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Metronome

Learned
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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?
I've played games where they have a pawnshop to buy your crap. The only difference was I had to remember where it was to sell things rather than just selling it at any shop. If you have a lot of valuable loot, then somebody in town will be willing to buy it. Selling it at the shops themselves is just more convenient for the player and probably the developer than simulating Craig's List.
 

V_K

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at a Nowhere near you
LOL, who ever played Shadows over Riva with a party not imported from Blade of Destiny via Star Trail?
I did. It was my first proper RPG, after Diablo. I didn't know it was the third one in a series.
It's also perfectly playable on its own, just like the other two. There's not that much of a narrative continuity.
 

Butter

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Patron
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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?
I've played games where they have a pawnshop to buy your crap. The only difference was I had to remember where it was to sell things rather than just selling it at any shop. If you have a lot of valuable loot, then somebody in town will be willing to buy it. Selling it at the shops themselves is just more convenient for the player and probably the developer than simulating Craig's List.
I think it would be pretty cool if you had to set up meetings with rich assholes in order to sell your expensive gear. Realistically, even if a blacksmith were interested in buying your rare sword, he couldn't afford to pay what it's worth. Some nobleman might be willing to buy it, but he insists on meeting you at his home, because he doesn't go out amid the hoi polloi. Someone else also mentioned alternatives currencies, and it's easy to imagine that trading a sword for a favour from a nobleman is worth more than gold.
 

mondblut

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It's also perfectly playable on its own, just like the other two. There's not that much of a narrative continuity.

So what? If you CAN import a party from another game, it is criminal not to.
If you want story mode difficulty, sure.

The entire gameplay loop of RPGs is about creating story mode for yourself with your own skilled hand. When you can do it in one game for a duration of entire series, you got gud.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
Yeah, I agree with OP.

If the game doesn't have survival as a main shtick then I really don't want to deal with inventory management, its just an annoyance. There is no challenge with limiting the inventory if you can just have infinite time to backtrack to do shit, that's just the stupidest thing there is. Its mostly about wasting player's time than meaningful gameplay.

Kinda wish all games that don't have survival or something kinda of gameplay just add an option for unlimited inventory, they can just call it a cheat or a moron's option or whatever, just add it ffs.
 

Egosphere

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Hibernia
I'd prefer to see the volumetric shit-tonne of loot polluting every location you visit in RPGs trimmed down to just those items which serve an actual purpose in the game. Better yet, have a separate mini-inventory for quest related items which don't take up space or weight, so that you don't have to lug around something that may or may not be necessary to complete a quest later on (like the shovel and the rocks in Arcanum)
 
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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?
Because it's realistic that someone would want to buy your garbage, but having designated characters for it is simpler than allowing bartering with everyone or coming up with some other way of exchanging them for money.
 

Lord_Potato

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Witcher 1 did it well. You had limited grid inventory for shit you find. You could carry only 1 armor (on your torso), 3 long weapons (2 of them being your witcher swords) and 1 short (dagger, small axe). Hoarding swords or clubs from defeated enemies was simply not efficient, you only got like 60 orens for them, while a prize for a witcher contract was 400 and more. The game naturally pushed you to solve quests and contracts, instead of gathering junk.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
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Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
It's only a problem because CRPGs aren't modeling followers but instead (unrealistically) have their highly specialized adventurers work solo without any support characters.
DnD got it right that highly capable super humans don't walk around alone, doing menial tasks and chores, while their time would be better used for important stuff.
More importantly, in the real world, it'd be almost impossible for an adventuring band NOT to end up with an entourage of camp followers. This entourage is almost always a completely neglected angle for lots of gameplay.

Because it's realistic that someone would want to buy your garbage, but having designated characters for it is simpler than allowing bartering with everyone or coming up with some other way of exchanging them for money.
The funny thing is, the stuff adventurers discard as "garbage" would typically be worth a fortune in the setting. The arms and armor of a medieval warrior is worth a butt-ton, and you'd better believe there'd be an entourage following along to capitalize on all the loot that adventurers produce.

Consider: The guy who makes an absolute fortune in the game is not you, the adventurer, but the guy who buys all your shit. He pays you, what, like 25-50% of sale price for it? Whatever money you think you're making, that guy is making double or more. It's frankly surprising he makes you come to him to sell his shit, any businessman worth his salt would be following you in the aforementioned camp entourage. Why the fuck would you stay in the village? That's the kind of place that gets sacked and burned by orcs. If you follow the adventuring band, you're right there WITH the guys who would end up defending you anyway, instead of being the plot point where they show up after the orcs have burned all your shit.
 
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Valky

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Trapped in a bioform
Best inventory system combines the grid based for different sized objects, representing physical size constraints of carrying a billion potions and a refrigerator on your back, along with weight restrictions for strength constraints of carrying a thimble sized neutron star.
 

Norfleet

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Best inventory system combines the grid based for different sized objects, representing physical size constraints of carrying a billion potions and a refrigerator on your back, along with weight restrictions for strength constraints of carrying a thimble sized neutron star.
No, the best inventory system has you physically carry each object you want to bring with you into battle on your characters' bodies, while the rest of your shit is hauled around on a mule or a cart and doesn't require you to manage it. I think JA2 1.13 did this best: You have a very limited inventory space, which corresponds to a space on your personal gear or backpack, and then you just throw the rest of it in the car.
 

Valky

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Best inventory system combines the grid based for different sized objects, representing physical size constraints of carrying a billion potions and a refrigerator on your back, along with weight restrictions for strength constraints of carrying a thimble sized neutron star.
No, the best inventory system has you physically carry each object you want to bring with you into battle on your characters' bodies, while the rest of your shit is hauled around on a mule or a cart and doesn't require you to manage it. I think JA2 1.13 did this best: You have a very limited inventory space, which corresponds to a space on your personal gear or backpack, and then you just throw the rest of it in the car.
But.. that's what I am saying? Realistic restrictions on the ability to physically grasp the physical dimensions of an object, along with weight restrictions because you shouldn't be able to wear a 10 ton helmet unless your character is proportionally strong.
 

Norfleet

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No, your inventory is not Tetris. If opening up my inventory makes Korobeiniki play as I juggle the items around in a panel, this is not actually a good inventory system.
 

Valky

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No, your inventory is not Tetris. If opening up my inventory makes Korobeiniki play as I juggle the items around in a panel, this is not actually a good inventory system.
That's how it works IRL, if you want to carry a lot of stuff then you gotta move it around to be well arranged on your person so nothing falls.
 

Norfleet

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Messages
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And yet I'm pretty sure we're NOT here to play Luggage Packing Simulator in the form of a Tetris minigame. Adding a Luggage Packing Minigame adds nothing to the game: Either the inventory serves a purpose, and thus we can dispense with this minigame and move straight to that purpose, or it doesn't serve a purpose, in which case why even have it?
 

mondblut

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No, the best inventory system has you physically carry each object you want to bring with you into battle on your characters' bodies, while the rest of your shit is hauled around on a mule or a cart and doesn't require you to manage it. I think JA2 1.13 did this best: You have a very limited inventory space, which corresponds to a space on your personal gear or backpack, and then you just throw the rest of it in the car.

True to an extent, except that car space is also fairly limited - and for some nebulous reason you are only limited to three of them, despite the cities containing enough cars to create an entire caravan constantly shuffling weapons from battlefield back to Tony.
 

mondblut

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Ingrija
No, your inventory is not Tetris. If opening up my inventory makes Korobeiniki play as I juggle the items around in a panel, this is not actually a good inventory system.
That's how it works IRL, if you want to carry a lot of stuff then you gotta move it around to be well arranged on your person so nothing falls.

That's the character's job. He got Int and points in Outdoorsman for a reason :obviously:
 

Shadowfang

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Road to Arnika
Shadorwun: Hong Kong BattleTech
I see Elhazzared has finally found the codex.
Funny thing, Styg actually made a NPC mocking players like the OP based on a poster at the official underrail forums.

I am for a limited/restricted inventory instead of a playing the vacuum cleaner + infinite magic bags combo because with the first you have to actually make choices, you have to consider which items are you going to loot, what are you going to prioritize? Do you want to grab that extra armor for selling later at the shops or bring more ammo and explosives to get around the enemies on a checkpoint ahead.
In vacuum cleaner mode you can't shut off your brain and just click away and keep grabbing junk without blinking.

The worst part of this kind of gamer, that whats to shut off his brain and do away with choices and consequences, is that in reality he is a hoarder/autistic and if you force him some weight limit on him he is going to either force himself to go back and forth to sell all that junk or bite his own nails in pure stress.

The thing is that this behavior is not very rewarding, specially in games like underrail that aren't built around the idea that the player will do as many trips from the dungeon to town to get everything sold or else they wouldn't be able to get enough money for their desired item. I never had to act like this to have enough money in underrail to get the gear i needed, it felt like the economy of the game was built around sensible players and not people suffering from OCD.

I have no idea but i would bet that these are the same players that complain when a game with a party limit of 4 has 6 optional classes and it sucks because you can't bring one of each.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
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May 29, 2010
Messages
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People were calling them non-RPGs or mobile trash because they allegedly don't have an inventory in the traditional CRPG sense.

I believe it was called a mobile game for other reasons but the inventory was great (and remained mostly the same when they went full-PC for Hong Kong, though adding a much appreciated ability to swap items with your companions mid-mission)
 

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