I’m so OCD about how much clothing my character is wearing that this is never an issue for me.
I don’t know how Dominae doesn’t scratch his eyes out having to see that mess constantly.
Though in my opinion a good dodge skill removes most of the need for armor. The most encumbering thing I ever have on me is a duffel bag if I’m going looting. All armor is really good for is storage and warmth for me.
It used to be that you could stack a lot more. You used to be able to get into the negatives if you wore multiple fitted clothing. Now it just kinda counteracts a point here and there and stacking multiple fitted clothing doesn’t result in a net negative.
So no, I think it’s fine. Actually I think it models clothing and movement pretty well. The really protective stuff is really encumbering no matter what you do with it. So it balances out well.
When stamina gets in I’d like to see stamina drain implemented in the place of (or complimenting the reduction of) hard skill/movement penalties.
Yeah this is pretty ridiculous really, and that screenshot captures it. I think stacking fitted clothing should cause a negative (it fits you, not fits you over armour), and that it doesn’t counteract anything. If this is ‘too hard for the new players’ just have clothing be better, not just be so counter-intuitive that you need to stack stuff.
I think it’d make much more sense however (especially for new players who everyone is constantly going on about) and be simpler if everything you put on caused at least one or more encumbrance, but that the encumbrance levels were much higher (so you’d need four points of encumbrance to be the equivalent of encumbrance 1 with the current system). This would be a much, much simpler system for new players to understand.
Ehhh. I like it the way it is.
Just because it’s a long list doesn’t mean it’s ridiculous. Most of that list is stuff that wouldn’t actually encumber you that much. It’s not hard to wear multiple belts, for example. It’s not like he’s layering eight shirts and five pairs of pants.
I don’t think it’s unintuitive, either. You get immediate feedback as you layer clothing and it’s obvious on the face of it that fitted clothing encumbers less than unfitted clothing.
Also I would never encumber my torso and legs to 4. The best defense is always the best possible armor value for the best possible dodge value.
5 vests counting the chest rigs. It’s also not the wearing of 5 belts so much as benefiting from it volumewise. Cata assumes all clothing is worn in a useful fashion.
I suspect the two big flaws here are that chest encumbrance gets halved (which gets absurd when taken to extremes) and that there was an explosion of no-location items that counter intuitively stack.
It seems like those could both be fixed by making the half encumbrance gravy train stop at some point, and replacing no location items with some kind of limited exception instead unlimited (I.e., the first two waist items skip encumbrance, but penalize torsonormally after that).
Ya run the risk of making the mechanics opaque & mystifying though.
Yeah, hard to express it.
Possible proposal: double encumbrance so people can see the halves being currently added due to fitted 0 encumbrance clothes. Don’t halve chest but make penalties very low at first so you can effectively wear more. For no slot items instead have a description message like “You can wear this on your back. Two items there wouldn’t encumber you at all.”
Hrm, maybe accessory slots? So you can have 2x accessories for torso, legs, arms, etc?
-More can be equipped, but they’d act as layers on the associated body part.
Might wind up getting replaced in the inventory overhaul once that gets focused down though.
An exponentially increasing encumbrance instead of linear for stacking fitted items might make more sense. First two items have almost no penalty, third has a little bit, fourth a decent amount, fifth, an exorbitant amount.
When the inventory system gets repaired I don’t see this as being a problem because in theory reaching the pockets you have under seven layers of vests will be completely inaccessible. Not to mention that every single point of encumberment damages your skill in one area or another. I don’t feel fitted clothing is OP, if anything it’s a tad unforgiving in some areas.
That does make a lot more sense. It’s not so much the clutter or the overpowered-ness of it, rather that it just makes a tedious mini-game of stacking stuff to get optimal encumbrance to volume. That really IS tedium and very difficult for a new player to grasp onto. In a survival game which is trying to emulate some level of realism, wearing tons of shirts, belt rigs and whatever and not being overly encumbered just because they ‘fit’ seems a bit strange.
Cata has a different style inventory than most Rogue-likes I’ve played. While I like the more free-form “throw on what you can/want to and deal with the consequences” we have now, something definitely can be said for the simplicity of the 1-item-per-bodypart style of inventory system seen elsewhere. Newer players will always have an easier time with “is this shirt better than my current shirt … yes? … ok then I’ll replace it” vs a complex layering system.
I’m not privy to what is imagined for the inventory overhaul (I just pray it doesn’t get too frustrating, juggling items around). Will we have to, say, press ‘I’ for inventory, then ‘X’ to choose some aspirin, then ‘S’ to “store” it, then ‘j’ for jeans pocket? That made my hair stand on end. lol
Neoscavenger’s does that and it works decent but it has a point-and-click, image based inventory system so it is easier to drag and drop a pill bottle from one pocket to another in a second or two, and without needing to think much.
Anyway, I guess there are a few options available to think about here, if the system as a whole needs some clarifying and/or juggling.
The simple solution could just be adding another hardpoint to the “body” to affix things to. Toss in a new category that covers the majority of slotless items currently out there - belts, tactical dump pouches, fanny packs, etc. Just a catch-all area for “extra volume items” to go. Either hard cap it so you can’t wear 2 of EVERYthing, or make it have an encumbrance value or effect somehow. That won’t stop me from putting on 1 of every type of pocket’y vest though …
An exponential system could work.
How about creating a set value of encumbrance every character can wear in each slot before the penalty sets in (as opposed to the “1 encumbrance = penalty” setup in there now). Balance things based on “normal clothing levels” as opposed to balanced around naked, as it feels now.
All the clothing would probably need to be encumbrance-balanced again though 
… but, for instance, your torso can hold encumbrance 5, before you start getting penalized. Common shirts would be a 1 … trenchcoats or hoodies a 2 … backpack might be a 3. That way, someone can wear a light jacket & shirt, and still wear a backpack without getting too bogged down.
On that note … just removing “zero” and replacing it with “1/2” or whatever might make more sense to some people. A simple note of “encumbrance values are rounded down” and bang, people might understand why they can wear a nicely fitted T-shirt without penalty but don’t see the issue now where 0+0=1.
I dunno’ … just babbling (I tend to do that). The current system seems counter intuitive at times (unless you learn how to game it) and the crazy layering as shown prior makes a mess of things. I feel like my characters all end up a walking mass of leather straps and pockets after a while, which I couldn’t imagine in RL being as free-moving as someone in cargo pants and a jacket … but the math can look that way in game.
I don’t know what you mean, these gentlemen are the very picture of mobility.
I take a great deal of satisfaction out of layering clothing in interesting ways and getting a mental picture of what the character looks like.
If it is removed for any reason I will become stabby. You have been warned.
In all seriousness though, the inventory/equipment system is kinda rad and although it could certainly be tweaked and expanded upon, simplifying it is not the answer to any problems.
People like to say ‘it’s confusing for new players’ for a lot of things and yet I’ve never actually seen someone show up with a giant question-mark over their head about clothing. Layering is not that hard a concept to understand. It is something you can do in real life. The consequences of layering are pretty much familiar to anyone who has ever tried to wear a t-shirt under a sweater under a jacket.
It’s not rocket science. And this is a Roguelike. It doesn’t try to be simple. It tries to be thorough.
The equipment system is actually one of the better designed systems in Cata; it immediately tells you if you have layered to the point of encumbrance, and the character screen tells you exactly what that means. I don’t know how it could possibly be more transparent.
Literally the only problem I can see (beyond perhaps tweaking the encumbrance formula) is that the layering UI is kinda tucked away. It took me a few months before I even realized it existed. It’s not utterly necessary to play the game but it does help a bit. It should be accessible from the character menu when you are looking at your encumbrance values. Just show the keybind and point out that the UI exists.
This is pretty much what I was thinking.