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Encumbrance Based Inventory System

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 5:14 am
by Darwoth
slot based inventory has always sucked, copy UO's encumberance based inventory system imo

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 6:29 am
by JohnCarver
Darwoth wrote:slot based inventory has always sucked, copy UO's encumberance based inventory system imo


Yes

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 7:51 am
by ImpalerWrG
No, encumbrance based systems lack the visual and tactile immediacy of the Diablo style we have now, people can pick up and run with these instantly, while encumbrance systems take much longer to get up too speed on due to the necessity to learn and memorize so many weights/masses.

If you want an expanded 'forage inventory' go with the ole 'sack' solution from Haven, a cloth or leather item equipped to the hand to give another block of storage space. Sacrificing the hand slot/s is a sufficient trade off for the larger inventory space.

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 8:00 am
by JohnCarver
ImpalerWrG wrote: people can pick up and run with these instantly,


Your argument against the superior system is people are not familiar with it?

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 8:08 am
by ImpalerWrG
JohnCarver wrote:
ImpalerWrG wrote: people can pick up and run with these instantly,


Your argument against the superior system is people are not familiar with it?


First rule of Interface: The quicker an interface is learn-able and usable the better it is.
So encumbrance is by definition inferior not superior.

Their is no problem with the current system that can't be solved with stacking of some of the lower end foragables like grass and berries, if carrying more of these is your driving motivation.

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 8:16 am
by JohnCarver
Carrying 25 Golden bars should certainly have a different effect on a player than carrying 25 pieces of grass. That is my problem.

I also have no clue what your 'rule' about interfaces has to do with this mechanic choice. A simple mechanic is not always the best mechanic . I believe that holds true for this case.

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 8:33 am
by Kandarim
ImpalerWrG wrote:First rule of Interface: The quicker an interface is learn-able and usable the better it is.


That is so incredibly short-sighted. An interface should be intuitive to use, and allow someone that never worked with it before to figure it out easily without any help. I dread to think of the kind of person that needs their hand held to understand how an encumbrance system works. An interface should never be "learnable": it should be self-evident.

In our current "predicament" I think encumbrance would be a good solution: an easy way to balance how much of what stuff you can take with you.

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:02 am
by ImpalerWrG
Kandarim wrote:That is so incredibly short-sighted. An interface should be intuitive to use, and allow someone that never worked with it before to figure it out easily without any help. I dread to think of the kind of person that needs their hand held to understand how an encumbrance system works. An interface should never be "learnable": it should be self-evident.


Your basically agreeing with me, Intuitive interfaces would be lowest amount of learning and fastest to use, exactly what I said was optimum, I simply stated the general principle of how to compare one interface to another. The truly self-evident interface is an unattainable ideal.

I maintain that encumbrance systems take more time to learn because you must REMEMBER all thouse item weights to know how much you can actually carry BEFORE your actually engaged in the picking up process and hit your limit. Diablo interface eliminates this difficulty, if you have X spaces unoccupied you have pick up X items, no math no calculating.

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:10 am
by lachlaan
ImpalerWrG wrote:Intuitive interfaces would be lowest amount of learning and fastest to use, exactly what I said was optimum, I simply stated the general principle of how to compare one interface to another. The truly self-evident interface is an unattainable ideal.


I think you first need to consider the audience MM intends to cater to. The type of players that might enjoy salem aren't the type of player that just wandered in from farmville as a first gaming experience. It'll be people like me or even more experienced that have at least once in their life played an oldschool RPG and thought "Ahem .. I can carry a billion hammers in a tiny backpack, legit."

I too would like to see something like encumberance. It'd give a good reason to raise phlegm as a non wallbashing character. Would add more diversity to the game :)

Re: Purely Food

PostPosted: Wed Sep 24, 2014 10:55 am
by Darwoth
as a baseline "penalty" encumberance also opens all kinds of side possibilities for it's use.

"injuries" while ***** around and encumbered, combat or darkness mob poisons that weaken and thus encumber you, witch curses, poisoned food, tainted water, suffocating mine air etc are all things that could be intertwined with said mechanic to create a ripple effect, thus depth.