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I wonder if this issue might be solved from another angle. I imagine the problem we're running into is that most of us are conditioned in the MMO "hoarding" mentality, which is reinforced in this game by the fact that the random items in this game actually have a not insignificant value. Page 144 in the PHB states that weapons and armor used by monsters are rarely in good enough condition to sell, so maybe giving them no resale value will fix the weight problem. If they're not worth carting around then we likely won't bother. In practice, most pen and paper parties probably only hold onto magical items because those are actually in good condition due to their enchantments and either useful to the party or still worth enough to sell. Rather than encouraging hoarding to line our pockets, perhaps making magic items worth much more and zeroing out everything else might be an approach to balancing the weight issue.

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I think you're missing my point. Making items value-less is not the solution. There are plenty of items already that are almost virtually worthless like spoons and knives and forks and so forth. You might get 50 gold at most from selling hordes of that stuff, but it'll weigh you down senselessly if you carry it around with you.

And right now, the only consequence or deterrence for carrying around all that stuff is that it is annoying. It is annoying to have to Send To Camp every single item one at a time. It is annoying to have to Fast Travel back to a merchant and then sell each item, one item at a time. It is annoying to have to Send To Camp every piece of Camping Supplies you carry. Then, when you are ready to Long Rest, you have to first Fast Travel to Camp, take it out of storage, and then End Day.

So why bother at all? If all this stuff is just going to be annoying, and there is no real threat or consequence for having to carry it all around, why bother with it all in the first place? Just make it so only valuable items are in the game and leave all the useless items and camping supplies out of the game.

That's why I said, if you are going to keep all of those items and the camping supplies system, you need to develop some sort of risk or danger if players spam Fast Travel or Send To Camp. It doesn't have to be random encounters, but you need to have at least some sort of danger or these functions have no meaning or purpose at all, and neither does encumbrance.

So just remove all the useless junk or provide some risk or danger in using Fast Travel and Send to Camp. Otherwise, it's all pointless and useless.

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Originally Posted by GM4Him
I think you're missing my point. Making items value-less is not the solution. There are plenty of items already that are almost virtually worthless like spoons and knives and forks and so forth. You might get 50 gold at most from selling hordes of that stuff, but it'll weigh you down senselessly if you carry it around with you.

And right now, the only consequence or deterrence for carrying around all that stuff is that it is annoying. It is annoying to have to Send To Camp every single item one at a time. It is annoying to have to Fast Travel back to a merchant and then sell each item, one item at a time. It is annoying to have to Send To Camp every piece of Camping Supplies you carry. Then, when you are ready to Long Rest, you have to first Fast Travel to Camp, take it out of storage, and then End Day.

So why bother at all? If all this stuff is just going to be annoying, and there is no real threat or consequence for having to carry it all around, why bother with it all in the first place? Just make it so only valuable items are in the game and leave all the useless items and camping supplies out of the game.

That's why I said, if you are going to keep all of those items and the camping supplies system, you need to develop some sort of risk or danger if players spam Fast Travel or Send To Camp. It doesn't have to be random encounters, but you need to have at least some sort of danger or these functions have no meaning or purpose at all, and neither does encumbrance.

So just remove all the useless junk or provide some risk or danger in using Fast Travel and Send to Camp. Otherwise, it's all pointless and useless.

I think we're saying the same thing in different ways. I agree that there's no reason for all the junk equipment, and I think that just zeroing out the value for anything non-magical accomplishes the removal of junk without the developers having to go back and remove things they've already spent time programming into the game. Rather than removing the junk, just set their value to zero, including non-magical weapons and armor. This effectively removes any reason to acquire junk and making the characters into pack mules. Then you have plenty of carrying capacity available for the various camp supplies you find along the way and there isn't as much of a need for a separate camp inventory.

As I stated before, I agree with the reason behind the camp supplies system in that it helps to reduce spamming long rests, and this is one way to do it. But I also agree that camp supplies might not be the best way to go about it. Mostly I just hate unnecessary repetitive tasks like endlessly right clicking and selecting "send to camp", so whatever final configuration they go with should streamline the process as much as possible.

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Immersion. wink


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My main issue with camp resources is it is easily going to be absolete and useless once your cleric or druid gets the thrid level spell create food and water. Then the need for camp resources is null and void just like it became in Solasta. Even a paladin gets this spell albiet at higher levels. It's sort of a nice twist, but not really needed.

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Originally Posted by GM4Him
In Pathfinder, I have to carry all my gear and camping supplies as I travel around the world. There is one place where there is a merchant at the moment, and often I am far away from him. If I want to dump my gear into storage or sell stuff, I need to make my way all the way back to that merchant/inn. On the way, I might run into random encounters. I also have time limits in the game. So, going back and forth to the inn/merchant costs time and I might get attacked. There is risk and consequences for constantly going back to the inn/merchant to dump gear, so I need to manage all my gear and camp supplies wisely; using strategy and tactics and weighing the risk of dumping stuff versus being encumbered.
This sounds very annoying to me!

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Exactly my point. All the excess items and camping supplies, they are just annoying in the long run. They have no value because there is nothing stopping the player from just sending all to camp so encumbrance is also , meaningless. The value of the meaningless items isn't worth carrying it all around.

The only alternative is putting risk on Fast Travel and Send to Camp. But by doing that, won't that just be more annoying? So why have all the useless junk and camp supplies if there is no real value or purpose or any strategy in managing them?

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Think about it, the point of all those items and food, etc. It is for immersion, but immersion is lost if all you have to do is click a button and send things to camp. That's my point. And if nothing would stop you from manually running to camp or a merchant, then it makes no sense to make players manually run to camp or a merchant.

So, I say either choose immersion or convenience. You can't really have both. Either make players pick up food and items for immersion sake and then create restrictions so it is meaningful or do away with the whole thing.

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Originally Posted by GM4Him
So, I say either choose immersion or convenience.
I pick convenience! I still like getting loot, though. grin I like it when loot is convenient to sell and carry.

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So here's my suggestion. Keep it all, but make Short Rests cost Camping supplies. 1 camp supply per party member per level to short rest. So, 4 party members at level 4 = 16 camp supplies. 2 short rests = 32. So, players then now have a reason to keep some food/supplies on them as opposed to just putting it all in camp.

Then, make it 2 camp supplies per individuals at camp per level per long rest. So, let's say you have 6 at camp, all at level 4 and you long rest = 48 camp supplies.

Then, make character with highest Survival skill make a roll. If succeed, camp supply cost per rest is halved. If fail, full cost.

This creates strategy for managing camp supplies and gives more value to Survival skill. How many will you need on you or risk taking with you knowing you will be weighed down by supplies but knowing you might need food to short rest, but if your skill is high enough you might risk taking less hoping to utilize your skill to get by with less.

This also makes food spells like goodberry more valuable.

As for useless items, give them meaning via crafting. Spoons, plates, knives etc. Can be melted down and hammered into weapons, thus used as crafting materials. Don't have them on you when you are at a workbench? Too bad. Should have maybe carried a few around with you. Thus, strategy and purpose are created. How many do you send back versus keep on you in case you might need them for crafting purposes.

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So ... your solution to the fact that is anoying to send food to camp manualy ... and then manualy wirthdraw it from that chest and take it back to your inventory ...
Is to force people to carry food around? O_o

How should that improve anything in gameplay?


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The point is to give players a reason for everything. Give keeping food in you inventory purpose and , meaning or get rid of it. THAT is the point.

I am one who likes immersion, but I don't like meaningless mundane chores. If you are going to put camp supplies in the game and make me carry it around, give me a good reason to keep it in my inventory as opposed to send to camp. Making short rest require food gives me a reason to keep it in my inventory. Otherwise, why not just send to camp, and if I'm just going to always send to camp then what's the point of camp supplies at all? Also, why bother with send to camp, then? Why not just auto send to camp? If auto send, why bother at all?

Shoot, with short rest requiring food and such, you could even remove the 2 short rest limitation and let players manage all rests via camp supplies. Short rest as much as you want, as long as you think you have the food to do so.

Last edited by GM4Him; 11/09/21 05:33 PM.
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Originally Posted by GM4Him
Why not just auto send to camp?
Now read OP. laugh


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At the end of the day, there's going to have to be a really, really good reason for the developers to abandon something they spent billable hours putting into the game. I don't see the camp supplies system going away unless there is an extremely good reason for it. It's much easier to simply zero out values on a table or add an auto-send to camp function, or even just a select multiple items option so we can just do it once every little bit. Removing camp supplies and junk that took hours of programmer and digital artist time to create and implement doesn't seem likely.

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I agree, and in truth I like the immersion. I'm just saying, they need value. If all I have to do is send all non-equipped gear to camp so I'm not encumbered, and there's no reason to keep it on my peeps, because until you long rest you don't need them, then it is stupid. I am all for items with purpose. I am against senseless Item Management.

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The more I think about it, this would make the game more strategic too. They could increase party size to 6, but if you have 6, camp supplies cost will be more for short rests. 6x4=24 supplies for each short rest. Suddenly, camp supplies are WAY more important and limiting short rests so they aren't abused. Now, it becomes strategy. Do you take 4 or 6 party members. The more you take, the more supplies you need but the more strength you possess in combat.

Not enough supplies, half healing per short rest. Still can do it, but less benefit. Less than half supplies needed, no rest at all available. Suddenly, camp supplies will need to be conserved a whole lot more.

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Originally Posted by GM4Him
Think about it, the point of all those items and food, etc. It is for immersion, but immersion is lost if all you have to do is click a button and send things to camp. That's my point. And if nothing would stop you from manually running to camp or a merchant, then it makes no sense to make players manually run to camp or a merchant.

So, I say either choose immersion or convenience. You can't really have both. Either make players pick up food and items for immersion sake and then create restrictions so it is meaningful or do away with the whole thing.
I would prefer immersion but this whole system would be better if we had a proper exhaustion mechanic and day/night cycle. Camp supplies really changed nothing about my gameplay (I don't use the send to camp) but depresses me because it seems to be another excuse for us to never get the day/night/exhaustion stuff.

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Don't get me started on Day/Night. So much would benefit from time.

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For a video game implementation, I don't know that the passage of time really matters much unless they come up with quests that have a hard time limit. It might matter if they add a time component to the whole tadpole turning you into an illithid thing, but for balancing rest as a game mechanic I imagine encounters should be the baseline for determining how resting works. It would be cool to have the flavor of the day/night cycle adjusting during rests, but I don't know that it would have any mechanical value in a video game with no time limits on anything. Even if they implemented exhaustion you would simply take a long rest as soon as it took effect, unless maybe you don't have enough camp supplies for a long rest. Not sure that would come up often enough to really make a difference.

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One thing that makes me wonder is why anyone thinks random encounters are a threat?
They are practically always regular time grabbers (especially in a turn-based game).
Probably the perfect example would be pathfinder. About 95% of the random encounters in this game are literally a waste of the player's time, the rest of them are actually scripted.
This is a junk mechanic that shouldn't be in this game, especially since it's fully turn-based.

As for time constraints, it is such a popular mechanic that the new pathfinder practically does not have them. Some tasks are simply marked that they must be completed by the end of the chapter.
Which just means it works the way it will ultimately be in bg3.

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