[PhoenixSFT]

I like Borderlands limits though, which you could increase by saving Claptraps. If a game allows you to increase your inventory limit, I'm cool with that.

[Thagomizer]

I liked the equipment limit in Demon's Souls over the lack of one in Dark Souls. The presence of the equipment burden forced me to constantly manage my inventory, where in Dark Souls, my inventory usually got so clustered that I could never switch weapons reliably mid fight.

Move all the weapons you use frequently together, put the special-situation weapons a little further away, dump the rest in the Bottomless Box/ sell them to Frampt.

Bam.

[vareon]

It has to be realistic! Why realism is a desirable pursuit in a game where you go fight giant trolls is something of an interesting question.

Games like Skyrim didn't pursue realism, they pursue believability.

[Satchel]

Depends on the game and the situation.

I'd assume in an adventure/RPG it would be very annoying.

I have no issue with it in a shooter.

[Kusagari]

Inventory limits suck, especially because they're usually in games where you get tons of loot. It leads to you just constantly having to waste time going to sell shit or dropping everything you find.

Dark Souls way is how they should go about it. Either cause heavier armor/weapons to weigh you down, or just outright limit you from equipping certain things/or the amount you can equip based off strength stats.

[Y2Kev]

Games like Skyrim didn't pursue realism, they pursue believability.

I don't understand why it's believable to be able to carry six daggers and four maces. Just throw the whole pretense out-- it's poorly designed and tedious. We're talking about degrees of believability here, aren't we?

[SatelliteOfLove]

Balancing of a game, including inventory restrictions, is (should be) in the goal of making the game work better. To throw the very concept away for short-sighted wants just to have it go to shit later because the game wasn't designed for people to acquire so recklessly, throwing off resource factors. People whine about that later, of course.

I am leery of Strength-based carrying mechanics, as few games do that well. It usually dicks over DEX/INT/SPR-based classes.

[henhowc]

I hate this mechanic in RPGs.

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

I've only played a few games where I found inventory management to require some thought, one of those games being Odin Sphere.

You could buy bags but you were still limited. The game required you to think about when to eat food and plant seeds while keeping space in your inventory for new stuff.

[IrrelevantNotch]

Resident Evil was better when keys took up inventory space. You had to constantly weigh the threat of zombies versus the possibility of a locked door up ahead.

[SoulClap]

I absolutely hate them in RPGs. The more time I spend in the menus the less fun I have playing the game. Thank God for PC versions where I can mod that crap out.

[youngwerther]

I like them a lot.
Especially in New Vegas hardcore mode, where your ammo has weight.
It forces you to be more strategic about what you carry around with you, and it makes you mentally itemize different weapons/armor for different situations, placing importance of scenario on your stuff, rather than just hauling everything around.

Does it make the game "more difficult"?
Probably not. But I like the time I spent thinking and rationalizing what I want to carry and what I want to leave at home.

[The_Hitcher89]

I generally liked the way Dragon's Dogma did it. You were quite limited, but moving items to your pawns and storage was really quick

RE4 did it perfectly, RE5 did it terribly

[nmanma]

Most of the games with inventory limits that I've played have been sufficiently generous with them so I've never minded.

One of the few exceptions for me was Earthbound, because the limit was quite low and equipment and key items counted for it. And the delivery service that acted as a separate chest for things you may need later was also quite limited in capacity.

At first it bothered me but then I started to break my habit of not using the cool items, like bags of dragonite, rockets and stuff. It was pretty fun, made me be more liberal with items in other games.

[SoulClap]

I generally liked the way Dragon's Dogma did it. You were quite limited, but moving items to your pawns and storage was really quick RE4 did it perfectly, RE5 did it terribly

What's so terrible about the RE5 system? Restart and move whatever you don't want into storage. More time playing the game, less timing rotating a herb.

[Neki]

I thought Dragon Age: Origins was terrible for this, thank god you could mod to max inventory/unlimited(I think). Way too much shit to pick up in that game.

[pulga]

I like it forces me to actually think what im taking with me.

[Mupod]

Absolutely. STALKER is by far a more interesting game when you need to make a conscious effort to travel light, and scavenging for food/ammo is much more fun than just lugging everything around. It even influences your weapon choice, for example if you know you're going to be fighting enemies with a certain weapon then it's better to bring something that uses the same ammo.

[Arla]

Nope. It's just a pain and I've never really found them to add anything to a game.

[ugoo18]

I hate it in Kingdoms of Amalur...

I can understand a limited backpack like the game has but why on earth is my house limited as well, even after buying more houses it's still limited -_-

[coopolon]

Playing New Vegas right now, what I am finding I enjoy is force myself to be limited when choosing my load out (although it's still kind of silly, carrying pistol, shotgun, two rifles, grenade launcher). I also limit the amount of food I carry, although chems are weightless.

But I did use the console to increase my carry capacity to 5000 so that while exploring I can loot what I want to (although again I force myself to be reasonable...ie I'm not picking up every tin can, pretty much all I pick up are weapons, armor, and parts for weapon repair kits.)

[The Awesomest]

Fire Emblem does it just fine. Inventory limit: FIVE. (or seven, or four weapons and four items)

So you can take your almost-broken cheap weapon, your backup cheap weapon, a really nice weapon, a healing item, and some other weapon you can't use because they guy who uses it is full carrying other stuff. Oh, but maybe this map has a certain type of enemy you need a special weapon to kill easily. Will you bring one? Will you give up the healing item or the nice weapon or the almost-broken weapon or the other guy's weapon to do it? Fun times deciding who brings what before each battle.

[BillyBats]

Can anyone name a recent game that was "challenging" because of inventory limits? I'd like to play it. Because a much easier question is, "Can anyone name a game that is fucking annoying because of inventory limits?" The list is huge.

How about "realistic"? Take Skyrim. I know in real life, a person wouldn't be able to carry around ten longswords and fifteen helmets slung over their backs, but having some sort of limit adds a level of realism to your character in a game. These are RPG's and many players like to get lost into the character and humanize them a bit. Many players aren't entirely focused on the "Yeah man, gotta beat the fucking game, fuck this shit man, fucking item limit!!". I wish more rpg's would incorporate things like hunger, thirst, and sleep.

[Spring-Loaded]

It has to be realistic! Why realism is a desirable pursuit in a game where you go fight giant trolls is something of an interesting question.

I'd say it's more about believability rather than realism. Just because there's magic or monsters in a fantasy game doesn't mean it makes sense to summon Lamborghini and such.

[Blasty]

In RPGs it makes no sense to me. It doesn't increase the difficulty in anyway to limit the amount of random items you can carry.

[Drazgul]

Yeah inventory limits are great, forcing you to think what to grab with you (and in some games, giving an extra incentive to make a STR-oriented character). Tho it's kinda silly that you can carry only an x amount of stuff, but apparently there's no issue with carrying around 100k pieces of gold.

[Alchemy]

To an extent. As long as it is reasonable and I can upgrade my carry capacity it works. I despise the 2-4 gun carry limit in shooters though.

[evangd007]

Carry limits, like most game mechanics, can be enjoyable if done well. The problem therein is the fact that most games do not do carry limits well. Some games just seem to include them as a legacy feature: it's there because it is expected, not to serve any actual gameplay purpose. List-based inventories often seem arbitrary and generally add nothing to the game. In most Bethesda RPGs and similar games, it just forces you to fast-travel more. The fact that the UI for list-based inventories are generally terrible is just icing on the cake. However, despite the fact that the inventory UI for Mass Effect was abysmal, the fact that you could turn items into some sort of currency on the fly was a step in the right direction.

I tend to like grid-based inventories like in RE4 and Deus Ex: HR since those actually have you make meaningful decisions as to which weapons you'll be able to use. Note that the major decisions concerning carry limits in these games is not what to take to your home base to sell or store, but what to take into the field within your limits to maximize your combat effectiveness.

[SlickVic]

Never cared much for it, though I guess it's because I've never formed the habit of going to towns periodically and selling off old junk I don't need. Instead whenever I find something cool in a dungeon, I go through the tedious process of rummaging through my inventory (and my companion's) to see what I don't need anymore to make space.
Always tell myself I should leave the stuff I don't need in my house or sell it before heading off on a mission or dungeon, but I only seem to remember that when I'm overencumbered.

[Derrick01]

I think people would find inventory limits more useful if games had other mechanics reinforcing it. Like in New Vegas either through that patch or mods in general if you have a pretty small limit but have to maintain a food and water supply as well as having enough firepower to get through the incredibly dangerous wasteland then all of a sudden you actually do have to make difficult choices. Choosing a pistol that could get you killed but you can't afford to carry the assault rifle because you need the extra weight to carry X amount of food for a lengthy trip.

Like I said you need mods for that kind of experience though. No mainstream game will ever offer that now.

[bndadm]

Inventory management is my single biggest struggle in games like Fallout 3. I dislike having to purge what I'm carrying before I enter new areas in case I find lots of neat things.

I understand the RPG aspect of it, but I wish you could turn it off. I want to explore the worlds, not micromanage.

[Raonak]

Nope. one of my biggest annoyances about WRPGs.

only works for survival based games, was nicely used in survival horror games.

[PatrickLyons]

very few games do inventory management reasonably. i like how Halo did it. but I don't see people buying into that for skyrim.

I think bad game design explains a lot of the inventory madness that plagues games. I mean there's generally only 3 types of items. (1) equipment, (2) single-use items like healthpacks, and (3) quest items/shit you're really just gonna sell. for a game that handles all of these in a reasonable way, i point again to Halo. for a game that handles them in a godawful horrible way, I point to every final fantasy game.

why must my equipment constantly get replaced by higher level stuff? that's dumb. I can go to k-mart and buy a chef's knife that will kill anyone for 10 dollars. it'll be really sharp. I can buy a .38 for something like a grand. again, pretty deadly. upgrading loot is stupid. luke skywalker didn't need to upgrade his lightsaber, so why does my jedi need to collect crystals like pokemon? bad game design. master chief begins the fucking game with the best gun in the entire game, the pistol. genius. the only reason to trade it for something else is if you run out of bullets.

why must the game apply its buffs to my character through the use of patently absurd "items" that really are magic? again, I say to you Halo, and the brilliant "shield" recharge and the shift to no health meters after halo 1. much better than having to collect tonics and mid-tonics and high-tonics, like i'm some sort of medieval snake-oil salesman with a wagon train of medicine following me around. and of course we just cover our eyes about the whole medkits can heal you instantly thing. sure, you say, but those tonics are really magic tonic, well guess what they could have used some other mechanic other than an item couldn't they? like, for example, the wonderful skill system from Suikoden which some of us know by its original name, the magic system of 2nd edition AD&D. the only game to feature health items that weren't bullshit was max payne.

There's another nice thread about games being artificially padded, and I think one of the worst culprits of game-padding, other than slow-walking and drawn out dialogue, is trash loot. And the worst offender is bethesda. I'm convinced that their proximity to baltimore is responsible for this because whenever I play their games I always find myself making a run to the metal man to scrap some stuff that I've looted out of some poor asshole's house that has personal significance to him but to me is just the ratio of its weight to its assessed value, which of course appears immediately upon highlighting it with my cursor. I mean literally I can't even think about playing Morrowind without imagining myself carrying around those huge dwemer cogs that assess for a lot but weigh like 25 lbs apiece. Just imagine if the guys stripping the copper out of abandoned houses in the southwest had those little scanner devices they now have at my local grocery store so I can price-check every item as I put it in my cart. Games and reality coming closer together every day. And of course, in bethesda games at least, that's the only way to make any money, so you either play homeless person simulator or you're actually homeless.

and finally, other than keys (which generally should fit on a keyring), why do game developers find themselves desperately carving out quests in which helpless npcs treat my character like UPS? taken literally, my life has been a series of quests, and almost none of which have involved someone else asking me to carry their shit around. as I look around my apartment, it's all my stuff. I'm not a pawn shop. So why does my character's inventory remind me of sanford and son? fuck fetchquests. the best use of a quest item I can remember is the last 5 minutes of Bastion. That shit had weight.

[NZNova]

Diablo 3. Why can't I, hold all these blues?

[Reikon]

Can anyone name a recent game that was "challenging" because of inventory limits? I'd like to play it.

DayZ.

[NZNova]

Elder Scrolls games get me with inventory limits. Every time I play one of these games my inventory is full of pots and pans, and the armour of every guard I've killed, by the time I finish the tutorial area.

[Ace Harding]

It's almost never about believability or realism - it's usually about balance. Most games would be broken without inventory limits, because the challenge would be nearly eliminated.

Take the modern ES/Fallout games for example. Once you take away the limit, you might as well be invincible. You could have infitnite potions, food, etc. You can carry the perfect weapon/armor for any enemy in the game.

Inventory limits force you to make choices, similar to leveling and other stat mechanics. It becomes another choice on the menu of min/max options. Do I carry this axe that deals electric damage to mechs, or this one that saps health from organic enemies?

To me, an unlimited inventory in a game that isn't designed for it is like having the ability to dump points into any stat at any time without limit. The alternative is to have a very strictly controlled game economy, which would be really hard to do well and would break the openness of a game like Skyrim.

So I like them, as long as the UI isn't horrible.

Also, Torchlight is cool because you get the advantage of being able to dump stuff for gold at any time, but still forces you to make choices about what you do carry.

[zeitgeist]

Carry capacity limits are one of my all time biggest game pet peeves. (along with Weapon degradation)

It makes sense in MMORPGS but otherwise it is just a huge annoyance. Getting overencumbered all of the time made me stop playing Fallout 3 and now that I know the Witcher 2 has it, I will most likely avoid it as well.

[Bishop]

i dont like managing things and being forced to choose.

[picklecannon]

Like I said you need mods for that kind of experience though. No mainstream game will ever offer that now.

Roguelikes. Not exactly mainstream but inventory limits/carrying limits are a big part of that genre.

It makes sense in MMORPGS but otherwise it is just a huge annoyance. Getting overencumbered all of the time made me stop playing Fallout 3 and now that I know the Witcher 2 has it, I will most likely avoid it as well.

Mod it out imo. No reason to miss such a great game just because of weight limits.

[yankeeforever2]

I would actually like to see a mix of an RE4 style with the briefcase and weight management.
RE5 inventory was total shit, don't even know what happened there.

[Gotchaye]

Fire Emblem does it just fine. Inventory limit: FIVE. (or seven, or four weapons and four items)

Definitely. There the inventory limit is a meaningful constraint, and is almost never just annoying. Halo's also been mentioned, and likewise there the carry limit is very low in order to make you actually choose, and you don't have to worry about useless crap in your inventory.

This isn't original, but my big problem with carry limits in many games is that their only purpose is to force you to go find a vendor every so often. You're not trying to figure out how to fit all the items you expect to want to use in the next level; you're just picking up things as they drop and then selling them.

[willooi]

Absolutely, I greatly enjoyed Hardcore Mode on Fallout: New Vegas thanks to all the times I had to choose between attacking and healing items, and ended up leaving a trail of item 'care pack' stashes all over the Mojave for when I passed through these areas again.

Same with Skyrim, decking out all your homes in different cities and keeping your various loot on display everywhere added so much joy to the world.

[rohlfinator]

They're kind of a necessary evil, unless the game either has strict limits on how many items it doles out, or encourages you to consume items often enough that they don't accumulate.

I would say Bethesda's inventories are bad for other reasons, though. They give you a fairly sizable (but still limited) carry capacity and then set you loose in a world where you can pick up anything that's not nailed down, so it trains you early on to become a hoarder, and then screws you over when you finally hit your limit.

This isn't original, but my big problem with carry limits in many games is that their only purpose is to force you to go find a vendor every so often. You're not trying to figure out how to fit all the items you expect to want to use in the next level; you're just picking up things as they drop and then selling them.

Yeah, a lot of games aren't challenging enough to require the regular use of items, so the only meaningful decision you're making is "should I go back to the vendor now" or at best, "which of these items is worth more gold".

[CornBurrito]

No but they're a necessary evil. Adding some management and sometimes making you make tough choices is important to me in RPGs. It's not realistic or fun to just run around care free with magical infinite pockets picking up thousands of junk items on the way to a dungeon just because I have no weight to worry about. Sometimes I think people put too much stock into needing every ounce of a game to be "fun" and that results in people diluting games. In order to have a higher challenge level you need things that stress you and force you to think hard, and that's not always going to be "fun".

But killing mythical creatures is totally realistic.

Also Risen had infinite inventory and it was fine.

[whalleywhat]

Bethesda games are already broken with all the shit you can carry. The only reason your inventory fills up is because you want to sell everything, not because you're inventory is filled to the brim with useful items which are breaking the gameplay. If they are balancing, it's for the sake of the game's economy. I should really try Hardcore Mode in New Vegas sometime. Having no limit on the ammo you can carry in FO3 is pretty absurd, and some element of struggling for survival might liven things up a bit.

[PhoReal]

Yes and no.

I understand why developers do it and it's not always bad. I do wish some games (Skyrim) were a bit less severe with their penalties, though.

Nothing's worse than selling a bunch of stuff in town, leave town, fight dragon and that dragon drops goods that weigh a ton. It's like, FUCK!

[EatinOlives]

But killing mythical creatures is totally realistic. Also Risen had infinite inventory and it was fine.

It still stands to reason that there are sets of rules that even fantasy-based games should probably follow for a game to be coherent at all. How would we like it if every person you spoke to in Risen just started breakdancing and speaking backwards? Even though it's a game about killing mythical creatures there's still a point where you can say "that wouldn't be realistic".

[GillianSeed79]

Since the OP mentioned Witcher 2, just install the no weight mod and never look back. That's what I did. As far as Skyrim, I imagine a good 10 to 20 hours of my play time was spent going to my house in Whiterun and dumping stuff into my personal storage chest. The only thing worse than carry limits is degradable/breakable weapons and equipment.

[Spring-Loaded]

It still stands to reason that there are sets of rules that even fantasy-based games should probably follow for a game to be coherent at all. How would we like it if every person you spoke to in Risen just started breakdancing and speaking backwards? Even though it's a game about killing mythical creatures there's still a point where you can say "that wouldn't be realistic".

I agree, but I tend to use "believable" rather than "realistic" in this sense. Some people seem to feel threatened by the latter for some reason, as if it invalidates their game experiences.