Encumbrance

I play another game with regional banks and it works out pretty well. When I go to a new town I have never been to then yeah.. I am kind of starting over a bit. But if I return to a town then there is already stuff there from previous visits. It is kind of like setting up different operations in different areas. In time you have stuff spread all over the world.

However, this will probably not work to well if the 250 limit is intended and not a bug.

 

Encumbrance as a core mechanic is fine for a first pass. But item weights do not appear to be balanced.

They need to let us know if / when they're going to do another pass at item weight balancing so we don't waste time writing up weight bugs. Like, the huge Oracle Statue Head weighs 5 units yet a weapon can weigh just as much. Or a recipe weighs 1 unit yet most other paper type items weigh only 0.1. The list of items that have seemingly incorrect weights is quite long.

I like that you move slower and slower as you get more over-encumbered and eventually can't move at all. I don't think you should be able to /zone or /home if you can't move. The game can also give better indicators if you're going to go over that limit in the transaction window.

Haven't had any time to test its effects in combat yet though.

Plus, I find it funny that backers that have so much digital goods are complaining that their level 5 noob with 10 STR can't carry it all. First World Problems?

Now imagine when you start at Level 1 at launch.

 

Wait , wait , wait , whats going on here ! :| I know you're using bad humor, but 7 deer carcasses should be a lot of raw meat that should feed an Avatar and his family for several months -- I don't think its an extreme at all that you're overencumbered after picking up 7 deer. The optimum isn't between 392 and 7, its maybe even less than 7.

I just want to note that, as this conversation is going on, that again, I've had several shields, close to ten swords, two pairs of armor, lots of tools, and a whole lot of other junk on my person without being overencumbered... so I don't see how the limits are too strict. People please offer me exact illustrations of what you're putting in your bag so I don't think you're crazy or being silly!

Picking up a lot of logs of course should break the back of the encumbrance limit, if the log weight is anywhere near realistic, same as with deer carcasses. But, really, you should be able to cut a deer carcass down into a lot of cuts of meat, and a log down into several sections, and so get a lot from one harvest, which you could use in turn for many turns of crafting.

I'm going to try to do my own experiments, and do some precise recording of what I can have in my inventory when the limit hits.

 

Great points but a fool's errand IMO to inject real life weightings with any kind of specificity into the game. For example, in reality, if you're wearing plate, you can't carry ANYTHING.

Rather than realistic weights, which would render this game utterly unplayable, the devs should err on the side of letting the players carry a LOT of stuff but not so much that they can farm endlessly without some sort of break. Where that balance is, I'm not smart enough to know. But, as in life, err on the side of levity, not weightiness. Please.

 

I don't think it would be unplayable if they just took everything else into proper consideration... allowing you to cut down a carcass on the field, allowing you to cut down logs into sections on the field. One deer would be a good harvest for a hunter, giving you a lot to sell or eat.

I do think its okay to give players some leeway on weight limits and give them a little more space than is realistic, so I'm not expecting realism personally. I think though it should at least be semi-realistic. It should "feel" okay -- not completely break a suspension of disbelief. And at least from my experience so far it doesn't seem so bad a balance. I'll continue to experiment with different items, and I hope people report here with some specifics from their experiences.

Adjusting the penalty to be more gradual I think would improve it quite a bit. I don't know what the regen rate is, but say its 2 focus per scond -- if you pick up a 2 lb sword over limit, and its -2 focus, it'll match your regen rate, giving you some grace, then if you pick up another, it'll only be -2 focus per second, which is easily recoverable, etc.... and only be bad if you pick up a couple more after that. I think that change will make encumbrance feel a lot more forgiving. But even after that, when the -10 kicks in , its a lot better than most games that ground you to a halt when you meet your limit.

And then, a lot of the weight of items probably have to be taken into re-consideration.

 

Btw, also something else I'm hoping is if in the final game we have hirelings, we can have the hirelings carry extra inventory for us. You would only have to pay them their agreed upon wage, of course. Anything they'd carry for you is yours.

 

Good points but I actually think we're better off if we "break a suspension of disbelief" and go beyond "semi-realistic" and just accept that the game won't work properly with any modicum of realism.

I mean, do you know how heavy gold is? Armor? You can't carry a deer with armor on. So why even pretend to be realistic? Just let us carry a lot of stuff. Up to a point. Query, to what point.

Penalizing playability is a phrase that speaks for itself.

Anyway, this beaten horse is beyond dead.

 

Well. You know what we can carry now. How much, specifically, would you increase that by if this was your game?

 

I agree with Budner, we should let this poor discussion rest in peace(s?), so I'll close by easing Redfish's worries:

I was mostly being silly. I'd at first attempted to give some more realistic measurements of my interactions with encumberance, mostly by picking an everyday item from my inventory that had a significant impact on my weight limit, and discussing the comparisons between the before & after phases.
However, as I started writing my post, it started to shape itself into something absolutely ridiculous (perhaps a statement to the condition of this thread? ), and I opted to run with it and see where it led me. The end result was something that made me chuckle, and I decided to share it with you all.

I did run into trouble when the modest collection on items I'd amassed in my short play session quickly began to bog me down. And I noted, with some amusement, that heaviest item type was the 7 Deer Carcasses .

For now, I'm viewing it as a challenge rather than a setback, and we'll look to the future to see how I feel about it then. I've gone back and made a note about my post being comedic in nature, just to avoid further confusion.

 

Carrying around five swords, three shields, lots of gold and several other items right now and I am far away from being over-encumbered and some are worried that they cannot carry seven (!) deer carcasses?
Come on, at least bit of realism would be nice. This is not the Truck Simulator in which you haul tons of items around, this is an RPG.
I really don't understand the need to be able to carry around everything you find without having to worry about being over-encumbered. Portalarium is doing the absolute right thing with the encumbrance system. Does it need to be tweaked? Yes. Should we be able to carry insane amounts of items? No. Should it be at least a bit realisitc? Yes!

 

Oooh, trucks. We should have trucks.

 

I reached level 20 last night and maxed out my encumbrance reduction to 100% (because I can't stand being overloaded)...and it helped alot...

That being said...I still hope they re-evaluate the weights of reagents and various items that are overweight. I do not mind the mechanic at all, I just don't want to weaken my character with points that only help with that aspect. If there is an excess of points to be earned that are just able to be spent on side-attributes needed for general game-play then that's okay with me.

 

This is how you transport ore! Not putting it in your backpack and jumping across flower fields while whistling a tune

 

From the patch notes this morning,

 

The penalty itself is even too harsh - we kill some mobs, loot a few things, then BAM! encumbered, and now not only do we have movement penalties, but our focus regen stops entirely as well when we try to move.

This is way too harsh, and that's not even touching how little we are able to carry in terms of gaining a decent amount of xp and gold when we go out killing and looting.

When I go out for a killing/xping session I want to gain a few levels, and reap a decent amount of gold before returning to town - I don't want to have to go back to town every few minutes before I have reached my "goal".

It means we have to return to town way too often, just so we can get our focus regen back again, whole thing is quite frustrating and frankly the very opposite of fun.

 

@lollie,

Yea, that's why I said the Focus penalty should build up more gradually.

But, according to the patch notes this morning, they intended to defer the penalty until later (2-3 times overencumbered). That still creates the same problem, kind of, because it sounds like picking up a single garlic bulb can instantly slam you , like you're saying BAM! I'll go try it out.

The amount you can kill and carry to me has seemed fair. In the final game, going on a single adventure shouldn't make you rich or raise you that quick. In the old Ultima games, it took quite a while to either get rich or level up. In fact most old single player RPGs were like that. I think people have gotten used to grinding. I haven't been returning to town that quickly myself, only when my weapons need replacement/repair, and that takes a while.

 

No it's way too low, and I'm judging this by how long I like to stay out before I return to town - right now I am returning far too often.

The length of time I stay out in games to loot and kill is what I'm judging this by. Right now with the encumbrance issue, SotA is making us have to return about 5-10 times more quickly than I would naturally return to a town in any other game.

I want to go back to town much less.

 

That criteria is nearly too technical to address and now that you've got that off your chest, how long does it take you to fill up your bags currently? How long do you like to "stay out" for?

 

I like to stay out for as long as it takes to make some progress, be that gather some mats, collect enough items to make some gold, or gain headway on my level.

They would need to reduce weights of things, increase the amount we can carry, or increase gold drops and xp rates to balance (which would not help with the gathering of mats, though in my opinion this isn't as greatly affected as the limits on xping or gaining gold caused by encumbrance). I would prefer to go with increase carry capacity though.

There needs to be a feeling of making progress in an rpg. Extreme encumbrance limits without doubt will prevent this feeling of suitable progression per session/trip into the woods.

 

How much gold do you expect to earn and how much xp do you expect to earn on a single outing?