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230/150 You are over-encumbered.

DraQ

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The only stupid problem with encumberance mechanics is that they work binary.
249/250 ? You are as smooth as a fucking ninja and can run for miles.
251/250 ? You are a fucking turtle, everything will rape you.

Encumberance mechanics need more graduation.
Stalker, Morrowind.
 

Xeon

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IIRC Kingmaker has it gradual as well, the more weight you have the slower you run and the faster you tire.
 
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Alphard

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The problem is not that it is binary. Although, yes, some variants on that mechanic would be nice.

The problem is that the overencumbered condition creates often a condition of your character being allowed to be overencumbered, while being completely unusable. Which means the player will never be in this situation, because he will drop the extra item.

It's like the game designers start to grasp the point but do not go the full weigh : either do not allow the player to pick up the item, or have a gradual system.
Personally i don't see the difference between the two. As you said you will not find yourself in that situation anyway.
Overencumbered or limited and small inventory are both bad.
Either allow us to pick all the damn good loot, or reduce the the mediocre items dropped. I don't have a problem in the impossibility to carry all the bowl and chairs and trash, but don't give us dozens of situational items you can't carry
 

thesecret1

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Weight limits are first and foremost part of the world's internal logic.
They almost never are. The mechanic is pretty much always utterly self-contained and has no effect on anything other than player's hoarding, standing entirely separate from the world or anything else. The only argument to be made here is perhaps realism, but if we go full realism then you shouldn't even be able to walk all day in heavy armour, much less carry shit. One should always ask himself "why is this mechanic in my game? What does it add? Does it improve the experience, or worsen it?" Most implementations of weight limits I've seen certainly did not improve the experience, and their only functionality seemed to be an attempt to fix other flaws in design, such as the economy.
 

DraQ

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Weight limits are first and foremost part of the world's internal logic.
They almost never are.
Is that so? In your world people's can carry mountains in their pockets?

The only argument to be made here is perhaps realism, but if we go full realism then you shouldn't even be able to walk all day in heavy armour
That's actually pretty good idea as it makes for an interesting way to make player vulnerable and possibly exert pressures instead of making them go "so what if I urinated on the king in his throne room in the middle of an audience? I am level 20, I don't give a fuck".

You know, I would be more charitable if I didn't have to constantly reiterate the same shit because people are illiterate. For instance:
Consistent systems are a value in themselves as they can be counted to always do what they are supposed to. This includes weight system. With a consistent weight system you can, off the top of my head:
  • Make a pressure plate puzzle that cannot be trivially bypassed by shit carried in party inventory (due to being able to estimate how much shit can at most be carried by the party).
  • Make a reasonable scenario where a mining company specializing in extremely valuable mcguffinite (that is naturally a valuable crafting ingredient) has installed technological or magical means of preventing theft consisting of airlock-style door with a scale measuring your weight on both exit and arrival, and lock requiring some sort of id token.
  • Determine damage caused by party orc yeeting perty dorf at the enemy as well as maximum range of such attack.
And no, being able to craft +6 sword of Fuck You out of +5 sword, 689x iron ore, 247x mithril ore, 325x erroneously solid quicksilver and 3x medium sized fertility amulet (in the form of 6'' penis made of jet) more easily is not a sufficient reason to give up reliable weight system and force extra checks or outright abandoning potentially cool concepts in every quest or scenario where weight system could be useful.
 

Beastro

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Biggest issue I have with encumbrance is when you freeze dead in your tracks once you go the .1 over the weight threshold.

Reduce the movement progressively and allow people the option to call things a day and head back before then or after at a reduced pace if you really want to bring back that extra bit of loot. At the very least do this in loot heavy games where storage is important and you simply want to organize your containers in a single location without being rooted in place when you're moving mats or extra gear to and fro.
 
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Metronome

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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.
In some games the consequences of not hoarding are significant enough to make it worth the effort. At which point, I've heard people complain that optimal play involves doing a dull repetative task like hauling crap. If we're talking about Underrail, it seems like just a matter of principle. But in some games it could mean the difference between if you win or lose. If there is no consequence to hauling in those cases, you are stacking the odds against yourself for convenience.

I agree with the general sentiment though. There is something wrong with designing a game around people who would play in that way.
 

Valky

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DnD invented a solution to people who want to have the extreme suspension of disbelief breaking from the ability to carry neutron stars on your back; The extraplanar chest/bags of holding..
They keep the realistic constraints for carrying things on your person and if you want to pretend to be a vaccuum then just use a magic box to carry the Orion Belt with you.
 

Curious_Tongue

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Codex 2012 Codex 2013 Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014
pUucQ3zU7J4YnkXQmvfTR5W4fQUF5Vh13FLhDi-Ny88.jpg
 

thesecret1

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Weight limits are first and foremost part of the world's internal logic.
They almost never are.
Is that so? In your world people's can carry mountains in their pockets?

The only argument to be made here is perhaps realism, but if we go full realism then you shouldn't even be able to walk all day in heavy armour
That's actually pretty good idea as it makes for an interesting way to make player vulnerable and possibly exert pressures instead of making them go "so what if I urinated on the king in his throne room in the middle of an audience? I am level 20, I don't give a fuck".

You know, I would be more charitable if I didn't have to constantly reiterate the same shit because people are illiterate. For instance:
Consistent systems are a value in themselves as they can be counted to always do what they are supposed to. This includes weight system. With a consistent weight system you can, off the top of my head:
  • Make a pressure plate puzzle that cannot be trivially bypassed by shit carried in party inventory (due to being able to estimate how much shit can at most be carried by the party).
  • Make a reasonable scenario where a mining company specializing in extremely valuable mcguffinite (that is naturally a valuable crafting ingredient) has installed technological or magical means of preventing theft consisting of airlock-style door with a scale measuring your weight on both exit and arrival, and lock requiring some sort of id token.
  • Determine damage caused by party orc yeeting perty dorf at the enemy as well as maximum range of such attack.
And no, being able to craft +6 sword of Fuck You out of +5 sword, 689x iron ore, 247x mithril ore, 325x erroneously solid quicksilver and 3x medium sized fertility amulet (in the form of 6'' penis made of jet) more easily is not a sufficient reason to give up reliable weight system and force extra checks or outright abandoning potentially cool concepts in every quest or scenario where weight system could be useful.
But you are ignoring the fact that most games do not feature any of this. None. Zilch. There are no puzzles or other mechanics tied to it in the vast majority of implementations. If you have weight-based puzzles in your game, you will find no argument here, but that is not the case with most implementations. If all you intend to use weight limits for is tedium, then they simply shouldn't be there. If your mechanic gives you plenty of potential possibilities for use, but you never use any of them, then they simply do not count.

In other words, if you can tie fun, interesting mechanics to not being able to wear heavy armour all day, then be my guest, make it so. But if you only made it so that the player needs to go into his inventory at the start of every fight to quickly equip his heavy armour, then your mechanic is shit and your game would be better off without it.
 

DraQ

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But you are ignoring the fact that most games do not feature any of this. None. Zilch. There are no puzzles or other mechanics tied to it in the vast majority of implementations.
And there won't be any if anyone heeds your dumb ideas.

  1. Complain about omnipresent mediocrity, everything being shit, decline and no one doing anything interesting.
  2. Someone proposes interesting mechanics!
  3. Complain about interesting mechanics being shit because no one uses it anyway.
  4. GOTO 1
:despair:
:shitandpiss:


If all you intend to use weight limits for is tedium
Tedium is having sift through ten billion eight hundred million seventy six random pieces of crap you mindlessly hoovered up because, hey, no weight limits.
 

thesecret1

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Complain about interesting mechanics being shit because no one uses it anyway.
The problem is that the mechanic (weight limit) is not interesting. It is just shit, unless someone connects more interesting mechanics to it (which few do). You seem to be blinded with potential to the point of disregarding reality. If the dev doesn't intend to use the weight limit for anything interesting, then it simply should not be there, it's not a difficult concept to grasp. Potential is worth nothing unless actually realized.

Tedium is having sift through ten billion eight hundred million seventy six random pieces of crap you mindlessly hoovered up because, hey, no weight limits.
Nobody forces you to pick up literally everything if you don't want to. However, weight limits do force one to abide by them whether he wants to or not.
 

Shadowfang

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Complain about interesting mechanics being shit because no one uses it anyway.
The problem is that the mechanic (weight limit) is not interesting. It is just shit, unless someone connects more interesting mechanics to it (which few do). You seem to be blinded with potential to the point of disregarding reality. If the dev doesn't intend to use the weight limit for anything interesting, then it simply should not be there, it's not a difficult concept to grasp. Potential is worth nothing unless actually realized.

Tedium is having sift through ten billion eight hundred million seventy six random pieces of crap you mindlessly hoovered up because, hey, no weight limits.
Nobody forces you to pick up literally everything if you don't want to. However, weight limits do force one to abide by them whether he wants to or not.
Are you being honest with yourself?
Are you really saying that you just dislike the weight system because its not deep enough for you so you rather have an even shallower approach?

Thats like complaining that you don't like playing a game in normal difficulty because you wish it was harder and then you play it on easy instead.

Isn't the real problem that you don't want to deal with any inventory limitations, and that you just want to be able to loot a whole dungeon without a care in the world?

You did mention something that made me think. That the weight system should be connected to other interestings mechanics.

Right now that's how it is in most games, although i am not sure you would consider them interesting.

A simple weight system is usually connected with your character stats, inventory and the economy of the game, which is good enough for what it is supposed to do.

In a simple game like Ultima Underworld even while playing a moderately strong Paladin i still had to consider if i wanted to wear a full set of plate armor, because of its weight, or trade some pieces of plate for chainmal, trading some damage resistance for versatility from the extra items i could now carry with me.

In NWN 1, i met players, in multiplater, that would bring a large shield instead of a tower shield because of how heavy the former was, limiting their loadout choices and the amount of items they could loot.

Like many of the codexers, i played underrail before it had any inventory restrictions, like the weight limit and my experience with the game improved with the addition of the weight limit because, until that point, looting was restricted to only hiting the take all button everytime i opened a container.

I have no idea of a game that has a weight limit that is 2deep4u. Weight limit is a simple mechanic to address simple things and i think the lack of one pleases the same kind of players that want regen on a game instead of healing items because having to find healing items is just a boring chore and they are going to get healed anyway so why not just get healed in the spot instead.
 
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DraQ

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Weight limit is a simple mechanic to adress simple things and i link the lack of one to the same kind of players that want regen on a game instead of healing items because having to find healing items is just a chore and they are going to get healed anyway so why not just get healed in the spot instead.
You are too entrenched in the old way of thinking. Healing? Just put the p(l)ayer on permanent godmode instead.
 
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Blackmill

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I just don't get why Styg implemented a configurable movement speed multiplier (1x to 2.5x) but has it automatically set to 1x when over-encumbered... For all the good things about Underrail this decision is just moronic. I just assume it's just Styg being stubborn about implementing faster movement speed in the first place.

Also, even if you don't hoard, encumbrance is definitely a problem. Maybe it's not on Hard or easier, where everything is much more affordable, but on Dominating your ammo and batteries cost a lot. You'll go broke if you don't regularly loot the valuable stuff, and even just looting the valuable stuff, that will make a low strength build over-encumbered in lots of areas.

Low strength in Underrail already has significant drawbacks. I don't see why wasting my time needs to be one of them.
 

Alex

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I think encumbrance worked pretty well in Ultima 7. You had a limited amount of weight you could carry and different containers could also only carry so much volume. But on the other hand, you had a large party and could buy carts, ships and even find a magic carpet. All of these could be equipped with crates (the ship had a hold by default as well) so you could lug tons of stuff around.
 

thesecret1

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Are you really saying that you just dislike the weight system because its not deep enough for you so you rather have an even shallower approach?
I am saying that right now, the weight system is a terrible mechanic in most games, designed merely as a patchwork solution to fix up other shortcomings (such as terrible economy). One should ask himself why such a mechanic even exists in the game's scope (and no, just "realism" is not gonna cut it. There's shitload of things that are realistic but are not in games, because they wouldn't be any fun), and the answer to it is almost always "so that the player cannot pick up literally everything". The followup question then is "why do I want the player to not pick up everything?" and the answer is usually that it'd destroy the in-game economy if he could just pawn it all off in a shop. So, to preserve in-game economy, we now have the player either going back and forth between town and dungeon to sell his shit (as he is greedy and wants the money) or stopping every couple feet to swap cheaper item in his backpack for a more expensive he just found. Neither situation is fun. Both are just tedium forced upon the player in the name of preserving in game economy. My argument is that rather than force this tedium upon the player, a better approach would be to simply fix the damn economy so that it doesn't need such shitty workarounds to stay alive. Maybe not make everything sellable in the shop, or just don't cover every square inch of the dungeon with shitty loot.

You seem to imply that the weight limit provides some depth. It doesn't. It provides tedium in the vast majority of implementations. It doesn't provide any real challenge either, it's just annoying - it's a piece of shit mechanic. If you can make the weight limit into a meaningful mechanic that has a different purpose than just trying to cover other shortcomings of the game, then sure, I'll be all for it, but not when all it does is be a source of annoyance.
 

Shadowfang

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I am saying that right now, the weight system is a terrible mechanic in most games, designed merely as a patchwork solution to fix up other shortcomings (such as terrible economy).
You conclude that the system is "terrible" and "shit" but don't explain why. The weight system is there to limit the amount of stuff you can carry and if it is successful in doing it means its working, regardless of how it manages to improve or not the other departments of the game.

One should ask himself why such a mechanic even exists in the game's scope
Its there to:
1 - limit the amount of gear you can bring with, you forcing you to commit to it, and learn to make the best use of it.

2 - force you to make choices of what items are you going to loot and punish greedy behaviour - i watched players get killed on the way out of a dungeon because they couldn't run for being over encumbered thats C&C and my idea of fun.

and the answer is usually that it'd destroy the in-game economy if he could just pawn it all off in a shop.
Well its not really the whole reason as you might have seen from my examples, the weight system has other purposes. Games economies are rather fragile and break over a matter of time.
But why would being able to carry everything speed up that process? Because the game wasn't design around the adventures of Jim the Vacuum Cleaner. The devs clearly didn't want to make the default way of playing their game the way of the hoarder.
There is a way to fix this. Very little amount of loot to be found in dungeons, which i am in favor of, but would not answer the tactical aspect of gear choice since i would be able to bring with me a bow, for fighting enemies at range, a hammer, for smiting undead, 2 magical swords, one with ice damage and the other of fire, etc.

So, to preserve in-game economy, we now have the player either going back and forth between town and dungeon to sell his shit (as he is greedy and wants the money) or stopping every couple feet to swap cheaper item in his backpack for a more expensive he just found.
But no decent RPG forces a player to go back and forth for this. Thats the player's fault. Why is he doing that? It sounds so boring! The game was not designed around it, so why do it?
Why not pick, from the loot you found, a number of items and move on? Because you can't? Well thats a flaw that you have and you shouldn't ask the world to change around your flaws and preferences.

For example, Underrail didn't had a weight system. Then it got one but few enough players complained about going back and forth so they could sell more. Styg fixed it quickly with how merchants only buy a certain amount of items. Problem solved.
Not really, these people couldn't stop scratching their skin thinking of the unsold loot. There was even this guy that was catching hoppers and selling them for money. That was so much trouble for so little gain. He would make 10 times more if he went on a mission and retrieved the firearms from the defeated enemies.

The game doesn't force you to do anything like this . You did. The game is built around normal people but it won't stop anyone from going back for more, but its his choice.

My argument is that rather than force this tedium upon the player, a better approach would be to simply fix the damn economy so that it doesn't need such shitty workarounds to stay alive. Maybe not make everything sellable in the shop, or just don't cover every square inch of the dungeon with shitty loot.
Play a game without forcing yourself to do it. Play underrail and leave some items on a shelf. Consider this therapy.
Its okay to let go.

You seem to imply that the weight limit provides some depth. It doesn't.
Yes it does. It isn't the deepest mechanic in a game, sure, but a game doesn't become deeper without it, but the opposite. Now a game without inventory restrictions might be shallower because of it.
This was the case of Underrail before it had some.

It doesn't provide any real challenge either
It might. On Ultima Underworld i had to dump plate armour for chain mail. I lost damage resistance so my character was now more vulnerable making the game more challenging in the combat department but now i could bring other items with me that would make going through other parts of the game more easily. You are asking for a game where i don't have to make this trade. Where i can have it all. Bring it all, have it all.


If you can make the weight limit into a meaningful mechanic that has a different purpose than just trying to cover other shortcomings of the game, then sure, I'll be all for it, but not when all it does is be a source of annoyance.
The weight limit is just one of many ways of restricting your inventory and it is in my opinion one of the most elegant solutions. If you have an inventory with 4 slots, and you can either fill them with either 4 diamonds or 4 chairs it ends up feeling kinda stupid. If items are limited by weight it makes more sense than i can carry 100 diamonds but only one extra piece of armour with me.
A good inventory system should be restricted in multiple ways. Again, Ultima Underworld did this well by limiting the inventory both in space and weight. You could have a box with several pouches inside of them and each pouch had a limited amount of items it could carry.

From what i read from your post, your complaint is not of wanting something deeper, but that you dislike being forced of leaving loot behind. You aren't only against a weight system you are against any inventory restrictions that limit the amount of gear/loot you can lunge around.
 
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Beastro

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It's like the game designers start to grasp the point but do not go the full weigh : either do not allow the player to pick up the item, or have a gradual system.

Reminds me of my bro in EQ doing Aviaks in Lake Rathe loading up on fine steel weapons to sell to afford spells. Only trouble was the nearest place his Gnome necro could sell was the Dark Elf town on the other side of the continent, so he'd suck up the over-encumbrance and not only the risk of continuing to grind exp but would then crawwwwwl all the way back invised at a snails pace, on a PvP server. Still pulled it off every time. The return leg took forever, but his windfall from it each time added up.
 

Daemongar

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Why the hell does everything have to be so binary? Games have good inventory systems, games have bad inventory systems.

Inventory management is useful in games where: you can take points in trade or such to add value to the shit you recover, balancing out points you chose not to put into combat. It works if a player in Fallout 1 can sell some stuff to get combat armor earlier by putting points in barter rather than combat skills. Inventory matters when there is an actual economy - which is almost non-existent in most games and may be the real problem.

Inventory management is useless in games where: there is a poorly balanced economy or inventory isn't part of the story at all/doesn't affect difficulty.

Good implementation of Inventory
  1. Arcanum. Limited squares but not too limited. As you carried more, it would encumber you more and this was based on STR. The "Steal the Elven Tombstone" quest was a good use of inventory. Anyone could take the quest, but... that fucker was big and heavy. Inventory mattered, but would it kill them to have things like potions stack?! Barter wasn't such a bad skill.
  2. Fallout 1/2. Strength dictated what you could carry, barter affected what you could sell for, and you had to think about what you'd pull out of the Glow. Yes, we all played the game and know how to wreck it's economy now. I'm talking about normal people here, and I'm not talking about how you interface with your inventory - which sucked in Fallout 1/2
  3. Ultima 7/SI. Backpacks could only fit so much, but you were welcome to carry around to your weight limit (set by strength.) Never felt held back by inventory, and it made sense. Carts, boats, etc for additional inventory, or for the truly psychotic, the Dark Path in SI
Bad implementation of Inventory
  1. Pools of Radiance. There, I said it. Gold pieces taking up weight? A little too true to AD&D. I did like everything disappearing after battle. If you didn't have Detect Magic, well, sucks to be you.
  2. Morrowind. This may be just me, but this was excruciating carrying things back to town. I needed to sell stuff, there was limited gold on vendors, and I only had a few of those teleports spells to take me to a temple. Look, I'm 5th level and I need money badly. Those fucking cogs in the Dweomer Ruins are worth 100 GP each and weigh a ton! (Who knows, maybe this is the most brilliant inventory system?)
  3. Skyrim. Eventually you can carry around everything not nailed down, but there is no point. Inventory is there as an RPG mechanic but requires no thougth, but you'll be carrying around 9000 items. They should have just gone the Gothic 3 route and let you carry everything. At least Gothic made you save up for the best Paladin armor. I don't remember anything in Skyrim I couldn't afford very early in the game, but I only played Skyrim once, so I'm not an expert.
 

PapaPetro

Guest
Shouldn't have skipped leg day.
You deserve the penalty if you dump stated your strength and then complain why you can't carry a piano on your back.
 
Self-Ejected

Alphard

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Shouldn't have skipped leg day.
You deserve the penalty if you dump stated your strength and then complain why you can't carry a piano on your back.
That's dumb. This basically means make a strenght build or you are screwed. Why non-str characters must suffer through annoying endless inventory micro-management? For the sake of realism? Then if you want to be realist at all costs at the expense of fun remove all magic and fantasy elements in the game, make your char drink 1,5 L of water every day, make him shit every day, make him do a job to afford his travels, make him do gym session to increase his str ( 1 point every month of training) etc etc
 

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