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GameDesign: Inventory

Hajo

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Vault Dweller said:
Hajo said:
I wonder why no game has portable holes yet :)
King's Quest 5 or 6. :wink: Good ol' games.

O well, too many games to try :roll:
Thanks for letting me know, VD!
 

Vault Dweller

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Before I reply, here is some info: no party, reasonable and manageable amount of loot (think Fallout, not KOTOR).

Spazmo said:
Still, make it easier to navigate than Fallout.
What was the problem with the FO scrolling system? How would you improve it?

DemonKing said:
I think any discussion of inventory should also cover paper dolls, since you'll be keeping quite a bit of your inventory there.
The paper doll is already defined by inventory items: 2 hand slots, armor, helmet, cloak, 2 rings, amulet, 2 belt bags. The inventory still could be changed though (from the Fallout model, obviously)

Screaming_life said:
You may have a prefered model for how you like inventory to be but something else might be better for gameplay.
That's why I started this thread - I want to see what people like/dislike and why.

Exitium said:
Why don't you go with Divine Divinity's item tabs and weight restriction?
RGE said:
I'd probably prefer a screen where every type of item is sorted into a separate section
I'll consider it.

bryce777 said:
Honestly I don't care too much, so long as you dont have the stupid situation in BG where you have tons of miniscule objects that fill up your carrying slots, or like in geneforge how your stupid 'living tools' are a pound each and you have a carrying capacity of like 10 pounds after you put armor on.
That won't happen

EEVIAC said:
I think space restricitions are pointless. I like to keep all the trinkets from adventuring no matter how useless they are.
I agree, so definitely no space restrictions, otherwise a game turns into Inventory Organizer mini-game.

Human Shield said:
I'd like an inventory system with space boxes only for survivial gear and weapons (not keys or notes). Have slots on the body and have items to increase slots like holters, cases, backpacks, straps, webbing etc..
Sounds cool, but that's very survival-ish (limited stuff, stripping items for parts, nobody carries 5 sets of armor, etc).

deus said:
That is more or less what my dream inventory system. The key idea is that you shouldn't be able to store more than the absolute necessities. The decisions with loot shoudn't be "Should I drop my +4 dagger of stabbing or my +5 mace of bashing" but rather "Is it worth dropping three days worth of food for the ...".
Also cool, but survival-oriented, imo. It's more realistic, of course, than carrying an invisible huge bag that should weight a ton, but in games most people would prefer to starve than to drop a cool dagger. Handling that differently would require a different game model.

Greatatlantic said:
I think for starters, you should just do away with "phat lewt". Just have enemies drop gold, and keep valuable items few and far between .
Enemies should drop what you expect them to drop, i.e. if your opponent has an armor, a sword, and a shield, than that (plus some minor stuff) is what you should be able to pick up after he's dead or knocked out. If it's a rat it shouldn't drop anything other than a rat's tail, not that I have rats in this game.

Seven said:
I prefer FO's system. Screw realism, I'm a pack-rat.
Exactly

Don't have time to reply to the rest of the posts right now, will do that later. Thanks for the opinions, btw.
 

Human Shield

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I'd have slots for armor and weapons but also have slots to put items for combat use (like X-COM had).

Everything else that you won't use in combat goes on your pack. It is measured by weight and it grows in size on your avatar the more you carry. Growing from large backpack to carrying two sacks with a metal bar.

If you have party members, rent a horse, or get a car the items are automatically split between members.

There would be a division between survival items and barter items.

Weight slows down world travel and increases stamina use. The player has the option to drop the pack on the ground for combat or escape.

You can collect everything or travel light but all players have to decide on outfitting for combat.
 

Claw

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I like Ultima 7 style paper dolls, although I'd prefer a more organized inventory.
I actually think a very restrictive inventory would be better especially if you want enemies to be "realistically" lootable.
That way you'd quickly get used to the fact that you just can't carry around everything you find, because it's far, far, far, far too much to carry around.
Also, equipment could be more expandable than in many rpgs. You kill a well equipped soldier, you get a nice armour, the armour is damaged in fights, you replace it with another armour dropped by some victim. I have little desire for the usual collection game where I slowly piece my equpiment together, starting with nothing over scrap to "Yay, shiny!"
 

DarkSign

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For my MMO Im considering a hybrid system which strives for realism in use, without penalizing questers.

a) regular paper doll where all items contribute to the weight of the character

b) inventory system with tabs for weapons/clothing, equipment, and then quest items.

the weight of weapons and clothing is counted vs total weight carryable.
the weight of equipment is more generous but not totally unrealistic
the weight of quest items is hardly counted at all.

Total weight does count against movement speed and stamina.

since there will be pick pocketing and looting of dead bodies I still need to work out a system for how these would be displayed to someone looking through these packs.

Not meaning to hijack the thread, but any thoughts? Think PA.
 

Kthan75

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NeverwinterKnight said:
in short, im not a fan of having a tiny inventory system, but i also think the kotor system could have been better. heck, you have a frickin' space ship with cargo compartments. that would have been the perfect "out" for the developers to implement inventory restrictions. each character can carry a certain amount, and the rest has to stay on the ebon hawk in the cargo holds. sure, you can still accumulate phat loot, but it will still make you decide between which items to bring on a mission and which to leave on the hawk.

I think what they tried to do in kotor (for the console players, of course), was to eliminate all the unnecessary, sometimes boring actions. For example, suppose all the items that you have on your inventory somewhere on the ship, normally you would have to go on the ship to get them. Instead, they eliminated this action and you have direct access to it in your inventory. It's the same with your party members. They're all on the ship, but instead of having to go there and pick them up, you can can just open a menu and change your party.
I'm not saying this system is necessarily the best. I remeber cursing because I could;nt find some damn hologram in all the shit I was carrying. The party thing though, I think that was useful (I remember Fallout: I need Marcus right now. Now where the hell did I leave him...?)
 

Hajo

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DarkSign said:
the weight of weapons and clothing is counted vs total weight carryable.
the weight of equipment is more generous but not totally unrealistic
the weight of quest items is hardly counted at all.

Total weight does count against movement speed and stamina.

Not meaning to hijack the thread, but any thoughts? Think PA.

In my H-World/The Jungle project worn items have a "hinderance" attribute that influences movement. Stored in backpacks each 10 units of weight add one point of hinderance to the pack.

This system allows to handle the movement restrictions of equipment independant of weight, which sometimes seems to be neccesary.

H-World also uses a paper doll system for wearing equipment (the doll depends on the body config of the charcater, e.g. is build dynamically from game/module data) and a 2D grid to represent item/inventory sizes.

Items can stack. This allows to model a 3rd dimension of inventory space.
 

Stark

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Role-Player said:
Exitium said:
If the game is party based just get rid of the restrictions. It's a pain in the ass. The player can just imagine that they have a chest somewhere.

Doesn't this basically set the precedent for this excuse to be used everywhere else? Creating roleplaying options for all characters is most likely a pain in the ass as well - why not just let the player imagine things in regards to roleplaying instead of giving him a plethora of options?

actually I think it's a pretty neat suggestion. if the imposed restriction is detrimental to "fun" then by all means, remove them (of course one shld not carry it so far as to remove rpg options in a rpg game).

The "weight" restirction (for the sake of game balancing you pointed out later) can still apply for body armor/accessories/weapon type carried on the paperdoll.

I am recently playing kotor and come to realize i didn't miss the backpack inventory management hassle that plagued traditional DnD games at all. Of course, a "filter" that allow me to scroll through different item types (armor, weapon, quest items) would be immensely helpful and almost a want if VD's game feature alot of itemz.
 

Hajo

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Stark said:
if the imposed restriction is detrimental to "fun" then by all means, remove them (of course one shld not carry it so far as to remove rpg options in a rpg game).

There are two sides of the medal

1) restriction = challange
2) restriction = problem

Challenges can be fun. If they re too hard, they become frustrating and turn into a problem.

I assume a game designer must impose restrictions on the player, otherwise the game would be outright boring. The important point is that the restrictions must be balanced with the rest of the game, e.g. a strongly space-restricted inventory doesn't fit to game that requires the player to carry and use lots of different items.

Then, of course, players are different. Some are munchkin packrats, some are lean hunters carrying only the abslutely minimum. I guess one game can't suit them all.

I'm a packrat type. Yet I understand why game designers put limits on the inventory. I'm kind of willing to accept the game, and play "optimize your possesssions within the storage limits" puzzle game.
 

DarkSign

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I think a lot of the decision has to be genre-driven.

In a PA game it wouldnt fit to have a character who can carry a flamethrower, two different SMGs, a sniper rifle, 2 Desert Eagle pistols and a plasma cannon. Thats not to say that there arent creative ways around this...for example having vehicles with a trunk that you could put all this stuff into.

Whereas in a Tolkien-esque game you could have a "bag of holding" or a pocket dimension to pull innumerable items from.
 

Sol Invictus

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A sci-fi/steampunk setting could just as easily allow the incorporation of a 'weight management device', like a steam-powered backpack that boosts the carrying strength of the wielder. Or a mobile pack arachnid (for that really difficult terrain).
 

Fez

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Or it could just be a game and allow infinite/many items with maybe a reasonable weight restriction as it is just for fun, like Fallout. I don't think everything needs to be explained when it comes to game mechanics, that's where suspension of disbelief is supposed to come in. Just choose whatever is the most fun, that is what really matters. That's what Hajo reminded me of there.
 

DarkSign

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I definitely agree about fun being paramount. In my game I think it would detract from the fun if "Mr. Ubah" had the money for 5000 weapons and could carry them all. Plus it would detract from the feel.

Of course thats just in my case. Good point though. FUN = 1st!
 

Keldryn

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A good inventory system needs to find that balance between realism/believability and fun. A truly realistic system would quickly bog down into an inventory management nightmare, and an inordinate amount of time being spent on inventory management. I would not advocate an unlimited capacity, as it does break the game balance, and also leads to a different sort of inventory management nightmare.

Obviously, some restrictions are necessary, but we have to keep in mind that this is a game, and it is supposed to be enjoyable for the player. I see it as punishing the player if you have a game world that is rich with usable/carryable items (ie Ultima VII or Fallout), but then tell them that they can only carry a very restricted amount, claiming "realism" as the defense. There is something to be said for RPGs that have a generic pool of "party inventory" that any party member can draw upon at any time. It's not realistic, but it does save some management headaches for the player. If each character in the party (assuming a party-based game) can carry a reasonable amount, and it isn't a chore to trade items back and forth, then I do like to have per-character inventories, rather than the generic party inventory.

I'm slightly in favor of space restrictions over weight restrictions. Perhaps have the grid scale up or down according to strength. Using explicit weight and space restrictions together can be aggravating, and could be potentially confusing to the player. ("I have lots of space left, why can't I pick this up?!") One restriction is sufficient. I prefer the space method, simply because it is easier to see at a glance how much of your capacity is used by one item. It makes it easier to (no pun intended) weigh the benefits of lugging around that suit of armor vs a handful of gems. It also discourages the carting around of too many extra weapons and armor, as they generally aren't worth enough money to warrant how much space they take up. Yes, restricting items by weight can be used to the same effect, but this method is more visually-based, and it's obvious without even thinking about it which item(s) are taking up too much of your capacity.

Above all, inventory management should not become a barrier to one's enjoyment of the game. A game loses a great deal of its fun factor if you're constantly at your limit and you're having to decide what to drop every time you find something new. Being a packrat, I find myself at this point quite often in RPGs, but I hit this wall in some games far earlier than others.

A prime example of an inventory system interfering with the game: Ultima IX. Sure, there are many other reasons not to enjoy the game, but the inventory was one of
them. Every item took up one slot, no matter how large or small. You could get bags to organize your backback, but they were rare in the unmodified game, and all looked the same, so it was hard to tell one from another. Worst of all was the total lack of stacking items; the code must have existed at one point, as there was at least one instance of Nightshade(3) in the game, and arrows and gold were stackable. I never had enough room to pick up all of the reagents that I found, and ended up just using the "carry around one set and pick them up off the ground before speaking the word of power" cheat when binding my spells.

I like visual-based inventories over text-based ones, but that is personal preference. That is, just show me distinctive images representing my items, and let me mouse over/select them to get the details. I don't really care for navigating long lists of textual descriptions with a little icon beside them.

If the inventory is list/menu based, then there should be tabs to filter/organize items by type. A visual inventory system should also be set up in the same way, or should have multiple containers for small objects... key rings, gem bags, reagent bags, scroll cases, etc. Any items that you tend to carry many kinds of should have a separate tab or container in the interface.

Regardless of how each "container" is set up, it should have a filter to display by type (weapons, armor, magic, potions, scroll, quest items, new items, etc) for easy searching. This was KOTOR's biggest inventory offence.

As mentioned previously in this thread, another approach to inventory management is to e-emphasize picking up huge amounts of loot. Making items scarce is one way, but it always annoys the hell out of me when I fight a human(oid) that is obviously wearing a suit of armor and fighting with a battle axe, and after he is dead, there is no trace of said axe or armor (or lightsaber, as the case may be... grr). If the "monster" is fighting with a weapon, it better damn well be there after he's dead. I do like the idea of making "treasure" less common and more special. Take the focus away from accumlating more and more powerful items, and instead focus on improving the characters' abilities.

Rather than giving the player a long path of slightly-upgraded weapons every so often, leading to him carrying around that Sword +2 or Steel Sword while using the Sword +3 or Mithril Sword until he can find a place to sell it, focus on upgradable weapons and armor.
Small, rare items (and maybe XP?) can be used to upgrade a character's main weapons and armor; this doesn't necessarily mean each character has a default signature weapon a la Final Fantasy, but players would likely have their characters specialize in their favorite weapon.

I also like the use of a bartering sytem, in like Fallout, so that you don't have to carry around 30,000 coins in your back pocket to buy that new sword. That always strains my suspension of disbelief. Gems and jewellery, for example, are valuable and portable, and you should be able to barter with them, rather than just selling them for a few thousand gp.

If you have a small capacity on your character(s), you need an easily accessible location to store your extra loot, that doesn't require a huge amount of backtracking (Fallout
2's car, for example). And even if it's not realistic, there should be no chance of anything getting stolen from this location. DS's pack mule is a cute option that does work pretty well, in game-world-logic terms.


Visbhume said:
I would like to see a generalised inventory system that lets you directly reference objects that are far away from you, or aren't even yours. When you
click on one of these objects, the game would switch to "map mode" and automatically take you to its location (perhaps meeting enemies along the way, or finding that the
object is no longer there).

It would be a cross between an inventory and a diary. It would reduce the incentive to carry ALL the interesting objects you encounter like a fucking cleptomaniac.

Imagine something like that in Arcanum, while playing as an artificer.

I love this idea. Have your auto-map or journal also record the location of items. We need more of these kind of ideas.
 

Volourn

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"Just have enemies drop gold"

Ignore this fool.

Anything you encounter should, at the absolute minimum, drop what they use. If a soldier you just killed used an axe, buckler, and chain as well as had a bow and arrows he better drop them or I call bullshit!

As for inventory, I think a decent combination of max weight carried and logistics can work fine - meaning no carrying 6 full plate armors for a medium sized creature no matter the strength.

That is all.
 

Mimir

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I'm in early design for a CRPG of my own, and I've worked out a an inventory system that I like. The player has normal slots for equipment, and he can also wear containers, such as sheaths,holsters, backpacks, belts, or pouches. The player has a maximum weight he can carry and each container has a maximum bulk, representing how hard the item is to carry, and a maximum bulk per single item. This allows you to have weight and size restrictions, but avoid annoying inventory management. 3 tiny items no longer take up the same amount of room that a longsword does, but you still can't carry 6 full plate armors.

Volourn said:
Anything you encounter should, at the absolute minimum, drop what they use. If a soldier you just killed used an axe, buckler, and chain as well as had a bow and arrows he better drop them or I call bullshit!
While an enemy should drop most of the things he uses, they shouldn't drop armor.
1) Armor would probably get damaged in the fight.
2) Any decent armor needs to be fitted specifically for it's wearer.
 

Volourn

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"While an enemy should drop most of the things he uses, they shouldn't drop armor.
1) Armor would probably get damaged in the fight.
2) Any decent armor needs to be fitted specifically for it's wearer."

And? Your two reasons aren't enough for them not to drop armour.

1. So? It cna either be used for scraps or the armour can be fixed. Afterall, that's what blacksmiths are for.

2. So? It can be used to sell or can be used in a pinch if the new owner is deseperate for protection - just give some negatives if the armour doens't fir properly.. or if the size difference is vast then it doesn't fit at all.

Still, armour like everything else should be dropped.
 

Volourn

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No. Might as well call it the following: Logical Treasure Dropping Incoprated. It sure beats Invisible Vanishing Non Existent Existen Armour that most games have now. :roll:
 

Human Shield

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DarkSign said:
From a design point of view if armor drops off every character and can be sold over and over that inflates the economy. Might was well call it Armor Drop:The RPG.

Why would bandits respawn?
 

AlanC9

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PW economies always go inflationary unless you put in some kind of decaying item BS rule. Restricting drops just delays the inevitable.

The only big issue with having enemies drop everything is that you have to balance the economy for it. In particular, superior items will have to cost a lot more than standard items, even if they're not all that much better.
 

Claw

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Human Shield said:
Why would bandits respawn?
Why would it even matter? Some random bandit wouldn't wear a custom-tailored harness.
You don't have to make enemies challenging by giving them high-quality items. After all, you are the hero, they are the cannon fodder.

And with a restrictive inventory, taking all that loot might not even be an option. If you want reasonable drops, why not add a reasonable inventory?

And I don't really see why you should be able to find someone to buy all your loot at any time and place. In many games a merchant will just take any crap, but that could be changed, too.


PS: WTH is "PW"?
 

Human Shield

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AlanC9 said:
PW economies always go inflationary unless you put in some kind of decaying item BS rule. Restricting drops just delays the inevitable.

The only big issue with having enemies drop everything is that you have to balance the economy for it. In particular, superior items will have to cost a lot more than standard items, even if they're not all that much better.

Or put in scarcity and let supply and demand take care of itself.
 

DarkSign

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Volourn said:
No. Might as well call it the following: Logical Treasure Dropping Incoprated. It sure beats Invisible Vanishing Non Existent Existen Armour that most games have now. :roll:

Sorry. Logic only goes so far. As Human Shield has talked about in various other threads without true scarcity (and truly realistic AI) your "logic" about drops distorts the gameplay.
And the whole reason to be in front of the computer is the damn gameplay.

Hyper-logic doesnt always win.
 

Volourn

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In this case it does. Any developer who cna't balance a make believe economy with decent armour dropping doens't deserve loot dropping respect and yes, that includes the BIOweenies!

This is why in my mod, people will drop any armour they use. Period! And, the economy will be balanced!
 

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