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[Zombie James]

Because Bethesda's games haven't been dumbed down enough over the years, I guess.

"This is great," I told my friend. "I want this for my Power Armour back at Red Rocket Truck Stop." So I looted the lot.

Then, the inevitable: "You're carrying too much and can't run!"

"So, yeah, in Fallout 4, if you're carrying too much you slow right down, and you can't fast travel back to home base," I explained.

Into the Pip-boy I went, poring through my inventory, looking for something to dump on Piper, my then companion. But she didn't have any of it. "I'm full, mate. No more room for more of your rubbish." Decision time: do I drop some of the cool stuff I had on me, some of the junk items I'd picked up? Some of the weapons? I spent a good 10 minutes fumbling about the menu screens trying to shuffle bits and bobs this way and back until I came to the inevitable conclusion: I'll just leave the armour on the Raider's corpse.

"You seem to spend more time in the menu than in the game," my astute friend observed. "I don't think this is for me, to be honest."

I tried to explain that messing about in menus is part of the fun of Fallout - indeed it's a part of the fun of most role-playing games. There's a strategy to managing your weight. I need to decide what to take and what to leave behind. When you're so weighed down the game forces you to crawl, working out how to lighten the load without dumping the essentials is somehow fun. What is it Call of Duty marketing man always says? Oh yes, that's it: there's a logistics manager in all of us.

But, for me, with Fallout 4 it's just not worth it.

I often hear the word "realism" used by those who counter this argument. It wouldn't be very realistic if you could carry as much stuff as you want, they say. To that I respond: the realism horse bolted long ago. Fallout 4 and, let's be honest, all games, include magic backpacks that let you carry around a bucket load of stuff, before some arbitrary stat tells you you can't carry any more. It's already silly. Why not make it sillier?

So, after 15 or so hours with Fallout 4, I'm done with encumbrance. It's an archaic mechanic that gets in the way of the best the game has to offer. If you make junk matter, Bethesda, let us carry as much crap as we want. It's a video game, after all, about robots who tell jokes. It's not a post-nuclear simulation. Leave that to DayZ.

"Yeah, I don't think this is for me," my friend concludes. "Really, once it gets going, it's fantastic," I counter. "It looks a bit too much like hard work," he suggests. Yeah, I guess it does.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-11-17-why-im-tired-of-fallout-4-encumbrance

Streamline the thread if old.

 

[BearPawB]

I think encumbrance is a necessary evil.
And any way, if there isn't a mod out now, im sure there will be one within the week.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Hate encumbrance but the game would feel too brain dead if you could pick up everything with no consequences.

 

[Odrion]

~

player.setav carryweight 9001

 

[Kyoufu]

I'm tired of <every game> encumbrance.

 

[Peff]

It's an archaic mechanic

Ah, the good old golden nugget of nonsense.

 

[InsaneTiger]

It wasn't so much a problem in previous games because the JUNK didn't matter, just drop. Now that EVERYTHING can be used for crafting and settlement building it is becoming a pain trying to figure out what to drop.

I wish I had a pack Brahmin following me around.

 

[kavanf1]

Which is why PC is the best way to play Fallout games. Quick console adjustment and over encumbrance is never a problem again.

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

First thing I did was player.setav carryweight 10000

Annoying thing is that it resets when you get into and out of power armour.

I get that the pip boy is a staple of the series but the menus are so archaic I found it a chore to drill through them to get the information I needed.

Why do I need to see the arm and wrist every time I want to go into menus and surely there is a better way to lay them out.

 

[-MD-]

Which is why PC is the best way to play Fallout games. Quick console adjustment and over encumbrance is never a problem again.

I'm not really into cheating, It's not hard to press tab and drop a useless weapon or armor piece.

How is this even an issue for people?

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Always these weird "I had a friend over and then THIS happened" stories
Don't fiddle around in your inventory for 10 minutes when showing somebody the game. Don't pick up Raider armor and pipes.
In fact, don't bother picking up anything that you don't need, stop wasting time with base building, it's completely useless.

 

[Zombie James]

~

player.setav carryweight 9001

Which is why PC is the best way to play Fallout games. Quick console adjustment and over encumbrance is never a problem again.

First thing I did was player.setav carryweight 10000

Annoying thing is that it resets when you get into and out of power armour.

Doesn't this feel like cheating to you?

 

[Hugstable]

Haven't gotten far, but the mission after the power armour, where am I supposed to sell all this crap I have early on in the game? Haven't seen anyone I could sell to so far and have tons of crap on me.

 

[The_Darkest_Red]

Would I complain about streamlining that sent any junk I picked up straight to a workshop? Would I complain about being able to scrap weapons and armor out in the world? Hmm... I don't think I would, to be honest.

I can deal with the game as it is, though. Just takes a little inventory management from time to time.

 

[TronLight]

I find it funny that of all the RPG mechanics Bethesda removed from Fallout 4, encumbrance wasn't one of them.

People like skills, perks managing, deep dialogue system? Fuck that! They hate encumbrance? Keep it in!

 

[w0s]

Considering you can use your companions as giant mules it is way less of an issue than when I first start playing. It is part of the balancing act.

 

[brickarts295]

I wish they could put it along side a difficulty.
Very Easy 1000wt
Easy 500wt
Normal 250wt
etc

 

[shandy706]

Can't you just unload everything into a box/cabinet and make a couple fast travel trips?

Playing on PC or adding an "unlimited" option on consoles would fix this problem.

 

[disappeared]

Cry more.

 

[LegendofLex]

I agree. How else can you explain a character that can carry an entire city's supply of junk?

Characters can already carry inordinate amounts of stuff, even with the current encumbrance systems. I don't think most people have a problem with max weapon/armor capacity - just the fact that all the miscellaneous crap also adds to your max weight. The real question for me is whether these "collect lots of loot to get rich and craft things" systems actually wind up saddling players with too much stuff (by design) in the first place.

I'm not really into cheating, It's not hard to press tab and drop a useless weapon or armor piece.

How is this even an issue for people?

Not everyone wants to have to spend extra time managing excess loot in a game that's already a time sink.

 

[Kyoufu]

Haven't gotten far, but the mission after the power armour, where am I supposed to sell all this crap I have early on in the game? Haven't seen anyone I could sell to so far and have tons of crap on me.

Put all your "Junk" loot into your Workshop storage. You'll need them for building materials.

 

[HariKari]

Doesn't this feel like cheating to you?

What's being cheated? Even without power armor, you can carry a crazy number of weapons. So, really, he's just skipping the constant trips back and forth for dumping junk. I don't do it but I could see why someone would want to.

 

[SictorVullivan]

It wasn't so bad for me when I got the perks that allow you run and fast travel while encumbered, though obviously thats only viable if you are doing a strength build.

 

[Nickle]

I was going to get a mod to remove overencumberance when I first started Fallout 4, but it makes the game too easy and brainless when you can just mash "e" and take everything in sight. It's pretty easy to find a few cabinets and store your unwanted stuff there.

 

[Marjar]

While we're at it, let's just remove all consequences from games. Why the hell not.

 

[Easton Dark]

Removing it kind of inundates game mechanics like Strength, Power Armor bonuses, buffout, a home base to store things, companion inventories, all perks that give carry weight, trade routes between settlements, as well as making caps a non-issue from the start of the game rather than 30 hours in like most Bethesda game.

Just leave stuff behind, 100% clearance is not necessary.

 

[GloveSlap]

It used to be less of a problem when you could combine similar weapons to make one super valuable mint condition version. That was pretty satisfying.

 

[therealminime]

I've never gotten anything positive out of micro managing my inventory in Bethesda games. Immediately set my carry limit to 750 and haven't regretted it once. I know I could get by with the default limit by giving and taking stuff from my companion inventory but that is just more unnecessary menu management that I have so little interest in.

I also have the incurable "must take everything" looting disease.

 

[nbnt]

I agree to a degree. Encumbrance is necessary, but maybe junk should be weightless.

 

[TronLight]

Doesn't this feel like cheating to you?

It's not like the game is super hard and you really need to think about your equipment. With a limit on carry weight you're relly just making it harder to collect things.

 

[HariKari]

Considering you can use your companions as giant mules it is way less of an issue than when I first start playing. It is part of the balancing act.

Dogmeat carries all of my heavy ordnance. Plus the lone wanderer perk. Once you start cooking, radiated food and water starts to go unused in your inventory, and that adds up.

 

[Dysun]

I modded it out Day 3

Way too much micro management and time spent looking at loading screens

Terrible mechanic that needs to go

 

[lazygecko]

I mean... couldn't these arguments just as well be applied to health points? Framing it as something which just keeps you from "getting to the fun stuff".

 

[Coffee Dog]

Encumbrance works in survival games.

Fallout 4 is not a survival game. It is an open world wandering game and encumbrance only gets in the way of that. I'm legitimately surprised that those systems didn't go the way of skill points and dialogue trees when Bethesda was stripping down Fallout 4.

 

[BennyBlanco]

~

player.setav carryweight 9001

Did this after about 2 hours. Same with Witcher 3.

I get why it makes sense, but to me it just boils down to fast travelling back to base all the time and unloading crap. Rather just not deal with it and do it at my convenience.

 

[CheesecakeRecipe]

A small annoyance, but I'd agree to finding a new system which is less in the way of the player. The encumbrance/weight system hasn't changed a bit, much like most of Bethesda's creaky mechanics, and it could use some modern tuning. It doesn't honestly add all that much to the experience and was added during a time when mechanics were starting to stretch their legs and provide new ways to make the game world feel more "real".

I'd agree to something which limits the amount of weapons and armors one could carry, while disregarding the weight of world objects, health/status items, etc. Since Fallout 4 is part dumpster-diving simulator, it doesn't make a lot of sense to force repeated trips other than for the sake of bland busywork.

 

[Snkfanatic]

Cry more.

What the hell is this?

 

[Kacho]

While we're at it, let's just remove all consequences from games. Why the hell not.

My friend will love that game.

 

[HoodWinked]

the skill of scavenging is part of the game. means you start to learn whats worth picking up and things that are too heavy to make it worth picking up. like i stopped picking up most armor and most weapons. you start to recognize junk thats mostly steel which you have an abundance of.

 

[LegendofLex]

I mean... couldn't these arguments just as well be applied to health points? Framing it as something which just keeps you from "getting to the fun stuff".

Health points add challenge
Weight values (for items that aren't weapons/armor/health recovery) add tedium

 

[Orca]

I agree. How else can you explain a character that can carry an entire city's supply of junk?

I'm currently carrying five full sets of raider armor, a half dozen or so toasters, at least two dozen TV dinner trays that I'm not sure I'll need by what not grab them anyway, and an assortment of aluminum stuff that I want to break down.

At this point 'explaining a character' isn't really an issue for the game.

 

[Kenzodielocke]

It is annoying as fuck.

Edit: Thank god ammo doesn't have any weight to it.

I wish there were cheat codes on consoles. I fucking hate inventory management in games. Western RPGs are so terrible in that regard.

 

[dhonk]

just put it on your partner?

 

[Uthred]

Because Bethesda's games haven't been dumbed down enough over the years, I guess.

Yes, there's nothing more intellectually stimulating than encumbrance. Its a tired nod to verisimilitude that adds nothing other than make work to the experience. There's a reason that it's been dropped or made optional in nearly every modern example of the systems source material.

 

[Jonnax]

Doesn't this feel like cheating to you?

But they've paid for their game. They're clearly not getting enjoyment from carrying things it's the story/experience etc that is valuable to them.

 

[Mesoian]

~

player.setav carryweight 9001

Remind me, this disables achievements, right?

 

[BennyBlanco]

Remind me, this disables achievements, right?

Nope

 

[The Lamonster]

This is why you get a game like Fallout 4 on PC so you can tweak it to your preference.

 

[-griffy-]

It would be nice if you could use mail boxes or something to send shipments of stuff back to your settlements.

 

[Matticers]

The game would be super boring and mindless if you could carry everything you see in the world. It would also make searching new areas somewhat pointless if you just easily take everything you see rather than exploring every little nook and cranny for things you might need. Part of the fun is having to pick and choose what to bring, what you might need, etc. Scavenging in a post apocalyptic world.

I guess they could make junk weightless to put more emphasis on what weapons you actually want to bring with you. Those could weigh a little more than they do now, I guess, to balance it out.