Best inventory system for an RPG game

[Username]

I would like to hear some opinions about this topic.

I have implemented an "infinite depth" inventory system, which I'm not likely to use when I release the game.

Basically:

-> Inventory like Ultima Online: you got a backpack and you can put in everything you can while the total weight is not exceeded. Increasing Strength allows you to carry more things.
-> Inventory Diablo games: your inventory has volume instead of weight. When items in the backpack exceed the volume, you cannot put in more things.
-> Fixed inventory system: you can insert everything you can, up to a specific amount of items. For example, you can put in 10 tree leafs or 10 plate mails. For example in World of Warcraft.
-> Realistic inventory: It is basically a mix of volume + weight inventory system. You have a very limited volume and weight available. Small items like tree leaves, occupy little and weight little. A plate mail weights a lot, but since you can put things inside the Plate Mail, it is likely occupying little volume. But a gigantic Origami (Japanese paper figure) weights little, but since you can't fold it, it occupies a lot.


Any other idea?

Actually I'm up for the last one, the realistic one, but I need more opinions.

[micha]

I agree, the last one ist the most realistic. However, I doubt it will make the game better. The player has to keep track of two quantities: weight and volume. That makes the inventory unnecessarily complicated for the simple decision: "Can I carry this object or not?". So for me it looks like more rules for the player to understand, but not really a new feature (additional pain, without gain). I suggest either volume- or weight based inventory.

Things change, if you are planing to implement game mechanics based on volume or weight. For example you could have a bridge that breaks when the weights is to high. Or you could make the player walk slower, based on strength and carried weight. In that case you could make volume a strict constraint for the inventory and weight a "soft" constraint, by making the player slower with more weight. Just an idea...

[Kadoba]

It really depends on the type of RPG you are making. All of the systems have their advantages and disadvantages. I'll list what I can think of.

Weight System

• Pros:
  • Interesting resource management. Need to carefully manage your inventory which can be a good and bad thing really.
• Cons:
  • Is harder to notice when you're approaching your limit.
  • Can be annoying figuring out what is weighing you down.

Diablo-style

• Pros:
  • Easy to understand and use.
  • Good for visual people. It's easier to find the items you're looking for.
  • Interesting resource management in the form of slots.
• Cons:
  • Can be annoying to manage. Need to cherry pick items and move them spaces where they they will fit.
  • Not as scalable. If you want the player to manage lots of items then this will get out of hand faster than other systems.

Fixed

• Pros:
  • Most common RPG inventory type. Gamers accept it as a staple and has a low design risk.
  • Is more scalable than the Diablo-type system. You don't have to make items "fit".
  • Easy to sort.
• Cons:
  • Harder to give "weight" to items. Stacking limits can help with this somewhat.
  • Can be harder to find specific items in a sea of uniform shaped slots or text.

Realistic

• Pros:
  • Gives the designer lots of interesting options.
  • Can be good in games where player choices have a heavy impact, such as roguelikes.
• Cons:
  • Emphasis on realism can hurt your flexibility as a designer.
  • Could be a real pain for the player to manage. They have to contend with two resource limits instead of one.

The only other inventory type I can think of off-hand is a segregated system like recent Pokemon games. Where each item type has their own fixed system.

[Plu]

I think the key point in deciding on a system should be "what kind of game am I building"? So... what kind of game are you building?

[Inny]

There are two inventory systems that I always found to be great:

1. The Final Fantasy 6 style where you just get to carry everything without limit. Seeing as how the only time in which item use mattered was in the heat of combat, and it had its own time component (meaning, it used a turn and you had to wait for the ATB meter to refill), then that was the limiting factor. This style is best for jRPGs where Story and Battles are king, and getting lost in a dungeon isn't so much the focus of the game.

2. The Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter style, where the inventory was severely limited. It had 10 slots to start, and backup upgrades would expand it by 5 slots. Each piece of equipment used a full slot. Potions and other items could be stacked to 10 items per slot. Now, whats key about this style of game is that getting lost in the dungeon and maximizing your use of resources was the focus of the game. You needed every last potion you could get because there was no curative magic, at all. You could return to "town" to store items more permanently, but in the dungeon you had to decide if those slots were more valuable filled with potions, or more valuable empty to save space for things you find.

The key difference between these two styles is that the inventory isn't really part of the game in the first. It's just there. The second makes the inventory part of the strategy of how you play. So the question as a designer is: is your inventory really part of the game?

[Username]

Open-world RPG, with lots of possible things to pickup, and full keyboard driven.
Also with gathering and crafting.


I was thinking about a fixed inventory with a weight limitation. It could be an inventory like in World of Warcraft but you can only add items if your strength allows it.

Using keyboard you can move around the inventory, then press "return" to use the item (weapons will equip, potions will drink, food will eat, scrolls will read, crafting items will craft, etc...) and press "d" for dropping it.
The item description will appear in the bottom of the screen when the player moves over each item.

Other actions will be done in other GUIs, like selling or repairing.

Would this be easy to manage for the player? Or better without the weight limitation? I really want the weight limitation so character strength is used for something else that combat.

[micha]

Would this be easy to manage for the player? Or better without the weight limitation? I really want the weight limitation so character strength is used for something else that combat.

I believe, yes, it can be easy. But you have to find a way to communitace things to the player.

A bad decision is to display the weight as a number (only). Then the player is confronted with a list of number and cannot easily see, where the large weight comes from.
A much better decision is to display the weight as a "bar", like in a bar chart. Have a small bar next to each item and one large bar for the total weight and the maximum weight the character can carry. That way, the player can visually "see" where the heavy items are. I think this is really important.

[Username]

Would this be easy to manage for the player? Or better without the weight limitation? I really want the weight limitation so character strength is used for something else that combat.

I believe, yes, it can be easy. But you have to find a way to communitace things to the player.

A bad decision is to display the weight as a number (only). Then the player is confronted with a list of number and cannot easily see, where the large weight comes from.
A much better decision is to display the weight as a "bar", like in a bar chart. Have a small bar next to each item and one large bar for the total weight and the maximum weight the character can carry. That way, the player can visually "see" where the heavy items are. I think this is really important.

The inventory will show the total weight versus the maximum weight. The maximum weight is based on character strength.
If you played Ultima Onlina, the inventory is similar, you can carry 999999999 items if your strength is high enough, and the backpack is big enough.
In fact, in Ultima Online to know how much weights an object (or pile of objects), you must see the object description, so if you have 200 items you must figure out which is the heaviest one.
This is probably common sense, because a stone block of granite weights more than a block of wood, but a pile of 500 wood blocks will probably weight more than the granite stone block.

This is basically how I am going to implement the inventory. Unless someone has a better idea or feature.
(actually that is just an image created with gimp, but the final result will be like that)

5h3BiDk.png (34.71 KiB) Viewed 582 times

[Plu]

Using the object description to show weight is probably a bad idea. One of the main issues with backpack management is quickly being able to see how much room everything is occupying. This is one of the great advantages of the Diablo style one; where you can instantly see how much room something uses. It's probably better to show everything in a list (instead of a block graph) and to draw a small bar in the 'weight' section to show the relative weight of that object type.

(And probably a good idea to include a filter option to switch between equipment/crafting/etc and maybe even show the relative weight of each category, so you can instantly see that 70% of your inventory is crafting materials you should probably get rid of)

Being clear about the information you communicate to the player is really important in making a good game. Players managing an inventory need to know what things weigh, so that should be instantly clear for your entire inventory.

[monsieur_h]

I've seen an interesting option in the open source remake of X-com. It's called UFO:Alien Invasion.
You manage a team of 2 to 10 person with independent inventory each. So it has to be quick and simple. Every squad member has an outfit, providing armor and defining the size of the inventory.

The fun part is that it correlates with the shape of the outfit: for example a pocket gives you a small amount of volume, but it isn't added to the backpack. (You can't carry 90% of your sword in the backpack and 10% in your belt, don't you?). It helps the player visualizes where his character is carrying his items, enforcing immersion.

It was an interesting design choice to me: "Do I need an exosuit with a better armor and no pockets (thus no grenades) or a lighter one with more pockets and a belt?(allowing me to carry additional medikit and grenades)".

TL;DR: Diablo-like inventory where the shape and volumes changes according to what you're wearing.
I've found a screenshot that partially illustrates my point. We don't see any pocket, but there is a belt. Hope it helps!