Equipment should weigh less when equipped

[baronjohn]

Because when it's equipped it's better supported by your body than when it's in your backpack (or whatever storage adventurers have).

I think armor weight should be reduced by 2/3 and weapon weight by 1/2 when equipped. This would mean rpg heroes could have much more realistic carry capacities.

This would help balance the economy too, as you could no longer carry 5 armor sets and 20 swords out of the dungeon. The "normal" equipment could thus be made more reasonably expensive, rather than being competely worthless (as it tends to be in rpgs)

 

[JarlFrank]

Didn't either Morrowind or Oblivion do it that (with a high armor skill) armor weighs less when you wear it?

Oh, also why would weapons weigh less when equipped? Holding them in your hand isn't any easier than carrying it on your back (actually it does feel heavier in your hand than on your back/at your hip).

 

[Excommunicator]

Observation is good, intent is fair, but the realism side of it is a little different.

Wearing armour will spread the weight much more than carrying it in your pack and make it feel less, but at the same time it is likely to contribute more to fatigue of individual body parts (depending on the type of armour) due to each body part supporting the weight of its own protective material. Either way, I think it is a useful abstraction to have in a game that will help in other areas as well.

Also, a weapon being carried in the hands will be much heavier and lead to fatigue much faster than one that is sheathed or held on the back. Anyone wielding a sword in combat and travelling long distances would be very eager to sheathe it when they can. Same goes for any weapon. Thus the reality is the reverse of your suggestion.

As for the third part, I don't really think this mechanical restriction is relevant to the economic/logistic side of things. Unless you are balancing items by their discounted weight, then the only effect it will have is encouraging people to wear the heaviest thing they have, thus having the opposite effect. Weight and volume restrictions are separate, and the fact that it was never a realistic mechanic anyway means that realism-based design alterations are just going to contradict it being there to begin with.

Following from that, I am not huge fan of the loot and equipment side of RPGs, although certain incarnations have been fun enough. I would prefer much more limited weight and volume allowances for characters and to work away from loot as the player character's source of income. There are too many problems with it anyway, that unless you can come up with some far better accompanying mechanics like vehicles, pack animals or caravans which often contradict the RPG style, then looking towards creative ways to replace it with something better would attract my attention more.

I don't doubt there will be disagreement.

 

[Calem Ravenna]

Some MUDs and probably some roguelikes use systems like this.

In Discworld MUD for example items can be carried in three different ways. There is an abstract 'inventory' of sorts, limited to ~6 items and all those items have a normal effect on encumbrance. Items wielded in hands are more cumbersome (this has a lesser effect on proper weapons I believe), while items that are worn (clothes, armor, backpacks etc.) are less cumbersome. Backpacks have limited space (they can be too small for some items) and items inside them also benefit from the weight reduction.

While this doesn't eliminate the ridiculous loot hauling completely (bags and backpacks can contain a lot of items if you organize it all properly), there's little sense in picking heavier items when you're far away from shops, especially since encumbrance gives quite serious penalties.

Other MUDs I played had similiar systems.

 

[Mastermind]

I'd like to see the "sell weapons/armor" economy most RPGs have disappear altogether unless it makes sense (post-apocalyptic guns and especially ammo would be very valuable). Make the player either fulfill contracts or put the barter/merchant skill to use and open a damn shop that earns passive income based on the skill.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'd like to see the "sell weapons/armor" economy most RPGs have disappear altogether unless it makes sense (post-apocalyptic guns and especially ammo would be very valuable). Make the player either fulfill contracts or put the barter/merchant skill to use and open a damn shop that earns passive income based on the skill.

Wow, Mastermind made a post I actually agree with.

Yeah, I'd also like to see the "sell looted shit, become rich" aspect of most RPGs removed or at least toned down a bit. Pawnshops should only buy stuff of acceptable quality (why would any shopkeeper want to buy your rusty sword?) and then they'd only pay a very low price for it, except if it's an exceptional quality item. Because, let's face it - if there are two smiths in town (who have no reason to buy your secondhand items except for melting them down so they can re-use the iron) producing quality products, nobody would buy your secondhand used swords and armor, except for adventurers with a tight budget, who'd go to a pawnshop to find secondhand items for a low price.

If weapons and armor are a rarity, then you could re-sell them for a better price, sure. In a post-apoc world, bartering systems make a lot of sense. But if it's set in a civilized world without a scarcity of resources, where armor and weapons are expensive but available to buy first-hand from a skilled blacksmith, only those with low funds would want to buy secondhand items, which means you wouldn't get much money for those looted swords and chainmails. Oh, and we're not even talking about full plate armor which is usually custom-fitted and therefore would only be sellable as castle decoration or as scrap metal...

 

[SerratedBiz]

This is why it might be reasonable to distinguish between weight load and encumbrance.

 

[denizsi]

Historically speaking, does anyone know what happened to the massive amounts of equipment lying around on dead bodies after a battle where thousands of people died? Were they collected and scrapped? If so, who carried all that excess amounts of stuff? Or maybe they melted and transformed what could be scrapped of metals into a transportable form?

 

[spectre]

Armies took wagons with them specifically to collect loot and supplies. Of course, this applies mostly to stuff that was actually valuable and undamaged.
Then came in the various riff-raff, camp followers, etc. who generally followed the army around, who picked the dead clean of whatever was left.
Then, came the local villagers, who could still salvage some stuff (likem bits of broken metal for the local smithy)
And the rest was left there to rot, and occassionally harass plowsmen for years to come.

 

[Murk]

If the idea is to support more realism then you will ultimately lose out on secondary armor and weapons entirely --- it would be ridiculous to go tromping around in plate mail then find another set and carry it with you to sell. Nevermind the usual RPG Staple of looting every enemy and having dozens of sets of heavy or bulky armor in your "backpack".

I remember starting a thread slightly similar to this in the past...

I thought Gothic 3's "worn" system was a implemented wrongly -- it would halve the strength of items but not the price, which basically forced you to sell the looted weapons of your enemies (often a great achievement in past gothic games was defeating someone and taking their weapon, almost like a trophy). What it should have done is destroyed the value/selling price but left its use mostly intact -- that way you would be encouraged to use looted weapons and not sell a useless staff for 5k gold or whatever.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually, I liked the simple way to get rich in M&B: Pillage a village, pawn phat lewt in town. It was nice that it was the goods and luxuries (that you wouldn't use outside of setting up useless feasts) that netted the best price.

 

[Rhalle]

Because when it's equipped it's better supported by your body than when it's in your backpack (or whatever storage adventurers have).

Maybe there should be both a weight and an encumbrance measurment.

 

[DraQ]

Staple of RPGs or not, I don't really consider roleplaying a freight train enjoyable, so I wouldn't mind loot-sell-repeat mechanics going away.

Still I think there are several things wrong with RPG encumberance mechanics that should go away to make room for improvements.

First, there should be a world of difference between max carrying capacity and max recommended encumberance - carried weight should cripple character's performance long before it actually pins him down. This way we would avoid having unsheathing weapon or shifting burden around immobilizing character.

Even with that, I don't think stuff carried in hands should give encumberance penalty, the better way of handling this would be making it degrade character's stamina much faster. Worn armour and clothes should encumber character less, and burden carried in hands and on character's back should give additional balance penalties.

Additionally, good thing to implement would be size limitations rather than just weight. Weight is how much the character can carry, size is how much space does item take when packed in a container, like backpack. Having your inventory capacity limited primarily by volume would really help here, as weapons and armour tend to be bulky.

 

[Murk]

Soo... Arcanum?

 

[kerec]

Just a thought here....

What if you went the relatively realistic route. The entire carts/rabble/villagers picking the field of loot.

Could handle it much in the way of how Mass Effect 2 handled it; you got your cash distribution at the end of a mission. Except, instead of the funds coming from a benefactor, it would simply be an extrapolation of the loot value left on the battlefield.

 

[Excommunicator]

Agree with everything you said there, DraQ.

I am not even much a fan of the traditional reliance on equipment although I know many people are, and it is usually written directly into the setting, making it hard to escape.

Still, these ideas are elementary to the point where they should have been used many times already over the past 15-20 years, rather than still appear as new ideas for improving what is basically a broken system.


Too bad these things are so unfamiliar that the chance of seeing them is next to zero due to developers being so scared of the audience's reaction to new things.

 

[DraQ]

Agree with everything you said there, DraQ.

I am not even much a fan of the traditional reliance on equipment although I know many people are, and it is usually written directly into the setting, making it hard to escape.

Equipment is important, hauling and trading tons of it, however, is not.
Neither is upgrading it every few minutes.

Situations where player, instead of navigating a dungeon crawl in search for phat lewt, essentially turns said crawl into an armour/weapon mine for fun and profit are all too common.
Underlying causes are exploitability of typical cRPG dungeon crawls caused by lack of any coordinated reaction from hostiles and time being a non-factor, everyone readily buying heaps of damaged armour, as well as ease of hauling massive amounts of loot, the latter being related to he topic of this thread.

Upgrade rush is caused by retarded equipment hierarchy adopted by typical RPGs. This hierarchy is relatively narrow, but highly vertical, with little diversity between individual types of gear, and mundane items occupying the lowermost tier, while all the others are populated by increasingly epic shit.
What I'd propose instead is flattened, mostly horizontal structure, concentrating on meaningfully different types of mundane equipment, followed by meaningfully different types of upper-shelf mundane equipment, followed by rare magical items, followed by stuff of legends you may even get to see with sufficient ingenuity and perseverance. Lowermost tier could include various makeshift weapons, while high tiers would also include custom gear. Some types of gear could appear exclusively in customized form.

Of course, 'meaningfully different' mundane equipment is harder to do than crapload of epic stuff, because differences are subtler, require more in-depth modelling and cannot be accomplished by simply slapping fire damage on one sword and acid damage on the other. In any case, even the difference between tiers shouldn't be particularly large, in terms of performance, instead the differences should be really subtle, but cumulative so that they would matter in the end.

 

[laclongquan]

Make it so armors and weapons distintegrated after, hummm, two dozen of blows. And stuffs you salvaged has health depend on how many blow that body got already. That way you wont have tone of stuffs.

 

[DraQ]

Make it so armors and weapons distintegrated after, hummm, two dozen of blows. And stuffs you salvaged has health depend on how many blow that body got already. That way you wont have tone of stuffs.

Go away.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'd like to see a system where each weapon and armor is useful in its own sense. Spears have long reach and do good piercing damage. Swords are a great all-round weapon, but good luck hurting someone in plate armor. Axes are great for chopping off limbs. Maces and other kinds of nastly blunt/piercing stuff is great against plate, etc etc. Then we have a variety of armours, with plate obviously being the best but also being the heaviest. Armor layering is also a good idea, meaning you can wear chain under your plate, or scale over your leather. Then add locational damage and playing a lightly armored character who only wears chest armor becomes actually viable because the torso is the most aimed-for body part.

Add to that a variety of different materials and qualities (bronze, iron, steel, mithril; a variety of degrees of quality from shabbily forged to masterfully forged) and mundane non-enchanted items actually become interesting.

Now, if you also make the selling of non-magical low- to mid-quality items rather unprofitable, you remove the whole loot hauling mechanic. Make jewelry and magical items, which are much rarer and lighter (in case of jewelry) expensive, instead. This way you also prevent the player from becoming richer than the richest NPC by selling 1000 looted rusty swords for 5 gold pieces each.

 

[Quilty]

Not saying Stalker COP is an incredibly balanced game, but I liked how traders wouldn't buy anything that was damaged. Repairs were expensive, so you couldn't go around repairing shit for a pittance and then selling it for all the riches in the world.

 

[Phelot]

Ya'll niggas be crazy.

While I think it'd be interesting to see a more realistic weight system, I still don't mind trucking and hauling loads of crap to sell, mostly because it's my choice and it's rarely necessary in most games.

I will say that I can appreciate the challenge and slight annoyance that comes with some merchants wanting only certain items.



I think Daggerfall had an interesting concept in that you could get a cart along with a horse. Which makes sense! Simply pack all the phat lewt you find on a wagon or cart or pack animal and haul it to market. And it's even realistic. IIRC from what we know about medieval battles, the weapons and armor that was badly damaged was almost ALWAYS recycled, melted and reused. So, while maybe you shouldn't get hundreds of gold for a busted piece of armor, you should at least get something based on it's weight.



Another thought is Jagged Alliance 2 1.13's new inventory system. I love it! I also think it could work in a fantasy setting as well. What with having sword sheaths and backpacks and all! Just think, you could equip a sekret sleeve sheath for your dagger if you're a thief, have little potion holders for spamming heal potions, and micromanage your quivers. OH GOD ITZ HEAVAN!

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, I'd love an inventory system that lets you put different things on your body and only these things will be usable in combat. If you want to haul loot you can put it in some "storage" inventory which is not accessible in combat, or in dangerous situations (or on any map where there are still enemies). That way you can still pick up a variety of items, but not carry 50 swords into combat at the same time just because you have 100 strength and can carry thewm all.

 

[Helton]

Also other kinds of encumberance for instance when I take my anal dildo in public in my pocket I am always self conscious someone will see is so I walk strangely and cannot always move as fast as I would like. When it is equipped, however, no one can see it so it is almost like a weight off my shoulders even if it is a pain in the ass.

 

[Shemar]

Yeah, I'd love an inventory system that lets you put different things on your body and only these things will be usable in combat. If you want to haul loot you can put it in some "storage" inventory which is not accessible in combat, or in dangerous situations (or on any map where there are still enemies). That way you can still pick up a variety of items, but not carry 50 swords into combat at the same time just because you have 100 strength and can carry thewm all.

JA2 does that (1.13 patch, advanced inventory). Not only can you not access the backpack in combat, but you also lose significant action points if you do not drop it. It's the coolest inventory management system I have seen.