That game encumbrance article got me thinking...

[Kyrian007]

I've never had a problem with encumbrance systems in games. Them's the rules, you play by them and you have the intended experience. Which means a good time considering these are games we're talking about. Skyrim is taking a pounding here, but I guess I'll say it is not designed to be played by someone who will go into a dungeon and clear it down to bare cave walls taking every last potato and embalming tool. I remember talking to a friend who said he immediately had to mod out encumbrance. I asked him why and he said the first dungeon he went into had more than his whole encumbrance allotment in dropped swords and axes alone. "You took them ALL?" I asked. To which he replied, "what was I supposed to do, just leave them lying there?"

Well yes, yes you are supposed to leave them lying there. Most of them anyway. But he was taking them all back to town to sell for gold. When I asked him how he thought the shopkeepers would have enough gold to buy all that crap, I ran into his 2nd mod... nearly infinite money for all shopkeepers. So, infinite money for shopkeepers and of course by extension the player... why not just run a "infinite money" cheat? Why even play the game at all really? Sure enough, he was bored with it and ditched the game without even getting halfway through.

Again, I know this viewpoint is close to "you're playing it wrong." And sure, play it however you want. It is your game. I use mods myself to spice things up. But most of the problems with encumbrance I hear from players can usually be boiled down to "why can't I have everything now." And the easy answer to me seems to be, because playing the game as intended will give you a better experience than playing it with all cheats "on"... and all reason to play the game at all thereby "off."

Plus, Skyrim's a bad example. There are companions in the game that are great for loading down with all the crap you loot from a dungeon, leaving you as lightly encumbered as you please. And get a horse. Problem solved.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[Agema]

Encumbrance is an unnecessary concession to reality in games which don’t need it. It can fuck off, or be relegated to some kind of hardcore/challenge mode.

In many cases, I think it's actually a key part of game balance. If there's no downside to wearing 25kg of metal, why bother with leather armour? It's sometimes just an artificial way of controlling access to higher level armours and weapon. For some reason, that better sword which shouldn't weigh more than the one you're already using in terms of metal content requires Str 16 instead of Str 13. Go figure. Maybe they don't want you to be able to carry everything back from a dungeon, because you'll make too much money too quickly, so you have to prioritise or invest time. Although the argument could be made, maybe games leave too much shit lying around, odd as it may also be to kill 10 brigands and find the weapons and armour they used has disappeared upon death.

But then, people are really fucking weird about stuff. I used to like "rolling" character stats. I know full well it ends up in spending an hour clicking the re-roll button, and many players sneering that it was "unfair" and players rigging the game to their advantage and didn't want devs to allow it, so we get identikit start up characters instead. Or that Bethesda re-did the level progression for Skyrim, because users could manipulate the Oblivion system easily. But if players want to do that, why not let them? Some players complained that others could do this, even with a single player game.

In the end, I just couldn't give a shit about encumbrance, mostly. Them's the rules the devs made, and they're not unreasonable. It may be inconvenient in ways, but so's the fact you don't have the +24 Magical Sword of Slaying at the start, too.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Yeah, the major problem with encumbrance is that you typically have hard static thresholds... that don't make sense. Carry 60 iron bars and you're fine, but then that 0.01 feather makes you half speed (or 0 speed as the case may be).


If you have to really put that kind of hard threshold on, then using inventory space rather then weight typically works better. And gives you some oppurtunities to expand it as well.



I would say generally... stamina doesn't need to exist outside of combat or specific challenge scenarios. I can't think of a single game, even exploration based, where expending stamina on simple traversal has added anything other then an annoying up/down pace while travelling.


Heavy armour I think could have its own limitations and drawbacks. Like you can't draw a bow, or if you try to cast spells it takes much longer to perform the motions. Or restricting dodging maneuvers as noted. Armour encumbrance by weight Iss kind of like weapon durability, if your armour is designed properly.... its meant to be worn. It won't be nearly as awkward and encumbering when worn as it would if you put the same weight in a backpack you're wearing.

I would argue Breath of the Wild is better for it's stamina system. It gives a lot of gameplay benefits, giving a sense of realism, a sense of proression as you increase it, is another mechanic that interacts with the cooking mechanic and makes satisfying situations like when you just barely manage to climb to the top of some tower or cliff.

Two other things that are interesting from Breath of the Wild are the weapon breaking mechanic, which has mixed opinions about, and the mechanic that everyone seems to agree is awful, the rain mechanic. Stamina gates you a bit in what you can do, but because there are ways to circumvent it with items and finding rest points on your climb, people don't think negatively of it, while the rain mechanic of making it so you can't climb in rain because you slide down the rock face is despised because it just puts a halt to anything you're doing.

It seems that mechanics that inhibit movement are the ones that can break a game for people. Lots of people hate ice physics, whenever a game has more realistic jump physics where you can't control yourself once you get in the air feel clunky, more specific examples like Celosia from Shadow of the Colosus being the most hated because of how it knocks you down constantly and it takes forever to get back up again, or as Eacaraxe started this thread with, the encumbrance system in some games.

 

[sXeth]

I would argue Breath of the Wild is better for it's stamina system. It gives a lot of gameplay benefits, giving a sense of realism, a sense of proression as you increase it, is another mechanic that interacts with the cooking mechanic and makes satisfying situations like when you just barely manage to climb to the top of some tower or cliff.

Two other things that are interesting from Breath of the Wild are the weapon breaking mechanic, which has mixed opinions about, and the mechanic that everyone seems to agree is awful, the rain mechanic. Stamina gates you a bit in what you can do, but because there are ways to circumvent it with items and finding rest points on your climb, people don't think negatively of it, while the rain mechanic of making it so you can't climb in rain because you slide down the rock face is despised because it just puts a halt to anything you're doing.

It seems that mechanics that inhibit movement are the ones that can break a game for people. Lots of people hate ice physics, whenever a game has more realistic jump physics where you can't control yourself once you get in the air feel clunky, more specific examples like Celosia from Shadow of the Colosus being the most hated because of how it knocks you down constantly and it takes forever to get back up again, or as Eacaraxe started this thread with, the encumbrance system in some games.

Thing is, with Breath of the Wild (or Conan Exiles, which has the identical systems really, down to a sandstorm coming by and making climbing impossible.) The nature of open world games is that if there's anything at the top of the cliff, it will more or less be impossible to fail the climb unless you're going out of your way to make it difficult, because otherwise it would cut out the open element.


And neither game really establishes much of a technique for climbing, its hold the button, shuffle up the wall. (With both games to my recollection having some passive armour benefit, but no active items related).


Genshin Impact sort've improved on that by letting you use magic and such to actively attack the obstacles, but even that was pretty limited, and often dependent on obvious preplaced wind... whatever they were called.



Exiles of course, was also (as most survival games), looking significantly at PvP basis. Where stamina meant that you could actually build a wall (32 high IIRC), that no one could climb over.


In BotW, stamina, or even the rainstorms, doesn't exist to challenge. Its effect is to make you take the longer route occasionally and pad out the time more then anything. In a game that already has a huge percentage of filler content.


Contrast for instance, with the most basic implementation of traversal stamina. The double jump. You get one double jump, its a limited resource used for traversal. It still primarily shows up in platformers where traversal mechanics are the challenge and core focus. Its used directly for challenge scenarios, where it makes sense to have a limit. Rather then a mechanism that slows the game down.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Article? What article?

 

[Gordon_4]

In many cases, I think it's actually a key part of game balance. If there's no downside to wearing 25kg of metal, why bother with leather armour? It's sometimes just an artificial way of controlling access to higher level armours and weapon. For some reason, that better sword which shouldn't weigh more than the one you're already using in terms of metal content requires Str 16 instead of Str 13. Go figure. Maybe they don't want you to be able to carry everything back from a dungeon, because you'll make too much money too quickly, so you have to prioritise or invest time. Although the argument could be made, maybe games leave too much shit lying around, odd as it may also be to kill 10 brigands and find the weapons and armour they used has disappeared upon death.

But then, people are really fucking weird about stuff. I used to like "rolling" character stats. I know full well it ends up in spending an hour clicking the re-roll button, and many players sneering that it was "unfair" and players rigging the game to their advantage and didn't want devs to allow it, so we get identikit start up characters instead. Or that Bethesda re-did the level progression for Skyrim, because users could manipulate the Oblivion system easily. But if players want to do that, why not let them? Some players complained that others could do this, even with a single player game.

In the end, I just couldn't give a shit about encumbrance, mostly. Them's the rules the devs made, and they're not unreasonable. It may be inconvenient in ways, but so's the fact you don't have the +24 Magical Sword of Slaying at the start, too.

I’m only talking about encumbrance from carrying loot; modifiers to stats - penalty or bonus - due to armour or weapon choice are all fine by me. Hell most RPGs I’ve played have hard limits on armour based on class, cross classing or feats/talents not withstanding.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I find encumbrance not half so annoying as ending up leader...because of just how stupid it is to be Prime Lord Mega-Awesome having your missions given and explained to you by rank and file peons because that's just how utterly clueless you are.

I think I may as well have just titled the thread "The Elder Scrolls' death by a thousand cuts". Because like I said, I'm playing Morrowind again and this whole post is just...bizarre to me right now. It's like I went back in time to 2004 and told myself, "yeah, love this series now? Just you wait eight years..."

Because, just...yeah. You couldn't do that crap in Morrowind without mods or console commands. You had to choose between the Fighters' and Thieves' guilds, mages' guild and Telvanni, Morag Tong just takes a sledgehammer to the other factions, and only one Great House per character. I think there's a point of exclusivity between the Imperial cult and Tribunal Temple, which the latter just gets weird during the Tribunal DLC considering they seem to be generally okay with the Nerevarine literally killing at least one of their three gods.

And that whole thing where the PC is living, breathing proof their whole-ass religion is heretical, false, and built upon a foundation of lies, deceit, and murder to begin with. Not that the dunmer have a problem with lies, deceit, and murder per se, but you know, shit tends to get real when talking about fanatical cults dedicated to living gods slinging around apocalyptics powers like it's Tuesday.

But anyhow, to actually advance in the factions you actually had to be skilled in that faction's thing. And the requirements for the higher levels were damned high. By the time the PC is qualified to be the archmage, they pretty much are the most powerful mage on Vvardenfell considering how stacked the skill requirements are.

But more broadly, I think the conversation could be whittled down to the issue of these sorts of games existing on a spectrum between how immersive and how arcade-y they are. Where Daggerfall is an immersive sim that pretends to be an arcade game, and Skyrim is an arcade game that pretends to be an immersive sim. I mean, I played Daggerfall (on Unity, but still) a year or two ago, and coming back to Morrowind after Daggerfall I was honestly stunned by how arcade-ier Daggerfall felt compared to Morrowind even though Daggerfall blows Morrowind away in sheer mechanical complexity.

Part of me wonders how many of these mechanics are ones game designers just don't want to discard, because to do so gives up the ghost on even pretending games like these are still immersive sims.

 

[Gergar12]

Playing Fallout 4 is annoying. The game has many weapons, but you can't even carry a lot if you used modded armor with multiple pieces.

Nevermind found a mod for it.

 

[Agema]

...which the latter just gets weird during the Tribunal DLC considering they seem to be generally okay with the Nerevarine literally killing at least one of their three gods...

To be fair, she did go insane and kill one of the other two gods before you off her. Also, the only one they really see is Vivec. Sotha Sil and Almalexia are in de facto isolation from Vvardenfell and may as well be in another plane existence for all they interact with the peons, so won't even notice if they're dead rather than just absent. Finally, Vivec is very philosophical about it: "Oh well, shit happens, she didn't give you much choice." If he says it's okay, it's okay. They're not going to argue with the only one of their three gods that actually speaks to them, are they?

You had to choose between the Fighters' and Thieves' guilds, mages' guild and Telvanni, Morag Tong just takes a sledgehammer to the other factions, and only one Great House per character.
...
But anyhow, to actually advance in the factions you actually had to be skilled in that faction's thing.

As it should be. It's just the dumber munchkins out there don't like the idea they can't have everything.

But more broadly, I think the conversation could be whittled down to the issue of these sorts of games existing on a spectrum between how immersive and how arcade-y they are.

Yes, exactly..

I don't care that in Doom or Far Cry I'm carrying round a whole armoury that would be uncarriable and make me clank like a walking timpani section - it's an arcade game. But I find it breaks my immersion to do the same in an RPG which has some pretentions to realism. Yes, it can be annoying because you want to carry that shit back for another 10,000 bottlecaps to add to the 12 million you already have (thus owning 43% of the entire NCR economy). But I find the alternative even more unsatisfying on an aesthetic level.

 

[Eacaraxe]

To be fair, she did go insane and kill one of the other two gods before you off her. Also, the only one they really see is Vivec. Sotha Sil and Almalexia are in de facto isolation from Vvardenfell and may as well be in another plane existence for all they interact with the peons, so won't even notice if they're dead rather than just absent.

That's what I always found interesting about the lore: up until the incident at the Ghostfence, the roles were reversed with Vivec remaining the cloistered one and Almalexia the active one. Vivec's activity afterwards harshly dropped off because he was left to maintain the Ghostfence on his own, but it's implied in Tribunal Almalexia's absolute isolation was a relatively new occurrence, and previously she remained aloof but still accessible.

Finally, Vivec is very philosophical about it: "Oh well, shit happens, she didn't give you much choice." If he says it's okay, it's okay. They're not going to argue with the only one of their three gods that actually speaks to them, are they?

He does also point out the appearance of the Nerevarine was what finally pushed her over the edge, and (assuming the MQ is complete at the time) the loss of her divinity. The flip side of that, being Vivec had been quietly manipulating the Temple to accept and venerate the Nerevarine when he/she finally showed up. Which to a point shows how the Tribunal somewhat broke from -- or at least, deliberately misinterpreted -- Vivec's teachings, considering despite that they still considered the Nerevarine prophecy heretical and persecuted the Ashlanders for believing in it.

I still personally find it a bit disbelief-straining to think the Temple would just be okay with it. I mean, to use a real-life parallel, Yeshua of Nazareth's body wasn't even cold before the Hebrews following him were at each others' throats. Hell, they were at each others' throats before Yeshua got nailed.

As it should be. It's just the dumber munchkins out there don't like the idea they can't have everything.

That's the thing that bothers me. Let a character do everything and developers kill replay value, save for vestiges of operant conditioning bringing gamers back. I played Skyrim once and that was enough for me; I've played Morrowind I don't know how many times (mostly during '04-06, but still), and still find new shit to do, or different ways to do the same shit, or new places to go.

Hell, when I reinstalled the game I made a character who actually had mercantile and speechcraft as major skills along with Illusion and Mysticism, to test OpenMW, mods, and game performance, and damn near went with it on account of Seyda Neen and Addamasartus playing so differently than I usually have in the past.

Yes, it can be annoying because you want to carry that shit back for another 10,000 bottlecaps to add to the 12 million you already have (thus owning 43% of the entire NCR economy). But I find the alternative even more unsatisfying on an aesthetic level.

I just never had the pack rat urge, so I guess I experience these games differently than most. I already know later on you'll be rolling in resources, and carrying a bunch of stupid shit around that barely sells just isn't worth the time or effort.

But I mean, my Recall mark in my current playthrough is next to Creeper, and I'm carrying around a ludicrous and growing number of stupidly-expensive 0.1 weight potions I've been trying like hell to sell and failing miserably, so...really, that netch leather butt plug is my last item of concern.

 

[Agema]

That's what I always found interesting about the lore: up until the incident at the Ghostfence, the roles were reversed with Vivec remaining the cloistered one and Almalexia the active one. Vivec's activity afterwards harshly dropped off because he was left to maintain the Ghostfence on his own, but it's implied in Tribunal Almalexia's absolute isolation was a relatively new occurrence, and previously she remained aloof but still accessible.

Fair enough - you'll know better than I given how long since I've played it.

That's the thing that bothers me. Let a character do everything and developers kill replay value, save for vestiges of operant conditioning bringing gamers back. I played Skyrim once and that was enough for me; I've played Morrowind I don't know how many times (mostly during '04-06, but still), and still find new shit to do, or different ways to do the same shit, or new places to go.

Maybe - I think one thing devs have tended to find through Steam is that most players don't even finish the game once. I have to admit, I did pretty much all the main stuff in Morrowind up to finishing it, including popping Almalexia from the expansion, but I never got round to the last mission and killing, er, that vampire lord whatever his name was. (Dagoth?)

I just never had the pack rat urge, so I guess I experience these games differently than most. I already know later on you'll be rolling in resources, and carrying a bunch of stupid shit around that barely sells just isn't worth the time or effort.

I've been caught out in a few not really bothering much with money, and then some pain in the arse quest needs you to buy a bauble for what would be a near-bankrupting amount even you had been hoarding. The M&M series required you pay to level up: that really encouraged saving every penny for those few, extra sweet levels.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Fair enough - you'll know better than I given how long since I've played it.

I had it mis-remembered too, but ironically I'd just entered Mournhold in my play session and made my way to the temple before making that post. So, it was as fresh as fresh gets in my memory. The downside to that being, I'd also misremembered the thing with Gaenor, so I'm going to have to make sure I'm nicely overpowered before going back.

Maybe - I think one thing devs have tended to find through Steam is that most players don't even finish the game once. I have to admit, I did pretty much all the main stuff in Morrowind up to finishing it, including popping Almalexia from the expansion, but I never got round to the last mission and killing, er, that vampire lord whatever his name was. (Dagoth?)

Dagoth Ur. Which is still to this day the best final confrontation of any Elder Scrolls game to date. Because it wasn't scripted on-rails stupidity (Oblivion), another in a long line of bog-standard dragon fights (Skyrim), or a fetch quest with a longer than usual text scroll (Daggerfall). Not to get too down on Daggerfall or anything, but its ending was definitely a downgrade from Arena's.

Particularly notable because you had to do the unthinkable to beat it: read books and journal text.

But, that goes into more systemic issues with Oblivion's and Skyrim's main quests that represent a tangential discussion to the topic.