I don’t mind encumberance that much. I think it’s necessary if you’re making any attempt at balancing the economy. Without it the player returns back to town with every bit of loot from the dungeon to sell, and the economy doesn’t matter anymore.
However, any game that has an encumberance mechanic absolutely has to have a weight/value sort and display. I don’t know why this is so hard for them to implement. Bethesda games never do, and I’m playing Tainted Grail (I’ve heard lots of good things, and it’s alright so far) and it doesn’t. With any amount of playtesting they’d get overencumbered, try to figure out what to drop and instantly realize they want to drop the highest weight/value items, and there’s no way to view this! How do you not add it?
In SP RPG games it’s stupid. I’m just going to make however many trips back and forth it takes to empty the dungeon anyway. Might as well let me do it in one shot so I can get on to the next thing. I get it in survival crafting type games (within reason) but no reason games like skyrim or fallout need an encumbrance mechanic when you need a fuckload of stuff to level your crafting skills.
Will you really go back? I suspect that 99.99% of players won’t. It’s more effective to go somewhere new, where you get XP, a fresh shot at better loot, and maybe different quests.
Sure, you can ruin the economy in many ways, such as hoovering up every bit of loot. It isn’t balanced around that though, and can’t be. It’s the correct assumption almost always that players won’t return for loot that was left, because it’s less valuable than doing a new dungeon.
Yes, I go back. Why would I say it’s annoying and wastes a ton of time if I didn’t have experience with it? I’ve had a lot of conversations with other people who are the same way so I think you are underestimating how annoying it is. As far as moving on to the next place, what do you get? One boss chest, with a single magic item that may or may not be good for you? You still have to pick up the incedental crap to sell for gold and crafting materials. If you just rely on the few decent items you get that would take even longer. Regardless, there’s no economy to ruin in games like skyrim or fallout. You’re the only one there with a bunch of mindless NPCs, they don’t trade with each other and their inventory resets after a few days. Selling them a ton of crap is completely meaningless to the world as a whole.
I don’t think you understand game design if you can’t understand what’s meant by “ruining the economy.” It means that the player gets so much money that there’s essentially no use for it anymore. They can buy anything that’s available without concern. For example, in Morrowind you can craft potions with ridiculous value, then use that to pay for levels from trainers and buy the best items, then pay for enchanting to make them even better. It trivializes the game.
The only option at that point is to just limit what can be purchased. That’s a much worse solution than balancing the game’s economy so the player has options to spend money on, but critically they can’t buy everything. Video games are about making decisions. If you don’t have to decide anything than why not just watch a movie? The game needs to present you with options, and you need to choose what you will and won’t do. The economy is a great place this can happen in a game that’s balanced well.
Morrowind you can craft potions with ridiculous value, then use that to pay for levels from trainers and buy the best items
Did you actually play Morrowind? I can’t think of a single one of the best items in Morrowind that was available for sale. You either had to steal them or they were loot. Also most of the vendors in that game were pretty broke. To sell anything of “ridiculous value” You had to find the mudcrab merchant out in the middle of nowhere. Gold didn’t trivialize that game at all. Exploiting alchemy did.
No, the best items in the game are enchanted by the player easily. It’s not required, but enchanting you can create better magical items than are available to find, and with the specific enchantments that you want.
I agree selling stuff was annoying, but it wasn’t that hard. You just sell as much as you can and buy back other light valuables. Then when you buy something you use the valuables first.
Well, for most games it isn’t useless items. Most of it just isn’t useful to you. Either your gear is better, or it’s for a combat style you don’t use, or it’s consumables like potions.
I’m talking about the things you can’t use, like bowls and trinkets and other stuff that games frequently include as ‘white’ items that literally cannot be used. Those things that exist to be sold to vendors.
They have been in many of the rpgs I have played. In the rpgs that don’t have them, there isn’t a vendor that buys stuff and no ‘economy’ that exists.
That’s almost exclusively a Bethesda thing, at least to the extent it’s an issue. Technically it’s in Tainted Grail some, and Larian games a very small amount, but never in enough quantity or weight to be an issue, nor are they ever worth enough to bother with.
Look, you started by saying Bethesda games don’t have encumbrance but Skyrim was the first game I thought of that had stuff you couldn’t use but had some kind of value and weight and encumbrance was a huge part of Skyrim when wearing heavy armor. There is even a whole strategy of figuring out value for the weight to increase the amount of value you get when selling. Baldur’s Gate 3 and I assume earlier ones have the same thing.
We are talking about the games that have those things when saying they are an issue. Of course it isn’t an issue in games that don’t have it, but when it exists it absolutely is an issue, especially when game mechanics include a ‘loot all’ option. There you need to drop what you don’t want.
Hell, inventory management by space and encumbrance have been a thing for all the years I have played rpgs. Not having either seems more like the exception to me.
I memorize which items have a good weight to value ratio and don’t pick up the junk. When I was young I would take everything in multiple trips, but I ain’t got time for that now.
I can tell by the downvotes that there aren’t many fans of the AI on here and that’s fine. To each their own. I’m too old to be hating on new technology like if I was born in the 1100s.
If it was just new tech, I’d be all over it. If you aren’t aware of all the issues then you haven’t been paying attention.
Also, why in the ever loving fuck would you use an AI just to track a number? Just use a calculator app, notes app, anything simpler than having “I have fired another arrow, how many are left now?” Lmao.
The AI has rotted your brain man. Tracking arrows, what this entire post is about, doesn’t need a fucking LLM. It needs tally marks on a sheet of paper, at most.
Regarding inventory management in general: Why the fuck would you ever use an LLM for something you can do in Notepad? Want to be fancy? Use More Purple More Better’s editable PDF player sheet templates. You can load in sourcebook data from external sources easily and have everything from every sourcebook at your fingertips. And you can still enter custom shit like custom magical items easily.
I’m wondering if they mean have ChatGPT reading the messages in Discord and automatically tracking it? It should be able to do that, but I’m not sure about the specifics. And it’s not something LLMs are good at, so you have to be able to work around it. It would basically need to notice whenever you use an item, then tell something else to remove that from you inventory.
If they’re talking discord specifically I’ve seen bots in servers that track inventory for you. Just click a button. If they can be arsed to do that then they’re truly beyond help.
Assuming it works, they are clearly not beyond help. If you find yourself constantly forgetting to click the button, there’s no shame in finding some workaround. And solving small problems is half the fun of being a programmer.
I’ve literally typed the exact parameters of the product I want into chatgpt and it still didn’t give me what I was looking for. It can’t even do advertising right.
Im a forever DM. We play DND for fun not inventory management, anything tedious like that just isn’t what I want to spend time in a game on.
Yeah, it’s like encumberance in video games. Usually just makes things tedious and if there’s no work around it stops being fun.
I don’t mind encumberance that much. I think it’s necessary if you’re making any attempt at balancing the economy. Without it the player returns back to town with every bit of loot from the dungeon to sell, and the economy doesn’t matter anymore.
However, any game that has an encumberance mechanic absolutely has to have a weight/value sort and display. I don’t know why this is so hard for them to implement. Bethesda games never do, and I’m playing Tainted Grail (I’ve heard lots of good things, and it’s alright so far) and it doesn’t. With any amount of playtesting they’d get overencumbered, try to figure out what to drop and instantly realize they want to drop the highest weight/value items, and there’s no way to view this! How do you not add it?
In SP RPG games it’s stupid. I’m just going to make however many trips back and forth it takes to empty the dungeon anyway. Might as well let me do it in one shot so I can get on to the next thing. I get it in survival crafting type games (within reason) but no reason games like skyrim or fallout need an encumbrance mechanic when you need a fuckload of stuff to level your crafting skills.
Will you really go back? I suspect that 99.99% of players won’t. It’s more effective to go somewhere new, where you get XP, a fresh shot at better loot, and maybe different quests.
Sure, you can ruin the economy in many ways, such as hoovering up every bit of loot. It isn’t balanced around that though, and can’t be. It’s the correct assumption almost always that players won’t return for loot that was left, because it’s less valuable than doing a new dungeon.
Yes, I go back. Why would I say it’s annoying and wastes a ton of time if I didn’t have experience with it? I’ve had a lot of conversations with other people who are the same way so I think you are underestimating how annoying it is. As far as moving on to the next place, what do you get? One boss chest, with a single magic item that may or may not be good for you? You still have to pick up the incedental crap to sell for gold and crafting materials. If you just rely on the few decent items you get that would take even longer. Regardless, there’s no economy to ruin in games like skyrim or fallout. You’re the only one there with a bunch of mindless NPCs, they don’t trade with each other and their inventory resets after a few days. Selling them a ton of crap is completely meaningless to the world as a whole.
I don’t think you understand game design if you can’t understand what’s meant by “ruining the economy.” It means that the player gets so much money that there’s essentially no use for it anymore. They can buy anything that’s available without concern. For example, in Morrowind you can craft potions with ridiculous value, then use that to pay for levels from trainers and buy the best items, then pay for enchanting to make them even better. It trivializes the game.
The only option at that point is to just limit what can be purchased. That’s a much worse solution than balancing the game’s economy so the player has options to spend money on, but critically they can’t buy everything. Video games are about making decisions. If you don’t have to decide anything than why not just watch a movie? The game needs to present you with options, and you need to choose what you will and won’t do. The economy is a great place this can happen in a game that’s balanced well.
Did you actually play Morrowind? I can’t think of a single one of the best items in Morrowind that was available for sale. You either had to steal them or they were loot. Also most of the vendors in that game were pretty broke. To sell anything of “ridiculous value” You had to find the mudcrab merchant out in the middle of nowhere. Gold didn’t trivialize that game at all. Exploiting alchemy did.
No, the best items in the game are enchanted by the player easily. It’s not required, but enchanting you can create better magical items than are available to find, and with the specific enchantments that you want.
I agree selling stuff was annoying, but it wasn’t that hard. You just sell as much as you can and buy back other light valuables. Then when you buy something you use the valuables first.
Easy fix: Have more money as loot instead of otherwise nearly worthless items that sell for small amounts of money for flavor.
Well, for most games it isn’t useless items. Most of it just isn’t useful to you. Either your gear is better, or it’s for a combat style you don’t use, or it’s consumables like potions.
I’m talking about the things you can’t use, like bowls and trinkets and other stuff that games frequently include as ‘white’ items that literally cannot be used. Those things that exist to be sold to vendors.
They have been in many of the rpgs I have played. In the rpgs that don’t have them, there isn’t a vendor that buys stuff and no ‘economy’ that exists.
That’s almost exclusively a Bethesda thing, at least to the extent it’s an issue. Technically it’s in Tainted Grail some, and Larian games a very small amount, but never in enough quantity or weight to be an issue, nor are they ever worth enough to bother with.
Look, you started by saying Bethesda games don’t have encumbrance but Skyrim was the first game I thought of that had stuff you couldn’t use but had some kind of value and weight and encumbrance was a huge part of Skyrim when wearing heavy armor. There is even a whole strategy of figuring out value for the weight to increase the amount of value you get when selling. Baldur’s Gate 3 and I assume earlier ones have the same thing.
We are talking about the games that have those things when saying they are an issue. Of course it isn’t an issue in games that don’t have it, but when it exists it absolutely is an issue, especially when game mechanics include a ‘loot all’ option. There you need to drop what you don’t want.
Hell, inventory management by space and encumbrance have been a thing for all the years I have played rpgs. Not having either seems more like the exception to me.
The first thing I disable in every RPG.
Going through a dungeon and having to stop every couple of rooms to throw away stuff really loses your immersion.
Bonus point is that it also accumulates wealth more easily.
I memorize which items have a good weight to value ratio and don’t pick up the junk. When I was young I would take everything in multiple trips, but I ain’t got time for that now.
You can keep ChatGPT on in the background so that she/he can keep inventory for you guys. Like a mystical miserable fuck.
How about you keep ChatGPT in the trash where it belongs?
I can tell by the downvotes that there aren’t many fans of the AI on here and that’s fine. To each their own. I’m too old to be hating on new technology like if I was born in the 1100s.
If it was just new tech, I’d be all over it. If you aren’t aware of all the issues then you haven’t been paying attention.
Also, why in the ever loving fuck would you use an AI just to track a number? Just use a calculator app, notes app, anything simpler than having “I have fired another arrow, how many are left now?” Lmao.
Removed by mod
The AI has rotted your brain man. Tracking arrows, what this entire post is about, doesn’t need a fucking LLM. It needs tally marks on a sheet of paper, at most.
Regarding inventory management in general: Why the fuck would you ever use an LLM for something you can do in Notepad? Want to be fancy? Use More Purple More Better’s editable PDF player sheet templates. You can load in sourcebook data from external sources easily and have everything from every sourcebook at your fingertips. And you can still enter custom shit like custom magical items easily.
Eh, didn’t have better things to do at the time, and wanted to shout out MPMB’s PDFs. Amazing tool.
Making fun of Luddites, as if they didn’t actually have a great fucking point, isn’t the cool flex you think it is.
Removed by mod
ChatGPT is a pedophile and a serial killer. It keeps abusing and murdering kids.
Removed by mod
And if it hallucinates a few more inventory items who are we to complain?
No complaints at all. Who are we to question the spirits?
Why would you use ChatGPT to emulate a word processor? You get all the functionality you need without ever hitting enter.
I’m wondering if they mean have ChatGPT reading the messages in Discord and automatically tracking it? It should be able to do that, but I’m not sure about the specifics. And it’s not something LLMs are good at, so you have to be able to work around it. It would basically need to notice whenever you use an item, then tell something else to remove that from you inventory.
If they’re talking discord specifically I’ve seen bots in servers that track inventory for you. Just click a button. If they can be arsed to do that then they’re truly beyond help.
Assuming it works, they are clearly not beyond help. If you find yourself constantly forgetting to click the button, there’s no shame in finding some workaround. And solving small problems is half the fun of being a programmer.
I just keep it on so there’s a recording of everything said that’s relevant for marketing purposes. I want the most personalized ads.
I just threw up a little
I’ve literally typed the exact parameters of the product I want into chatgpt and it still didn’t give me what I was looking for. It can’t even do advertising right.
AI doesn’t have gender
Removed by mod
That’s not how gender works.
Removed by mod
I mean, if we’re taking zeros and ones, yeah it’s definitely binary. If we’re talking gender, it’s absolutely non-binary.
Removed by mod
What are you talking about? My comment was about linguistic pedantry, not virtue signalling.
You can keep cyanide in your digestive tract so that she/he can make inventory tracking a complete non-issue for you specifically ☝️🤓
Removed by mod
thanks, I have my moments.
Removed by mod