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[JasonPickering]

shiren the wanderer had an odd equipment managment system. you had all types of various weapons, all random levels. so on this play through you might hava katana or a cudgel. thats nothing new, but later on you unlock an item which can combine weapons. so then it becomes this pokemon like game where you are hunting out all weapons to cram them together to make one super weapon. so after about 10 minutes you have your super weapon decided, you just spend the next 5 hours constantly upgrading that one weapon.

[drChengele]

"Equipment management" the OP describes is a consequence of the "loot-grind-watch-numbers-go-up" convention which is pretty deeply rooted in games today. Such shortcuts as "auto-equip" and others are merely a way to get around some of the more tedious properties of this paradigm. It is not auto-equip that is the problem, it is the underlying system which is made so that no amount of auto-equip will make it more pleasing.

Modern RPG gaming can be summed up as watching numbers go up. I used to think JRPGs were the most blatant offenders in this respect, but then the Diablo->WoW branch of games came out and popularized, if not invented, the concept for the western audiences.

I would really like to see an RPG game which uses NO numbers. But then it would not be an RPG, would it? Instead it would probably need to focus on... I don't know... plot, setting, atmosphere, characters, or some other unnecessary thing, none of which apparently isn't enough to carry a game by itself.

I mean, what kid hasn't always dreamed of embarking on a dramatic and daring world-saving adventure which would consist of meticulously comparing some obscure percentages of different weapons, carrying twenty different sets of armour in their backpack to sell later on, and having epic battles versus monsters which consist of hitting the monsters repeatedly, being hit by monsters repeatedly, and drinking potions when the incoming hits become threatening.

Atmosphere is something that has long been abandoned by RPGs. The segregation of gameplay and narrative is just too staggering.

[Chris Whitman]

I know Demon's Souls has come up a lot over the past bit because the Demon's Souls thread has got the three or four people who actually played it all worked up, but I'm just going to bring up another point about it yet again.

There's a part in this area that is just basically a giant pit of filth and disease, in this enormous, dark cavern, where you ascend this rickety walkway and find this nest of giant slugs. It's difficult to do in the dark and super easy to fall off (and falling off means you die, and dying means you lose all your unspent experience, which is bad), but if you chop down the slug nest and return to the bottom, you can see it has fallen directly on a small island. Of course, it has also released about a billion giant slugs.

So you need to slog through the diseased muck (which is basically going to poison the shit out of you) and do battle with this enormous number of giant slugs, but afterwards you get to the centre of the island and pull out a freaking two-handed sword made of moonlight that chops through shields.

And sure, it makes your numbers go up, but the difference here is that:

1. You have to work to get it.

2. Like Melly pointed out, it's qualitatively different from other weapons. Unless you're super strong, it's kind of slow, despite being powerful, so there are still reasons you might want to use something else besides numbers.

3. It's conceptually awesome. If a game is going to have fighting, and going to have weapons, why not make them have their own stories, and be things the player would actually want to get and use? Chrono Trigger with the Masamune is a good example of this, I guess.


I think automation is basically the same as just pulling a game mechanic. You might as well not have it in at all, and if everything in your game is better automated, you might as well not have a game. Why not try to make the mechanic better? Everyone's basically in agreement that games where your goal is "finding the sword that's slightly better than the last sword" are terrible. I'd like to see more examples of games that make weapon or inventory management good or interesting.

[drChengele]

I'd like to see more examples of games that make weapon or inventory management good or interesting.

Taking that even further, I'd like to see a game where the "inventory" is what a normal person - well, a normal adventurer - can carry. And no more.

Luke Skywalker didn't have to manage his inventory when he went to save Princess Leia. Hercules didn't need to shuffle around items in his backpack when he set out to do the 12 Tasks. We should be asking ourselves why has gaming, of all things, taken a weird fetish for kleptomaniacal item collection?

Oh and I completely agree on the conceptually different weapons bit.

[Chris Whitman]

Well, I don't know. You're sort of operating under the mode that all games are heroic fantasies, which is not true. Guybrush Threepwood is a weird guy: why is it unusual that he obsessively hordes discarded junk?

Also, in my experience, games that are like "You can carry x pounds, and also you have to personally arrange everything so that it fits in your backpack" tend to be even more micromanaging-intensive than games with unlimited inventories.

"Ugh, overburdened again. Which do I want more, the wand of eternal pants or the tome of taffy lore?"

But you have a point in a sense. Mass Effect 2 did away with inventory management almost completely and was a better game for it. It's definitely good for people to consider whether even having an inventory is necessary or just included for convention.

I think it really comes down to asking yourself tough questions about what you're doing. Does your inventory management really add anything? Are your repetitive tasks "fun" or "meaningful" in some other way? Like Paul mentioned, if they cut out the bush-chopping action from Zelda I would feel like something was missing, even if it is quite literally just operant conditioning.

[Chris Whitman]

By operant conditioning, of course, I mean that it is quite literally just "push button, sometimes get reward." It's how slot machines work. It's cheap, and it shouldn't be the basis of an entire game, I don't think, but sometimes it does provide an extra hook.

[Melly]

You mean you can cut down all those hanging slugs?? Motherfucker, I was up there and tries hitting them but my attacks just bounced back. I'll have to try and get there again.

And I love the idea of weapons having their own stories. Diablo and Torchlight have huge issues with that, even unique equipment being popped at random without rime or reason, making them feel like just another statistic. Also, in Torchlight, you can find several of the same 'unique' item. They're more like 'named' items.

In DS it feels a bit like Megaman. Many of the unique weapons you have to make using the souls of the boss demons you slay. These are unique souls that you only get once (when you kill the boss) and that could have other uses (they can turn into unique powerful spells or can simply be consumed for a ton of extra exp).

I always enjoyed that type of reward for killing tough enemies. It's a prize to your effort in overcoming a large challenge, and it just opens up new avenues of gameplay instead of just making your numbers go higher.

[drChengele]

Well, I don't know. You're sort of operating under the mode that all games are heroic fantasies, which is not true. Guybrush Threepwood is a weird guy: why is it unusual that he obsessively hordes discarded junk?

Monkey Island is not really an equipment management game. It is a p&c adventure virtually designed to collect items and use them in certain ways to pave way to getting more items. Inventory there is a tool, not a distraction. But I get what you're saying, that not all games are heroic archetypes; still, I can't name many such RPGs off the top of my head.

Also, in my experience, games that are like "You can carry x pounds, and also you have to personally arrange everything so that it fits in your backpack" tend to be even more micromanaging-intensive than games with unlimited inventories.

"Ugh, overburdened again. Which do I want more, the wand of eternal pants or the tome of taffy lore?"

That's true of course, but that's the point - arranging things in the backpack and picking what you want to take with you is JUST A CONSEQUENCE of the "pick up everything" approach to gaming. It's one of the ways designers try to make a flawed mule-inventory system more "realistic" by imposing limits. This backfires epically, makes nothing realistic, and manages to additionally make life more difficult for the player.

Maybe the inventory obsession isn't flawed, just... overused and obsolete, a random branch of design ideas which gradually spawned a dominant game genre where a lot of other approaches might have been equally as fun, if not more fun. Objectively speaking, beasts and enemies dropping loot and inventory management in an adventure of any medium just DON'T MAKE SENSE. I wouldn't be able to relate to that sort of a novel and I can't relate to that sort of a game. (I know there is a huge difference between games and novels but if inventory loot grind is really the best thing the games medium can come up with to be unique, then... ugh.) Even if it's a game, I'd like if it tried to suspend my disbelief. Perhaps I wouldn't mind it so much, but most such games actually try to tell a serious and compelling story, which is kinda comical when juxtaposed with inventory grind.

Well, I guess the convention is established for a reason, and who am I to disagree with hundreds of millions of copies of sold games? People obviously like seeing numbers go up. They like inventories. They would most likely prefer infinite inventories. But how much of that is because they are exposed to only such games from birth?

[TwilightVulpine]

Objectively speaking, beasts and enemies dropping loot and inventory management in an adventure of any medium just DON'T MAKE SENSE. I wouldn't be able to relate to that sort of a novel and I can't relate to that sort of a game. (I know there is a huge difference between games and novels but if inventory loot grind is really the best thing the games medium can come up with to be unique, then... ugh.)

To have enemies that drop raw materials, instead of crafted items and gold(unless they are humanoid), is beneficial to the suspension of disbelief, in my opinion. Some games take this approach, but they often resort to grinding and make the materials unrealistically hard to get and/or crafting to require an absurd amount of materials, which breaks the suspension of disbelief again.

[Melly]

Why the hell should I have to kill 300 Generic Red Dragons for just 5 Dragon Horns? THEY HAVE HORNS RIGHT THERE! I am looking at them, if I was there I could touch them myself, but I can't extract them for some reason. Maybe I need to be lucky that the horn will break off during the fight? Then why are the dead dragons still keeping their horns intact when I do get them?

That's the kinda stuff that destroys suspencion of disbelief for me, mechanics that make no sense in the game world, especially ones that are based on increasing game length artificially with mindless grinding for randomly dropped materials.

If I had the power I'd ban that kinda stuff.

The cleptomaniac style of gameplay comes from the simple fact that we as humans want to take advantage of the opportunities that are given to us. I'm pretty sure most people would go around the place hoarding everything they see in real life if they had an infinite Bag of Holding to carry everything, nobody was bothered by your rampant collecting, any vendor would gladly buy every piece of trash you got no matter what he initially sold to begin with, and nobody was bothered by you destroying property or invading house to get valuable stuff.

That style of gameplay comes from every aspect of the game that conspires to make that the best option to advance through it. Even Demon's Souls has some of that problem. It does have vendors that don't buy your crap (you can't actually sell anything) and inventory weight limits, but those are lenient, and you can find yourself carrying nearly a hundred herbs of each type, and the stockpile dude will hold anything and everything you bring him, to the point you wonder if all the crates and bags around him are black holes linking to a dimension of infinite emptyness that has an specific limitation to the same type of expendable (maximum 99) or ammunition (maximum 999), but not to anything else.

That is, however, a minor issue, since you don't really find much in the way of equipment in that game. It's mostly an issue with health/ailment/mana recovery items and such.

So, I don't agree that inventory limits backfire on the developers, by themselves. It's the fact that the players WANT to grab everything at all costs, and everything else that makes that seem like the most obvious option to get an advantage, that makes them upset when they can't have infinite holding space and believe that to be a gameplay improvement as it lowers busywork to go back to town to get rid of your junk all the time.

[Ben_Hurr]

I think the issue isn't that equipment management is unnecessary, but that it's being done poorly.  Equipment shouldn't be gradual changes on a linear scale.  Equipment should either have special effects that make certain combination of equipment fit certain play styles, or make finding a particular piece of equipment change the gameplay in a fairly significant way.

An example of the former would be Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced, wherein equipment gives characters boosts to stats, as well as teaches them abilities.  You want to acquire certain items to get the abilities you want.

An example of the latter would be Metroidvanias/Zelda-likes where new equipment is relatively rare but also rather game-changing (the equipment and world is designed such that new items can be used to reach new areas, so they can't just be gradual changes on a linear scale.)

YES

You wouldn't believe how bored I get with games that have inventory management, but just dump tons of 'better than the shit you had before this point' stuff.   It's like if you had to juggle all the inferior swords in your inventory after finding the Magic Sword in the original Legend of Zelda.

Or as another example, you usually find weapons in RPGs that cause status effects, or fit into a elemental rock-paper-scissors system, or are more effective against a specific type of enemy, (the Final Fantasy series a particularly guilty offender) but usually shortly after finding that stuff you'll find weapons that are better all around than those specialty weapons.

I mean what's the point of having a Flaming Sword of Melts Icy Fuckers that does 2x damage to ice enemies, and then putting a Boring Sword of Genericness +10 in the same dungeon that out damages it against everything including it's specialty foes?

What I'd rather see more of is different equipment, rather than clear cut better equipment in games.

[John Nesky]

I really liked the Badge system in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. You could equip various combinations of badges to dramatically improve some abilities while exposing yourself to other kinds of attacks. All of the most powerful badges had major costs and disadvantages... but some other badges could be used to counter the negative effects of the first badges. Pretty much the whole badge management system was about rule hacking.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that system was also used in the original paper mario, note

[Ben_Hurr]

I really liked the Badge system in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. You could equip various combinations of badges to dramatically improve some abilities while exposing yourself to other kinds of attacks. All of the most powerful badges had major costs and disadvantages... but some other badges could be used to counter the negative effects of the first badges. Pretty much the whole badge management system was about rule hacking.

Yes, that's more what I'm talking about.
I really liked that mechanic. <3

[SirNiko]

I think it's also important to note that Metroid and Zelda have two very different upgrade systems. Metroid tends to stack everything up. The Samus you play at the end controls just like the one at the start, she just jumps higher and shoots way bigger lasers and turns into a buzz saw when she jumps. In Zelda, you get a few passive upgrades (you sword being the most visible one) but all the other things you find are tools. Unless you know which situation you want to use them, they don't provide any benefit, and often times one tool is nearly completely replaced by another (once you have the morning star, you don't use nearly as many bombs).

The only thing in Final Fantasy 13 that's bugging me is the item grind at the end. I've collected all the whatsits you can get from quests. I've unlocked all the item shops. I now can defeat the giant turtles pretty effortlessly. The only thing left is to kill them ad nauseum to collect money to buy upgrade items to make my items better despite the fact I'm never going to use them because I've already beaten the game. But, really that just unlocks a trophy, and I think I'll just be content to never collect that trophy.

Maybe.

-SirNiko

[TwilightVulpine]

Well, if you have already beaten the game, it is not the game's fault if you are still grinding. You are the one willing to go after those trophies.

[easynam]

In fire emblem it is sometimes better to NOT use the best weapons because they're rare and have limited use.

[JoGribbs]

I think the gene tonic system in Bioshock is a really interesting example. The way I thought of it was that there were two kinds of tonic: really general tonics, like 'hacking is easier' or 'take less damage', and really specific tonics like 'fewer alarms' or 'greater fire resistance'. The specific tonics were more powerful, but that was offset by them lacking a general purpose.

I think that's an interesting way to handle stat boosts, and it's something Paper Mario, which someone mentioned previously, also did really well.

[SirNiko]

Well, if you has already beaten the game, it is not the game's fault if you are still grinding. You are the one willing to go after those trophies.

Making it optional is good. That doesn't mean that the game couldn't have had more interesting optional content rather than "kill turtles for enough money to buy everything". I'm just disappointed it wasn't more fun considering how much I enjoyed the rest of the game.

-SirNiko

[Lynx]

Seen the old Apple ][ game, Sundog?

In this game, your ship had equipment slots - but instead of taking entire equipment units (guns, ship drive, etc.) they took components, i.e. CPUs, memory, power generator, routing for power, actuators, etc.  You could buy new components that would upgrade capabilities of your equipment.

Similarly, Diablo II's expansion introduced gems and runes, which could be inserted into slots in your equipment to increase their power.

You could also find equipment components in ME1, though this dropped out in ME2.  This led to an inventory problem where you'd still find old and inferior components even after all of your squad members had upgraded past the relevancy of such components, same for old guns and armor.  Since upgrades took up space, in fact the same amount of space as an entire armor, and the inventory limit seemed fairly arbitrary, this was more annoying than 'realism'.

I liked the 'items have shapes' inventories in Deus Ex and System Shock; it created a limit, but a plausible feeling one, to how many items your characters could legitimately carry at a time.  Armor was typically 2 across by 3 down, for instance, while weapons were 1 across by 3 down for rifles, and consumables were 1 by 1.  You could carry an object on your cursor ("in your hand") but this would prevent you from shooting while you were doing so.

Bottom line for me is, if you want equipment management to be in your game, you should eliminate any task that can be automated - collecting loot from fallen enemies and discarding obsolete equipment - and leave only meaningful choices - choosing what to carry and which group member/weapon/armor should receive upgrades.