Al Fabet

[Elhazzared]

Player1 - Simple, because you can't carry the loot and you can't sell a lot of it. The incentive to explore and do sidequests is exactly to get said loot!

Elias - Apparently I need to explain myself better. Just giving more option for the sake of it is not going to improve the game, it has to be things that bring something new and positive to the game, that said, more option is always good. Limiting a player in what he can do is not always a good thing. Obviously there are always going to be limitations but even so you should always seek to give players as many options as possible.

You say it encourages me. This is wrong, the whole game and the way Al Fabet was made pretty much throws this at your face. Ignore loot! You don't need all that loot, you can do with just taking the most valuable items and be done with it. This is not theory, this is what the game encourages you to do and what the developer wants you to do. The moment you are throwing away the majority of loot you are losing the rewards of exploring and sidequests (to some the degree the ones from the main quest as well but the less you do the less you lose). Doing side quests and exploring is for the rewards. You may do it once for the fun but the majority of people are not going to do all the side quests and exploring the entirety of the map in every single playthrough. They've done it in the pastm, they know the outcome, they know there is no reward waiting for them, might as well just skip it! That is what the game encourages the player to do... Yes, I do have a problem with the system, but that is because the system is bad. I'm not saying the old system was perfect, but it was a lot better than the current system. Why do you think that there are no other games with systems so agressive towards player loot? Because they know it's a bad system, because they know most players will dislike it. In fact one of the most common cmplaints about RPGs is their limited invetory size being too small.

I'll tell you even more, if you create a pool and manage to get it spread to most gamers with the 2 following options. Do you prefer your RPG to have a system that has no limit of inventory space and merchants buy everything or a system that highly limits your inventory space and merchants only buy a small percentage of what you can carry. What do you think will have most votes?

Above all this question must be disassociated with a game. So there is no fanboys nor haters voting specificly in one or another. What matters is simply to evaluate what system is perceived as being better by gamers.

And lastly, yes it is as simple as putting it back. Unbalanced system? The only problem the old system had was one and just one. There was too much money floating around. Guess what, the current system does exactly the same, only worse and yes, it is worse because while not having much recent playing experience, I remember how much money I got after doing the first quest and right now, even selling less I still end up with more money than before. So what could the old system do to unbalance things? You'll have more money? It's not like it is a problem to beggin with! Other than that nothing changes. The loot you get is the same after all. You only leave the things that are not valuable and you'll never use behind after all. There would be no balance issues that don't currently exist and more to the point, were not as bad before!

[Eliasfrost]

"This is not theory, this is what the game encourages you to do and what the developer wants you to do."

Exactly. The problem is that you approach this from your point of view: that loot is the single, utmost important driving force of an RPG. Loot is not the life force of an RPG, it's not the Alpha and Omega of RPGs. It is to some, but not all. Underrail is one of those where the loot is not the focus. The stories and quests are, I'd argue that the combat is the focus but that's an entirely different discussion. That you say that the single thing that makes people do quests are the reward is not true, that's a guess. Because you don't know. What we do know however is that the loot system is not as big a problem as you make it out to be, the relative lack of complaints and the general positive reviews for the game supports that despite having restricted inventory, the game is regarded as very good. If the problem is as vast, as huge and global as you say it is then the statistics would be different but they are not. The reception even proves you wrong, you said previously that you predicted that the game would be received poorly by the buying public, it has now been proven that is untrue.

Your claim of objectivity rings false because it comes from a place of intellectual dishonesty, you're so devoted to your cause that you can't think objectively, you are strictly viewing all of this from your perspective and your perspective alone. You claim that you view things objectively but you don't. Man, take a deep breath, step back and look at the response. Surely you must have questioned your reasoning? Surely it must have crossed your mind that maybe, MAYBE you are putting way to much importance and faith into what you write and think? You act like a preacher with a bible. I mean, your unshakable devotion that you are right and everyone else is wrong is so surreal to me given the copious amounts of counterpoint after counterpoint from various places.

I think this is the last thing I write regarding this (I probably said that last time as well but hey, I'm just a dude). You're simply impossible to reach.

[chimaera]

That is where you are wrong. You can define things as being objectively right or wrong.

Saying that you prefer one or another system is subjective. Pointing out what different system do for a game is objective.

Not if you post statements like "Breaks game immersion by forcing the player to stop several times to dump loot."
Immersion is by its definition subjective. What is immersion-breaking for one player is not so for another; some people consider lack of realism to be immersion breaking. Heck, I've met RPG players who imposed far stricter rules on themselves in games than in Underrail.

Having a preference for a game mechanic is one thing, but you are trying to pass your own preferences as objective truths. In the end you just manage to sound obsessed.

[Elhazzared]

Elias - The game was well received by the public? And how many copies didthe game sell exactly? I mean, let's compare this to to say, pillars of eternity or divinity original sin.

Now yes, this is a niche title and perhaps this perceived well reception just means that only the people who like really bad systems like this bought the game... Well tis is exagerating but many people don't even complain whether they like the game or not. then there is also the unknown element of how many people tried, didn't liked it and just refunded the game. I don't imagine it was that many because again, very niche game with this current system anyway.

What you can say for sure is that amoung the people like a game which imposes realism at the expensive of the game suffering in the quallity of life department the game was a success.

You may want to call all the points that I've made subjective by saying they are viewed from my perspective only. Yet at the same time you already admited that I am right when I say the game encourages you to leave loot and by definition to ignore side quests and exploration and that it was what the developer wanted... How is this subjective?

More to the point. I've made a listing of what each system does for the game. I have yet to see anyone say that the current system has anything that is better other than realism (which I put down) and even then I find it highly unrealistic that there is such things as a lack of demand for anything in a post apocaliptic world. Quite literaly anything you can salavage is worth it's weight in gold and if a merchant can buy something for half it's value or less to sell later to someone at it's normal going price. It is always worth doing so. How many electrocincs parts do you think can be made now that the world has gone to hell and you can't even go to the surface? How much iron copper and on do you think you can get before it runs out? From a realism standpoint. What the current trade system does is making a realistic trade system should no appocalipse have ever happened and it does that well enough. however this is a debatable system and I merely wanted to present you something that even the people who like this so called realism possibly might have not stoped to think for a moment. However do present me with advantages of this system other than a hipotetical realism that I was willing to accept even if I don't fully agree with it.

Chimaera - Let's say you are fighting in depot A, the underground, clearing room by room working your way forward and sudenly. inventory is full, there is more good stuff you want... Depot A respawns enemies so storing stuff to pick up later is not an option. Option A, you nearly get nothing out of it and you do it all in one go. Yes you didn't broke immersion. Option B ad most often chosen by players who are by nature greedy cause human beings are by nature greedy. Stop doing the quest, go to the seller, sell quickly the loot that you can, stash what you can't sell nearby, continue the quest. Rinse and repeat as many times as necessary and for Depot A, I'm guessing a lot. Game immersion broken.

Now some players like to play with much worse rules than this. It is after all their choice, some people are masochists too and who are we to judge?

It isn't just a case of preference. For example. While I know that objectively a hex based movement system is better. I prefer a square based movement system even though it is objectively worse... I can diferentiate between what is subjective and what is ojective. Just because you happen not to agree with me, it doesn't means that I am not objective in what I'm saying.

[player1]

Yet at the same time you already admited that I am right when I say the game encourages you to leave loot and by definition to ignore side quests and exploration and that it was what the developer wanted... How is this subjective?

That definition is something made up by you.

Chimaera - Let's say you are fighting in depot A, the underground, clearing room by room working your way forward and sudenly. inventory is full, there is more good stuff you want... Depot A respawns enemies so storing stuff to pick up later is not an option.

Wrong. Storing items is an option and respawn is very slow and not applied to all enemies ("muties" will not respawn, for example). You have more then enough time to stash items at couple locations in the Depot A, to not interrupt the the flow of the quest, finish the quest, move current inventory to the Junkyard stash, go back and pick up everything from the Depot A stashes and move to Junkyard, with no respawn happening in the meantime.

At the end, sell what you can and stash rest for the selling later, when merchant buying power is restored.

[Fenix]

The thing is, you are so single-minded on this issue, on subjective level, that it is no wonder why joke was created in the game.

Second this.

this is the way the design is heading and your feedback is good but not in line with their vision

Tried to explain this for years, but always failed.

Elhazzared threads just keep on giving.

Definitely. )

[Elhazzared]

Again, no point in doing something that has no reward so the by definition is not wrong. It's is not that you cannot do it despite not being rewarded, but it is not what the game encourages you to do.

Although admitedly a very long time ago (almost in a galaxy far far away...) Starting by the tunnels, going up into the mutant infested upper area and then working all the way back, you'd have enemies respawn. As far as I am aware, enemy respawn times hasn't changed, at least I don't remember that being in the patch notes. Also literaly all enemies in depot A would respawn however the game was reduced in difficulty or maybe at the time everything there respawned for testing purposes I am willing to grant that much as a possibillity, but at least the first time you'll do it, it's hardly not going to get a respawn in the earlier areas at least... Another possibillity is that the place was made easier cause depot A used to be quite the nightmare if you weren't prepared for it in which case maybe it is faster to run through now... I kinda liked the difficulty of the game though. I remember how many people would ask for help reguarding the bandits on the way to the SGS and while they were hard to deal with in a straight up fight, the way to do it was so simple, just toss a grenade and the fight becomes that much easier. However they were apparently nerfed.

[Sanger]

Whenever I've done Depot A I've had plenty of time to stash all of the accrued junk close to an exit and proceed. Never even come close to reaching the respawned timer.

Can someone close this thread please? I didn't actually want to start a runaway thread about carry weight with neverending circular arguments, this was just supposed to be a light hearted thing.

[player1]

Again, no point in doing something that has no reward so the by definition is not wrong. It's is not that you cannot do it despite not being rewarded, but it is not what the game encourages you to do.

Just because you ignore to see rewards does not mean there are no rewards for exploring.

1) Found oddities -> reward
2) Found items you want to keep (equipment, ammo, uniques, crafting stuff, etc...) -> reward
3) Found loot that is easy to carry -> reward
4) Heavy loot that can be stashed in wildness and carried out later -> reward

With points 1 and 2 being actually the best rewards, that drive exploring, not stuff to sell, due to diminishing returns of sellable loot after player gets rich.

Although admitedly a very long time ago (almost in a galaxy far far away...) Starting by the tunnels, going up into the mutant infested upper area and then working all the way back, you'd have enemies respawn. As far as I am aware, enemy respawn times hasn't changed, at least I don't remember that being in the patch notes. Also literaly all enemies in depot A would respawn however the game was reduced in difficulty or maybe at the time everything there respawned for testing purposes I am willing to grant that much as a possibillity, but at least the first time you'll do it, it's hardly not going to get a respawn in the earlier areas at least...

This just shows how much out of the touch are you with the game and that pretty much everything you say is based on theorycrafting on the game that does not exist anymore.

Human "muties" never respawn. Other critters respawn slowly and it never happens so quickly that you would get respawned opponents in already cleared parts of Depot A during single run. As I said there is more then enough time to clear out whole Depot A and go back and pick up everything you left behind in a couple of trips back.

[Elhazzared]

Oddities = XP -> you get more than enough XP to level up, as far as you can see everyone asks for more levels because they reach level cap too soon. You don't need those oddities.

Items you want to keep -Z alright, you may find some good items, odds are when you go to the next settlement, items will be so much supeiror to what you found that it's not even a contest, at least up to a point where you can only get better by crafting.

Loot that is easy to carry -> yeah you'll find it, only that you can sell it because the merchant was already at it's limit and will probably be for a very long while.

Stashing the rest -> fact of the matter is, you'll keep stashing and stashing and stashing some more because you'll get so much more than you can ever sell.

You keep saying that exploring is reward of itself. Again, I never said it isn't, but past the first time what is the drive to explore? You already saw it, you already know what's there. That particular drive is fulfilled. How do developers balance this? Adding the reward for exploration which here is just inexistent since XP there will always be plenty and loot, well I've already expressed how it goes. If it was just carry all, sell all. Fine, there is a reward. Just isn't the case.

There is less respawns, but are still respawns. If you can run the whole area now under the merchant reset, the area was made much easier than before which is just sad. I remember both the psionic and guns+grenades took me more than an hour to run through easily. Even the gun+grenade which was by far the better build (since mk5 grenades were a lot easier to craft back then) still took quite a while to finish due to having to plan each encounter, being careful with the pulls and so on. Apparently you can just casually stroll in there if you can finish it under the reset timer. However I'm willing to admit I was wrong here. If you can do under the respawn rate then at least you can stash things inside the area and then do transfer runs.

[player1]

Oddities = XP -> you get more than enough XP to level up, as far as you can see everyone asks for more levels because they reach level cap too soon. You don't need those oddities.

In fist playthrough, where I did not explore everywhere, I got to 25 level only after beating last boss.
So yes, to reach level cap early you do need to explore, since it is not enough just to collect what is in the main path. Also you are rewarded by easier encounters in the main path, by not rushing it.

Items you want to keep -Z alright, you may find some good items, odds are when you go to the next settlement, items will be so much supeiror to what you found that it's not even a contest, at least up to a point where you can only get better by crafting.

Depends. Sometimes found stuff is better then stuff in shops. Also, I pretty much never bough consumables, since I found all I need through looting.

Loot that is easy to carry -> yeah you'll find it, only that you can sell it because the merchant was already at it's limit and will probably be for a very long while.

Stashing the rest -> fact of the matter is, you'll keep stashing and stashing and stashing some more because you'll get so much more than you can ever sell.

Most valuable stuff will be sold eventually. Loot is not going away, just because it is in stashes and not sold immediately.

You keep saying that exploring is reward of itself. Again, I never said it isn't, but past the first time what is the drive to explore? You already saw it, you already know what's there.

I want more XP, I want more supplies, I like interesting encounters. Basic RPG stuff.

[chimaera]

Chimaera - Let's say you are fighting in depot A, the underground, clearing room by room working your way forward and sudenly. inventory is full, there is more good stuff you want... Depot A respawns enemies so storing stuff to pick up later is not an option. Option A, you nearly get nothing out of it and you do it all in one go. Yes you didn't broke immersion. Option B ad most often chosen by players who are by nature greedy cause human beings are by nature greedy. Stop doing the quest, go to the seller, sell quickly the loot that you can, stash what you can't sell nearby, continue the quest. Rinse and repeat as many times as necessary and for Depot A, I'm guessing a lot. Game immersion broken.

Now some players like to play with much worse rules than this. It is after all their choice, some people are masochists too and who are we to judge?

What I consider immersion breaking is acting opposite to what a character would do; e.g., if I create a goody two-shoes paladin, then making him greedy makes no sense for me. My Underrail character got through Depot A with no problems: she was a mage, whose main motivation was making things go boom, and didn't care much about a career as a merchant. That' is why immersion is a subjective concept - it depends on what a player is looking for in games.

Btw, if you call other players masochists simply because you dislike their playing style, then you are being judgmental. At which point I have to concede that Eliasfrost was right.

[Elhazzared]

Chimaera - I didn't called other player masochists, I simply said there are some, doesn't means the majority of people are like that. Similarly the majority of people don't like bad rulesets. That was the comparison. In other words, the people who like such settings are a minority. It's nt bad that theminority is included in a game, but not at the expense of ignoring the majority.

Actually, a goody two shoes paladin can be greedym it's natural for characters to have flaws. I've actually played a paladin just like that in D&D once... It's also the same concept that people have to say that characters have to always be in character. People forget that while people have their morality, sometimes they break it if what they get is too good or just because they feel that it is worth to do it in the moment. No one is that perfect.

While to a degree I will agree that game immersion may be subjective, there are things that people will always agree. To archieve game immersion you have to actually feel like you'r in the character's shoes. So you are exploring this area and looting it. You now there are enemies around. Would you clear out the place first or would you stop mid way to go back to a shop to sell loot cause you can't carry more? If you do the second it breaks game immersion because no one would realisticly do that. However in underrail that's what many will do due to the current system. Even if you can stash, it's less bothersome to go back and forth as your carry weight fills up than doing multiple runs at the end of it.

Player1 - I am not going to preten to say how long it takes to level up exactly. But there are always some side quests and a minimal exploration you do. For example, you will always explore that side passage you know to have some fixed loot that is great, like for example, those special weapons. You will always do quests that give such weapons, for example that knife that gives you criticals and so on.  It is true you will level up faster if you jsut explore and do more sidequests, but it is not necessary to go out of yourway.

Find better stuff than in shops? I doubt you'll find anything in the junkyard that is better than whatever is for sale at the next settlement and by the time this rule no longer applies because yes, it will cease to apply at a certain point. You will be able to just craft better. Possible exeption for said extra special weapons which are located in specific locations anyway.

Loot in stashs is indeed not going away, it just acumulates higher and higher if you manage to systematicly swipe it all out. You'll always get more than you can sell. Unless you sit there doing nothing until the next reset comes and do so until you run out of loot to sell, you will keep getting more than you can sell. your stickpile just gets bigger, not the other way around.

More XP, again, you reach a point of saturation. More supplies? When you can't even get rid of the excess? Interesting encounters. Sure, but that's going to be a limited number amoung all there is.

[Styg]

Can someone close this thread please? I didn't actually want to start a runaway thread about carry weight with neverending circular arguments, this was just supposed to be a light hearted thing.

But it's rather appropriate considering the thread name, don't you think? Anyway, as long as it remains contained in this thread, I have no problem with it.

[Fenix]

I think this thread can be somehow useful for devs to see how different gamers see the same set of features, to adjust them in the future maybe.