Inventory - limitations or not?

[Gnidrologist]

The thing that triggered me to think about this shit was, when i read various codicites having dissatisfaction with too much inventory threshold in vanilla New Vegas (lol) and being absolutely delighted after Sawyer's mod came out that reduced the carrying capacity. There are some mods that go even further, where you be better off running around in underpants carrying a small hand arm to be none encumbered given all the other shit that needs to be harvested.

I never understood this passion. I love challenge and realism, but severely dwarfed carry weight/volume in games for me always translates into hour and hours of micro management and dragging stuff to vendors and back, waiting for days so they stock up etc. One can avoid this tedium in games when selling stuff is pointless, but New Vegas it's far from it. A the first half of the game you want all your loot be ready for sail to get all these nice weapon upgrades and medical implants.
This is the reason i installed the unlimited (almost) inventory mod. Draging stuff back and forth for hours to no end, just cuz REALIZM doesn't strike ads fun to me. Original fallouts didn't have this problem, because wendors were a plenty, had a lot of money or weightless stuff to barter, like chems, that served as currency later on. Also, it seemed like even a 4 ST guy could carry a lot.

On the other side there is Gothic series that has no limitations to inventory what so ever. Nor weight or volume is the problem and the game doesn't notice of shortcomings of such system. Nor does it gives some extraordinary advantage to player. Thus the gameplay rolls smoothly, without needless interruptions about ''what will i leave in the box, what will i take along to sell and where will my warehouse be and how to arrange it''. Everything focused on the game, not inventory management.

I heard some guys go as far as reduce weight threshold to 50 or such in NV so one can carry only a gun, armor and some consumables. What gives? You enjoy dragging stuff to gunrunners 20 times in a row just to get that nice sniper rifle?

Which system is better and why?

edit: sry for shit grammar, am drunk a bit, wont correct

 

[vean]

What gives?

Limiting inventory space/weight adds to the challenge of the game because you have to carefully consider what to bring with you

You enjoy dragging stuff to gunrunners 20 times in a row just to get that nice sniper rifle?

No, when playing these games/mods you just don't do that and therefore can't easily afford the nice sniper rifle.

 

[Stargazer_]

Low inventory space is a great way to balance a game out, that nice legendary battle armor? better get big bro and dump some points into that Strength, Constitution, Power stat or settle POS leather. Low Inventory allows more character choice when twinking your toon adding more choice and consequences to the equation making different types of player builds much different in execution.

A low strength warrior who relies on good AC , high dodging compared to high strength character who not only packs the BFS but allows an assortment of gear and weaponry to compensate for his shit AC and paltry Accuracy. Got a firebomb to hit those hard to hit fast moving rogues on the flank and carries a spare crossbow to counter range abusing enemies or enemies to strong to kill using brute force alone.

Thats one of the many completely hypothetical situations inventory management can bring to a game. IMHO friend its a great way to add depth to a games many systems.

 

[DraQ]

Less inventory => less items to manage => less micromanagement


It's a no-brainer - a system with meaningful tradeoffs, but less tedium VS larping a vacuum cleaner and scooping up all the clutter and shit.
If you need to even think about it the decline has already set in.

It's for your own good, citizen.

 

[Drax]

This, I hate having to play tetris in muh rpgs.

 

[V_K]

fuck grid inventory minigame.

There's no minigame when all you have is 10-15 cells.

 

[Dorateen]

Inventory should be a finite list of items and equipment. The ideal set up is:

Six spots to equip weapons and gear. Six spots to hold other items. Six characters in a party. When everyone is filled up, you go back to town to sell off the excess or make additional characters in the roster to hold your stuff.

An encumbrance system is good, too.

 

[pippin]

The thing that really bothers me is when the game limits your stacking number. What's the point of not allowing you to have more than, say, 20 arrows in a fantasy game? I get it when you're playing Thief or other games where survivalism is more relevant, but it really pissed me off when I played Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale and I could only carry x arrows/bolts/whatever at a given time. Thankfully, mods fix this (tm).

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Historical adventurers, like, say, the Bandeirantes always had someone to carry shit for them - slaves, hired help, horses and donkeys, ox carts, etc.

Brazilian patriots fetching loot from a sucessful fight against high-level foes

 

[DraQ]

Weight limits are better than grid, but weight limit + grid could allow mass/volume tradeoffs and nifty compartmentalized inventory.

<sperg>
Imagine a game where character has no inventory of their own, just equip slots, but equipped items can also work as containers, each with their own inventory space OR hotkeyable slots. For example a belt could have a number of small inventory spaces representing pouches as well as quickly accessible weapon slots.
Bonus points for not being able to carry everything after you strip buttnaked.
More bonus points for ability to quickly and cleanly discard and reacquire pretty much everything you have.
</sperg>

As for the inventory tetris - DX:HR has long since solved that and good fucking riddance.

 

[V_K]

Imagine a game where character has no inventory of their own, just equip slots, but equipped items can also work as containers, each with their own inventory space OR hotkeyable slots.

No need to imagine, Legacy: Realm of Terror worked precisely like that. Great game.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Cool idea - if you have armor, being able to magnetise it and your gear in such a way that you can pretty much stick any metal or metal-hold gear on your armor. Dunno where I saw this.

 

[vonAchdorf]

"It depends(TM)". In general, I think weight and space limits are good. RoA had a really small weight and slot limit, which reinforced the survival aspects of the game and also made you think about the items. Ideally, it also has a good influence on itemization, since the developer cannot just spam the world with Diablo like random stats crap.

 

[DraQ]

Imagine a game where character has no inventory of their own, just equip slots, but equipped items can also work as containers, each with their own inventory space OR hotkeyable slots.

No need to imagine, Legacy: Realm of Terror worked precisely like that. Great game.

I've never even heard about it.

 

[V_K]

Imagine a game where character has no inventory of their own, just equip slots, but equipped items can also work as containers, each with their own inventory space OR hotkeyable slots.

No need to imagine, Legacy: Realm of Terror worked precisely like that. Great game.

I've never even heard about it.

Yeah, it's somewhere up there with Dark Heart of Uukrul in the Potential Classics You Never Heard About Hall of Fame. You can get in from Abandonia if you want (no legal ways to buy it at the moment, afaik). It's a fiendishly hard horror-themed dungeon crawler with Adventure elements. Or, in other words, the only good RPG/Adventure hybrid apart from QfG.

 

[Prime Junta]

Depends on the game.

Inventory tetris is rarely much fun, but being forced to think about what you're carrying rather than being able to hoover up everything can be fun.

There was an old third-person action game by Bungie called Oni that only let you carry one weapon at a time. I dug that. Wouldn't want everything to work that way though.

(Fuck "realism" though.)

 

[Damned Registrations]

Less inventory => less items to manage => less micromanagement


It's a no-brainer - a system with meaningful tradeoffs, but less tedium VS larping a vacuum cleaner and scooping up all the clutter and shit.
If you need to even think about it the decline has already set in.

It's for your own good, citizen.

Eh, that's not true at all. How much item management is required depends on how many items you find (that fill some sort of limit) rather than the limit. I could have an infinite inventory in a game with only a half dozen types of stackable consumables- no management required at all. And on the other hand, I could have a game where I can only hold 3 items at once but need to constantly shuffle shit around so I'm carrying the correct thing at any given time.

That said, OP question is a stupid one, as these usually are. Obviously whether or not a game needs an inventory limit depends on the type of game. It serves no real purpose in something like a diablo clone since your inventory serves no purpose except a temporary loot storage. It was slightly different in the original diablo where potions and eventually money occupied a fair amount of space, so the tradeoff between carrying around an unidentified suit of armour vs 6 health potions was something to consider. But for modern diablo clones, you should honestly just have the option of vapourizing loot into currency at will. Forcing the player to walk to town to do so and limiting his inventory to make it even more tedious just changes the threshold of what is worth selling, which is simply another way of lowering the value of the items. It would be exactly the same, with less tedium, if you grabbed everything and all together it sold for the same amount as the valuable stuff you currently bother to sell.

OTOH, in something like Fallout or Underail, it'd make sense to have a very harsh inventory limit, as a balance for firearms (ammo has weight, and multiple types of ammo for different guns have even more) and other consumable items. It also tends to work in roguelikes for a similar reason, if the inventory limit is appropriate (DoomRL and Brogue pull this off, Nethack sort of does until you get a bag of holding, most others give you way too much capacity.)

 

[Neanderthal]

I like first Witcher and Ultima games for inventory, you could still get rich from loot and shit but there were none o this autistic "must collect everything" necessity, and you could actually play fucking game instead o concentrating on loot whoring like a fucking pig sniffing for truffles. Also who buys all this shit, Ultima 7 you could sell only valuable stuff, gems, gold nuggets or bars, rare reagents like Silver Serpent venom etc, and that were realistic and fucking reasonable.

Gameworlds gotta make sense an hav internal consistency, even more so in a fantasy world, cause that highlights fantastic elements all the more, Tolkien knew this and so should devs but they handwave too much stuff for modern generation who've gotta have everything. Seems like survival and strategic inventory management is a lost cause in RPGs, when the world should be harsh or harsher than a post apocalyptic world, but instead you get these shitty American renaissance fayres wi a thin veneer o world building on top o a modern setting. No danger, no limits and nothing but handholding because rats pressed its button so it gets its treat. Fucking insulting, like managing an inventory is such a big deal and so fucking stressful.

Just another fucking element that larpers wanna remove from games along wi all other features, like we've not had enough shit ripped out in last twenty fucking years, and all for convenience like games are not easy enough nowadays. Fuckers'll not be happy until games play emsens and they can sit back and eat popcorn while watching.

Thing is as i've said before there should be systems, wi progression that empowers your choices, and not just strong back perks but mules and henchmen to carry your loot wi dangers of em getting nobbled, spells that can carry shit, items like bags of holding, and eventually inventory will become a non issue because you'll have systems that make it fucking trivial that make sense in gameworld. Instead o that we hav devs just gi you everything at beginning and build game around collecting and trading pointless tat.

You ask me loot whoring is like grinding combat, cheap and nasty way to artificially pad a games length, rather than making good content.

 

[DraQ]

I like first Witcher and Ultima games for inventory, you could still get rich from loot and shit but there were none o this autistic "must collect everything" necessity, and you could actually play fucking game instead o concentrating on loot whoring like a fucking pig sniffing for truffles. Also who buys all this shit, Ultima 7 you could sell only valuable stuff, gems, gold nuggets or bars, rare reagents like Silver Serpent venom etc, and that were realistic and fucking reasonable.

Gameworlds gotta make sense an hav internal consistency, even more so in a fantasy world, cause that highlights fantastic elements all the more, Tolkien knew this and so should devs but they handwave too much stuff for modern generation who've gotta have everything. Seems like survival and strategic inventory management is a lost cause in RPGs, when the world should be harsh or harsher than a post apocalyptic world, but instead you get these shitty American renaissance fayres wi a thin veneer o world building on top o a modern setting. No danger, no limits and nothing but handholding because rats pressed its button so it gets its treat. Fucking insulting, like managing an inventory is such a big deal and so fucking stressful.

Just another fucking element that larpers wanna remove from games along wi all other features, like we've not had enough shit ripped out in last twenty fucking years, and all for convenience like games are not easy enough nowadays. Fuckers'll not be happy until games play emsens and they can sit back and eat popcorn while watching.

Thing is as i've said before there should be systems, wi progression that empowers your choices, and not just strong back perks but mules and henchmen to carry your loot wi dangers of em getting nobbled, spells that can carry shit, items like bags of holding, and eventually inventory will become a non issue because you'll have systems that make it fucking trivial that make sense in gameworld. Instead o that we hav devs just gi you everything at beginning and build game around collecting and trading pointless tat.

You ask me loot whoring is like grinding combat, cheap and nasty way to artificially pad a games length, rather than making good content.

I don't want your fucking fun and I don't want your fucking awesome, I want sense

 

[Scroo]

Since I am a chronic hoarder I really dislike inventory limitations. If it has no further impact on gameplay other than "you need to travel back and forth to sell your crap" I actually cheat myself more carrying capacity whenever possible :3

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Already in 1987, Dungeon Master had arrived at a near-perfect inventory by creating the "paper doll" equipment system with a limited number of extra spaces for non-equipped items and an encumbrance measure to take weight into account. Inventory limits require the player to think about which items are actually important, taking into account the differing weight of items due to encumbrance, thus avoiding the predictable tendency of players towards hoarding every item that might possibly, at some point, be used. Of course, games like Dungeon Master have the added advantage of the player only being concerned with which items will prove valuable in the dungeon itself, as opposed to an expectation that the player will act like a scavenging hobo, scooping up every item so that it can be sold to the nearest merchant for filthy lucre.

 

[Pirata Alma Negra]

I understand the reasonable for including inventory management, but compared to so many other pressing matter it seems almost irrelevante to push this specific tedious problem into any game.

In almost every game an inventory full is more a problem of to many shit to collect than anything else. Like the other guy said, finding gold behind any crate or any desert Merchant having Money to bought your truck of trash

 

[Excidium II]

You don't need to loot every damn thing in any rpg ever. Just leave it there man.

By the way I think FNV definitely needs lowered base carry weight value, the way it is you barely get any return from having above average STR. I do think Sawyer lowers it too much, but with pack mules companions you don't even feel it that much anyway.

 

[Zanzoken]

Everything in RPGs has devolved to ridiculous extremes.

Combat -- Murder hobo, slaughter armies of trash mobs
Exploration -- Hiking simulator, spend hours traveling through empty wilderness
Writing -- 750,000 words to read and all of them suck
Items -- Hoarders The Game, collect and process hundreds of worthless loot items in the vain hope of finding something useful

All of this shit is and yet somehow it has become standard. And not only does no one complain about RPGs taking 100 hours to complete -- it's considered a badge of honor.

 

[mindx2]

I enjoyed the inventory system in System Shock 2.

Yes, it was Tetris but it made a bit of sense with the larger items taking up very limited inventory space. I would debate upgrading my inventory space or something else knowing I like to collect as much "stuff" as I can never knowing when/if I might need it. Man, trying to squeeze in a fusion cannon, worm or grenade launcher was tough. It added more tension to the game for me.

Though many here hated it, I also liked the "grab bag" style in Ultima VII. It was cumbersome, but to me at least, it added to the game-world with my sack of adventuring spoils with me sorting through it all looking for that one item I just know I remembered picking up.

Whether it be Tetris, grab bag, slots, whatever, I do want there to be a weight limit with every in world item having some kind of weight value. I finally finished Wasteland 2 and liked how weight effected my characters abilities as it should (though I did find it silly that you could sell used condoms to any vendor along with so much other junk). I didn't particularly like the Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale fixed slot system but it was manageable. I like character types, races, etc. to have different carrying abilities and that just adds more customization for my builds.