Inventory system

[Valsuelm]

BG2's refined inventory system is just about what one should have in a RPG game I think. I don't think I've played a RPG with multiple controllable characters that did it better.I wouldn't mind some more equipable slots though, or some sorting / autostack options.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Valsuelm

[Isamael]

I too, must confess I'd much, much rather see a return (perhaps refined) of BG2's excellent inventory management.

Inventory tetris or no, I'd focus on fixing the few issues BG2's system had - such as the frustratingly cumbersome step-by-step approach you had to take

to moving items between characters sometimes. When opening a container, I would be much relieved if I could choose what character picks up what.

Furthermore, taking size as well as weight into account is an idea I would like to see expanded upon. A suit of chain mail, while heavy, is easily collapsible and not hard to fit down even a full backpack or sack - whereas a helmet or, god forbid, a breastplate - is an immense and rigid construction that would take up a lot of space.

 

I also subscribe to the notion of more piecemeal armour and/or an expanded paperdoll.

If one wants to elaborate upon this - what about equippable items that increase the size of your inventory?

Backpacks and pocketbelts are one thing, but what of the pockets of regular clothes? A cloak with pockets sewn into it?

There are no pockets on a full suit of armour - but a more lightly armoured character, like a mage - might well have access to a plethora of clever containers

and (more importantly) could actually reach his hand into his trouser pocket without having two squires undress him for an hour first.

 

Oh, and one last thing...?

 

Hand drawn items and descriptions.

To this day I still giggle when I read the description of the Ring of Energy.

[Sabotin]

How about something like in the original dungeon siege (disregarding the tetris) - each character had their own inventory, but you were able to open them all at once if you wanted. It was pretty neat in that regard:

 

 

I think it also lends itself well to widescreen.

[mstark]

That looks like an absolute nightmare. I suppose opening backpacks side by side does have its benefits (especially in a tetris scenario, with a lot of slots), but I also really like the idea of having one unique "screen" for each character, making it feel like your characters are individuals that you tend to one at a time.

 

Taken to its extreme, for "ease of use", we could have a single screen showing the stats of all characters at the same time, etc. Not sure if that'd be good for a game of this type?

Edited November 20, 2012 by mstark

[rjshae]

Yes, the amount of loot you could carry around in the DS games was ludicrous. Plus they didn't us item stacking, which was a nuisance.

[LadyCrimson]

DS1 - having all their backpacks open at once was just an on-the-fly option, so to speak. And the bigger packs are the mules, which were also optional. The potions not stacking made it so you practically had to have huge backpacks, lol. I remember using a mod that increased everyone's backpack to mule size. Fun. Anyway, that's an aRPG, where I expect/want huge inventories because loot is primary and altering/shifting gear tends to occur very frequently.

 

I consider P.E. to be a different type of model and should be more limited, and there I definitely prefer having a detailed individual character screen. It shouldn't (imo) be a game where you're concerned about your gear/wanting to stare at your backpack every couple minutes, all the time. That said, I kind of like tetris systems...it fits the organizational OCD in me. I never use the "auto-arrange" options in games, just like I don't toss things in suitcases willy-nilly. Things must be placed "just so."

[Sabotin]

It wasn't supposed to be an example of a good inventory, just how you could open multiple ones at once...

 

I actually think BG did it ok in general. You basically had some quick-slots for weapon/ammo/misc and the rest "in the bag" so to speak. Perhaps the number of these slots could be variable for different classes (not just weapon wise) or depending on gear (armors, belts?). And then for expert mode you could make the main inventory inaccessible during combat or something. It could be a thing when you have to decide whether you want to carry an extra blade or a potion.

 

I'm pretty much against any kind of inventory tetris; I rather err on the side of practicality than suspension of disbelief when concerning item sizes. And if the game follows the IE footsteps, I think the weight limit will be hit much faster than the size one.

The thing with the same size inventory, though, is the small items: keys, scrolls, potions, etc., which can quickly fill and clutter it. Some further compartmentalization might be in order to eliminate some of these (key rings, scroll/file cases and so on).

 

I do not particularly like "list" kind of inventories, though I guess it's the better option when you have to lug a metric ton of crap around. Still I hope that can be avoided.

 

I would really love to see good item icons though, where you could differentiate them with a glance. And maybe based on the concept art pictured in the detailed description ? IWD2 had some pretty good ones as I recall. DA2 was the most horrible thing I ever saw in this regard.

 

I guess different people prefer levels of item ordering and item overview, so some good balance between the two will have to be found.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Dungeon Siege was a really interesting game, it was definitely technically impressive and very tight mechanically, but story, art direction, questing, environments, combat variety and depth, were sub-par and it was really linear, most of which was by design or due to having a small team and limited budget. Whenever RTS engines are brought to RPG's there's a lot of improvement, WoW used the Warcraft 3 engine, Infinity Engine was originally a RTS engine IIRC, and Dungeon Siege is by Chris Taylor who made one of the best RTS games ever (Total Annihilation) and wanted to bring RTS elements to a Diablo inspired game. I didn't like the inventory system in Dungeon Siege because of potions taking up one slot, that was damn annoying.

 

Pack mule, sacrifice a combat party member for more inventory space, that was a great idea, which Torchlight used and expanded on. Realistically a pack mule would probably be able to carry more stuff than what's represented in Dungeon Siege. I like the idea of support party members, perhaps like the Torchlight pet mechanic you have a salvager who for a percentage of the profits follows you around and sells the stuff you don't pick up, or like the miners in Neverwinter Nights 2, you mark places where there's loot to be salvaged, and you get a percentage. Maybe even have a wagon or even a caravan, but it limits you to roads and if it's not in a protected place it's vulnerable to raiding parties, so you still have inventory concerns when looting remote dungeons but inventory isn't a complete pain when you're picking up supplies, or travelling from town to town.

 

I want as many options as possible, I want tiles, drag on drop, ctrl/shift select cut and past, lists with search, lists with sort, so I still have all the gameplay surrounding the inventory of classic games but none of the pain or time waste. Categorisation would be great, especially with your own categories. So many games really fail in things you're doing a lot of, while development time is disproportionally spent on things that aren't used, might not even be seen, playing New Vegas is painful because of Bethesda's designed for console interface.

[cjs]

I personally prefer a more Fallout-3-style inventory system where you work with lists of descriptions, rather than icons.

 

I think that could work particularly well if, instead of having fixed categories (weapons, clothing/armor, ammo, consumables, and the dreaded and always-overflowing "misc."), items instead had tags. Some of these would be preset, such as the categories above, but you would also be able to create your own tags, such as "favourite-potion" or "always-sell" and apply those to the potions you most frequently use or types of items you never use (e.g., arrows for a bow you can't use), allowing you to find them more easily when the time comes to use or sell the items.

 

This could be fairly easily implemented in a way that people not looking for this level of sophistication in inventory management can completely ignore the ability to generate your own tags and just use the default ones, ending up with a reasonable interface anyway.

Edited December 19, 2012 by cjs

[tychokepler]

My favorite inventory system was always the Diablo-style inventory. A grid where every item had a different shape, taking up a certain amount of boxes. The Dungeon Siege inventory picture above seems like the same sorta deal.

[Jarmo]

Of "real" inventory systems, I liked the NWN system best. Big items took a lot of space and you could actually find stuff easily.

 

In BG/NWN2 system everything is the same small icon in a grid and it's hard to see if the item is a coffee cup or plate armor without hovering over and reading the popup texts. Of those NWN2 was the better for at least giving you enough item slots, so you're not left deciding if you want to carry a barrel of beer or a spoon in your last slot.

 

But the system I liked the best is party inventory. KotOR and such, Mass Effect and DA:O were fine.

I take sick pleasure spending much of the game dressing up the paperdolls and swapping equipment about, but I really could do without the whole tetris of swapping things about people to people.

 

But if you want some realism instead of the ME "we'll take everything", then how about limited party inventory?

Just add up the STR points derived carry capability of the whole party and that's how much your party pool can take.

The same realism, but no inventory tetris.

[Sensuki]

Absolutely <3 the Titan Quest auto sort button

[uaciaut]

Getting gem bags, scroll and potion cases helped a lot with item management back in BG2. Basically as long as small, almost weightless items (or quest items that are on the lighter side) don't count towards occupying item slots that would otherwise be filled with actual loot/equipment i don't really mind any sort of ad&d rpg system.

[Helm]

No inventory lists

no inventory icons

IE style inventory

 

then i'm happy.

[Helm]

No inventory lists

no inventory icons

IE style inventory

 

then i'm happy.

no inventory tetris.

 

[Juneau]

 

 

 

No inventory lists

no inventory icons

IE style inventory

 

then i'm happy.

no inventory tetris.

 

lmao ...

Inventory tetris... He's serious just incase you think he's being funny.

 

alla; http://www.geekoftheday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/deus-ex-human-revolution-inventory.jpg

[Jodien]

Yeah, Diablo's tetris-style inventory is very good. Big items look big and occupy bigger space, small items are just the opposite. Right from the start, it adds realism to both item size and space allocation. But I want a hybrid system of tetris and tabbed list (like in DA:O) inventories. According to this, the primary tab is the tetris. The other tabs should be available once you aquire the relevant item container. For instance, when you buy a scroll case, you put it into the tetris and automatically the "SCROLLS" tab opens up and replaces the area of the tetris when opened. You either click the scroll case in the tetris, or the scrolls tab at the top to see the list of scrolls you have in it. It should be the same thing for small items which are expressed by quantity instead of size and weight: Potions, ingredients, rings, amulets etc.

 

Again, a character should have only one quiver slot and when you click it, it opens a list to show all the arrows you have. When you highlight a type of arrow, you make it the current ammo. You close the list by clicking the quiver.

[Juneau]

Thinking about it, I HATE INVENTORY TETRIS!

 

Some form of Weightless Tardis bag will do me, tyvm.

[Tamerlane]

Tetris inventories with non-rotating items are Of Satan, Jodien.

 

Personally, I really like what they've said about PE's inventory so far. I really hope that your in-the-field inventory is very small, though I'd be quite surprised if that wasn't the case.

 

Now, for nostalgic inventories, nothing beats Ultima Underworld. I put the map inside the map case inside the bag inside the box inside the bigger bag inside the bigger box...