Too much loot

[Morgulon the Wise]

It would also be cool if some of the merchants don't really know what they are selling. There should be a possibility to run over a legendary sword in a random middle- or lower-class shop or smithy. With a little story tagged to it.

 

If your characters see it (with random shape: only a high perceptive mage or cipher should be able to see it)

[Sarex]

Honestly, playing through BG2 again, I have >300,000 gold, and I haven't even joined Bodhi or the Shadow Thieves yet. I feel like there's a problem here, but I can't quite put my finger on it...I like the idea of creatures having actual equipment, (as opposed to NWN2's not very fun system), but goodness gracious, I already have more money than I could possibly ever need for throughout the entire game...

 

And then you get to making equipment, especially in ToB, and all that money evaporates.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Sarex

[LadyCrimson]

I agree with all this except partly 3, the really cool stuff should be obtained from encounters, puzzles etc...no legendary items in shops please

 

Arthur didn't go down the shops to get excalibur, the one ring wasn't on offer down at the jewellers...

This.

And they should be difficult to get to/finish encounters or something ... eg, no low-level chr. rushing to a spot to get the best stuff.

 

There should of course be useful items in shops, that might be better than the regular stuff that one would commonly find during battles along the way, but they shouldn't be the uber things. And imo super high redonkulous prices just means one either ignores them because you figure you'll never save the gold to get them in time for them to be useful, or you'll feel "forced" to do that obsessive compulsive looting to try to acquire them in a timely manner.

 

I can be compulsive regarding loot/shop selling, but even I won't pick up 20 items that sell for 2 copper each to try to afford something that costs 5000 gold.

[Fearabbit]

IMHO a game should have the following regarding loot:

 

1.  You can take/sell just about everything not nailed down, but most things are of piddly value.

2.  Inventory space is limited.

3.  The really cool **** is only available at incredibly high prices, or as a result of special encounters/quests 

4.  Gold has weight.  It keeps you from accumulating huge amounts.  If you have too much, open a bank account, use writs of payment, or buy/keep high value things like magic items or precious gems.  

 

The beauty of such a system is it makes the payoff for selling vendor trash almost not worth it.  For the obsessive-compulsive players who want to sell everything in the game, it still exists as a option.  But most players, as they gain levels, will reach a point where it's just not worth it to pick up non-magical items anymore - as it should be.  

 

In my opinion:

1. You can take just about everything, but you can't sell most of it. Merchants sell stuff, you buy it - not the other way around.

2. Each character has his own limited inventory, but there is a "virtual pack mule" that can store anything you want it to.

3. Bosses give you the good stuff or you can have it custom-made in a smithy or an enchanter's shop or something. They rarely have it just lying around in their shops. The legendary stuff shouldn't be available at all except through special quests.

4. Gold doesn't have weight, because that would be annoying.

 

The beauty of this system is that obsessive-compulsive behavior isn't awarded at all, and therefore it is a much better abstraction of reality. It's also easier to balance because you don't have to take into account people who never loot bodies and those who loot every single item, therefore opening up the option of making money important again. Equipment is only useful if it is better than your own (or maybe if you can break it down and craft something new from it), which is a lot more intuitive for new players as well. If something doesn't seem useful to you, then it isn't.

 

Concerning the really good equipment: I'd prefer it if there was almost no legendary stuff to be found at all. 90% of the good loot should be something that you could have gotten from a shop if you had paid the smith or the enchanter a lot of money. Excalibur and the One Ring are items that are unique and there shouldn't be more than a dozen of those in the whole game - all of them tied to a specific quest.

 

Basically, I'm tired of many conventions of the RPG genre. I don't think they work. There are too many rewards, you never actually need the money you earn, and it all becomes shallow and boring. It also doesn't depict a world that is anywhere close to realistic, with me dropping off 20 blades of the enemies I just killed single-handedly and paying my new sword with that. How does the smith make a living if his swords are paid in swords?

Make money important again. If I get money for a quest, I should be overjoyed, because now I can tell the smith to sharpen my Rapier+1 to a Rapier+3 and then the enchanter to put a new enchantment on it (oh yeah by the way, I think enchantments should wear off). If you give me the ability to craft things, don't let me earn money with that. Don't even make these crafted items as good as the ones I buy from the smith, because that would break the game. (Crafting should be something that helps me in the dungeon, when I need to improvise - it shouldn't help me earn a living.)

Edited June 30, 2013 by Fearabbit