Beasts of Burden and "Stash" Inventory

[Hormalakh]

So now that we've heard about invetory, I wanted to bring up the idea of beasts of burden again. I wanted to know what everyone thinks about beasts of burden being implemented (both graphically and mechanically) into the game to help with the idea of "stash"?

 

The way it would work is that you'd have beasts of burden "companions" on the screens that allow you to camp and anywhere else that would allow acecss to your stash. This plays several roles:

 

1- It informs the player that this location is one where access to the stash is allowed.

2- It helps with understanding the stash mechanic better - why you're allowed to access stash only at certain locations.

3- Beasts of burden can also be implemented as "inventory space limiters." That is you can start with a beast of burden with only limited amount of space in the stash. Then you can spend money at the market (another money dump) or at the stronghold to "upgrade" your beast of burden (BoB) to increase stash space. This further allows players to decide whether the cost in upgrading stash space is worth the advantage of being allowed to loot more junk. Make upgrades fairly expensive though (enough for several plate armors worth of gold).

EDIT:

4- They can act as visual cues for where camping is allowed, as camping is likely to be spatially limited in Project Eternity.

5- They can act as "fast travel" options for players, similar to how Fallout 2's car did so.

 

What do you guys think?

Edited December 20, 2012 by Hormalakh

[JFSOCC]

I'm ok with a mule if it takes a companion slot to use one. So you must trade off combat vs being a packrat hoarding tons of items for sale. Should be fairly defenceless too.

[Tamerlane]

I'd rather they keep the "deep stash" abstract...

[Sacred_Path]

When I read about stash I was thinking of pack mules or carts.

 

I don't need them to be represented on the screen though. Raises too many questions (do animals bolt from combat? Don't you block people in cities?).

 

The biggest question to me right now is if the stash is accessible in locations where you're most likely to pick up lots of gear (say dungeons). In Daggerfall your cart had to stay outside of dungeons (can't remember about other buildings).

[Hormalakh]

I'd rather they keep the "deep stash" abstract...

fair enough

 

When I read about stash I was thinking of pack mules or carts.

 

I don't need them to be represented on the screen though. Raises too many questions (do animals bolt from combat? Don't you block people in cities?).

 

The biggest question to me right now is if the stash is accessible in locations where you're most likely to pick up lots of gear (say dungeons). In Daggerfall your cart had to stay outside of dungeons (can't remember about other buildings).

 

the way i see it, since camping is restricted already, they wouldn't be following you into dungeons anyway - I imagine camp sites would be fairly combat free. The way I saw it was to have them sort of like the "car" from Fallout 2. You saw it at the edge of the map, so you knew where you could use it (where you can camp).

 

I'd imagine the BoB staying out of the dungeon, when you "send to stash" that's just abstracted that the loot was carried to the cart and left there.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Hormalakh

[SunBroSolaire]

I don't see the need. I think the stash mechanic could be made pretty clear with just some good UI design. I don't really like the idea of a mule or something following me around costantly. Also, I think having a limited space stash somewhat defeats the point of the idea.

 

It seems like a lot of people feel like the "stash" is unrealistic, but if you've ever been on a long camping/hiking trip, it's pretty close to how things actually work. You want to keep some useful things in the easily accessible pockets of your backpack, such as water, granola bars, tarp, map, compass, possibly a knife. Then you have the big pockets where everything is really packed in. Extra clothes, pots and pans, food that needs preparation, etc... You don't want to open those up unless your making camp, because it takes forever to find what you want and then rearrange/repack everything. To me, the system Josh outlined seems like a really intuitive solution to a very common problem in RPGs.

[Hormalakh]

It's not about realism as much as it is about being able to carry 100 leather armors in a pack and 200 swords. All looted from the dead corpses of bandits. Then carrying all of that to town to be sold away quickly with the click of a button. That's the main issue with unlimited space in a stash. And a stash that the adventurers are "carrying."

 

Edit: My idea continues to limit stash space (still fairly large, but not infinite) but allows players, if they wish to expand it further (upgrade the beasts, add a cart, etc). It can also be implemented as "fast travel" options, like the car was for Fallout 2.

 

Just throwing ideas out there.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Umberlin]

Hum, did the Mules, and other pack animals, really add another layer to Dungeon Siege, when it had them? If a person's answer is yes, then something like this would likely please them. If not, then, well, I imagine it won't. Questions of its vulnerability, if it takes up character slots in your party, and so on, would all be legitimate questions to bring up. I'm . . . not really sure whether I'd want it, or not, myself. If it was there, would it bothe rme? Probably not. However, I don't see myself 'wanting' it there, if it's not there.

 

Still, we are going to have a stash, that's a definite, and I like their 'top of pack' and 'equipped' elements, in addition to the idea of a stash. I especially like that they noted 'top of pack' items wouldn't be accessible in combat (I assume the same of stash items). The note that top of pack was a finite storage space, while stash was implied to be either much, much larger or inifinite (I wasn't clear on that last bit). I wonder what the equipped portions covers, besides the obvious, does it cover 'belt items' of a sort, that can be accessed in combat? In combat consumables like things you can throw and so on? I have questions . . . and we just got more information, so having more questions already makes me feel greedy.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Umberlin

[Hormalakh]

It's weird...this is something that some people woldn't care much for (or would rather leave it abstacted) but the car from Fallout 2 was pretty much loved by all - or was quite symbolic for that game at the least. I'm not seeing the difference. Can someone help me?

Edited December 20, 2012 by Hormalakh

[Sacred_Path]

It's weird...this is something that some people woldn't care much for (or would rather leave it abstacted) but the car from Fallout 2 was pretty much loved by all - or was quite symbolic for that game at the least. I'm not seeing the difference. Can someone help me?

 

Maybe because the car was a means of transport with a lot of signifance while pack animals are just... personification of storage space?

 

Now if a carriage would speed up your overland travels and you could fight from atop it (ohai Ultima VII) I might be in favor of that

[SunBroSolaire]

That's fair. Weight limits tend to be pretty arbitrary though. Beyond tactical shooters, I haven't seen many games where the maximum weight was in any way plausible. I don't think having a "stash" that can hold "a lot" of stuff is that much more immersion breaking than being able to fit 10 - 20 weapons plus 4 - 5 suits of armor in your pockets in other games.

 

As a game mechanic, I can see the purpose of having limits, but I think Josh and Tim managed to keep most of the interesting choices that come with those systems while eliminating some of the degenerate consequences. At least, that's how it seems to me right now. I'll have to actually play the game to make a final judgement.

[Umberlin]

It's weird...this is something that some people woldn't care much for (or would rather leave it abstacted) but the car from Fallout 2 was pretty much loved by all - or was quite symbolic for that game at the least. I'm not seeing the difference. Can someone help me?

 

I couldn't tell you. Like I said, though, I don't dislike the idea - it doesn't offend me, and I'd happily use it, if present. I'm just not sure I'd ask for it, and I don't mean that in a, "I don't want it" way. Label me undecided.

 

Now if a carriage would speed up your overland travels and you could fight from atop it (ohai Ultima VII) I might be in favor of that

 

Maybe it's significant . . . the second you put it in the context of a carraige, or some form of mobile camp - a caravan - the idea somehow seemed more interesting. Mobile is relative. More like a 'camp set piece involving caravan carts' meant to represent why your stash is mobile, but it actually never moves. Instead it's used as a set piece meant to present the idea of a mobile campsight, partially by not putting it at a specific location on the map. The wagons/site actually moving would raise all sorts of questions, complications and problems - no reason to actually go into that.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Umberlin

[Hormalakh]

That's fair. Weight limits tend to be pretty arbitrary though. Beyond tactical shooters, I haven't seen many games where the maximum weight was in any way plausible. I don't think having a "stash" that can hold "a lot" of stuff is that much more immersion breaking than being able to fit 10 - 20 weapons plus 4 - 5 suits of armor in your pockets in other games.

 

As a game mechanic, I can see the purpose of having limits, but I think Josh and Tim managed to keep most of the interesting choices that come with those systems while eliminating some of the degenerate consequences. At least, that's how it seems to me right now. I'll have to actually play the game to make a final judgement.

 

I don't think that "fitting" 10 or 20 weapons plus 4-5 suits of armor as backup equipment is the same thing as stashing down 40 leather armors and short swords from your fallen foes simply to be sold at the market. A lot of times, that's what a majority of inventory space was used for. The collection of junk to be sold away at the nearest merchant for a few hundred/thousand pieces of gold.

 

An unlimited stash with enemies dropping their armor/weapons continues this trend of so-called degenerate gameplay.

[Hormalakh]

It's weird...this is something that some people woldn't care much for (or would rather leave it abstacted) but the car from Fallout 2 was pretty much loved by all - or was quite symbolic for that game at the least. I'm not seeing the difference. Can someone help me?

 

Maybe because the car was a means of transport with a lot of signifance while pack animals are just... personification of storage space?

 

Now if a carriage would speed up your overland travels and you could fight from atop it (ohai Ultima VII) I might be in favor of that

Yep.... updated the main post b/c that's a great idea. I don't want BoB's just to look pretty. I want mechanical reasons for them too. Edited December 20, 2012 by Hormalakh

[SunBroSolaire]

An unlimited stash with enemies dropping their armor/weapons continues this trend of so-called degenerate gameplay.

 

That is a valid point. I could see players feeling pressured to loot every single corpse. I wouldn't be opposed to some (very high) upper limits. Or you could implement some simple market forces; for example, at first rusty broadswords net you 10g, but the more you sell, the less valuable they become due to market floding.

[Adhin]

I could see pack mules being an 'upgrade' to the camp and the said abstract stash. But I don't want a mule following me around in a town or a dungeon or having to deal with much of any of that. I could see random encounters from zone to zone being centered around your 'wagon' and mules and whatnot as you fend off bandits, that'd be a nifty thing to deal with in general. But in the end I'd rather just see mules or chests being buyable as upgrades to the stash and keep the stash generally abstract as someones said before.

 

Personally the idea they came up with I think is the best solution I've seen to date for a cRPG to handle inventory like PnP does. You don't have slots, you don't do tetris, it's just weight and more often then not the DM just decides you carried whatever back to whatever and its mostly handwaved. The whole overbearing inventory management thing is literally a cRPG invention as a, in my opinion, bad way to handle the translation from PnP to computers.

 

So, rock on Obsidian for figuring out some less irritating way to let folks loot a lot of stuff with out dealing with clustered inventories and weight issues. And here's hoping the Stash (not the shared pack inventory) is upgradeable in space some way.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Adhin

[rjshae]

The stash could be a target for player investment. Stuff left lying somewhere like that seems a little risky. Maybe hire some guards and a wagon team.

[Gfted1]

Another day, another contrived mechanic. This time to prevent players from "degeneratively" carrying loot. Because weight limits are hard. Aye carumba.

 

On the bright side, since Ill be humping back to every half dozen battles to heal anyway I guess I wont be too affected.

[jivex5k]

Honestly, I don't see what this would add to the game.

I mean, unless the mule is following you around while you adventure why would you be able to drop stuff in the stash.

 

This is how I imagine the stash:

 

It's buried under all your other crap in your backpack, so accessing it while running around outside of a safe area is going to take a lot of time, and you have a large chance of being "caught with your pants down" so to speak.

 

Then, when your in a safe area, you have the time to access these stashed items.

 

The mule doesn't really fit in, unless he follows you around everywhere, and then you'd have stuff on the top of the mules pack that would be easy to access.

 

If you have a mule only sitting at camps I don't know how he would get to one camp to another without following you there. And having a mule following you everywhere, that would be cool if it's optional and he could die.

 

I'm just not into the digging this magical mule that is somehow at every campsite even though he doesn't follow you there.

[rjshae]

That wasn't how I understood the description of "stash": it's only accessible when you go to rest. I'm picturing that as goods you left at caches while you were clearing out the dungeon or whatever. Yeah it's a "contrived" mechanic; one that simulates you carrying and stowing loot while not having to spend game time doing it. Perhaps in expert mode you'll have the option to do away with the stash altogether and make multiple trips to your base camp to carry out all the loot? Alternatively, they could let you designate containers as your stash points, then have you run the risk of letting it be looted.

[Lephys]

Another day, another contrived mechanic. This time to prevent players from "degeneratively" carrying loot. Because weight limits are hard. Aye carumba.

 

On the bright side, since Ill be humping back to <wherever> every half dozen battles to heal anyway I guess I wont be too affected.

 

Players can do whatever they want with loot. But without any kind of limitation, the loot system just becomes a money grind. "Do I pick this up? OF COURSE I do, as it has currency value! So I want as much of everything as possible, all the time!" If you don't address that in any way, shape, or form, it's just plain cluttered and pointless. You might as well take away all item sell-values and just implement a means of generating time-increment-based income, while items only serve practical purposes (equipment, potions, etc.). Because, what fun is having the option to loot or not to loot adding when you're just going to loot as much as possible, anyway?

 

The point is, it's not about "degenerative player behavior." This just happens to show up alongside smallish design holes.

 

Of course, loot limitations only addresses part of the problem. The other problem is the infinite value of all loot. You could do things like make basic-quality swords and armor only valuable for their materials via salvage or something. Whatever the means, it's just something else that's part of the loot/inventory/item system that must be balanced, and it can be done anywhere from wonderfully to terribly.

 

As far as the purpose of the mule? Well, at the very least, having the mere visual of a pack animal adds to the immersion/believability of the exaggerated size of the stash (if it's going to be pretty big), and supports the "you can only access in places where you'd safely camp" notion. That value is no different from the difference in foliage in environment art in one area as opposed to another. It doesn't serve any MECHANICAL purpose. The game would function just fine without it. But it sure is a more elegant way to suggest you're in a different area, instead of using the exact same environments everywhere *coughDRAGONAGE2cough*...

 

Also, there are other possibilities with a mule, as opposed to a visually unrepresented stash. These possibilities present some hurdles to be dealt with, and some benefits to gameplay depth as well. Which is exactly why we're discussing said possibilities.

 

So, to say "this is quite LITERALLY a pointless suggestion" is just as silly as anyone saying "Obsidian MUST work in a pack mule, or the game will actually activate Skynet and we'll all die!"

[Alexjh]

Hum, did the Mules, and other pack animals, really add another layer to Dungeon Siege, when it had them? If a person's answer is yes, then something like this would likely please them.

 

I wouldn't say it added that much in the way of tactical layers, but definitly added layers of character. I honestly think that the mule is one of the best things about Dungeon Siege.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Alexjh

[Umberlin]

I wouldn't say it added that much in the way of tactical layers, but definitly added layers of character. I honestly think that the mule is one of the best things about Dungeon Siege.

 

Like I said:

 

Hum, did the Mules, and other pack animals, really add another layer to Dungeon Siege, when it had them? If a person's answer is yes, then something like this would likely please them. If not, then, well, I imagine it won't. Questions of its vulnerability, if it takes up character slots in your party, and so on, would all be legitimate questions to bring up. I'm . . . not really sure whether I'd want it, or not, myself. If it was there, would it bothe rme? Probably not. However, I don't see myself 'wanting' it there, if it's not there.

 

Still, we are going to have a stash, that's a definite, and I like their 'top of pack' and 'equipped' elements, in addition to the idea of a stash. I especially like that they noted 'top of pack' items wouldn't be accessible in combat (I assume the same of stash items). The note that top of pack was a finite storage space, while stash was implied to be either much, much larger or inifinite (I wasn't clear on that last bit). I wonder what the equipped portions covers, besides the obvious, does it cover 'belt items' of a sort, that can be accessed in combat? In combat consumables like things you can throw and so on? I have questions . . . and we just got more information, so having more questions already makes me feel greedy.

 

It's a matter of taste and perception. Such a thing can, potentially, readily turn one away as turn one toward, and, any raised questions, one way or another, are all legitimate. I go with my second post in the thread, though, as something I find more interesting:

 

Maybe it's significant . . . the second you put it in the context of a carraige, or some form of mobile camp - a caravan - the idea somehow seemed more interesting. Mobile is relative. More like a 'camp set piece involving caravan carts' meant to represent why your stash is mobile, but it actually never moves. Instead it's used as a set piece meant to present the idea of a mobile campsight, partially by not putting it at a specific location on the map. The wagons/site actually moving would raise all sorts of questions, complications and problems - no reason to actually go into that.

 

Do I need such things though? No, not at all, whether the subject be a pack animal or otherwise. After thinking about it, it's just not something I'd ask of Obsidian, not to suggest I don't share some similar concerns to Hormalakh about the stash (though not for the same reasons). Still, we haven't seen the full picture, yet, and I think that despite the information we have . . . it's important to frame a whole picture, rather than a partial one. I am happy to be patient, and wait to see, despite some similar concerns.

[LadyCrimson]

I'm ok with a mule if it takes a companion slot to use one. So you must trade off combat vs being a packrat hoarding tons of items for sale. Should be fairly defenceless too.

This. They should definitely take up a companion slot.

Altho, in terms of the defenseless part, I did like how in Dungeon Siege they were at least able to do a little kicking to defend themselves. They still largely tried to run away, however (a few kicks if cornered, then running away if they could), eg, they weren't combat helpers, it was just defensive. Seemed to be a nice way to do it.

 

I have a feeling tho, that pack mules would be largely extraneous, since the inventory already will have a similar concept built in to it. So unless they'd be actual pet-companions (permanent/travel with you, combat, skills, ala MMO's) instead, I don't see the gameplay benefit/attraction...they'd have to give Monty Hallish extra "stashing" space to seem worth using...and if they felt like giving that much carrying space, they could just do that with the backpack system, which they're already making. Less time/resources that way.

[Hormalakh]

These are just ideas. I don't imagine my ideas are the best nor do I expect them to be implemented. I think throwing out ideas and hearing feedback is good because I imagine this idea isn't something that's been tackled on the forum before. I'm not trying to tell the devs to "implement this or else I'll throw a tantrum" or that "players who loot are degenerate." It's more to gauge everyone's take on it and what we find important.

 

Sometimes I write really long posts that have a lot of thought and to make an honest plea. This is not one of those threads. The mechanic seems contrived because it might very well be. It's food for thought, nothing more. Don't be offended.

Edited December 21, 2012 by Hormalakh