Backpack mechanism - realistic fun or boring-tedious?

[JarlFrank]

The party inventory would just be for the stuff you can't carry on your body - additional armors and weapons so you can change those before encounters, or sell them off to a trader.

 

[denizsi]

Part inventory is great for minimizing boring micromanagement and a nice abstraction for out-of-dungeon/travel map situations. Otherwise it's as good as a cheat when your characters are spread out.

 

[soggie]

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

The argument for a party inventory in a tiled isometric game is to sacrifice realism for convenience. Taking a cue along the lines of automaps, do any of you here seriously consider this scenario to be constructive to your enjoyment of an RPG:

You have a party of A, B and C, where C holds a valuable loot that you wish to sell. In town, your party leader A goes around a corner to a merchant shop and engages in conversation. At this point B and C have yet to catch up and are about half a screen away. When you try to sell off C's items, you either get an inaccessible inventory or an error pops up telling you that C is just too far away.

It happened in Fallout, and Baldur's Gate, and practically most RPGs of the old, and I've never enjoyed them. I don't see micromanaging inventories to have any meaningful gameplay purposes at all other, in this sense.

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...

I don't really mind "shitstorms". You gotta expect that when you ask for opinions on the 'dex.

About JA2 v113, yeah I might take a leaf out of it. I liked the original JA2 inventory, and from the screenshots I saw I think v113's improvement on top of it was a step in the right direction.

Having said that, I suddenly thought of how one could abuse the mechanism of part inventory.

Say you have a party of 4, and you are about to clear an alley of low levelled thugs which is an easy enough job that you can finish it with just 2 party members. So you station a party member in front of a merchant, and another in front of a "potion seller" of sorts.

You send the 2 dudes into combat, and when they are finished with one combat you pick up stuff and immediately sell them off to a merchant several screens away with that stationed party member. With that gold, you have the potion member buy potions, and then have the 2 combat dudes heal and rearm themselves before continuing to the next fight.

Heck, having a party inventory like this would even justify the existence of non-combat characters by making them teleport stations and remote resupply bots.

Fuck, this is starting to sound really ridiculous.

But the question still remains - the scenario above was but a harmless abuse of the system. It doesn't make combat easier - as you can't resupply in the middle of combat using the party inventory. All it does is reduce the times you spend running back to merchants, at the cost of taking away the direct support of other party members in combat. Considering that you cannot leave the local map while leaving a party member behind, I'd say this mechanism is only abusable in local maps.

Unrealistic as it may be, I think in this case the convenience provided should be able to outweigh the negatives.

EDIT: Having said that, this suddenly reminded me of Dragon Age's auto-healing mechanism... Tell me they are not similar. Please.

 

[zeitgeist]

You have a party of A, B and C, where C holds a valuable loot that you wish to sell. In town, your party leader A goes around a corner to a merchant shop and engages in conversation. At this point B and C have yet to catch up and are about half a screen away. When you try to sell off C's items, you either get an inaccessible inventory or an error pops up telling you that C is just too far away.

In JA, this issue was was partially solved by the ability to sell items directly from the sector inventory (all enemy-dropped loot and other items on the ground), which was an abstraction of "selling to the locals". The prices were reduced to 25%. So you would usually sell all junk items, but you'd still have to make the trip if you wanted to sell something worth selling at a full price. It wasn't that bad of a compromise.

You should try to analyze how the sector inventory worked and in which conditions it was accessible, because IIRC the ways of abuse you're speaking of weren't possible.

 

[denizsi]

Huh I don't even remember you could sell loot in JA.

 

[laclongquan]

Damned Liar!

 

[soggie]

Damned Liar!

Referring to who?

 

[laclongquan]

the previous poster, of course. denizsi

 

[soggie]

the previous poster, of course. denizsi

I remember being able to sell loot via the laptop, but don't remember being able to sell to locals though. I DO remember that you had to ferry loot to the airport and THEN to the player, which I *usually* don't do but rely on field loots instead.

 

[laclongquan]

There is no sell through laptop. You can buy, then they ship to airports, but no sell.

The need for sell to local (and sell to merchant) appear in higher difficulty, esp with v113. v112 and earlier version does not make the game so hard that you need several teams in different towns to protect town/mine/merchant/strategic locations. With v113, you need to protect the gun merchant at the very least, then the airports (militia cant do the job under repeatedly assaults of elites), then the hostpital, then the central refuel location, and one or two moving teacher to train militias in Sam sites as well as towns. And the fee of helicopter. Cost of mortar ammo. Explosives. mercenary payroll.

The towns' mines just cant provide enough the cashes you need.

 

[soggie]

Memories flooding back. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Need... to... replay...

Yeah you're right. Now I remember, the gun merchants. I did sell a fair bit of loot to them, although I don't remember having an interface (as mentioned by zeitgeist) that could do sector-wide selling without the need to pick up the items first.

But how should this apply to my proposed inventory mechanism? Remember the current topic is on party inventories, and the argument is basically convenience vs realism (or breaking of convention).

 

[laclongquan]

Morrowwind use the system of Recall spell, right? That make porting back to town to sell loot is soo easier then you recall right back to the dungeon. It became a great routine.

What they should do is that position one or two convenient storage space right at the entrance of the dungeons. People will store their loots there and make one or two trips back to get them all. Fuck Recall spells! Such a thing will break suspension of disbeliefs. And if you want people to travel about and gawking at the pretty scenery you shouldnt provide easy instant transportation like that.

My recommendation is to drop the party inventory but make it easy to dispose loots. What kind of dungeons you are talking about? Caves among the forests? While not have some moving caravans that travel from towns to towns and you can detect them fairly easily using game's engine or some rule of thumbs. Near rivers or coasts? boat-traders who move along seacoast or rivers with the easy transport of water.

One important part is about loot but if you make it super easy to dispose off loots it will cheapen itself in gamer's eyes. Anyone still remmeber some piece of really obscure loots that we carry from towns to towns to find a use for it or a place to sell? books in BG1 (though it's a stupid design because baby, in medieval times books are costly, rare, and easily sellable to merchants). Waterchip, the Vault13 water flask in Fallout?

 

[soggie]

Firstly, the setting in my game is modern post-apocalyptic. So no magic anywhere.

Secondly, I have an economy system. Actions in certain towns will affect the world economy in ways. Blow up the crop fields in Redwater (that happens to be the largest crop supplier to the lands)? Food items will raise to astronomical prices (which is good if you have a nice stockpile). Same thing with weapons. Wipe out the famous weapon manufacturer just to get some nice weapon loot? This would mean that their weapons would sell (and cost) a lot to buy in the future, and enemies would be spotting less of it.

I wasn't really thinking of making loot easy to dispense (considering that most items aren't worth shit, and those that do are usually quest items), but rather simplifying the mechanics of inventory management in a party of 6, reducing the number of clicks and mouse movement and preventing the situation where you have to scan through each individual character's inventory to find the item you need. Also, there's the question of swapping characters (there's a total of 12 followers, of which you can only have 5 of them tag along at any time), which I call succession management.

 

[denizsi]

I've assumed that zeitgeist was talking about JA, not JA2.

I've completely forgotten about the gun merchant in JA2 too, though.

 

[soggie]

I've assumed that zeitgeist was talking about JA, not JA2.

I've completely forgotten about the gun merchant in JA2 too, though.

Can't blame you if you're playing vanilla. I never had the need to sell stuff in the vanilla. I had so much money that I was constantly buying. There's only one instance where I remembered ever selling anything, and that was during the end game where I almost ran out of money for hiring too many mercs at a time.

Or was it because I cheated?

 

[zeitgeist]

I've assumed that zeitgeist was talking about JA, not JA2.

I've completely forgotten about the gun merchant in JA2 too, though.

Oh, sorry, was referring to JA2 1.13! It was totally possible to ignore the merchant and just sell things from the sector inventory (or not sell anything at all for that matter), he wasn't really essential if you managed your finances well. It was still a more lucrative option though.

although I don't remember having an interface (as mentioned by zeitgeist) that could do sector-wide selling without the need to pick up the items first.

IIRC you had to alt-click on an item to insta-sell. Or shift-click, don't have it installed right now. The items shown in the sector inventory would be the items you've seen on the map (I'm not sure if all items you haven't actually seen with a character would show up after liberating a sector, but I do remember that the items in unopened crates and such wouldn't).

But how should this apply to my proposed inventory mechanism? Remember the current topic is on party inventories, and the argument is basically convenience vs realism (or breaking of convention).

It's a closely related concept, a party inventory would likely function just like a sector inventory that isn't limited to one sector - it would be accessible or inaccessible in similar situations, it would be used for similar purposes, it would provide a similar level of convenience etc.

 

[soggie]

So I take it that your stance is: you're advocating the concept of a party inventory but in order for it to work the convenience provided must be balanced by a penalty on the final price?

JA2 still has the inconvenience involved with supplying equipment bought from the laptop, as well as the hunting-for-item-in-character-inventory syndrome as well.

The core concern here right now is the management of inventory items across party members. Do we sacrifice realism (and open up avenues for mechanism abuse) for convenience, or is the conventional inventory management style sufficient enough that it's pointless to attempt to reinvent the wheel?

The cons of having a party inventory would be a sacrifice in realism and the possible abuses, even when we do something similar to JA2.

Is there any way to kill two birds with one stone (as in realistic AND easy to manage) in this case?

 

[denizsi]

Party inventory doesn't go against realism. It's a pretty realistic abstraction provided access is conditional. JA2 did it right with sector inventories. I don't remember any way to abuse it at all.

Also, hunting for item in character inventory in JA2? What character inventory? There was only sector inventories and whatever you equipped your characters with.

 

[soggie]

Party inventory doesn't go against realism. It's a pretty realistic abstraction provided access is conditional. JA2 did it right with sector inventories. I don't remember any way to abuse it at all.

Also, hunting for item in character inventory in JA2? What character inventory? There was only sector inventories and whatever you equipped your characters with.

Character do have inventories. Other than the armor, headgear and weapon equipment slots, you have 4 large slots and a multitude of small slots. That's the inventory I'm talking about.

 

[laclongquan]

Okay, I got a recommendation for you right here:

Make that each member's personal inventory is small and limited, kinda like JA2's certain packs. Make that there's a class of creatures called horses or mules or transportation animals. Their function is not to increase your rate of movement but to carry more inventory (double or tripple the personal inventory) and carry more bulkier stuff (like you can carry only one halberd but your horse can carry 4...).

The easiest visible fault of Lord of the Ring's fellowship party is that they use only ONE horse for stuffs. They should have at least 3. 1 horse for 3 men is about right if we are talking about 1week journey and place for loots.

As to horse, make them a mute companion that you can hire/buy from stablemaster/farmers... They cant talk, can excute very simple order, can wear armor (horse armor which limit their carry capacity), can excute one single attack ("HOOF!"?), can eat like other members (if you do the eat/drink thing).

A transportation animals should be quite expensive to buy and should be reflected accordingly in game. Please check Google to see approriate info http://whitebard.tripod.com/prices.htm
and such. It does not need to be accurate but the price between such goods should retain the comparatively ratio.

Transportation animal's inventory should be like the biggest pack in JA2 v113 system. There big slots and small slots. Small item could be stored anywhere but bulky item should only be stored in certain places and with certain amount. Playing around with inventory is one big part of loot element . Inventory management for the win!

 

[soggie]

I like the idea. Reminds me of dungeon siege.

The only problem comes with how to protect the mule in combat. If your mule gets gibbed by stray grenades, how're you going to haul all those items back?

I'm currently thinking along the lines of improving the UI instead of changing game mechanics, but have no epiphanies yet.

 

[denizsi]

Character do have inventories. Other than the armor, headgear and weapon equipment slots, you have 4 large slots and a multitude of small slots. That's the inventory I'm talking about.

Hardly any item-hunting there.

 

[soggie]

Character do have inventories. Other than the armor, headgear and weapon equipment slots, you have 4 large slots and a multitude of small slots. That's the inventory I'm talking about.

Hardly any item-hunting there.

I wasn't using JA2 as an example when I mentioned item hunting. Think Fallout.

I am however, skeptical of whether JA2's item movement between members being an acceptable mechanic in an actual RPG.

 

[laclongquan]

Item hunting is very much over-rated. it's like whitewashing a moldy wall.

As to JA2, isnt it quite logical. You move item between members in real time: instantatanous if very near and throwing to each other if in range. If in map mode, more like strategic phase, it all became instantanous. I dont remember any complaints about item-transfer.

As to horse dying in combat? Isnt it like your companion dying in combat? Extremely inconvenient and much prone to reloading? As to protect it, two things: horse armor which is heavy as shit and cost your inventory space/weight, or you put it in center with your men around to protect? Or prior to combat you put it in a safe place like a enclosed space with the entry trapped by you. It's much like you protect your mule character in aRPG, isnt it?

 

[Achilles]

Yeah I don't understand why people think that party inventory is not realistic. Let's say that you have a party of characters who all move around with a car/van/carriage or whatever. Most of their belongings would be inside the vehicle's storage space (party inventory) while characters would carry a few necessary items on them at all times (individual inventory).

It sounds quite realistic to me. It's like when you go on vacation and your girlfriend says "honey, can you please get the blanket from the car? I'm cold" and you reply "get it yourself, I'm posting on the codex from my cellphone". The car is the party inventory.