Please reduce the amount of loot

[Ninjamestari]

Since loot, excuse me "too much loot", is junk, destabilizes the economy, is annoying and repetitive and probably kicks puppies too, how about simply removing unlimited carrying capacity? It was added to the game explicitly to "remove the drudgery" of walking back and forth for all this loot ( ).  

 

I'd go with this approach. Inventory management is an important part of a proper RPG experience in my book, and it forces the player to make decisions on what to take with you and what to leave behind. It also ties in nicely with STR score via carry weight, like in D&D.

[thelee]

 

Since loot, excuse me "too much loot", is junk, destabilizes the economy, is annoying and repetitive and probably kicks puppies too, how about simply removing unlimited carrying capacity? It was added to the game explicitly to "remove the drudgery" of walking back and forth for all this loot ( ).  

 

I'd go with this approach. Inventory management is an important part of a proper RPG experience in my book, and it forces the player to make decisions on what to take with you and what to leave behind. It also ties in nicely with STR score via carry weight, like in D&D.

 

 

You can get back inventory management already by unchecking "unrestricted stash access" in your PoE options. I've always played like this, because otherwise the stash seems utterly pointless/broken precisely because you no longer need to make decisions about what to bring with you. (Now it costs you a rest outside of towns)

Edited December 20, 2017 by thelee

[gGeorg]

Hello,

 

its my first post here. I have played since EOB, DungoenMaster and so on, so some experience is there. :D

 

regarding loot.

- dead bodies need keep their stuff.

That must be preserved. Better polished, like Xaurip should need a fish to eat, so usualy I would expect to find a Xaurip spear, fish, xaurip sandals. Those things makes world live.

It is for a sake of reality feel. An RPG  is a story in some strange but WORKING world. Instant transmutation of Xaurip spear into 5 gold on the Xaurip dead body is wrong decision by design.

 

- Heroes should be played as heroes. Not burglars and thief all day long. There should be a system to support a hero like decisions. Watch the old Conan movies (with Arnie) heroes break to the compound but took a small pack of gems. There are all the riches untouched. That should be the target of loot system. Let heroes FIND the treasure. Maby the Xaurip shaman's guard has a magic fish in his pocket. So Heroes need SKILL to Find. then SKILL to sell. System of generic hoards of loot selling for generic amount of money. That is a shame.

 

- weight and mobility factor : get armor to the back pack then fight. You loose becouse of tragic mobility and wrong weight distribution. Although armor properly fitted on the body has little effect on mobility. That should be noticed. All items equipped are counted as 1:5 weight.

 

- weight and fight factor : althou a Mighty Strenghty warrior could lift up a 500kg he cant fight with it. Weight should linear tone down combat readiness (speed, recovery, strength, res).

 

- weight and space factor : its so-so possible to set one plate armor to a back pack. Its definitely not possible to fit there even 2 of them because of space. Items should get another property: Space.

so a hero might transport 20 ingots of pure iron of weight 200kg and space 10litres) but he can not transport 2 plate armors of 50kg and 100litres) (using a "one litre" as a handy space unit, because all we know how big are 2 beers right?)

 

[Katarack21]

so a hero might transport 20 ingots of pure iron of weight 200kg and space 10litres) but he can not transport 2 plate armors of 50kg and 100litres)

 

[gz33]

Just replace all the spear-wielding xaurips with unarmed monks, that'll solve the problem!

 

Seriously though, stacking seems like it'd fix the tedium involved in inventory management.

[gGeorg]

Just replace all the spear-wielding xaurips with unarmed monks, that'll solve the problem!

 

Seriously though, stacking seems like it'd fix the tedium involved in inventory management.

Each monk have sandals, tunic, gods symbol and a fish. What did you solve?

 

Rather than "cool database system for a back back" make it so, I do not want put all the crap in.

Solve the root not consequence.

[Katarack21]

I have no desire to do a bunch of mathematical calculations to decide where or not I can take these sandals vs that sword.

[Guest 4ward]

 

amount of enemies could be reduced. BG2 higher difficulties means enemies do more than normal damage and not that the player is surrounded with more enemies. It‘s a little bit odd that one on hand you have the realistic WYSIWYG-loot and on the other the unrealistic container inventory. (perhaps expert mode could have the option to play without stash though).

 

BG2 found IMO a good compromise. Ammunition didn‘t have weight but was limited by 120 in your ammo inventory. Yes, there are scroll cases, gem bags, potion holders, bag of holding but IMO the concept of BG2 works under the premise that the player will learn. The more you know about the game, the less you rest, prebuff etc. and the more you understand which items are keepers, e.g. that a pearl nets you 100gp or that a beljuril is better not be sold.

[gGeorg]

The old Jagged Alliance had a system.

- on the exit off the map, it shows all the items you have find. So you could decide, in comfort, what you want to take or not.

- Items left behind immediately poof to the void or are eaten by rustworms, anyway it prevents OCD: "come_back_for_all_that_stuff"

 

When you make sorting items by value, you could see what has value.

Trick is :

- only discovered items are shown

- value of items is determined by SKILL of the characters ( find gems - perhaps they are gems, or useless glass, find an painting - perhaps famous art, or useless draft)   Here comes the Athletics/Streetwise/whatever knowledge handy. So, the true value of an item is  get by the selling it. However some dumb, or sneaky merchant might buy a piece of glass for a price of piece of glass even its the diamond.

- inventory has limited capacity by space AND weight e.g. I could hold 100 dried herbs, I cant hold 100 plate armors.

 

Do not reduce number of enemies. I am a good guy, I want a blood-trail behind me.

Edited December 25, 2017 by gGeorg

[Wormerine]

amount of enemies could be reduced. BG2 higher difficulties means enemies do more than normal damage and not that the player is surrounded with more enemies. It‘s a little bit odd that one on hand you have the realistic WYSIWYG-loot and on the other the unrealistic container inventory. (perhaps expert mode could have the option to play without stash though).

 

BG2 found IMO a good compromise. Ammunition didn‘t have weight but was limited by 120 in your ammo inventory. Yes, there are scroll cases, gem bags, potion holders, bag of holding but IMO the concept of BG2 works under the premise that the player will learn. The more you know about the game, the less you rest, prebuff etc. and the more you understand which items are keepers, e.g. that a pearl nets you 100gp or that a beljuril is better not be sold.

The flaw of BG2 system was that whatever cool item you didn’t carry with you, you left it in your keep (aka. Stash). When my friend modded Witcher3 to unrestricted carrying limit I frowned upon his casualness. However, what I ended up doing is running back and forth between points of interest on a map and a merchant carrying and selling everything I could. Essentially I did the same thing my friend did but he saved butload of time.

 

There is a virtue in inventory management, but in BG2 you also always have access to unlimited stash. You just need to walk for a bit to get to it (or get a hold on holding bag, which is a clunky stash). The game would need to be redesigned to support inventory management (aka, Darkest Dungeon - what do you take, how much you can carry, what to do you leave behind) or admit that the whole system is a smokescreen and cut the fat out of the experience. PoE went for the second approach.

[KDubya]

A game like Fallout where you are a scavenger in a post apocalyptic wasteland having strength limited inventory and having to decide what to take and what to leave makes sense and fits the game. PoE is not in the same vein.

[Guest 4ward]

 

There is a virtue in inventory management, but in BG2 you also always have access to unlimited stash. You just need to walk for a bit to get to it (or get a hold on holding bag, which is a clunky stash). The game would need to be redesigned to support inventory management (aka, Darkest Dungeon - what do you take, how much you can carry, what to do you leave behind) or admit that the whole system is a smokescreen and cut the fat out of the experience. PoE went for the second approach.

 

 

do you think that the second approach is better? We‘re not designing games so we‘re just speculating, but if you were a designer about to create an rpg with stash inventory would your priority be to create quality over quantity for loot? I would imagine that James Ohlen&team did have to take the limited inventory into consideration when they created BG2. How do i design monsters, encounters? Think of the many enemies that don‘t drop weapons at all since their fighting with e.g. claws or whatever like umber hulks, vampires, mummies, ghouls, trolls, beholders, and so on. In Nalia‘s castle the guys who drop loot are the Yuan-ti fighters but everyone else afaik doesn‘t drop anything. It‘s mostly when you fight humanoid parties that you get the special loot. You simply don‘t fight that many enemies of the same kind and composition in BG2 as in similar rpgs. So i‘d assume with stash it‘s easier for the designer, surrounding the player with lots of enemies of the same kind isn‘t that much of an issue for the designer since it‘s ‚put it in the stash and let the player deal with hundreds of identical items‘.

[Wormerine]

 

 

 

There is a virtue in inventory management, but in BG2 you also always have access to unlimited stash. You just need to walk for a bit to get to it (or get a hold on holding bag, which is a clunky stash). The game would need to be redesigned to support inventory management (aka, Darkest Dungeon - what do you take, how much you can carry, what to do you leave behind) or admit that the whole system is a smokescreen and cut the fat out of the experience. PoE went for the second approach.

do you think that the second approach is better? We‘re not designing games so we‘re just speculating, but if you were a designer about to create an rpg with stash inventory would your priority be to create quality over quantity for loot? I would imagine that James Ohlen&team did have to take the limited inventory into consideration when they created BG2. How do i design monsters, encounters? Think of the many enemies that don‘t drop weapons at all since their fighting with e.g. claws or whatever like umber hulks, vampires, mummies, ghouls, trolls, beholders, and so on. In Nalia‘s castle the guys who drop loot are the Yuan-ti fighters but everyone else afaik doesn‘t drop anything. It‘s mostly when you fight humanoid parties that you get the special loot. You simply don‘t fight that many enemies of the same kind and composition in BG2 as in similar rpgs. So i‘d assume with stash it‘s easier for the designer, surrounding the player with lots of enemies of the same kind isn‘t that much of an issue for the designer since it‘s ‚put it in the stash and let the player deal with hundreds of identical items‘.

I don’t think second approach to be “better”. It certainly doesn’t make for a better inventory management. It does, however, what it’s supposed to do - give you access to weapons you found that your current and future companions might want to use. PoE had overall issue with providing a huge amount of dull, recreatable weapons. I enjoyed Soulbound weapons much more.

 

The amount of trash items was a minor issue for me, mostly because I would loot everything without paying attention, often missing the good stuff.

 

You are right, the way BG provided loot was more sparsely. The way you built you party was different as well. Quite often I would quickly decided who will be in my party for the entire game making keeping/ditching weapons easier as I knew who might use what. In PoE you meet companions later and you don’t really know what might be of use.

 

I am not against revamping inventory management and item system. I am also a big fan of inventory Tetris (one thing I loved about NWN1 was how it’s inventory worked). But I believe that slapping weight restriction or removing stash without making sweeping changes to the current design would only make for a poorer experience. I don’t believe BG was much better as far as inventory goes (weapon design was). In the end you were given your stashes in a form of bag of holding and other containers to get around inventory management. I liked some minor stuff, like limited arrows - I count them among “original xcom clip ammo” mechanics: insignificant annoyances, easy to surpass and not meaningful game mechanics, which fulfill certain fantasy. However, those mechanics will be frustrating or acceptable on a very subjective level, because they are not good, interesting mechanics. Just a busywork, which you might be willing to do or not. So either make it nutritious or cut the fat out, I say.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Wormerine

[Guest 4ward]

 

I don’t believe BG was much better as far as inventory goes (weapon design was). In the end you were given your stashes in a form of bag of holding and other containers to get around inventory management.

 

 

the bag of holding was given to the player in chapter 4 / spellhold since you‘re trapped there and there‘s lots of puzzles / additional items to solve the riddles and get out of the hold otherwise it wouldn‘t have been required IMO. Actually i never used it since it became a mess of all kinds of different items and once i‘d misplace the bag all the items would be gone too.

[Celsius]

To clarify my biggest issue with the current loot - it gets in the way of the pacing. Often times I would realize that I spent much more time picking up and sorting through loot, than it took me to resolve a fight or a quest. Also, selling dozens of items I have no need for looses it's charm after a while. I no longer get that excited about loot, since it is either just clones of things I already have a dozen of, or, on the other hand, many items are so similar in quality and use that I end up with 3-4 weapons/armour pieces for each of my characters that I could potentially use, which induces that choice paralysis in me.

[Guest 4ward]

 

a travelling merchant on the player‘s ship might work so you could sell your items without detour. I agree that it‘s not easy to decide which items are keepers as easy as in say BG2. The old games have restrictions on class/items and there‘s no armour/recovery speed issue.

[champy]

I think the real issue is loot management. 

 

It is indeed annoying to manage 5cp spears with other, high price gear. This mechanic is broken. There needs to be a better way. 

 

I personally always like Metal Gears system of selling loot once it is picked up. Maybe have a fairy or something follow you around and sell your junk for cash. 

[Tigranes]

Having more robust auto-loot-sorting mechanisms would help. E.g. pick up a xaurip spear, mark it once as 'loot', and it goes automatically to your stash thereafter, and at a shop you can sell everything labelled loot with a single click of a button. POE already goes some way towards this solution with the auto-send to stash.

[daven]

I think just contextualizing the stash would be better. Have the weird woman who's a statue in your keep give you some magic item which allows you to access your keep inventory or something.

 

it doesn't make sense you can hold 100000000 x Xaurip spears. I know nearly all games are guilty of this but a little context goes a long way.

[Witness41920]

Hello, just a quick suggestion. It is really tiresome to plow through dozens of items in your stash. A longer run through a couple of lower tier enemies could result in having 30 wooden clubs, 15 leather helmets etc.

 

Selling these is just busy work. It would be nice if enemies dropped either only good weapons/armor (as in not common) or usables, since the latter can actually be helpful and not just things for sale. Cheers.

 

A solution I've seen in other games that is a decent compromise is the ability to have companions or hirelings sell common grade equipment for you. This option auto-clears such items from your stash/inventory and returns to you the sell value of the items. 

 

You could have this option come with a cost for the transaction such as a hiring fee for the hireling or everything being sold at the lowest possible value so you don't get as much coin for your gear as you would if you did the legwork yourself. 

[KDubya]

I seem to remember a sorting tool in PoE inventory where you could have your stash sorted by value. That made selling off mass amounts of loot pretty simple as all the cheap stuff was at the top and you could click through it pretty darn fast.

 

Is that feature not good enough anymore?

[gz33]

I seem to remember a sorting tool in PoE inventory where you could have your stash sorted by value. That made selling off mass amounts of loot pretty simple as all the cheap stuff was at the top and you could click through it pretty darn fast.

 

Is that feature not good enough anymore?

That plus stacking would be great imo, I don't see why anything further would be necessary.

[JerekKruger]

That plus stacking would be great imo, I don't see why anything further would be necessary.

 

I was going to add a "sell all of" option too, but with stacking I assume that would be included. I think these two things would make the loot system good.

[Mannock]

 

I seem to remember a sorting tool in PoE inventory where you could have your stash sorted by value. That made selling off mass amounts of loot pretty simple as all the cheap stuff was at the top and you could click through it pretty darn fast.

 

Is that feature not good enough anymore?

That plus stacking would be great imo, I don't see why anything further would be necessary.

 

 

Why have stacking if you instead just cut down on all the meaningless loot? Instead of having 10 spears with a total worth of 10 gold coins, have 1 spear drop worth 10 gold coins. Less hassle.

[Tigranes]

Really, the crux of the matter is that having every xaurip drop a spear realistically would also be a lot more interesting if there was ever a reason to want that spear to drop, whether because you need to dress yourselves up as xaurips or whatnot. Of course, whenever CRPGs do this, they use specially tagged items instead. 

 

I like some degree of fluff items, because otherwise everything just seems too convenient, but POE probably had a bit much.