weight suggestion for G4

[blueman02]

I know this was already discussed somewhere but I couldn't find it so I apologize for starting a new topic. I am a big fan of this series but G3 has been really tedious for me mostly because of the weight issue. No other Geneforge has had as much stuff to collect or save as this one has and it's a major annoyance going to town to unload 4-5 times per map. My suggestion for G4 is to make the encumbrance only for the items you are wearing. Realisticly I would assume that going into battle it wouldn't be too hard to drop a backpack before the fight starts. Also I don't think it would be too hard to change the Str/encumbrance formula (but maybe it is I know nothing about code). Like 4 Str you can only wear 30 lbs or something before being encumbered. Honestly wearing 30-50 lbs of armor would definitly slow you down in battle. This could also change the way it is played. Ideally it would be that Guardians would be able to wear the best armor and weapons, but maybe Shapers couldn't unless they trained more in Strength. That's my suggestion anyway.

**edit** Of course I would find it after I create a new topic. My apologies for makeing the same suggestion that was already made. I guess this topic can be deleted.

[Dikiyoba]

I don't mind discussing it again, because I think it's a good idea to have encumbrance count only for equiped items (and the four easy-access inventory slots as well). As an obsessive-compulsive packrat of a player, I pick up everything I can. I frequently find myself encumbered in combat and having to drop items, or having to run back into town to drop items off. It gets annoying quickly. It would almost make things too easy, though, since people could carry around all their javelins and living tools all the time. But it would still be a very nice feature.

 

Dikiyoba would also like to see an easier way to drop off the items in Dikiyoba's inventory. Picking things up is easy. Putting them down again is not.

[Spidweb]

This is the first time this has been suggested to me, and I think it's actually quite a good idea. I'll give this serious consideration.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Zeviz]

SoT recently posted a very good way to get rid of annoyance of carrying loot without getting rid of encumrance for the pack:

 

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:

Encumbrance is a good way to force tactical choices, but I agree that it is merely tedious when all it really does is force you to trudge through an area again in order to pick up all the loot.

 

What I'd suggest is keeping encumbrance, but allowing the player to Fedex loot to towns, by means of a variant of A4's portal technology. Have a mode or a button or something that makes it so that you can click on things, and designate them to be carried away by creations when you leave the zone. The items thus designated will arrive at a specific spot in any friendly town that you have explored. So I guess you'd have to have some way to choose the destinations from among known friendly towns.

 

This seems to me to be plausible for Shapers, much easier to implement than pack mules, and wonderfully convenient for the player. And while it would make carrying treasure very easy, it would not help at all with carrying items that you need to actually use. The encumbrance limits for those could even be lowered, now that the PC doesn't need to carry any treasure.

 

A nice added feature would be the ability to sell items directly from their arrival point, without the need to go and pick them up and carry them to the merchants.

An extension of the last paragraph is that perhaps you could designate the auto-carriers to take items directly to a shop, so you'd find the gold at the pickup point without having to separately pick up and sell every robe and dagger that you find.

[Suspicious Vlish]

I prefer the way the encumbrance system worked in GF1 and GF2. It was far more realistic. Only having encumb. for equipped items might be more convenient, but I wouldn't support such a change.

[Elijah]

If you were to drop your backpack, how would you get all of the items you need, like ammo for your baton?

 

How about Jeff replaces those quick-use buttons with a "belt"?

It could hold 5 or 6 items, but they would count towards your encumberance. That way you could implement the "drop the backpack" idea, yet keep several important items. It would also add strategy, since you would have to decide which items to take into battle.

 

Since this would only differ in battle, you could still use it as quick-use buttons outside of combat.

[blueman02]

I haven't played the first two GF's in a long time but I'm pretty sure the encumbrance worked the same way in all 3 of them. It's just that it wasn't as noticable in the first two because there wasn't as much stuff to pick up.

 

I also thought that the quick item slots were items in your belt so they would count for encumbrance and you could use those items in battle. You just wouldn't be able to use items carried in the backpack during battle. There is no real reason to use items from the backpack anyways if you put the right items in the belt slots. A few pods/spores, weapon ammo, and maybe some attack crystals is really all you need anyway. So this should not affect combat too much, but it will make picking up misc. items from the map much less tedious. The idea is just to make the game more playable and less tedious which will make it more enjoyable overall which is again the whole idea.

 

I really don't care what Jeff decides to do with this issue as long as it is some sort of improvement over the current system.

[Jamey]

A more Geneforge appropriate way of handling the encumberance would be to have two inventories - the one carried by your character (which is accessible in combat) and the other carried by your minions. Use their combined strength to calculate an encumberance limit for the minion inventory.

[Elijah]

What minions?

[*i]

I think he means your creations.

 

Personally I prefer the simple solution of having only the stuff you are wearing (or in your quick use slots) count against you. This way you can still carry loot, but not be horribly weighed down. Of course, you still have a limited number of item slots, but you need limits somewhere.

[Retlaw May]

Something that Jeff has to take into consideration when he said he would think about that suggestion is that by reasoning that you drop the pack when fighting, (therefore it not counting against you) you would actually DROP it. This would mean running away in combat means loosing all your stuff that is not carried on you. I think that the weight system should be tweeked, but some of these tweeks people suggest would mean losing most of your stuff if you retreat or the like (even if a beast of burden carried it, it could be killed and if it tried to run away it probably wouldn't be the fastest invention of the shapers because it would be used to walking greater distance at a relativally steady and perhaps slow pace, and these would leave it a sitting duck).

[Elijah]

So perhaps there could be a physical object that appears when you enter combat? When you stand near it and click on it, you pick it up. That might be difficult to script, though.

[blueman02]

You wouldn't have to physically drop the backpack in the game, just that you wouldn't have access to it as if you had dropped it. You can use any reason you want, like - Being surrounded by Vlish and Clawbugs you just don't have time to dig past the shaper equipment, spare weapons, and extra armor to find that speed pod you put in there earlier.

 

"Don't attack me yet, I found it, now just give me time to move these five iron bars out of the way so I can... AAaagh!" oops your dead.

 

ie. While in combat mode trying to open your backpack would do absolutely nothing until combat has been ended.

[Student of Trinity]

I still prefer my 'tag it, don't bag it' suggestion. The idea is that 'tagged' items would be carried to the town of your choice by hypothetical specialized courier creations -- perhaps a small swarm of strong fliers, never directly represented in the game -- when you left the zone. If we make it so that you can't 'tag' items in combat mode, and can only do so when very close to them, then it should be impossible to steal items from under the noses of guards and then run away. Or perhaps the items would only be transported if the zone is clear, and would automatically become untagged if you left the zone uncleared.

 

It would also be fun, I think, if Jeff could make some place or places in the game which you could take over and use as a homebase -- a small town of your own, in effect. If this place were secure, it would also provide a plausible explanation for how you can carry around 30,000 gold coins without encumbrance: they are stored in a trunk in your base, and you send courier creations to fetch them whenever you buy something.

[*i]

Seems unnecessary and hokey when you can just have it in your inventory. Keep it as simple as possible.

[Retlaw May]

Quote:

Originally written by blueman02:
You wouldn't have to physically drop the backpack in the game, just that you wouldn't have access to it as if you had dropped it. You can use any reason you want, like - Being surrounded by Vlish and Clawbugs you just don't have time to dig past the shaper equipment, spare weapons, and extra armor to find that speed pod you put in there earlier.

"Don't attack me yet, I found it, now just give me time to move these five iron bars out of the way so I can... AAaagh!" oops your dead.

ie. While in combat mode trying to open your backpack would do absolutely nothing until combat has been ended.

You aren't getting my point that if you ran away, you wouldn't be able to run away with your 300 lb backback in combat mode... It would actually have to be left on the ground.

[Student of Trinity]

Quote:

Originally written by *i:
Seems unnecessary and hokey when you can just have it in your inventory. Keep it as simple as possible.

The explanation of how it would all supposedly work in the game world is indeed a bit complicated, though hokey is in the eye of the behoker, and I figure that courier creations are one of the first things I'd make if I were a Shaper.

But the gameplay would be very simple; simpler, I'd say, than a droppable backpack, a pack mule, or multiple schlepping trips to haul back loot.

[Jamey]

Or, perhaps add a pack-mule type creation which has an inventory, a lot of HP (so it doesn't die all the time), and cannot fight worth a darn.

 

That would avoid a lot of complications.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Jamey:
Or, perhaps add a pack-mule type creation which has an inventory, a lot of HP (so it doesn't die all the time), and cannot fight worth a darn.

That would avoid a lot of complications.

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
The explanation of how it would all supposedly work in the game world is indeed a bit complicated, though hokey is in the eye of the behoker, and I figure that courier creations are one of the first things I'd make if I were a Shaper.

But the gameplay would be very simple; simpler, I'd say, than a droppable backpack, a pack mule, or multiple schlepping trips to haul back loot.

[Retlaw May]

Quote:

Originally written by Jamey:
Or, perhaps add a pack-mule type creation which has an inventory, a lot of HP (so it doesn't die all the time), and cannot fight worth a darn.

That would avoid a lot of complications.

Such a beast would have to be massive and heavily armored. Such a beast would be slow and if you wished for it to follow you, it would slow you down to an enormous degree.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Retlaw May:
Such a beast would have to be massive and heavily armored. Such a beast would be slow and if you wished for it to follow you, it would slow you down to an enormous degree.

What makes you say that? An elephant's average walking pace is much faster than a human's, and elephants can carry a decent amount of weight.

[Student of Trinity]

New creation in G4, by popular demand: Pack Elephothizon

 

This is by far the largest creation ever developed. It carries all your stuff, is indestructible, and drips acid. Best to wrap your stuff up well before you load it on.

 

Base essence cost: 800.

With 2 points of intelligence: 8000.

Not having to carry everything yourself: priceless.

 

************************************************

 

New creation in G5, by popular demand: Elephotizonhound

 

This fast, huge-mouthed, acid-resistant Roamer variant will keep your Elephotizon moving at a decent speed, and stop it from wandering off in combat. It will also sometimes accidentally swallow your lesser creations whole, particularly your Eyebeasts.

 

*****************************************

 

New creation in G6, by popular demand: Annihilation Vlish

 

This creation floats ahead of you and uses its magic rays to disintegrate all valuable items before you even see them, so that you never have to bother about carrying stuff at all, and don't miss it.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:

New creation in G6, by popular demand: Annihilation Vlish

This creation floats ahead of you and uses its magic rays to disintegrate all valuable items before you even see them, so that you never have to bother about carrying stuff at all, and don't miss it.

This is the best one by far.

[Retlaw May]

Quote:

Originally written by Thuryl:

Quote:

Originally written by Retlaw May:
Such a beast would have to be massive and heavily armored. Such a beast would be slow and if you wished for it to follow you, it would slow you down to an enormous degree.

What makes you say that? An elephant's average walking pace is much faster than a human's, and elephants can carry a decent amount of weight.

1) An elephant-type creature wouldn't last too long on a battlefield of mutated monters seeking blood.
2) Think of the essance cost that would be behind such a beast.
3) You start out as a rebel, such a beast would probably be a Shaper product because creations generally don't carry stuff around (except for serviles who only carry the weapons and armor they wear and use).

[I_am_a_Minotaur]

I personnally think the backpack thing would work. If you cast a kind of lock spell on it that needed a password of some sort to open you could stop people from taking your stuff.

 

You could give guardians the ability to hide things fast and therefore keep it hidden until you return.

[MagmaDragoon]

Actually, there is another problem about the items, though... Even if we could have a pack creation, where we can put in safety your items? Could we need a stash where we can put them in any order?