ITEM CARRYING

author=slashphoenix link=topic=3933.msg78825#msg78825 date=1244320933
I preferred Earthbound's system as well. Each character had a limited amount of space in their inventory, (like, 20 items?) and could only use their items in battle. It added a little strategy (give Paula some food so she can heal people in a pinch, give Jeff just enough items and then stock him up with Big Bottle Rockets).

It also helps discourage farming, because if some idiot can plow through the game by repeatedly killing Hydracondas for Megalixers, making Lavos a joke... *ahem* It just removes part of the game's strategy. Why heal when you can spam your 99 full heal pots?

Of course, you could make items great, but never the best... or make truly life-saving items extremely rare. Basically, if a person ALWAYS wants to potion instead of Cure, and he can carry x99 potions, you might as well not have even made the spell.


Modify: Wow, this is a old topic. My bad. I was just thinking about this today, though.

Wondering why you care how somebody else plays the game...

author=Lennon link=topic=3933.msg78913#msg78913 date=1244415837
I don't really see any problems with letting a person have 99 of every item, I mean it is a fantasy setting after all, it doesn't have to adhere to the laws of reality.

Some different systems I perfer are the tales games systems, with around 20 of each item. It's enough to get you by, but nothing excessive. Also I liked oblivions system, although for what seems like no reason.

As for the thing about how 99 potions make healing magic usless, well, thats why you make heal magic better than potions, or the other way around. You obviously don't want to make them the same, unless you use a system where only certain people can use items.

The problem with your last paragraph is that every RPG ever proves that this is an impossible feat.

Karsu and I limit items to 9 because 1) there are lots of different OOB healing items and 2) our game, while kind of fantasy, is loosely based on a small 18th century European village where magic != the norm until a few months prior. There are no magic HOLD NINETY-NINE POTION scrolls, or really even potions. We just didn't think that in this setting holding 99 loaves of bread made any sense.

I have validated our limit on both a NUMBERZ and a ZOMGSETTING front. Anything else to bitchplease?

I have validated our limit on both a NUMBERZ and a ZOMGSETTING front. Anything else to bitchplease?

Sorry are you inplying that I was being a bitch or something?

I think that if there's a choice to be made between Realism and Fun, I like to go for Fun. I don't think there's always an either or, you can have both a lot of the times. But for item carrying, I feel the same thing about running/stamina systems: It's something that supposedly feels more realistic but usually makes the game less fun. There are exceptions of course.

Final Fantasy legend 2 has a lot of item limits, but the battle system revolved around a variety of equipment and uses, so you don't just spam attack or the strongest thing you have, but neither are you afraid to use the strong stuff because there are strong battles that will need it. I don't like either extreme, feeling that you can casually throw out your strongest attacks/items, or being afraid to use an item because there may be a battle where you really needed it and you already used it. I'd at least like to lean towards the 1st one though.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is another one. You can carry 99 of each item, but you can only hold 8 item types in battle and only 9 of each. I thought this was good, you don't go on super item conservation mode because you have up to 99 as a backup after battle, but you don't throw them too liberally because you can run out before the battle is over. This is the way I want to do it for future games.

Otherwise, quite a few of the games I played that have limited inventories usually just interfere with my greed. Either you're making multiple trips, you have to do boring inventory management, or something to that effect. "Oh hey it's a tiny dagger but positioned so a pixel of the daggers graphic goes into another box, and placed diagonally in the bookbag so it takes up 4 spaces instead of 2." I'd at least prefer weight based, though Oblivion was ridiculous and I was dragging items around until I gave up and then set a mod for unlimited carrying capacity.

Also, I agree with kentona, usually I see items as underpowered compared to magic anyway, so that's mainly something you'd use outside of battle when you don't feel like spending that MP to heal, or in the beginning when you only have one healer with a single target heal spell, or for someone to throw a phoenix down to your healer. Unless I've been playing the wrong games, I don't ever find 99 elixirs or megalixirs, and usually don't even find them in the double digits amount.

If I may...
As a player, I like challenging games, be it games with hard to find people or items or tricky puzzles.
But why do you asolutely want to limit the amount of carried items?
If it is for the sake of realism, what about a human being killed by a mere insect?
Is it to make the game more challenging? Come on, there are other and more imaginative ways to make the games challenging. A lot of games don't need to annoy the player with items counting to be VERY challenging.
I agree with all that Ocean said above, (and said way better than I ever would be able to.)
In Grandia, every character had his or her personal inventory, with a limited amount of slots (some of them already occupied by the equipment), what was really annoying in long dungeons, but at least there were vaults here and there, where you could store extra items and make room in inventories. The same system was available in Dragon Quest series or in Breath of Fire.
It's better than nothing, but the good old FFVI system is and always will be my favorite one.