Inventory management

[Pussycat669]

After all those passionate discussions about the deep philosophical meaning of RPGs it might be time for something rather minor: The good ole backpack (for adventurers).
The following will be quiet specific, so feel free to simply skip it and post your conception of an 'ideal' inventory.

I'm currently working on a little project of mine (seems to become quiet popular around here these days, strangely) and suddenly had to realize that I've never given lot of thoughts on this topic and that's taking its toll now.
There are many ways to do it and thus a lot of possibilities to do it awfully wrong.
I was wondering which one of those approaches I'm going to list here sounds good or the right opposite.
For this it is assumed that the inventory is limited (unlike the Gothic games for example) with two possible limitations either weight or space. Since those are already well established standards in the genre I guess they don't require much explanation.

Weight limitations are probably the most 'realistic' attempt (in terms of accuracy) to simulate an inventory that is dependant on attributes (although it fails to explain exactly how he or she is able to store all the junk but this is also carried over to space limitations). Fallout is a popular candidate here.

Space, well, who doesn't like small boxes as in NWN 2 or Diablo? It is simple to use and good to organize (if you take your time) since you don't need to deal with numerical abstractions like you do with weight limitations although space always seems to run out quickly (and often ignores attributes altogether. An exception I can think of would be Baldurs Gate which also takes weight into consideration).

I ultimately decided for the later. To spice it up a little though (and, for the most part, to avoid technical limitations) I altered the concept a bit. Instead of having one 'common' grid where you store all your stuff I made the game more distinguish between different kinds of sizes. Small (ammunition, food, puzzle objects), middle size (for now only weapons like rifles, heavy tools etc.) and huge (seldom present or really useful under this category falls heavy machinery, tables, basically everything that is too bulky to be put in your backpack and must be held in both hands. Therefore those items must always be equipped while you are carrying them).
At the beginning, depending on the character you choose, you have up to 10 slots for small items, two for middle size and one for the big junk. So far so good. But then again I wrote for the beginning. Well, this is where it becomes completely specific.
The game relies heavily on attribute degeneration. Considering this I believe that it would be half-hearted to let the inventory to remain as it is. But how could you implement the decay reasonably?

First I thought about bring back weight anyhow to furthermore limit the player as the game progresses. But this seems artificially complicated to me although a buddy of mine claims that since I've taken the realistic approach so far (meaning that you can and probably will die...a lot) I should work with this. This would grant a little bit of freedom (either take two big guns but only a smaller amount of ammo or only one with more lead) but still it doesn't sound right to me (plus I would have to go through all pick able items to give them separate weights and I must confess I'm kind of a lazy person). I could give the weight categories a maximum to serve as an orientation but still it would probably become micromanagement no matter what.

What I favour right now would be that you lose slots as your strength and endurance decline. That is if a numerical number which is combined product of those two hit a certain value you'll first lose the huge slot (if present), one middle size slot and up to seven small slots. That is both good for me since I don't have to throw random numbers at objects and the player since there is a clear evidence what is possible at current.

Any thoughts?

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

All right. I'll try to help....but I'm not sure what I can do.

First things first, I'm not seeing the connection between physical stamina and carrying space. I can understand the mechanical thinking behind it, but I don't really think it would go over too well with players. Personally I think equipment should define storage space. Backpack A gives so and so, backpack B so and so, etc. Maybe if you wear trousers and don't wear leg armor you can free up the pockets and such. Maybe a bandoleer could provide more space.

Now this idea deep sixes your idea of deteriorating inventory so far. Hold with me. I think you need to consider implementing a weight factor in addition to the space idea. For one, weight seems a lot more concurrent with stats of strength and endurance, and shrinking weight capacity would make more sense, so to say.

I don't think it would be terribly hard to implement. The lack of having to program in deterioration of spaces would save a lot of time, probably more than it takes to label items with a weight. Plus implementing weight effects shouldn't be too difficult. If the player character is carrying so and so much something happens. Pretty simple.

Now if you still wanted to have space deterioration you could go a few ways. Perhaps have a deteriorating common sense that allows you to pack things effectively. Maybe the container items become worn, and can carry less. I just think space deterioration could lead to a lot of bugs and might be a little illogical, especially coinciding with strength and such.

Hopefully my rambling helped a little.

 

[Claw]

Eh, slots are crude. Having slots of different sizes strikes me as pointless. It'd be more natural to define item sizes based on a standard "slot" unit.

Anyway, Ultima VII has a near-perfect inventory system. It could be combined with slots, if such are desired.
Less sophisticared inventory systems in RPGs are ..a pity.

So I am not very motivated to think about this system. However, clearly slots equal space, so any connection between endurance and slots seems unnatural. Weight wouldm make sense, and I fail to see what is supposed to be "artificially complicated" about it. On the contrary, your system strikes me as artificially complicated in that it seems both highly unnatural and complicated, as opposed to a weight system that if done right could be complex yet intuitive.
Also, any form of limitation causes a certain amount of micromanagement. A way to mitigate this effect is the use of soft limits. That's easier to apply to weight than space, I suppose.

Oh, and another remark about the use of slots. Often systems using slots make exceptions for stacking, especially with items of very small size, like currency. An intuitive, natural solution would allow stacking of items in a slot until these items "fill" the slot with their accumulated size, at which point another slot will be used.

 

[DarkSign]

We're using a locational system that relies on different types of carrying devices.

Slots include:
head, shoulder, back, chest, waist, hip pockets, arm pockets, thigh pockets, inside boot (hidden), inside chest(hidden)

of those, only certain types of containers can go in certain places - and each of those can only hold certain things.

Type of containers / what they hold/ slot used
Bandolier / tiny items ( ammo), small items (grenade) / chest
holster / weapons, tiny items ( ammo), small items (grenade) / waist
large, medium, or small backpack/ tiny, small, medium, large items/ shoulder
no container / rifle / shoulder
shirt pocket / tiny, small items / arm pocket

...you get the idea. We feel like this is a realistic inventory scheme that allows you to make tactical choices about your clothing and keeps a fair amount of realism.

Carrying weight will be based on a combo of STR, AGI, and STAM. STR needs no explanation. AGI factors in barely because you know when you are carrying something how you have to position it just right? Especially if it's large? Thats why. And STA factors in because the longer you hold something the harder it is to hold it.

 

[Pussycat669]

Here we go:

@Edward_R_Murrow

I'm not seeing the connection between physical stamina and carrying space.

It isn't bare of any explanation. Carrying space, like carrying capacity, is able to simulate what kind of agonies the character is able to endure due to his wealth of personal belongings. In adventures (and especially in the one I've got in mind) it can be supposed that your character will be able to withstand physical harassment. He might be forced to carry his burden over a longer period of time without rest for example or he might have to escape a potential dangerous situation and also be able to perform exhausting tasks (like climbing) without turning into a panting meat bag. Weight systems (or combos. Forgot to mention Arcanum here too. Shame on me) often use handicaps to distribute punishment. Maybe you can't run anymore or are not able to move at all (plus a big minus on your dexterity relying skills). Accurate to an extent but I must confess that I felt this rather being annoying than challenging in any way (except Realms of Arkania maybe where you were more focused on useful common tools than on countless axes and swords which, for the most part, serve as oversized trading goods) so I would rather skip this part and make a clear cut to say 'stop' before the character can endanger his overtime efficiency with that collecting urge of his. At least that was the idea behind it. Easy to access inventory management with logical (and growing) limitations forcing the player to a more thoughtful choice of equipment.

Again I'm afraid this is turning into something less general than I hoped it would, my apologies.

Personally I think equipment should define storage space.

Doesn't work for me since I wanted Ability decrease affect the game play in a painful manner (I even wanted to alter HP over time but this turned out bad for combat balance, big time) and besides the scenario neither offers backpacks nor armour. The Characters (except one and it's only a minor difference) are wearing the same clothes they start with over the whole course of the game. Although NPCs might be willing to carry a little for you. So no go.

For one, weight seems a lot more concurrent with stats of strength and endurance, and shrinking weight capacity would make more sense, so to say.

Nah, I would argue that it would only add more to the numerical series. However there is something potentially good about it (as in the two guns less ammo example).

The lack of having to program in deterioration of spaces would save a lot of time

Actually I don't think so and that's again because of some illegal background knowledge. I'm using Inform 7 so it's going to be a text only thingy. One of the reasons I didn't want to use one grid for all the items simply because the inventory completely lacks visual feedback (well it would be possible but nothing nice to look at) and it would hopefully take only a few definitions to say that the player can carry x small, x middle size, x huge items when Max_Cap is more than 10 but less than 15 and so on. So if you come in a room to grab stuff you could let a list pop up of all the items which you've already discovered something like this (if I ever figure out how to use coloured letters in glulx):

You find =>

1) Shells (10) (Small)
2) Steroids (Small)
3) Scissor (Small)
4 ) Clue (Small)

5) Big Gun (Midd)
6) Axe (Midd)

7) Doomcanon (Huge)

Shop until you drop
>

So you've got a quick overview. Green means that the item is free to be taken, yellow that you may take this item but it will take away your last slot in this section and red is self explanatory, me thinks.

Hopefully my rambling helped a little

Sure it did.



@Claw

Eh, slots are crude.

Prove it

It'd be more natural to define item sizes based on a standard "slot" unit.

I'm not sure if this would make a difference at all. However, I think this is only a little misunderstanding due to my vague explanations. I didn't mean changing slot sizes but separate item sizes more clearly. Completely ignoring an exact physical weight for the sake of simplification. Those different sizes wouldn't merge into one overall grid but they would be several sections in the inventory. It's quiet simplistic really. Think of it like the Fallout inventory for example. On the left you got up to ten slots for the little goodies. The two equipment slots would be now the midsize slots and wouldn't necessarily explain what item is equipped and which not. And the oversized stuff wouldn't need a slot at all since it is a 'forced' equip meaning as long as you're possessing it you're not doing much with anything else. Problem: What if I want some extra healing instead of a second gun? It wouldn't be possible in this version...

Ultima VII

Uh oh. It has been a while. The only thing I can remember considering inventory was that I started to throw random things in my bags and backpack. Seemed to be rather chaotic at the time. I'll try to give it a another shot.

However, clearly slots equal space, so any connection between endurance and slots seems unnatural

Now I'm confused, isn't that exactly curse and blessing of items which you're carrying, the fact that they exist (squeezing down your shoulder)? But you differ between space and mass which is valid of course. Still, I'm not keen with the thought that numbers need to be visibly involved. Especially when I picture a player having to check his inventory screen every day asking himself how much maximum weight he has lost this time.
Instead it would end up like this: 1 week nothing, 2 week lost the huge slot,..., 5 week lost the mid-size slot,..., 8 week lost the 7th small slot leaving me with the worst capacity of 3 S-items, 1 Midd-item and no possibility to use huge items at all.
What I was thinking of when I wrote about needless complications I had the 'average' slot condition (10 S-items, 2 Midd-items, 1 Huge-item) in mind. Meaning that plus the limitation in slots I would make an max-weight that furthermore limit things. The slots remain 'open' but the player might not be able to fill them again since the lack of muscle.
I didn't mean a normal grid where it would have worked just fine, I guess.

Often systems using slots make exceptions for stacking

Sure no problem with stacking things at least when it comes to ammo.


@DarkSign

I would think about taking out tiny object if there aren't already in. Seems unnecessary to me.

Gossiping again. I'll stop here. Hope that cleared up a few things though.

 

[Claw]

Eh, slots are crude.

Prove it

It seems to me you're doing a perfectly fine job doing it yourself.

It'd be more natural to define item sizes based on a standard "slot" unit.

I'm not sure if this would make a difference at all.

The difference is the lack of mutual exclusivity, which is the main problem I have with your solution. With a standard size unit, you could have a single inventory list and simply reduce the number of size units without worrying how many small or medium sized items the character is carrying. Huge items would be handled seperately, since according to your descriptions those aren't so much "in the inventory" as held in the hands.

It's quiet simplistic really. Think of it like the Fallout inventory for example.

Yeah, that's also a problem I have with your idea. It's simplistic, but unlike Fallout, it's complicated. I don't think that "simplistic but complicated" is a desireable solution.

Problem: What if I want some extra healing instead of a second gun? It wouldn't be possible in this version...

Just what I feared. I suppose I don't have to tell you that this isn't exactly desireable.

Ultima VII

Uh oh. It has been a while. The only thing I can remember considering inventory was that I started to throw random things in my bags and backpack. Seemed to be rather chaotic at the time.

What strikes me about this reply is that it doesn't say anything about the inventory itself. Isn't it your own fault if you throw random things into your inventory, or are you somehow blaming it on the system?
The main flaw of Ultima VII's inventory system as far as I am concerned lies in the design of the visual presentation as items are jumbled while the inventory is closed and items can obscure each other. That may be realistic, but doesn't really add anything to the game. Of course, it relies heavily on a GUI. I don't think I'd use it for a text-only game.

Now I'm confused, isn't that exactly curse and blessing of items which you're carrying, the fact that they exist (squeezing down your shoulder)? But you differ between space and mass which is valid of course.

It's more than valid, it's intuitive. If you use slots and sizes, you're talking about space. If you then start reducing his slots because of the character's physical attributes.. I know it feels wrong to me, even with an explanation. It's just very odd.
I guess you could substitute "light" "medium" and "heavy" for sizes and use identical mechanics, with slightly less irritation.

Still, I'm not keen with the thought that numbers need to be visibly involved.

Who said that numbers need to be visibly involved? Oh well, you mentioned it's text-only. Well, that's the problem. If it's text-only, you'll have to deal with text. I could understand trying to avoid numbers in a graphical interface, but if you're going text-based, any significant error to avoid numbers seems out of place to me.

Especially when I picture a player having to check his inventory screen every day asking himself how much maximum weight he has lost this time.

How is losing slots better? More importantly, weight restrictions don't have to be absolute. Instead of losing a slot for an item, the degradation could incur a penalty, which could start small enough to be virtually irrelevant and slowly grow to the point where the player has to do something about it. So the player doesn't really have to check his inventory for degradation effects daily, unless he wants to know when his movement speed drops from 99% to 98%.
I just don't see how suddenly being confronted with losing an item slot - potentially losing an item - is preferable.

I didn't mean a normal grid where it would have worked just fine, I guess.

I can't see what a grid has to do with it.

 

[Lemunde]

Well for me when it comes to the two most common inventory systems they're about equal in effectiveness. The space system seems the most fun but a weight system is just as effective when you want to focus on something else. Neither are very realistic but here's my thoughts on that.

If you were to wander into a real world dungeon and kill real world monsters that drop real world loot...ok, that would never happen but if it did you'd end up with several hundred pounds of bulky valuables that you'd have to lug back to ye olde pawne shoppe. Now if you want to be really realistic there's a couple of ways around this. You leave some sort of pack mule at the mouth of the dungeon, run in and kill all those monsters then painstakingly make several trips back to your pack mule with as much loot as you can carry. Very realistic and very tedious, i.e. not fun.

You could also design the game so that monsters don't drop quite so much or they drop more money or smaller valuables like jewelry. Because let's face it you're not going to keep all that loot you're lugging back to ye olde pawne shoppe. But this cuts down on the probability that you might find something cool you'd want to keep.

I've been toying around with the idea of making most of the loot more important to the environment. No, I'm not talking about supporting green peace, I'm talking about making the items more useful for then and there rather than later. For instance during combat rather than picking up a sword and having it automatically go into your inventory you could chuck it at your enemy. This would take some cunning game design but I bet if it were done right it would be really fun.

I also had this idea that if you wanted to go the comical route you could actually graphically show your character dragging a huge bag of loot around that grows or shrinks in size depending on how much is in there. With clever programming you could make him try to squeeze the bag in through doors and such.

There's no perfect solution. It's either realistic or fun, it can't be both. And if you try to make an overly complicated system it's just going to frustrate the player.

 

[Pussycat669]

@claw

With a little back and forth

The difference is the lack of mutual exclusivity

I thought it might be both reasonable since as mentioned before the characters won't be able to carry so many large items due to lack of space + not so many items overall because of some strain that might be required from time to time (although the reasoning could be considered odd). It also gives the player some room for a weapon with which he can defend himself (not that I suggest that he would forget about it). I'm not sure if replacing this by a weight or a size unit mechanic would be a great improvement. I would say it is a logical restriction but a restriction none the less.

It's simplistic, but unlike Fallout, it's complicated

You mean because of the management of different sizes or something else?

I suppose I don't have to tell you that this isn't exactly desireable

Agreed, but it still might be worth some testing as how annoying it is going to turn out.

What strikes me about this reply is that it doesn't say anything about the inventory itself.

As it wasn't suppose to. You see, I haven't played this game for over ten years so I took one of the few fragments of memories I had left from it in hope to catch some better insight. Not blaming anybody of something. Although I'm surely going to play it again sometimes as sort of punishment for my lack of knowledge.

It's more than valid, it's intuitive

Hmm, I don’t know. Is it (from the game perspective) a great difference to have an almost empty huge inventory or a small full one? At least that's the exaggerated picture I'm getting. What use is this free space if you can't fill it anyways? And yeah, I accidentally forgot about sizes here as this seems to be a rather general topic.

I can't see what a grid has to do with it.

A by-product of a catastrophic chain reaction. I was referring to your earlier post about the needlessly complicated thing which was the sizes-with-weight-limitation approach and wanted to flip over to a generic combo system with no size separation in which weight would work just fine like it did before. The word should have been system not grid. My bad.

 

[Müg]

As long as you can come up with a theory for Hammerspace (Zone of the Enders comes to mind, or something similar to the Bag of Holding) I like hammerspace.

But I'm not into hyperrealistic gaming either.

 

[BigWeather]

I find having to manage items within a container on some grid to be one of the more annoying aspects of RPG. I like Ultima VII's way better, with the caveat that they should have some kind of "auto arrange" feature that will quickly make some order out of the jumbled messes those bags could become.

I'm personally in favor of body slots for containers as DarkSign mentioned.

I'd probably tag each container type with a maximum item size capability to prevent a two-handed sword from going into a hip pocket.

Beyond that, yeah, could have each container have a maximum item size total (so say a backpack could hold 3xsmall or 1xmedium, that sort of thing), but not sure that would add much to the gameplay and would just annoy.

Given that, I'd probably just let the total weight the character can carry be the limiter. Sure, you could end up with crazy situations due to this, but it's streamlined enough not to kill gameplay.

I think having slots for containers is nifty because then a centaur PC could have extra slots on their back over say a human PC, that sort of thing. It would make race choice a bit more interesting. (Also, picture a race with four or six arms -- giving you an additional two to four "slots" to hold stuff).

And weight is just there to prevent total monty haul.