Hypevosa

I agree, having an item or weapon you can make all your own like other NPCs' weapons from past games would be a great addition. Binding the item to your very soul so that it grows and evolves as you do, its ultimate ability only determined by your own demise, would be very of cool.

I admit I had fun sometimes with the tetris in Deus Ex, but that was only for the first half of the game, same with juggling heavy stuff, gems and whatnot in BG. After that point it became a chore, and I'd like to avoid having 5 to 15 minute inventory shuffles in PE if given the chance.

I can respect a minimalist, but, when it comes to RPGs, I'm very much in the camp of new and awesome gear making the game far more enjoyable to me.

I think he simply means the he doesn't want any random value. So just spells with a fixed amount of damage, no resist/miss/parry on chance, and so on. That, or he simply doesn't understand what "dice rolls" stand for in a game like this. But randomness adds chaos, hilarity, and replay-ability? Especially with a wild magic user it wouldn't be fun to have everything be perfectly predictable D:

i don't think they ruled "dice rolling" (which is a fancy way to name random variables) out of the game, honestly. I hope that won't happen because I won't play the game. So the fact that they use numbers that are representative of dice thrown on tables, rather than arbitrarily chosen ranges of numbers will make you not play the game? if a player has 10 hp in D&D and takes 1d4 damage from an attack, is it not basically the same as them possibly taking 10-40 damage? or am I missing what you mean by dice rolls?

Fireballing a group of kobolds and having every last one drop dead is one of the most satisfying things ever. This is what magic users live for, just like the fighters who critical and have enemies explode on the screen. It would be sad if spells could be used so often that their damage wasn't high enough to accomplish these things anymore. Again, I think there's a nice middleground with the vancian casting system that can be met where you allow casters to study during the downtime between combats and slowly regain spells, starting with the earlier level spells that take shorter to rememorize, and taking much longer with the higher level spells. This way rest isn't forced, but it has a place still if a magic user had to, for some reason, use most of the spells in his arsenal recently. No need to severely weaken current basic spells, but no need to rest so often either, as the useful low level spells that allow a mage to still help in a fight will return in due time.

I understand, but to me your means are (essentially) the devs cheesing the game for the player. While we agree on the ends, its the means of getting there I have quarrels with - again, it's just a design principle I am upholding: having a constant world that lives outside the player's gaming choices once they have chosen a difficulty. It's harder to make that way, but for me the authenticity is worth it.

Original post has been edited thanks to Tale to represent the altered idea. That's right up your alley then. I have everything from a drawstring sack, to a giant rogue's looting sack and even a portable hole where you drop it, walk in, and just dump anything on the ground before you go.

I don't like the idea of permanent death here mainly because of lore. Unless your companions soul decides to move on instantly to a new body (certain companions I expect would give the indication through their personality) then magic should afford you the ability to reconstruct their body and put their soul back in it - painfully expensive and draining as that might be.

I would like to see a quest revolved around putting a portable hole into a bag of holding and getting ripped into the astral plane. I think it would be fun :D

Well, why can't we just let the player find out on their own though? Unless this is something where a player is unable to run from fights or is unable to discern how formidable his foes are, the player learning to just pick their battles should be fine until they've leveled high enough on their own. Why is it a bad idea to look at the strongest NPC and go "ok, so a player who is soloing would need to reach level X to have nearly equivalent stats, and they'll find as good gear on their own" and then make that level attainable through solo play? I'd argue the purpose of someone soloing is largely a power trip - if you cannot actually beat the strongest NPC with your character by the end of the journey without cheesing the fight somehow, like abusing magical items, that kinda sucks... doesn't it?

I would tackle it very differently. I would scale encounters based on party size or calculated combat strength. (this can obviously been altered using the difficulty options that have already been discussed in the official updates). Additionally, I would want to encourage a solo player to tray and think their way out of overwhelming situations. I mean, if you've chosen to go it alone you have to expect to be weaker and so be forced to avoid some situations. There would be an overlapping balance between these two solutions See, I've never been one for dev ex machina where you save the player from their pride/stupidity by decreasing encounters based on party size and things like that. I mean, except in instances where someone specifically is hiring mercenaries to kill your party, why would those who oppose you alter in force depending on how many people you had? That would also mean nerfing the rival NPC's stats for no reason. It's like that flaw in oblivion where you can go anywhere you want since the world levels up right along side you. It's more just a design principle of mine though...

Remember that not everyone will utilize 5 party members. This is why I think that the exp system should just allow it so a solo adventurer could feasibly reach equal status with the most powerful NPC, where tactics and luck would be the deciding factor in their battle. Adventuring with others would divide that exp pool and make it so you as a combined party were powerful enough.

That's basically the revised idea - I've been rewriting the document I'd saved this in, my problem is not being able to just edit my initial post, which is quite vexing Essentially I've broken it down into items have bulky slots and then volume around those slots - the reason I kept the bulky was simply because if you look at the adventurer's backpack, while it has the volume to fit 2 suits of full plate, the point was that the rigidity made it so only one could fit without it sticking out the top of it. I'm going to make a new thread and have this one deleted if possible, and, should that not be condoned by a moderator, I'll see if they can just edit my post for me. Just FYI, there are spoiler tags. I don't see them as a WYSIWYG editor icon choice, but if you manually type the typical [ spoiler ] code tags around the chosen paragraphs it should work. and thank you, I'll be sure to make use of these.

It hardly needs a guide when it works automatically and should be largely intuitive. Using a sack on another to empty the one into the other, for example, should be intuitive. If I could edit the original post, I would be getting rid of the slots and just replacing it with the tetris system that sorts things for you, with the addition of the straps slots. This works essentially the same but it just names groupings of squares instead - which isn't really necessary in my eyes. Could just have a number representing the weight in one of the corners? Or maybe a sort by weight button with the heaviest stuff clunking to the bottom. That could work.

Could just have a number representing the weight in one of the corners?

I think it would just be more interesting to encourage the saving of loot that's worth far more in gold than its weight rather than its instant sale to the local merchant. We could also just have a system of denominational coins, and going to a merchant automatically takes your coins and makes them the lowest number possible to preserve your weight.

Bulky, flat, long, medium, small - if you can just recall the type of slot it's in, you'd find it instantly still, you can sort the items within their own sizes. If you're going to rearrange your whole inventory because you keep all the potions first, arrows second, armors third and weapons last in terms of where they are in your inventory left to right, and you just found a new stack of potions, that's usually quite a bit of resorting. This system easily allows the tetris system to exist in it by just expanding all the slots into small slots. There could be an option to have auto sorting off and expand it. Actually, that makes me realize that the tetris system, just with autosorting, would work as well with the packs I proposed simply giving a volume unit in small squares. Anyways, what do you think of the other ideas? unfortunately I can't edit the original post... awesome

Having individual jewels and scrolls taking up the same slots as a full plate is my only issue with that system.

Sorry about a lack of brevity, but the proposal was for an entire system, hence why I gave a warning to skip to "how this works" and the bits at the end. If there were spoiler tags I'd have used those to cut the post in size. The inventory isn't shared, this inventory is for every character - the items that automatically take what people pick up are largely doing so for convenience since, chances are, if you pick up a jewel you're just going to throw it at the person who has the container for it anyways, why not save that time? The proposed system is essentially tetris that automatically sorts itself, keeping the player from needing to be in the inventory forever while also allowing the system to take volume into account.

Alright, if you could change the title to Inventory Management Proposal *Edited*, this is the contents (and thanks): The following is my proposal for how I believe the inventory management system in PE should work. My goal was to provide interesting depth while avoiding as much tedium as possible. I'm going to go over everything from the backpack, to equipment, to currency, and anything in between. Most of the system is automatic to stop 15 minute inventory rearrangements, while alot of detail, this is simply describing why and how it works. I'm a D&D pen and paper DM, naturally you'll see some references to that here - not that it's out of place since baldur's gate and other games are D&D based, but don't feel special for calling me on it. If you aren't interested in the details, I’ve put spoiler tags around the bulk of things and left the examples and TL;DR visible. First and foremost I propose a system that combines volume and mass. Mass being your typical carrying capacity that's limited by your player's strength. Mass, Treasure, and Currency: Volume, Tetris without the shuffle games: Types of Packs: Time or Room saving items: Equipment: How this system works: When not in combat, your backpack will always be opened automatically on going to the inventory screen, when in combat, your other containers like quiver, potion clip, and scroll case will be open since items in the pack take time to get to. You can also then drag any containers to the ground, effectively dropping all that gear if you need to lighten your load before combat. This should save time compared to dragging and dropping individual items, only to pick them up moments later. Example of how it looks outside combat with an empty adventurer's pack (forgive me, I only have MSpaint to work with right now... >_>): Now here's the same inventory, but where a sword has been placed in the bulky slot, freeing up more volume. And now the same inventory where there are 3 of that sword. Clicking once on the swords would take one, but double clicking would take all of them. Shift clicking would bring up the take X menu. If autosorting was turned off, instead the inventory area would show enough small slots to represent the space in the bag, but where the shape only allowed one bulky (4x8) item to fit. If there were a weapon or item too long to fit in the bag, it would be forced into a strap slot. TL;DR Advantages of this system: - Depth and tactics that combat has rarely been afforded in other games. ---- Dropping a pack or belt with gear on it can allow you to lighten your load before a fight without dropping tons of junk. 1 drop and 1 pickup. ---- Equipping whole quivers of 60 arrows instead of bundles of 20 allows one to quickly refit an archer. ---- Taking gear from an enemy's dropped pack, or a rogue pick-pocketing a strapped on item. ---- Leaving cursed or poisoned items out on dropped packs for enemies to take as a new kind of trap. ---- Enemies taking gear and using it for themselves from dropped packs. ---- Containers serve more purpose but aren't necessary to keep a pack from filling full of tiny items. - Less playing the shuffle game, but still keeping things more interesting than an infinite adventurer's backpack of storage. Tetris is optional for those who want it. - Gems and scrolls don't take the same space as a full plate armor - Currency and bartering are more interesting as there's less incentive to just instantly sell everything you pick up. - Interesting variations of containers lead to new roleplaying experience (like the pouches that create counterfeit money) Neutral points: - Slightly more realistic since volume is accounted for - Automatic transference of items is a little unrealistic. Disadvantages of this system: - Some items may be automatically transferred to another character's storage item without you wanting it there. (I'm assuming 95% of gems and the like are going to just need to be sold) - No carrying 10 full plate armors in one backpack (items needing bulky slots like full/half plate should be rarer anyways) - No carrying 100,000 coins on one character. - Extra containers needed to optimize inventory space and time to acquire found items (however, these containers should be easily found on others and not need to be bought - most mages or clerics would have a scroll box, many rogues would have coin purses or gem boxes, etc. We shouldn't have to find what random shop is carrying a gem bag for example) - An enemy trapping you in your own portable hole and your party being unable to free you in time or dying would kind of suck.

I agree that a straight cool down system is arcadey, but the ability for casters to slowly recover memorized spells outside combat. 5 minutes of ingame time per spell level, lower level spells recovered first with combat interrupting the timer would work to me. So example: Your epic wizard goes into a battle and casts 3 spells, a level 1, a level 4 and a level 9 spell. After 5 minutes outside of combat, the level 1 spell is recovered. Unfortunately, before another 20 minutes of in game time occur so he can get his 4th level spell back, he is ambushed resetting the timer. He casts a level 3 spell during that fight. After 15 minutes pass outside the fight, he gets that level 3 spell back. Another 20 minutes pass and he gets his 4th level spell back. Before he can finally recover his 9th level spell, another massive battle occurs, and he expends all his spells. The rest of the party is fatigued now as well, so everyone sleeps and he gets all his spells back in the morning. So this allows mages to get their default spells back more easily, but it's not like you can easily fire off the same high level spells every battle.

If you're trying to solo the game, yes, you should have the capability to at least be EQUAL with your tactics and preparation being what ensures victory, but experience should be split into everyone in the party, so if you aren't soloing, it's your team work that allows you to succeed.

I'd like a mix of things. I love the D&D casting system for giving you those big, awesome spells, but the one thing I hate is forcing rest. If an hour of study allows you to cast them, and your intelligence is what determines the bonus number you can cast per day, why do you need 8 hours rest to get them back? Your intelligence is not drained, is it? I feel that mages should study on their off time (not in combat) and be able to regain spells cast slowly, or dedicate an hour to get them all back in one go. As I understood spells for mages, you're learning to manipulate the magical energies of the universe to your own will, not burning your own energy to do it. Sorcerer's are powered by their charisma score, I took as being an innate connection with these energies through their very nature, so an hour's meditation would do the the same, no? Clerics also just need to pray to their God for an hour for these gifts, though doing so at the time of day their god does not favor should extend the time needed - but that does not mean they can't give prayers in their down time to slowly regain spells either. I'd also like this game to feature what are essentially the level 0 spells from D&D - useful little tricks essentially. Prestidigitation that allows you to clean or dirty things, light a cigarette or warm a cup of tea, etc. I like the flavor they add, and they have some very useful applications to the player with a little ingenuity.

Essentially, they have ANY gay or bisexual characters in their games, and that means they're pushing an agenda.