Inventory and other feedback

[sheer.falacy]

I've been very much enjoying the game (what's not to love about an army of acid zombies?), but I do have some feedback.

1. Inventory feels extremely limited. There are a bunch of charms in the game, there's a bunch of situational equipment that boosts leadership or mechanics or specific element resist, there's a whole lot of consumable items, and there's some quest stuff and some crafting stuff. And there's not much space to put all of this in. And then there's the Junk Bag, which has infinite space. So I get into a play pattern where I put useful items in the Junk Bag and then need to go through the whole thing to track them down when I'm next in a city. While putting items in the junk bag is trivial, removing them is tedious - there are no hotkeys and you need to click an item in the bag and then an empty inventory space, every time. Limited inventory space can be good game design, unlimited inventory space can be good game design, unlimited inventory space if you're willing to put up with an awkward interface is unpleasant.
   
2. Hermit Crossroads doesn't turn green by default - I assume killing all the drayks will do it, but it's weird when they're friendly unless you specifically antagonize them.
   
3. Sharon's area is kind of a maze - this isn't usually a problem at all, but she has a bunch of tough enemies in her backyard and no essence refill available, so I had to spend a lot of time just walking back and forth so I could fast travel to a city.
   
4. As others have mentioned, it would be nice to see your own creation's resistances.
   
5. Minor nitpick, but there's a Servile in Gheth who talks about the shaper who set up all the clockwork stuff and says their name is Elissia. Elissia is the shaper in the upper shaping hall, not the clockwork maze.

[Mike]

Fully agree re: the inventory management issues, particularly when it comes to storing/sorting items, as discussed in the topic below. Would be amazing if some enhancements in this respect could be made in future games.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2480560/discussions/0/4357870121618187770/

As for seeing creation resistances, that should be available in a future patch.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2480560/discussions/0/4357869680019156353/

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

While you're not wrong about the junk bag being tedious, you can also store items on the ground in cities. (as long as you don't go over the invisible 255 items limit, but you should be fine as long as you use different cities for different items.)

Having all your thorn batons and darts next to one city gate, all your pods and spores next to another, and your gems and wands next to a third, and spare equipment in yet a fourth, makes it much easier to find stuff. And since travel is basically instant...

As for your other points: Yeah, Sharon's house needs a shortcut badly.

[Mike]

Stacking items in cities is pretty inconvenient, and doesn't help much with sorting many items, but is at least possible - that's what I've generally had to resort to in these games. And as it seemed unclear from my earlier posted topic, has it been confirmed in this remaster that the old 255-item limit still applies, and if so, does it also apply to items stored in a container (or are there any related bugs/issues to beware of there)?

[misterbill5]

If there is a limit, what happens to the 256th item you attempt to store in one place? Does it poof? Or maybe just not store there? In previous games, I used the "dump stuff onto the ground" method, usually in one friendly city, but in this game I have been putting my stash in cabinets in my "quarters" in the first city...

[Mike]

Contrary to my usual city-gate-loot-piling Spiderweb tradition, I've also been using the three cabinets in the southern Drypeak quarters for storage, but items in containers can't be properly sorted (manually or otherwise), and I'm similarly concerned these and other containers may be buggy if too many items are stored.

[misterbill5]

Originally posted by Mike:

Contrary to my usual city-gate-loot-piling Spiderweb tradition, I've also been using the three cabinets in the southern Drypeak quarters for storage, but items in containers can't be properly sorted (manually or otherwise), and I'm similarly concerned these and other containers may be buggy if too many items are stored.

Same here! I did discover that if you pull identical items out of the cabinets and into inventory, they will sort/stack--then you can put them back in the cabinet sorted...sorta...Not ideal, but helps a bit...

[Mike]

Yep, thanks - I've been doing the same, but many items I store are unique/non-stackable, and even with stacked items, the container "slots" in which they're placed can't be controlled / are selected apparently at random when you have several items in the container.

[slartifer]

In past games, dropping a 256th item would cause an item that used to be sitting on the ground somewhere to disappear. I don't know if anyone ever tried putting this many items in a container... or if containers counted towards the limit. They might.

Note that "past games" is further back in time than the Geneforge remakes. I don't think this is confirmed to happen in Mutagen or Infestation. But it also hasn't been confirmed to not happen, and it was never changed in the old games where it happened. So it doesn't hurt to stay on the safe side.

[misterbill5]

Better safe than sorry...

[Spiderweb]

There is a limit to how many items can be left in town, but it's way higher than 256. Unless you try to dumb every item you find in one town, it shouldn't be an issue. I am undecided about how to handle inventory in future Geneforge games. I want having to decide your loadout before you go into a dungeon to be part of the system.

[Eudaimonia]

I think the system where stats get updated real time, even creatures changing level as you change clothes, removes most of the cheese potential. Only thing is getting access to upgraded creations through it..

Currently the limitation just makes it take longer to go back and change gear, it just makes it more tedious rather than add any level of strategy to it.

With two rows of charms and one row of mechanics/leadership gear i was still left with two rows for either consumables or tall shrubs, so the only "strategy" was to remember to pick up that helix band whenever something strong seemed to be ahead.

Other than making it so there is no mechanics/leadership gear to prevent that tedious constant swapping with every single locked door or conversation in the game (charms only please), any change would have to be significant. Making the inventory smaller just makes things more tedious, and bringing back the weight system would do the same. To make it interesting there would have to be an entirely different system which added interesting and sensible limitations on power without making inventory management a pain.

Charms conflicting with each other / random stuff.
A "cape of the wind" that blows spores away from you or other such gear so they don't work, making you choose between good gear or consumables.
Plant shaping (botany/alchemy)/ energy shaping (enchanting/imbuing) to gain more/better consumables.
Only swapping gear in friendly cities? (would definitely need to get rid of clothes with non combat stats for this one)
Might even go so far as to make a dedicated home area for the player. Some place with plenty of easily accessible storage close to the entrance. Would be a nice place for all those dismissed people/creations you didn't shape.

Not an easy thing to figure out, so i'm just throwing out some wild inspiration.

[slartifer]

Originally posted by Spiderweb:

I want having to decide your loadout before you go into a dungeon to be part of the system.

This is cool -- it isn't the part that feels like a hassle. The problem is all the stuff you want to keep for the future -- the piles of crystals and pods and spores you aren't bringing to the dungeon, the alternate equipment with different bonuses, the 10 slots for batons and thorns, all the collectible items, all the artifact components...

G3 would be a really good time to implement a "storage bag" that you can't pull items out of in a dungeon, but is separate from the junk bag. Because G3 increases the number of items you might want to hold onto, with all the enhancement gems (assuming those make their return). (If the bag auto-sorted by item type, that would be a bonus.)

[Mike]

The ability to sort items in containers (both manually and by type/value/etc.) - both in the Geneforge 3 remake and in other future Spidweb games/remakes - would be a HUGE help.

[.//slayer]

Originally posted by Spiderweb:

There is a limit to how many items can be left in town, but it's way higher than 256. Unless you try to dumb every item you find in one town, it shouldn't be an issue. I am undecided about how to handle inventory in future Geneforge games. I want having to decide your loadout before you go into a dungeon to be part of the system.

Maybe you could consider some form of load-out switching out of combat? For example, I usually carry a bunch of acid resist gear in my inventory at all times. Imagine if I could "mark" all the pieces of gear and then swap my current equipment for the marked items with a single button press instead of dragging and dropping multiple items individually.

[maddz]

I agree that inventory management is a real chore especially once you get past 50+ items.

My thoughts:

1. Either make charms into a special item not held in your pack or implement something like a Charm Bracelet which you attach charms to using an anvil. The bracelet needs to be made by a crafter, and its base ability is that it's a charm, with no abilities. Attaching a charm adds that charm's abilities to the bracelet; these are stackable so 2 charms with 10% ability A and 5% ability A give the bracelet 15% ability A (or 5% if the 2nd has -5%). That means that instead of cluttering up your pack you only use a single slot. If you want a downside to this, you could say adding charms makes you less stealthy because you jingle (probably best for Veteran or Torment).

2. Items in a quick-use slot aren't in your pack. That would make sense - you don't suddenly break off a fight to rummage for a healing pod or spores. If my pack is as full as my work pack, that item has always worked to the bottom... For items you need all the time, you pop them in a dedicated small pocket on the outside of the pack.

3. If you want situational load-outs, they must be definable so you can easily toggle between them. You can't switch them in combat, only out of combat with no enemies in sight (perhaps does't include charmed enemies?) You can only take what you are wearing plus 1 other load-out when you leave town, but you can have several for different situations.

4. Either implement some king of storage bag or make junk bag items swappable outside town. If the latter, please consider adding a do not sell flag to items you want to keep in your bag; to sell it, you have to remove it from the bag and put it in your pack where you have a confirmation dialogue. Once you've marked an item as do not sell, all matching items of that kind are automatically do not sell.

5. Make the junk bag filterable by slot type: missile weapons and missiles, melee weapons, armour etc, plus a sell these slot.

6. More containers in the game in towns! Especially in the same building. That would allow storage by item type instead of the current 1 or 2 containers in a building and drop the rest on the ground. By the end game, when I go to my store depot (Drypeak Ascent) I have to lock my creations in a room so I can look through one pile without seeing other piles as well. I did like the Queen's Wish system of linked chests, but that only works with limited items.