World Item Interface

CitizenSnips · May 30, 2013

So I was wondering exactly how items that are in the world (that is, lootable or interactable items) will be displayed. I'm still unclear on exactly how the looting system works, so I'm not sure if it will be Diablo-style where items explode out of corpses like confetti from a pinata or if items will be shown in an inventory-style screen for each corpse.Personally, I would prefer a variation of the former that follows the whole "no animations" concept the team has maintained where the items simply fall in whatever trajectory they had upon the enemy's death.

However, what I'm really wondering is whether or not there will be text boxes of item names that you can loot. I like the minimal interface that SG employs, and as such it would really kill me to see text boxes hovering on the ground over each item like those in most other dungeon crawlers. So does anyone know what the plan for item display is?

Fawz · May 30, 2013

I don't think anyone in the community knows what the plan is for handling looting, probably because it hasn't been finalized yet.

I doubt it'll be like other games where loot explodes and more along the lines of the Elder Scrolls games. After the death whatever the character was holding will fly off and you have to find it. And when looting the corpse i'd like it if it opens the corpses's inventory screen (what he's wearing, what bags he has, ect...) and you get to interact with it in a intelligent way as opposed to clicking names.

It might the type of system that will get multiple iterations and wont be finalized for a while, or maybe we'll see it in the upcoming video.

fluffydino2000 · May 30, 2013

I'm intrigued as to how you'd access these containers and the like. Obviously the container's will be inventories like your own - but how do you open them. Does the cursor change when you mouse over it? Does it automatically open next to your inventory if your close enough with your's open?

CitizenSnips · May 30, 2013

fluffydino2000 said:
I'm intrigued as to how you'd access these containers and the like. Obviously the container's will be inventories like your own - but how do you open them. Does the cursor change when you mouse over it? Does it automatically open next to your inventory if your close enough with your's open?

I think it wouldn't really be possible to say what system would be better unless we knew more about the game. In a game like D2 where you have 600 dead corpses around you, you don't want 600 individual item windows appearing. But if the game is more like Zeno Clash where you only have a few enemies to face at a time, a corpse inventory wouldn't be too cumbersome.

fluffydino2000 · May 30, 2013

Well it has been confirmed that fights will be pretty small as the physics require a lot of processing. So I doubt you'll have to deal with 600 corpses.

Parco · May 30, 2013

i think it will be point and click while being very close to what you want to interact with

Komuflage · May 30, 2013

I would like a Arma 3 kind of looting system, you can pick up any object from the ground and there is no text over it, or you can interact with the corpse, and interacting with the corpse opens your and his inventory, and you can easily drag items from his inventory to yours.

The Red inventory is yours, and the green is his. Quite simple

So I guess it could look like this

Same thing here, you could simply drag items from any inventory to the other.

Madoc · May 31, 2013

Pretty much exactly as Fawz described. I just killed this poor woman and now I'm out of combat mode and looting her body. The window has items equipped and carried, the sword which she dropped I have to pick up from the ground.

Currently the plan for interaction is that out of combat mode (and perhaps while holding a key) a single click will give you a caption for what you clicked on, a double click will interact (i.e. open container) and dragging will move objects. The latter I'm currently working on and it's proving extremely problematic, trying to do something nice here as it's usually horrible in 3D games with physics.

Before you ask, yes we do hope to have weapon sheathing out of combat mode but this could be tricky, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. There's a lot of other cool stuff we'd like to do too but we have to prioritise and as we said we'll continue adding features to the game after release.

Fawz · May 31, 2013

That looks great! Thanks for sharing

The inventory interactions described sounds really cool and practical, hopefully it's not too hard to pull off. From the NPC inventory window though it looks to place all available items in the box as opposed to displaying them on the body. Wouldn't this negate the specialty of hiding an item under an other?

As for sheathing weapons it's understandably a complicated endeavor for a physics based game where every time is physically present in the world at all times. It would add a lot to the game's atmosphere and immersion if a good sheathing system was introduced (it worked out great for The Witcher 2). If it proves too tricky, maybe a simple holster strap instead of a full scabbard for most weapons could work.

Madoc · May 31, 2013

What I described is already fully functional, we have full looting in the game and that's just a screenshot, not a mockup. We haven't been sure how to handle the paperdoll issue, showing a person live and well standing in a window as per your inventory when you're looting a corpse would seem odd, showing the body in its current pose might make stripping it of certain items difficult or even impossible. Those paperdoll views are also quite demanding. Currently what they wear is scattered randomly in the top view and the bottom view is what they carry and that can be arranged by hand. We could try something else but I'm not sure it would really add anything and might just be a bit fiddly.

There seems to maybe be some misunderstanding about "every item is physically present in the world". We consider "hidden" inside a container to be present in the world, what we mean is that things don't just spawn out of nowhere. For example if you were offered a reward for something (and whoever offered it wasn't just making it up) it would have to be stored somewhere or on them, it wouldn't magically appear when they eventually reward you.

We do currently intend for characters to have a certain amount of completely unrealistic storage space that items "dissapear" into as is the case for most RPGs, we don't really see any other practical solution that wouldn't be detrimental to gameplay. I believe this was discussed at length before?