this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What about gear durability? I hate that shit even more than I hate encumbrance.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same. Like what kind of sword breaks after 3 uses.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

That it kind of the thing tho, if you just violently smash your sword around, it's gonna break. Like katanas are pretty flimsy and a german greatsword for example could just snap it off. Let's take elden ring for example and you use your sword to find an invisible wall, that's terrible for a sword and it would go to shit really quick. So i guess in a way it's realistic. But i really don't like it when games do that. All it does for me is that i'm never going to use the nice things in the game, because they break, then you need a new one or repair it or whatever.
I'm fine with encumbrance... especially in these Bethesda games. All they do is litter the world with garbage for the player to pick up and carry around for no reason other than make the game longer.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, encumbrance can be overcame but the durability thing is annoying. Especially when you can’t repair the gear.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

BOTW/TOTK Zelda games are the only ones that get it right. It’s a core game mechanic and they give you enough weapons to have fun with it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Eh. Can't say I had fun watching my higher end weapon break on the stronger, bullet sponge enemies later on, and replacing it with a crappy short swords that do barely any damage. ToTK though was certainly better thanks to fusion.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't mind encumbrance, unless it's painfully low. Stalker is a bit annoying with it, though it makes sense. Then when it's so high it becomes a non issue is also annoying because eventually I hit the cap. The one in bg3 is fine with me. I tend to choose my companions to carry specific items, so it's evenly spread out. Then I take breaks to go sell off my junk, usually every few in game days. I think I gave only hit cap once, I gave Karlach all the weapons I find and she was overloaded. I don't mind encumbrance most of the time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Actually I think I'm the opposite. I hate encumbrance more when it's massive. When I played survival mode in Fallout NV, I found it so much more fun to only pick up essential items. I would commonly pick up water bottles and food instead of valuable weapons or ammo. I was usually way under my low encumbrance because I had a mindset switch to only pick up stuff that will allow me to survive the desert.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have never wished for encumbrance in a game that didn't have it. I've only ever wished it was gone from those that do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

James Stephany Sterling

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm a hoarder in these games. If I can store all my stuff back at my base like in Fallout 4 and Skyrim then I'm happy. As long as they don't pull the Fallout 76 stunt where you need to pay monthly for extra storage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I've just found out you don't even need to build an outpost. Buy a home and you can decorate it with hundreds of storage crates (150 mass/crate)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm with you brosephina

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I prefer no inventory or encumbrance but just collections. Perm objects once you collect you have it forever and if you get a new one it just auto converts to coins or whatnot and consumables you get a number in the collections and if it is 0 then you can't use it. Sure its not realistic that a character can carry tons of crap but they stick in magic chests or unlimited space motorcycle trunks or whatever anyway. Just pretend your character is only carrying the equiped items and every thing else is in the magic mcguffin that allows you to essentially carry around a bunch of crap but take the inventory management aspect out. I play to have fantasy and have fun. Not organize crap. I have to organize crap (or at least should) in real life.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@stopthatgirl7 Thanks, I hate it lol. I still loved both #baldursgate3 and #starfield but dislike the inventory busywork. Also the vendors have limited money to buy my loot. These games are retraining our old looting habits and I don't know if I like it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I haven't played Starfield, but on Bg3 you can do a partial rest (not using any camp supplies) you can initiate this standing right in front of the vendor when you leave camp after the rest your vendor will have money again. You can repeat this until you run out of things to sell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't really have an encumbrance system. It has a "send to camp" button that basically negates 99% of that. Camp supplies? Send to camp. Bunch of valueable loot items you only intend on selling "pick up and add to wares" the "send to camp". When you're ready to sell things between adventuring shove it all in a backpack, give it to someone stronk, and teleport to a merchant.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While I do think encumbrance in a Bethesda game is pretty pointless I do believe it serves a purpose in BG3. Barrels full of all sorts of liquids are extremely useful, their drawback is that they weigh a ton. Encumbrance exists to prevent you from being a barrelmancer. I think you can also pick up any chests, so you can just carry away all the chests you can't unlock and then break them somewhere safe (or move them to you lockpicking character etc).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One of my questions on Starfield - can I roleplay as a hoarder, picking up every possible piece of junk - cups, pencils, etc - and store it all in a couple of cabinets or containers as some kind of infinitely huge repo?

...because I swear to god, for whatever reason that seems to be my favorite part of Skyrim and Fallout 3 for whatever reason.

If that mechanic isn't in Starfield then I lose like half my motivation to play :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Based on what I was reading last night, there's a chest in The Lodge basement that has unlimited storage space. The trick is, you just have to be able to get your stuff there.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m a pack-rat in games and ive only hit the first (of three) stage of encumbrance two or three times in Baldur’s Gate and I’m in the final act. And my character is a bard with 8 strength so he has no muscles which means the lowest encumbrance threshold. I wouldn’t consider encumbrance even a little bit of a problem in BG3 since if you ever do become encumbered you can just move stuff from your player character to one of the NPCs used as a pack mule.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can also send stuff from your bag directly to the camp chest without having to go there. On pc it's right click send to camp, on ps5 it's square button send to camp. I'm not sure if there is a limit as to how much you can send there i havent hit it yet if there is. You can access camp from anywhere but a red zone so no real reason to carry what you are not using.