Weapons in your inventory

[nauta]

But here's one for you: how about having a character drop everything in their inventory when they're attacked.  Help inventory describes these items as "in your hands" and it doesn't make much sense to have things in your hands when you're fighting for your life.  Then someone has to bend down to pick up whatever before they run, suffering the attack of opportunity.  I would be more happy with this than some rule that you can carry anything else anywhere you want except weapons for... some reason.

I like this idea too.  But there's still the ability to grab a weapon on the ground (or all of them) and hold them in your inventory after the battle starts.  Hence, I'd even go so far as to suggest that the code combine the above with:

1. You can't ep/es while fighting.  You have to draw or...
2. You can get something from the ground while fighting but you must have one hand free and it automatically will equip the item you grab.
3. The same is true if someone 'gives' you something while you are fighting: if your equipped hand slots are full, you can't receive it; if you have one hand free, it will automatically equip it.
4. rs/rp will also drop the item while you are fighting (just like remove does).

An alternative to #2 and #3 would be to allow people to get items from the ground or receive them from others, but make the lag on es and ep (while fighting) much larger than it currently is.

If you feel that a specific player is abusing the code somehow, then I suggest you submit a player complaint.

None of my post was a reflection on other people's play: I was playing around with the combinations recently, and what the code suggestion is is my reflection on what might improve the gameplay experience in combat, without hopefully introducing arbitrary annoyances.

Personally, I've done the sap in inventory thing before, and I've done the weapons in the inventory thing before too.

[Veselka]

I personally think there should just be a greater delay and penalty to using weapons from your inventory. So EP/ES incurs the same attack of opportunity that picking a weapon up from the ground does, or getting a weapon from your pack.

I also think there should be a delay added to those who have been disarmed, so they can't instantly pick up their weapons. It seems that those with higher agility don't incur the attack of opportunity as often as others, so I see some people able to 9/10 pick up a weapon without any penalty. That doesn't seem realistic or as intended.

[Molten Heart]

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[nauta]

I once played a mud that had no inventory. When someone picked something up, it went directly into their hand. Even though one could only hold two items (one in each hand), inventory was handled very intuitively. Getting new objects would automatically send things already in the hands into a backpack or another worn container when the hands were needed, or they would go on the ground around a person and this was their sort of inventory (people couldn't just pick these objects up without the owner first allowing them two or leaving the area.)

SoI was like that last I played it.  I actually found it so OOCly annoying.  In my humble opinion, the inventory in Arm is a great invention/feature, but it should be taken with a bit of suspension of disbelief: it is there as an OOC convenience more than anything, and probably should be taken with a lot of grains of salt and suspension of disbelief.  (I use it when an item doesn't actually equip on me when it really should, e.g., a shield slung over a shoulder, a helmet clipped to my belt, or because there's a two item limit on belts, but you got this one little pouch, so why the heck can't that go on your belt, etc.)

[WithSprinkles]

Item weight and bulkiness could be taken into account if a person wants to think on it that. I mean..

Yeah, a person could hold something in either hand and technically have their hands full, but in real life, I can hold several small items in my hands just fine. And cradle more items against my chest. When I'm carrying in groceries, it's laughable because I'm draping bags along my arms (and holding my keys in my teeth). My boyfriend can carry more because he's taller, so he teases me about the fact he's got more in his arms.

I can see myself turning my shield over if I'm a warrior or if I'm a crafter, a plank of wood, and balancing my work on that, and carrying more on that, which is how I think sometimes of people carrying things in inventory and especially crafting with them.

In a fight, yeah, there could be a chance of people shedding items like a pinata if they're holding them as the fight goes on, but not always, because if I'm clutching something I wanna keep hold of and someone hits me, my immediate focus might not be attack but defense and extraction from the situation. If the person stands there and slugs it out, then yeah, let the items fall.

[valeria]

stuff

...  But there's still the ability to grab a weapon on the ground (or all of them) and hold them in your inventory after the battle starts. 

Since you get attacked every time you bend to pick something up, I guess they could do that?  But they would be playing with fire.  And then I presume if they didn't get it in a hand/in a container (if you even could during combat) quick enough, it would just drop again on the next tick that someone swings a weapon at them.  (At least, that's how I pictured it.)

I don't agree with there being some kind of penalty to ep/es a weapon you just picked up.  You had to take a penalty to pick it up, after all.  You probably picked it up with your hand.  And you're definitely suffering existing combat penalties if you're not armed.

As far as people with high agility being able to pick things up from the ground goes, since they have high agility, that would seem to be working as intended.

This is all just one woman's opinion, though!

[James de Monet]

3. The same is true if someone 'gives' you something while you are fighting: if your equipped hand slots are full, you can't receive it; if you have one hand free, it will automatically equip it.

There's nothing specifically wrong with this idea, but it would cause so much code abuse.

Code Select Expand

>disarm amos
>give spoon amos

[Veselka]

stuff

...  But there's still the ability to grab a weapon on the ground (or all of them) and hold them in your inventory after the battle starts. 

Since you get attacked every time you bend to pick something up, I guess they could do that?  But they would be playing with fire.  And then I presume if they didn't get it in a hand/in a container (if you even could during combat) quick enough, it would just drop again on the next tick that someone swings a weapon at them.  (At least, that's how I pictured it.)

I don't agree with there being some kind of penalty to ep/es a weapon you just picked up.  You had to take a penalty to pick it up, after all.  You probably picked it up with your hand.  And you're definitely suffering existing combat penalties if you're not armed.

As far as people with high agility being able to pick things up from the ground goes, since they have high agility, that would seem to be working as intended.

This is all just one woman's opinion, though!

It doesn't appear to incur an attack of opportunity every time, or even most of the time.

[Cabooze]

stuff

...  But there's still the ability to grab a weapon on the ground (or all of them) and hold them in your inventory after the battle starts. 

Since you get attacked every time you bend to pick something up, I guess they could do that?  But they would be playing with fire.  And then I presume if they didn't get it in a hand/in a container (if you even could during combat) quick enough, it would just drop again on the next tick that someone swings a weapon at them.  (At least, that's how I pictured it.)

I don't agree with there being some kind of penalty to ep/es a weapon you just picked up.  You had to take a penalty to pick it up, after all.  You probably picked it up with your hand.  And you're definitely suffering existing combat penalties if you're not armed.

As far as people with high agility being able to pick things up from the ground goes, since they have high agility, that would seem to be working as intended.

This is all just one woman's opinion, though!

It doesn't appear to incur an attack of opportunity every time, or even most of the time.

'mercy' affects this

[nauta]

3. The same is true if someone 'gives' you something while you are fighting: if your equipped hand slots are full, you can't receive it; if you have one hand free, it will automatically equip it.

There's nothing specifically wrong with this idea, but it would cause so much code abuse.

Code Select Expand

>disarm amos
>give spoon amos

Ha ha.  Good point. 

I really love the idea of fight forcing you to drop everything in your inventory.  And Valeria is right about the 'picking up' counter -- it opens you to a free attack -- so if I had to summarize things so far (good discussion):

1. Being attacked or attacking forces you to dump everything in your inventory. (It's probably worth thinking about what negative gameplay consequences this would have more carefully -- beyond NPC thieves...)

2. rs/rp being just like remove.

3. es/ep having somewhat more lag to it than currently -- at least it should have as much lag as the draw command (which I think could have a little more lag added to it, since I haven't ever really noticed lag to draw).

That seems the simplest in terms of code.

[lostinspace]

I'm against penalizing people for carrying things in their inventory, pickpockets have to start somewhere :p

As for code abuse with passing people items to fill their hands, the same is true currently of inventory no? If someone completely gave up on RP and was just playing code, they could totally give you a bunch of rocks until your inventory was full, then disarm you. If anything the delay on disarm would make Disarm -> Give Spoon less abuseable.

[James de Monet]

It's a good idea.  To my mind, an ideal implementation would look like this (with any less complicated implementation still being beneficial):

The lag should probably be based on the weight and the weapon (knives and curved swords are faster to draw then straight swords, maces, warhammers, etc.).  Sheathed weapons should be faster to draw than ep/es (due to muscle memory and advantageous positioning), with belt sheathes being faster to draw from than back, boot, or wrist sheathes.

A check against the character's hands would be done every round of combat.  Any time BOTH hands were occupied (dual wield, etwo, sword and board, etc.) the character would dump their inventory.  This allows for a few things.  One, it means you can pick up a disarmed weapon during combat without auto-equipping, but more importantly, it allows the player to prioritize their aims.  If the character is just trying to run away with their armload of jewels and not fight, they can still do that.  If you're carrying a body, you could still try to fight with one hand.  If things get out of hand, you can make the choice to draw that second weapon.

I think it just gives the player more control without ditching the realism of it.  There's a lot of situations where being forced to drop things that mattered at the start of combat could be unredeemably damaging (flying, climbing, silt, if you already had your weapons in your inv, torches, bribe money, hiding something, ersatz baby objects, etc.)

[TheGoose]

Gonna just point out that these 'solutions' seem to make problems where there were none. This thread seems to be, 'let's take a non-issue and make it an issue.' 0/10, please do not implement.

[Riev]

Not understanding, misunderstanding, or not generally being affecting by an issue does not make it a non-issue.

I don't personally find it gamebreaking, but its an interesting discussion about what "inventory" is and how it affects us codedly.

[evilcabbage]

or, make it a chance on a reel.

every time you get reeled, there's a chance you drop a random number of items in your inventory.

[Cind]

With heavier items more likely to drop.

[Dresan]

I think the point of having a proper sheathe and drawing your weapon from it, is that it is prepared and ready to use. This is should be quicker than using a weapon that isn't as properly prepared, you need to make sure you are grip a weapons properly after picking it up for example, even shifting your grip can take a valuable moment. Therefore, I think equipping using es/ep during battle should cause a bit more of a delay than drawing from a sheathe. Maybe shield being the exception since there is no way to draw it.

If a person becomes unconscious they should drop their inventory.

As for dropping parts of your inventory during reel and/or battle, it really sounds interesting, but feel it would become more of an annoyance than feature after a while.

[Harmless]

A slight chance of anything happening, like on critical fails or what have you, is a common mechanic in pen and paper games. Crit fail, roll a dice, look at a small table nearby and X happens -- drop your weapon, take extra damage to armor, get stunned, etc.

If there were a chance that I would drop shit I was carrying while fighting for my life, as the mud tells you when trying to do non-combat things while in combat, I'd like that; a chance, a realistic one. I dont know about a clownish complete loss of the entire inventory immediately on combat. What if it's a damn snake just trying to bite you -- is Amos really gonna lose all his fucking shit every time a snake in the Red Desert tried to nip him?


The simple change of making the delay much longer when wielding from inventory sounds like a simultaneous fix to Nauta's concern that some players are hoarding backup weapons in their inventory with no downside, as well as a boost to Disarm which I agree is underpowered, except for when it finally sends the damn weapon to the next room over, which is its best feature. So, my +1 goes to that simple change; make the delay for wielding from inventory much longer.

[Inks]

I would be happy if wielding from inventory caused an attack of opportunity.

[Hauwke]

I would be happy if wielding from inventory caused an attack of opportunity.

Thats actually not a terrible idea.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I would be happy if wielding from inventory caused an attack of opportunity.

Thats actually not a terrible idea.

Wouldn't picking up and wielding a dropped/disarmed weapon then result in two attacks of opportunity on you, though?

[Riev]

It would. I'm kind of intrigued at the idea that you have to decide if your sword is worth picking up and grabbing, causing the potential for two AOs, or if you want to draw a different less-skilled weapon, or if you just want to run.

[Inks]

Yes, it would cause two attacks of opportunity, I think that is cool.

[Pretentious]

Gonna just point out that these 'solutions' seem to make problems where there were none. This thread seems to be, 'let's take a non-issue and make it an issue.' 0/10, please do not implement.

Agree +100. I think most people use and RP around their inventory responsibly. Trying to make it codedly inconvenient across the board for most legitimate uses in order to target a very small set of circumstances is unnecessarily punishing and painful. Let's just trust people to RP around what they're doing responsibly, and make fun of them (or file player complaints, if things are serious enough) when they aren't. There are tons of legitimate use cases for having multiple weapons in your inventory. It's arbitrary to say that you can have an armful of wooden poles but not an armful of spears, or arrows.

There are already sensible checks in place to penalize the blatantly ridiculous uses of inventory. Let's have some faith in the player base rather than stomping on the lowest common denominator to all our detriment and pain.

[Delirium]

Let's have some faith in the player base rather than stomping on the lowest common denominator to all our detriment and pain.