Stash solution – extra items but with a turn penalty

[hermbot]

I can’t take credit for this idea as I came across it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/3pvkno/opinion_on_branching_the_game/cw9wzge. It seems like an elegant solution to the complaints about stashes/inventory. I just wanted to make sure it got some visibility.

I know more inventory slots is listed on the Page of Anathema, but rather than just saying “make the inventory bigger”, this has a gameplay concepts added to it. I searched GDD and didn’t see anything similar.

The Satchel (I’m not good at naming things) would be an item that takes up on item slot in your inventory. When selected, it displays a second inventory.

The catch is that it takes X number of turns to retrieve and use the item in your satchel, where X is the number of items in your satchel. This is analogous to a real backpack, in which you have to rummage around and sort through things in order to find what you wanted. Moving things to and from would use the multi-flag style ticks you use to drop multiple items.

This allows players who have enormous Sif libraries to lug around their stuff - but they can’t get to it in a hurry. The satchel is useful for planning, but not for emergencies. The concept is already in the game in the sense that it takes time to get in and out of armour. If you want to play with armour resistances you can, it just costs you turns. If you want to carry more potions or wands you can, it just costs you turns to get to them.

I think this allows packrats to carry a finite number of extra items with them that reduces the tedium of backtracking while still keeping them from becoming overpowered by having an infinite number of tools at their immediate disposal. I thought of some other penalties or extras, but the concept is simple and elegant and, to me, makes sense.

[archaeo]

This would amount to a slightly different version of the current system, in which the floor is your satchel. It would save turns for speedrunners, and it would prevent the dual annoyances of monster spawns and hunger management while hunting down items or going back to your stash, but that's really it. In exchange, optimal play now requires managing a second inventory, and I already dislike managing my first inventory!

[milski]

This would amount to a slightly different version of the current system, in which the floor is your satchel. It would save turns for speedrunners, and it would prevent the dual annoyances of monster spawns and hunger management while hunting down items or going back to your stash, but that's really it. In exchange, optimal play now requires managing a second inventory, and I already dislike managing my first inventory!

It would also save the player real time on getting to stashed items and cut down on the obnoxiousness of "you need to carry jewelry for X situation," which means it basically makes everything about stashed items less annoying.

I don't think "Now I can toss shitty wands into a pack I'm never going to use in combat" is really that terrible in terms of management. If you want to prevent some kind of system gaming, just make the satchel always take 50 turns to open, and since searches show your inventory now, you could easily put the satchel below that and prevent any hassle getting the arbitrary ring you want.

p.s. the Satchel also makes running megazigs to collect fixedarts less obnoxious.

[archaeo]

It would also save the player real time on getting to stashed items and cut down on the obnoxiousness of "you need to carry jewelry for X situation," which means it basically makes everything about stashed items less annoying.

I don't think "Now I can toss shitty wands into a pack I'm never going to use in combat" is really that terrible in terms of management. If you want to prevent some kind of system gaming, just make the satchel always take 50 turns to open, and since searches show your inventory now, you could easily put the satchel below that and prevent any hassle getting the arbitrary ring you want.

Maybe the throwing-things-into-the-satchel part is simple, but then you get to the taking-things-out-of-the-satchel problem, which is not insignificant. First, there's the organizational annoyance; at what point does it become taxing to search through the 52 items in your first inventory and then the limitless items in the second inventory? Next, you've got the interface issue, since part of the reason we have 52 items at all is so that each item can be assigned a lowercase or uppercase letter, a function that breaks down when you put more than 52 items in the satchel. The biggest problem to me, however, is that there's no good reason to limit yourself to another 52 items. Even at 100 items, you'd still probably be "saving turns" over leaving something on the floor earlier in the dungeon, so there'd never be any reason to leave anything even remotely useful on the floor.

None of this strikes me as anything like "system gaming"; that implies some kind of unfair advantage, and I can't think of a single character I've had where adding more inventory slots would really unbalance the game. This doesn't really give you an advantage at all. I suspect it doesn't even really save much realtime after you factor in the time you'll be spending scrolling through your satchel looking for the 53rd most important item in the game.

p.s. the Satchel also makes running megazigs to collect fixedarts less obnoxious.

This part is probably true, but doesn't strike me as a particularly compelling reason to add a superfluous feature that's only really a patch on the actual problem, which is some combination of imperfect autopickup defaults, pointless monster spawning, too many items, and food, imo.

[hermbot]

Next, you've got the interface issue, since part of the reason we have 52 items at all is so that each item can be assigned a lowercase or uppercase letter, a function that breaks down when you put more than 52 items in the satchel. The biggest problem to me, however, is that there's no good reason to limit yourself to another 52 items.

My thought is that the Satchel would not be limitless, but have a 26 or 52 item maximum. It could even be lower than that. I had also thought it could incur other penalties, such as closing out the cloak slot, but didn't want to clutter the OP with too much fuzzy thinking.

I suspect it doesn't even really save much realtime after you factor in the time you'll be spending scrolling through your satchel looking for the 53rd most important item in the game.

I can't speak for most people, but I think you might be overstating the cumbersome-ness (sure, it's a word) of laboriously searching through the current inventory. It is already sorted, after all. I know where things are. Two taps of the space bar and I've seen the whole thing. Players have to specifically put things into the Satchel, so I doubt they would be sitting and mumbling to themselves - "oh shucks, where did I put that amulet of rMut..."

Conversely, what seems more involved and time intensive is searching for something, autotraveling there, stopping when you are alerted that you are hungry, stopping when you come across a low level mob, getting the item, going back, and burning through more food.

There are annoyances with the inventory no matter what. Leaving stuff on the floor is the current system, and it's not the best. A satchel helps mitigate that on several fronts, IMO.

[dpeg]

It would also save the player real time on getting to stashed items and cut down on the obnoxiousness of "you need to carry jewelry for X situation," which means it basically makes everything about stashed items less annoying.

Maybe the throwing-things-into-the-satchel part is simple, but then you get to the taking-things-out-of-the-satchel problem, which is not insignificant. First, there's the organizational annoyance; at what point does it become taxing to search through the 52 items in your first inventory and then the limitless items in the second inventory?

Exactly. I am sure that having access to limitless inventory is much, much more annoying than the current 52 slot inventory. (And I admit that managing this inventory is painfully when you cannot pick up something.) I am so sure because I have played Nethack with its bag of holdings.

... the actual problem, which is some combination of imperfect autopickup defaults, pointless monster spawning, too many items, and food, imo.

I like how to you (archeo), food is always part of the problem? [Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam? ]

I believe that the problems are: (1) too many items, especially due to (2) too many monsters, and (3) persistent items.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Persistent items are a problem? You want everything to decay like potions of blood or something? Sounds good... for a different kind of game.

[dpeg]

HbG: I don't think current inventory management is bad enough to force this. But yes, I believe that the proper solution to item management is non-persistent items: you only have what you carry, all the rest disappears. That way, picking up and dropping are properly meaningful, and there's no trash littering the dungeon.

[prozacelf]

It would also save the player real time on getting to stashed items and cut down on the obnoxiousness of "you need to carry jewelry for X situation," which means it basically makes everything about stashed items less annoying.

How much real time does it actually take to ctrl-f and hit enter? The travel is practically instantaneous if there are no intervening problems. Even if you run into a fight (or multiple) on the way, it's rarely going to be challenging enough to add much time. And if the satchel is going to take 50 turns to open or whatever, then it's not going to cut down on the "carry jewelry [in open inventory] for X" problem at all.

[all before]

DCSS either needs a much smaller or much larger inventory. Status quo is that you can carry pretty much anything useful, but not quite, so you spend a lot of time dropping and picking up items of minor value. A smaller inventory isn't likely because it would require massive rebalancing and the elimination of the id game. (Unlimited is another option but would require a much different interface to not be a huge headache.) A larger inventory doesn't fix the status quo's problem, but delays the point where you run out of space significantly, possibly until the end of the game. There don't need to be gameplay penalties to using a bag, there doesn't even need to be a bag (an interface key is enough).

[archaeo]

I like how to you (archeo), food is always part of the problem? [Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam? ]

I believe that the problems are: (1) too many items, especially due to (2) too many monsters, and (3) persistent items.

Well hey, I learned a new Latin phrase today!

I'd point out that in this case, it isn't just a tangential issue I'm throwing in because of my rabid dislike of food. One of my least favorite activities in the game is when I realize that, thanks to autopickup, I have 52 items and no space for the chunks I just butchered, so I have to decide to throw something out to start collecting chunks again. Frankly, while I can see that there are other problems, most of my personal problems with Crawl's inventory have to do with chunks.

[duvessa]

Here are some things that would reduce the number of item slots used.
1. When you pick up a wand, if you have an existing wand of that type, the charges from the two wands are combined and you are left with one wand. This requires removing the wand trove prices, but that's easily worth it imo. Set the maximum recharging capacity for all wands to 2,147,483,647 or whatever so that there isn't a benefit to maintaining two of the same wand.
2. Allow sack of spiders and box of beasts to stack (or combine the charges as above).
3. If you aren't removing food, you can at least remove pizzas and royal jellies, and combine the two rations.
4. Combine tomahawks and javelins, there is no reason to have both except for vainly trying to maintain an unmaintainable bailey flavour.
5. Combine stones and sling bullets.
6. Remove ammo brands except needles. Why should ranged weapons get to use two brands at once when melee never does, anyway?
7. Remove lantern of shadows mY GOD WHY IS THIS TERRIBLE ITEM IN THE GAME
8. Do something about decks but I don't know what can be done about decks other than removing them, which I would love but recognize won't happen any time soon

[nicooo]

8. Do something about decks but I don't know what can be done about decks other than removing them, which I would love but recognize won't happen any time soon

Have them stack automatically and remove ornate decks, leaving plain and legendary

[savageorange]

I like how to you (archeo), food is always part of the problem?

"You're either part of the solution, or you're food." -- the pragmatic cannibal's motto.

I have to agree though. Food is simple but annoying to manage, and chunks are the main annoyance.

[Chicken]

My later characters (few as they may be) wish they had a pentagram they could invoke that, perhaps after some delay, creates a temporary Hell entrance, since Hell is where the stash is. Luckily, Hell is also where the magma is, when you need to pitch 500 suits of armor to get rid of the "too many items on level" message. At earlier levels, maybe some comparable artifact could invoke a Temple entrance with the right astral stone.

[sweetrabies]

Here are some things that would reduce the number of item slots used.
1. When you pick up a wand, if you have an existing wand of that type, the charges from the two wands are combined and you are left with one wand. This requires removing the wand trove prices, but that's easily worth it imo. Set the maximum recharging capacity for all wands to 2,147,483,647 or whatever so that there isn't a benefit to maintaining two of the same wand.

Combining wand charges is a wonderful idea. The number of charges that wands are generated with can be cut down that way, too, to make scrolls/abilities of recharging more valuable.

2. Allow sack of spiders and box of beasts to stack (or combine the charges as above).

Yes. Let phantom mirrors stack/combine, too, please.

3. If you aren't removing food, you can at least remove pizzas and royal jellies, and combine the two rations.

Combine jerkies and pizzas into "snacks", combine royal jellies with the other rations into "rations". Vegetarians eat rations and fruit, carnivores eat rations and snacks and chunks. Fruit stays separate for Fedhas reasons (unless Fedhas gets reworked).

4. Combine tomahawks and javelins, there is no reason to have both except for vainly trying to maintain an unmaintainable bailey flavour.

Yes. Also, get rid of steel. Having base, silver, poisoned, returning, penetration, and explosive is probably already too many, but at least each of them does something different.

6. Remove ammo brands except needles. Why should ranged weapons get to use two brands at once when melee never does, anyway?

Added bonus, this also eliminates confusion about figuring out how ranged brands interact. If Nessos gets nerfed as a result, that's probably fine (or replace him with an octopode unique who has branded tentacles, if there's really a need to keep a cheating unique).

I don't know if it matters to other players, but I'd also like to have a split in the autopickup options between each of the miscellaneous item types (or, if that'd be too much, at least split it into element evokables, minion containers/phantom mirrors, and lantern of shadows).

[duvessa]

Yes. Let phantom mirrors stack/combine, too, please.

They already do.

[Sprucery]

I don't know if it matters to other players, but I'd also like to have a split in the autopickup options between each of the miscellaneous item types

This would be nice, and it has been suggested before. Maybe if someone wrote a patch it might even go in. I usually never want to pick up lanterns or crystal balls but every other misc item I take (stone of tremors is also typically discarded at some point).

[sweetrabies]

They already do.

Huh, I could've sworn that they didn't. Oh well

[ion_frigate]

HbG: I don't think current inventory management is bad enough to force this. But yes, I believe that the proper solution to item management is non-persistent items: you only have what you carry, all the rest disappears. That way, picking up and dropping are properly meaningful, and there's no trash littering the dungeon.

Solution: No floor items except gold. Every floor contains a number of shops, enough to store the items that *would* have generated on the floor. Said shops disappear something like 1000+1d1000 turns after you leave the level (so you aren't totally SOL if you get shafted). "Normal" shops could be still be permashops - and perhaps the junk items could be culled out of them. Obviously gold generation and prices would have to be rebalanced.

[Sprucery]

Solution: No floor items except gold. Every floor contains a number of shops, enough to store the items that *would* have generated on the floor.

So instead of autoexplore and autopickup conveniently picking up everything you want, you get to buy all items one by one? Does not sound very fun.