Skyrim - Miscellaneous Roundup

Wow what a bunch of pack rats you all are lol :) and to think I use to consider people around here hard core. Haven't weight limits been in RPGs for like forever?

I like weight limits - helps me organize and prioritize and is just a tad more realistic.

Seriously though - I almost never reach the limits. I just ignore most crap and stick to the key things. Course that may be why I also find the gold balanced in the game because I don't expect to haul a dump truck load of crap around in my back pocket.

I swear, I almost always completely agree with everything you post. We are like soul-brothers of RPG gaming.
 
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I too appreciate encumbrance limits. Without them resource management looses a lot of its merits.
 
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Methink that weight limit should be an option. It could even be part of a hardcore mode as seen in Fallout NV.
( as could be losing health point when swimming in waters at 2°C or such minor things not impacting the main gameplay )
 
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I have no problems with weight and encumbrance. Do I find this fun? Yes. It's great. If you like micromanaging, and strategy. I do, so I don't find it a problem in Skyrim, but I will admit that it certainly feels out of place.

Skyrim is a game that bends over backward to keep things simple, so things like managing your inventory, and making the right decisions on what to carry and who to sell it to feel like they don't belong. Right now it feels like Skyrim is straddling the line between a traditional CRPG, and an action RPG. Bethesda really needs to decide for the future what they want The Elder Scrolls to be. If they want a simple game, that anyone can pick up and enjoy, without micromanging, maybe they should scrap looting bodies and just drop the gold on the ground. Maybe it's time to put the shopkeeper outside of their shops. Maybe the series needs invincible companions that never permanently die unless it's scripted like the other RPGs have. If the goal is simplicity, make it universal.

If they want the franchise to be a more traditional CRPG where you worry about things like weight and encumbrance, then they need to scale back the streamlining, and bring back some of the scrapped options, giving the player more control over their experience, and yes, more micromanging. Some RPG players do like those sort of things. Yes there are people who miss the spell maker. There are people who miss the whetstones, and maintaining equipment. Heck, I even liked Daggerfall's banking system, and letter of credits since gold was too heavy, but I understand why the scrapped it. Of course there also things like Food and Water requirements, or time limits on quests, that old players may really like, but I don't care for, but the point is there are some players liked these elements.

I realize making an RPG is no easy task, and making one accessible to everyone is even harder. Despite some grousing, I really liked Skyrim. But I do feel that right now it's in two worlds, and Bethesda just needs to commit to a single direction.
 
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No weight limits —> carry as much as you want —> can sell all that for shit-tons of money —> broken economy

Solution? Make not all enemies drop items —> less realism —> less immersive.

Thus, weight limits are necessary.
 
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I too like weight limits in open world games. Make you think about what you have to carry and give you a reason to go back to town. In non-open world types, it's a burden because there's nothing else to do in town. Granted, there's also nothing to do in Skyrim towns after you've done the missions but since im living a "virtual life" in TES games, towns have to be something more than just quest givers.
 
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Any kind of inventory limit kills a game for me, it is mandatory to have an unlimited inventory in an RPG with so many junk hanging around. It does not break the economy, since I won't (and in Skyrim can't) sell all the stuff and in every game I end up with a huge pile of items I never use or sell. But a dungeon/house/terrain is not cleared for me until just one bit of movable stuff is still there (I'm kind of a "wiper" gamer).
 
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I don't like inventory weight, I prefer the Gothic system. I actually think just like he does when picking up items: "What's the price-per-weight for this item?"
 
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So invest in them (speech tree).

Weight etc. is done perfectly in Skyrim IMHO - there's enough there to reward you for making choices, but not so much that it's a real drag - you can still move to get to your horse etc. My character is often bent over with the weight of books, but that's exactly right.

Ok, I see that speech actually allows you to increase vendor gold supply, which is interesting, but not by a huge amount. You would still have to spend a lot of time travelling to offload decent quality items. It's the travelling I object too. It's like a separate and irritating minigame.

As for the actual carting around of loot: they should have left feather in. As a mage it made sense (along with open lock). You weren't 'forced' to have a companion to lug around your crap. I see they also removed burden, which was a great offensive alteration spell. They definitely simplified magic - and not in a good way.
 
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I actually think just like he does when picking up items: "What's the price-per-weight for this item?"

Is it really that hard to calculate though? What I mean is: Does it have to be incredibly accurate and detailed in order to make a reasonable decision? For me, it's really not that hard to judge whether or not an item is worth picking up or not, and I think that some people are severely over-thinking this aspect.

For example: Say there is a piece of "Banded Iron Armor" laying on the ground with a max value of 90 gold, and it weighs 27 pounds. Without calculating a specific number, I can immediately tell that the item is not essential to take with me to sell; I can take it if I have room, but it's clearly not valuable enough to make it a priority. Now let's say I find a piece of "Ebony Armor" that has a max value of 450 gold and also weighs 27 pounds. This is an item - again, without doing any crazy "pound-for-gold" calculation - that is clearly a priority for selling purposes if I have no personal need to wear it.

This works for just about every item in the game - petty soul gems can clutter an inventory and aren't worth very much, while grand soul gems are of a high enough value to be worth taking (this is displayed on the screen before you even pick an item up). How is this such a headache to figure out? I think anyone who wants a "price-per-weight" ratio or any other very specific value calculation is vastly over-thinking a pretty simple game mechanic, in my opinion.

Also, I think that carry-limits serve mostly to protect the players from themselves - without it, players might pick up every item imaginable and end up with a ridiculously clustered, unorganized inventory that is nearly impossible to completely sort out - and once it is sorted out, it becomes a complete mess again within a few hours. Sometimes limits are a good thing :)
 
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Skyrim is a true RPG game because it gives you the possibility to play the game
the way you like it more.The thing with RPGs is that YOU are responsible of how YOU will play the game. If you are happy picking up everything you can in Skyrim, if not you don't pick up and add some kind of realism, same goes for food, books, weapons,quests etc.
Generally Bethesda created the richest Open world i have seen so far in CRPG and its up to US how we will use it with our Imagination to make our playing experience the best!
 
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No weight limits —> carry as much as you want —> can sell all that for shit-tons of money —> broken economy

Solution? Make not all enemies drop items —> less realism —> less immersive.

Thus, weight limits are necessary.

Totally agree !!
No limit would ruin the game.
 
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The thing is there is only tedium keeping one from going back to a dungeon or whatever to pick up the stuff you couldn't carry out on your first trip. So weight limits don't prevent the economy from being broken, they just make breaking it more tedious. I thought Gothic 2 and Risen kept the economy balanced just fine without weight limits.
 
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I like weight limits but Skyrim has too low of a weight limit. I increased my weight limit to 600 with player.modav carryweight (which increases it based on the amount you have currently (you have 300 and put 300 in so you have 600) and is also permanent once you save the game) and still I got ambushed by 3 bounty hunters and taking their stuff put me over the limit. I'll probably stick with 600 though and add some stamina which will increase it a little further.
 
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The only bugs that realy anoy me atm are the quest bugs.

I don't realy mind if ocasionaly there is a physics bug that makes me laugh hard on the engine, or the ocasional NPC that seems like a headless chicken trying to do something over and over. Breaks a little the immersion factor but not realy a big deal.

The problem is when its quest related. I'm a "completionist" and i'm starting to get realy mad when i'm trying to do a quest and NPC "x" just isn't there or if its there he doesnt have the right dialog.

Latest one was when i join the imperials and have to talk to the blacksmith and he is stuck with the dialog "blah blah blah the execution was due" and nothing happens.

(anyone knows of a console command to "reset" him anyways?
 
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No weight limits —> carry as much as you want —> can sell all that for shit-tons of money —> broken economy

Solution? Make not all enemies drop items —> less realism —> less immersive.

Thus, weight limits are necessary.

This guy gets!

No limit will break the economy in no time! I am big fan of Gothic but I hate it when you kill dude with cool armour and you can't loot it.

The only way they can let you carry all is if they limit the loot on mobs and I don't like that.

If you use the steed guardian stone, most of your problems are sorted anyway.

Also I don't try and loot all the mobs I kill. During the you can easily figure out if the mob is carrying anything useful.

I think Skyrim solution is the best in this regards.
 
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Actually, they could easily balance no-limit by restricting vendor gold even more than they already did. Also, the limit - as is - is quite mild and certainly isn't what prevents people from breaking the economy.

Personally, I think no-limit can work in games that aren't trying to "simulate" a world with a certain measure of realism or immersion.

Considering the amount of stuff you can carry around in Skyrim, it's already incredibly unrealistic - so I don't think a no-limit feature would ruin anything.

But, ultimately, it's not something that bothers me either way - as long as it doesn't break the flow of the game too much. A very restrictive and realistic limit in Skyrim would conflict heavily with the way they've handled loot overall. So it would need a more profound design change to work.
 
Considering the amount of stuff you can carry around in Skyrim, it's already incredibly unrealistic - so I don't think a no-limit feature would ruin anything.

Not to mention that, swimming (or even jumping) in full ebony plate thingy…

But, ultimately, it's not something that bothers me either way - as long as it doesn't break the flow of the game too much. A very restrictive and realistic limit in Skyrim would conflict heavily with the way they've handled loot overall. So it would need a more profound design change to work.

Strangely enough, and though I always favor realism and immersion I can usually overlook that too (we all have certain tolerances for different elements obviously).
If I could cast a vote I would say go for even stricter and more realistic limits though…
Does that make me a larper (as someone was saying in a relevant Skyrim thread ;) ) ?! o_o
 
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For example: Say there is a piece of "Banded Iron Armor" laying on the ground with a max value of 90 gold, and it weighs 27 pounds. Without calculating a specific number, I can immediately tell that the item is not essential to take with me to sell; I can take it if I have room, but it's clearly not valuable enough to make it a priority. Now let's say I find a piece of "Ebony Armor" that has a max value of 450 gold and also weighs 27 pounds. This is an item - again, without doing any crazy "pound-for-gold" calculation - that is clearly a priority for selling purposes if I have no personal need to wear it.

This works for just about every item in the game - petty soul gems can clutter an inventory and aren't worth very much, while grand soul gems are of a high enough value to be worth taking (this is displayed on the screen before you even pick an item up). How is this such a headache to figure out? I think anyone who wants a "price-per-weight" ratio or any other very specific value calculation is vastly over-thinking a pretty simple game mechanic, in my opinion.

And this is why I calculate!

Petty Soul Gem:
Weight: 0,1
Value: 10
Ratio: 1:100

Ebony Armor:
Weight: 27
Value: 450
Ratio: 16,67

Petty Soul Gems are worth roughly 6 times more than the armor in your example, which means you'd make six times more money by hoarding Petty Soul Gems than armors.

I generally don't pick up anything below 1:10 in ratio, so the armor in the example is still good enough to be sold. All types of gems are extremely valuable though, with ratios like 100-500, which is pretty crazy compared to armor and weapons. Armor generally has better ratio than weapons, unless the weapon is enchanted, so I stay away from most weapons unless they are of very high quality.
 
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