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You know what's not fun? Managing limited inventory space in RPGs...
- Thread starter JinjoUnchained
- Start date
CertifiedFP
Member
Meh, it ain't inventory Tetris until we start getting irregularly shaped grid items and picking up items invokes a Tetris minigame to put them in. Give us THAT.
Well, I think not the inventory-systems alone are the problem, but the way how games seem to be designed around it.
I would really love realistic inventory systems and gameplay that is designed around this concept. You can break down most big RPGs to the following simple gameplay-loop.
Open map, set marker for quest, dialog, open map, set next marker, gameplay-section: kill everything, loot everthing, manage inventory, rinse and repeat.
Let's go through a thought process in FO4 that maybe most of you can relate to:.
[5 Raider corpses on the floor] Will I only pick up the ammo and bottlecaps? Fuck it!
I can still sell those 100 Raider armors, or turn them into crafting material or give them to my settlers or store them in one of my crafted boxes. This is what I call inflation of loot. There is so many stuff to be found that it becomes pointless. Zelda games work differently and to some degree better if you ask me: you have a sword and later you get the uber-power-sword and not 30 iterations of better swords. So you will apreciate the stuff you find more.
The second biggest problem is the fear of leaving something behind that you think might become useful later in the game - Witcher 3 was extremely guilty of this. My inventory was stacked and I never used some of the materials in the end game.
A realistic approach to roleplaying games would look something like this: Picking up heavy armor will slow you down, deplete your stamina faster and making stealth impossible, whilst giving you better protection. When you see a new sword it should be obvious if it is/STAYS better than the one you are carrying. Some may love the idea of 'yeah, but later on that weaker sword may become stronger than this one through upgrades and crafting' but this is a part of the problem imo. It becomes nearly impossible to determine the value of items you find for later in the game. Kudos to the Souls series for at least trying something new.
I have to admit though , that the inventory-management-mini-game in FO4 is still a guilty pleasure for me, but on the other hand this execution of 'roleplaying' is getting kind of dated all across the board. I remember playing my first RPG on Amiga 'Eye of the Beholder' - In my memory this game was like a dangerous journey into the unknown, because it didn't feature most of todays gameplay standards - it was brutal as hell: permadeth, no fast travel no saves and so on. (pls, correct me if I'm wrong - I was young and the discs came without a manual for obvious reasons
)
Why do we need 1000 Quests and 1000 different samey items with different stats?
I don't even know how I feel about this: on the one hand I appreciate that I can get 100hours out of the game on the other hand this leaves a bitter taste because most of the stuff I'm doing is redudant and pointless.
Roleplaying games should be about the journey and not goalposts and checklists.
The resources should be directed towards new concepts of progression systems. For example: In a game with 100 Quests, I simply don't have the time, will and incentive to travel everywhere on foot - no, I will make use of the systems in the game that make my time-management more efficient. If the same game is designed aound a different objective all those systems are not needed - think of a RPG with the set-up of a game like Last of us. Your main objective is to reach a certain point - the journey in the Last of us was one big corridor- why not try to do something simple like this with a much more widened game world where sidepaths become organic side-objectives?
I would really love realistic inventory systems and gameplay that is designed around this concept. You can break down most big RPGs to the following simple gameplay-loop.
Open map, set marker for quest, dialog, open map, set next marker, gameplay-section: kill everything, loot everthing, manage inventory, rinse and repeat.
Let's go through a thought process in FO4 that maybe most of you can relate to:.
[5 Raider corpses on the floor] Will I only pick up the ammo and bottlecaps? Fuck it!
I can still sell those 100 Raider armors, or turn them into crafting material or give them to my settlers or store them in one of my crafted boxes. This is what I call inflation of loot. There is so many stuff to be found that it becomes pointless. Zelda games work differently and to some degree better if you ask me: you have a sword and later you get the uber-power-sword and not 30 iterations of better swords. So you will apreciate the stuff you find more.
The second biggest problem is the fear of leaving something behind that you think might become useful later in the game - Witcher 3 was extremely guilty of this. My inventory was stacked and I never used some of the materials in the end game.
A realistic approach to roleplaying games would look something like this: Picking up heavy armor will slow you down, deplete your stamina faster and making stealth impossible, whilst giving you better protection. When you see a new sword it should be obvious if it is/STAYS better than the one you are carrying. Some may love the idea of 'yeah, but later on that weaker sword may become stronger than this one through upgrades and crafting' but this is a part of the problem imo. It becomes nearly impossible to determine the value of items you find for later in the game. Kudos to the Souls series for at least trying something new.
I have to admit though , that the inventory-management-mini-game in FO4 is still a guilty pleasure for me, but on the other hand this execution of 'roleplaying' is getting kind of dated all across the board. I remember playing my first RPG on Amiga 'Eye of the Beholder' - In my memory this game was like a dangerous journey into the unknown, because it didn't feature most of todays gameplay standards - it was brutal as hell: permadeth, no fast travel no saves and so on. (pls, correct me if I'm wrong - I was young and the discs came without a manual for obvious reasons
)Why do we need 1000 Quests and 1000 different samey items with different stats?
I don't even know how I feel about this: on the one hand I appreciate that I can get 100hours out of the game on the other hand this leaves a bitter taste because most of the stuff I'm doing is redudant and pointless.
Roleplaying games should be about the journey and not goalposts and checklists.
The resources should be directed towards new concepts of progression systems. For example: In a game with 100 Quests, I simply don't have the time, will and incentive to travel everywhere on foot - no, I will make use of the systems in the game that make my time-management more efficient. If the same game is designed aound a different objective all those systems are not needed - think of a RPG with the set-up of a game like Last of us. Your main objective is to reach a certain point - the journey in the Last of us was one big corridor- why not try to do something simple like this with a much more widened game world where sidepaths become organic side-objectives?
JinjoUnchained
Member
Well, I think not the inventory-systems alone are the problem, but the way how games seem to be designed around it.
I would really love realistic inventory systems and gameplay that is designed around this concept. You can break down most big RPGs to the following simple gameplay-loop.
Open map, set marker for quest, dialog, open map, set next marker, gameplay-section: kill everything, loot everthing, manage inventory, rinse and repeat.
Let's go through a thought process in FO4 that maybe most of you can relate to:.
[5 Raider corpses on the floor] Will I only pick up the ammo and bottlecaps? Fuck it!
I can still sell those 100 Raider armors, or turn them into crafting material or give them to my settlers or store them in one of my crafted boxes. This is what I call inflation of loot. There is so many stuff to be found that it becomes pointless. Zelda games work differently and to some degree better if you ask me: you have a sword and later you get the uber-power-sword and not 30 iterations of better swords. So you will apreciate the stuff you find more.
The second biggest problem is the fear of leaving something behind that you think might become useful later in the game - Witcher 3 was extremely guilty of this. My inventory was stacked and I never used some of the materials in the end game.
A realistic approach to roleplaying games would look something like this: Picking up heavy armor will slow you down, deplete your stamina faster and making stealth impossible, whilst giving you better protection. When you see a new sword it should be obvious if it is/STAYS better than the one you are carrying. Some may love the idea of 'yeah, but later on that weaker sword may become stronger than this one through upgrades and crafting' but this is a part of the problem imo. It becomes nearly impossible to determine the value of items you find for later in the game. Kudos to the Souls series for at least trying something new.
I have to admit though , that the inventory-management-mini-game in FO4 is still a guilty pleasure for me, but on the other hand this execution of 'roleplaying' is getting kind of dated all across the board. I remember playing my first RPG on Amiga 'Eye of the Beholder' - In my memory this game was like a dangerous journey into the unknown, because it didn't feature most of todays gameplay standards - it was brutal as hell: permadeth, no fast travel no saves and so on. (pls, correct me if I'm wrong - I was young and the discs came without a manual for obvious reasons
Why do we need 1000 Quests and 1000 different samey items with different stats?
I don't even know how I feel about this: on the one hand I appreciate that I can get 100hours out of the game on the other hand this leaves a bitter taste because most of the stuff I'm doing is redudant and pointless.
Roleplaying games should be about the journey and not goalposts and checklists.
The resources should be directed towards new concepts of progression systems. For example: In a game with 100 Quests, I simply don't have the time, will and incentive to travel everywhere on foot - no, I will make use of the systems in the game that make my time-management more efficient. If the same game is designed aound a different objective all those systems are not needed - think of a RPG with the set-up of a game like Last of us. Your main objective is to reach a certain point - the journey in the Last of us was one big corridor- why not try to do something simple like this with a much more widened game world where sidepaths become organic side-objectives?
Interesting discussion on side quests. I think the key is to have side quests that change the game world in a meaningful way. One of my favorite parts of Xenoblade Chronicles was Colony 6. Without getting into spoiler territory, if you've played the game, you know what I mean about how side quests there really gave you a sense of long term accomplishment. And though it was bloated and not perfect, the affinity system in the same game was good for the same reason; it gave you a visual on how helping one NPC would impact others thought the game world.
That indeed sounds interesting - still have that game on my wishlist, but what I'm hinting at is one general impression: back in the 90's you basically had two kinds of games
1. "Arcadey" games - mostly on consoles
2. Games that had a strong emphasis on simulation/deep mechanics - mostly on PC
In the last generations the lines between the two have blurred and imo the ambition for making games going the simulation route have been toned down. Examples: Deus Ex orig. vs. Deus Ex HR, Bioshock vs. System Shock 2.
Open world games should feature worlds with an organic Eco-System and there shouldn't be a Questlog or Quests that are triggered by pressing a button when approaching a NPC.
This sounds complicated and hard to achieve but at the moment no one is even trying to break the old formula.
Coolio McAwesome
Member
Resident Evil 4 is one of the few games that had fun inventory management.
Resident Evil 4's management was good. Hell...kinda fun, even.
Pillars of Eternity/Dragon Quest 8 type management is okay. You can use what you have on your person, and you need to dig into your bag/chest to refill. In DQ8 the bag is limited, but you'll never really run into inventory problems with it.
Fallout 4 though? Awful. They took the useless items in the series' predecessors (incl. Elder Scrolls) and made all that shit worth something. Awesome. But they didn't compensate for it. They didn't give you a higher base limit. You have to level perks and strength. But what if you don't care about melee weapons? Too bad you have to put levels into it anyway. Yes you had to before, but in the previous games it wasn't really encouraged to be looting empty tin cans and cups and what not. People say you don't need all of that at once. Maybe not, but there's a lot of stuff to build and mod. It would be great if they made it easier to get that stuff back to base (like telling your companion to take it home). Or just be able to carry a ton of it. Otherwise it makes the game more of a time waster to me. Not harder, just wastes more time. Console command
took care of that, but I hope they think about this if they bring back settlement building in FO/ES. Make weight limits a level thing, not a strength thing. Let your companions deliver, do a items on your person/items in the bag type system, something. Just don't keep it the same.
Pillars of Eternity/Dragon Quest 8 type management is okay. You can use what you have on your person, and you need to dig into your bag/chest to refill. In DQ8 the bag is limited, but you'll never really run into inventory problems with it.
Fallout 4 though? Awful. They took the useless items in the series' predecessors (incl. Elder Scrolls) and made all that shit worth something. Awesome. But they didn't compensate for it. They didn't give you a higher base limit. You have to level perks and strength. But what if you don't care about melee weapons? Too bad you have to put levels into it anyway. Yes you had to before, but in the previous games it wasn't really encouraged to be looting empty tin cans and cups and what not. People say you don't need all of that at once. Maybe not, but there's a lot of stuff to build and mod. It would be great if they made it easier to get that stuff back to base (like telling your companion to take it home). Or just be able to carry a ton of it. Otherwise it makes the game more of a time waster to me. Not harder, just wastes more time. Console command
cheating
Fox_Mulder
Rockefellers. Skull and Bones. Microsoft. Al Qaeda. A Cabal of Bankers. The melting point of steel. What do these things have in common? Wake up sheeple, the landfill wasn't even REAL!
OP is right
By and large I hate them. I rarely and I mean very rarely play a game where I thought it was done well. Only games I really liked them were Resident Evil 4 and Deus Ex. I get that having too many items can break the game if they're a certain type like healing stuff. But in that case they could do something like Tales in which you are only allowed up to 15 or so of a certain item at once. But in terms of variety you can hold as much as you want. Like if I need to leave behind a random item or weapon I can re obtain easily enough then that's fine. But getting rid of unique stuff? Nah. Besides I don't see what it adds to the game. Just makes it more annoying
It's especially bad in games like Witcher where I can sell my excess stuff for room, but not easily. Finding the right person to sell swords, only selling one before the merchant runs out of money and I need to find someone else to sell things to. Then wait 5 days so everyone gets their money back. The amount of times I bled the merchants in Novigrad and Skellige and waited onoy to repeat the process was annoying. What should take all of a minute if that ended up taking 10 minutes and just pissing me off. Awful selling and merchant practices combined with an ill thought out encumbrance system nearly made me drop Witcher III.
It's especially bad in games like Witcher where I can sell my excess stuff for room, but not easily. Finding the right person to sell swords, only selling one before the merchant runs out of money and I need to find someone else to sell things to. Then wait 5 days so everyone gets their money back. The amount of times I bled the merchants in Novigrad and Skellige and waited onoy to repeat the process was annoying. What should take all of a minute if that ended up taking 10 minutes and just pissing me off. Awful selling and merchant practices combined with an ill thought out encumbrance system nearly made me drop Witcher III.
I was playing Fallout 4 and thought carry weight was annoying so I opened the console and did
"player.modav carryweight 5000".
Then like, 34 hours later I got "you are overencumbered and cannot run."
I then entered "player.modav carryweight 10000".
I really love PC gaming.
Edit:
Also, the first time I played Demon's Souls I took forever fighting an enemy to get the loot hidden behind them. I finally beat them and went to pick up the loot, and I didn't have enough endurance to carry it. I left, dropped off some stuff so I could carry it, came back, and it was gone. On my second attempt of playing the game, that was the armor I used throughout most of the game.
That sucks that my first playthrough I lost that option due to carry weights. Fuck carry weight.
"player.modav carryweight 5000".
Then like, 34 hours later I got "you are overencumbered and cannot run."
I then entered "player.modav carryweight 10000".
I really love PC gaming.
Edit:
Also, the first time I played Demon's Souls I took forever fighting an enemy to get the loot hidden behind them. I finally beat them and went to pick up the loot, and I didn't have enough endurance to carry it. I left, dropped off some stuff so I could carry it, came back, and it was gone. On my second attempt of playing the game, that was the armor I used throughout most of the game.
That sucks that my first playthrough I lost that option due to carry weights. Fuck carry weight.
plasmawave
Banned
I strongly disagree. Resource management is one of the key elements of an RPG. It adds a ton of depth to games that would otherwise just involve killing stuff and mashing the loot button. I agree that Bethesda's encumbrance systems sucks, but that is a very poor example. Bethesda game are poorly designed in general.
Grid-based inventory are the best.
Deus Ex
System Shock 2
Not an RPG, but Resident Evil 4 is a classic example of fantastic inventory management
So good.
The inventory management for these guys are like a little puzzle games.
The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 inventory systems were really annoying.
Pyramid head
Banned
Inventory management for weapons and armour isn't so bad, but fuck off making me sort through hundreds of pieces of crafting shit. To my memory, Witcher 2 was primrily about a guy who went around dumping balls of twine, leather straps and pieces of wood everywhere he went.
Starwolf_UK
Member
I find the opposite of never having to use items and hoarding them so you wind up with like 70 exlirs to make me think "did I play this game right, I never had to use these maybe I should have done so instead of backtracking to the inn a few times?"
In games with durability systems you find yourself wanting to save items in case something harder crops up having but eventually you lose sight and just hoard leading to silly situations like the last 2 panels of this comic.
I don't find the inventory limit too bad in Earthbound. I took it as a sign that I should be using all these items and once I learned that the game proceeded a lot more smoothly for me. At the same time the condiments glitch (where two items are used in combination only one item is removed from your inventory) makes the inventory empty slower than intended.
As for Jeff if one multi-bottle rocket one shots a boss why do you need to carry 7? It is an interesting trade-off, do I carry more defence in terms of healing items or more offense be it the one use rockets or multi use bazooka.
In games with durability systems you find yourself wanting to save items in case something harder crops up having but eventually you lose sight and just hoard leading to silly situations like the last 2 panels of this comic.
Don't forget the ATM card and the sound stone eating up space (unless you grab a load of cookies and force the sound stone into storage).
I don't find the inventory limit too bad in Earthbound. I took it as a sign that I should be using all these items and once I learned that the game proceeded a lot more smoothly for me. At the same time the condiments glitch (where two items are used in combination only one item is removed from your inventory) makes the inventory empty slower than intended.
As for Jeff if one multi-bottle rocket one shots a boss why do you need to carry 7? It is an interesting trade-off, do I carry more defence in terms of healing items or more offense be it the one use rockets or multi use bazooka.
Roni
Banned
I'm not saying it should be removed, I'm saying if it did there would be these consequences of making choices of what to carry and when to cut a supply run short more strategic and relevant.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
There is no fun along this methodology of avoiding a necessary restriction, only varying degrees of relief.
Absolve yourself of this and know a much broader swath of RPG joy.
Absolve yourself of this and know a much broader swath of RPG joy.
Fast travel in Bethesda games is far too prevalent. No fat travel would shift things in the entirely opposite direction in a bad way though. The Witcher 3 did a good job with its system by only allowing you to travel to sign posts dotted around the mall. There were plenty in the game to get you around so as to not waste a ton of your time but not so prevalent as to trivialize traveling altogether.
RespectThySole
Member
I detest it. I think it's at it's worst in Fallout 4 though where you actually need everything you find for crafting and building. I wish I was playing it on PC so I could remove it.
Vital Tundra
Member
I think it is fine in some games but FO4 it's terrible because the game wants you to pick everything up.
Elfforkusu
Member
100% agree, OP. I'll never understand why any RPG still does this 20 years after Chrono Trigger didn't.
Modest Mauser
Member
I think it's fine for weapons and armor, but crafting ingredients and materials should never take up space
ArkhamFantasy
Member
I despise inventory limits and weight limits.
Voysa Reezun
Banned
I actually think that this is a really fun part of the game, particularly in something like Fallout where the survivalist metagame is about weighing the things that you'll need to keep right now versus what you may need down the road/weighing being less mobile against order to hold on to lots of stuff versus more mobility but less immediate options in weaponry, armor, etc., but more mobility.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
I like inventory management and having to balance what I carry, but it requires specific game design. It depends on the game. It requires item balance that focuses on utility and different tools for different environment or situation, so that each tool you decide to bring is a choice. Likewise for what you pick up. It doesn't work when the only thing that matters is if the DPS on your weapon is a 0.1 higher and the only thing you pick up is trash loot that you blindly sell. Dragon Age INQ's inventory? Bad. Loot is essentially all trash that you just sell anyhow, so there's no actual management or balance... just either means you lose out on coin or need to teleport back to down to blindly sell all your shit.
Deus Ex inventory? Great. It's a genuinely strategic choice that affects not only short term tactics but long term approach to the game. But the Deus Ex inventory for, say, Witcher 3? Bad. Witcher 3 has a good balance between managing items/weapons but not having to worry about crafting shit you'll never know what you need. Deus Ex's system is great but it requires a very non-collectathon utility-focused item design, almost like a FPS where you make utility decisions on what to carry based on what you expect the environment will require and how you want to approach it, while also balancing upgrades, so sure you may want to collect 3-4 different scope or laser upgrades, but is the potential to 'want' those later more important than having both a long-range rifle and short-range stun gun? Choices, choices.
Deus Ex inventory? Great. It's a genuinely strategic choice that affects not only short term tactics but long term approach to the game. But the Deus Ex inventory for, say, Witcher 3? Bad. Witcher 3 has a good balance between managing items/weapons but not having to worry about crafting shit you'll never know what you need. Deus Ex's system is great but it requires a very non-collectathon utility-focused item design, almost like a FPS where you make utility decisions on what to carry based on what you expect the environment will require and how you want to approach it, while also balancing upgrades, so sure you may want to collect 3-4 different scope or laser upgrades, but is the potential to 'want' those later more important than having both a long-range rifle and short-range stun gun? Choices, choices.
hydrophilic attack
Member
It's the worst. Lowered my enjoyment of Dragon's Dogma by a lot.
It's really telling what a great game Demon's Souls is that I hold it as the best game ever even though it has a weight-based encumbrance system.
It's really telling what a great game Demon's Souls is that I hold it as the best game ever even though it has a weight-based encumbrance system.
I'm fine with it. It actually creates a bit of tension, which I usually appreciate.
I think the way Earthbound does it by having your equipment and key items take up space in each of your characters' 14 slots is kind of a kick in the balls, though. Also, the healing items don't stack. It's pretty rough at first, but it all works out in the end.
I think the way Earthbound does it by having your equipment and key items take up space in each of your characters' 14 slots is kind of a kick in the balls, though. Also, the healing items don't stack. It's pretty rough at first, but it all works out in the end.
ugh_the_boot
Banned
Another thing the souls games do perfectly, carry as much shit as you want but can only equip a few. Anything else is just an unnecessary chore.
Resident Evil 4 was awesome too and because of my clean ocd that briefcase was always looking tight.
Resident Evil 4 was awesome too and because of my clean ocd that briefcase was always looking tight.
Most games do a horrible job with inventory limits, none are realistic and actually hinder gameplay when they toss so much crap for us to pick up to do any sort of crafting. That said, I wouldn't mind a realistic inventory system in a huge rpg. For example being able to carry the few weapons you can strap to your back\sides. Limited arrows in a quiver. Limited potions\reagents in a pouch. Limited space for maps\scrolls and other items in a backpack, with weight actually slowing you down as you carry more items.
The current inventory systems most rpgs use is archaic and I feel just hinders "fun". They make you pick up crap that you have no idea if you'll need, and pretend the limit is realistic despite the fact you're already carrying like 100 potions, 5 swords, 50 scrolls and 20 or so odd books... and you're not even carrying any sort of huge container to hold it all. Gameplay and inventory should be developed to complement each other.
The current inventory systems most rpgs use is archaic and I feel just hinders "fun". They make you pick up crap that you have no idea if you'll need, and pretend the limit is realistic despite the fact you're already carrying like 100 potions, 5 swords, 50 scrolls and 20 or so odd books... and you're not even carrying any sort of huge container to hold it all. Gameplay and inventory should be developed to complement each other.
Besides the archaic grid crap ala Resident Evil I've honestly never had a problem with it that I can remember and I horde anything and everything in RPGs. Even Witcher 3 where it seemed like everyone bitched about it (along with the no storage containers until patches a couple months layer) I never felt like it was annoying or like I was hurting for room at all. I'm at 320+ carry weight in Fallout 4 so obviously I'm not hurting there. lol
Maybe Mass Effect 1 as well just because the inventory was such a long clusterfuck of mods and stuff.
Maybe Mass Effect 1 as well just because the inventory was such a long clusterfuck of mods and stuff.