Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 Revive Age-Old RPG Debate About Encumbrance - eviltoast

Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 both weigh the player down with encumbrance. Love it or hate it, it seems like it’s here to stay.

  • RickRussell_CA@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    A “stash” that is only accessible outside combat mostly preserves that balance, IMO.

    Most games come up with a range of ways to get around the problem, even when they do have a strictly limited inventory with encumbrance:

    • Zero weight quest items

    • Ability to run or fast travel while encumbered (FO4 selectable perk)

    • A pet or NPC capable of carrying your less valuable stuff back to the vendor for sale (Torchlight had this, did Diablo? I haven’t played in decades.)

    • Pack animals/robots

    • Portable vendors (Skyrim had a demon vendor you could summon once a day)

    • Bags of holding (or similar)

    • Warp chests (many chests with same contents/inventory around map)

    etc. ad infinitum. The fact that most games implement a variety of ways to deal with absence of an infinite inventory is kind of a tipoff that it’s more of a burden than a desirable aspect of gameplay. Most of these games are holding up a carrot (or several) to get you to pursue certain achievements just to reduce the monotony of inventory management.