How should inventory management work?

[Witchercyberpunk]

Any RPG requires great inventory management. Inventory is one of the most important aspects of any RPG, but for some reason it ends up generally being one of the weakest aspects of many RPGs. The inventory needs to be easily accessible, organized, aesthetically pleasing, highly optimized, and to some extent, tailored to the players needs. You can't make everybody happy, so giving options to somewhat personalize the menu experience would be appreciated. A clunky, poorly designed, poorly optimized inventory is not acceptable. In your opinion, what can be done to push the boundaries of inventory management for future RPG titles? Do you have any examples of RPGs with great inventory management?

 

[CyberBrett]

I have to admit i am a homer / fan boy but the screens CDPR have shown look clear and easy to navigate

I really like the shopping screen too

 

[BabalKabak]

Great, I was about to find or make a thread about inventory screen. At this stage of development, I don't expect changes from what we've seen so far. But still, I'm a big dreamerThe current inventory screen is like you said : simple, accessible, organized. No problem here.

My main concern would be how the inventory management serves the immersion. So far I can see a limitation in the amount of weapons you carry (nice), but then... how are you supposed to store 3 jackets, 4 shirts and an extra pair of shoes in your pockets ? Does it makes sense for V to bring all of these ? (the answer is probably yes, because clothing affects stats and protection value). Also, not enough data to really talk about inventory (how about all the other items that aren't clothing ?) So I will argue on this part only.

I must disagree with clothing management. I know this inventory management is common in videogames, and whatever serves the gameplay is then a good feature. A too immersive, realistic game would just be called a "life simulator" and most players will find that boring and crap. But I believe we can cut the apple in two and try hard to find ways to keep the game immersive and place some "gaming" rules here and there to make it a true fun videogame.

Remember how Resident Evil had these chests where all your inventory were accessible at any place where that type of chests presented. It wasn't "realistic" but it served the gameplay. Your character couldn't bring an extra-outfit, unlimited amount of ammunition, 50 items, etc... It was limited for the sake of its genre, survival horror. You had to make decisive choices, and I'd like it very much if we could find a similar way of managing our inventory for the sake of immersion. The Witcher 3 was waaaay unrealistic although the inventory had a weight limitation so you couldn't keep your house into your pockets, and had to store these items in your chest eventually. Look at how Deus Ex did the inventory management simple and fair (some people will disagree with me, but I really liked the inventory in that game, even though it wasn't "realistic" because you could bring like 20 bulletproof vests, but they nailed the weaponry well).

We might think about what makes the player wanna keep so many outfits outside the basement and during missions : is it useful because we will have to change clothes during combat to adapt to the enemy (sounds like it slows the game pace and it's tedious) ? Is it useful because we will likely to loot many clothing items throughout the missions (sounds like basic hack&slash) ? Or because we have to carry them between the shops and our house (sounds like there is no better solution, like sending the items at home) ?

My set up of choice would be that we don't carry more than one extra outfit (example: normal wear and combat wear or whatever parts you wanna keep for quick change), and our inventory would be limited in slots, just like Deus Ex. It worked back then, so why not today (V is a wannabe cyborg, he might not care much about weight). If one player needs extra ammos or weapons, he must have the choice of keeping more than 3 weapons in his inventory (in exchange with keeping less other stuff).

Concerning the weapons, only the 3 on the weapon slots are quickly accessible. There would be a malus for drawing a weapon from your "pockets", like 3 seconds malus or so. Some other items could be granted a hotkey for quick use (see Deus Ex), so the Techies can draw their robot pets to use (or even be able to buy special slots for the robot storage (say, a shoulder clip for ex.))*

(sorry long post, lol)

 

[fridgeband]

This is just what I noticed, and it's just my strong honest opinion. I'm not telling CDPR what to do. Just hopes and opinions.

Some key points that really matter for me are REALISM VS FANTASY (in inventories and stashes). In many different parts of many different games, you can often do a good mix so that it's realistic, but also very fun. But, when it comes to inventories and stashes, this is where most games suffer because they try too hard to do a mix, but you can't mix these things when it comes to inventory and stash, it NEVER ends up working, and aways falls short of what it could have been.

Keep in mind, Realism VS Fantasy are in context of Cyberpunk2077. It doesn't have to be realistic to our boring "real life world" it just has to be realistic in context of the Video game world, and what you would expect to find there.

When and ONLY when it comes to inventories and stashes, it either needs to be 100% unrealistic so that you can carry the entire city inside your pocket, or it needs to be 100% realistic, but give the the player ( V ) ways to handle the fact that it's totally realistic.

The key here is that there should be nothing that makes the player feel limited or frustrated and unable to decide what do to, or feel trapped.

I will explore the realistic way here, because the unrealistic route doesn't really need an explanation.

-Infinite amounts of space in the stash (safe location). Game should just assume V did a good job at organizing it all at home. Even 100% realism isn't true 100% realism in a video game, so we will just assume that V took care of it and had enough room in their closet storage to organize it all. This is done so that the player never feels like they are forced to sell something or throw something away that they were trying very hard to save just in case, or to use later. This is one of the worst feelings in gaming, when the game forces you to get rid of something you don't want to get rid of, completely needlessly. To make this even more realistic (if someone really wanted to go down that hyper-realistic path, which i doubt) V could have a storage location they pay for (in game cannon pay for, not the player actually paying for, or this will also result in forcing players to sell or get rid of things they didn't want or risk losing the entire storage area) What this means is that V could store some things at home and then "send" the rest to the storage location using some kind of mailing service.
Mailing service would be free though, because it would be horrible to watch my money go down the toilet paying to move some items around.

-When V's inventory becomes full out in public or off on an adventure, V should be able to call a drone or some kind of mailing service (or their own car) to come and let V drop all the extra things they don't have space for in the trunk.
*Car drives up backwards and opens its own trunk like "Please feed me" and takes all your junk and prizes home for you*
-When V's home location stash becomes too full, maybe utilize another mailing system that automatically sends the rest to the non-home storage stash location (more storage space than V's home)
-V can manage this through a bunch of screens so V can, but does not have to drive to all the locations to be able to access the stashes.
-V can request their car bring them stuff from the stash after waiting a little bit. (maybe stash has robot arms to throw things into the car or take things back out?)

The more realistic it is, the more realistic solutions you have to come up with to maintain that realism without leaving the player trapped in a situation where they are frustrated or upset because some of their stuff went to waste or wasn't even able to be sold for the money.

If you go fully unrealistic, all that complicated stuff goes out the window, but it becomes less immersive because it's just a boring box full of stuff with no rules, interesting or not.

But then again, the game is Cyberpunk2077, not "inventory simulator 2019" so I would even be totally fine with a completely unrealistic inventory.





other things that matter sortof no matter what system you use:
-stash that doesn't cause lag from being too full
Witcher 3 inventory got very laggy for me. Just saying.
-different fun filters that auto-organize inventory or stash so I don't have to.

 

[-Naver-]

Just gonna say here what I don't like:

- I hate it if i have to constantly go back to a chest, home, etc to empty my freaking bags.
- And I hate it even more if I'm somewhere and can't pickup something because my inventory is full, so I have to delete something or backtrack.

Witcher 3 stuck a good balance in my eyes. It was not very realistic, but it kept my frustration low.

 

[Rawls]

I would actually advocate a more "realistic" inventory weight system for one reason and one reason only. We will have a vehicle that we can call at any time. Use it as a place to store stuff too. Now you have a mobile accessible "trunk" to leave your things. So keep V's carry weight low/realistic, but let her jam a 150 kg (330 lbs) of stuff into her car or 50 kg (110 lbs) onto the back of her motorcycle.

As far as looks go, I have no real complaints about what we have seen in the demos far. It appears to be more intuitive than the ones in the Witcher 3, which is good.

 

[kirell]

-When V's inventory becomes full out in public or off on an adventure, V should be able to call a drone or some kind of mailing service (or their own car) to come and let V drop all the extra things they don't have space for in the trunk.
*Car drives up backwards and opens its own trunk like "Please feed me" and takes all your junk and prizes home for you*
-When V's home location stash becomes too full, maybe utilize another mailing system that automatically sends the rest to the non-home storage stash location (more storage space than V's home)
-V can manage this through a bunch of screens so V can, but does not have to drive to all the locations to be able to access the stashes.
-V can request their car bring them stuff from the stash after waiting a little bit. (maybe stash has robot arms to throw things into the car or take things back out?)

The more realistic it is, the more realistic solutions you have to come up with to maintain that realism without leaving the player trapped in a situation where they are frustrated or upset because some of their stuff went to waste or wasn't even able to be sold for the money.

While i applaud your way to come up with ideas for realistic inventory management, its not really something i would look forward to: Logistics and transportation of goods has its place in games like railroad tycoon, but in games like Cyberpunk 2077 i'm assuming V would just call a cleaner crew that arrives by van, collects all the stuff after V secured the area and transports it to whichever safe location (garage etc) V specified. Kinda like a crew cleaning out your flat would do today.

Or if the area is really dangerous, rent a van with a small helper drone to put the stuff you find there, so you don't need to move back and forth all the time.

Was annoyed about the limit in the Witcher 3 as well: If you had things to transport, you would realistically just get a pack horse. Maybe hire one of those numerous dirt poor people to follow you around with a carriage. You certainly wouldn't leave those expensive treasures behind unless you are absolutely forced to by the circumstances (e.g. need to flee).

For me, actually doing all this in-game seems rather tedious - i would perefer to just assume the sale price includes a fee for transport and logistics.

 

[fridgeband]

Just gonna say here what I don't like:
- I hate it if i have to constantly go back to a chest, home, etc to empty my freaking bags.
- And I hate it even more if I'm somewhere and can't pickup something because my inventory is full, so I have to delete something or backtrack.

Yes I totally agree,-

Witcher 3 stuck a good balance in my eyes. It was not very realistic, but it kept my frustration low.

Lol Witcher 3 made me rip my hair out with inventory management.

Post automatically merged: Sep 6, 2019

While i applaud your way to come up with ideas for realistic inventory management, its not really something i would look forward to: Logistics and transportation of goods has its place in games like railroad tycoon, but in games like Cyberpunk 2077 i'm assuming V would just call a cleaner crew that arrives by van, collects all the stuff after V secured the area and transports it to whichever safe location (garage etc) V specified. Kinda like a crew cleaning out your flat would do today.

Or if the area is really dangerous, rent a van with a small helper drone to put the stuff you find there, so you don't need to move back and forth all the time.

Was annoyed about the limit in the Witcher 3 as well: If you had things to transport, you would realistically just get a pack horse. Maybe hire one of those numerous dirt poor people to follow you around with a carriage. You certainly wouldn't leave those expensive treasures behind unless you are absolutely forced to by the circumstances (e.g. need to flee).

For me, actually doing all this in-game seems rather tedious - i would perefer to just assume the sale price includes a fee for transport and logistics.

I agree, but the helper van is the same as having roach around ( I love roach, as a person, not as a game mechanic. I loved roach the most for the spazzyness. That was hilarious. also roach was a nice person) (I know roach is a horse)
That's why I said it's probably either gotta be fully realistic, and find fun and simple and easy ways to play into that realism without causing more frustation, or it has to be entirely unrealistic, because most games that try to have a 50/50 realistic/unrealistic mix in the inventory system end up causing immense frustration too. I'm always left screaming at the scream "OH COME ON, WHY CAN I DO THIS, BUT NOT THIS? ahhh!" because a mix of realism and fantasy in the inventory system itself never really hits that balance in any game I ever played. I have no problem with fantasy and realism mixing because it can be done in good ways, but inventories never work like this.

 

[BabalKabak]

Just gonna say here what I don't like:

- I hate it if i have to constantly go back to a chest, home, etc to empty my freaking bags.
- And I hate it even more if I'm somewhere and can't pickup something because my inventory is full, so I have to delete something or backtrack.

Witcher 3 stuck a good balance in my eyes. It was not very realistic, but it kept my frustration low.

It may not be such a burden if there aren't many different types of items to deal with. But still, I don't know what items will be in the games apart from gears and weaponry...

Avoiding trash items as potential valuable items would be nice. Like, you could find an empty bottle on the floor and keep it for throwing it at an enemy's face, like a disposable throwing knife or something. But as you know these are no value in shops, you won't keep that in your inventory very long.

Items like empty bottles, bricks, broken pipes, dead rats, torn clothes, snooker cues, and whatnot... these things shouldn't have any use in crafting also. So you may just bother about them when you're in need for improvisation. I hope at this point that crafting will be more technologically advanced than "tape a fork with a stick and it makes a club" kinda crafting.

-When V's inventory becomes full out in public or off on an adventure, V should be able to call a drone or some kind of mailing service (or their own car) to come and let V drop all the extra things they don't have space for in the trunk.
*Car drives up backwards and opens its own trunk like "Please feed me" and takes all your junk and prizes home for you*
-When V's home location stash becomes too full, maybe utilize another mailing system that automatically sends the rest to the non-home storage stash location (more storage space than V's home)
-V can manage this through a bunch of screens so V can, but does not have to drive to all the locations to be able to access the stashes.
-V can request their car bring them stuff from the stash after waiting a little bit. (maybe stash has robot arms to throw things into the car or take things back out?)

The more realistic it is, the more realistic solutions you have to come up with to maintain that realism without leaving the player trapped in a situation where they are frustrated or upset because some of their stuff went to waste or wasn't even able to be sold for the money.

One problem with delivery drone would be A.I. pathfinding, and to some extent, having to define by hand every zone where the delivery system could or couldn't move to.

Another (possibly fun) issue would be the exploit of calling the delivery system to take cover behind it, or exploit it another way to your advantage (collision bugs, or whatever). But if that feature comes in by the player's need, it means that this potential exploit is available at any time in the game.

About the car's trunk, I think we shouldn't count too much on that unless the car is indestructible, or the items from the car are virtually sent up to the basement (so they aren't physically present in the trunk). If the car's blown up or something, it shouldn't be fair that you lose some precious or (worse) unique items that were in it.

Like you said, these were just plain examples so I don't mind much the consequences of them and enjoy the creativity in solving the inventory issue

Post automatically merged: Sep 6, 2019

Although, I'd add that V is not a reseller. Whatever V can sell shall be related to his/her role : Techies exchanging tech parts for money/parts, yes ; Techies exchanging 50kg of dirty shirts for money/parts ? Please no... (and furthermore, who is gonna buy scrap shirts?)

 

[fridgeband]

It may not be such a burden if there aren't many different types of items to deal with. But still, I don't know what items will be in the games apart from gears and weaponry...

Avoiding trash items as potential valuable items would be nice. Like, you could find an empty bottle on the floor and keep it for throwing it at an enemy's face, like a disposable throwing knife or something. But as you know these are no value in shops, you won't keep that in your inventory very long.

Items like empty bottles, bricks, broken pipes, dead rats, torn clothes, snooker cues, and whatnot... these things shouldn't have any use in crafting also. So you may just bother about them when you're in need for improvisation. I hope at this point that crafting will be more technologically advanced than "tape a fork with a stick and it makes a club" kinda crafting.



One problem with delivery drone would be A.I. pathfinding, and to some extent, having to define by hand every zone where the delivery system could or couldn't move to.

Another (possibly fun) issue would be the exploit of calling the delivery system to take cover behind it, or exploit it another way to your advantage (collision bugs, or whatever). But if that feature comes in by the player's need, it means that this potential exploit is available at any time in the game.

About the car's trunk, I think we shouldn't count too much on that unless the car is indestructible, or the items from the car are virtually sent up to the basement (so they aren't physically present in the trunk). If the car's blown up or something, it shouldn't be fair that you lose some precious or (worse) unique items that were in it.

Like you said, these were just plain examples so I don't mind much the consequences of them and enjoy the creativity in solving the inventory issue

Maybe the drone doesn't need pathfinding. Just re-use the car's pathfinding and V owns all their cars and motorcycles in the garage, but V also owns a cargo drone that drives around, that is indestructible? I dunno. lol.
just keeping V's car slot as the official car slot, and the drone is a different separate slot (so the drone doesn't take up the space of the cars "come pick me up".

 

[imitenotbecrazy]

I'm assuming we'll be able to get implants that would increase carry weight and inventory slots. Gameplay trumps realism for me. I like having a lot of weapons. I wouldn't mind if that means I can put a bunch in my car though

 

[CyberBobber]

Why not to do what Witcher 3 did, if its not broken, why fix it. At least I cant remember bad things about Witcher 3's inventory management.

 

[Rawls]

Why not to do what Witcher 3 did, if its not broken, why fix it. At least I cant remember bad things about Witcher 3's inventory management.

It was annoying to navigate crafting, alchemy and inventory screens in my opinion, because it would take a longer time to find things than it should. Even if you knew exactly where it was, you would have to scroll through a bunch of other stuff. Not ideal.

EDIT: The shopping and inventory screens we've seen are already an improvement, because the items are not organized in a single list, or in super small grids.

 

[CyberBobber]

It was annoying to navigate crafting, alchemy and inventory screens in my opinion, because it would take a longer time to find things than it should. Even if you knew exactly where it was, you would have to scroll through a bunch of other stuff. Not ideal.

EDIT: The shopping and inventory screens we've seen are already an improvement, because the items are not organized in a single list, or in super small grids.

Oh, Ive seen alot worse than Witcher 3.

 

[Rawls]

Oh, Ive seen alot worse than Witcher 3.

I have too. I don't think I've ever seen a inventory UI I actually liked. "Didn't hate" is about as close as I've ever come.

 

[kirell]

Oh, Ive seen alot worse than Witcher 3.

Witcher 3 was pretty good and would certainly be good enough for me, but there is always room for improvement and it was really hard to find some specific items sometimes. I think i would like a real word filter in addition to normal sort by (time/price/weight) option - wouldn't work well for consoles lacking a keyboard though

 

[CyberBobber]

Witcher 3 was pretty good and would certainly be good enough for me, but there is always room for improvement and it was really hard to find some specific items sometimes. I think i would like a real word filter in addition to normal sort by (time/price/weight) option - wouldn't work well for consoles lacking a keyboard though

Right, inventory management can get confusing too if you add too much to it. I think Kingdome Come almost did it for example, it was more messier than Wticher 3s.

Put some cool music so player want to spend more time with the inventory.

 

[Draconifors]

Witcher 3 has a pretty good system, although like Rawls pointed out it, too, has its flaws.

Ideally for me, the inventory would be separated into logical sections, searchable, and sortable (in multiple ways, e.g. alpha, type, weight). It shouldn't take much effort to find stuff -- the better organised, the better.

Every single inventory system I've had first-hand experience with has been at least acceptably functional but none has been perfect in every way. And, quite frankly, I doubt I will ever see a truly perfect (to me) inventory system. But I'm not picky in this regard: as long as the system isn't like in vanilla Skyrim I'm fine with it, really.

 

[CyberBobber]

This is a example of bad inventory management if asked from me. They thought "branding" the game was more important than the game itself.

 

[fridgeband]

Witcher 3 was pretty good and would certainly be good enough for me, but there is always room for improvement and it was really hard to find some specific items sometimes. I think i would like a real word filter in addition to normal sort by (time/price/weight) option - wouldn't work well for consoles lacking a keyboard though

a word filter would be awesome. (I didn't like witcher 3 inventory though lol)