Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Which RPG got inventory completely right?

Barbalos

Savant
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
200
DX:HR has better tetris than DX1:
  • Item rotation
  • Auto-arrange button
  • Ammo

Also there were the good size inventory increase Perks in both HR and MD. I didn't even feel bad about taking those as I usually would in those type of games.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
For me the fact that it was not too big made it brutal to decide what to take and keep, what to throw away when I found a new weapon or item. I was trying to do a non-lethal playthrough (gave up on that idea) when I played and having to handle that, along with grenades or larger weapons for robots, rebreathers, the Dragon Tooth, etc. etc., I hated every second I spent in that inventory screen tbh. It adds a level of realism for sure, but I found it increasingly frustrating, and felt the same in both Human Revolution and Mankind Divided as well.
What you're describing sounds great to me. Having to make tough decisions regarding what to pick up and what to drop is how it should be.

I don't think making choices counts as busywork. Being a human vacuum cleaner and having an endless list of junk to sort through, on the other hand, is definitely tedious as fuck.

If you separate inventory into categories... weapons, armor, potions, crafting... then having an unlimited crafting section doesn't really cause any issues. That's what Witcher does, iirc.
By the way, TW1's alchemy sack is not unlimited. It has 42 slots, the same as the main inventory, although you can stack more alchemy items into one slot than, say, beer.
 

Cross

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
2,983
I hate inventory management personally. Deus Ex is a nightmare for me in that regard. I also enjoyed Ultima VII a lot more once I abandoned any notion of trying to manage the inventory and just threw things around willy-nilly and worried about it later.
But why DX? Its perfect...
Its not too big so there isnt much tetris. There is no stupid weight. You get a reasonable idea that bigger items are big, and smaller are small(wow!), but whats more important is you judge them by their field usefulness, not how much exactly they weigh.
DX:HR has better tetris than DX1:
  • Item rotation
  • Auto-arrange button
  • Ammo
Rotation and auto-arrange are nice QoL features, but the actual inventory system of Human Revolution is vastly inferior to DX1's due to the aggressive streamlining of gameplay mechanics. Deus Ex let you carry a variety of consumable items like lockpicks, camo, rebreathers, etc. as well as melee weapons and the odd item like a fire extinguisher that had situational use. What items does Human Revolution even have besides guns and grenades? Healing items...which are largely pointless since both your health and bio-energy regenerate by default. They needed ammo to take up space because there are barely any items in the game to justify the existence of an inventory system.
 
Last edited:

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Rotation and auto-arrange are nice QoL features, but the actual inventory system of Human Revolution is vastly inferior to DX1's due to the aggressive streamlining of gameplay mechanics. Deus Ex let you carry a variety of consumable items like lockpicks, camo, rebreathers, etc. as well as melee weapons and the odd item like a fire extinguisher that had situational use. What items does Human Revolution even have besides guns and grenades? Healing items...which are largely pointless since both your health and bio-energy regenerate by default. They needed ammo to take up space because there are barely any items in the game to justify the existence of an inventory system.
Ammo alone makes it win - not having ammo in the actual inventory was a massive failure of DX1.
Consumable lockpicks and multitools were silly mechanics and won't be missed, consumable armour/protections were comparably silly and clunky - HR generally did much better job with both environmental protection and most of augs (making them passive/auto use).

Stuff like extinguisher and other usable clutter/flavour weapons - ok, that's a loss.
Multiple kinds of ammo, and a few augs (spy drone/aggresive defence are the only ones I can think of, tbh) would also be nice to keep, but I won't be missing having to micromanage bulletproof vest that becomes useless after a minute or so regardless if anyone was shooting at me, managing 12 augs most of which should be automatic or passive, nor envrionmental hazards you could just stroll through and take damage even if you didn't have augs.

Overall HR did much better job on mechanical level across the board.
It only did worse with finer aspects of environmental mechanics (all the stuff with smoke and mirrors), gas grenades, and level design.
And story, obviously.
 

Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
Ammo alone makes it win - not having ammo in the actual inventory was a massive failure of DX1.
What? But its just more busywork. Its just ammo, it goes into the gun. Why do you need to look at it in the inventory. And its pretty small, so you wont be making tough decisions about it anyway.


Consumable lockpicks and multitools were silly mechanics and won't be missed
These you actually pull out and use, so might as well make them present in the inventory.


Multiple kinds of ammo, and a few augs (spy drone/aggresive defence are the only ones I can think of, tbh) would also be nice to keep, but I won't be missing having to micromanage bulletproof vest that becomes useless after a minute or so regardless if anyone was shooting at me, managing 12 augs most of which should be automatic or passive, nor envrionmental hazards you could just stroll through and take damage even if you didn't have augs.

DXHR doesnt have different kinds of ammo? I didnt know that, thats actually a massive fail.


Overall HR did much better job on mechanical level across the board.
You have to be kidding. Well, i remember that stealth was the worst shit ever, with minimap radar, animation takedowns and TPP camera. And thats a pretty major mechanic. DX1 wasnt perfect but still.
Shooting? Maybe it looked better but, whatever.
I know some people liked that hacking minigame, and hacking in DX1 wasnt the best so it wasnt really hard to outdo it.

But it doesnt mater much when shit level design invalidates half of whatever mechanics worked.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
Not very interested in inventories but again EQ is probably the best I've played. You have 8 slots, small items like shurikens or whatever can go into stacks, and big items like armor/weapons/etc use the whole slot. And then you can have bags and belts that extend the slot into some more slots. Every item has weight, including cash, so you can hoard gear but then you might struggle walking. Later on you get magic bags that reduce the weight of stuff inside.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Ammo alone makes it win - not having ammo in the actual inventory was a massive failure of DX1.
What? But its just more busywork. Its just ammo, it goes into the gun. Why do you need to look at it in the inventory. And its pretty small, so you wont be making tough decisions about it anyway.
It's a resource. It should definitely be in your inventory.
Having it explicitly in your inventory allows you to trade off ammo space for other items, makes inventory loss scenarios like in DX1 work better and adds cost to switching loadouts (because you don't carry maxed out ammo for your new loadout already).

These you actually pull out and use, so might as well make them present in the inventory.
But they shouldn't be consumables. I'm pretty happy with DX:HR getting rid of them.

DXHR doesnt have different kinds of ammo? I didnt know that, thats actually a massive fail.
It does (unlike IW), but only 1 kind per weapon, which is a massive fail.


You have to be kidding. Well, i remember that stealth was the worst shit ever, with minimap radar, animation takedowns and TPP camera. And thats a pretty major mechanic. DX1 wasnt perfect but still.
Stealth in DX1 wasn't exactly hot. Radar only actually shown what you could see personally (unless upgraded), the problem with animation takedowns was that they didn't allow other enemies to just up and shoot you, and yeah, I'm not a fan TPP cover systems, but I pretty much only used it to take screenies, so I forgot - I would stomach them if they didn't allow potshots/extra situational awareness with right camera positioning.
OTOH enemies no longer politely wait for you to log out when hacking - in DX1 you could have a whole squad of enemies lined up to shoot you once you log out of security terminal, then instead of logging out, tweak the turrets' AI and have them shoot everyone while they keep waiting. It was lulzy.

But it doesnt mater much when shit level design invalidates half of whatever mechanics worked.
Definitely not shit, but quite conspicuously not nearly as good.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
Radar only actually shown what you could see personally (unless upgraded), the problem with animation takedowns was that they didn't allow other enemies to just up and shoot you, and yeah, I'm not a fan TPP cover systems, but I pretty much only used it to take screenies, so I forgot - I would stomach them if they didn't allow potshots/extra situational awareness with right camera positioning.
I played both HR and MD entirely without the cover system and would recommend that to everyone, but the lack of leaning is a major flaw. When sneaking you have to rely a lot on the radar to "see" through obstacles and around corners (which it totally allows you do without any upgrades whatsoever), and all in all it's pretty clear that they designed stealth around the cover system, i.e. the ability to sit behind a box and see the position of every single enemy in the room while remaining invisible to them. I guess one of the good things about playing in first person is that all of those stealth-related augmentations are at least potentially useful, since you have to use them instead of the TPP superpower. Still, ditch the radar and give me the damn lean buttons.

I think there are tons of problems with the ridiculous takedowns. For one, it's more satisfying to knock someone out with a baton than initiate a cutscene where your character beats someone up in a hilariously over-the-top fashion. The cutscenes also act as time-freezing spells, with everyone except Jensen and his victims being helplessly nailed to their spots, not just unable to shoot but unable to react in any way whatsoever until their buddies have been successfully beaten to a pulp. There's no risk of failure involved either. With DX's melee weapons (another thing that HR lacks) there at least was the possibility of screwing up if a guard happened to turn around at the wrong time (rare, I know), or you somehow didn't aim your strike properly and just pissed the enemy off instead of knocking him out. In HR it's button—awesome every single time.

Also, while I'm usually against gamist nonsense, DX's consumable lockpicks and multitools really did work well in terms of gameplay.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Radar only actually shown what you could see personally (unless upgraded), the problem with animation takedowns was that they didn't allow other enemies to just up and shoot you, and yeah, I'm not a fan TPP cover systems, but I pretty much only used it to take screenies, so I forgot - I would stomach them if they didn't allow potshots/extra situational awareness with right camera positioning.
I played both HR and MD entirely without the cover system and would recommend that to everyone, but the lack of leaning is a major flaw. When sneaking you have to rely a lot on the radar to "see" through obstacles and around corners (which it totally allows you do without any upgrades whatsoever), and all in all it's pretty clear that they designed stealth around the cover system, i.e. the ability to sit behind a box and see the position of every single enemy in the room while remaining invisible to them. I guess one of the good things about playing in first person is that all of those stealth-related augmentations are at least potentially useful, since you have to use them instead of the TPP superpower. Still, ditch the radar and give me the damn lean buttons.

I think there are tons of problems with the ridiculous takedowns. For one, it's more satisfying to knock someone out with a baton than initiate a cutscene where your character beats someone up in a hilariously over-the-top fashion. The cutscenes also act as time-freezing spells, with everyone except Jensen and his victims being helplessly nailed to their spots, not just unable to shoot but unable to react in any way whatsoever until their buddies have been successfully beaten to a pulp. There's no risk of failure involved either. With DX's melee weapons (another thing that HR lacks) there at least was the possibility of screwing up if a guard happened to turn around at the wrong time (rare, I know), or you somehow didn't aim your strike properly and just pissed the enemy off instead of knocking him out. In HR it's button—awesome every single time.

Also, while I'm usually against gamist nonsense, DX's consumable lockpicks and multitools really did work well in terms of gameplay.
I wouldn't mind TPP cover system if it positioned camera in such way that it would look all cool and cinematic but provide zilch situational awareness if not peeking out of cover.

In the same vein I wouldn't mind cinematic takedowns as long as beating or stabbing a guy in an elaborate fashion would have alerted his fellows and let them shoot at you with impunity while the animation lasted. In a way it would have worked better than deftly tapping someone in the kidneys with a baton and carrying him away while his buddy looked the other way.

I honestly don't mind
:avatard:
features as long as mechanics stays sound.

For cover system and takedowns the fact that one is effectively a wallhack and the other greater timestop make them both very deeply unsound mechanically.
 

Eirinjas

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
1,960
Location
The Moon
RPG Wokedex
No, they're all in the original. I have a non-EE run going atm and they're in there. From a wiki search the capacity is increased from 20 -> 100 in the EE, though.

The original un-modded BG does not have Bags of Holding, Scroll Cases, or Potion Containers.
 

Barbalos

Savant
Joined
Jun 14, 2018
Messages
200
No, they're all in the original. I have a non-EE run going atm and they're in there. From a wiki search the capacity is increased from 20 -> 100 in the EE, though.

The original un-modded BG does not have Bags of Holding, Scroll Cases, or Potion Containers.

I suppose I was thinking of the original trilogy. That's what I have going for my run, joined together with that Trilogy mod, that must be why they are in my "OG" BGI game.
 

Hellwalker

Animmal
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2015
Messages
98
Depends on type of game I guess.
For open worlds that are not meant to be a sim-like experience I'd say no weight limit and grid based inventory with good sorting features and ability to sell off junk easily. Maybe some limit on total items in a grid so game does not slow down when opening inventory. Pathfinder did a good job I think with sorting and selling off. At least conceptually.
For sim-like experience, survival/scarce resource situation and generally where it makes gameplay sense to have limitation on what you can carry. I'd say grid-shape inventory with added weight limit if needed. System-Shock/Deus-Ex like thing but a bit more polished.

One thing that I can't remember ever done well is consumable items quality of life features. At least in games that have many types of those. I mostly end up dumping potion use and rely on spells.

Personally, after finishing Dungeon Siege all those years ago, I take no more enjoyment at all from weight limits and inventory management.That game was an ordeal for completionist.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Depends on type of game I guess.
For open worlds that are not meant to be a sim-like experience I'd say no weight limit and grid based inventory with good sorting features and ability to sell off junk easily. Maybe some limit on total items in a grid so game does not slow down when opening inventory.
Implying LARPing a garbage truck = good/desirable gameplay.

One thing that I can't remember ever done well is consumable items quality of life features. At least in games that have many types of those. I mostly end up dumping potion use and rely on spells.
That only means that:
  • Game is too generous with consumables.
  • Game's systems are badly designed if consumables can be ignored.
Seriously, how the fuck can you people develop games if it seems that not one* of you knows what the fuck they are doing?
It's just all cargo cult design, recursively - cargo cults all the way down.

Disclaimer:
I don't actually know what you are working on and for whom, so consider this a general outburst against so-called "state-of-the-art" in the industry, rather than personal criticism - nice to meet you and all that.

*) Correction: So far Moon Studios folk seem to be pretty lucid with no known evidence to the contrary, but they make 'vanias/platformers, so it's hardly applicable here.
 

Hellwalker

Animmal
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2015
Messages
98
Implying LARPing a garbage truck = good/desirable gameplay.
For me good/desirable gameplay is the one where individual gameplay elements work well together to create one cohesive and enjoyable experience.
All RPG's and games have a large deal of abstraction from realism in favor of enjoyable gaming experience. Using realism as immersion is a particularly careful balancing act. Too much of it and it just becomes tedious routine that breaks immersion it's trying to achieve. And large open world games that are not designed to be adventuring life simulators are particularly bad fit for weight management in my opinion. Though if you enjoy that routine and it gives you more immersion and connection to your avatars reality then good for you. For me it becomes immersive when "item/resource" scarcity turns weight management into actual tactical decision process and you have to sacrifice one advantage for another when choosing what to carry.

That only means that:
  • Game is too generous with consumables.
  • Game's systems are badly designed if consumables can be ignored.
I can't disagree that it is often the case. Most games could benefit from less consumables, or from restricting their access in combat somehow.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
For me good/desirable gameplay is the one where individual gameplay elements work well together to create one cohesive and enjoyable experience.
Creation of enjoyable experience also involves identifying and preempting degenerate gameplay cycles.

Players don't hoover up and then ferry cartloads of vendor trash because it's fun. It's not. It's tedious as fuck. They do it because it's advantageous.

The best you can do is not enabling that behaviour, the first step of which nicely coincides with realism - having stringently limited inventory space. The next step can be aggresively cleaning up stray items when leaving most locations.
The mechanics could be further refined to improve gameplay and create interesting scenarios.

All RPG's and games have a large deal of abstraction from realism in favor of enjoyable gaming experience. Using realism as immersion is a particularly careful balancing act. Too much of it and it just becomes tedious routine that breaks immersion it's trying to achieve.
That's usually caused by badly implemented realism that adds busywork that could be reduced or automated away with smarter design.
Case in point in this very thread - realistic swimming limitations would be crippling with conventional inventory system because of the amount of tedium added, but if the abstraction was cleverly "inverted" the tedium would be removed in addition to sudden creation of interesting gameplay scenarios.

The only reasons to not implement realistic mechanics is it being not worth the effort (because of weak overlap with the gameplay concept), not feasible, or actually running against gameplay (then again, every now and then you get a smash hit just because someone went against well established conventional wisdom - see FPS games and Operation Flashpoint).

For me it becomes immersive when "item/resource" scarcity turns weight management into actual tactical decision process and you have to sacrifice one advantage for another when choosing what to carry.
That's what it should be.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
Using realism as immersion is a particularly careful balancing act. Too much of it and it just becomes tedious routine that breaks immersion it's trying to achieve.
But that's precisely what enormous inventory sizes lead to. Going through every corpse and container looking for useless junk that you can haul to the nearest vendor is nothing but tedious routine that involves no thought or decision-making whatsoever on the player's part. There are often unwanted side effects as well, like a completely broken in-game economy if merchants actually buy all that crap, but that's probably a discussion for another thread.

I don't see any tedium in small inventory sizes. You pick up what you need and ignore everything else.

...aaaaand of course DraQ beat me to it.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Using realism as immersion is a particularly careful balancing act. Too much of it and it just becomes tedious routine that breaks immersion it's trying to achieve.
But that's precisely what enormous inventory sizes lead to. Going through every corpse and container looking for useless junk that you can haul to the nearest vendor is nothing but tedious routine that involves no thought or decision-making whatsoever on the player's part. There are often unwanted side effects as well, like a completely broken in-game economy if merchants actually buy all that crap, but that's probably a discussion for another thread.
And there we arrive at a neat side effect to realism: You know where it takes you.
With unrealistic by design mechanics you can often watch how everything goes out of whack in completely unexpected manner as unforeseen consequences propagate.

It's similar to what SF authors often face - they come up with some retarded brillant! idea, technology or invention for their SF-verse and suddenly, out of nowhere, there are hordes of geeks/bored engineers everywhere posting detailed analyses of how this idea blows the universe apart in the most hilarious manner. Then, reduced to laughing stock, they typically cease to be SF authors and relegate themselves to just writing bad fantasy (space or otherwise) and sulking.

In short, it's always best to stick to realism as rigorously tested and consistency proofed default unless you explicitly know exactly why you don't want it and what exactly do you want instead in given specific case. And what it will do if you allow it to run rampant - maybe realism would have been a better alternative after all.
 

trimethylsilyl

Educated
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
91
Location
xXx420xXx
BG2 has decent inventory management IMO, especially with all the cases. Would be better if you could multi-select (which is strange, since you can do it in stores). Haven't played much of Arcanum, but I guess I like that as well.

Honorable mention:
Partly because it's quite consolized, D:OS 2 has the best inventory management I've had in a RPG that's played with a controller.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,625
I like the idea behind grid inventories but in practice they are dogshit.
I hated having to maneouver my way around Arcanum's and Deus Ex's inventories. You found something? Better play Tetris with your inventory just to be able to make it fit. No thanks, to me the purpose of an inventory is to give me the items I want when I want them. That's all the inventory is good for. So the way to get this right is by giving items two stats: weight, and size. Moreover, I believe videogames need to be intuitive. So this means ammo shouldn't occupy more space than needed because of "muh balance": balance that shit through encounters and how much ammo you find around, not by giving the player extra busywork when it comes to inventory management. You want the player to look at an item and instantly know "yeah, I can carry this". I shouldn't need to play Tetris when I find ammo just because the developer decided that ammo takes as much space as a fucking rocket launcher.

And don't get me wrong, I like Tetris. But there's a fine line between making inventory management a fun minigame of its own, and making it tedious as hell. I particularly hated how Arcanum doesn't let you autosort to have all your similar items be put together. So you ended up with this:

arcanum-inventory.png


Instead of this (note I only focused on potions and healing items):

example.png
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Daggerfall. A horse-driven cart for loot + money have weight but can be converted into bills of exchange.
 

Hellwalker

Animmal
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2015
Messages
98
Creation of enjoyable experience also involves identifying and preempting degenerate gameplay cycles.

Players don't hoover up and then ferry cartloads of vendor trash because it's fun. It's not. It's tedious as fuck. They do it because it's advantageous.
Sure, I agree.
The best you can do is not enabling that behaviour, the first step of which nicely coincides with realism - having stringently limited inventory space. The next step can be aggresively cleaning up stray items when leaving most locations.
The mechanics could be further refined to improve gameplay and create interesting scenarios.
I don't see any tedium in small inventory sizes. You pick up what you need and ignore everything else.
I'd say it depends on the game. Let's say in a game like Morrowind. You can pick many decorative items that are completely useless gameplay-wise but many players like to use them for decorative and RP purposes, and there you get situation where you either suffer though tedium of hauling those items back and forth between your house and looting location, or you are frustrated to leave what you want behind.

So I guess to take specific situations :
Small number of useful items + Small inventory = good.
Large number of items with expire-able usefulness (you out-level loot) + small inventory OR large inventory with good junk sorting features = Serviceable approaches I guess. Leaving stuff behind can feel unsatisfactory and might force you to grind if you are low on coins, gathering everything can create problems and might make money useless by it's abundance.
Large number of item with conditional usefulness(Morrowind situation) + ??? = good. I guess optional toggle for immersive vs convenient handling of them. Or maybe separate mechanics for game-play items/decorative items.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
note that DraQ assumes u put a shitton of loot into the game by default, because that is realistic to be able to loot every body for everything but their underwear
and then you're supposed to come up with realistic design to combat your own realistic design
because realism

Also in reality many players love tons of loot and they would just mod out encumbrance because they just want to collect all the loot. at this point it is not possible to therapydesign them out of this without them downvoting your game on steam :M
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom