Firstly, Gray Ghost, your project is quite commendable. Being willing to gather new information in order to update your opinion is honest, and doing it in public is brave.
Secondly, here are thoughts on good inventory systems: they make finding things easy, manipulating things easy, and they’re relevant to gameplay. Two games to illustrate this, Solasta and Disco Elysium (if only because their memories are fresh).
1. Finding things easily.
Both of those games segment items effectively, though in different ways. Solasta has a reliable auto-sort button which lets players assess their entire inventory in a single click. Disco E sorts relatively few items into four small categories. Either way, players are always two clicks away from whatever item they’re after.
BG3 has a search bar, which requires precise spelling and doesn’t find items inside in bags or pouches. It sees little to no use in my games. There are also filters that let players see a type of item in a semi random line accross their screen. The hope is players can tell potions apart by looking at them. (Works well enough for scrolls.)
2. Manipulating things easily.
Solasta and D Elysium have drag and drop. Easy.
In my experience, BG3’s inventory is too unstable for drag and drop. The only way to reliably manipulate items is to right-click, move-to. This is the primary pain point in vendor interactions, as the party tank loots but the party face sells.
The stability thing hasn’t been mentioned too loudly in the forums, but honestly it’s nuts; I assume it’s been submitted as a bug a biliion times through official channels. Every fatal crash I’ve heard of (or experienced) since Patch 8 has somehow been tied to the inventory.
3. A relevant inventory
Inventory is relevant in S and D E in diametrically opposed ways.
Solasta has more items than can be carried and stringent action economy rules which means pre-combat inventory manipulation is key to success. Equipping arrows and bags of holding is a big deal.
Disco Elysium has fewer items than can be carried and mostly forgiving “combat” rules. The player starts in such a dire position that equipping anything is a big deal.
BG3 has magic pockets and encumbrance and the camp chest. The sum total of these mechanisms is that the inventory restrictions apply to two cases: mid-combat barrelmancy and vendors. The former is barely a restriction while the latter is a huge pain point.
Interestingly, magic pockets + encumbrance = party-wide carry limit. Every PC automatically benefits from the strongest members in the group; it would be nice if they also automatically benefitted from the most charismatic.
Conclusion
There is such a thing as a good inventory. BG3’s isn’t there yet.
