest Dungeon - trinket effects, light level & supplies.

Gears of War active reloading comes to mind. Reload faster, time it perfectly to also get a damage boost, or fuck it up and spend the next five to ten seconds with an unusable weapon.

Lately, Dirt Rally. It took me 30+ hours to really get a feel for some specific cars, which now allows me to take turns at faster speeds to shave off time. The smallest error could result in totaling your car (and obviously a bad overall completion time).

Yeah, my first thought was Forza Horizon 2, or the old PGR games back in the day. I think everyone has had an "I can keep it going....NOOOOOO!!!" moment with combo multipliers.

Bangai O without a doubt. It's so good. Basically you hold the annihilate-everything button while missiles, bullets and enemies fly towards you, the closer to you and the more of them there are, the larger your retaliation fire. To the point where if you've timed it right, your missiles and bullets are 4X regular size and there are hundreds of them and there's so much slowdown and flashing you can hardly see what's going on at all. It's barely controlled insanity and ridiculously fun and rewarding.

This is the HD version. I prefer the older, shittier looking Dreamcast and Nintendo DS games.

On the contrary, I think the Burnout meter in Burnout 2 was a more compelling risk/reward system. You have to build the whole thing before you can even use it, and then you can only activate it once - no jumping in and out of boost when you please. Better still, if you do well enough while using the Burnout meter and use the entire thing, it'll keep refilling the entire meter (building a multiplier for each consecutive Burnout bar used) pretty much until you can't use it anymore or you crash. Either way, once you stop, you have to start building the meter over again, thereby incentivizing the use of the entire meter whenever possible. I still think it's the most compelling thing that Burnout tried through the series' run; nothing made me feel less in control and more intensely focused than trying to use an entire burnout bar.

Money is pretty useless in Spelunky if you aren't going for a high score though.

Need for Speed: Rivals was pretty intense. You can avoid banking points to increase your multiplier, and the longer you go the more out of hand stuff got.

So there were plenty of crazy moments where hitting a wall while chased by cops would destroy your heart. But making it back to base was amazing each time.