I my opinion the best inventory system was in stalker series, maybe with some crafting abilities it would be better.
Mixture between weight based and unlimited, as soon as you get to your house, town or storage, all non-usable items (crafting materials and such) are automatically stored and there is no limit on how much you can store, they are automatically categorized and sorted, when you need them you can use them directly from storage, you don’t need to withdraw them as crafting will be near the storage anyways.
More convenient and still give you a sense of, I can’t carry all my weapons and armor with me.
I went for slotted list in my upcoming “RPG” . A backpack has a value of 10 and items have a value from 1-10 based on estimated size and weight combo that I set when I make the item.
Weighted systems are terrible. The slotted style gets my vote.
Isn’t that a weight system?
I’d be interested in knowing why you think weighted systems are terrible.
Personally, I prefer the weighted systems for realism. They also provide a lot more hooks for added gameplay elements (as I mentioned above). However, in my current RPG, I’m going old school and having no system at all. It’s a list of items, and you can carry 99 of each.
My main beef with weight systems is that if you want to play an armor heavy character you better spend a whole lot of points into strength or whatever the equivalent is. Playing a primarily strength character can increase carrying capacity to an ungodly amount on the other hand. And for other characters that would like to carry a nice load of equipment? Well, too bad. It’s typically not in the cards.
It seems pretty unbalanced to say the least. Slotted inventory systems create an equal opportunity for any character class to carry whatever they need. No running out of space before the barbarian just because you wanted to play a mage. Nothing worse than having someone picking up all the epic loot because you can’t find anything you’re willing to drop for a chance of getting more loot.
Although, with the Diablo 3 loot system, no one can take another players loot. Still would be annoying travelling repeatedly back to town just to sell off items while your party carries on without you.
I could totally get into a realistic inventory system. Like only being able to carry armor, weapons, a few poitions and extra tools. I mean, how well would anyone fair fighting monsters will 500lbs of junk on their backs anyway?
Perhaps, but that’s the whole point of a class-based system. Each class has their own strengths and weaknesses. Barbarians are stronger, carry more and do more physical damage. Mages are smarter, can attack from a distance and typically have a wider range of effects that they can perform.
That being said, I’m also opposed to class systems. For realism to work, I would prefer a skill-based system with a weight-based inventory. That way, everyone has the same opportunities available to them.
I think Darkfall went with a style like that. TES series did a good job of it. It can make for some really bad classes half way into the game, but it just adds to the enjoyment for me. Nothing like realizing you’ve messed up terribly and need to re-roll. As long as the game is good, it just makes me try out every combination I can think might be fun to play.
I never thought of it a sa weighted system with weight as a referral to actual weight, as I include “physical” size into the final equation making it more slotted. slotted weight maybe
semantics aside, its fun and simple, for me at least.
I don’t like weighted system because these are usually not in fond of mage-a-like classes. I think the best inventory system is the one that does not come in a way of gameplay, like Diablo 3.
Is inventory management a part of gameplay? I suspect it’s more a side effect of randomized loot, than an intentional premise of the fun. In which case, minimize it’s impact so the player can maximize time spent killing mobs hoping for dat Epic Phat LUTEz.
Gigi
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Why not 127/128 or 255/256 
I prefer weighted systems against slotted (which if you have a limit of slots could be called a weighted system…), because I find reordering slotted systems generally annoying and because it allows the developers to include list based interface of the items which I prefer.
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@khanstruct_1 - Reminds me of a thing my family used to do in Skyrim. We would take turns hunting/stealing and bringing STUFF back to our small house. We got it knee high before the novelty wore off.
Gigi
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The simpler the better.
D3 has an excellent inventory system. An extension is the chest that can be used to stash stuff in town and is even upgradable. Together the two work very well.
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We always always always keep the core gameplay in mind and how the inventory supports it… especially to what the target audience expects. Inventory systems don’t usually get the spotlight, but players throw tomatoes at the games which core systems feel “broken” or which feel counter-intuitive to the primary gameplay.
It sounds like the inventory in question is dealing with the conventional RPG inventory with several items, but let me submit that inventory reaches many more possibilities. A D&D memorized spell list, trading cards purchased, powerups waiting to be activated, etc…
Consider how often the player expects to be in action and how much low-intensity time the player has to themselves. Low intensity times give great opportunities to ponder how to optimize and theorize what to do with what you’ve got. Managing inventory needs to feel like a fun activity so use care when making it “realistic” unless the game itself is something very realistic.
A child audience / casual gameplay / FPS would probably do well with a limited easily accessible items in an “inventory”. Something probably bound to the keyboard (##'s 1-9 perhaps)
An item based MMO does great with a slot/bag combo limited inventory such as World of Warcraft where the focus isn’t the items, but rather what you can do with them.
A midcore / RPG could do well with a list and weight total like Fallout 3 where players can horde plot clues as items and objects for later use in extended quests and puzzles.
A hardcore / simulator could do well with turning the inventory into a mini-game all to itself. Encumbrance that collides with rocks might hamper an exportation game where moving and shooting/dialog is the primary gameplay. But a robot combat simulator where the inventory can collide with another bot’s weapons and get damaged from the gameplay could be very interesting to figure out how to protect the engine, gyro, life-support.
I believe you have forgot that all rpg Diablo style games for pc have a grid based inventory, I don’t even know how people can forget so easy and omit such a thing, inventory is the most important part of a game, is integrated in almost everything.
That would be what they called “slotted”. Also, this thread is 4 years old.
my prefered is this:
Weight and slot hybrid system. Just like in Baldur’s Gate game series.