Different inventory limit criteria

[nonsonogiucas]

As far as I know the possible criteria for limiting the amount of items in a container (inventory being the character itself viewed as a container) are:

1. Slot based - 1 item = 1 slot (no stacking) (ex. Salem... mostly)
2. Slot based - 1 item-type = 1 slot (everything stacks up to N) (ex. Minecraft... mostly)
3. Slot based - items have different sizes (ex. Neverwinter Nights)
4. Weight based - store whatever you want up to maximum capacity (ex. TES)
5. Combinations (most inventory systems are combinations of the above strategies)

The reason I would like to address this comes from me reading again the forum post about your favorite 3 petty annoyances where a discussion about how annoying is to dig and haul lime around takes place.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that you can only carry (lift) a single lime boulder at a time while you can carry the equivalent of 5 boulders in your backpack ((16+8 = 24) / 5 = 4.8 )?
Also that you could place the equivalent of 5 boulders in a chest and then carry it instead...
Also that you can only place 4 lime boulders on a sled but if you chip them and place them in chests then the sled capacity goes from 4*5=20 to 4*25=100?
Isn't it even more odd that you can haul the same amount of stone boulders when they give an amount of single items that is so wildly different?

Ok, it is not broken in the sense that chipping lime boulders is effort, and effort should be awarded...

However, couldn't be that the strategy used for limiting inventory and hauling is somewhat related to the distinct lack of fun that is experienced while moving around lime?

My sensation is that lime digging has been purposely made more inefficient as an attempt to raise its value as a resource... If I am correct, wouldn't it be advisable to explore different ways to keep lime value high while making lime digging more fun?

...also discuss how the backpack gets full when you put in 24 stones or 24 cobwebs and how this affects foraging runs.

[Kandarim]

I'd still argue that the mechanics asking for as much lime as we currently need (or at least want) to use is at fault here. Your major gripes seem to be with the lime digging.

As for foraging and inventory space in general: I always found the current amounts strike a good balance between carry capacity and convenience.

[Feone]

I'd still argue that the mechanics asking for as much lime as we currently need (or at least want) to use is at fault here. Your major gripes seem to be with the lime digging.

As for foraging and inventory space in general: I always found the current amounts strike a good balance between carry capacity and convenience.

Agreed. Lime has issues, but there are already plans to change that afaik.

If anything I'd like to see some more equipable storage options.
Example, rather than a general purpose backpack perhaps a big pouch that specifically carries things like nuts, seeds & berries. Restricting other items but taking many more of these types than a regular backpack. Perhaps more of these types of specialised containers.

[nonsonogiucas]

Your major gripes seem to be with the lime digging.

I do not have as a matter of fact complaints about anything in particular, I do not dislike (nor like) lime digging, at least no more than anything else in the game at the moment.
It is my fault that I only mentioned the issue about lime, what I wanted to discuss is how different approaches to inventory management would affect issues that are similar to lime digging and hauling. Sorry about that.

As for foraging and inventory space in general: I always found the current amounts strike a good balance between carry capacity and convenience.

I assume when you talk about convenience you mean from a developer side (convenient for the purpose of limiting inventory space).
To go on with your argument I'll point out one good thing I can think of about strategy 1 (1 item, 1 slot):
It forces the player to choose wisely what to bring back home. You have n slot and n items in your inventory, you see an item on the ground and you know that if you are to bring that new item home you will have to discard one from the inventory.

But then again, that could be said about any inventory implementation that poses some kind of limit.

What I dislike about it is the lack of variety. Weight limit would do the same, only you would look to the weight of the new item and compare it to items in the inventory in order to decide not only if to free space for it but also how. For example if you wanted to carry one more rabbit you could either choose to drop 3 lime rocks or 20 crickets (I'm estimating weights for the sake of the argument).

If anything I'd like to see some more equipable storage options.
Example, rather than a general purpose backpack perhaps a big pouch that specifically carries things like nuts, seeds & berries. Restricting other items but taking many more of these types than a regular backpack. Perhaps more of these types of specialised containers.

I would like that too, Minecraft has something like that as part of the Forestry mod and I always found that very useful and fun, you can make different backpacks for different "category" of items, each one requiring different resources to be created (not really cheap), they even have an option for automatically put items of the appropriate type into (when collecting) or out of the backpack (when consuming).

I'd like to point out that containers for specific purpose is a thematic implementation of Strategy 2 where in 1 slot you fit 1 container that holds a "stack" of up to N items of that type. I say this because someone could mistake this implementation for a free-form inventory where you can have bags inside bags inside bags, which is not.

[Kandarim]

I assume when you talk about convenience you mean from a developer side (convenient for the purpose of limiting inventory space).

I was actually talking about player convenience: the ability to take with you enough items to be worthwhile vs the developer requirement of balanced gameplay.

What I dislike about it is the lack of variety. Weight limit would do the same, only you would look to the weight of the new item and compare it to items in the inventory in order to decide not only if to free space for it but also how. For example if you wanted to carry one more rabbit you could either choose to drop 3 lime rocks or 20 crickets (I'm estimating weights for the sake of the argument).

What I dislike about this is that it will (according to your explanation, and I don't see any other argumentable logic for it) be completely skewed: weight (or for that matter, multiple slots/item as in HnH) will most likely be dictated by reality arguments (weight/size). In a lot of the cases this does not concur with the actual value of the items in question (for your example: one rabbit vs 20 crickets? I know which I'll pick). Of course the devs could go for an arbitrary inventory limit measurer, but then that just feels like they are trying to screw us over. Realism should stop at a certain point...

[nonsonogiucas]

In a lot of the cases this does not concur with the actual value of the items in question (for your example: one rabbit vs 20 crickets? I know which I'll pick). Of course the devs could go for an arbitrary inventory limit measurer, but then that just feels like they are trying to screw us over. Realism should stop at a certain point...

You are using as an argument the fact that some of those items have a monetary value that has been forced by the devs in ways that are somewhat clumsy or nonsensical.
In the real world value depends on the balance between demand and offer... When you force in the system demand for items (say, crickets, by buying an infinite amount of them for a price that doesn't compare to anything else) you screw the game economy.

If you leave the economy to the players however, as I hope will happen with the private stalls, you will never have values that do not depend on things like the amount of effort that is needed to create / extract / find the resource in question.

[TruthTeller]

Italian speaking about the economy.

[nonsonogiucas]

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