Crafting and Inventory beefs

To some this may come off as a dirge or tirade, and to others an open expression of ideas and opinion. I have to take issue with the inventory and crafting systems that the SotA team has decided upon. Yes, retro is nice some times and can have good effect in the right circumstances, but the weight-based bag inventory system is 20 years out of date. The current RPG players expect an ultra-realistic looking game to have mostly-realistic game mechanics, and let's face it, putting a guillotine in a sachel is just not realistic by any stretch of the imagination. I really feel that a game that gamers want should include not only weight/encumbrance into consideration, but dimension as well. Keeping sachels around for the smaller items is alright, but having to enlist the services of a horse-drawn flatbed wagon or multiple PCs to move the larger items would make the inventory system much more robust and believable in my opinion.

Secondarily, if a game is going to be more realistic in the graphics and inventory systems, it should also include a crafting system that is more involved than two mouse-clicks to reduce a piece of lumber into a pile of dowels. I think that having an item sitting in your house is all well and good and you can feel pride about how chic or impressive your domicile looks, but if you actually had to put REAL effort into making the items, I think that players would appreciate them much more. For example, rather than using a recipe system of simply placing all items on a table and hitting the cleverly placed button labeled "CRAFT," perhaps the player should have to engage in an activity that has the user sand down and finish each piece of wood and hammer in each dowel without precise instructions on the screen of the order and process needed to assemble the final product. If I'm going to spend time crafting in the game, I would like to consider myself a craftsman; not a button-clicker.

My friend who played the original Ultima Online religiously pointed this out to me as essentially saying that the SotA game is the preverbial 3D upgrade to the same game from 20 years ago and I had to at least partially agree with him. He was so disgusted with the apparent lack of ambition and progress during the crafting video that he said he had no desire to spend money on or play this game.

Does anyone else agree with this? Am I just spitting into the wind? If we raise enough of a ruckus, would the devs be willing to change the system even if they are this far into its development? Just my two cents on the matter. Take them or leave them.

Concerned Player: Tom

 

It's difficult to me to comment on the inventory system without playing it. I really don't want to have to think about inventory. I don't want to feel the need to walk around with many sets of gear. I don’t mind having inventory annoyances as a solo player…but it makes the game terrible fast if I’m with a group of people and everyone’s dealing with juggling bag space all the time.

As for crafting, my thought has been that you'd get a budget of say 8 hours / day of "fast" crafting. But after this there are ways to perform tasks to refill this and / or engage in slow crafting. Essentially, one person should not be crafting 100 swords / day just given the mats.

I’m open to any and all ideas on how crafting could require more “skill”, but I generally suspect that the people who like crafting really just like standing around and chatting with people. Not turning crafting into a twitch jumping puzzle.

 

The game is still very, very early in development. Once the game is in beta then I think your concerns should be expressed. Don't give up on SotA yet, give it time.

 

I do understand what you mean bombs19…building a wardrobe should take a little more time than 5 seconds and carrying 500 items with a mass of 3t is a little unrealistic.

I do like games where your strength is the limit for your bag. Always deciding…do I take this unidentified and possible magic item and discard one of my other items or do I let the item where it is, go back to the town, empty my backpack and return…with the possibility that someone else took the item in the meantime…or do I take the item and crawl back home.

As crafting system I would like to see something where you could make failures and produce (if you are sloppy) just junk, where you have to rotate the material, change tools during production or simply put the chair legs at the right position of the seat to create a chair.
For example to create a sword you must heat up a steel blank. The color of the steel is giving you the information if it is ready for forging. If it’s not hot enough your steel blank could break on the anvil…to hot and it twists just inside the blacksmith’s fire. You took it to the right time out of the fire…now you have to click on that orange steel blank to let your hammer hit that spot. Hitting too often the same spot will result in a failure as you produce just something like a steel plate but if you have done everything (more or less) right you will have now a blunt sword blade.
It would be realistic and fun…but maybe just for a few people. Many could be quite frustrated if after 10 minutes of different production steps they just get a crooked bookshelf.

 

Considering how early we are in development, I'd say that we're a ways off from anything written in stone, but it's good to raise concerns early and often. Just remember where the game is in the development process.

As for inventory space.. leave the strength / encumbrance mechanic at the door... nothing pulls you out of immersion more than suddenly having to manage bag space.. Kill epic mob - ooops.. gotta get rid of some loot before I can pick up loot. Talk about a buzz kill.

In regards to crafting... I want a system that requires some interaction, but I don't want it hyper realistic. And while I really enjoy crafting... (and intend to be a crafter) there's really only so much realism you can incorporate before it becomes tedious.

 

How the backpack looks is currently at almost the bottom of my priority list tbh, but I will say that it worked exceptionally well in UO and I find myself wishing that most games used that system rather than the now industry standard of x number of squares that you are overloaded if you are carrying 81 individual feathers, or 81 individual rhino leather hides.

For decorative items, I don't really care how I ran sport it around as long as I can buy/build/find something that serves no other purpose than lookin good that I can stuff in a corner of my house. If, however. It we're. Trebuchet, fully working and massive damage or house destroying, I would expect that it would not fit in my pack, and I think you would find that the dev team would not like that either.

In short, if it's decorative fluff, what does it matter.

 

For the large items, like chairs and guillotines, I really would rather see them not go into the backpack. Put it on your cursor, and have it shown in front of the character like they are pushing/carrying it around. Yes, that means you can only carry ONE large object at a time. I'm totally fine with that. You have no business putting three full-size chairs and a table in your backpack.

 

This is a good point but can poses problems. If you sell them how will someone carry more then one to their house. Now you are into a mail system. I like the thoughts on big items but think going into the backpack works just increase the weight of them so that you can only carry a few.

 

This is a good point but can poses problems. If you sell them how will someone carry more then one to their house. Now you are into a mail system. I like the thoughts on big items but think going into the backpack works just increase the weight of them so that you can only carry a few.

 

I don't want some sort of crafting mini-game. I'd rather have the game consider my skill, recipe and components and decide if I've made an "Most awesome chair of comfortable butt-cheeking" vs "An ordinary chair" for me.

 

And if you have to move/travel to another hex, and/or use your cursor for anything else, during that carrying time? Putting items on the ground so they can be stolen?

Putting stuff in the top slots is a good solution (which Chris mentioned is the current plan), although personally, given there are "bags of holding" (if not in name, in intent) I see no issue with putting an entire bed into a backpack.

Or put another way... Putting a bed into a backpack is fun and funny.
Having to carry a bed, or making it more tedious? Neither fun nor funny.

 

I meant to move items around in a small area. To transport multiple items, or move between hexes, then the top slots are a good solution, as long as they are limited. Perhaps some items even take multiple slots. Using a pack animal, wagon, or otherwise "shipping" it home would also work.

I havn't seen anywhere where "bags of holding" have been intended. In fact, to achieve the feeling in a similar vein to the Ultima games, magic isn't a constantly used thing. A magic bag that is bigger on the inside than on the outside, something that would work like Mythran's house in Pagan, would be something quite extraordinary. I wouldn't expect (or want!) to see them readily available.

 

I as well have proposed a more involved crafting system, where each craft has it's own player-learned skills. For such a system to work there needs to be considerable avenue for improvement else the system becomes tedious.

For instance, the blacksmith skill in A Tale in the Desert emulated pounding on a metal blank to shape in into the final product. Quality was determined by how well it conformed to the template and ranged to 9999. A beginner was lucky to hit 2500. In the entire world there were no more than a dozen players that could consistently make things in the 9000s.

To be exceptional at fishing you needed to know which of over 50 fish appeared where, at what time of year and what time of day. You also needed to know which of over 20 different lures to use.

If increased difficulty or complexity does not directly improve one's skill at it then it soon becomes tedious. Difficulty by itself adds no value to the player after the initial experience.


The argument really boils down to who should have the skill, the player or the character.

 

Actually I am on your side but still like the strength as limit part. Maybe I should explain what I have in mind:
Generally you can carry an infinite number of items but if you are not strong enough to carry their weight you will have some disadvantages.
Every Item has a weight…your clothes, your weapons, your crafting material…maybe even your money…carrying a million gold coins could be sapping.

As long as you are in the range of 0%-75% usage you can move without any hindrance.

With 75%-100% you are a little exhausted and you movement slow down to 90%.

Above 100% your movements slow down to 50% (+ maybe some other disadvantages)

Let’s say you can carry 50 kg with your character.
During your walk in the dungeon you picked up some items and now you carry 47 kg. As you walk along the epic dungeon boss appears. After some minutes of fighting you slaugther him and start to loot. Items with a weight of 20 kg you can find.
Now you can go back to town with your 90% movement and return with an empty bag or take the loot and proceed with 50% movement.

 

The game is still in early development... things can be upgraded and changed as times progesses, we'll see how things look in the months to come.

 

It works in full loot pvp, if you had a limited time to loot the corpse before someone else came along and topped you for basically just standing there (being all distracted while looting). People could hide their best gear at the very bottom of the stash pile so you wouldn't have time to find it before you had to flee/bag was no longer lootable.

But is pretty horrible in pve, where you actually want to find things quickly and have convenience and whatnot.

 

Understandable.. unfortunately, this mechanic tends to favor certain classes. Sure it's more realistic, but it kind of sucks when as a non-strength based class people have to decide on putting points into STR (or whatever affects carrying capacity) just to be able to carry more items. In my experience playing the inventory managment game just isn't fun.

The idea of reduced movement speed isn't bad either, but perhaps it's better suited to a single player experience... it's a mechanic that just seems to get in the way of having fun. Imagine the scenario.. 5 people have heard a rumor of something stirring in the local caves.... they decide to go investigate and load up.. and then have to wait for Pokey McPokerson because he's slightly encumbered.

 

Pack horses...

 

Yes…indeed a mighty knight will be able to carry quite more than the weak mage…but maybe just at first sight.

Knight A can carry 80 kg, Thief B can carry 60 kg and Mage C just 40 kg.
- the knight A will have a shield, a one-hand-weapon (and maybe a two-hand-weapon for change), a complete suit of heavy armor…he will carry quite a lot even without any loot. That way there is maybe just 40 kg left in his bag.
- the thief B will have some leather armor, some daggers and maybe a bow…is equipment isn’t really heavy but also not that light. That way there is maybe 35 kg left for loot.
- the mage C will have some robes and magic book/wand/staff…his equipment is much lighter. That way there may be 30 kg left for loot.

You see…the difference between them is not that much.

But what about the idea of shared weight.
As in your example you travel with 5 people to a cave. The strength of all will be thrown into the same pot. Now the party has a maximum weight of 300 kg. Everyone has his own inventory with his own items but the weight of the items is shared. That way no one has to wait on a slow overloaded member…as everyone in the group has the same movement restrictions.
Something like an unspoken “Hey big guy…could you carry that for me?” between group members....an automatic temporary item change between them to achieve the best movement speed.

But the idea with the pack horse (or donkey) of Owain is also a possibility. You buy a pack horse following your character ingame…but would it follow you into a dungeon? Moving inside a slippery cave is dangerous itself but with monsters inside your horse is dead within minutes.
Maybe you have to tie it outside and if you are overloaded you have to temporarily leaf the cave, move equipment to the horse and head back. (That would even open some interesting possibilities for thief’s…”Oh…such a poor horse…all alone…come here and get a sugar cube”…maybe even resulting in the need of hiring an npc-guard for your pack horse.)

 

In UO, if you had too much in your pack you would lag behind and be forced to take something out...... maybe do something like this in the game?