Backpack mechanism - realistic fun or boring-tedious?

[soggie]

Since my accidental mention of how much I loved backpacks spurred my contract artist to throw in one, I've been wondering, should I do something different with Splintered Core's (in case you don't know, it's a post-apocalyptic jungle-based CRPG set to release on a Friday) inventory system?

First off, everybody carries a backpack. It's like an equip-able item, and once equipped you'll get a set number of inventory slots as well as specialized quick weapon slots. There are bags for long distance journies (lots of slots of food and provisions) or combat-oriented bags (less inventory slots, more slots for ammo and more quick weapon slots), etc.

When carrying the backpack, it'll give you penalties in combat unless you choose to drop it. Some bags (combat bags especially) come with quick releases, which means less AP spent to drop 'em. Alternatively, when assaulting an enemy position, you can set your party to drop all backpacks into a hidden cache to prepare for combat. Heck, it's even nicer to ambush the enemy and laugh as they waste AP to drop their bags while you cut 'em down with your heavy machine guns.

This opens lots of avenues for emergent gameplay. Can't pick pocket an NPC for an important quest item, and can't kill him either because he's an important person to another quest? Engage combat with him and he'll drop his bag. Then using one party member, you lure him away from his bag, and then quickly send another party member in to secure the item from his pack.

What do you guys think? Is this a tedious mechanism or is it actually fun?

============
UPDATE

Current discussion:
- Backpack mechanism too tedious, not worth it
- Should party inventory be implemented instead? <--- current status

 

[Darth Roxor]

Sounds tedious, to be honest. Like, 'drop stuff before each combat encounter' sounds an awful lot like pre-buffing, just with the added annoyance of having to pick it up, too.

But 'combat bags' with quick access should be neat, but these would need very limited inventory space.

 

[soggie]

Sounds tedious, to be honest. Like, 'drop stuff before each combat encounter' sounds an awful lot like pre-buffing, just with the added annoyance of having to pick it up, too.

But 'combat bags' with quick access should be neat, but these would need very limited inventory space.

How about this: in the game there are different encumbrance levels, which largely affects your speed. Say you just raided a dungeon, and is currently over-encumbered (-50% combat speed). You get waylaid on the route back to town, and here you have 2 options: (1) fight it out with -50% penalty to speed, or (2) drop the backpack to lose the penalty. The risk of dropping your bag is two fold though: (1) you spend time doing so; and (2) enemies might loot your stuff.

Compared to the conventional mechanism where you need to drop items from your backpack to the ground upon being waylaid, assuming that encumbrance affects combat performance. It both takes a much longer time to offload items and to pick them back up again.

So having the option to just drop the entire backpack is actually a beneficial feature in this sense, or at least I hope. A nice abstraction of an otherwise tedious conventional RPG mechanism, so to say.

Plus, it gives you the ability to customize your backpack. There might be say, a backpack that has 2 kinds of slots: perma slots and discardable slots. You store important items in your perma slots, and random loot in your discardable, and when combat commences you have the option to (1) drop the entire backpack (which takes a longer time); or (2) just drop the discardable one (takes much less time).

Not to mention you get quick access slots, where you can swap weapons quickly without having to go into the inventory to do so (which costs you AP).

 

[Darth Roxor]

enemies might loot your stuff.

While this might look good on paper, it sounds dumb from a 'realistic' point of view. I mean, bandits ambush you. You drop your backpack right at your feet. Firefight ensues. Who the fuck rushes to a backpack to snatch stuff while there are bullets flying his way? Not to mention that it also seems to, in the end, benefit you, not the enemy. Does he take the whole backpack at once? Well, okay, he should now be encumbered like a mule and almost immobile. Does he stop by and take only some stuff from it? Then he wastes an awful lot of time to do that.

(1) drop the entire backpack (which takes a longer time); or (2) just drop the discardable one (takes much less time).

Eh? Shouldn't this be the other way around? I can drop a backpack in two or three quick moves. Compare that to first taking it off your back, then opening the relevant section and emptying out the content.

 

[laclongquan]

Sound like the system of Jagged Alliance 2 unofficial patch/mod 113 use. Your normal pack is little but you can use other backpacks. Anyway, try it to see how much similiar to yours.

My impression of JA2 v113? Good, not great but good. Realistic, even.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Backpack: The Game

Are you a bad enough dude to manage packing?

 

[soggie]

@Darth Roxor

Well think about it. In an extended firefight, it is not that impossible that you might find yourself far, far away from your original position. This is especially true in my design where seeking cover, flanking and suppressing the enemy are much more important than sheer firepower. It's not that hard to imagine that your enemies might stumble upon your backpack, and when that happens, there's no stopping them from taking a peek right?

This is especially applicable when you and your party prepare to assault an enemy camp by dumping all excess weight into a cache somewhere nearby the camp, and proceeding ahead. While you are happily slaughtering the enemy left and right in the camp, some lone NPC might stumble across your hidden cache, and make it away with your precious gauss ammo.

You then return victorious only to find yourself robbed, and in a flurry of rage engage your trekking skills to hunt down the thief.

Like I said, I'm wondering if it is possible to develop somewhat of an emergent gameplay with this mechanism or not.

Also, what I meant with "discardable section" is there's a separate compartment that is hooked onto the main section with simple clips, and all you need to do is to release these clips to drop half of the backpack on the ground. So instead of spending say 5AP to drop the entire backpack, you instead spend only 2AP to drop 50% of the backpack.

@laclongquan

I didn't really get into JA2 v113 (finished with the vanilla version), but I can say that I'm partly inspired by it.

Basically, what I wanted to do was have a set of default slots based on your armor. If you're wearing a kevlar chest piece, you might have say 8 ammo/small items slots, five belt slots and one quick weapon slot. If you add on a 60L backpack, you gain an additional 12 large item slots, as well as 5 extra ammo/small items slot too, not to mention the comfortable 4 point strap system reduces perceived weight by 20%. Bad thing is it takes 8AP to remove it.

@DarkUnderlord

Backpack: The Apocalypse

You play as a backpacker in a post-apocalyptic world, fighting constantly against the evil weight while travelling the world scavenging for food. Will you survive? Are you ingenious enough to win against the devious devil-of-excess-space-resulting-from-bad-packing-strategies?

Grim. Dark. Matured. Pack your bags. NOW.

Coming to a game portal near your bookmarks this Friday.

 

[DraQ]

Sounds like a good idea, but it really depends on implementation. Heavily. If all it does is another thing you have to repeat every time when you enter and exit the combat, then it will fail. Hard.

It needs to become an integral element of gameplay, not an orphan feature. There should be opportunities to recover pack, it should have application in stealth, etc. It also should be as automated as possible in situations when it's going to be repetitive.

tl;dr
Good idea with immense potential for horrible execution.

P.S.
Anything suggesting that your jungle PA RPG won't suck? So far I've only seen evidence to the contrary.

 

[soggie]

Here's what I think the implementation would look like. When combat begins, you have to manually drop the pack by selecting that action. It's no different than any other actions, the amount of clicks is the same.

The only inconvenience here would be the retrieval of the pack, where you need to walk all the way back to your bag to get it.

When you exit combat however, the screen fades to black and back again, and your pack would be retrieved automatically. This is of course, assuming that your bag has not been tampered with (a perception check). If it has been tampered with, when the screen fades back in, you'll appear next to your bag where you can initiate trekking action.

I'm not sure though if your return route intersects with an enemy patrol, how would the system handle it. This could be abused, where you get a stealthy party member to go into a fortress and plant a backpack, initiate combat outside the fortress vs rats, and then when the combat ends your entire party miraculously dodged all enemy patrols and "teleported" right into the middle of the fortress. You then crap on the king's throne and initiate combat with a cockroach, which then should teleport you back out of the fortress using the same method. Ugly.

This however would be added in as a feature. I'm thinking of something like Eschalon 2's model - where the more "hardcore" options you enable, the better rewards for XP and item randomization results.

P.S.
Nope. It'll suck. Trust me. Suck you so hard you'd be cumming buckets in no time.

I have a concept artwork done but I'm holding onto it until I get another artwork done. It's amazing. You have to trust me. You really have to. Please.

 

[Achilles]

I don't think it adds anything substantial to gameplay in order to warrant the time you'll spend on it.It might be better to just drop it and focus on something else.

 

[soggie]

Let me just ask this. Is JA v113's inventory system good?

Next question: using the inventory system from JA v113, is adding the function "drop pack" good?

 

[DraQ]

There is nothing such option can break in itself and it can be convenient to have, however building your system specifically around it may be a disaster if done wrong.

Don't get me wrong, this kind of system is something I absolutely want to see in an RPG, it's just easy to make it a chore instead of meaningful gameplay element.

 

[JarlFrank]

P.S.
Anything suggesting that your jungle PA RPG won't suck? So far I've only seen evidence to the contrary.

It won't suck.

 

[soggie]

There is nothing such option can break in itself and it can be convenient to have, however building your system specifically around it may be a disaster if done wrong.

Don't get me wrong, this kind of system is something I absolutely want to see in an RPG, it's just easy to make it a chore instead of meaningful gameplay element.

Jarl just came up with a better solution: forget about backpacks. Let's do party inventory!

There are two inventories: party inventory and combat inventory. Let's talk combat inv first.

Each character has their own combat inventory, which are basically a collection of large and small slots where they can put items in. Think JA. These slots change when the character changes armor, which increases or decreases the number of slots available.

Party inventory on the other hand is a global inventory shared by all party members. Like the combat inventory, there are large and small slots, but these slots are determined by the backpack one is carrying. Say you have two characters and each of you have a large backpack, each contributing 2 large slots and 5 small slots. In total, you'd have 4 large slots and 10 small slots.

After that, your character's strength are totaled up to get the total carry weight.

This mechanism eliminates the chore of managing party inventory, and makes trading simple, where you don't need to remember what loot is at where.

The party inventory however is not accessible during combat. This is meant to eliminate situations where you can change armor in the middle of combat, which is downright illogical.

So in this case, it's pretty similar to JA2, where you have a global inventory and local inventory for each merc.

Oh and drop the backpack idea too. Maybe you guys are right - it's too tedious a gameplay element.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oh and drop the backpack idea too. Maybe you guys are right - it's too tedious a gameplay element.

Yes. At first I thought to make party inventory unlimited, but we can maybe limit it according to the strength of party members.

 

[DraQ]

Well, dropable backpack would work wonderfully in a game like Daggerfall, where you often had to swim (which can be problematic when encumbered with full plate, several weapons and a bag of misc stuff), climb, sneak, etc.

System where instead inventory, you only have equipped items, with some of them being containers or housing slots for attaching other equippables is also inherently powerful and interesting - droppable packs happen to be built into it.

 

[soggie]

System where instead inventory, you only have equipped items, with some of them being containers or housing slots for attaching other equippables is also inherently powerful and interesting - droppable packs happen to be built into it.

That was the original idea actually. You had a slot called "backpack" which you can equip a pack, giving you a number of slots. In combat you can then drop it on the ground to cut weight.

 

[Phelot]

I liked JA2 1.13 inventory system. It seemed reasonable and realistic if that's what you're going for. I also found it to be fun since I'm a micromanager nut.

 

[Achilles]

Jarl just came up with a better solution: forget about backpacks. Let's do party inventory!

This I like.

 

[JarlFrank]

Jarl just came up with a better solution: forget about backpacks. Let's do party inventory!

This I like.

Yay, my ideas are appreciated.

Basically, how I'd like to do it: have a party inventory that is either unlimited or limited by the strength of your party members. You put all the stuff you loot in there. When in combat, this inventory is not accessible.

Instead, you will only be able to use stuff you've got equipped on your character: say, a sword on your belt, two guns in their holsters, an ammo belt filled with bullets, a knife strapped to your boot. This way, resources for combat encounters are also effectively limited. Got 500 bullets in your party inventory and think you'll never run out of bullets? Nope, because you won't be able to equip them all.

This way, you also won't be able to use 4 different melee weapons and 6 different rifles in the same battle, because you just won't be able to equip them all at the same time.

An alternative idea would be to have only the equipment-slot based inventory, without the party inventory, so you'll end up not being able to haul huge amounts of loot back to town and get stinking rich after a few random encounters. Either that or make the party inventory relatively small.

 

[soggie]

Jarl just came up with a better solution: forget about backpacks. Let's do party inventory!

This I like.

Yay, my ideas are appreciated.

Basically, how I'd like to do it: have a party inventory that is either unlimited or limited by the strength of your party members. You put all the stuff you loot in there. When in combat, this inventory is not accessible.

Instead, you will only be able to use stuff you've got equipped on your character: say, a sword on your belt, two guns in their holsters, an ammo belt filled with bullets, a knife strapped to your boot. This way, resources for combat encounters are also effectively limited. Got 500 bullets in your party inventory and think you'll never run out of bullets? Nope, because you won't be able to equip them all.

This way, you also won't be able to use 4 different melee weapons and 6 different rifles in the same battle, because you just won't be able to equip them all at the same time.

An alternative idea would be to have only the equipment-slot based inventory, without the party inventory, so you'll end up not being able to haul huge amounts of loot back to town and get stinking rich after a few random encounters. Either that or make the party inventory relatively small.

Come to think of it, both can be implemented at the same time. You can have a party inventory AND have equipment slot-based inventory. The former can be considered as global inventory while the latter can be considered a personal inventory.

 

[Unradscorpion]

But what exactly would be the use of the party inventory?

 

[laclongquan]

If you think the bitching they raise on droppable packs heavy, you dont want to know the kind of shitstorm a party-shared inventory will raise here. Party inventory make absolutely no sense in game. If I remember correctly, MM8 tried it once. But I doubt 1st person view RPG like MM series is your design.

Instead of droppable, concentrate on Choice and Consequence. If you choose big pack, penaltize that with a few AP. Force them to choose big storage or mobility. Forget the dropping pack at start of battle. It's too fiddly. In JA113 I just forget that aspect and play pretty much normally.

And JA2 v113 did good. You choose between multiple kind of packs: big bulky for weapons storage or several large pockets to store grenades or better camo...

 

[zeitgeist]

Let me just ask this. Is JA v113's inventory system good?

Best system I'm aware of if pseudorealism is the goal.

Next question: using the inventory system from JA v113, is adding the function "drop pack" good?

Depends on the implementation - in 1.13 you could drop packs at any time. If you were wearing a small combat pack, you wouldn't ever really want to drop it during combat. If you were wearing a huge pack, you'd usually only drop it if you wanted to climb a roof, and in close combat. So an implementation of that exact mechanic sounds pretty good to me, as long as you don't do something silly like making all backpack penalties severe enough that you're basically forced to drop them as soon as any kind of combat starts. Which wasn't the case in JA2 at all.

I'm not really sold on the concept of party inventory, I think it's veering too much into abstract territory, but that's probably a matter of personal taste.

 

[DraQ]

Depends on the implementation - in 1.13 you could drop packs at any time. If you were wearing a small combat pack, you wouldn't ever really want to drop it during combat. If you were wearing a huge pack, you'd usually only drop it if you wanted to climb a roof, and in close combat. So an implementation of that exact mechanic sounds pretty good to me, as long as you don't do something silly like making all backpack penalties severe enough that you're basically forced to drop them as soon as any kind of combat starts. Which wasn't the case in JA2 at all.

I'm not really sold on the concept of party inventory, I think it's veering too much into abstract territory, but that's probably a matter of personal taste.

Basically this.

Party inventory worked in Wiz8, but it was gamey DC and you moved as blob anyway.