Equipment Weight: Your thoughts and ideas?

[Feldschlacht IV]

Hey guys, recently I've been pondering an idea to have Equipment Weight in my game; armor (and possibly all equipment, period) would have a set weight that effects...something. I'm still working out the kinks! But this isn't about my game in particular (thoughts are welcome, however), but what are your thoughts, opinions, and experiences about the concept of equipment, armor, weapons having a weight cost to them? What games have you seen this utilized to cool effect, and how do you properly balance that?

 

[estriole]

one game comes to mind. Breath of fire (i don't know V but at least III and IV use weight if i remember correctly).

the game equipment have weight. but that game only use simple weight concept which only affect speed of the character though in battle. means you can act faster than heavy armored character. (it's realistic btw. you cannot move fast when wearing full plate armor).

since you narrow it down to equipment weight (not type)... the only parameter that affected by that weight is Speed / Evasion / maybe a little accuracy (it's hard to hit that speedy small fellow when you have hard time moving your own a*s ).

for weapon... more weight -> need more str to weild, slight lower accuracy (it's heavy to swing), greater damage (when it connect the weight add more power), more armor piercing effect (the blunt damage effect caused by the weight), more durable (more material that bind the weapon). reference: (Sword art online)

 

[whitesphere]

If you have equipment and item weight being a factor, it's important for the party to have somewhere safe to store their less crucial items.  

I know Skyrim uses equipment weight, but it seems just to slow the party's movement.  

Personally, I consider it more trouble than it's worth.  The things equipment weight would impact can be simulated nicely without adding another statistic.   Really, here are the penalties I see equipment weight would bring:

- Player can't dash --- realistic but just annoying for the player without affecting combat in the slightest

- Reduced attack speed (I've assigned this to heavier armors)

- Reduced Evasion (can't very well dodge if you're lumbering around in heavy armor or wielding a heavy battle axe)

- Reduced attack accuracy (HIT percentage drops)

- Reduced Defense.  For example: One character I have wields dual knives, but this means she has reduced defense when doing so because she has to stay closer to the enemy to attack effectively with the small blades.

- Barring the player from using a type of equipment (shields usually)

- Greater sensitivity to certain elemental attacks

All of these can be done nicely with the current parameters for Weapons, Equipment, etc.  Then it's just a matter of adding some descriptive text mentioning the, say, battle axe is awkward and must be used two-handed.

So I agree it's good to balance out armor, weapons and the likes by making them grant the player bonuses or penalties during combat.  But with all of the parameters you can modify, there's no need to add Equipment Weight.    Here are some I've used:

- Bows and arrows are powerful, but much slower (Attack Speed -100), tend to miss (HIT percentage -10%) and you can't use a shield with them (Seal Equip: Shield).  I assume the characters who use these are NOT ultra-proficient in their use, but know the basics.

- Heavy armor slows the player (-10 AGI, -5 EVA, -10 ATK) but reduces magical damage (Sp-Parameter: MDR 90%).  

- Magic Robes - user can ONLY equip an Accessory (Seal Equip: Head, Shield)

- Dual Knives lower defense (-10 DEF) but hit twice in a round (Atk Times +1). To balance these they do less damage each attack.

None of these require equipment weight, per se.  

 

[Andar]

Basically, equipment weight is one of several methods to limit party carrying capacity.


And that is the key - ask yourself for what purpose you want that limit.


If you want the limit for balancing purposes, or if you want to prevent the player from breaking through boss battles at low levels by item overuse, then that is a good variant, and you can start thinking of the implementation.


If you just want the weight for "cool effect", especially if the only result of excess weight is to slow player movement, then you're just adding something to make the game more tedious and booring to the player. That is never a good idea...


One more note on balancing: if you need weight to simply prevent the player from using too many potions, then remember: potions need to be either found or purchased, and you as the game developer decide how many items can be found and for what price they can be purchased...

 

[Feldschlacht IV]

I think I should clarify what I mean; by 'equipment weight' I don't mean inventory weight like in Skyrim and such, where the player can only have a certain weight capacity of the sum total of ALL the items and stuff they're carrying. And I don't mean equipment weight where the player moves slower on the map either. No, I mean equipment weight in a turn based combat capacity, like in Breath of Fire III/IV, where you can carry around whatever you want in your party inventory; that's irrelevant, but equipment PER PARTY member has a certain weight to it that effects things like Speed and Evasion negatively.

 

[captainproton]

Nothing to do with weight, but in my game, wearing things like the Gaia Robes or the Magi Crown marks you as a magic-user, so you're more likely to be targeted.

 

[whitesphere]

So you want a system more like Dragon Quest IX, where the party has a huge selection of items BUT during combat, each party member may only access their much smaller party-member-specific sub-inventory.

I don't think of that as item weight as much as "During a fight I can only grab the few items in my backpack that are in immediate reach."

So you'd more likely need a script to support actor-specific item inventories.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

Don't most rpgs kind of do this though, if all you want affected is battle stats most games I've played the light armors give bonus to evasion/crit/accuracy but at the sacrifice of defense and heavier armors usually suffer in those stats while skyrocketing your defense, simulating such a system in all but practice... unless there is more to it than that. I mean, maybe if you wanted to simulate having the giant muscular warrior party member having more weight limit to him than the frail mage girl, but again that is usually already kind of a thing in games by restricting the types of armors available per character. Most games I've seen that do something like this it just opens the door to abuses. Dark souls 2 is a prime example, where people will boost that one stat up high enough to equip the monstrous heavy armor and then level their character the rest of the way as a mage/thief character to have a sort of super tank that runs around backstabbing the crap out of people.

 

[Feldschlacht IV]

So you want a system more like Dragon Quest IX, where the party has a huge selection of items BUT during combat, each party member may only access their much smaller party-member-specific sub-inventory.

I don't think of that as item weight as much as "During a fight I can only grab the few items in my backpack that are in immediate reach."

So you'd more likely need a script to support actor-specific item inventories.

That's not what I mean either. Items and inventory space/usage/etc are completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about. What I mean is, each EQUIPPABLE piece of equipment has a certain weight to it, and that weight can reflect negatively on the actor who equips too much stuff.

Breath of Fire III/IV is the best example of what I mean. FFV also had equipment weight as well.

 

[Zoltor]

That's not what I mean either. Items and inventory space/usage/etc are completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about. What I mean is, each EQUIPPABLE piece of equipment has a certain weight to it, and that weight can reflect negatively on the actor who equips too much stuff.

Breath of Fire III/IV is the best example of what I mean. FFV also had equipment weight as well.

Oh ok, well that's easy enough to pull off with a equip events script.

First give each equip a value, then when you equip a item, add x value to a variable.

You'll want a separate common event for each "stand alone" value equipment can have

and make another common event for each value that subtracts the value from the variable when unequiping equiping.

Then in each common even that adds to the variable, and condition branches that if variable = X or higher, do Y

and the reverse for the common events that subtract, if variable = X or lower do y.

Here's the equipment events script: http://www.himeworks.com/2013/06/06/common-equip-events/

PS. My thought on the concept, is that it makes things complicated in a "bad" way. Basically telling people what they can not, and can equip while using other pieces of equipment, really only serves to limit options.

If you're haking a huge Diablo clone type game, with potentially 10s of thousands of pieces of equipment, you could get away with it sure, but there are way better ways to add tactical elements to your game, withoul limiting the player's options like that, so in anycase I would avoid the weight system.

 

[Feldschlacht IV]

NOTE: For the sake of discussion/ease, for the purpose of this topic, by 'equipment' I mean things you actually equip, like weapons and armor, etc, not items.

That's one way to do it, sure (also, thanks for the script), but this topic is to throw around ideas, I'm not particularly asking for help (although it's welcome!)

Equipment weight in the fashion of "If you equipment weights too much, you can't equip it" is one way to do it. Another way to do it is so that every piece of equipment has a weight that impacts the characters agility. Breath of Fire III, IV, andFF5 and FF6 has this mechanic. Many SRPGs such as Tactics Ogre has this mechanic as well.

PS. My thought on the concept, is that it makes things complicated in a "bad" way. Basically telling people what they can not, and can equip while using other pieces of equipment, really only serves to limit options.

This depends. Of course it can be taken overboard, but inherent limitations that the player has to use cleverness to work around is an important part of any game, video game or no.

 

[Zoltor]

"This depends. Of course it can be taken overboard, but inherent limitations that the player has to use cleverness to work around is an important part of any game, video game or no."

Again there are better ways to pull off the same effect, and without directly penalizing them.

For example, having equipment enable the use of various skills. The equipment with better stats, would normally have weaker skills tied to them.

Things like that.

 

[Andar]

If this is about balancing equipment, there are several ways to do this - and depending on what battlescript you're using, something like that might be a much better balance trigger than several other ideas like enabling different skills (which might increase the number of skills a lot if you have a lot of equipment).


You can simply place this balancing as part of the parameter changes - the heavier a weapon or armor, the more AGI it substracts (while adding ATK and DEF etc.).


If you go this way, you have to remember the effect of AGI in the engine - that's why I said it depends on the battlesystem you're using.


For example, in default AGI simply influences the turn order - an actor with high AGI will be able to act sooner in most battlesystems, but he won't gain anything else. However, if you installed an ATB or CTB - those scripts often use AGI to determine speed and time for one action, an actor with higher AGI might gain additional attacks in those battlesystems. Changes to AGI need much more balancing there.

 

[Wavelength]

I've always found the "maximum weight" system (whether it's an encumbrance value or just something that negatively affects stats if you go above the limit, like you've got in mind) to be more restrictive than cool or fun in every game I've ever seen it in.

I think it could, theoretically, be a positive gameplay experience if you have some kind of system where you badly need a restriction - for example, a system where you don't have a fixed number of slots and the equipment provides all kinds of qualitative bonuses (like 0% MP costs, 100% evade against certain skills, auto-critical attacks, bonus effects upon critting, etc.) might benefit from this kind of limiting factor that you're describing as "weight".  Do you have some sort of system that would make great use of this?

Because otherwise, I think you could make things easier for both yourself and the player if you simply add the maluses directly to your armor (and weapons, if applicable).  If you were going to penalize the player's AGI for having too much equipment weight, then just add a -(X) AGI modifier to heavy armor based on how heavy it is.  This will be easier for the player to comprehend, and far easier to balance well.

 

[Probotector 200X]

I like the whole "Heavier equipment lowers your speed" thing. It's simple, makes enough sense, and it works.

The ultimate armor is usually weightless or something like that, so it's just completely superior to any other armor, which...is kinda boring, but oh well. Not like I have to do that too.

Also, similar, I think most gloves and gauntlets, especially gauntlets, should lower some kind of "dexterity" stat. Hard to be nimble with your hands when you have bulky things around your fingers.

 

[captainproton]

Something else, if you're looking to keep equipment balanced, is to look at elemental vulnerabilities. For instance, the Salamander Mail may have a few more points of raw defense than the Selkie Armor, but it doubles your vulnerability to water attacks. So, if you're venturing into a water temple-type dungeon, you'd be better off using the water-negating Selkie Armor, even though it has a lower defense..

 

[whitesphere]

To follow up on captainproton's excellent suggestion:

You can also make equipment increase the vulnerability to certain states.  For example, maybe it's a lot easier to Trip the player if he's wearing heavy armor, and maybe the nifty heavy helm makes Blind more likely.

 

[Warpmind]

And another thing which I didn't see suggested here thus far (I might have missed it; if so, sorry) - heavier armor reduces defense... but increases damage reduction. If you use such a system tweak, that is.
Basically, from a completely practical point of view, there is quite literally no armor in the world - at any time or in any place - that made the wearer *better* at avoiding hits. At best, the armor wearer might not be impeded in their evasive maneuvers, but in those cases, the armor seldom offered much actual protection in case a blow actually landed. The simple purpose of armor was to reduce, or even negate any damage sustained from a telling blow. Sure, a knight in a full plate armor might still be able to do cartwheels (assuming he was agile enough to do that in the first place), but he'll still be more likely to block a strike than dance away from it entirely.

In essence, it's a matter of weighing up the chance of evading a hit altogether and suffering the full, potentially fatal damage on any hit versus the high probability of being hit by anything and everything that looks at you, but ignoring most blows entirely, as though the slingstones and arrows were snowflakes drifting down on your shoulders...