One backer's thoughts

[Karranthain]

Let's not forget beautiful item sprites, such as those :

 

 

Another reason to keep inventory tetris in.

[Loranc]

Let's not forget beautiful item sprites, such as those :

 

 

Another reason to keep inventory tetris in.

 

Thank god you used a D2 example and not a D3.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Loranc

[Karranthain]

Thank god you used a D2 example and not a D3.

 

D3? What's that?

[Brother Pain]

I agree with most if not all of the OP's suggestions, but especially wanting to get rid of inventory tetris, at least if it's not done right.

The BG/IWD/PS:T system for example, I actively hate, and it feels like busywork having to shuffle items around from character to character all the time. It's not immersive either: A suit of full platemail takes up the exact amount of space that a ring or a rat's tail does.

I much prefer the system of Fallout 1 & 2 where you don't have inventory slots at all, but simply weight allowance, also giving you a reason to have a strong character even if it's not a melee combatant.

[Stun]

Of course we were getting to this point. That was the point. I'm not sure you read my original post, honestly, because it seems like you just want to argue. It's not dumbing down, it's removing an irritating limitation and replacing it with something like carry weight, which is A: more believable, B: More fun than an arbitrary limit regardless of whether it's physically possible because it involves less work. I don't want a game to be work

How about they do both: impliment carry weight and carry space? This is a party based game after all. Not implementing carry space means the inventory ends up being list based. I can think of nothing worse.

 

But Lets get real here. You're on record defining "work" as having to hover your cursor over the clock to see the time. You might as well just come out and say what you really mean: You want the game to play itself while you cross your arms and watch

Edited October 14, 2012 by Stun

[Tamerlane]

Sweet Jesus did Diablo 2 have beautiful items...

[Karranthain]

Sweet Jesus did Diablo 2 have beautiful items...

 

Well, I liked their down to earth design (with a few exceptions - namely the helmets).

[Review or Die]

Let's not forget beautiful item sprites, such as those :

 

 

 

Another reason to keep inventory tetris in.

 

You could have the sprite next to the item name, and as something you can see when you click the item within the inventory. Cause I agree, those are very nice looking. I just don't think they're nice enough to be the reason you have an inventory slot.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Review or Die

[Stun]

Let's not forget beautiful item sprites, such as those :

 

 

 

Another reason to keep inventory tetris in.

 

You could have the sprite next to the item name, and as something you can see when you click the item within the inventory. Cause I agree, those are very nice looking. I just don't think they're nice enough to be the reason you have an inventory slot.

Yeah. Skyrim does that.

[Brother Pain]

Of course we were getting to this point. That was the point. I'm not sure you read my original post, honestly, because it seems like you just want to argue. It's not dumbing down, it's removing an irritating limitation and replacing it with something like carry weight, which is A: more believable, B: More fun than an arbitrary limit regardless of whether it's physically possible because it involves less work. I don't want a game to be work

How about they do both: impliment carry weight and carry space? This is a party based game after all. Not implementing carry space means the inventory ends up being list based. I can think of nothing worse.

 

But Lets get real here. You're on record defining "work" as having to hover your cursor over the clock to see the time. You might as well just come out and say what you really mean: You want the game to play itself while you cross your arms and watch

 

This could work if the carry space is variable, dependent on each character's strength carry capacity. And each item is sized depending on it's weight/bult. I don't want to shuffle plate mail around to get space for keys or scrolls as I said before.

 

I'll just ignore your ad hominem there.

[Stun]

Obviously carry weight should depend on a character's strength. But why should carry space depend on it too? Aside from the redundancy, are we supposed to assume that knapsacks/pockets/handbags come in different sizes according to your strength score?

Edited October 15, 2012 by Stun

[Karranthain]

Let's not forget beautiful item sprites, such as those :

 

 

 

Another reason to keep inventory tetris in.

 

You could have the sprite next to the item name, and as something you can see when you click the item within the inventory. Cause I agree, those are very nice looking. I just don't think they're nice enough to be the reason you have an inventory slot.

Yeah. Skyrim does that.

 

It does, but the inventory is nigh unusable without mods.

[Stun]

I found it to be the worst design feature of the entire game. The problem with list inventories is that they get.... long. So long that you have to scroll up and down endlessly to find what you need.

 

Rule of thumb: if you find yourself wishing there was a search feature for your friggin inventory, then they did it wrong.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Stun

[Review or Die]

I found it to be the worst design feature of the entire game. The problem with list inventories is that they get.... long. So long that you have to scroll up and down endlessly to find what you need.

 

Rule of thumb: if you find yourself wishing there was a search feature for your friggin inventory, then they did it wrong.

Which is why Fallout New Vegas was smart enough to separate things by categories.

[Karranthain]

I found it to be the worst design feature of the entire game. The problem with list inventories is that they get.... long. So long that you have to scroll up and down to find what you need.

 

Rune of thumb: if you find yourself wishing there was a search feature for your friggin inventory, then they did it wrong.

 

Indeed - inventory list was a necessity, due to the limitations of the console controller.

 

We won't have that problem - so that's why I think grid-based (Arcanum, Diablo, Deus Ex etc.) or something similar to IE games (items taking only one slot) is preferable. Makes it much easier to find something - and lets us see all its contents at a first glance.

[Stun]

I found it to be the worst design feature of the entire game. The problem with list inventories is that they get.... long. So long that you have to scroll up and down endlessly to find what you need.

 

Rule of thumb: if you find yourself wishing there was a search feature for your friggin inventory, then they did it wrong.

Which is why Fallout New Vegas was smart enough to separate things by categories.

So does skyrim.

 

And compartmentalizing doesn't fix the problem. It makes it worse. Instead of scrolling up and down to find your item, you have to scroll up and down to find the item's category, then click on the category, then scroll up and down to find the item.

 

Screw that. I'd rather play inventory tetris than duey decimal system librarian.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Stun

[Review or Die]

I found it to be the worst design feature of the entire game. The problem with list inventories is that they get.... long. So long that you have to scroll up and down endlessly to find what you need.

 

Rule of thumb: if you find yourself wishing there was a search feature for your friggin inventory, then they did it wrong.

Which is why Fallout New Vegas was smart enough to separate things by categories.

So does skyrim.

 

And compartmentalizing doesn't fix the problem. It makes it worse, since, instead of scrolling up and down to find your item, you have to scroll up and down to find the item's category, then click on the category, then scroll up and down to find the item.

 

Screw that. I'd rather play inventory tetris than duey decimal system librarian.

The fact that it will not have a blind adherence to the Infinity Engine's inventory system has been mentioned by a developer in another topic, which is ultimately all I really care about.

 

I'm not actually here to argue with you, you know. Or anyone. I posted this for the developers. They can look at it, ignore it, keep it vaguely in mind, or do whatever else they want. If people want to have a discussion, that's great and completely different, and I'd probably participate despite my relative lack of experience to other WRPG gamers. But you don't discuss, you get angry and accusatory and dismissive, and I don't see much the need to continue responding to you, a thing which I did last time purely by mistake because I knew there was nothing good which would happen because of it. Nor will anything good come of this, I'm afraid, but I am compelled to post it.

[Stun]

 

The fact that it will not have a blind adherence to the Infinity Engine's inventory system has been mentioned by a developer in another topic, which is ultimately all I really care about.

 

I wasn't even aware that we were discussing the IE inventory systems. In your OP you specifically complained about Inventory tetris..... which would be the grid system. The IE games don't use an inventory grid.

[Review or Die]

The fact that it will not have a blind adherence to the Infinity Engine's inventory system has been mentioned by a developer in another topic, which is ultimately all I really care about.

 

I wasn't even aware that we were discussing the IE inventory systems. In your OP you specifically complained about Inventory tetris..... which would be the grid system. The IE games don't use an inventory grid.

We are discussing nothing. You are arguing over a post you did not read.

[Stun]

Alright. lets try this again.

 

1. Inventory slot tetris is, not to put too fine a point on it, something that had me screaming at the computer when I played Baldur's Gate. I really dislike carrying capacity as a concept, but the unimmersive nature of inventory slots drives me insane. If there has to be carrying capacity at all, I would rather it be based solely on weight.

 

1) Baldurs Gate didn't use a grid system so I'm not quite sure where the slot tetris complaint comes from. Definitely not from Baldur's Gate.

 

2) You don't want space limits on inventories. Apparenty it's totally believable to have a game where you're controlling 6 party members, and each one of them has unlimited inventory space.

 

3) You do want weight limits. I'm ok with this, until we take class balance into consideration. In your system, since there's no such thing as inventory space, a mage will be able to carry an unlimited supply of their class's arsenal: scrolls and wands (since they typically don't weigh anything). On the other hand, Fighters get the short stick. Swords and shields are heavy, and when the only inventory restriction is weight, then that's exactly what you're getting: One class that will never have to concern themselves with inventory limits, vs. another class that will always have to.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Stun

[Kaldurenik]

? But you said inventory tetris:

 

This is inventory tetris:

 

 

BG:

 

Anyway... Im fine with either Inventory tetris (limited slots) + weight

Or something like BG + bags / scroll cases(etc) + limited slots + weight.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Kaldurenik

[Review or Die]

? But you said inventory tetris:

 

This is inventory tetris:

 

 

BG:

 

Anyway... Im fine with either Inventory tetris (limited slots) + weight

Or something like BG + bags / scroll cases(etc) + limited slots + weight.

 

I called it inventory tetris because that's what I called it when I was a kid, swapping things around to make it fit, and moving one thing somewhere else forever and ever, not knowing it was a term for something else. So I apologize for the lack of clarity. I do not like the limited number of inventory slots, it is arbitrary and tiresome, and not being able to see what items are what without clicking or mousing over is frustrating and unintuitive. The less work inventory management is, the happier I am.

[Stun]

It's not arbitrary. It's the opposite of arbitrary. It represents the physical size of a player's backpack/knapsack/suitcase/pockets.

 

A list system with no space limit isn't even an inventory. It's an index, or a table of contents, or some other soulless, unrealistic concept.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Stun

[JFSOCC]

What would be your views on separate inventories for different item types? (whether or not that includes a pane for quest items I'll leave up to you)

[Review or Die]

What would be your views on separate inventories for different item types? (whether or not that includes a pane for quest items I'll leave up to you)

If you're asking me (I'm not sure on the way quotes are typically handled by users in this forum, I apologize if you're not), I'd be happy with that. It stops things from getting lost by dividing it by party member. The visual/textual representation would make it much easier to navigate, too.