Unlimited Inventory or Limited Inventory?

[Poryg]

@Aesica

They're also set to stack to 20 max (to avoid 99 hoarding) and are slightly stronger than the healing abilities, so there are definitely times when even the dedicated healer might want to throw an elixir at somebody instead of using his spammable heal on them.

This is definitely welcome on my side. 20 potions max not only means that I can't stack a lot of them, but that I should also use them actively to make sure I have space for more. But that's what I consider limited inventory, sinve 20 max looks limiting.

Also, when you say "sacrificing 33% of your firepower" that leads me to believe the combat system in question is a bit on the simple side. Nobody tanks, debuffs, buffs, etc? 3 guys spamming attacks with one guy spamming Curaja every round isn't really a very engaging system, and it could probably use a bit more complexity. (I don't mean any offense by that)

If you want to be nitpicky, then you should mention that this 33% is not 33%, because different stats and stuff. But nah, it was just an oversimplification. A game is never black and white, some have useless buffs, some have useful buffs, some don't have buffs at all. But if I was to cover every single situation, it would be a pain to both read and write, so to make things simpler, I simplified all buffing, debuffing, attacking, digging into the ground and then digging out, tanking and building aggro, silencing, summoning, comboing, throwing holy water on undead, charging multi-turn skills, casting limit breaks and many other things as firepower.

Or in simple terms, the one, whose primary use or one of the primary uses is heal, is a healer. The rest is firepower.

I simplify other stuff here to standard situations too, because
1. item spam is a problem that I have seen quite a lot, not only in indie games. And in rpg maker it's something to watch out for, because healing potions are something many forget while balancing their game.
2. What I can, I treat like math puzzles. Grouping stuff together makes it easier for me to orientate in it and devise a game plan.


Btw. @Wavelength I played some Diablo 2 yesterday! And my inventory management went on as expected. As my gold reserve grows, my need to collect items decreases. As the game progressed (still not bad though), I stopped picking up white tier items, which made me teleport to town once in around ten minutes.

 

[Chorvaqueen]

I've sunk a lot of hours playing Monster Hunter lately and got accustomed to limited items
It gives me a sense of challenge and with how MH works, I can just run away to gather more materials to craft should I need more.

I can compare it to playing Final Fantasy in the old days when you can just cheese through boss battles if you bring 99 potions and whatnot.

BUT

it does get unfun if you have to keep returning to your base/town because you've run out of things or space. It would be fine if every return would be at least rewarding or meaningful.

 

[CuddleFox]

A limited inventory can extend the life of the game by making the player go back and forth, but this is extremely unpleasant.
I'm more in favour of an inventory limited to 99 copies of each item. :3
Personally I use a weight limit system, and I don't allow players to use items in combat, problem solved.

 

[GLM]

I'm a fan of limited inventory space, individual inventory space and limited stacking amounts for different items. I want to make the player pick and choose, and make that choice impactful.

In a lot of games you can get by without using most of the items. We've all been standing there after the final battle with a bunch of megaelixers.

Items and item use always seems like either an afterthought, or a way to cheese dungeons in modern games. As they made RPGs less challenging, items became less significant in most JRPGs.

 

[Eschaton]

Like with any feature, it should fit the core gameplay experience. In all applications, however, the limited inventory should be automatically replenished *without* the player having to return to a town or whatever.

For example, in *Kingdom Hearts II*, the player can carry and use a limited number of items into battle. Those items would be restocked automatically after the battle is over by taking from a larger stock.

 

[Romanticist]

Limited inventory is not an issue if you have a "bank" that you can store every item in. Which most games with limited inventories have (Witcher 3, Skyrim, even the older Pokemon games). I gotta be honest: it's even less fun when you're holding dozens of items and have to search and organize all of them inside battles. And battles are obscenely easy when I stock up on tons of potions.
Also, doesn't Breath of the Wild have a limited weapon capacity? Now THAT was annoying because the limit was so small!

EDIT: Reading through the thread, all of my points have been made before. Oh well

EDIT2: Yikes! After skimming through this thread, it appears most HATE limited inventories. That's a shame, I thought it added more immersion, but I guess I'll remove it from my game.

What about limited gold? Is that a problem?

 

[CraneSoft]

For healing items/stat boosters that can be used in battle, it should have a limited inventory in the form of carrying capacity to ensure the player can't just spam healing to cheese bosses or otherwise making it a long, dull-experience. Imagine a Tales game where you can carry 99 Lemon Gels or Dark Souls with 99 uses of Estus Flask, that wouldn't make a very challenging game.

For any other items such as equipment/crafting materials/enemy drops however, those should be unlimited. In any typical RPG a "Bank" is completely unnecessary as it literally adds nothing but the tediousness of having to micromanage a huge number of vendor trash (and the trouble of needing to go there and take them out when you realize you need them) . Item storage is something that only works well with specific genres like survival or horror where shops do not exist and the part of the challenge is having to play with very limited supplies on hand.

What about limited gold? Is that a problem?

I actually created a bank-like system where you can withdraw/deposit money (or salaries) from an ATM machine but realized later that was also completely unnecessary from a gameplay standpoint. Not saying limited gold is a problem - just that being forced to spend gold on something I do not really need at the moment just to not hit the gold cap is not really a good feeling, and it can also be jarring if the stuff you need from the next shop exceeds the gold cap so you can't buy everything at once.

 

[eluukkanen]

Depends should you have limited or unlimited. Is limit going to make your game more interesting or more painful? I am going to add limit to show the travelling aspect of adventure and there are systems to help with that. Just adding a limit will not suffice often.

 

[Aesica]

What about limited gold? Is that a problem?

Well technically, you have to limit gold because integers only go so high. Fortunately for us, Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER is 9,007,199,254,740,991 so unless your game rains gold, the players will probably never accumulate anywhere close to that much.

That said, limited gold is fine. I think MV caps it at 99,999,999 which is...quite a lot and I doubt really anyone would complain about that.

 

[Romanticist]

Well technically, you have to limit gold because integers only go so high. Fortunately for us, Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER is 9,007,199,254,740,991 so unless your game rains gold, the players will probably never accumulate anywhere close to that much.

That said, limited gold is fine. I think MV caps it at 99,999,999 which is...quite a lot and I doubt really anyone would complain about that.

I mean limited gold similar to Zelda in that you have to upgrade your wallet. I wouldn't start at 99 gold max like OoT does but maybe 9999? And then the first upgrade would be, oh I dunno, 50000?

 

[Aesica]

I mean limited gold similar to Zelda in that you have to upgrade your wallet. I wouldn't start at 99 gold max like OoT does but maybe 9999? And then the first upgrade would be, oh I dunno, 50000?

You could try it out. Even though I hate limited inventory in nearly every game I've experienced it in, limited gold wouldn't be so bad. I never minded it in any Zelda game, even the original where it was capped at 255 with no way to expand. See, the main thing I (and I suspect many others) dislike about limited inventory is that it forces you to stop playing the game and sort out the junk from the useful items before you can continue. With limited gold, it'd just be a matter of "oh, I can't carry anymore gold until I buy some stuff--I can just do that at the next town." If anything, it'd just encourage me to spend gold more often instead of just hoarding it.