230/150 You are over-encumbered.

[eXalted]

We need more wheelbarrows and trolleys in our games.

 

[Lord_Potato]

For me preferable solution is: inventory tetris on a limited scale (not being able to carry 15 armors and 20 swords), weight limit dependant on str (+ increasingly harsh penalties for carrying more) and picky merchants. Altogether it will at least delay the moment player breaks the economy.

 

[Dramart]

It's a little but annoying, but it's not a big deal. It would be better if you can have unlimited items. But if that option is not available, what can you do? Just deal with it. Sell stuff you don't need or drop them. You had to get rid of a cool item didn't you?

 

[Alphard]

Inventory management should ultimately provoke a good choice, but not make gaming a chore. So if I'm in the middle of a dungeon, I don't want to be making the choice "right, do I drop X items or take Y item instead?" Especially as most games are dungeon>loot>sell. All it ultimately does is slow you down. What I want to be choosing is "Do I use X weapon or Y weapon for my mission", or "Do I take X potion or Y postion" on it.

Again, it all comes back to how much the devs can be arsed with anything.

Exactly. Make us choose how to apprach the level/ area making us committed to the weapon/ammo/ build of choice and have unlimited space for everything else.
It is one of these instance where realism is inversely proportional to fun

 

[Metronome]

Shopping carts. It's what hobos do in real life too. Cataclysm did this pretty well.
I don't know what the medieval equivalent is. Horses and other things are alive and susceptible to being killed.
It would be a pain to recover all your crap then. I guess if it's a fantasy setting a bag of holding is the next best thing.

Though how do you keep consumables from being abused?
In that situation illogical inventory mechanics might be superior.
Or limit consumables in some way, though some item's scarcity might be harder to explain than others.

just don't have the town merchants buy every piece of shit you collect

I think this verges on illogical inventory mechanics. It's not quite the same as "You can only hold 7 things" but it's getting there. After you kill one boss, who owns a castle, who orders around countless minions, you should have enough money to buy anything one man would need from some nobody who lives in a shack. At least if this world makes any sense.

I think maybe late-game tier stuff could be limited to something other than money. For example, if you are trying to buy the +8 spear of Longus Dongus from the ancient wizard, he may want something more useful to him personally than money. He probably has more coins than he knows what to do with at this point, just like you. So there could be another currency in the game for later sections. Something that you could still exchange for money with lesser merchants, but that they can't give you in return for money. Something worth more than all the chainmails you can carry. And this could limit the availability of consumables that would be useful in the late-game without raping the economy or physics. That's just spitballing.

 

[Silentstorm]

Honestly, i think there should just be the time honored tradition of leaving crap behind that isn't really necessary, and if something seems like it could still be important, just have the characters leave a note saying "My pockets ran out of room, please do not pick this glowing gem i found on some cultist leader's body that has the insignia of some old being living outside our realm, still not sure if this is anything decent so please don't steal it, random being passing by!".

Either that or just go to dungeons filled with demons and donkeys or carts by your side and stop every fight by asking the demons/thieves/whatever to have the decency to not attack an animal or your stuff while you fight, after all, that would just be rude.

 

[V_K]

Inventory management should ultimately provoke a good choice, but not make gaming a chore. So if I'm in the middle of a dungeon, I don't want to be making the choice "right, do I drop X items or take Y item instead?" Especially as most games are dungeon>loot>sell. All it ultimately does is slow you down. What I want to be choosing is "Do I use X weapon or Y weapon for my mission", or "Do I take X potion or Y postion" on it.

Again, it all comes back to how much the devs can be arsed with anything.

Exactly. Make us choose how to apprach the level/ area making us committed to the weapon/ammo/ build of choice and have unlimited space for everything else.
It is one of these instance where realism is inversely proportional to fun

Just a kind reminder that that's how Shadowrun games work - and got a ton of flak for it.

 

[Molzey75]

I like Stalker Anomaly system - you can buy or craft different backpacks. Or wear exoskeleton, however it's Stalker - loot and carry only essentials, blyat'.

 

[Alphard]

Inventory management should ultimately provoke a good choice, but not make gaming a chore. So if I'm in the middle of a dungeon, I don't want to be making the choice "right, do I drop X items or take Y item instead?" Especially as most games are dungeon>loot>sell. All it ultimately does is slow you down. What I want to be choosing is "Do I use X weapon or Y weapon for my mission", or "Do I take X potion or Y postion" on it.

Again, it all comes back to how much the devs can be arsed with anything.

Exactly. Make us choose how to apprach the level/ area making us committed to the weapon/ammo/ build of choice and have unlimited space for everything else.
It is one of these instance where realism is inversely proportional to fun

Just a kind reminder that that's how Shadowrun games work - and got a ton of flak for it.

I'm not familiar with those. What the system is criticized for?

 

[Tigranes]

Not a big deal, unless the game actively encourages you to keep every single thing (e.g. perhaps by virtue of a too expansive crafting system).

Part of the problem is that the very idea of leaving something behind should be a natural and normal part of adventuring, but poorly designed loot/economy systems have encouraged us not to think of it that way. When every item is essentially instantly convertible gold, and you have all this gold lying about on the ground, of course you want to take it.

Underrail should have completed the puzzle by having items left on the ground disappear after five or ten minutes. UR already has restrictions on merchants' buying capacity, and any quest items are marked clearly (and would be saved from disappearance).

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Reinhardt]

I've never finished NV because of this shit - finished big supermutant dungeon, got lots of expensive guns, stuck in place because weight, too lazy to do multiple runs.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I'm in favor of encumbrance, though I think the solution is probably best solved with how the merchants in game are handled. Maybe the herbalist in the backwater village doesn't have 3,000gp to buy the armory you've harvested? Maybe your average merchant would buy a legions worth of swords even if they could afford it? The barter systems in Arcanum and Fallout do this relatively well. Perhaps all the suits of leather and hide armor only fared somewhat better than their previous owners after battle? Betrayal at Krondor was excellent in this regard. One set of armor at 100% was worth far more than 5 sets at 25% durability. Damaged suits of armor were consumed to repair other suits of armor at an efficiency rate depending on your armor craft skill. Being that inventory space was limited (not weight dependent), the system was very elegant. It's been a very long time for me. Didn't Fallout do this, too?

 

[V_K]

Inventory management should ultimately provoke a good choice, but not make gaming a chore. So if I'm in the middle of a dungeon, I don't want to be making the choice "right, do I drop X items or take Y item instead?" Especially as most games are dungeon>loot>sell. All it ultimately does is slow you down. What I want to be choosing is "Do I use X weapon or Y weapon for my mission", or "Do I take X potion or Y postion" on it.

Again, it all comes back to how much the devs can be arsed with anything.

Exactly. Make us choose how to apprach the level/ area making us committed to the weapon/ammo/ build of choice and have unlimited space for everything else.
It is one of these instance where realism is inversely proportional to fun

Just a kind reminder that that's how Shadowrun games work - and got a ton of flak for it.

I'm not familiar with those. What the system is criticized for?

So this is how inventory in Shadowrun looks like:

You have a slot for armor, two slots for weapons, some skill-dependent spell slots and 6 slots for consumable. That's it. If you find an item during a mission but don't have free slots in its category (i.e. you can't store a spare weapon in a consumbale slot), you have to either switch it for one you're currently carrying or send it to stash for use in later missions (but not the current one).
People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

 

[Alphard]

Inventory management should ultimately provoke a good choice, but not make gaming a chore. So if I'm in the middle of a dungeon, I don't want to be making the choice "right, do I drop X items or take Y item instead?" Especially as most games are dungeon>loot>sell. All it ultimately does is slow you down. What I want to be choosing is "Do I use X weapon or Y weapon for my mission", or "Do I take X potion or Y postion" on it.

Again, it all comes back to how much the devs can be arsed with anything.

Exactly. Make us choose how to apprach the level/ area making us committed to the weapon/ammo/ build of choice and have unlimited space for everything else.
It is one of these instance where realism is inversely proportional to fun

Just a kind reminder that that's how Shadowrun games work - and got a ton of flak for it.

I'm not familiar with those. What the system is criticized for?

So this is how inventory in Shadowrun looks like:

You have a slot for armor, two slots for weapons, some skill-dependent spell slots and 6 slots for consumable. That's it. If you find an item during a mission but don't have free slots in its category (i.e. you can't store a spare weapon in a consumbale slot), you have to either switch it for one you're currently carrying or send it to stash for use in later missions (but not the current one).
People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

Well it seems to me the main problem there is UI. I see nothing wrong in a system like this.
It's much more mobile-like the click game that is time wasting inventory management

 

[mondblut]

People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

They were right. Any game that features "missions" is not an RPG.

 

[Lord_Potato]

People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

They were right. Any game that features "missions" is not an RPG.

Deus Ex series called. They'd like to have a word.

Alpha Protocol also wants to schedule a meeting.

 

[Falksi]

Inventory management should ultimately provoke a good choice, but not make gaming a chore. So if I'm in the middle of a dungeon, I don't want to be making the choice "right, do I drop X items or take Y item instead?" Especially as most games are dungeon>loot>sell. All it ultimately does is slow you down. What I want to be choosing is "Do I use X weapon or Y weapon for my mission", or "Do I take X potion or Y postion" on it.

Again, it all comes back to how much the devs can be arsed with anything.

Exactly. Make us choose how to apprach the level/ area making us committed to the weapon/ammo/ build of choice and have unlimited space for everything else.
It is one of these instance where realism is inversely proportional to fun

Just a kind reminder that that's how Shadowrun games work - and got a ton of flak for it.

I'm not familiar with those. What the system is criticized for?

So this is how inventory in Shadowrun looks like:

You have a slot for armor, two slots for weapons, some skill-dependent spell slots and 6 slots for consumable. That's it. If you find an item during a mission but don't have free slots in its category (i.e. you can't store a spare weapon in a consumbale slot), you have to either switch it for one you're currently carrying or send it to stash for use in later missions (but not the current one).
People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

Returns & Dragonfall 2 of my favourite games of recent times. And that system works spot on for it.

 

[mondblut]

Also, anyone who thinks that forcing upon a player the annoyance of having to make 10 trips to the shop and back is gonna "fix" the game economy is plain retarded.

Depends on how long and how dangerous the way between the dungeon and the shop is

I was thinking TES, i.e. fast travel

and whether encumbrance has additional effects. It worked quite well in Realms of Arkania.

Realms of Arkania offers many ventures for gold-grinding that are far more efficient and economy-breaking than carrying a hundred of swords from a dungeon, that's why nobody bothers with the later. A few nights collecting herbs solves all your money needs.

 

[mondblut]

People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

They were right. Any game that features "missions" is not an RPG.

Deus Ex series called. They'd like to have a word.

Alpha Protocol also wants to schedule a meeting.

Thanks for proving my point.

 

[Metronome]

If the economy is going to be broken and tedious, why even have it?
Just have the shopkeepers hand out things for free and have money be abstracted out like food.
Limit their supply of good items and have them pull the best weapons/armor randomly from a list.
Restock the market after so many ticks so the player can get new equipment.

Just assume the player has gathered enough money for whatever they need for their journey.
Like how you assume the player has enough food for their needs from killing monsters.

 

[Butter]

Here's an idea. Why do shops even buy your garbage? Outside of pawn shops, have you ever been to a store that was willing to buy from the customers?

 

[eXalted]

For me preferable solution is: inventory tetris

Cataclysm DDA has item weight AND volume. But it is very fitting for that style of game.

 

[V_K]

People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

They were right. Any game that features "missions" is not an RPG.

Deus Ex series called. They'd like to have a word.

Alpha Protocol also wants to schedule a meeting.

Thanks for proving my point.

It's not terribly different from games where access to locations only opens after you get a quest there. BG2, for example, has effectively a mission-based structure. Even more so the first Drakensang, because locations not only open up in response to quests, but also close down after your main quest there is finished. Every Gothic game is like that after the first chapter - each chapter leads you to a new location that you couldn't access before and can't access after. Then there are games that don't even have hubs and just haul you from level to level. Basically, every RPG that isn't strictly open-world has a mission-based structure under the hood.

Realms of Arkania offers many ventures for gold-grinding that are far more efficient and economy-breaking than carrying a hundred of swords from a dungeon, that's why nobody bothers with the later. A few nights collecting herbs solves all your money needs.

That's not untrue, but it also takes a bit of time to get your skills to required level to do that. It still delays breaking the economy somewhat compared to loot treadmill games, where it happens right off the bat.
Also, it's much harder to grind herbs in Shadows over Riva due to lack of world map.

 

[mondblut]

That's not untrue, but it also takes a bit of time to get your skills to required level to do that. It still delays breaking the economy somewhat compared to loot treadmill games.
Also, it's much harder to grind herbs in Shadows over Riva due to lack of world map.

LOL, who ever played Shadows over Riva with a party not imported from Blade of Destiny via Star Trail?

And in Blade of Destiny, you earn your first thousand of ducats dancing through your first night in a tavern.

Indeed, obsessive cheap loot hoarding is not an issue in games where money are never a problem anyway.