Quote:Original post by jackolantern1I think that inventory limits of any kind should be done away with. Does it really add anything to the game, that you are only able to cary 4 sets of full plate, 12 weapons and 100 potions? Unless you are going to go all the way to a Halo'esque "2 weapons and nothing else" system, arbitrary limits just distract me from my primary purpose: collecting and selling loot.
Or you can just have items have weight, and the player becomes encumbered when they are trying to carry too much.
Tile-based Inventory System
Samoth-
Inventory tetris is the situation where you have 4 1x1 squares in your grid and you have to rearrange everything to get those squares in a 2x2 space to add an atime, or rearrange a 2x2 space into a 1x4 space, etc. Its annoying and often times leads to to leave items you have room for because you cant rearrange the items to fit it.
This is not fun, especially in a game with a strong central looting mechanic. As you put it, it becomes permanently annoying.
As for your other notes on the topic, basically what you are saying is inventory systems designed with little regard for the needs of the greater game design are bad, which is rather obvious. Of course if you are filling a limited inventory with quest items that's not well thought out, or letting players haul thousands of items in an MMO you are wasting resources the player could hardly enjoy.
Your last point of carrying weapons openly that don't fit in the inventory only works in the first place if that is an option. In most cases the inventory system is where you carry weapons, if you aren't putting it in the inventory you aren't carrying it. Second, are you saying you can hide a spear in your backpack so you don't have to carry it openly?
I guess this isn't you, but I'd like a system that actually makes some since, no matter how abstracted it is.
Inventory tetris is the situation where you have 4 1x1 squares in your grid and you have to rearrange everything to get those squares in a 2x2 space to add an atime, or rearrange a 2x2 space into a 1x4 space, etc. Its annoying and often times leads to to leave items you have room for because you cant rearrange the items to fit it.
This is not fun, especially in a game with a strong central looting mechanic. As you put it, it becomes permanently annoying.
As for your other notes on the topic, basically what you are saying is inventory systems designed with little regard for the needs of the greater game design are bad, which is rather obvious. Of course if you are filling a limited inventory with quest items that's not well thought out, or letting players haul thousands of items in an MMO you are wasting resources the player could hardly enjoy.
Your last point of carrying weapons openly that don't fit in the inventory only works in the first place if that is an option. In most cases the inventory system is where you carry weapons, if you aren't putting it in the inventory you aren't carrying it. Second, are you saying you can hide a spear in your backpack so you don't have to carry it openly?
I guess this isn't you, but I'd like a system that actually makes some since, no matter how abstracted it is.
Quote:Original post by JasRonqWhat I'm saying is that if an item is in your bag, it is "gone", or put differently, it isn't visible. If you hold it in your hands, it is visible, and AI in some games even responds to that if it is a weapon (Syndicate comes to mind, as a very early example).
are you saying you can hide a spear in your backpack so you don't have to carry it openly?
Now, a spear (or a halberd) might be 1.8-2.2 meters long, so it quite obviously doesn't fit into your pocket, nor into the biggest sack that you could possibly find. You therefore have no other choice than to carry it in your hands, if you want to bring one. Similarly, a longsword that is maybe 1.3 to 1.5 meters won't fit in a backpack or a pocket, either.
You could carry a sword in a sheath, but it will be as evidently visible as if you carried it in your hand (though a well-made game might give you a chance to hide it if you have a cloak/cape and maybe some kind of hiding skill).
So, for my "Robin Hood like" rescue-off-the-gallows example, you would have to enter a fortified city through the city gates where guards will see you. If you carry a spear or a halberd, they will stop you and confiscate the weapons (and most likely jail you). So you have to find a workaround to bring the weapons into the city. Limited inventory is a plot element and an additional challenge here.
On the other hand, if every item is just a size/weight agnostic slot in the inventory, everyone in your group might as well bring a great sword, a pavise and 5 readily loaded crossbows, 2000 bolts, as well as 5 large barrels of oil, a burning torch, and maybe a cheval de frise too. And don't forget the 120 healing potions.
Which is why grid inventory systems are a bad choice. They offer no complex planning like you just exampled and provide only annoyances and frustrations in packing a bag. I quite agree with your points in the last point though. Unfortunately few games have such a subtle and intricate system.
Everything depends on the point of the game and how this is going to be depicted. If you've got a kill-loot-sell dynamic going on, I don't think inventory limits add all that much unless they're quite large or travel is easy. On the other hand, if you're trying to work concealment into plot elements, I think you should go for a more obvious, clear cut system as JasRonq suggested-- maybe even a paper doll with front facing and side facing slots could work if access speed to gear was a factor.
Without such detail and other factors relating to the world itself I just don't see your Robin Hood example being much more than a gimmick. It works in movies because it happens one time-- then you'd expect (after the king's assassinated or the prison break) the guards to get wise and start prohibiting cloaks or stabbing pitchforks into the wagons of hay.
I didn't play it but in terms of games using containers within containers I believe Ultima Online used this and had a mechanic of not being able to steal certain items out of a pack if they were also in a bag. I can't speak about how cumbersome it was, but at least you could use it as a defense.
Without such detail and other factors relating to the world itself I just don't see your Robin Hood example being much more than a gimmick. It works in movies because it happens one time-- then you'd expect (after the king's assassinated or the prison break) the guards to get wise and start prohibiting cloaks or stabbing pitchforks into the wagons of hay.
I didn't play it but in terms of games using containers within containers I believe Ultima Online used this and had a mechanic of not being able to steal certain items out of a pack if they were also in a bag. I can't speak about how cumbersome it was, but at least you could use it as a defense.
Basically, keep the system as simple as possible and only add features when it makes the game more fun.
Limit by weight because if you could hold everything you ever found in the game, you would obsessively pick up everything in the game, which is not fun, and every character would have the same items. By limiting weight, you reduce an unfun behavior making the game more fun by its absence. You also create diversity in characters increasing replayability and your own sense of specialness.
Your robin hood example could be fun if the AI caught on to your tricks but the game provided you ways to get around that creating a cat and mouse game of tactics. You would then need to figure out how to create that game play and agust systems accordingly.
Ultimately though, use the simplest solution that fits the needs of the design in a fun way and no more than that. The grid inventory might have a use that fits that, but in most cases the grid part is unnecessary and gets in the way of otherwise fun looting.
Limit by weight because if you could hold everything you ever found in the game, you would obsessively pick up everything in the game, which is not fun, and every character would have the same items. By limiting weight, you reduce an unfun behavior making the game more fun by its absence. You also create diversity in characters increasing replayability and your own sense of specialness.
Your robin hood example could be fun if the AI caught on to your tricks but the game provided you ways to get around that creating a cat and mouse game of tactics. You would then need to figure out how to create that game play and agust systems accordingly.
Ultimately though, use the simplest solution that fits the needs of the design in a fun way and no more than that. The grid inventory might have a use that fits that, but in most cases the grid part is unnecessary and gets in the way of otherwise fun looting.
If you want to use a grid-based inventory, you can avoid item shuffling by giving items a size. If you put in an item of a larder size, it will ‘gray out’ multiple blocks in the grid.
I use this in one of my own project where the hero can use bags that can only hold a certain number of items and only up to a given size. A bag can have 20 slots available and hold up to small items.
Adding a small item will use up two slots in the bag:
Tiny 1 potions, materials, etc
Small 2 Books, Scrolls, possibly a wand, Daggers
Normal 4 Short Swords, axes, torch, arrow/bolt quiver
Large 8 Long Sword, Battle Axe, Staff, Small Shields
Huge 16 Two handed swords, Plate (Non bendable) Armours, Lances
This way you can take size into consideration without a need for inventory Tetris
I use this in one of my own project where the hero can use bags that can only hold a certain number of items and only up to a given size. A bag can have 20 slots available and hold up to small items.
Adding a small item will use up two slots in the bag:
Tiny 1 potions, materials, etc
Small 2 Books, Scrolls, possibly a wand, Daggers
Normal 4 Short Swords, axes, torch, arrow/bolt quiver
Large 8 Long Sword, Battle Axe, Staff, Small Shields
Huge 16 Two handed swords, Plate (Non bendable) Armours, Lances
This way you can take size into consideration without a need for inventory Tetris
I quite like Inventory Tetris, but as long as it adds something to the game. RE4 and Deus Ex are good examples of where I think it worked well - you're forced to make interesting decisions about what weapons to keep and which to discard. So you might want to take that huge powerful rocket launcher, but to do so you might only be able to carry a couple of regular guns. Alternatively you can hoard the smaller guns so you've got a rapid fire pistol, a silenced pistol, a revolver, an SMG etc. giving you good variety but having to fall back on (say) grenades for heavily armoured opponents, which are generally more difficult to use.
Grid inventories work here because of the different playing styles that the different weapons allow you to use, and the trade-offs you can make between them. Plus it's the *only* use of your inventory - plot critical items go in a separate list, and you don't have to harvest and sell enemy bodies for loot, you just get the money directly. If your game does involve the kill-loot-sell loop then grid inventories are usually just annoying as they're big enough that you don't have trade off weapons against each other. Alternatively have a separate 'loot' inventory that has separate limits.
Grid inventories work here because of the different playing styles that the different weapons allow you to use, and the trade-offs you can make between them. Plus it's the *only* use of your inventory - plot critical items go in a separate list, and you don't have to harvest and sell enemy bodies for loot, you just get the money directly. If your game does involve the kill-loot-sell loop then grid inventories are usually just annoying as they're big enough that you don't have trade off weapons against each other. Alternatively have a separate 'loot' inventory that has separate limits.
Seconded. Grid inventory worked great in RE4. It forced you to make interesting choices, not just between Weapon X and Weapon Y, but between immediate firepower, immediate healing ability, and long-term investment in health increases. Working with limited resources practically defines a survival horror game. I would say that physical inventory spaces are generally more intuitive, immediate and thus satisfying than a bunch of numbers representing weight and load capacity.
A weight-based system has the property that if something weighs just a little, the decision to toss it or keep it is very inconsequential; good design avoids inconsequential actions. I'd say a well-tuned weight-based system works not unlike a grid without the graphics: you have to have significant differences between the weights of the objects, you have to have a pretty high minimum weight, and there's little point to having tiny fractions of weight.
If you wanted, you could do a grid inventory without inventory tetris and without sacrificing obviousness. Call it the Duffle Bag System in contrast to RE4's Suitcase System. Just have a bag logically consist of a specific number of "space", auto-arrange the items and empty space to fit when they are dropped in, and when a simple rearrangement won't do, have the bag deform slightly while retaining its volume.
A weight-based system has the property that if something weighs just a little, the decision to toss it or keep it is very inconsequential; good design avoids inconsequential actions. I'd say a well-tuned weight-based system works not unlike a grid without the graphics: you have to have significant differences between the weights of the objects, you have to have a pretty high minimum weight, and there's little point to having tiny fractions of weight.
If you wanted, you could do a grid inventory without inventory tetris and without sacrificing obviousness. Call it the Duffle Bag System in contrast to RE4's Suitcase System. Just have a bag logically consist of a specific number of "space", auto-arrange the items and empty space to fit when they are dropped in, and when a simple rearrangement won't do, have the bag deform slightly while retaining its volume.
Weight is a good system to start with, but size can be equally good. I think that in any situation that would consider a grid system, having each item have weight and size which have running totals for your person is better. Have a max size and weight and each item can have a different impact on each. It might be negligible for one but not for the other.
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