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Thoughts on the current inventory setup


Swagger

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Hi guys,  so I wanted to get peoples feedback on the current inventory management system, what do you like about and what do you feel could be improved.  I searched the forums to find an existing thread or something from the developers about this but was unable to find anything but apologies if I am covering old ground.

 

So there are lots of parts of the current system I really like.  The way bags work now is great, a rucksack on your back and potentially two more in each hand at the expense of weapons.  It forces you into a choice which is always a good thing.  I also like the hand/secondary set up for weapons and items, use a two handed axe or a knife and a torch, or you can even use the axe as a 1 hand weapon(although I feel the penalty to combat should be a bit higher for certain weapons than it is at the minute).

 

Now the inventory container, I have a lot of trouble conceptualising exactly what that it.  The hands and the bags yes, but what about the rest, are they pockets, are they strapped onto me?  If I am carrying 1 bag, 1 backpack, 1 baseball bat, 200 nails in my pockets where exactly are the 4 cooking pots and the extra 3 baseball bats being stored?  oh and did I mention its unseasonably hot so my character is running around with no shirt or trousers on :D ?  While I understand its not exactly game breaking or important at the minute I feel in the long term it could be improved upon.  Perhaps with the same treatment that the bags got, tool belt, gun harness, strap for the shotgun etc (all found/crafted/upgraded so you don't get them at the start).

 

Crafting - I feel that is area is fine, I just wish that I would automatically use stuff in my bags without having to transfer them to my inventory first, it can be a bit tedious at times.  Also I think I should be able to saw logs on the floor without having to pick them up.  Maybe with the introduction of something like a shopping trolley/wheelie bin/wheelbarrow I could load up a number of planks and logs so I don't have to keep running back and forward to pick up X amount of logs/planks on mass construction projects, and if we want to get really convoluted we could construct some sort of crane/pulley system to construct upwards.

 

Finally inventory management in my safehouse can be a bit of a ball ache.  Maybe its my OCD of putting everything in its own place, but I can literally lose a day sorting my loot.  Its not a very fun part of the game but I am not sure exactly what can be done about it.  Maybe the ability to assign a container to a type and then have a button that auto unloads that type of item into said container?  Other than that all I can think of is to slow down time when you are in your safehouse ( no zombies inside obviously) so you don't lose so much time, but this obviously wouldn't work in MP.

 

Anyway this was just my thoughts on the current set up.  What are your thoughts?  And maybe when they are less busy the handsome dev's could blog about the direction of this, what they are happy with and what they feel could be improved upon.  

 

* Disclaimer - Its probably human nature but I feel I have concentrated on more what I feel could be improved upon as opposed to what is really good, and there is a lot that is really good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I'm very much a fan of Project Zomboid's inventory management system. Even the time it takes to move things (which would normally be tedius) I find fits the game effectively. It means you can't do it on the fly while being chased by a horde.

 

My only real issue with inventory management is with the way the current UI seems to auto-minimize then maximize and then never go away until I hit "i" then minimize again etc.

I would prefer it if the inventory window was 1 window, rather than being split into 2 (one for player inventory, one for container inventory).

 

I find myself repeatedly pressing the "i" key in a panic to get both inventory windows up so I can see what I've got and what I'm taking while under pressure.

 

I guess my only other suggestion is to improve the item brightness of stacked items.

For example, if I have "Vest (4)" in a closet and click the arrow to the left of the icon to expand the list, it's hard to tell what colour the other vests are because the icons are so dark.

 

That's me being really picky too! Other than the above I'm very happy with what they've done.

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I'm very much a fan of Project Zomboid's inventory management system. Even the time it takes to move things (which would normally be tedius) I find fits the game effectively. It means you can't do it on the fly while being chased by a horde.

 

My only real issue with inventory management is with the way the current UI seems to auto-minimize then maximize and then never go away until I hit "i" then minimize again etc.

I would prefer it if the inventory window was 1 window, rather than being split into 2 (one for player inventory, one for container inventory).

 

I find myself repeatedly pressing the "i" key in a panic to get both inventory windows up so I can see what I've got and what I'm taking while under pressure.

 

I guess my only other suggestion is to improve the item brightness of stacked items.

For example, if I have "Vest (4)" in a closet and click the arrow to the left of the icon to expand the list, it's hard to tell what colour the other vests are because the icons are so dark.

 

That's me being really picky too! Other than the above I'm very happy with what they've done.

Are you sure, you haven't pinned the window(s) hence they're visible all the time?

I do like them separate ATM, because there are times where I only have one open and just take stuff from a container (to a currently selected backpack).

The biggest issue I see is lack of information which bag is where, where I have two of the same - one on back, while other in hand.

 

Mash - if you say it will be reworked with size and all in mind, would that mean closer to NEO (getting back to good old grid based containers)?

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Finally inventory management in my safehouse can be a bit of a ball ache.  Maybe its my OCD of putting everything in its own place, but I can literally lose a day sorting my loot.  Its not a very fun part of the game but I am not sure exactly what can be done about it.  Maybe the ability to assign a container to a type and then have a button that auto unloads that type of item into said container?  Other than that all I can think of is to slow down time when you are in your safehouse ( no zombies inside obviously) so you don't lose so much time, but this obviously wouldn't work in MP.

This is actually really well done in Terraria and I wonder why it isnt in Starbound: You simply have a "quick stack" button wich automaticly puts all items of the same type onto existing stacks in the container. So you just have to open your OCD friendly containers and press one button and its done!
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We have a lot of the same thoughts as you :) We are actually in the midst of an inventory UI overhaul, which will make a lot of changes including having pockets, separating out weight vs. size, etc. No ETAs (as always) but it is in the works.

 

 

Great to hear, just wanted to hear you thoughts on the matter :D

 

 

I'm very much a fan of Project Zomboid's inventory management system. Even the time it takes to move things (which would normally be tedius) I find fits the game effectively. It means you can't do it on the fly while being chased by a horde.

 

My only real issue with inventory management is with the way the current UI seems to auto-minimize then maximize and then never go away until I hit "i" then minimize again etc.

I would prefer it if the inventory window was 1 window, rather than being split into 2 (one for player inventory, one for container inventory).

 

I find myself repeatedly pressing the "i" key in a panic to get both inventory windows up so I can see what I've got and what I'm taking while under pressure.

 

I guess my only other suggestion is to improve the item brightness of stacked items.

For example, if I have "Vest (4)" in a closet and click the arrow to the left of the icon to expand the list, it's hard to tell what colour the other vests are because the icons are so dark.

 

That's me being really picky too! Other than the above I'm very happy with what they've done.

 

 

Good feedback mate.  I agree with you generally on the time issue, getting something from my bag when on the run from the zombies should take time, I suppose I am talking more about automation.  For example your bullets are in the backpack, you hit reload, your char takes bullets from the backpack as normal, but its done automatically rather than having to manually move it.

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Are you sure, you haven't pinned the window(s) hence they're visible all the time?

 

Yaaa I'm sure. I've tried playing with the pins too.

I'm speaking more about the way the 2 inventory windows working independantly of eachother and sometimes with a mind of their own.

 

For example, sometimes when I click on a box in the game world it will open my inventory windows with the clicked box highlighted.

Other times when I click a box nothing happens. I have to position myself infront of the box and press "i" then select it from the container list on the right window.

 

It's just not consistent is all I'm saying and even after many, many months of playing, I still get caught out by it on occasion! :)

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I would like to see one master list of items currently on my character, with a designation of which bag/self it can be found in.  I feel the system could be better, but by no means is the current inventory awful or anything.

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Are you sure, you haven't pinned the window(s) hence they're visible all the time?

 

Yaaa I'm sure. I've tried playing with the pins too.

I'm speaking more about the way the 2 inventory windows working independantly of eachother and sometimes with a mind of their own.

 

For example, sometimes when I click on a box in the game world it will open my inventory windows with the clicked box highlighted.

Other times when I click a box nothing happens. I have to position myself infront of the box and press "i" then select it from the container list on the right window.

 

It's just not consistent is all I'm saying and even after many, many months of playing, I still get caught out by it on occasion! :)

 

Oh, ok - I was never really working with clicking at objects in the world to try and bring their container in view. What I always do is go through them in the external container menu, so that's probably why I never see it. At least for me it's easier that way, as I can use keyboard to properly set myself and use mouse to switch containers. In that case if there is a row of containers I can easily check each and every single one of them, without an issue of missing one, especially since they always move in order. As always I can't recall order when moving but once in game, I go through all of them and then move to the next ones, with  marked container moving on the list, so that it's easier to know which ones I already browsed and which are new.

 

That is also a reason why at times I just pin the right window down and go though the ground or floor looking at stuff without it closing on me (especially useful for cooking). For me grabbing (if it works) always move stuff to the currently selected bag, so I usually don't need to see it.

 

But there were few ideas I've read about - like simplified view for ppl who can at glance know what's what and don't really need textual description, or myself for having a value on containers that would show how "full" are they - it would also be easier to spot the ground where logs are.

 

BTW have you created bug report for these issues? and what's the best way to reproduce them? we don't really know when new UI will be ready, and the fix itself might be easy to implement.

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Mash - if you say it will be reworked with size and all in mind, would that mean closer to NEO (getting back to good old grid based containers)?

 

There were a few discussions on the subject a while back and iirc Rathlord mentioned that at least one of the devs was against inventory tetris. So I don't think it's likely, but it's always a possibility.

 

It was in one of these I think:

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/860-inventory-system/

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/613-inventory-idea/

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/830-inventory-weight-and-bulkiness/

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Mash - if you say it will be reworked with size and all in mind, would that mean closer to NEO (getting back to good old grid based containers)?

 

There were a few discussions on the subject a while back and iirc Rathlord mentioned that at least one of the devs was against inventory tetris. So I don't think it's likely, but it's always a possibility.

 

It was in one of these I think:

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/860-inventory-system/

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/613-inventory-idea/

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/830-inventory-weight-and-bulkiness/

 

Thanks for the links, also nice paint work ;-)

 

As for the inventory itself I know that the list for one are easier to implement and manage, but Mash mentioned that they will introduce pockets and separate weight and size from one abstract value we have ATM. So the first thing that came to my mind was NEO, as I think having 6 pockets apart from bags, in current container view would be hard to manage and player would spend a lot more time trying to find what is where and if it's worth swapping few items around to squeeze one more or not.

 

I've asked that question more so to get some sort of generic sketch as to what are they aiming for, because obviously they have some vision of how the system should work.

 

Now we might be wasting our and possibly their time trying to put some ideas into this and other threads, but maybe it's exactly what we should be doing at this particular time (early stage), in order to try an influence the final implementation so that it would match our play-style and/or screen size. For me the inventory size is acceptable in FS, but managing it in windowed more (essentially lower resolution) is harder and I don't even know if that is even considered in that new UI.

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Now we might be wasting our and possibly their time trying to put some ideas into this and other threads, but maybe it's exactly what we should be doing at this particular time (early stage), in order to try an influence the final implementation so that it would match our play-style and/or screen size. For me the inventory size is acceptable in FS, but managing it in windowed more (essentially lower resolution) is harder and I don't even know if that is even considered in that new UI.

 

 

 

I don't think its a waste of time for us to give feedback and poll opinions on current game mechanics :D  

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Now we might be wasting our and possibly their time trying to put some ideas into this and other threads, but maybe it's exactly what we should be doing at this particular time (early stage), in order to try an influence the final implementation so that it would match our play-style and/or screen size. For me the inventory size is acceptable in FS, but managing it in windowed more (essentially lower resolution) is harder and I don't even know if that is even considered in that new UI.

 

 

 

I don't think its a waste of time for us to give feedback and poll opinions on current game mechanics :D

 

Maybe I just grouped it all together when writing it down, but what I meant was that for us (at lest for me) it would be really disappointing if all that discussion would go to waste, because their mind is set and their take on the UI is completely different than ours because of few assumptions that it's being based on.

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The new way is not grid-based :)  Size will be limited by the container size (via a number, as it is now), but weight will just affect your movement speed.  So light, large items will fill your backpack quickly but not really slow you down much, while you can carry lots of small heavy things but it will affect your speed (the exact amount depends on the weight, your strength, the container, etc).

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The new way is not grid-based :)  Size will be limited by the container size (via a number, as it is now), but weight will just affect your movement speed.  So light, large items will fill your backpack quickly but not really slow you down much, while you can carry lots of small heavy things but it will affect your speed (the exact amount depends on the weight, your strength, the container, etc).

Thanks Mash for the insight.

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We have a lot of the same thoughts as you :) We are actually in the midst of an inventory UI overhaul, which will make a lot of changes including having pockets, separating out weight vs. size, etc. No ETAs (as always) but it is in the works.

Another UI rework? ;-;

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We have a lot of the same thoughts as you :) We are actually in the midst of an inventory UI overhaul, which will make a lot of changes including having pockets, separating out weight vs. size, etc. No ETAs (as always) but it is in the works.

Another UI rework? ;-;

 

 

Yep our last change was for the better but the current UI system still leaves a lot to be desired and outside combat is still probably our #1 complaint about the game as it stands, for new players particularly. Our third stab, which is only being done in little bits every so often and likely won't see light of day for a good while, will hopefully hit all the notes, be more intuitive, quicker to access and manipulate, but at the same time have more depth to it.

 

For e.g. imagine having a pistol in your pocket and that appearing in a hotbar because of it, with the time to equip in primary hand being blisteringly short as you 'quick draw' it out your pocket. Or imagine combat pants with several big pockets, or sewing additional pockets onto clothing. There's a lot of scope this opens up.

 

Bear in mind that the controller support really needs a proper inventory interface, instead of the functionality being bolted onto a mouse interface. We're designing a new one around the principle of making it nice to use with both types of controls.

 

Don't worry, this is not being worked on instead of NPCs. We're just at the design stage of this at the moment and outside getting 25 up to official NPCs are our #1 priority. it'll just be one of those things dropped into for moments when things get headachey. See this: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/4962-comment-i-made-on-mathas-latest-video/

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Bear in mind that the controller support really needs a proper inventory interface, instead of the functionality being bolted onto a mouse interface. We're designing a new one around the principle of making it nice to use with both types of controls.

whatever you do, just please, please, please, don't dumb down new UI for the sake of supporting the controllers.

 

 

No offence controller lovers - I'm a tolerant person and don't mind you playing with it, as long as it's not by expense of my enjoyment of the game. 

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Bear in mind that the controller support really needs a proper inventory interface, instead of the functionality being bolted onto a mouse interface. We're designing a new one around the principle of making it nice to use with both types of controls.

whatever you do, just please, please, please, don't dumb down new UI for the sake of supporting the controllers.

 

 

No offence controller lovers - I'm a tolerant person and don't mind you playing with it, as long as it's not by expense of my enjoyment of the game. 

 

 

... did you read my post or mash's? :P

 

 

We are actually in the midst of an inventory UI overhaul, which will make a lot of changes including having pockets, separating out weight vs. size, etc. No ETAs (as always) but it is in the works.

 

Yep our last change was for the better but the current UI system still leaves a lot to be desired and outside combat is still probably our #1 complaint about the game as it stands, for new players particularly. Our third stab, which is only being done in little bits every so often and likely won't see light of day for a good while, will hopefully hit all the notes, be more intuitive, quicker to access and manipulate, but at the same time have more depth to it.

For e.g. imagine having a pistol in your pocket and that appearing in a hotbar because of it, with the time to equip in primary hand being blisteringly short as you 'quick draw' it out your pocket. Or imagine combat pants with several big pockets, or sewing additional pockets onto clothing. There's a lot of scope this opens up.

 

We have no intention of dumbing it down. Everything that's in the current inventory system will be in there, plus more extra features such as weight/size and pockets, more in-depth system for speed of grabbing/putting items in and out of containers based on their accessibility (backpack on your back super slow, pocket on your trousers super fast, etc). We just want it to be nicer to use, less buggy and more intuitive so we can add more depth to it without making it a total clusterfuck, and make an interface that actually works properly on controllers. We're not making the Skyrim UI ;D   

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Less buggy is nice. Maybe a little larger or the option too. My bad vision would enjoy it.


Also that thing where the item is still "clicked" on even though I ain't holding the left click down and I have to click again to make it stop.

Would be nice if it was gone.

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Bear in mind that the controller support really needs a proper inventory interface, instead of the functionality being bolted onto a mouse interface. We're designing a new one around the principle of making it nice to use with both types of controls.

whatever you do, just please, please, please, don't dumb down new UI for the sake of supporting the controllers.

 

 

No offence controller lovers - I'm a tolerant person and don't mind you playing with it, as long as it's not by expense of my enjoyment of the game. 

 

 

... did you read my post or mash's? :P

I did and it was most interesting, but as soon as I read that it will be nice for controllers, red bulb just started flashing with all other games that were either ported from console or adding support for controller, than essentially ended up with clunky control for keyboard an mouse.

 

 

 

 

I like the DayZ one alot; easy to manage, and it factors in volume better. Perhaps inspiration can be taken from there.

I on the other hand like NEO.

... now ... let's fight ;-)

To the death, squire!

What's NEO, if you don't mind me asking?

 

NEO Scavanger (steam)

or

forum

 

EDIT: let's not forget SirTwiggy

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Is everyone aware that you can pause the game and select items to move?

 

The actions will queue up while paused, then the green action bar will start firing off for each item when you unpause.  This is the case when moving items from any container or inventory into another container.

 

I find this works well enough as you can browse your inventory or the container freely, but it still takes time to actually move the items back and forth because of the green action bar.

 

I suppose the downside is that it allows unlimited time to think about what you will loot, but I think it a fair compromise since the inventory is currently very difficult to keep organized.

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