Bottomless omnipresent stash in Eternity?

[Clean&Clear]

"Though your inventory size is limited and follows a traditional grid-based system, extra items you pick up while adventuring won’t need to just be left behind. Instead you’ll have the option of throwing items in your “stash,” which is a bottomless bit of inventory space you can only access in towns and at camp sites."

This is a part of the the Gamecrate article that made me worry a lot. I recall Josh talking about this mechanic in some of the videos/interviews or somewhere, but I dunno where exactly.

 

As I understand it, the characters will each have their own standard inventory, but apart from that, when inventories of your characters are full, you can still collect items into some kind of "stash", which is accessible from EVERY town or camp site.

 

I don't know if I get it absolutely right, but if I do, I really don't like this concept. How is it explained in-game? Are we just able to teleport items around the world? I think part of the role-playing concept is that your character and the world the story takes place in feels "real", even though it's a fantasy. Magic and thinks like that, all is somehow explained and makes the setting a fantasy world, but this feels just as a simplification to the game rules, but without the effect of adding fun, actually just the opposite, because it just doesn't fit in a game like this. Maybe going back to already done locations just to grab items you didn't have place for in the inventory isn't the most exciting part of the game, but for me this part of role-playing, that's what makes me feel more like I'm playing a "real" character.

 

The concept I feel would be right is having infinite storage space in your stronghold, but naturally, you would have to travel there to store or take out items.

 

Anyone having the same feeling about it?

 

(the original article: http://gamecrate.newegg.com/10-pillars-of-eternity-details-we-picked-up-during-our-tour-of-obsidian-entertainment/ )

Edited April 3, 2014 by Clean&Clear

[Frenzy-kun]

A game is about fun. Even if some features are unrealistic, it doesn't mean they are fun. I think the purpose of the feature is to remove a tedious inventory management into something that keeps symilar gameplay characteristics.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Just imagine the stash is a bag of holding with a hole in it, and that hole is actually a dimensional gateway leading to a variety of storage accomodations.

[IndiraLightfoot]

A game is about fun. Even if some features are unrealistic, it doesn't mean they are fun. I think the purpose of the feature is to remove a tedious inventory management into something that keeps symilar gameplay characteristics.

I agree, and I also think it's a brave move of Obsidian to include one, since it doesn't breathe old school CRPG. It's a wee bit of a compromise too. I look forward to trying it all out.

[Jarrakul]

From a conceptual standpoint, your traditional inventory is stuff like your belt pouches, sheaths, and other readily available things. Your stash is your pack, which can store stuff but you're not going to be digging through it in the middle of a fight. Now, I'll be the first to admit there are some holes in this reasoning, but I like the idea well enough for gameplay purposes that I'm willing to ignore them. To each his/her own, though.

[Gumbercules]

It's a mechanic that requires zooming out and viewing from a more abstracted mindset, but it's not completely illogical. Basically, there are items that your party have specifically arranged and organized to be within reach whenever a specific party member needs them, and then there are items that have been haphazardly crammed into the bottom of whichever backpack has space at the time.

[Pipyui]

I'm still ambivalent on the whole issue.  What Frenzy says is of course true, but having a bottomless inventory pit concerns me.  I suppose it all depends to me on just how much garbage we're to find lying about.  If a TES game had such an inventory, there wouldn't be a spoon left in a house, and I, the great savior of the lands, would have an inventory that looks like:

• 324 wooden bowls
• 113 pewter candlesticks
• 260 wooden spoons
• 75   feather quills

Such banal items won't appear for collection in PoE, of course, but if every mook drops an iron shortsword or similar item, it's going to bother me that I can (and will) pick up every one of the blasted things for sale later, regardless of how menially they pay.  And if there aren't so many banal items to collect in PoE?  Then why do I need a bottomless inventory in the first place?

[teknoman2]

just think of the mule in Dungeon Siege... without the actual mule.

[rjshae]

just think of the mule in Dungeon Siege... without the actual mule.

 

Yup, it's just a gaming abstraction to avoid hours of tedious walking back and forth.

[Endrosz]

Your backpacks will be full of rather uninteresting, but somewhat valuable loot anyway, whether it's limited or unlimited. I remember hauling back long swords and chain mails to Phlan in Pool of Radiance 25 years ago. I remember hauling back guns and stuff in varying condition back to a merchant in Fallout: New Vegas a few years ago. For me, anything that reduces menial tasks is a godsend. By the way, Stonekeep had a magic scroll as an inventory which had limitless carrying capacity, and it didn't break the game in any way, including immersion.

About the reasoning, let's listen to Assertion Twelve once more:

Edited April 3, 2014 by Endrosz

[TheTeaMustFlow]

To be honest , in any game which allows much in the way of looting, I don't think I've ever seen a remotely realistic inventory system - even in, say, Baldur's Gate, characters can still carry around multiple spare sets of armour and skip around totally unimpeded. This is just as well, because having said remotely realistic inventory system would result either in no fun, or no looting (which would be no fun). So I totally support the inifinistash. (though it might be nice if there was some little explanation/handwave on bag of holding lines.)

[rjshae]

(though it might be nice if there was some little explanation/handwave on bag of holding lines.)

 

I think that could be handled with suitable artwork. For example, the background image for your gear could show the faint shape of a backpack; the background image for the stash could show a mound of gear, tied up and covered in a tarp, then concealed in a hole in the wall.

[Nonek]

I'm not too fond of this unexplained mechanic myself, seems to break internal consistency, when all one needs is a quick idea and some exposition to explain and reconcile it. And if players going back and forth between the Dungeon and their Stronghold is such a problem, then simply have the loot disappear if left behind, and make choosing what to carry an important part of the game itself. Adds a certain strategic and tactical edge that way, and makes inventory boosting items far more valuable.

 

Then again I think the tyranny of loot is fairly much destroying rpgs, and devaluing treasure until it becomes a useless arpg-esqe feature.

 

Edit: I'd really like to see at least one character in an rpg carry a backpack, where exactly are they storing all this stuff?

Edited April 3, 2014 by Nonek

[WorstUsernameEver]

I'm still unsure whether this change to inventory mechanics is really needed (why not just change the philosophy behind the drops?), but I can't say the realism side of it bothers me. I could already carry a lot of armors with me in the Infinity Engine games with my warriors and that's not realistic in any way, shape or form.

 

EDIT: On second thought, it's best not to evoke the anti-Sawyer crowd.

Edited April 3, 2014 by WorstUsernameEver

[Gfted1]

To be honest , in any game which allows much in the way of looting, I don't think I've ever seen a remotely realistic inventory system - even in, say, Baldur's Gate, characters can still carry around multiple spare sets of armour and skip around totally unimpeded. This is just as well, because having said remotely realistic inventory system would result either in no fun, or no looting (which would be no fun). So I totally support the inifinistash. (though it might be nice if there was some little explanation/handwave on bag of holding lines.)

Didn't the BG series restrict inventory based on weight, which itself was governed by Strength?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

^Yes, but I think his point was that in BG you could lug around several suits or armor despite it being impossible in the real world due to the bulk(not weight) of the armor.

[Kjaamor]

Things were fine before someone decided that the best way to establish gameplay in crpgs was to include thousands of useless spoons in them.

[Messier-31]

You just put a 20-something slot bag into your bag which is in your bag located in another bag, filled with bags and voila - unlimited hoarding space.

 

And as for the "realism" issue... I don't know, maybe it's just exaggerating. It is a video game after all.

 

 

Things were fine before someone decided that the best way to establish gameplay in crpgs was to include thousands of useless spoons in them.

 

Matrix: "There is no spoon."

And the devs be like: "Yeah, well not any more!"

Edited April 3, 2014 by Messier-31

[Tamerlane]

It's an unrealistic and convenient answer to a problem whose traditional answer has been unrealistic and inconvenient.

 

I'm all for it.

[Jarrakul]

It's an unrealistic and convenient answer to a problem whose traditional answer has been unrealistic and inconvenient.

 

I'm all for it.

 

You have just succinctly summed up my position on more mechanics than I can readily count. Bravo.

[illathid]

Down with simulationism!

[rjshae]

"It requires five hours and twenty minutes to gather up your hidden stash and return to camp. You arrive just as dusk is falling."

 

[zain3000]

I think it's a great idea. No longer would one need to make town runs just to sell loot (always an inconvenience when all I want to do is kill goddamn lycantropes!) And again, I'm sure it's a feature you can eschew if you feel that it breaks immersion.

[Endrosz]

...and I just thought of another classic game, a very well known and well respected game, which offered unlimited stash space: X-Com! It was called "base inventory", but it offered the same functionality.

 

After a successful mission, all objects on the ground, alien corpses, and even UFO components and the elerium fuel from the fuel tank were automagically moved back to the base's storage unit. It just happened. Because the transporter, barely accommodating the regular human payload as is standard for military transports, sure as hell couldn't carry an extra load of 10-20 alien corpses plus all the components recovered from the UFO...

 

[Lephys]

"Look! A chest full of gold! We could really use that to fund our stronghold development!"

 

"Yeah, but I can't fit it in my pocket, so let's just leave it here, forever..."

 

"But, shouldn't we maybe send word for a team with a wagon to come collect it or something? I mean, we have a whole stronghold of people, friends, allies, etc..."

 

"Nah... just leave it. If we can't fit it, we just don't get it. That's our slogan, u_u..."

 

 

Really, I can think of oodles of ways in which that stuff reaches your stash.

 

There's also the possibility that I've mentioned before (and I think someone else did, too?): That you've got a Bag of Holding type bag with you, so it limitlessly holds all kinds of stuff in it (that will fit into it... you can't put like... a castle in there, o_o), but how do you just reach into an inter-dimensional bag like that and pull out just the one little gemstone or armor piece that you want, when it's full of 200 different items? It's probably a bit of an extensive process, so you just "can't" (i.e. your characters won't 'cause it's infeasible/dangerous) rummage through it except when you're safe and aren't as pressed for time, namely, at camp spots and in towns.

 

The stash is always with you, the whole time. It's just inaccessible. Makes sense.