Has VR made any sort of indication as to how big our character inventories will be in Pantheon? I feel like this is something that is often overlooked in games. It kinda bothers me that everyone piles at least 10 large backpacks onto their character without even realizing how ridiculous that sounds. I can't help but wonder how, realistically speaking, a Warrior can effectively tank a boss while having full bags strapped to every limb. Or a frail elf that can carry thousands of pounds of items. Or that 6 stacks of 100 large health potions can fit into a small pouch. It seems like most game devs think that taking the time to give each item a realistic weight is not worth it. And "convenience" prevails by just letting people carry pretty much whatever they want.
I'm curious as to what people's opinions are about shrinking down character inventories and making bags more of a luxury than a necessity in Pantheon. If I remember correctly, this was a big part of EQ1. But is this something best left in the past or is it something we wanna bring back? In other words, is it taking realism one step too far and too inconvenient to have small inventories? Or is it fun to make inventory space/weight management more of a thoughtful skill. I personally like to constantly be prepared for any possible situation, but at the same time I think having smaller inventories actually fits really well with VR's values. It forces you to plan far ahead as far as what supplies you need to bring on an adventure. You can't just keep a bank in your pocket. It also encourages player interdependance. For example, maybe Wizards will gain value by casting a spell that creates a temporary portable hole in which to store stuff. Or an Enchanter that casts a spell on a bag to make it as light as a feather. Or heck, why not a Summoner that can summon a friendly goblin merchant that the group can trade with for a short period of time. It is also rewards crafters for sewing higher quality bags than you'd be able to get otherwise.
I have heard rumors that there will be pack mules in Pantheon to do the heavy lifting for you. I think this is a really interesting idea, but hopefully it will be something that only the more wealthy adventurers would have.
What do you guys think?
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1895/bank-sizes/view/post_id/24396
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3966/keys-and-bags
Some references to bag space as well Baz
Thanks. I figured I wasn't the first to think of it, but this specific topic certainly doesn't get talked about very much if at all, so I figured it would be worth another look - especially if maybe VR has since made a more concrete decision about this, at least about how it will be in Alpha. I wouldn't be surprised if this is something that we'll hafta feel out for ourselves during testing.
Still trying to find any statement Aradune has made about how many inventory slots a character will actually have "built in" to them.
Lots of bags is a good idea. If you shrink the carry ability of people then you will have to greatly increase the coin drop. In most games I played any spellcaster who is just starting is very spell poor. You need to carry lots of looted items, spider legs, pelts. old rusty weapons etc that sell for mere coppers just to buy one spell or a small piece of armor or weapon. If you decrease the bags or slots to "normal" what a person should carry then this will result in many trips to a merchant and then a bank to store the cash. In early eq 1 and 2 money also weighed on the carrier and was only transferable in a bank or if you bought an item from a merchant and resold it at a small loss.
And if your really trying to get to more realife then please tell me who you know can summon a merchant?? I like the idea that eq1 had and you had to buy the bags first then fill them. So a level 1 char had 8 slots and had to run to the merchant to sell them. but you were usually in newbie land and town was close. After you got a few levels and vetured away some it was tedious to run back all the time.
So for that reason I think multiple bags is really good and needed.
I'm of the mindset that I don't want to have to go back to town every 30mins to unload my bag. I do understand what you're saying in regards to limiting bag space because it doesn't make sense for anyone to be carrying around ten shields, 5 sets of plate armour, food and 2000gp.
However, in regards to carrying capacity it is my opinion that we have to leave a bit of that realism behind and keep this kind of thing at a point so that it doesn't cause a negative impact, which it could.
If Pantheon goes down the lines of giving us the ability to have storage on our mounts or even magical bags (bag of holding) it could then help to 'make sense'. Likely to be weight restricitions?
Ultimately I'm against a bag space system which stops you from adventuring regularly.
~~~ <()> ~~~
Valor and virtue ride with me, my blade defends the helpless,
my might upholds the weak, my words speak only truth,
my wrath undoes the wicked!
<~ Vaultarn Stormborn ~>
I think most MMOs get it right with allowing decent bag space, so player's aren't constantly having to go sell to a merchant, at least at higher levels. Having to at lower levels isn't so bad, but then again at lower levels you're usually near merchants anyway.
My big thing about bags is finding what you want in them. Most games offer some organizational methods to bags (mainly sorting), but I'd like the ability to search my bags by name, and only show items that fit into categories (weapons, armor, crafting material, expendables, etc). I really hate having 100+ items in bags and trying to find a single item in them just by looking at their icons.
With bags (and slots) there is, as many have said, an issue with regards balancing 'viability' vs 'realism'. This is one of those areas I have though about before. I will not present what I consider to be close to the 'perfect' system, since it isn't 'fitting' for an MMORPG - particularly a 'high' fantasy one. In light of this, I considered that what we really have is a form of compression within the MMO. Trips that should take game weeks, take game hours. Battles and skirmishes that would be spaced over many hours/days are done in minutes. To this end, I don't see why a form of this compression cannot be attached to the in-game backpacks. Original EQ was not that far off the mark, and so I propose a simple system worked around this basic premise. I will only concern myself with 'containers', not clothing slots.
1. 8 Medium Base slots which can contain bags (this constitutes the 'compressed' backpack).
... perhaps ogres get 6 Medium and 2 large slots
... perhaps gnomes get 6 medium and 2 small slots
2. 1 small Base slot for ammo (arrows/sling bullets/throwing daggers etc)
3. 2 small Base slots for 'belt pouches'
4. 1 Mule/Donkey (2 large slots) or Horse (2 medium slots)
++I have added 'small', 'medium' and 'large' to show that you could easily 'extend' a simple slot/bag system to be more flexible or 'realistic' with a smidge of pre-worked development.
A. Backpack bags start at 2-slots, and could go up to, perhaps 12-16 slots (more than this would start to get 'odd')
B. Ammo quivers should hold 2-8 stacks of ammo
I would suggest a 2nd quiver can be worn as a 'belt pouch' but the ammo is not counted as 'ready' while there.
C. Belt pouches should be 'bags that hold lots and lots of small/tiny things'
Eg: 'Herb Pouch' with space for 6-30 stacks of herbs
Eg: 'Scroll tube', 'map case' or 'document pouch' holding 6-36 stacks of paper/scrolls/maps
Eg: 'Reagent pouch' for stacks of spell reagents - perhaps 6-24 stacks
Eg: 'research runes' for researching runes etc, perhaps 12-48 stacks
D. Pack animals should have to have 'saddle bags', 'travel chests' or some such container. Ones for a pack mule would be big enough for 'large' items - such as shovels, 2-man tents, 'portable' forges, an anvil, ogre corpse or other bulky items. If you just want to 'chuck a backpack on it', the capacity should be limited to just 2 bags. So buy the proper gear.
E. 'Clothes bag'. I suspect with the 'sets of gear' that are intimated about, some form of bag for clothing would be needed. This could probably be handled directly from the character paper-doll window, though. Perhaps it would allow another 'outfit' to be defined, accessing a virtual 'ninth' backpack base slot for clothes only bags.
Likely, even without D, A-C should provide ample space (with one exception, noted in E) for almost any player. The use of 'pouches' would allevaite most of the problems players find, even for packrats.
PS: The only thing I have yet to work out is where to put the slot that holds the cat that lives in your backpack. Does it also need an extra slot for kitty kibble?
I will admit that I am not really under any firm camp either way (when it comes to having decent amounts of bag space, or limited bag space). Whatever the direction the developers feel is necessary for their vision of the game, I will adapt too easily enough.
I have played many different RPGs, many having very limited space while others having plenty of space. The only bits of recommendation I would have to offer would be this: If the developers feel the players should play the bagspace mini game (limited bag space) then don't include tons of random bits of inventory items to clog space (such as Elder Scrolls Online which is a worse case scenario for me in terms of inventory management). Stackables items, which many items could fall in this category (potions, ingredients, trash, etc.) could be allowed a large stack size (say 100 per stack) or have a small weight to allow many in someone's inventory (say 0.1 weight per such item).
This might be contradictory to my initial statement, but I am comfortable (And perhaps prefer) a system where inventory management is important and players should plan what is most important to carry around in their bags during their adventures.
Bag space wouldn't be a huge issue if the developers break the paradigm of having tons and tons of useless vendor trash in the game. Make it so people collect things that actually seem valuable and sell at a decent price like gems (that can stack) and what not instead of spider legs, spider carapaces, spiderLING legs, spiderLING claws, torn cloth, you get the idea... The less trash you have, the less space a character is going to need. Don't make everyone have to loot like a hoarder and please make things stackable.
Limited bag space does put a damper on exploring especially with encumberance penalties but it does keep people going back to town or traveling to certain merchants that otherwise would either stay empty or visited very seldom. I do favor lots and lots of bag space though :) Auto sort is a maybe... :) *cheers
I had forgotten about 'generic' trash. Some of it is likely useful, though. Perhaps the way forwards is to perform the initial 'processing' of these myriad items into a more 'simple' base product for the majority of items. Below is not extensive - but enough to give you the 'flavour' of what I am trying to get across. Take for example:
1. Spiderling legs, spider legs, large spider legs, spider carapace, crasked spider carapace.
Use 'basic' cooking, or basic 'alchemy', or 'butchery' type skills WHILE in the field (with appropriate tools)
Spiderling legs => 1-2 x Spider parts (alchemy) or 1-2 x Spider meat (Cooking/butchery)
Spider legs => 2-3 x Spider parts (alchemy) or 2-3 x Spider meat (Cooking/butchery)
large Spider legs => 3-4 x Spider parts (alchemy) or 2-5 x Spider meat (Cooking/butchery)
Spider carapace => 6-8 x Spider shell pieces (alchemy) or 9-12 x ground spider shell (Cookjing/butchery)
Cracked Spider carapace => 2-4 x Spider shell pieces (alchemy) or 9-12 x ground spider shell (Cookjing/butchery)
NB: processing a 'cracked' shell makes fewer 'pieces' but just as many 'ground' bits.
2. Lioness skin, lion skin, torn lion skin, bear skin, wolf pelts etc
The name of the skin would determine:
A. Quality : HQ, MQ or LQ.
Determines the maximum quality before you apply your skill to trim it down/prepare it. Likely therefore that Jow Average will process his LQ and possibly MQ stguff so it stackes better while leaving the HQ as it is to sell on to a properly skilled tailor.
B. Type : Brown Bear, White Bear, Black Bear, Lion Skin, Lioness Skin, Grey Wolf etc
Here the differences between some types or pelts would be lost. Since Small or Medium Lion pelts would not have a mane attached, these form generic 'lioness skins'. Once trimmed, some wolf pelts would just be labelled by colour - as with many bear skins.
C. Size : Large, Medium or Small
Each is stackable, with differring maximums. E.g.: For 'trimmed pelts', perhaps: Large (x8), Medium (x30), Small (x100).
3. Spider Web, Spiderling Web, Silk, Torn Silk, Silk curtain
These types of materials can be 'broken down' into crafting components. Eg Silk Swatches etc. Spider webs might produce 3-5 'spider web swatches' while spiderling webs only 2-3. A Silk curtain would generate a wider range of silk swatches dependent on the skill of the player processing it. Eg: Silk Curtain => 4-24 Silk Swatches. So low skill will make 4-6 while high skill would likely get you 16-24.
The idea is twofold :
A. 'Basic' Processing of drops would make more stackable pieces (freeing up bagspace)
B. An incentive for players to invest effort horizontally in a few 'gathering' or 'craft' skills to at least base-level.
I'm not interested in any mechanics which are added for the sake of "realism". I have enough realism in real life. I have enough challenges and problems to solve with lots of money on the line in real life. When I play games it is to enjoy the game, not to have a different version of real life.
Evoras said:I had forgotten about 'generic' trash. Some of it is likely useful, though. Perhaps the way forwards is to perform the initial 'processing' of these myriad items into a more 'simple' base product for the majority of items. Below is not extensive - but enough to give you the 'flavour' of what I am trying to get across. Take for example:
1. Spiderling legs, spider legs, large spider legs, spider carapace, crasked spider carapace.
Use 'basic' cooking, or basic 'alchemy', or 'butchery' type skills WHILE in the field (with appropriate tools)
Spiderling legs => 1-2 x Spider parts (alchemy) or 1-2 x Spider meat (Cooking/butchery)
Spider legs => 2-3 x Spider parts (alchemy) or 2-3 x Spider meat (Cooking/butchery)
large Spider legs => 3-4 x Spider parts (alchemy) or 2-5 x Spider meat (Cooking/butchery)
Spider carapace => 6-8 x Spider shell pieces (alchemy) or 9-12 x ground spider shell (Cookjing/butchery)
Cracked Spider carapace => 2-4 x Spider shell pieces (alchemy) or 9-12 x ground spider shell (Cookjing/butchery)
NB: processing a 'cracked' shell makes fewer 'pieces' but just as many 'ground' bits.
2. Lioness skin, lion skin, torn lion skin, bear skin, wolf pelts etc
The name of the skin would determine:
A. Quality : HQ, MQ or LQ.
Determines the maximum quality before you apply your skill to trim it down/prepare it. Likely therefore that Jow Average will process his LQ and possibly MQ stguff so it stackes better while leaving the HQ as it is to sell on to a properly skilled tailor.
B. Type : Brown Bear, White Bear, Black Bear, Lion Skin, Lioness Skin, Grey Wolf etc
Here the differences between some types or pelts would be lost. Since Small or Medium Lion pelts would not have a mane attached, these form generic 'lioness skins'. Once trimmed, some wolf pelts would just be labelled by colour - as with many bear skins.
C. Size : Large, Medium or Small
Each is stackable, with differring maximums. E.g.: For 'trimmed pelts', perhaps: Large (x8), Medium (x30), Small (x100).
3. Spider Web, Spiderling Web, Silk, Torn Silk, Silk curtain
These types of materials can be 'broken down' into crafting components. Eg Silk Swatches etc. Spider webs might produce 3-5 'spider web swatches' while spiderling webs only 2-3. A Silk curtain would generate a wider range of silk swatches dependent on the skill of the player processing it. Eg: Silk Curtain => 4-24 Silk Swatches. So low skill will make 4-6 while high skill would likely get you 16-24.
The idea is twofold :
A. 'Basic' Processing of drops would make more stackable pieces (freeing up bagspace)
B. An incentive for players to invest effort horizontally in a few 'gathering' or 'craft' skills to at least base-level.
If this becomes a thing, I will not be partaking. Perhaps some people would dig it but this looks like a headache to me.
Searril said:I'm not interested in any mechanics which are added for the sake of "realism". I have enough realism in real life. I have enough challenges and problems to solve with lots of money on the line in real life. When I play games it is to enjoy the game, not to have a different version of real life.
Also, this.
I think Evoras' point is that for people who are interested in other aspects of the game (such as crafting, or at least base level crafting) can gain some modicum of benefit while still being active in the field. Its an 'opt-in' for such people. Nobody is forcing you to fill your bags with 'generic vendor trash' yet if you wanted to do just that you absolutely can, if you wanted to pare down that 'trash' into slightly more useful but more more compact items you can do that also.
There is one thing to remember early on is that we will not know exactly what items might become critically useful later on in the life of the game. Trash today might be be trash tomorrow.
Good points here so far, guys!
I think as others have mentioned, the question really boils down to "practicality vs. believability." Where is that fine line?
Isaya said:
And if you’re* really trying to get to more real life* then please tell me who you know can summon a merchant??
Sorry, but this logic is extremely flawed. Obviously, if I wanted a game that was like real life, I wouldn't be interested in a game that has dragons, ogres, and wizards. I, like so many others, use MMOs as a form of escapism - to get lost in a whole new virtual world and forget about the real world for a bit. The term "immersion" gets brought up a lot. But in order to maintain that sense of immersion, there still has to be some elements of believability. That is the key word.
For example, from what we know of magic, it is believable that a proficient Summoner could summon a merchant.
But from what we know of Halflings, for example, it is not believable that a Halfling can carry 500 pounds of weapons and armor without being crushed.
Even in fantasy worlds, there still has to be some degree of realism.
The other side of the argument is that people play games to have fun. That is basically the only purpose of games, so if a game is not fun for someone, they will not play it. It is, of course, not very fun for anyone if you have to spend more time running to a merchant than you do actually killing stuff.
Vaultarn said:
I'm of the mindset that I don't want to have to go back to town every 30mins to unload my bag. I do understand what you're saying in regards to limiting bag space because it doesn't make sense for anyone to be carrying around ten shields, 5 sets of plate armour, food and 2000gp.
However, in regards to carrying capacity it is my opinion that we have to leave a bit of that realism behind and keep this kind of thing at a point so that it doesn't cause a negative impact, which it could.
If Pantheon goes down the lines of giving us the ability to have storage on our mounts or even magical bags (bag of holding) it could then help to 'make sense'. Likely to be weight restricitions?
Ultimately I'm against a bag space system which stops you from adventuring regularly.
I think this sums it up nicely. Too much bag space would be bad for the game in that, even though it allows you to spend more time adventuring, it makes it too easy because you don’t have to think about what supplies you need to bring on an adventure. The vast majority of the people interested in this game want to have some restrictions and want to be challenged. I think partially limited bag space is part of that. I admit we should probably lean toward having more slots, but only as long as there are reasonable explanations for them. I think VR is already on the right track with the pack mules. I’m curious to see how those work. But we need to remember that too much convenience is what killed the MMO genre in the first place. So how much is too much? Well, that’s probably just something that will have to be felt out through testing.
Evoras said:
C. Belt pouches should be 'bags that hold lots and lots of small/tiny things'
Eg: 'Herb Pouch' with space for 6-30 stacks of herbs
Eg: 'Scroll tube', 'map case' or 'document pouch' holding 6-36 stacks of paper/scrolls/maps
Eg: 'Reagent pouch' for stacks of spell reagents - perhaps 6-24 stacks
Eg: 'research runes' for researching runes etc, perhaps 12-48 stacks
I think this is another good, creative way to expand your inventory. I’d also add Gem Pouches and Tool Belts. Plus, I think EQ1 had Potion Belts. These sorts of things would probably be fairly accessible – just bought from a merchant at pretty much any decent-sized city. Of course the type of containers would be appropriate to the type of merchant. So a jeweler would sell gem pouches, an apothecary would sell potion belts, etc. These types of containers would be slightly more expensive than regular bags so low level players probably would not have them but pretty much any mid-level character that goes on long adventures would definitely have them.
As usual, the best answer lies somewhere between the two extremes. I trust Aradune already understands this and will particularly listen to player’s feedback regarding this topic through alpha/beta. It’s interesting to see the wide variety of opinions. Whatever the solution is, it naturally will probably not please everyone - it’s just a matter of finding the right compromise.
TL;DR: Bag space should have some limitations to keep adventures challenging and maintain immersion. But if taken too far, this could make returning to town a frequent, boring chore. Therefore, there should be a variety of believable ways to reasonably expand your inventory size.
I was looking for similar topics, but I think this was the only active one currently :)
I've just started playing FFXIV (never played it before) and want to share my impression of its bag system, as far as I understand it.
First, you have only one inventory window. This in itself is a really good thing IMO, as it can get tiresome having to sort multiple open bag windows so they fit on your screen. Then, the inventory window has several (four) tabs for general items. There's another separate tab for crystals (I have no idea what these are for yet), and yet another tab for quest items.
Each tab has 25 item slots (except for the crystal tab which has fewer, but specialized slots). I'm not sure if your character actually has "bags" on him which would allow you to increase a tab's size, or if this is all the space you will ever have on your character. So far (lvl 20ish) I've plenty of room left (and there's not so much stuff dropping so far), but I imagine that if you take up harvesting and several crafting skills that room might feel limited quickly.
I'm fairly happy with this inventory window, although I haven't found an option to sort it yet, or clean up (move items from one tab to another). I'd definitely like to see the "one window" approach, even if we're going to have actual bags on our characters.
Totally separate of the item inventory is your arsenal, which is your equipment inventory. The arsenal is a window with tabs (on each side) representing your equipment slots, for example for chest, leggings, boots, ... Each tab opens an area with 25 slots. So you have plenty of room to store equipment.
I think this quite a good idea which might help us to manage the multiple equipment sets we'll need in Pantheon. Vanguard had a similar approach with its different tabs for adventuring, harvesting, crafting and diplo clothing, but I feel the arsenal approach is more flexible. Although I'm curious how this will work in Pantheon when items have weight.. :)
Why shouldn't coin have weight?
I am pretty sure at some point I will have a magic dagger, magic clothes and maybe magic spells. I do not care for realism when it comes to bags. Magic bags make for magical amounts of loot being carried. Magic bags can also lessen coin weight...
The only thing I really, really, really want is a key ring. Seriously, this was invented in ancient times.
Angrykiz said:... but should coin have weight ?
Kiz~
http://pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4102/coin-weight
I'll reserve my judgment for when I can actually test the game, since I think this is something that can very easily be adjustable upon player feedback. In the mean time I agree with striking a balance between realism/believability and practicality. In the end, this is a game. It's not meant to be a chore. Managing a reasonable inventory that can also reasonably be expanded as you progress, I can understand. Feeling like you're leaving behind all your "phat loot" because you can't haul it with you, I have a problem with. Especially if travel is to be "meaningful", which I understand as meaning it will take considerable time going back to a merchant/bank to empty your backpack.