Backpack mechanism - realistic fun or boring-tedious?

[laclongquan]

What you said is what I said and not party inventory. party inventory is a mysterious space that link all members, no matter how far.

You ever playedMight and Magic 8? That is party inventory.

 

[soggie]

So the conclusion is, having a party inventory, while convenient, is too unrealistic to overcome by even the most powerful suspension of belief.

The next sensible compromise would be an inventory system like:

When you pull up the inventory screen, you get this:

In the party inventory, only the items that are contained in party members nearby the selected character will be enabled. Moving the mouse over an item will highlight the party member's portrait that currently holds that item. If that item is stackable, and multiple party member has it, then all those who have it will have their portraits highlighted. The rest will be grayed out. So in effect, we don't change any game mechanic, but rather provide a better UI to make it easier to find items in the party.

 

[denizsi]

If that's how you will handle it after all, that^ is unnecessary cluttering and introduces a new problem: when you attempt to take an item from the current character's inventory on the left and put it into the party inventory on the right, how will the game determine whose inventory the item will actually be placed to, since there actually isn't an exclusive space for party inventory but rather a unified box to see all character's inventory?

Anyway, I don't understand why you resist a real party/transport/sector inventory, especially not your dubious reasoning that it's not realistic or desirable.

 

[soggie]

If that's how you will handle it after all, that^ is unnecessary cluttering and introduces a new problem: when you attempt to take an item from the current character's inventory on the left and put it into the party inventory on the right, how will the game determine whose inventory the item will actually be placed to, since there actually isn't an exclusive space for party inventory but rather a unified box to see all character's inventory?

You can't put things into the party inventory from this interface. To do that you have to drag the item to one of the character portraits, which upon mouse over will bring up his inventory screen, and then drop in one of the slots.

Anyway, I don't understand why you resist a real party/transport/sector inventory, especially not your dubious reasoning that it's not realistic or desirable.

Party inventory: As mentioned, it opens doors to abuse of mechanic and is unrealistic as hell.

Transport: Good idea, one that I'm keeping in view for now.

Sector Inventory: Not applicable to my RPG.

 

[denizsi]

You can't put things into the party inventory from this interface. To do that you have to drag the item to one of the character portraits, which upon mouse over will bring up his inventory screen, and then drop in one of the slots.

What a waste of screen space, then and also very counter-intuitive.

Well, how about this then, since this is such a big issue for you: make two inventory screens. One with the paperdoll and everything ie. the default inventory, and one solely dedicated to showing all characters' inventories so you can easily manage everything in one screen, with the far away characters grayed out ie. unusable:

And you can easily switch between characters by clicking on portraits to see their proximity to each other on the same all-inventory screen.

Party inventory: As mentioned, it opens doors to abuse of mechanic and is unrealistic as hell.

Unconditional and unlimited access to party inventory leads to abuse, yes and that's it. Otherwise, that's not an argument against it because you don't have to make access unconditional and unlimited. As for how it is unrealistic, I'd like to hear this.

 

[JarlFrank]

The way I envision it, we wouldn't need the character inventory. All the inventory could fit on the paperdoll screen - since it will all go into your equipment slots. If you're naked, all the inventory you can have is the stuff you carry in your hands (or a rifle that can be slung over your shoulder). Armor and clothing with pockets can give you additional slots, like pants with big pockets having room for rifle magazines. On belts you can put guns, swords and knives - weapons that come with scabbards or holsters. On special belts you can also wear ammo (belts with these holes for placing bullets - dunno how the word for these holes is).

Think Diablo 2's belts: the larger the belt you wear, the more potions you can put in it. I think JA2 1.13 also has this, you can equip holsters and similar things so you can put additional guns and ammo in your inventory.

This way, a character inventory is not even needed: you just have your paperdoll with equipment slots: boots, pants, shirt/armor, belt. Wear pants with big pockets and a belt with holes for ammo, and you get additional slots: two pocket slots from the pants, an ammo slot and a number of weapon slots from the belt.

The party inventory would be an abstraction for all the loot your party is hauling along. It should be based on party strength, for example one party member has 3 STR, the other 6 and another 4, so if each point of STR allows you to carry 10lbs, you'd be able to carry 130lbs that way. I've just made up these numbers to serve an example, but that's basically the point. Also, party inventory would not be accessible during combat so you have to make do with what your characters are equipped with, which leads to a realistic combat-inventory and meaningful resource management (do I put a second gun in my pocket or do I put an ammo clip there?).

 

[PorkaMorka]

Inventory in most RPGs kind of sucks badly.

Assuming you want money, you are strongly encouraged to pick up everything of significant value dropped by your enemies and take it to sell to the merchant. Eventually as you become more powerful, every enemy has an expensive platemail to sell at least.

If you are keeping the "hauling 20 platemails to sell" gameplay mechanic, then some sort of more abstracted mechanic like the party inventory as invisible pack mule makes a lot of sense.

I'm not going to leave 1000 gp of platemail on the ground, if I have a small inventory I will just make more trips. Let me make one trip with a large inventory and skip some tedium. (this is actually a huge problem with some RPGs as running to sell stuff takes hours)

If you are wise and eliminate the "hauling 20 platemails to sell" gameplay mechanic (there are several ways), then there is less need for a party inventory. Eliminating the "hauling 20 platemails to sell" gameplay mechanic is ideal.

If there is a party inventory though, making it accessible in combat doesn't make a lot of sense, as you might have a wand, stack of potions or other magic item in there which would then be available to any party member, instead of requiring the player to think about which one he wants to assign it to.

A 1.13 esq inventory system could work well for the items each guy can carry on his person, although it's probably not a great use of limited dev time compared to polishing other more interesting/important system systems. It could add to gameplay by requiring more thought on the part of the player by managing the loadouts for each character, especially if the game has resource management elements with breakable/disarmable weapons, armor damage and lots of consumable magic items.

Probably best to just go heavily abstracted party inventory which isn't usable in combat / smaller individual inventory, unless you get a ridiculous amount of resources to build your game. As in the time it takes to do 1.13esq inventory you could improve more vital aspects of the game significantly.

You need at least a small individual backpack like inventory though, for misc. non equipped items to be used in combat. Wands, Potions, Grenades, Med Kits, Etc.

 

[denizsi]

On special belts you can also wear ammo (belts with these holes for placing bullets - dunno how the word for these holes is).

Bullet belt.

The party inventory would be an abstraction for all the loot your party is hauling along. It should be based on party strength, for example one party member has 3 STR, the other 6 and another 4, so if each point of STR allows you to carry 10lbs, you'd be able to carry 130lbs that way. I've just made up these numbers to serve an example, but that's basically the point. Also, party inventory would not be accessible during combat so you have to make do with what your characters are equipped with, which leads to a realistic combat-inventory and meaningful resource management (do I put a second gun in my pocket or do I put an ammo clip there?).

He seems to be against party inventory by principle.

Also, here's a relevant old thread:
Favorite inventory system in a game?

 

[JarlFrank]

If you are wise and eliminate the "hauling 20 platemails to sell" gameplay mechanic (there are several ways), then there is less need for a party inventory. Eliminating the "hauling 20 platemails to sell" gameplay mechanic is ideal.

Yes, this is ideal and preferable. We're going to try eliminating it by making loot not so valuable, most dealers give you shit prices because you only offer used secondhand stuff, things like that. Monty haul is a bad mechanic.

If there is a party inventory though, making it accessible in combat doesn't make a lot of sense, as you might have a wand, stack of potions or other magic item in there which would then be available to any party member, instead of requiring the player to think about which one he wants to assign it to.

If we use a party inventory, it won't be accessible in combat. Read my previous post to see what I'd like the combat-accessible inventory to be like.

 

[soggie]

So from what I gather from the discussions so far:

1. JA2 styled equipment mechanism
Everybody agrees that this is good

2. Drop backpack when going into combat
Only if the UI isn't too clunky to use, and the penalty for not doing so not too crippling

3. Global inventory space
Divided

-------------------------
@denizi

No I'm not against party inventory at all. I think it's a novel mechanism and a very good way to cut down tedious micro management, but as I mentioned in my previous post, this convenience comes at a sacrifice: that being the kind of abuses possible with this system.

To make it work, I think we need to set 2 rules to the party inventory: (1) not accessible during combat, and (2) not accessible when your party is spread too far apart (more than 1 screen away).