Inventory and loot

Inventory size?

  • Hardcore - strictly limited for survival gameplay

    Votes: 8 6.7%
  • Realism - realistic weight caps to maintain immersion

    Votes: 21 17.5%
  • Balanced - convenience with a nod to game balance

    Votes: 59 49.2%
  • Looter - unlimited - I loot everything not nailed down

    Votes: 32 26.7%

  • Total voters
    120
At the start of game -> looter, typically tendng to realism when becoming more familiar with a game.
 
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That totally depends on the game. For example, in Skyrim, an unlimited inventory wouldn't be a good idea, because there are so many things. But in an RPG with only "meaningfull" items, where you cannot take spoons, plates or hankies, unlimited can be a valid option.
 
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Last option for me. Inventory management is the most tedious job for me in a CRPG.
I can say I wouldn't love Gothic games as much as I do now if they didn't have unlimited inventory.

I'm usually all for realism and immersive boundaries but inventory limits are, for me, the worst kind.
Exactly my feeling about the topic.
 
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Depends on the game. If its a first person game like Stalker or Oblivion, I really don't want any limits. One of the first mods I used was a magic bag of holding for Oblivion, it made the game experience much more enjoyable.

That said, if it is a party based game, then I think Baldur's gate was perfect. They combined realistic weight limits with space limits, and with 6 characters it was well designed to use certain characters to carry certain types of items. I actually found it fun to use the inventory system in Baldur's Gate, and I can't recall any other games I can say that about. (Besides the other games in the series like Icewind Dale and BG 2)
 
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Looter without doubt. I get the thought process behind limited inventory, but the problem is almost none of the games that have it actually win anything from this feature and instead cause unneccessary downtime for the player. It only works with games, that have survival on limited resources as a core gameplay element. System Shocks, Stalker and Deus Ex are perhaps the most obvious examples. Loot whoring H&S and open world games however never gain anything from limited inventory space. What did Diablo or Sacred gain from tiny inventory space? Instead of pushing on you had to make totally pointless shop trips every now and then. I'd say Torchlight is a much better H&S game than these two because it didn't have any downtime thanks to the pet. As for open world games, what does say Gothic lose compared to Oblivion or Fallout 3? I could understand limited inventory making a positive gameplay impact in something like hardcore mode in New Vegas, where survival is again a core gameplay element.
 
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I'll be short.
Generally I don't care. Linited or unlimited, it's designed like that and I adapt. This year great 3 RPGs had limited inventories, DX by space, TW2 and Skyrim by weight. And neither was that badly implemented to say "hey, this sux". Then again if they had an gothiclike inventory monstruosity, again noone would complain, right?

However there is another thing, more important than ingame inventory system. And that's PC vs console thing. Unlike PC games, console games cannot afford an unlimited inventory! Just because of that, and I'm serious now, I'm voting on the fourth option. Let console players suffer with their limitations, and give PC players endless possibilities.
 
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easy choice for me - Looter - if I want realism, I'll just stop my game time and put in my workouts - working on getting my 6 pack back.

I believe the unreality of excessive inventory can be creatively addressed a number of ways but the tedium of inventory management reminds me of the olden days of some of the old RPGs when you had to eat, sleep and drink. I would like to see a game offer Inventory weight as a game option. Just like picking too have subtitles or not.
 
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Unlimited. I have yet to see a realistic rpg inventory (and I'm not sure I would want to play that game) so I say we go all the way. Gothic style unlimited inventory for all.
 
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Balanced. I am in the "loot everything" crowd, but I like inventory tetris. I don't want to have to go all the way back to town just to sell two tower shields, but getting stuff and selling it is part of the game. Make the compromise, should I make three trips to clean this out, or is it time to stop keeping the rusty swords. Not that it matters. I can't recall the last time I bought anything in an RPG everything worth having given to you as loot. You just never have to buy anything except maybe consumables.
 
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I prefer an unrestricted inventory, but I don't loot everything. So I guess I fall in the last category. There is nothing that ruins an RPG for me more than tedious inventory management.
 
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Unlimited. I have yet to see a realistic rpg inventory

I´d say The Witcher, for example, sports pretty realistic inventory.
And in that game it goes conceptually well with the other game´s
aspects - the gameplay is not designed around upgrading gear every 10 minutes or changing it substantially per encounter and, perhaps even more importantly, it goes well with the main character, it´s sorta an characterization aspect. The abstraction of being able to carry 10 swords and 5 armors would diminish the feel/believabililty of playing that particular guy. The limited inventory is one of the ways how to put players in the main protagonist´s shoes and the good thing is loot implementation more-or-less respects that (doesn´t "tease" players with +2 swords at every step and so on).
Not-yet-enhanced edition probably went too far since it unnecessarily limited alchemy, but the addition of alchemy sack in the enhanced edition leveled it up to quite optimal level, in my opinion.

Anyway, the point is inventory systems don´t exist in vacuum. (duh :))
Generally speaking, I don´t mind any kind of inventory system if it doesn´t clash
with other game systems.

What usually irks me the most is rigidly limited stacking of projectiles - it tends to make certain class archetypes more hassle-y than the rest. Maybe it was an balancing act, but I really dislike how arrows were treated in Baldur´s Gate 1 inventory-wise. I think that 90% of inventory shifts I´ve made were due to having two bow-chars in the party. Thankfully - mods (BG Tweaks ftw).

Resource management with a point usually means limited inventory space.
When it´s unlimited it should be at least balanced via other means, like drinking animations in Gothics, for example.
I usually like resource management with a point, resulting in my general preference being somewhere between realism and balanced.
Voted "realism", since I expect it to have statistically no chance against "balanced". Everyone loves balanced :).
 
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Context is important. System Shock 2 (not an rpg I know) had a fairly limited inventory. I felt this matched the gameplay well. BG had a slightly less limited system, and when combined with the fact that you could have several people in the party, I rarely found the need to make hard inventory decisions.

If you can loot everything with no limits, then whats the point?
 
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I voted balanced. However as many people said before it depends on the game and how the inventory and loot is implemented. When you have a game where there is tons of loot and the vendors dont have gold limits you will see that items will be much more expensive than in other games, sort to balance this out. I dont really care about ingame economies in single player games and never found myself not being immersed enough due to the looting system.
 
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I can't vote because it doesn't really matter all that much to me. I've played games like Gothic where you could carry everything and I've played games like Deus Ex where you were limited in what you could carry. I enjoyed them both immensely.

If I had to vote I'd lean more towards a limited inventory system. Doesn't have to be realistic, but some kind of cap is always nice. It makes me prioritize what I keep. I like that better than picking up everything because I will if I can.
 
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In my case it really depends on the kind of game.

In Action-RPGs I tend to hoard much, much much more than in ... "traditional" RPGs.
Especially if items have different ... possibilities to use them (different kinds of damage working especially good for different enemies, for example), then I treat the characters' inventory like some kind of "extended tool belt".

If weapons and items don't differ much from one another, then I don't hoard.
 
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Unlimited, i want to loot everything, in the end of TW2 i even tried to loot the dragon!

Alternatively , for those who have played the Dwarf character in Sacred Underworld there was a perk that allowed him to auto-sell crap loot without having to visit a merchant, best feature ever!
 
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I'm equally fond of the two extremes.
Either hardcore so I will only care to carry what I need to use, or unlimited.
Compromises only serve to make me waste time running back and forth - because, you know, I can't help it… I have to keep selling everything!

I voted for hardcore because I think it can affect gameplay in interesting ways.


By the way, strictly speaking it seems to me that 'hardcore' is the realistic one. I mean, how many weapons did real life warriors carry with them when they needed to be comfortable enough to fight?
 
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Last option for me. Inventory management is the most tedious job for me in a CRPG.
I can say I wouldn't love Gothic games as much as I do now if they didn't have unlimited inventory.


Exactly my feeling about the topic.

me too, and here is something most of these so called limited inventory games do. Whereas the player has limited amounts of space or pounds what about the storage facilities????

In my sweet little cubby hole in Whiterun (Skyrim), I have a nite stand next to my bed where I store all my excess potions. Probably around 300 potions with a weight of over 150 pounds all in that one tiny little drawer. (I know the weight because as you know, it is so easy to accidentally load the all the stuff into your inventory).

And lets not forget the large chest in that very same room that has enough weapons to form my own army in the civil war.

Oh and before I got my home in Marketh, I stored all my books in a drawer in the hallway - well over 150 book all in that one tiny little drawer.

And lets not forget that ever handy little knapsack next to your Alchemy table that probably has hundreds of ingredients weighing well over 100 pounds all in a bag no bigger than 8 X 11 with a dept of 1 or 2 inches.

Skyrim is certainly not unique in how it stores stuff. But for me I give up on realism once I start playing a CRPG. All I want is to be immersed in the game world enough so that I can have a fun time.
 
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