Encumbrance

The more interesting encounters should have more interesting things to pick up or they may be guarding more interesting things. If I went to a dragon's lair, I'd certainly find a lot of gems and gold. And even going to the Graff mines, I might get some valuable items. Fighting a mage, I might get a magic ring or a magic dagger.

But killing enemies for their swords is kind of like turning it into a job IMO. You get the xp, you maybe have a goal that you're trying to accomplish, the fun of battling and outwitting your enemies, learning tactics and surviving against odds, you get a couple of coins, and maybe in the end a couple of swords you can sell. But the swords shouldn't be the point.

 

So the problem stated for encumbrance, is that it's reducing our 'play time' to 10 minutes before having to go back to town and unload.
We want to be able to stay out for 30 minutes to an hour before having to head back to town, right?

Two things, instead of increasing inventory capacity, what if:

1. each item could do more. Example: a log cuts into 4 times more boards than currently.
2. each node or enemy takes 3 times longer to kill or gather.

This would make gathering from each individual spot more challenging, and feel more rewarding once completed.
Also, the greater yield of individual pieces would be more rewarding as well, all while feeling less of a 'grind'.

I think adding a bit more interactivity to the gathering process would help to expand that time-to-gather, and make it more fun too.
Perhaps there can be a process that can be completed at varying levels of success, helping to determine just how much you are able to gather at that node.
These are the changes I would like to see rather than expanding how much I can carry in my pack.

Speaking of encumbrance, I would love to see some clues to how much I can carry in the interactivity with my inventory.
Right now, it's too easy to buy 50 bowls of mutton and walk away before realizing I no longer have focus or can run.
Having to move those bowls into my inventory and see visually that they take more space than I have would help me 'feel' encumbered and stop myself from doing it in the first place.

These are the types of answers that I believe will help encumbrance be a fun part of the game, and not feel like a hindrance to my enjoyment.

 

Encumbrance has been modified a lot since this thread started. The Focus penalty was the real penalty, and it only kicks in when you have double your carry weight now, while it kicked in before as soon as you hit your carry weight.

With the changes, it now it feels a bit too lenient. I was picking up kobold hammers to see how long it would take me to hit the Focus penalty. I don't know exactly what the limit is, but I was carrying over a dozen (each is 6 weight) and I was still not near reaching the penalty.

 

I saw a hefty penalty on dexterity as i went over the limit.

 

Yep, I agree with all the points you're raising. A single deer should produce a lot of meat, and a single tree should produce a lot of wood.

A single deer carcass for instance could be disjointed into several parts --> 2 shoulders, 2 haunches, a saddle, a neck, and a head (for trophies). Then the parts could be further brought down further into cuts of meat through carving the portions.


A single tree trunk could be limbed, removing the branches; bucked, and turned into logs; hewed into a squarish form; then converted into many blocks or boards.

Also about the interactivity. Did you see my thread on ideas on how to expand mining, https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/advanced-mining.20139/ The process of gathering would be a lot more interesting if it were more than point-and-click.

 

Yea, there's a penalty, but I didn't find it much of a bother. I could still defeat a lot of enemies even with -10 dex, and it took a while to get up to -10. It starts with -0, then -1, etc.

 

true, it was probably more subconscious than effective since dex is my primary stat. i was far more concerned about the movement speed, but it is hard to argue against that one.

 

@Tahru,

Yea, so this is what it took me to get to the -10 Focus/movement penalty... Encumbrance (170.3/85)

14 kobold warhammers (6 lb each), 2 round shields (6 lb each), round wooden shield (2 lb), 3 snake swords (4 lb each), 2 staves (4 lb each), 2 wands (1 lb each), 103 arrows (total ~5 lb), 85 bodkin arrows (total ~4 lb), 3 maps (1 lb each), a pickaxe (2 lb), a skinning knife (2 lb), a sickle (2 lb), two torches (1 lb each), a harvesting axe (1 lb), leather chest armor (3 lb), augmented leather chest armor (3 lb), augmented leather leggings (2 lb), augmented leather boots (0.5 lb), augmented leather gloves (0.5 lb), apprentice dagger (1 lb), Founder's two handed axe (5 lb), two Founder's bows (3 lb each), 2 health potions (total ~1 lb), 2 focus potions (total ~1 lb), a repair kit (3 lb), 2 quivers (1 lb each)

Definitely lenient.

 

I happily admit that once you level up a bit, particularly with Heavy Lifter in your tactics tree, that encumbrance becomes much less of an issue.

Suggest that lower level players be given a little more capacity to begin with, if for no other reason than you don't want new players to become so frustrated with game mechanics that they never give the game a fair chance. But higher level players should be OK based on what I've seen.

 

In a future release I would love to see encumbrance implemented in a way where the Avatar is visually labored with each step, and begins to stumble, instead of a speed decrease directly proportional the extra weight carried.

 

Encumbrance has its intent and purpose in a game, but when traveling from point a to point be is already extremely annoying adding the level of encumbrance that we currently have only compounds the problem even more so, remember the point about an online world is simple, to immerse the player so thoroughly into the online world experience that the player has no desire to ever leave, so in all honesty my question is, why do we keep giving players excuses to log off?

 

Captain Jack wonders what exactly would allow the Dasilva to stay logged in?

Do you want an inventory like diablo, where you are forced to drop something when full but are never bothered by movement limitations based on an encumbrance system?

Do you want to have the current system, with no limits in place or just some "false limits" which basically allow you to carry justa bout anything you want?

Having the perfect little Utopia you describe, where everyone logs in and gets everything they want with no issues or worries sounds like it would break Captain Jacks.... I'm going to puke a little bit in my own mouth when I say this... but...it breaks Captain Jack's I---Imm---Imm---Immers----Imersio---ugh---Imersio---uuugh---Immersion!

BARF

 

In Torchlight you had a pet that you could send to town to sell stuff. Maybe something like this would be possible with SotA. You can send a pet back to town to either sell the stuff you looted or to bring it to the bank.
Not my ideal solution as it is not very realistic, but maybe this would be a compromise?

 

Encumbrance is a thing that the debs will have to have the final say on, people don't like being inconvenienced, they don't like having limited carry capacity. The thing is, these are required things that allow the world to be balanced properly and most certainly blocks people from farming endlessly to get gold.

If you need to log off because your character is carrying to much then I'm not sure what to say to you other then drop some of your stuff? I find a lot of MMOs allow you to carry way too much, whereas a lot of the single player games allow you to carry a certain amount, it could possible be that way to keep ones attention span happy, I'm not sure.

 

We'll have pack animals and hirelings to help us carry our load before we have to even think about that :>

Any solution like that would need to have its trade-offs anyway, otherwise it would take away from choosing what to carry as a meaningful choice. Taking your stuff back to town can't be a freebie.

 

this is a forum for peeps to voice an opinion etc,so lets keep it that way

 

encumbrance needs diminishing returns, much like the diminished returns on skill points aquired at higher levels.

 

Well, if you look at it in a way, it will balance game play in a way. Sure it would be nice to be able to carry as much as you want, BUT, if you are out looking for resources and some players are just camping an area,
it might take you a hell of a long time to gather the resources you want for crafting.
By limiting the amount of what you can carry, you know that some players will eventully have to make a trip to town or their house to drop off what they collected.
You also have the option of purchasing a donkey or llama, to help you carry more resources or whatever.
I think it is a good thing having a weight carry limit. I am pretty sure the players that are complaining, never played UO, where this weight limited was also used.
UO has been around for a real long time and I think SotA will be also. Just select what you actually want to put in your backpack, instead of looting all off of a mob.