this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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inventory capacity directly relates to economic balance in most games, as opposed to bathroom and meal breaks which don't add to the gameplay loop in a positive way.
being limited by carry capacity isn't supposed to be fun in itself, it's meant to bring realism and balance to the economy. say you have to return to town to sell items, but you find a cool valuable sword along the way; you might have to sacrifice something of lower value like a consumable in order to fit everything in your pack. the sacrifice brings a level of adversity and decision making to the game, instead of a limitless mary sue character who mindlessly presses "loot all" and "sell all".
also, fantasy games are still realistic in that they follow the rules of their own universe. In the baldur's gate universe, elves and magic are commonplace, but there's no "canon" reason people should have unlimited carry weight or infinite pockets. If mages were able to power a self-propelled wagon which carries your items, then THAT would make sense, but an endless list of items hidden away in an inventory GUI kinda brings you away from the immersion, even if the game's premise isn't set in reality
Well, actually. I hate to do this. There totally is, to both examples. One of the random things a charcter might say when looting an inventory item is "I should really have a bag of holding", which is an in universe item that holds unlimited things that has existed in the tabletop version for like forever. way to have unlimited inventory and. And wizards/sorcerer have a level 1 spell that everyone can start with called tenser floating disk that is just a mini platform to carry things.
See encumbrance also exists in the dnd tabletop version of the game. But I have never known a group that actually tracks and enforces the weight of individual gold pieces like the manuals say to do. Realistic? Sure. But a lot of hassle. So in universe explanations have existed in the realm of Faerun for decades.
In starfield I know you can get a drone to carry things for you. Is there a reason why you can't have a fleet of them? I mean it's sci fix, IRL warehouses have drones working togther to move boxes. Why can't the player? Lots of in universes could fix these problems.
Look, we can disagree, if you think making choices on what to leave behind is interesting then rock on. I would hazard a guess that you rarely leave half of your loot behind for non encumbrance reasons just because it's fun to come back. I will say though, since known of this is combat based choices, I don't think Mary sue really applies here. This is all book keeping, not the gameplay that we were looking forward to. When was the last time a gameplay trailer bragged about how heavy their currency is or how small their bags are. 😝
yeah idk the details of baldur's gate since i haven't played it yet. but my point still stands in other universes. And if the only gameplay element you look forward to is killing NPC's, then why are you playing baldur's gate?