Chaosforge Forum

Jupiter Hell => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 23, 2014, 04:30

Title: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 23, 2014, 04:30
I'm gonna start doing some design rants, gathering public input -- these are targeted both at the dev team as well as anyone willing to contribute. Let's show some activity :). These rants often will be about things that already have been designed for Jupiter Hell (sometimes even initially implemented), but we're keeping our options open. This is your chance to influence the game!



Today's topic will be Inventory, and items in general. While the DoomRL system works, I have a deeper wish of streamlining some things, especially the ones that either enforce grinding or micromanagement. Inventory is one of the more severe issues.

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, let's start with a mockup (done by a complete amateur, ergo myself):
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4184221/forum/jh_inv_mockup.png)


Let's split it into topics:

1. Equipment and Inventory

Equipment/Inventory will function similarly to DoomRL, but with a different presentation (think the Diablo equipment screen), and with a couple more slots. The left/right hand, armor and boots slots stay, but additionally we'll have a head slot and two device slots (think hacking and electronics). Moreover, some equipment pieces will introduce their own slots -- weapons may have 1+ different mod slots (possibly an ammo slot if we go for different ammo), powered armor may have power and extension slots, etc. The big difference I plan however is that anything that is worn, still takes space in inventory. Why? Because similarly to Diablo, not all equipment will take the same amount of space, and this way we'll cut down on any equipment shuffling needed to swap items, and get rid of metagaming moves like carrying a huge item in your hand to save on inventory space. To balance this out, the inventory will be made bigger. Does this make sense? Will this introduce any problems? Any ideas on this front?

2. Ammo

This is a biggie. My initial need of reconstructing the inventory came from my happiness with the AliensRL system. And following it, I wanted to introduce set ammo counters like in AliensRL and Doom. However, this takes away a significant strategic challenge of balancing your ammo types, and balancing your ammo vs. consumables/spare weapons. However, with the DoomRL solution this becomes a constant game of micromanagement also, and swapping items a lot. So I need a solution that did include the strategy of ammo management, but took away the need of fiddling with a lot of items.

The solution I'm thinking about is having all ammo in something that is similar to current ammo boxes. You have a running total of your ammo, that is limited by the amount of ammo boxes you have. So if you have 3 boxes of shells, you can hold at most 3*50 shells. Any shells you find are automatically fit into the boxes, but you get a no-room message as soon as you run out of boxes. You can additionally find new boxes of course, but whether you add them to your inventory or not, this is your decision. Boxes also have different sizes, so e.g. a single box of rockets already takes up 2x3 of space.

Comments? Alternative solutions?

3. Ammo types

There have been requests for different ammo types for both AliensRL and DoomRL, but I always rejected them due to the added UI complexity. With graphics though, we have a couple more options, also the slot system outlined above would fit with different ammo types nicely. The only issue here is that with this system, you should have separate ammo boxes for separate ammo types, which obviously doesn't make much sense.

4. Items on floor

Here's a biggie -- I think about removing items on floor altogether. Items can be found on (highlighted) corpses, lockers, boxes, etc. Dropped items get destroyed. This would prevent doing tedious stash micromanagement, and increase the pace of the game. Also, it'd work well with the boxes idea -- players wont be tempted to do tedious backtracking to get ammo they left behind and couldn't pick up. This is probably the most controversial decision, but it would (IMHO) benefit the game much. 



I'll conclude this first design rant here, hoping to hear feedback and comments from the community -- the way Jupiter Hell will look like is in your hands!
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 23, 2014, 04:55
Let's show some activity :).
Yay! Activity!
additionally we'll have a head slot and two device slots (think hacking and electronics).
Cooooolllll....
To balance this out, the inventory will be made Does this make sense?
Assuming you meant 'will be made bigger.' Correct?
The solution I'm thinking about is having all ammo in something that is similar to current ammo boxes.
I've spoken on this one before for Doomrl, and I like this solution. The alternate ammo container thing is iffy, though. Hmmm... Maybe have alternate ammo boxes be more compact, so as to mitigate the issue of carrying extra boxes? 'Cause Frag-12 rounds would be a pretty sweet thing to find, but probably a lot less common, so you wouldn't need as big of a box.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 23, 2014, 04:58
Assuming you meant 'will be made bigger.' Correct?
Uh yeah, corrected, thanks :)

I've spoken on this one before for Doomrl, and I like this solution. The alternate ammo container thing is iffy, though. Hmmm... Maybe have alternate ammo boxes be more compact, so as to mitigate the issue of carrying extra boxes? 'Cause Frag-12 rounds would be a pretty sweet thing to find, but probably a lot less common, so you wouldn't need as big of a box.
They could be made more compact. Still, waiting for all brainstorm to happen :P
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: thelaptop on January 23, 2014, 05:46
I have few comments on inventory except please make it less annoying than SotS: the pit.  I can't bloody hell decipher what it is I have most of the time without hovering my mouse over them, and it gets worse for stacked objects.  Also representation in console mode, which seems to be something that you have planned for.

I'd rather make it such that you can store extra rounds when you don't have boxes, except that you have to pay an inefficiency premium.  For instance, say a box can handle 50 shotgun rounds.  If you run out of boxes, you can trade up one inventory slot for every 30 shotgun rounds.  Each time you reload, you will first load from these loose rounds before going for the stuff in the boxes.  So we allow some trade off here while minimising micromanagement, and can encourage planning ahead for more DAKKA without having first finding boxes.  Think of this as a gradual backpack upgrade in DoomRL parlance.

As for ammo types, I'd rather think of it as gun-level alterations.  Maybe a mod that allows the chambered round take on different characteristics.  I'm stealing this concept from Borderlands 2, of course.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 23, 2014, 06:15
I have few comments on inventory except please make it less annoying than SotS: the pit.  I can't bloody hell decipher what it is I have most of the time without hovering my mouse over them, and it gets worse for stacked objects.  Also representation in console mode, which seems to be something that you have planned for.
I need to play it again. Still while playing I saw so many things in the UI that annoyed me that it will be time not wasted :P

I'd rather make it such that you can store extra rounds when you don't have boxes, except that you have to pay an inefficiency premium.  For instance, say a box can handle 50 shotgun rounds.  If you run out of boxes, you can trade up one inventory slot for every 30 shotgun rounds.  Each time you reload, you will first load from these loose rounds before going for the stuff in the boxes.  So we allow some trade off here while minimising micromanagement, and can encourage planning ahead for more DAKKA without having first finding boxes.  Think of this as a gradual backpack upgrade in DoomRL parlance.
While this'd give even a more strategic approach, it'd revert the gain that I wanted with the ammo boxes. In DoomRL each time you find a new item, you need to ditch ammo -- which is annoying. The limited boxes were meant to prevent that, while this solution will bring us back to point zero.

As for ammo types, I'd rather think of it as gun-level alterations.  Maybe a mod that allows the chambered round take on different characteristics.  I'm stealing this concept from Borderlands 2, of course.
This'd be a good solution if we can't find any other.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 23, 2014, 06:35
I would assume that you would start with at least 1 ammo box, probably one of each (common) type? Doesn't seem like you'd need over 50 shells at any given time in the first few levels of most any game, since you'll be finding more loose ones all the time. And I'd also assume that ammo boxes would probably be slightly more common than in Doomrl, as they don't also provide fast reloads. Right?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 23, 2014, 07:03
The first box would come with each time you pick up a weapon needing ammo that you don't have. Actually you reminded me of an important thing I didn't include in the post... Updated the opening post with:

Quote
4. Items on floor

Here's a biggie -- I think about removing items on floor altogether. Items can be found on (highlighted) corpses, lockers, boxes, etc. Dropped items get destroyed. This would prevent doing tedious stash micromanagement, and increase the pace of the game. Also, it'd work well with the boxes idea -- players wont be tempted to do tedious backtracking to get ammo they left behind and couldn't pick up. This is probably the most controversial decision, but it would (IMHO) benefit the game much. 
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 23, 2014, 08:14
That's a big thing to leave out! This means that levels can be gone back to later, or am I reading too much into that?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 23, 2014, 08:19
Levels can be backtracked within a single episode.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 23, 2014, 08:42
Ah, I see. This would make 100% kills a bit easier, anyway, though I can't say I like my items mysteriously disappearing when I let go of them. Maybe just clear items when you leave a level?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 23, 2014, 08:44
It might also appease players if instead of just disappearing, you got some small reward, though that might encourage vacuuming.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: LuckyDee on January 23, 2014, 09:01
Maybe just clear items when you leave a level?

This would prevent a lot of frustration. The player should not be punished for accidentally clicking 'Drop' instead of 'Equip' (or whatever mechanism we use). Although dropping a stack of bullets in a puddle of water should have some effect on them. Not to mention dunking a crate of RPGs into a campfire.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 23, 2014, 10:10
This would prevent a lot of frustration. The player should not be punished for accidentally clicking 'Drop' instead of 'Equip' (or whatever mechanism we use). Although dropping a stack of bullets in a puddle of water should have some effect on them. Not to mention dunking a crate of RPGs into a campfire.
It might, but then it would seems as a engine limitation, not a conscious design choice. Not allowing items on floor at all will provide a system that is much more consistent.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: ZicherCZ on January 23, 2014, 10:14
OK, a few thoughts incmoing (all IMHO, of course):

1. First, I like the overall inventory mockup. Looks very nice!
I'd like to ask, whether the mods from the extra slots would be removable - in  DoomRL they're not, creating another DiabloII similarity (think socketed items, and assemblies as runewords).
The inclusion of equipped items is a _very_ nice thought. I already saw this approach in the first Deus Ex (although the only changeable items were weapons there).
Possible idea: To further discourage unnecessary items switching, you can make the both the switched-out and switched-in item ineffective for some time, depending on the kind of items switched. E.g. A pistol might have a "switch time" 0.5s, a rocket launcher would have 2s, and the total time would be the sum of those two times - so switching between two pistols would take 1s, but swtching between a rocket launcher and a pistol (both ways) would take 2.5s.
And, if such an idea is incorporated, then (in similarity to Deus Ex) assigning items to hotkeys would me highly desirable.

2. I agree with thelaptop on this one - if I understand correctly, Kornel's way might easily lead to a frustrating situation when I would not be able to pick up some ammo simply because I have no free ammo-boxes, even though I have a half of inventory free. That being said, I also agree that an ammo-box should hold more ammo than free slots of the same size (e.g. if a shell-box takes 6 spaces and holds 100 shells, than one free space should hold 10 (60 in the same 6 slots)).
One possible way to prevent this would be to have _all_ ammo be found only in ammo-boxes with an option to stack those boxes and tossing the empty one if the player wants to do so (for freeing inventory space). But this seems quite unrealistic to me, doubly so if unloading dropped weapons would be possible.

3. If different ammo types should be available for a weapon, I'm all in for different boxes for each ammo type. The fact that 20 standard 9mm bullets and 20 armor-piercing 9mm bullets of the same size should fit into one 50-bullet box is true, so I see Kornel's point.
But my point here is organization and clarity of the inventory. It may be just my point of view, but when I open the inventory, I'd like to see that I have two different bullet types on the first sight (and for further clarity, I'd like to see that I have 30 standard and 15 AP bullets - easy to achieve with displaying the number in a corner of the ammo-box). IMHO this clarity serves gameplay more.
And that being said - a hotkey for switching ammo type might be in order, as well as a reloading time being in effect, should you want to change ammo type.

4. IMHO - that's not a good idea.
First, items dropped on the floor don't simply disappear (unless dropped into lava or somesuch).
Second, in pretty much every game there's time for action and time for scavenging. Unless I'm direly pressed for getting towards a mission goal, I take time to search all of the area I'm in for whatever may be helpful; depending on the game it may be more ammo, another weapon or hidden clues.
That being said - Kornel mentioned levels being open for backtracking within an episode. If that is the approach, then making items on the floor disappear once I leave the level may be a fair option, especially if combined with smaller levels.

Oh, and regarding Kornel's last post - "minor demons and rats stole everything they saw once they noted you're off, and went back to their hiding places" ;).
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 23, 2014, 10:46
It might, but then it would seems as a engine limitation, not a conscious design choice. Not allowing items on floor at all will provide a system that is much more consistent.

I get what you mean here, but from personal experience, it always ends up feeling like an engine limitation rather than a design choice, unfortunately. Perhaps have certain types of items deteriorate naturally? Think old school NES games, where things flash and disappear after a while. Maybe the corrosive environment is just too hard on things like exposed medkits/ammo/etc to be leaving them around, so after X turns, they melt away?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: RogerN on January 23, 2014, 11:49
Quote
Here's a biggie -- I think about removing items on floor altogether. Items can be found on (highlighted) corpses, lockers, boxes, etc. Dropped items get destroyed. This would prevent doing tedious stash micromanagement, and increase the pace of the game. Also, it'd work well with the boxes idea -- players wont be tempted to do tedious backtracking to get ammo they left behind and couldn't pick up. This is probably the most controversial decision, but it would (IMHO) benefit the game much. 

1) In general I don't like the feel of destroy-on-drop; it feels a little too contrived.  I don't find the stash management to be all that tedious personally.
2) I don't think this mechanic would alleviate backtracking much anyway, as players will still backtrack to get at the corpses, lockers, boxes, etc...
3) OTOH, perhaps you could include a scavenger-type enemy or mechanic that eats/destroys items on the floor when the player isn't around?  Your stuff wouldn't get eaten 100% of the time but it would always be at risk.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: emulord on January 23, 2014, 12:43
My thoughts on this:
This style of inventory sucks. I love a plain simple list. Playing tetris slows down the game in a way that breaks your "gunning" mindset.
Dropping destroying things sucks.

Having (equipped) at the end of a list is fine. Reworking ammo boxes, modpacks is fine. Having items take up multiple slots (large weapons + armors) is fine.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: LuckyDee on January 23, 2014, 14:43
Right, now that I have a moment to properly respond, I might as well try and make most of it:

1. Equipment and Inventory

The equipment part seems find to me. It makes sense to also have equipment take up inventory space, but I wonder if that isn't just taking it too far. Especially when:

To balance this out, the inventory will be made bigger.

Why bother at all, then? To translate a beautiful Dutch saying, it'll be 'fucking around in the margins'. This might depend on the inventory management part, though, since I share emulord's Tetris Stance. Thinking back to Diablo II: "Hell yes I can carry that dagger, it fits right below the gothic plate. Now turn, damn you!". It'll be micromanagement all over again, just in a different guise.
Alternatives? First thing that springs to mind is Baldur's Gate and other D&D based games, where you have a limited number of slots and a maximum weight you are able to carry. Not the prettiest solution, but possibly reworkable. I'm sure there are those among us with better alternatives. Say it, baby; say it, babyyyyyyyyyyy! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4P_OofC3xM)


2. Ammo

I need a solution that did include the strategy of ammo management, but took away the need of fiddling with a lot of items.

I completely fail to see how your proposed solution changes anything. In the end you'll still be deciding whether you'll be sacrificing the space for Ammo Type A, Ammo Type B, a medkit or an armor. You'll just have it in boxes instead of in stacks.
Give the player 2 ammo slots, to be assigned to a given type of ammo at game start (or rather, pre-assigned). Give the player a Doomish max ammo count for each type. Screw inventory. Allow the player to gain ammo slots (increasing the number of ammo types the player can use) to be assigned at the moment they are encountered. They can be used for ammo for new types of weapon, or for alternative ammo types for available weapons. Restrict the ammo the player can choose to assign to elements he's encountered in the game. Use the DoomRL Medal/Badge system for this, so that the choices are expanded after each game. After go-live, you can even update with new types of ammo.
To increase ammo slot capacity, use something similar to Doom's Backpack.

3. Ammo types

See 2.

4. Items on floor

Tough one. As I said before, chances of accidentally dropping stuff should be slim to none, but I agree that it would really work well on the game's pace. As an aside, if you eliminate the need for the player to go back to previous levels to flip a switch/access a terminal/destroy a power generator/etc as well, this choice would make backtracking completely redundant. Backtracking's not very 90's FPS anyway (:

This:
2) I don't think this mechanic would alleviate backtracking much anyway, as players will still backtrack to get at the corpses, lockers, boxes, etc...
constitutes a valid point, too. My Completionist OCD levels would run high enough as to carry as little stuff as possible up until the end of the level, then go back and fill up my inventory as tediously efficient as possible. Pace? What pace?
And I'm assuming your theory means stashing stuff in said lockers is off-limits, since it would eliminate the thought behind your idea in a spectacularly annoying fashion. And being able to take something from a locker without being able to put anything back in almost always smells of poor design.

There. That about sums it up so far. I do so hope I said something stupid that makes other people come up with brilliant stuff again (:

Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Sylph on January 23, 2014, 16:38
I don't like the idea of this inventory system. One of my favourite things about doomrl is the simplicity of the inventory system, but emergent strategy that it brings. For me, emergent depth from simplicity is one of the ideals of game design.
The new proposal just seems to imply 'tetrising' as emulord so beautifully put it!
Also, you would not want to discard your precious ammo box even if it was almost empty, which destroys the strategy of casting off a little of your ammo to take a few extra medpacks depending on your next area (strategy) because, essentially, you're always gonna want your 4-slot box.

In summary, if your goal was "I need a solution that did include the strategy of ammo management, but took away the need of fiddling with a lot of items.", I think (and I hate to criticise, you're a god to me!) you missed it on both marks. Your solution creates more of a need to fiddle with a lot of items, and removes strategy!

Also, I should mention that I find doomrl's inventory *far* more satisfying that ADOM or nethack, which use a weight-based system. i like your mock-up of the inventory screen a lot, but I think you should go back to 1 item/1 slot, or at the very least ditch this ammo box idea!

Oh, btw, on the subject of switching weapons (mentioned earlier), it might be a fun idea to try out switching to a hotkeyed weapon (aka jugglable weapon) takes the same amount of time as pulling it from the pack, but allows the player to spend that time moving, closing doors, even attacking in melee! It would increase mobility, and mobility usually equals strategy in turn based games.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Aerton on January 24, 2014, 05:32
This reminds me of Resident Evil 4 more than of Diablo. Perhaps, some reasoning about it can be applied to JH.
(http://www.deltaattack.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2010-11-01_MA_Inventory.png)

It does not have slots on a doll for a reason. Items still occupy the bag space when equipped, so it would add nothing, but confusion to the UI. Current weapon is highlighted by background and a little 'E' in the corner. Also, you can see Leon wielding the gun. Also, his cloth changes, even if the armour set is not represented in the bagpack. I think it's because there is no reason ever carry a spare vest, so they just reduced the inventory space by a few rows it would take otherwise.

Even though RE4 is an action-oriented game and a very fun one, I remember spending more time rearranging things than I would like. Especially towards the end, when there are more weapons to carry and the bag size gets upgraded. Assuming JH will have more different items, the backpack optimisation minigame ought to be played even more often.

I like simplicity of a plain inventory list in DRL. It's provides the information at a glance, is sorted by type, and you can easily see how much more space you have. I also see a benefit of providing a player with a dilemma - to carry one great item, or a few lesser ones. Can the same choice be provided while keeping the simple structure?

What if an item name was in bigger letters so it takes a two or even three lines in the list? Of course, the actual representation in the graphical game needs to be richer than a bigger font - think of it of having the same inventory grid but it has only one column and all items still having varying vertical size, while all sharing the same width. Since it's actually a 1D space, there is no need for spatial optimisation minigame and items can be freely rearranged. Essentially, this will have the same usability of DRL inventory, while allowing the items to differ in size.

Not sure about having different ammo types and having no items on the floor. The two seems to be at odds. One is a trait of a deliberate slow survival game, another is a better fit for hot-packed action.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 24, 2014, 06:02
Wow, we've resurrected Aerton!

It does not have slots on a doll for a reason. Items still occupy the bag space when equipped, so it would add nothing, but confusion to the UI. Current weapon is highlighted by background and a little 'E' in the corner. Also, you can see Leon wielding the gun. Also, his cloth changes, even if the armour set is not represented in the bagpack. I think it's because there is no reason ever carry a spare vest, so they just reduced the inventory space by a few rows it would take otherwise.
This is a pretty valid point! For a moment I wanted to immediately go with it, however, there's another problem -- what about addon slots? Things like mods, or expansion elements for armor? There'll be no easy way to see what you're currently packing.

I like simplicity of a plain inventory list in DRL. It's provides the information at a glance, is sorted by type, and you can easily see how much more space you have. I also see a benefit of providing a player with a dilemma - to carry one great item, or a few lesser ones. Can the same choice be provided while keeping the simple structure?

What if an item name was in bigger letters so it takes a two or even three lines in the list? Of course, the actual representation in the graphical game needs to be richer than a bigger font - think of it of having the same inventory grid but it has only one column and all items still having varying vertical size, while all sharing the same width. Since it's actually a 1D space, there is no need for spatial optimisation minigame and items can be freely rearranged. Essentially, this will have the same usability of DRL inventory, while allowing the items to differ in size.
However, a 1D list has no hopes to fit in even a HD screen, not to mention our lowest supported resolution of 600. Eg, if you don't take any large items, the list could go for at least 40 elements, which gives us... 15 pixels per item?

Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 24, 2014, 06:24
Personally, I like the 2D box inventories like Diablo and Resident Evil 4, so long as you can rotate items. However, if one were to do a 1D list, there are a couple of ways to maximize the space. Imagine your 2D box, and in it a pistol is a 1x3, a medkit 1x2, an armor 2x4, and ammo is 1x1 boxes (for like 15 bullets). In a list, you could just take your largest regular item, the 2x4, and consider that the standard size. Then, you would simply make other items stackable until they added up. So you could stack up to 8 ammo boxes, 4 medkits, 2 pistols, etc. You could even represent this graphically, since you'd need much fewer slots, you could draw the image next to the name in the list, with multiples in the same slot having smaller, side-by-side images. I'd still prefer the 2D myself, but I hope this gives ideas.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Aerton on January 24, 2014, 06:40
what about addon slots? Things like mods, or expansion elements for armor? There'll be no easy way to see what you're currently packing.
Does presence of a doll change any of that? If you have five guns in the bag, their slots still need to be displayed somehow. Looking the pic in OP, I guess that slots are added for the current weapon only. The same can be done with no doll. It would not contradict the main benefit of having no item being represented twice.

However, a 1D list has no hopes to fit in even a HD screen, not to mention our lowest supported resolution of 600. Eg, if you don't take any large items, the list could go for at least 40 elements, which gives us... 15 pixels per item?
Hm, I did not imagine these being so numerous... I guess you can resort to having 2 or 3 columns, but it's not so pure.
The main thought was to make the inventory items spatially-independent of each other - both to remove the tetris aspect and to make it sortable automatically. Usually, RPG games solve this by assigning each item a weight, but I don't like how arbitrary the number limit feels.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: thelaptop on January 24, 2014, 07:07
I forgot to add a comment about dropped objects.

I can see why you don't want object permanence when dropped -- this makes the floor itself an oversized inventory.  But making dropped objects disappear immediately is hokum as well.  Here's a thought: any object within LoS of enemies or DoomGuy doesn't disappear.  Anything that is not within LoS for a consecutive amount of fixed time (say 30s of in-game time) gets forgotten/lost i.e. removed from game completely.

I'm starting to favour the list approach of DoomRL the more I think about it.  Tetris manipulation of inventory may look pretty, but loses the conciseness that a list can provide.  Also, we want the player to spend time killing things and exploring, not figuring out what the hell they are carrying about.  I'd go as far as to suggest a mechanic that DoomGuy carries only what he can remember, and he can only remember a certain amount of things, which justifies the list count.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Juice on January 24, 2014, 09:42
This is a pretty valid point! For a moment I wanted to immediately go with it, however, there's another problem -- what about addon slots? Things like mods, or expansion elements for armor? There'll be no easy way to see what you're currently packing.

How about making some sort of pop-up for the weapons/armors to insert the mods?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Uitë on January 25, 2014, 06:58
Inventory tetris never bothered me all that much. For me, the way I play these kinds of games have two distinct phases: action and scavenging. While in ‘action’ mode, all that really matters is ammo and health. After I've secured an area scavenging mode kicks in and inventory management has always been a big part of that, so conceptually it doesn't break the flow of the game at all for me.

As for how to handle dropped items, I'd like to ask what the rationale is behind allowing players to revisit previous levels. Without that, keeping items laying around and wiping them as you leave the level is no issue at all.

I also like the idea of simply having max ammo counts, and not bothering with placing the ammo in your inventory. It's very doomish.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 26, 2014, 06:25
Ok, some general answers. I'll be posting rationale for a couple of stuff, any attempt to change the decisions must address that rationale -- just saying that "I don't like something" is not enough.

Tetris inventory

There are a couple of reasons for this choice.


Boxed ammo

The fixed amount of ammo boxes prevents a quick overflow of the inventory with basic ammo, which prevents constant throwing away ammo in the early game. By the mid game, the valued ammo will be of the type that is not easily available, and other items will also rise in importance. Also, this will allow us to do X/Y ammo counts on the main HUD. Also, if you find ammo of a sort that you already have, the game wont even tell you that you don't have space left - hence, no frustration ;] (and works because of item destruction on drop).

Items on floor

There are a couple of reasons for this choice.

Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 26, 2014, 07:00
I like the first two parts a lot. But here are my thoughts on the last section:
  • Any solution that leaves items on floor pushes people towards optimizing carried items at level exit by boring backtracking of their steps and filling up inventory with junk.
  • It doesn't make much sense to leave opening containers for later, as you barely will use up items in your inventory (due to ammo boxes, spent ammo doesn't free up space) -- you also have no idea what a given container/corpse will hold.
  • Backtracking is enabled to allow for more complex quests. Auto-travel however will exist to speed up any longer journey through explored space. Also, some levels will change on return, or have places that are inaccessible earlier.
  • The game will prompt the player before item "destruction", this system was used in many games (also online) and I havn't heard much complaints about the destruction being final.
  • Items on floor introduce clutter, and foggen what is actually happening.
  • Items on floor also introduce interface complexities that could be fully avoided.
  • The general rationale is "you go forward and leave what you don't need behind"
And I feel it's worth stating again: The first two sections definitely have my vote, for what little that's worth! :P
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Simon-v on January 26, 2014, 12:11
How about making the "tetris inventory" purely visual by making it auto-sort intelligently every time an item is picked up or discarded?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: thelaptop on January 26, 2014, 15:52
How about making the "tetris inventory" purely visual by making it auto-sort intelligently every time an item is picked up or discarded?
Unless the sorting is stable, we will see the "dancing items" effect.

Also, some people remember placement of items, and having it purely visual and always auto-sorted will go against their perceptions at being able to tinker.  This may not be a good thing.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Shinji_Ikari_9th on January 26, 2014, 20:13
Unless the sorting is stable, we will see the "dancing items" effect.

Also, some people remember placement of items, and having it purely visual and always auto-sorted will go against their perceptions at being able to tinker.  This may not be a good thing.

What laptop said.

I'm that kind of player sometimes. Like in Diablo 2.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Trar on January 26, 2014, 20:58
You think we could get combat webbing in this game in any shape or form? Either as the initial ammo containers or a bonus item that lets you reload faster?

Automatic inventory sorting could be an optional feature.

I'm fine with ammo boxes, so long as we can find ammo that's not in boxes we can put in the boxes.

I'd be fine with items being destroyed after a certain amount of time they've been out of the player's sight (or not on the game screen). Given that players will have the ability to backtrack and possibly explore the Jovian moon base(s) in a non-linear fashion (I may be wrong on the last part) a part of me still wants to be able to make little stashes of my own. Maybe we can put items in containers? This might solve the problem of opening a container or looting a corpse before the player is fully capable of processing and sorting the items, because the player could just leave them there until they need them.

I can get if Kornel wants to make the game 'feel' a certain way, but players will probably backtrack for items on killed enemies/in containers anyway, especially if we can put items in containers.

Oh, yes - can we get an ETA on the Kickstarter at all?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Simon-v on January 26, 2014, 22:36
Didn't Kornel basically say tinkering with the inventory was against the spirit of the game? Inventory auto-management does for you what you would do with it anyway, freeing you to think about strategy instead.

Please also look at "Emotional Engineering vs. Software Engineering (http://mystilleef.blogspot.com/2011/04/emotional-engineering-vs-software.html)" for some insights.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Thiebs on January 26, 2014, 23:47
Guys:
I plan to address some issues that I often have with such interfaces in other games. Namely there will be a toggleable option to autofit items (seems as most UI programmers never heard of "dynamic programming" -_-), secondly, the rotate option will obviously be there for use.
Toggleable option to autofit.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Trar on January 27, 2014, 09:25
I'd be fine with autosort so long as it's a togglable optional feature.

Is this game going to be on Steam Greenlight? I would absolutely LOVE that.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: LuckyDee on January 27, 2014, 11:54
Eg, if you don't take any large items, the list could go for at least 40 elements, which gives us... 15 pixels per item?

40 elements? That's a lot more than what DoomRL supports, and given that the number of ammo-type items should be reduced, if I understand you correctly, I'm wondering what other stuff is going to be taking its place.

I'm still unsure about the whole ammo thing vs inventory. Unless you want to actually encourage the micromanagement, I still don't see the need to keep it among all your other items. Sure, Diablo2 had it, and rightly so. But that depends on the answer of this question: how big a role is melee combat intended to play in JH?

In Diablo2, the role of ranged combat was close to negligible, since even the one class specialized in ranged could be built for melee as well. In this case, it makes sense to compensate the benefit ranged combat offers with a little inventory space.
If in Jupiter Hell melee combat is going to be a last ditch thing, a do or die tactic, this means every conceivable character will be carrying around ammo, and the need to clutter up the inventory with it becomes obsolete. A (limited) number of counters will do just fine.
Even if it's destined to play a bigger part, I'd say melee would have to be a serious contender to warrant the inventoried ammo strategy. And if on the other hand it becomes too serious - DoomRL-melee-like serious and beyond - you still wouldn't need it, since everyone would go for melee the moment they lay their hands on the right weapon/trait/combination of both.

So in short: please explain to me the necessity of keeping ammo in the inventory at all. Also see my previous comments here (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6927.msg61282.html#msg61282).
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on January 27, 2014, 13:51
So in short: please explain to me the necessity of keeping ammo in the inventory at all. Also see my previous comments here (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6927.msg61282.html#msg61282).

"Oh cool, a rocket launcher. Of course I'll take it, no strategy here, because I'm lugging those 23 rockets anyway, because they take no space. No strategy here, move along."
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: LuckyDee on January 27, 2014, 13:58
...and then take into account the fact that you can still limit the number of types of ammo carried... ;)

I'm probably being a pain in the ass here, but it's for a good cause. What I'm aiming at is that if you want the game to focus on the action and not on the inventory management, I think you should keep the inventory as lean as possible. Counters for expendables (ammo, medkits, stimpacks, whatnot) will help a lot. Especially if you keep them variable.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Trar on January 27, 2014, 23:58
That's what I'm thinking. I'd be fine with DOOM-esque limited ammo counters if it meant a more streamlined game. 'Course, I'd be fine with traditional ammo-in-inventory too even if it's mostly in ammo boxes, but that's probably not gonna happen.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Darren Grey on January 28, 2014, 18:37
I disliked the "tetris inventory" in Diablo myself, but I've seen it done better in other games (in particular in Sir, You Are Being Hunted). Key thing is to not have too many odd shapes and have the area to fill reasonably square. One problem I see in the mockup is you have 3x3 and 8x2 items in there, both sizes that don't fit well together. And the overall space is 7x8, which is bad for loads of items. Ideally it should be 8x8 and the only sizes are 1x1, 1x2, 2x1, 2x2, 2x4, 4x2 and 4x4. This makes them easy for players to juggle around.

I like Aerton's idea of having the model of the dude and the item pane, with equipped items given a yellow border/glow/whatever, Resident Evil style. It's intuitive and looks nice. Cutting out the slots overlaying the character model means you can admire your badass char more properly as you change equipment around, and would make everything look cleaner.

I also think inventory slots should be kept to a minimum, as it just leads to junk items. Weapon, weapon mod, armour, armour mod would do the trick. It keeps the item design focused on interesting content. Maybe later on in the game there could be additional mod slots added.

The ammo situation I think will need playtesting and tweaking to get right. It'll be a core part of the game, so something to fiddle with and get right early.

Love the NIN ammo :)
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: thelaptop on January 28, 2014, 19:07
Alternative idea: Keep your friendly neighbourhood tetris method (and for goodness sake don't use prime numbers for the rectangle dimensions), but tab/group according to what Darren suggested.

This also means a tab for ammo.

This will also mean a slightly more realistic mechanism for tracking some of the bulkier objects.  The disadvantage is that it feels like how modern FPSes work; carry only 2 weapons at a time, which may be a terrible idea.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Zalminen on January 29, 2014, 01:43
This is a pretty valid point! For a moment I wanted to immediately go with it, however, there's another problem -- what about addon slots? Things like mods, or expansion elements for armor? There'll be no easy way to see what you're currently packing.
Just show them on top of the moddable item.
If you can add one mod to an armor, the armor will normally show a transparent smaller slot on top of the armor image and if it's already modded, it will just show the mod icon instead.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Sereg on February 05, 2014, 20:41
"Oh cool, a rocket launcher. Of course I'll take it, no strategy here, because I'm lugging those 23 rockets anyway, because they take no space. No strategy here, move along."

There also needs to be a balance between that example, where of course you pick it up because there's no reason not to, and making inventory ammo such a hassle that there's no point carrying the weapon at all. In DoomRL, I'd pick up a rocket launcher early on, but later in the game when inventory started getting tight, I'd ditch it, because it takes a minimum of two inventory spaces to operate - one for the weapon, and one for a single stack of ammo. Sure, it offers some utility, including tactical wall destruction and corpse gibbing, but it's not really viable as a weapon(at least I never thought so). And the later I get in the game, the more I value an extra health pack, or stack of main weapon ammo, or mod for an assembly I'm trying to build, over the occasional utility of the rocket launcher.

Perhaps my use of the rocket launcher was fairly unique, and better players then I did find it a viable strategic consideration, but to me it was a utility piece that quickly outlived its utility - or rather, the cost of continuing to keep it quickly grew to exceed the value of the utility it provided.

I suppose what I'm saying is, the realism of the ammo mechanics isn't really the point. Just because it doesn't make sense for me to carry around 23 rockets(or however many you have - it can certainly be artificially capped without an inventory system, as in original Doom) like it's no problem doesn't mean it can't be beneficial to game balance to do so.

Then again, I'm the guy who doesn't appreciate tactics and just brute-forced every challenge that could be achieved through an exploit someone else discovered, so I'm not exactly an expert on strategic decisions, still less on game balance. Perhaps that decision to simply ignore the item entirely is exactly the consequence you're looking to enforce on less strategic-minded players like myself =P

Regardless, what I've seen of the game so far, including this thread, looks excellent. Keep up the good work - I'm definitely looking forward to Jupiter Hell ;)
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Infinitum on March 10, 2014, 12:17
List inventory all the way. Maybe have large items like unworn armor and heavy weapons take additional spots to somewhat simulate how unwieldy they are, but grid inventories are just that much more prone to clusterfuck the interface to be worth it in my opinion. Don't see why ammo boxes would be mandatory - couldn't the HUD just take stock of how many rounds of whatever weapon the PC is using is currently in the inventory and display that?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Sambojin on May 22, 2014, 18:24
Figured I'd throw in my 2c.

I like tetris systems. Loved them in Diablo, X-com, UFO:AI, in fact every game with them seems to be good. It's the micro-managey part of me coming out, that likes packing as much useful crap into the available space as the system allows. That said, I sort of thought that's what you'd like to avoid in JH.

So a few thoughts/questions:

Rather than specific types of ammo boxes, could you have generic ones, ammo pouches, with more being unlocked with traits/items? You can change the load-out of what ammo your pouches take as you want, but you'll still be ammo (and in a sense, weapon) limited. It would give another level of customization to characters.  Want a shotgun based character? Then all three initial pouches get set to pickup shells. Want a versatile one? Then 9mm/shell/plasma might be a handy loadout, but you'll have less total ammo for each type of weapon than the shotgun-only build would have. They'll undoubtedly be more common than specific boxes would be, but more useful as a character boost. Getting more pouches means more ammo for a specific weapon OR more versatility, but not both. Yet you can change what ammo they take on-the-fly should opportunities or circumstances dictate. It also gives you a weapon/sustainability/build progression option, without ever letting a "juggler of DOOM!" scenario come up (or having piles of ammo from the first few levels just looking for a use). It's limiting, but it lets you limit power-per-area fairly effectively, without forcing the player into a set character type. Of course, different ammo is larger or smaller per pouch used (similar to DoomRL's slot system). 10 rockets, 50 shells, 100 9mm for each pouch as an example.

When your character changes ammo types in any pouch, they literally will be throwing the ammo from that pouch away. Hopefully in a manner that will never let the enemy use it against them later (it's not recoverable because it's Space Marine Directive #402.4/b to never leave viable ammo around that the enemy may fire at you later. All excess ammunition that can not be stored, carried or equipped is to be rendered un-useable to prevent war materiel falling into enemy hands).

You can reload from lockers any weapon you're carrying, but you destroy any leftovers if you don't have pouches set to grab that ammo type (and have room for it in those pouches). This also gives different weapons of the same ammo type good uses regardless. A 50 round ammo capacity gun may be worth carrying just due to it's "ammo-slot" potential, rather than it's strict damage output. Which is a nice mechanic for uniques and specials. Or alternatively, it gives bulk mods a big side benefit of being able to be used asap (unless there's a specific assembly/whatever you want) for it's slotless ammo bonus.

Pouches could also be set-and-forget. Once you've determined the sort of ammo they take, you can't change it. Again, a balance issue. It'd almost put them in the power-up category, but would remove ammo micro-management entirely. I like the free-form idea more really, but "set-and-forget" is an option.

You could combine all of the above as well. Possibly even have different "levels" of ammo pouch. Some are just shell pouches. Some are big shell pouches. Some are alien shell pouches giving slightly better reload speed. Some are set-and-forget. Some are set-as-you-please. Some are needs-a-tech-mod-to-reset-them. A different form of micro-management, but cooler. Who knows? (yeah, well, chaosforge does, but they tend to). This might be making simplicity complicated, so I'd stick with a generic ammo pouch or set-and-forget for early builds.

(will edit more thoughts in soon. 1d weapon slots and traits, etc)
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Sambojin on May 22, 2014, 19:16
(I'll make a different post for each section, the ideas don't need to be used together)

1-d weapon slots.

As noted, I like tetris inventories. But in a game like JH, it would seem weird to have a left/right hand slot, other stuff, and everything else is in the backpack. How many soldiers carry weapons and ammo and other crap in their backpack? Mostly its ammunition pouches for ammo, held/shoulder strapped/holstered/webbing for weapons/grenades, and other stuff in the backpack. Some stuff needs to be accessible quickly, some is in the pack.

So I think JH could use 3 different areas. Guns, ammo, backpack. Guns being a 1d list, ammo being pouch/slot based (as mentioned above) and then a slot or tetris based backpack. Why? Simplicity (even if it sounds complicated).

How many weapons should JHGuy (son of DoomGuy) be able to carry? All of them? Certainly more than a primary/secondary, but all of them, all at once? Probably not.

So give weapons a size, with a maximum amount of "size" to be carried. You have 10 "amount" to be carried, with a dual-wield able to be used for size 1 weapons. Primary/secondary gives faster switching.  Pistols, knives, grenades, etc are size 1, SMGs size 2, shotguns size 3, chainguns/RLs size 4, BFGs size 5. Whatever. Size will be a balance thing.

You can only carry weapons up to the maximum value. Traits/level-ups/armours may increase the allowable size limit, decrease the size a certain weapon class is (level into dual-weilding SMGs or shotguns!) or do all kinds of other things (switch speeds for specific sizes of weapons or types, etc). But it will handily provide a cap for the amount of weapons a player can carry at any given time without backpack size being king. Weapons should be independent of the amount of other stuff you can carry, otherwise backpack size = everything, which it shouldn't be.

Whilst I'm on about de-coupling various mechanics from each other, weapon size and weapon type don't need to be the same stat either. You can have size 4 beefy shotguns and size 3 "chaingun" assault rifles. And really big fucking guns. This ties into traits and builds as well as itemization and armour. Ammo plays a role as well, since a mini-gun sure does hold a lot of bullets, even if it's a bit bigger than a chain-gun, pistol or SMG.

Taken with the ideas on ammunition above, it doesn't railroad you into certain things, but it does limit them nicely. The starting ammo pouches/weapon-size values were arbitrarily picked, they're just an example.

(I've got heaps more to add to this one. I might do a mockup myself to show what I mean).
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Sambojin on May 22, 2014, 21:03
Traits/level ups.

While this may be a little off-topic, it does have bearing on the things I mentioned. I see JH as being a "larger" game than DoomRL, especially in it's levelling system. Rather than 9-12 choices in any given standard run, it might be more common to hit level 20 or 30 (or have 20-30 choices to make) by the time you finish the game.

This is a good thing. It offers not only a more controlled levelling system, it stops the "power-jumping" that is present in DoomRL. Some advanced or master traits are so different that you can go from average to godly in one level, where the ones before it felt incremental in power. It's a part of the game, it's good, but it doesn't have to be that way.

A faster, but more incremental levelling system can also allow for more synergies and build strategies than are immediately obvious. The amount of level-ups aren't really the problem, you could just as easily have 2 or 3 traits per level-up. But it would allow a more complex system to be used.

Which ties us back into inventory. I guess this is more of a question than a thought:

How much of the levelling/trait system is expected to be used on inventory buffs or item modding in JH?

I'm a fan of de-coupling mechanics, yet making them obvious to the player. I'm also a fan of synergies and unexpectedly powerful builds. Will there be items or traits to expand inventory size or use? I like my outlined thoughts above for such a system (as poorly explained as they are), but how much is set as "this is your character" and how much is changeable throughout play? Inventory is a big issue in this.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Sambojin on May 22, 2014, 22:41
Anyway. End of thoughts, but I'll modify the above posts a fair bit over the next day or so. De-coupling both weapons and ammo from the backpack seems like a good option though.

Hmmmm. I'm going drinking until I remember what I was going to put in this post. Probably some stuff about levelling. Or mods. Maybe ammo. It was something profound that vaguely linked into it all. Might just be a placeholder for mock-ups.

There's traits, modding, and the backpack and all kinds of stuff still left though. Classes, itemization. The list goes on.....
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Svankensen on July 19, 2014, 04:55
I like the idea of a "pouch" mechanic. Simple and customizable depending on your weapon needs. Cause i have a single BIG gripe with the "weapon box" system as initialli proposed: RNG. Say you get dropped too little of some ammo boxes, but that constitutes your main weapon. You may be able to survive or work around it, but do you want the game to go that way? I think not. Thats what i disliked of SOTS: the pit (and i loved that game): Way too heavy RNG dependency. The setable pouches work nicely in that direction. I mean, ammo pouches would be common enough that they could be dropped without big worries, while the total quantity of them you carry is an important tactical decision. It also helps introduce some nice concepts easily, allowing for advanced stuff like for example an automated ammo glove. It reloads weapons almost instantly, but only fits 1 magazine (until you have time to reload the glove) and only for some ammo types (shells or energy based weapons, prolly).

Also, i do like the idea of being able to carry ammo in a suboptimal way, great if you are desperate for saving some rare ammo. Put it in one of your equipment slots. I was gonna say your off hand, but of course my mind went on and tought of a few interesting things that could relate to that concept. They may go against your design concepts tho, but i think you are smart enough to filter trough that. In the awesome game Space Station 13 you have a "back" slot, belt, Inner layer of clothes, outher layer (space suits, armor, coats). So, if you want to have a big oxygen tank, you must either hold it in one of your hands or in your back, so no backpack, just what you can store in your belt and pockets. So you could start the game with just an utility belt (who goes around with a backpack all day?) and maybe a good but oversized melee weapon that uses your backslot. Hell, maybe tank and blowtorch. Or you could find an energy backpack that stores a metric fuckton of power for one or another weapon. Excellent if you are near the endgame, you can abuse that plasma rifle or BFG. Will it last long enough? maybe youll find yourself saving ammo by using a belt weapon like a pistol or something. Also allows for suit changes with different pocket sizes and protections. Small strategic decisions like those.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Trar on August 06, 2014, 21:39
I'm liking these ideas. I do agree there should be pouches, webbing and weapons separate from a backpack slot. I also like the idea of large ammo packs the player can wear on their back for certain weapons, but this would interfere with a backpack. The player could use a utility belt/webbing/fanny pack looted from the civilian dorms with, say, an energy backpack, but with less carrying capacity.

On an unrelated note, has anyone thought about whether there will be food in this game? Ration packs and so forth? Space marines gotta eat too.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Darren Grey on August 07, 2014, 10:02
On an unrelated note, has anyone thought about whether there will be food in this game? Ration packs and so forth? Space marines gotta eat too.

I think that is one of many bodily functions that will *not* be simulated in the game.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Arron Syaoran on August 18, 2014, 22:28
I do like the Tetris+No Floor Items System, but only if selling items to a shop is not possible*. I've played Diablo 2, and one of the things I hated was doing 20 trips just to sell everything that dropped from the mobs I killed, especially since most items took up 1/4-1/3 of the inventory.
As for looting corpses/containers, have them still contain the items you failed to loot(because of full inventory) until you change dungeon levels. New containers of items should always spawn if any monsters respawn upon reentering the cleared level(but only if monsters respawn upon reentering).

*Note: Even though selling to a shop shouldn't be possible with the idea, Buying from a shop could still be available. Coinage should either take 1 inventory space per $5000/$8000/$20000(depending on wallet sizes) or be independent of inventory and take up no space. Wallets should be smaller in size than medpacks/ammo crates/weapons/armour for more money carrying versatility.

As for ammo pouches, I really love the idea, and believe that ammo pouches should be able to be set to a specific ammo type(reset causes destruction of ammo), but have some pouches better suited for 9mm than rockets, while others are better suited for rockets than 9mm(varying ammo type capacities depending on pouch).
Example: Pouch A can hold either 80 bullets, 20 shells or 5 rockets. Pouch B can hold either 40 bullets, 35 shells or 8 rockets. Pouch C can hold only 20 bullets, or 30 shells, or a whopping 15 rockets. Each pouch may only contain one ammo type at a time, and changing the ammo type will destroy any remaining ammo. Pouches A, B and C have different names to help hint at which pouch is best for which types of ammo.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on August 27, 2014, 16:10
Food is out - there'll be no hunger clock, but that is offset by the lack of natural healing. In later levels background corruption will also serve as a food clock.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: JysusCryst on August 29, 2014, 05:05
Okay, so I'm a little late to the party, just learned about JH after getting that "I gotta go play some DoomRL" itch in my system. First off, really looking forward to some more info on the game, and I'm always glad when a dev takes time to not only inform the fan, but get feedback from us as well! Anyway, here's my thoughts....

1. Equipment and Inventory

Equipment/Inventory will function similarly to DoomRL, but with a different presentation (think the Diablo equipment screen), and with a couple more slots. The left/right hand, armor and boots slots stay, but additionally we'll have a head slot and two device slots (think hacking and electronics). Moreover, some equipment pieces will introduce their own slots -- weapons may have 1+ different mod slots (possibly an ammo slot if we go for different ammo), powered armor may have power and extension slots, etc. The big difference I plan however is that anything that is worn, still takes space in inventory. Why? Because similarly to Diablo, not all equipment will take the same amount of space, and this way we'll cut down on any equipment shuffling needed to swap items, and get rid of metagaming moves like carrying a huge item in your hand to save on inventory space. To balance this out, the inventory will be made bigger. Does this make sense? Will this introduce any problems? Any ideas on this front?

After reading 4 pages of back and forth on this, I've come up with a compromise. I really love the list based system of DoomRL, and while I've played a LOT of both Diablo and ResE4, I think I like the list system better. Especially if you want to make a fast paced game with little inventory management. The list system has the "Do I keep it or not?" question where as the slot system has the "Can I fit it in my pack?" question on top of if you want to keep it or not. I do like the slot system, but it does force players to spend a lot of time on that screen doing management. The graphical slot system also lends to conundrums such as "I have 10 slots available, but this 4x2 item can't fit anywhere because I don't have the right shape available." So what's my compromise? A listed slot base system. Not as confusing as it sounds. It'll act basically like a weight system in most regards. The items are listed in your inventory, along with how many slots they take up. Example: You have 40 slots available. The pistol takes up 4 slots, an ammo box takes of 2 slots, armor takes 6, helmet takes 4, boots take 4. You've used 20 slots used, so you have 20 left. This will also remove the confusion of having items still take up slots while they are equipped, as they can just be highlighted on the list and not look like it's 2 of the same item. It also allows items to use odd numbers of slots, like a rocket launcher taking up 5 slots and not just be a 1x5 box. As far as weapons/armor having mod/ammo slots, those can be implemented when equipped on the 3D doll. Equip a pistol that has 2 mod slots, then 2 mod slots appear next to the doll.

If you're dead set on using the grid system, go with your first instinct after seeing the ResE4 screenshot. The Mod slots can be inside the mod-able item, just like gems are in Diablo II & III. I also think mods should not take up space after being attached to a weapon. It's part of that weapon now, not just floating in the bag.

The suggestions different tabs for ammo/weapons/armor sounds pretty nice too if you're going to stick with a grid system.

Also, just as a side point, players are going to hoard as much as possible no matter what. Even more so with the "destruction on drop" mechanic I'll talk about later. Inventory management is always going to crop up one way or another. For something quick, simple and fast, tetris grids are not the way to go.

2. Ammo

This is a biggie. My initial need of reconstructing the inventory came from my happiness with the AliensRL system. And following it, I wanted to introduce set ammo counters like in AliensRL and Doom. However, this takes away a significant strategic challenge of balancing your ammo types, and balancing your ammo vs. consumables/spare weapons. However, with the DoomRL solution this becomes a constant game of micromanagement also, and swapping items a lot. So I need a solution that did include the strategy of ammo management, but took away the need of fiddling with a lot of items.

The solution I'm thinking about is having all ammo in something that is similar to current ammo boxes. You have a running total of your ammo, that is limited by the amount of ammo boxes you have. So if you have 3 boxes of shells, you can hold at most 3*50 shells. Any shells you find are automatically fit into the boxes, but you get a no-room message as soon as you run out of boxes. You can additionally find new boxes of course, but whether you add them to your inventory or not, this is your decision. Boxes also have different sizes, so e.g. a single box of rockets already takes up 2x3 of space.

Comments? Alternative solutions?

Personally, I really like this idea. Though I don't see the issue of "fiddling with a lot of item" in DoomRL. At most in it was "I have 400 9mm rounds. I can drop 100 to carry this medkit." While it did mean I had to go into my inventory, evaluate my ammo situation, and decide if I was going to drop anything, I never found it an issue. With this idea it goes from being a non-issue to non-existent. This also adds more of a survival aspect to the game. "I only have enough room for 30 shotgun shells. Do I really want to waste them on these humans, or use some of my 9mm rounds which I have over 100 rounds of?"

To prevent weapons from being useless by not having an ammo box of the correct type, all weapons should act as a ammo box themselves. It would be really bad to have to say "I could pick up this shotgun, but I don't have any shell boxes, so I can't pick up ammo until I find one." You could also have the weapons themselves count as only half a box. Example: Just having a shotgun in your inventory gives you a max of ammo count of 15 shells. When you pick up a shell box the max jumps to 45 shells. (Assuming shell boxes have a size of 30 shells.)

3. Ammo types

There have been requests for different ammo types for both AliensRL and DoomRL, but I always rejected them due to the added UI complexity. With graphics though, we have a couple more options, also the slot system outlined above would fit with different ammo types nicely. The only issue here is that with this system, you should have separate ammo boxes for separate ammo types, which obviously doesn't make much sense.

Having separate boxes for separate ammo types makes perfect sense. If shotguns can have buckshot, slugs, and explosive rounds, you would need 3 boxes to carry the different types of ammo. It would be the cost of having options. Though if you really only wanted one box to store all three ammo types, that's extremely easy to do as well. You're already going to have max ammo counts with the boxes, so just split ammo to the max count. Example: Assuming you have a shotgun and an ammo box for a max of 45 shells. If you have 20 buckshot shell and nothing else, then the display would read 20/45 Shells and underneath it would read 20 B | 0 S | 0 E (B, S, and E obviously being replaced by graphics for Buckshot, Slugs, and Explosives respectively.) Pick up 10 slugs and it would read 30/45 Shells | 20 B | 10 S | 0 E. After picking up 5 explosive rounds it would read 35/45 Shells | 20 B | 10 S | 5 E. Simple to read, no extra ammo boxes, no messy UI, even when it comes to dropping certain ammo types. Click the box, click drop ammo, select the ammo type, done.

4. Items on floor

Here's a biggie -- I think about removing items on floor altogether. Items can be found on (highlighted) corpses, lockers, boxes, etc. Dropped items get destroyed. This would prevent doing tedious stash micromanagement, and increase the pace of the game. Also, it'd work well with the boxes idea -- players wont be tempted to do tedious backtracking to get ammo they left behind and couldn't pick up. This is probably the most controversial decision, but it would (IMHO) benefit the game much. 

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I understand wanting to decrease micromanaging as much as possible to have a fast paced game but I'm not sure this is the way to go about it. As other have said, it goes from being a deliberate design choice to feeling incomplete and poorly executed. Also, how are containers going to work if a player doesn't take any or all items from that container? Will it be a "take it or loose it" type of interaction? That option also feels incomplete and poorly designed. I would absolutely hate to open one container and loose the 2 rocket boxes because I don't have a rocket launcher, only immediately find a rocket launcher afterwards. However, allowing a player to backtrack to a container nullifies your reason for having items being destroyed when dropped in the first place.
 
You did mentions that players would be able to return to areas that have been previously explored, and I completely understand wanting to remove the "Hey, I left that rocket ammo 3 floors back, let me go grab that now," scenario. I also understand the difficulty of adding a new UI for items being on the floor, along with new art for items being on the floor, etc. I do believe, however, that you should allow players to store items in a container until they leave the area. You can still have the dropped items get destroyed. This way you could avoid the "on the floor" UI, prevent tedious backtracking for left behind items, and explain it in the lore (someone already suggested minor demons looting the containers).

This also allows for a bit of strategy in a single area. Example: I'm in the barracks and there's a huge demon in here with me. I find a rocket launcher on a corpse, but I don't have the space to carry it. So I stash my pistol and ammo boxes on the corpse, take the rocket launcher, and use all the rockets on the big guy. I then go back to the corpse, stow the rocket launcher, grab my pistol and ammo back and move on to the next area, the med-bay. While I'm in the med-bay some scavenger demon comes and loots the rocket launcher I left behind, so I never see that rocket launcher again. Now I have no reason to backtrack to the barracks again unless it's for some story reason. (I also purposely didn't use the word "floor" because who says the game has to be vertical? Yeah, it works for DoomRL and most other Rouge-Likes, but area transitions can always just been a special door!)

I realize this example has all the "fiddling with items" that you wanted to avoid, but really, that's part of strategic game play. It's going to happen. Even in fast paced, full on "run-and-gun" action games like COD, you're going to drop your Uzi for a rocket launcher when a tank shows up. After the tank is gone, you're going to grab your Uzi again. The best you can do it make it painless as possible to switch between the items.

Also, as a side now, you said you that you specifically want to avoid players micromanaging, but the grid slot system for the inventory inherently forces a player to micromanage their items.

----------------------------------

Okay, I'm done now. Wow that's a long post. Well, I look forward to what everyone has to say about all my ideas and such. I spent a few hours just writing this. I was reworking and rewriting ideas as I was typing them.  You can really see it in that last bit where I said I didn't know how I felt about it, then proceeded to make up my mind. Lol. My only regret is not knowing about this sooner. Damn you life for getting in my way and taking up all my free time!
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Arron Syaoran on August 29, 2014, 14:36
I find the Slot+List system quite viable, as long as it doesn't have large numbers(or decimal numbers) like the ADOM Weight System. A pistol, for example, should be 1-8 slots, not 1750grams or stones or whatever. And Inventory space SHOULD have NO Impact on movement speed unless said inventory item is currently equipped. Volume-based inventory is always more preferred than weight-based in my opinion.

Reason for this: I Played ADOM, and found tonnes of weapons and armour I'd like to sell, but I always ended up overburdened, having to take multiple trips in and out of the dungeon just to sell stuff. Worst off, I could never run away from enemies because my inventory was usually full, and even worse, teleports are super rare in that game. I hate being forced to travel light just to have a combat advantage, especially with so many items that come from corpses(alot of them junk, such as rotten corpses or cursed items).
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Robomoustache on August 30, 2014, 11:20
I was thinking of a slot/list hybrid since a few days too and I tried to make a quick mockup of the interface to see if it could work and found a few problems with this.

My idea was to have the bigger items take several lines in the inventory to have a direct idea of how much space they take instead of using numbers (Quicker reading of the information). The list helps keep things organised and easily sorted (we all once missed an item we had in a "tetris" inventory because of the added visual complexity of those). Now, the biggest problem I have with a list system is that you can't easily fit all the inventory on the screen while the grid system allows it. If we want to have an item preview in the inventory, the lines have to be quite big (16 lines at 60px each makes a 960px high list). So we either have to reduce the number of lines or only keep the name of the item.
If we reduce the number of lines, we can separate the items by categories (equipment, ammo, consumables) keep a bigger carrying capacity. and either have 3 lists on the sceen or use tabs (using tabs doesn't allow to see everyting but it doesn't bother me too much as the items would have separate categories). The example I'll give may seem ridiculous but think about the difference between the backpack in pokemon r/b and pokemon g/s, introducing different pouches for different items was a HUGE improvement. The category system also solves the ammo micromanagement situation. The problem some people may have with this is that depending on their playstyle, some may want to carry a lot of ammunition at the expense of consumables which is not possible with separate categories. Maybe starting with a relatively small space in those categories and having space upgrade items later in the game where you choose to improve one of the capacities would be interesting and keep the tactical decision of either carrying more ammo or one more medpack, even making the decision more important as it is definitive. The other things cool with this system is that it can be used for with challenge modes: limited ammo/consumables space, removing the space upgrades from the game.
While I'm not in favor of a text only list system, I doesn't mean we can't have an item preview at all. Because a list system doesn't take as much horizontal space as a grid we can use the free space to add an item description for the selected item with a preview, a bit of game lore about the item, space for the weapons/armor upgrade slots, full stats and a bunch of useful info without having to use a tooltip as in grid inventories. The category system can use the description too so I'm more favorable to the use of categories.

Oh, and an other thing:
Having separate boxes for separate ammo types makes perfect sense. If shotguns can have buckshot, slugs, and explosive rounds, you would need 3 boxes to carry the different types of ammo. It would be the cost of having options. Though if you really only wanted one box to store all three ammo types, that's extremely easy to do as well. You're already going to have max ammo counts with the boxes, so just split ammo to the max count. Example: Assuming you have a shotgun and an ammo box for a max of 45 shells. If you have 20 buckshot shell and nothing else, then the display would read 20/45 Shells and underneath it would read 20 B | 0 S | 0 E (B, S, and E obviously being replaced by graphics for Buckshot, Slugs, and Explosives respectively.) Pick up 10 slugs and it would read 30/45 Shells | 20 B | 10 S | 0 E. After picking up 5 explosive rounds it would read 35/45 Shells | 20 B | 10 S | 5 E. Simple to read, no extra ammo boxes, no messy UI, even when it comes to dropping certain ammo types. Click the box, click drop ammo, select the ammo type, done.
The initial idea behind the rework of the inventory system is to reduce the amount of micro-management, by allowing multiple ammo types in a same box, it would instead add a lot more micro-management: managing the number of ammo boxes you carry, the ammo box types you take and the types of ammo in them which IMHO will be irritating really fast.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Arron Syaoran on August 30, 2014, 12:15
Why not have a multi-list system that has 2-4 columns, and when the first column is full, use up the next column. If there's only 1 space left on the first column, the next BFG(or large slot item) goes on the next column, but the next ring(or small slot item) finishes the first column.

It looks kinda like this:
Code: [Select]
##Inventory#########################################
#Pistol==========#................#................#
#2d4===6/6=======#................#................#
#----------------#................#................#
#BFG 9000--------#................#................#
#----------------#................#................#
#12d9--100/100---#................#................#
#Ammo Box(9mm)===#................#................#
#250/250=========#................#................#
#Small Ring------#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
#................#................#................#
###################################45/54 Slots Left#
"-" and "=" are to distinguish different items that take up multiple slots.
In this case: BFG9k takes up 4 slots, Pistol takes 2, Ammo Box takes 2 and Small Ring takes up only 1.
When the First column is full(or almost full if you just picked up a big item that doesn't fit), it goes on the second column.

Edit: The Name text would obviously be replaced by a graphic of the said gun/item. Detail/name text can be placed on the item icon, with details in highlighted tooltip. The reason why the items don't have graphics in the above example is because it's ASCII, and it's super hard to draw a gun using only 2-4 lines, especially if there's going to be item text.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Robomoustache on August 30, 2014, 12:57
There is a problem with that solution, if you happen to have no one space item in your inventory you might have a situation where you have free spaces at the end of multiple columns and yet not be able to pick a big item as it can't fit anywhere even if you technically have enough space. We can still have a scrolling list (which might be inevitable on the lower resolutions) but it's terrible for a big inventory (think of the inventory in Skyrim). On Kornel's picture there is 96 spaces on the grid, if we go with a separate categories system, we could use 2/3 of this space for equipables. Assuming weapons and armors would take a minimum of 4 spaces (which I think is reasonable), you have a 96*2/3/4=16 capacity. So with this system there's not real need for multiple columns.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Arron Syaoran on August 30, 2014, 14:04
Honestly, I'm perfectly fine with both a list system or a grid diablo 3 system. If it's going to be the latter, then make it so we can rotate items, and also make all items either square or rectangular in space(as in No L-shapes or T-shapes). And don't have a ton of sellable weapons/armour drop that clog up the inventory with only 2-10 items. If there is no selling to shop in this game, then lots of weapon/armour drops wouldn't be a problem for me with the diablo/RE4 system. There can still be a buy from shop case(you can buy, but not sell) like in zelda.

One of the things I hated about diablo 2(not diablo 3) is that it only took 5-10 weapons/armour to clog the inventory, and the weapons/armour themselves are worth at least some money, and have lower quality gear than typical starting/commonly worn gear.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on September 04, 2014, 16:24
Ok, problem here is, that it is very important for the tactical side of the game to have a situation where carrying less weapons/armor allows you to carry more ammo. This is one big tactical decision in DoomRL and without a good reason I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise we could simply do ammo counts separate which would get rid of most problems.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: Robomoustache on September 06, 2014, 03:46
Here's an image of what I had in mind.

(http://i.imgur.com/GVek7yE.png)

But I don't think it will work well if all the items share the same inventory space, a really long list will be a pain for navigation.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: LuckyDee on September 06, 2014, 04:50
Oh, that nineties vibe <3
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: thelaptop on September 06, 2014, 19:33
(But how does it translate to ASCII?)
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: ujk on March 25, 2015, 20:47
Maybe it was mentioned before, but I'd like to be rid of ammo as done in DoomRL. Just have maximum capacity for each kind of ammo like Doom itself. For example 100 shells maximum. Outside the inventory, not an item within the inventory. Then you can introduce special items. For example, relatively rare shell boxes you can carry in inventory that, when you use them, add 30 shells to your ammo counter. As another example, shell attachés can be carried that each increase your maximum shell capacity by 50 shells.

that might tweak the reloading system: guns don't actually contain ammo, but have to be "charged up" to be used. So a pistol and chaingun can be both fully loaded as long as you have 40 bullets. The pistol in Duke Nukem 3d works exactly like this - it just reloads so quickly you never think about it. This break from reality would so streamline gameplay that I wouldn't mind.
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: ujk on April 07, 2015, 21:16
I've scanned this thread since my last post and it looks like devs are going for a doomrl-aliensrl kind cross-pollination. It's hard to give feedback when we don't know the structure of your game. But if it's like doomrl but pushed in the direction of aliensrl, then you might as well stick with the simple doomrl version of inventory, as I think it would've been better for aliensrl. Aliensrl-style would've been good for doomrl, but not so good for itself. Shallow ammo reserves are rather frustrating in aliensrl, where you'd go scavenge just because you ran out of 1 kind of ammo.

Suppose aliensrl had configurable inventory more like doomrl. I think people would end up configuring their inventory to suit their build. The typical pistol build is ammo-efficient but ends up in many emergencies, and prefers to travel through the medical tower, stocking up on medkits and gadgets. The typical heavy build eats up ammo like no tomorrow, so has to pack ammo at the expense of other utilities, preferring the storage tower. This heavy build is rather safe as long as you take proper precautions while exploring, and until you run out of ammo. As aliensrl stands now, after you max out your supplies (as is done periodically), whether you run out of ammo or other depends on your build.

Because in aliensrl all characters have to use up their supplies anyway, the players can/should be challenged with working out the ideal ammo/medkit+gadget ratio for their character, or dealing with an unfortunate sub-par ratio. This gameplay element doesn't really work in doomrl as it currently stands, because of abundant ammo and globes, forbidden backtracking, and because the inventory gathers clutter from mod-packs and clothing. I'd predict that aliensrl would be more fun and far more tactical with an open-ended inventory and Angel of Red Alert, do you?
Title: Re: Design Rant : Inventory
Post by: abcgi on January 23, 2017, 03:38
"Items on Floor" - this is getting close to the classic game design mistake of trying to funnel players out of the way they want to play the game but is still probably a good idea and will make the game more accessible to the general public.
 
PS an easy way to avoid inventory management is to get rid of it :)