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Favorite RPG Inventory System

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my man
 
One more separate question for now?

How would you feel about the WoW Peg/Slot system with ONE bag that cannot be moved/replaced but can be upgraded to more space over time?
 
Wait, how does that work? There's no grid so you just place items where there's space? They can't stack or touch I guess?

(Regarding UO's inventory system)
They can stack, and can touch. People would hide valuable stuff underneath not-so-valuable stuff in case they got ganked.
 
Darnified UI in TES Oblivion

It was so smooth and I could see so much, there's nothing more I'd need

Strange I'd see someone mention this. Come to think of it, I was playing Skyrim recently and while it is a darn good game one thing I really dislike compared to its predecessor is the inventory system/menus.
 
I liked Skyrim, especially after kinect voice commands were implemented. There need to be more RPGs that let you set a loot limit.
 
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I've always like Kotor's inventory system. It was very basic and easy to understand... Playing Dragon Age Origins at the moment and I'm not really a fan of that.
 
I'm a fan of Dungeon and Dragons: Shadow over Mystara's way of going about inventory, where you access it via a rotating wheel in-game. Can't find a good screenshot of it.
 
I wasn't sure what I thought until I saw Ultima Online.I have to agree. Damn, that game was addictive. Hangin' out at Yew Felluca every night around the moongate was a damn good time.
 
UO inventory management was the worst, just 'putting things where you want' is a cool idea, but it also means you have to VERY carefully manually keep your shit arranged or it turns into a mess.
 
UO inventory management was the worst, just 'putting things where you want' is a cool idea, but it also means you have to VERY carefully manually keep your shit arranged or it turns into a mess.

Not sure what game UO is, but that sounds like an actual inventory :) Gotta pack smartly.
 
WoW's inventory system is the worse when everyone uses an addon to replace that garbage UI.

D2 inventory -> Path of Exile inventory

Jigsaw puzzle style inventory really makes you feel like min/maxing looting making every loot important. D3 completely trivialized and destroyed this awesome inventory system.
 
(Regarding UO's inventory system)
They can stack, and can touch. People would hide valuable stuff underneath not-so-valuable stuff in case they got ganked.

Wow, that's actually neat. Is there some kind limit, like weight, to how much you can put in there?
 
I'm rather fond of the inventory system in Phantasy Star Online. It had a traditional inventory menu for when you "paused" the game, but you could also bring up an alternative menu via a button combination that categorizes your items and you could equip/use items really quickly. Way better than having a 1-10 hotkey system (though the blue burst expansion did add one).

I would also like it if more RPGs categorize your inventory like Pokemon does, with each pocket of the bag being a different type of item. It's too bad that most of the items in Pokemon are useless.
 
I really love Dragon Quest VIII's inventory system. It was like a complete revamp of their previous systems and much different and more powerful.
 
I have to go with Ultima Online's free form bags:
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WoW always felt so restrictive following UO and being able to just dump things anywhere in the bags.

This is the only correct answer. There were actual gameplay implications to how you sorted your inventory in UO. If you had say your key to your boat or house on you, you'd be best off storing it underneath say a large stone so that way if anyone tried to pickpocket your key, they'd have to move the stone first. Moving the stone could then possibly reveal them to you, they'd get flagged for trying to steal from you and then they'd be free to kill by players and guards. Then you could loot their corpse.
 
JRPGs do this better. WRPG inventory management has never been remotely compelling.

What? Most JRPGs I've played don't feature any kind of management... just a slow as clunky menu were you spend far too much time scrolling through items. This is probably just a console thing though. I love Dragon Age: Inquisition but jesus the inventory menu is abysmal.
 
What? Most JRPGs I've played don't feature any kind of management... just a slow as clunky menu were you spend far too much time scrolling through items. This is probably just a console thing though. I love Dragon Age: Inquisition but jesus the inventory menu is abysmal.

I don't think Dragon Age is a JRPG.
 
What? Most JRPGs I've played don't feature any kind of management... just a slow as clunky menu were you spend far too much time scrolling through items. This is probably just a console thing though. I love Dragon Age: Inquisition but jesus the inventory menu is abysmal.

I haven't found the menus to be clunky, in fact I'd say inventory UI in WRPGs are generally poorer. The less inventory management the better, almost no games make it compelling or strategic in any way. Weight managements and inventory grids are almost universally poorly designed.
 
JRPGs do this better. WRPG inventory management has never been remotely compelling.



I hope this is a joke. D:OS' inventory and crafting UI is a complete mess.
Not many jrpgs with inventory management. In fact there's more inventory restrictions. Smt4 is guilty of this. Can't carry more than 5 of item x but you can carry 99 of item x. Its bullshit.
 
The new WoW bag system. It has auto-sorting, type-sorting, no-sorting, and a search bar.
They can improve it further by making sure all quests items go into a quest bag.
 
I always get carsick from looking at MMO HUDs and interfaces. WoW's is no exception. I know this is because they need everything to be functional, and easily accessible in real time, but as someone who doesn't like to play games of that type, I'm only left with how gnarly and messy it looks.

Terranigma's Jewel Box

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I personally really like Terranigma's. It's slow, but it feels pretty inspired. You basically have pandora's box that you used to accidentally unleash evil, and once all the evil is out, you can freely crawl in and out of it. Inside of it time stands still, and you have a bunch of rooms. Some rooms are dedicated to guides, statistics and map. Other rooms store your weapons, another your armour and another your accessories. Some rooms also have a hole into the void, where you can chuck your junk into. Clearly not practical for many types of RPGs, but I just like how cohesive and relaxed it feels. All your items are always on you, you know they are safe and you don't have to bother with item weight systems.

Fable 3 ended up using a similar idea, which I liked quite a lot. Fable ended up dedicated an area to a Scrooge McDuck-esque money pile, which is a pretty good addition to the formula.
 
I prefer the weight-based ones combined with what you can put on your character, basically what you have in Bethesda games nowadays. Of course you need a mod that makes the UI for those bearable.

That inventory Tetris is just rather frustrating and I'm not a fan of the "99 of anything" system either. None of them are ideal but offer some limits and require you to consider what you carry around.
 
Guild Wars 2, easily. Want individual bags shown so you can sort things out?
Want them all condensed into one giant bag?
Want items color-coded by rarity?
Best of all, anything that's a crafting material can instantly be sent to your account-wide bank with two clicks from anywhere in the world, via "Deposit Materials";

The game can also highlight anything new you pick up or compact your inventory for you, all without fussing with a bunch of add ons. There's even special bag types you can buy like material-only bags, invisible bags that won't show their contents when you're at a vendor (that's what my top bag is in the screenshots there, since I don't want my food buffs and weapons to show up), even bags that sort items you pick up by rarity.

Factor in the world-wide mail (send and receive from anywhere, via carrier pigeons) and trading post (buy and sell anywhere, but only pick up your items / money at specific vendors) and all of the usual MMO inventory woes disappear.
 
Resident Evil 4 attaché case is GOAT. RE5 is great but I hate that they ditched that system, I love me some gun Tetris.

Edit: My least favorite is the weight based inventory system, that's first thing I mod out of a game that has that shit.
 
I very much dislike arbitrary weight and item limits but am strangely ok with backpack tetris (diablo etc).

Dunno my favourite off the top of my head but I think FFXIV has my favourite form an MMO. a big bag for all your items and stuff and a separate armoury inventory for a page of each equipment type that can hold multiple classes gear sets (as all you need is one character and you can freely switch between classes).
 
Backpack tetris was fun once, ONCE, but no, FF style "all the items" or Tales style "per item limit only on items that are OP if you stock too many" is by far my favorite. Have being encumbered and making choices and crap. I want to make choices in gameplay not in fiddling with items.
 
I really love Dragon Quest VIII's inventory system. It was like a complete revamp of their previous systems and much different and more powerful.

IIRC, it wasn't really any different, it was just presented in a somewhat better UI.

Characters still had set inventory limits, and most everything else went in the Big Bag.

You just had pretty pictures and stuff to go along with it now.

The new WoW bag system. It has auto-sorting, type-sorting, no-sorting, and a search bar.
They can improve it further by making sure all quests items go into a quest bag.

Yeah, WoW's inventory system has improved quite a bit from the beginning.
Granted, I still think you need some addons to have somewhat better inventory management.

Backpack tetris was fun once, ONCE, but no, FF style "all the items" or Tales style "per item limit only on items that are OP if you stock too many" is by far my favorite. Have being encumbered and making choices and crap. I want to make choices in gameplay not in fiddling with items.

Depending on the game (like RE4), Backpack Tertis ain't bad.

I do like the "Tales" style in that you can just switch to different tabs that have what you want (Consumables, Weapons, Armor, etc.).
 
I'll be showing my old-school PC RPG background here and admit that I actually prefer the plausible size/weight encumbrance-based inventory restrictions. Having your character carry 5 full armours and a weapons' rack worth of combat cutlery seems really odd to me. I accept magic handwavium in the form of bags of holding etc., but I don't like having every single item occupy one slot and weigh nothing.
Inventory Tetris best mini game.
Also yes.



Oh, and the Dragon Tooth taking up four slots is totally shit. The animation itself shows the sword forging/deforging itself before use, so why the hell does its inventory icon show it deployed? It should look just like the hilt and take up a single slot.
 
I like a good limited system like the inventory tetris brought up (DEHR, RE4), but I don't like it when games discourage you from exploring by making you constantly return to town to offload trinkets or crafting materials or something. That's why I think something like Dark Souls's system is best, because your are still weight limited on what you can equip which forces you to make the hard choices I want from an RPG, but gives you infinite room for random pickups which doesn't discourage exploration.
 
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